Chapter 901: The Wandering Heavenly Book

Chapter 901: The Drifting Tome of Heaven

Within the world, the women were struck dumb with amazement by Zhao Changhe's maneuver.

No one had ever imagined that a person could abscond with an entire world cradled in his embrace; not even Ye Wuming had ever harbored such a thought. Her so-called hiding of the Heavenly Tome's world was generally a matter of spatial displacement, a flight primarily into different dimensions.

Dwelling at the bottom of a well naturally confined one's thinking; even though Ye Wuming had already leapt beyond the boundaries to roam the myriad heavens, it remained difficult for her mind to conceive of the world she inhabited as an object that could be pocketed and carried away.

Such a mindset could only be born in the heart of a true outsider, like the original Heavenly Way, or like Zhao Changhe.

It had been stated time and again that the Heavenly Tome was a dharma treasure, and what was a dharma treasure for if not for a person to carry around? Those left sitting in their original spots were called formations or traps.

Furthermore, even if one had never watched The Wandering Earth, had they truly never heard of it?

Waiting here day after day for someone to knock on the door—was that not the height of idiocy? Leaving aside the countless hidden pawns the Heavenly Way had placed here previously, these past thirty years could have been entirely utilized to flee; they would have long since vanished to some remote corner of the universe, so who could possibly find them?

Thus, that Emperor of Night who supposedly laid out plots across two epochs and calculated everything down to the last detail was nothing but a foolish woman.

Zhao Changhe fled with immense joviality.

Yet the women inside could find no joy. No matter how absurd the situation appeared, everyone understood perfectly well just how perilous this was.

That was Zhao Changhe, entirely alone, braving the pursuit of a terrifyingly formidable enemy of the Paramita Realm!

Dodging and leaping at lightning speed under such pursuit, the passengers "onboard" should have been tossed about topsy-turvy, but strangely enough, they felt absolutely nothing; everything remained exactly as it was, with no perception that they were being carried along in a headlong flight. Sensing carefully, they realized that no matter how Zhao Changhe shifted and leaped, the Heavenly Tome within his embrace was wrapped in a stabilizing shroud of energy, as immovable as a mountain.

Even in his moments of direst peril, he was still considering whether everyone was staying comfortably inside the realm...

"I want to go out and help him!" Ye Jiuyou attempted to fly outward.

Ye Wuming grabbed her in a firm grip. "Do not go! Our realms are currently unbroken; forced combat will surely bring casualties. What he fears is a casualty to any single person—do you truly think he is afraid of a decisive battle?"

Ye Jiuyou glanced at her; traces of blood still stained the corners of Ye Wuming's lips.

If Ye Wuming had been in her normal state just now, perhaps this battle could still be fought... but by some stroke of absolute wretched luck, it had to happen at a time like this, when the world's strongest main offensive force, Ye Wuming, was injured... Zhao Changhe throwing himself into danger was, at least to the extent of half the factors, an anticipation of Ye Wuming's rapid recovery.

Thinking to this point, Ye Jiuyou could not help but feel a few pangs of self-reproach. If they had not engineered that little farce, Zhao Changhe would not have had to endure this danger.

Losing the energy to bicker with Ye Wuming, she departed directly. "For now, we listen to Changhe. Recover as quickly as you can; I shall go ponder shamanic arts with the others."

Ye Wuming's gaze grew somewhat misty as she watched Ye Jiuyou swiftly fly down to the mortal realm, her lips pursed in silence.

Beside her, Ling Ruoyu cradled the Starry River sword, asking timidly, "Mother... is there anything you need me to do?"

Ye Wuming's gaze fell upon her, softening. "I shall share the control of the Night Palace with you... when the need arises, you can manipulate the protective formation of the Night Palace to unleash a strike."

"If the power of the Night Palace is lent to me, what about you, Mother?"

"I am going to the headquarters of the Four Symbols Cult... the matters I discussed with them previously, unexpectedly, will find their application here."

Ling Ruoyu opened her mouth to speak but hesitated. She had originally wanted to ask: your gaze can pierce through antiquity and the future, and you calculated so many things, most of which were highly successful, so why could you not even calculate a minor affair like a love letter... was it because you could not calculate your own fate?

But this was clearly not the time to question such topics. Ling Ruoyu stood obediently before Ye Wuming, permitting a single finger to press against her brow.

Very quickly, she felt this environment begin to merge with her being; not only the Night Palace, but even the power of heaven and earth felt as though it lay within the palm of her hand. Ling Ruoyu felt a touch of terror. "Mother..."

"Do not panic." Ye Wuming smiled faintly. "This does not mean I intend to seek death."

Ling Ruoyu: "..."

She could even anticipate the questions now...

Ye Wuming sighed softly in a low voice. In truth, to say she could not calculate herself was not entirely accurate; some of the grander directions on the lines of fate could still be discerned. Whenever she stroked the end of her own future line of fate, a certain sensation always arose: that there would no longer be a Ye Wuming between heaven and earth.

Yet looking at it now, it began to blur; the line that originally seemed to have an end stubbornly extended outward from a certain node, faint and indistinct, defying clear vision.

Fate could be interfered with, provided there was sufficiently formidable strength and a will that swore never to rest.

Yet that will was not her own; she herself harbored no such thoughts.

Who was it?

—Without my permission, you are not allowed to die.

Ye Wuming lifted her eyes to glance upward. The world was within his embrace, and looking out, one saw his chest; at this moment, it felt as though everyone had been stuffed into his pocket, bringing an intensely powerful sense of belonging. Ye Wuming forcefully shook this inexplicable thought out of her mind and swiftly descended to the mortal realm, heading toward the capital.

What nonsense about a sense of belonging; if there was any belonging, it was the belonging of the Heavenly Tome, what did it have to do with a person!

Yet she herself was merged with the Heavenly Tome, so she herself was the Heavenly Tome...

"Your Majesty." Huangfu Qing's voice echoed from below. Ye Wuming raised her eyes to look, seeing the people of the Four Symbols Cult standing with solemn expressions upon the underground sacrificial altar. "We require an explanation."

"You would do better to seek an explanation from Ye Jiuyou, Piaomiao, or Tang Wanzhuang." Ye Wuming sat cross-legged directly in the center of the altar. "Fortunately, Zhao Changhe possesses some moral fiber. If he had truly taken the opportunity just now to do something to me, and the formidable enemy arrived to turn us all to ash, that would truly be called dying upon a woman's belly."

Sanniang: "...Are you certain the person you claim possesses moral fiber is Zhao Changhe?"

Ye Wuming cast a sidelong glance at her. "Yes."

The collective members of the Four Symbols Cult took half a step backward.

Everyone had roughly experienced three stages: in the beginning, they felt this man possessed absolutely no moral fiber; only around the time they were falling in love would they feel he was wonderful in every aspect, clearly brimming with moral fiber, and that everything prior had been a misunderstanding. After they became old married couples later on, they once again felt this man indeed did not possess much moral fiber. It could be described as a perfect replica of the threefold transformation where mountains are mountains.

Now, it was as if a group of experienced veterans were watching a novice walk the path they had once trodden, their eyes filled with sighs.

"What sort of expressions are those?" Ye Wuming did not know what everyone was thinking, speaking at rapid speed. "Right now, we require the most powerful Four Symbols Grand Formation. I shall serve as the core of the formation, with the Four Symbols each occupying their positions; we can no longer use Xia Chichi's substitute method of holding two positions at once. I shall move Yue Hongling over; each of you take your places."

As the words fell, Yue Hongling appeared staggered below the stage, her eyes wide with shock.

The people of the Four Symbols Cult also suppressed the shock in their hearts, each taking their positions. This move of Ye Wuming's was simply too powerful; without even a visible movement, she had abruptly transported a living person from the Miaojiang region to the capital. The opponent was no ordinary person devoid of resistance, but Yue Hongling, a cultivator of the third stage of the Imperial Realm and the strongest swordsperson of the current era; yet she had not even conceived an awareness of resistance before she was already brought over...

Was this Ye Wuming... even though everyone had tried their best to overestimate her strength, they had never possessed a realization as intuitive as this very moment.

Zhao Changhe intended to conquer this kind of monster?

Ye Wuming spoke calmly, "The Four Symbols Grand Formation possesses many categories of efficacy; in the past, you only focused on its destructive power in slaughter, neglecting the profound scriptures and wondrous methods. Though this was dictated by circumstances and a flawed inheritance, it is not your fault... in any case, for now, follow my commands."

Yue Hongling collected her thoughts, asking, "What must be done?"

Ye Wuming's gaze fell toward the southwest. "Wait for cooperation; this time, shamanic arts shall be primary."

If shamanic arts could take effect against Ye Wuming, they could naturally take effect against the Heavenly Way. Compared to a single strand of hair, the collection of items pertaining to the Heavenly Way on this side was vastly more abundant...

This was also the first time since the birth of the Ye sisters that Ye Wuming had placed herself in a position to cooperate with Ye Jiuyou.

In Miaojiang, at the shamanic sacrificial altar.

At the time Ye Wuming advanced toward the capital, Ye Jiuyou placed the massive corpse puppet onto the altar with a resounding thud, directly blanketed across the entire Erhai plain.

Piaomiao swiftly conjured the demon soul bags previously gathered by Cui Yuanyang, Baoqin, and the others, scattering them onto the corpse puppet without another word.

The demon souls howled as they entered the corpse puppet, and the steel body of that puppet began to display the elastic luster of muscle visible to the naked eye, appearing as though it were assembling a weakened replica of the Heavenly Way, and also resembling the "creation" process Ye Jiuyou had previously demonstrated.

This was neither a corpse puppet nor purely a creation. Shamanic arts customarily utilized carved straw men or wooden men as substitutes for the main body; manipulating every single movement of the doll would reflect upon the original body, and any inflicted damage would also be borne by the original body—this was standard practice in shamanic arts.

And in the hands of Ye Jiuyou and Piaomiao, the grade of this "doll" was naturally countless times higher, being nothing less than a clone of the Heavenly Way.

In the past, they had only intended to use it to trace the location of the Heavenly Way's true body, which was in truth a waste of great talent... now that the location of the Heavenly Way was clearly right before them, the methods available to choose from were simply too numerous...

Ye Jiuyou lightly pressed her finger against the brow of the corpse puppet, and the corpse puppet slowly opened its eyes.

...

The preparation work on these two ends takes long to describe, but the actual time consumed was brief, lasting less than the duration of the few sentences Zhao Changhe had exchanged with Ye Wuming while tilting her chin.

In just this brief span of time, Zhao Changhe had already encountered danger at every turn.

Previously, Ling Ruoyu had utilized the Starry River to sever space and provide a brief obstruction; Zhao Changhe had seized the momentum to flee and widen the distance, but it had only obstructed for that single moment, and the Heavenly Way quickly smoothed over the space to pursue him.

Zhao Changhe was flash-teleporting across dimensions, traveling tens of thousands of miles in a single step, appearing to flee with lightning speed... unfortunately, on the cosmic scale, a so-called "tens of thousands of miles" was no different from a speck of dust. In the eyes of the Heavenly Way, Zhao Changhe could practically be considered still standing right before him.

The Heavenly Dao flicked a finger lightly.

Zhao Changhe was about to flash as usual, but suddenly felt a chaos in space, his whole body nearly torn apart, leaving no corpse intact.

Fortunately, his on-the-spot reaction was swift; he slammed on the brakes instantly. Then he realized his so-called flash wasn't a single step across—it was essentially still playing with space folding, from one spatial point straight to another. Since it involved spatial changes, it could be disrupted; the enemy directly shredded space, and he had charged straight into a meat grinder.

With absolute suppression in realm, even if he tried to smooth out the space, he couldn't compete with the opponent.

Was he to be restricted from even flashing, forced to rely on flying?

A thought flickered in Zhao Changhe's mind, and he suddenly reached into his bosom.

The Heavenly Book emitted a faint glow; the space ahead instantly smoothed out, and he flashed straight through.

The Heavenly Book was a treasure! Time and space had always been the most typical page of the Heavenly Book, naturally one of the effects this treasure should manifest.

The Heavenly Dao, following behind, stared dumbfounded—this treasure, I've fiddled with for two epochs and couldn't use it, and you just pick it up and use it casually?

Little did he know that Ye Wuming, speaking with the Four Symbols on the Four Symbols Altar, had a slight blush. As the book spirit, Zhao Changhe's touch just now was truly solidly groping her... then he injected a trace of "mana" in an indescribable way, communicating with the "book spirit," telling her, "Clear the space for your master."

Indeed, that was how the treasure was used; they had tested it with a counterfeit Heavenly Book before, and the method was the same with the real one.

The book spirit could have refused—it hadn't even acknowledged him as master, so why let him use it?

But at this moment, the book spirit lady let him use it without any resistance.

What choice did she have? Ye Wuming sighed and still sent a thought: "Delay a bit longer, try not to use the Heavenly Book's power too much, or my injuries won't heal."

"I know. This move just makes him think that trick is useless, so he'll switch methods."

"Mm." Ye Wuming said, "You... be careful."

"Heh..."

Zhao Changhe effortlessly broke through the Heavenly Dao's interception with his soft meal, continuing his escape. The Heavenly Dao indeed felt he could no longer play tricks with space and could only rely on his own longer leap distance to chase headlong.

Zhao Changhe glanced back, a hint of surprise in his heart.

The Heavenly Dao's flash distance was naturally far greater than his, closing in instantly. But this display couldn't match Ye Wuming's level of constructing spatial channels and crossing realms at will.

Was it because each had their strengths, and the Heavenly Dao was indeed inferior to Ye Wuming in this aspect? Or was it because the Heavenly Dao feared the treasure's effect, worried that the spatial channel might be shattered in return, and dared not act too arrogantly?

Regardless of the reason, this escape now carried more confidence.

"Swish!" Energy struck from behind; the Heavenly Dao had reached attack range.

Without a word, Zhao Changhe swung his blade backward. Terrifying energy crashed in, sending Zhao Changhe flying far, slamming viciously into a small celestial body in the distance. The body shattered into powder, drifting lazily through the void.

Zhao Changhe wiped away blood, using the momentum of being blasted away to flee desperately again.

Indeed, he couldn't win; there was an absolute gap in power levels. Fortunately, the reforging of the Dragon Sparrow came at just the right time—his own strength and the Dragon Sparrow's mutual reinforcement were enough to break through the opponent's attack, and the impact was bearable.

Bringing the blade to the Night Palace was to guard against Ye Wuming's unpredictable thoughts... never expected to use it here.

Besides... being able to take a hit without being killed meant he had a health bar; it wasn't truly unwinnable.

"Zhao Changhe..." The Heavenly Dao's voice came from behind: "In the vast cosmos, you can't escape. No air, weightlessness... though your current strength barely allows you to exist here, it must greatly hinder your performance. Why struggle on?"

Indeed, Zhao Changhe's strength had surprised the Heavenly Dao, who even began to urge surrender.

"You're sick." Zhao Changhe flipped him off without looking back: "If I don't struggle, should I offer you my head to cut off?"

The Heavenly Dao said, "We have no mortal enmity. If you hand over the Heavenly Book, sparing your life is not impossible."

Zhao Changhe replied with just two words: "Idiot."

"You!"

"What 'you'? This book holds all my wives. Hand it over? Let me play with your wife first?"

"...You can take the people. What use do I have for them?"

"The Night sisters are spirits born from the Heavenly Book. Take the people and give you the book? First, rip out your wife's soul and let me play with her body."

"Ungrateful!"

"Your old man has always been rebellious; I've never known what gratitude means. Scram!"

"Swish!" In the midst of their exchange, the Heavenly Dao had already blocked his flash path. Clearly, the surrender talk was just to shake his resolve; he never intended to let Zhao Changhe go.

But Zhao Changhe was prepared. The forward move was a feint; he suddenly plummeted downward, heading below.

The cosmos wasn't a plane... his escape had always had a clear goal.

The Heavenly Dao's surrender words weren't wrong—the cosmic environment was far too uncomfortable for Zhao Changhe. If he fled too long, he might not even need to be attacked; he couldn't stay on his own. At his current level, traveling the cosmos was still strenuous, let alone fighting. He needed a solid ground, a suitable battlefield.

The celestial bodies he passed were unreliable. The truly reliable place was the cultivation world he'd visited last time—that was his usual combat environment.

Or rather, the higher world of that world... because that world's level seemed lower than the Heavenly Book's world, likely just a secondary realm. The main environment of that realm was the true great cultivation world. The Heavenly Dao probably came from there, and the Heavenly Book was born there—only a main realm could produce such powerful cultivators and treasures.

Since they all came from the same place, it meant the actual location wasn't far.

Very likely, the entire starfield they were in was that place. For an entire cultivation starfield, a cultivation planet was like a prefecture in an ordinary world.

The Chaotic Star Sea, after all...

So as long as he reached any planet, he'd know if his judgment was correct.

Zhao Changhe looked up; the nearest planet was not far below.

A violent, unmatched force slashed down from above; the Heavenly Dao seemed somewhat anxious.

Zhao Changhe's heart was steady. Instead of descending, he rose, blade upward, and leaped to strike: "Scram!"

The energy was no longer pure energy; it carried countless changes and the workings of laws.

And Zhao Changhe had once vaguely guessed what the Heavenly Dao's main law was... If he wasn't mistaken, it must be Time.

Otherwise, how could a long-lived being like the Netherworld say, "Only the sun's cold and moon's warmth wear away one's years"?

"Boom!" In an instant of clash, a moment of bloom and decay.

Zhao Changhe's black hair rapidly turned white; his whole body fell like a broken kite downward.

Blood scattered across the sky, accompanied by Zhao Changhe's loud laughter: "Time is ruthless, fate manipulates... in the end, it's nothing more. What is the Other Shore? Not so complicated—transcend these, and that is the Other Shore."