Martial Arts Crossover: The Sweeping Monk of Wudang? That's our patriarch!

"What kind of question is that? Who can answer it?"

"You should come up with something! What do we do now? Can't you say something? If we really have no idea, we can figure it out together!"

Lin Daochen plopped down on the ground, his gaze sweeping over the four walls—every inch of the wall seemed amiss.

When he first landed, why did those stone statues only target him and let Wang Sanpang go?

What exactly is the difference between them?

Was it the broken talisman hidden in his sleeve? Or the ancient coin he wore close to his body?

Why not just tear them apart directly, instead of going through all that trouble and stuffing them into this tower?

Logically speaking, the exquisite pagoda of the Pagoda-Bearing Heavenly King shouldn't look so sinister...

But that's exactly what it is.

Thoughts churned, but I couldn't make sense of them. Right now, all I could do was respond to the situation and take it one step at a time.

He held his breath, concentrating intently—the Way of Heaven is flawed… If one truly seeks a solution, there might indeed be one. But is that answer truly the correct one?

At this moment, Wang Sanpang suddenly straightened his back and blurted out:

"The Way of Heaven has its flaws, but cause and effect maintain their balance! Reincarnation is like a wheel, ultimately returning to oneness!"

The old monk suddenly opened his eyes, his voice cold and hard as a chisel:

"Wrong. The Way of Heaven never heals itself. The cycle of Yin and Yang? That's just nonsense made up by mortals. The 'cause and effect' you're talking about is just gibberish believed by villains."

He paused, then spoke each word with force:

"My stabbing you is the cause; your returning the sword is the effect."

"But if I were to sever your throat, you would be dead. Where would you be then?"

"Nonsense!" Wang Sanpang jumped up and down in exasperation. "Cause and effect are the laws of heaven and earth! Even if I don't seek retribution, God will still strike you down!"

The old monk closed his eyes and remained silent, not even lifting his eyelids – right is right, wrong is wrong, and he was too lazy to argue.

Lin Daochen was startled: Buddhist monks have always regarded cause and effect as the guiding principle, but this spirit of the artifact does not believe in it at all?

He slowly raised his head, his voice low but resolute:

"Defeat the Heavens!"

Before he finished speaking, a spiral stone staircase appeared out of thin air, and the old monk's figure vanished like smoke.

Lin Daochen looked at the steps and suddenly understood—this exquisite tower was not a test of one's moral character, but a test of one's courage.

While climbing the stairs, Wang Sanpang suddenly turned his head and asked a question.

"How did you figure out the answer at a glance? And why such an absurd solution?"

He scratched the back of his head, his eyes full of confusion—logically speaking, his answer should have been perfectly correct.

Lin Daochen didn't reply and went straight up to the second floor.

Upstairs stood a young man in his early thirties, with high cheekbones and a face covered in old acne scars. He held a gleaming trident in his hand, and his eyes widened suddenly when the two appeared.

"You can only open the door if you beat me!"

Lin Daochen let out a soft breath—this test truly tested his hard skills.

Wang Sanpang chuckled and suddenly unleashed his natal magic weapon.

"He's only at the Golden Core stage! Brother, rest, watch me take him down in three moves!"

Before he finished speaking, he lunged forward, but after taking only two steps, he was struck in the chest with a sharp kick, sending him tumbling through the air and crashing back to his original spot.

"Impossible! You're also a Golden Core cultivator?!"

"We're at the same cultivation level, how could there be such a strange difference?!"

The young man stood still, not giving chase, but spoke in a deep voice:

"The gap between people of the same level is never built up by just improving their skill level. If your training is superficial, your fighting style is scattered, and your foundation is unstable..."

As he spoke, he rolled up his sleeves and demonstrated with crisp, clean movements: "At the start, you must press down on your wrist; when you turn, you must twist your waist; and when you finish, you must conceal three-tenths of your strength—your previous routine was riddled with flaws."

Wang Sanpang opened his mouth, then silently closed it again. He knew in his heart that his movements just now had indeed revealed his weakness in many ways.

Lin Daochen drew his longsword with a backhand and vanished in a flash.

In an instant, only two afterimages remained in the arena as they collided with a deafening roar! Sparks flew like rain, and the shrill whistling of weapons tearing through the air was deafening, so fast that even shadows couldn't catch up. Wang Sanpang stood dumbfounded to the side, his eyes almost popping out of their sockets.

He couldn't understand it—they were all Golden Core cultivators, so how could they be so different?

He himself was kicked away in the blink of an eye; but the guy next to him was able to unleash such devastating power.

No wonder they were able to drag him away and slip away right under the noses of a Nascent Soul stage expert.

This isn't a human! It's clearly a living, breathing ferocious beast! Especially beneath its skin, dark patterns move like living things, and ancient arrays flicker with each breath—the brighter the light, the more ferocious the power, and the more insane the fighting spirit.

The two fought fiercely to the point of exhaustion, ultimately reaching a draw. Lin Daochen unleashed all his skills, finally cornering his opponent in the third round of relentless attacks, and with a single sword strike, deflected the trident, thus determining the victor.

Three days later, the two collapsed to the ground, utterly exhausted. The young man lay panting on his back, his gaze drifting into the distance, his voice as soft as a falling leaf:

"Are you Niou's disciple?"

He paused, then shook his head: "It's not like that... She was about your age back then, but she didn't have your ruthlessness."

He struggled to sit up and looked directly into Lin Daochen's eyes:

"I never expected to meet an opponent like you. If I were still alive, perhaps we could have a good drink together."

"Still alive?" Lin Daochen was slightly taken aback. "Aren't you still alive?"

The young man slowly shook his head, his smile bitter:

"I died long ago. Only a wisp of my soul remained, nailed here, just to witness the victory in the war against the heavens... But you know the result—we lost. All the cultivators perished. Only this wisp of my soul is stuck between life and death, refusing to dissipate."

"How is the outside world now? Is the way of Heaven... still at peace?"

Lin Daochen paused for a moment, then spoke in a low, even voice:

"The Way of Heaven still prevails. Ten years later, the path to Heaven will reopen. But the odds of victory... remain slim."

The young man lowered his eyes for a long time, then suddenly raised them:

"As long as we live, the flame will never be extinguished. Do you know how many times the ancient battlefield has been restarted?"

Both of them shook their heads.

"I have personally experienced this six times. Each time I lost—the weaker the cultivators, the thinner the spiritual energy, and the more barren the world becomes..."

"If you want to live, you must avoid the battle in the sky. But once you take to the air, you will surely die."

"But here I have another path to survival—the path of ascension, which has existed since ancient times."

Lin Daochen's pupils contracted, and his back suddenly straightened.

"What method?"

"Once one becomes the master of a world and breaks free from the shackles of the Heavenly Dao, one can naturally break through the boundaries and depart. However, nowadays, small worlds are almost entirely depleted, and those capable of operating with complete laws are few and far between."

Lin Daochen's heart skipped a beat—

The Nine Provinces Continent!

The laws are orderly, without master or crown; as long as one grasps the lifeline, it is the ladder to heaven. The thought flashed through his mind, and he had already understood.

There is a high possibility that some kind of divine mark is imprinted on my body, which may very well be the proof of my right to rule the Nine Provinces.

This thought had been lingering in his mind for a long time.

"You mean—as long as we find a small world, we can ascend directly to the immortal realm?"

As soon as Lin Daochen finished speaking, the young man chuckled, a smirk playing on his lips, his eyes full of mockery.

"You seem to be confusing 'qualification' with 'ability.' I only said that obtaining a small world is the ticket to ascension; but now the spirit world has long been blocked by the Heavenly Dao from the path to heaven."

"how so?"

Wang Sanpang blurted out, his face full of confusion.

"And you? Aren't you going to guess?"

The young man stared intently at Lin Daochen, as if waiting for him to speak. But Lin Daochen simply lowered his eyes and remained silent.

He knew perfectly well that the other party simply couldn't hold back.

Sure enough, the young man revealed his trump card the next moment.

"Tsk, what a silent devil! To be honest, the Heavenly Dao prevents people from ascending, not because it doesn't want to, but because it can't. Once an ascendant leaves, the uprooted spiritual veins, the drained spiritual springs, and the stolen treasures will all never grow again. In time, the Spirit Realm will wither into wasteland. What will the Heavenly Dao use to prolong its life?"

"That's very clear—being alive is the most important thing."

The young man suddenly stood up, his gaze sharp as a knife, fixed on Lin Daochen's face.

"Have you rested enough? Shall we continue?"

"Just what I wanted!"

The battle resumed. At that moment, Wang Sanpang suddenly realized that his Golden Core cultivation was as thin as paper in front of these two.

Both are Golden Core cultivators, but the other is a ferocious beast that can tear mountains and split the earth, while he is a kite that can't even withstand the aftershocks.

Fists and palms collided, the booming sound shaking the void; the force swept across, shattering rocks into dust and turning vegetation into ashes. Yet the exquisite pagoda remained as steady as a rock, swallowing all the turmoil without moving an inch.

Wang Sanpang, however, was in a sorry state, dodging left and right, barely managing to avoid one gust of wind after another that brushed past him.

This isn't a battle of magic! It's clearly two primordial beasts colliding! He stood to the side, looking like a mortal squatting by the arena watching gods fight.

However, the fierce battle eventually came to an end.

Lin Daochen had somehow figured out his opponent's attack method. With a backhand strike, a cold light flashed, and a head fell to the ground.

There was no blood splattering, no flying pieces of flesh—only clusters of fine golden light, like fireflies, quietly drifted away and returned to silence.

After the battle, Lin Daochen collapsed to the ground, his gaze fixed on the suddenly appearing steps. His body was now covered in cracks: half of his face was drooping, his abdomen was ripped open with several deep wounds that exposed bone, his limbs were covered with scorch marks and cracks, and his left foot was barely hanging on by a few strands of fascia, teetering on the verge of falling.

Now is definitely not the time to break through the barrier.

Wang Sanpang stared at him, his Adam's apple bobbing, but he couldn't utter a single word.

Who can believe that a person whose flesh and blood are almost falling apart could actually last until the end of this battle?

There were very few places on his body where his skin was completely intact; his severed foot was so fragile that even the slightest touch could cause it to fall off on the spot.

"Are you... alright?"

Wang Sanpang's voice was strained; he didn't even dare to reach out his hand, only daring to ask questions from afar.

Lin Daochen didn't respond, but silently dragged his left foot back to its original position, then took out a golden gourd from his storage bag and drank it down.

Wang Sanpang, with his sharp eyes, spotted the pills rolling inside the gourd at a glance—their surfaces were covered with fine cloud patterns, from which one could vaguely discern: the Three Thousand Creation Pill, the Undying Regeneration Pill, and the Nine-Turn Bone Tempering Pill…

"Where did you get these...?!"

Lin Daochen swallowed half a bottle of pills in one gulp, sat cross-legged to regulate his breathing, and casually replied upon hearing this:

"I practice this for fun on a regular basis. Don't disturb me, protect me."

Just practicing for fun on a regular basis?

Do you really think the alchemy furnace is a stove?

These pills can only be made by the hands of a top alchemy master. Is there really something in this world that he can't handle?

I had really underestimated this old man before.

Lin Daochen sat cross-legged in meditation, and the spiritual energy from all directions poured in like rivers flowing into the sea; the torn flesh and broken bones on his body healed at a speed visible to the naked eye—Wang Sanpang witnessed this scene and was so shocked that he was almost numb.

The old man's fighting style is definitely not ordinary; otherwise, how could his injuries heal so quickly?

Even the ankle, which was severed and only held together by tendons, slowly began to swell with new flesh. Layers of pink, bud-like tissue wrapped around the broken bone, and blood vessels spread quietly like a spider web, gradually rebuilding itself as before.

This doesn't look like a human being at all! It's a living, breathing alchemical furnace!

Seeing Lin Daochen close his eyes and remain motionless, Wang Sanpang's courage suddenly surged, and he blurted out:

"Hey! You're not some old demon in human form, are you? How did you become so perverted?"

"I'm going to peel back the skin on your face and see if it's just stitched on!"

Before he finished speaking, he lunged forward, gripping Lin Daochen's cheeks tightly with both hands and tearing them apart with all his might—but the skin didn't budge. He then tried to pull upwards, with such force that he almost lifted the entire face off, but the skin remained taut as iron, showing no signs of peeling.

Suddenly, the heavens and earth trembled!

The violent spiritual energy suddenly exploded, like a raging tide crashing against the shore. Wang Sanpang was thrown several feet away and slammed heavily against the tower wall.

At this moment, the spiritual energy in the entire space completely boiled over, frantically converging towards Lin Daochen, forming a rapidly spinning bluish-white vortex. He sat upright in the center, continuously breathing in and out, and suddenly, a clear and resonant sound erupted from the golden core within his abdomen!

Wang Sanpang, standing outside the tower, narrowed his eyes and his heart skipped a beat: Oh no, this old guy... is about to shatter his core and form his nascent soul!

Lin Daochen looked down and saw that the surface of the golden core was cracked with fine, spiderweb-like patterns. His divine sense tensed up instantly—this was definitely not a good time to break through!

He has not yet perfected the Golden Core realm; if he were to force a breakthrough, the consequences would be dire.

But Dan's body was already cracked, and his spiritual energy surged forth like water bursting its banks. How could human power possibly stop it?

At the critical moment, the image of the young man flashed through his mind—nine golden cores were spinning in his abdomen, making him incredibly powerful!

If this method is followed, the upward momentum may be dispelled, and the breakthrough may be temporarily suppressed!

But if it really works, will it result in two Nascent Souls?