Chapter 728: Universe Beyond

Meng Chuan gazed around in awe. The surrounding spacetime was warped into a channel, and he was hurtling along this spacetime corridor at incredibly high speed, following Dao Lord Shan Wu.

"I've left the River of Spacetime, left my home universe," Meng Chuan thought. At his cultivation level, he could clearly sense that he had detached from the River of Spacetime and arrived in an unfamiliar, vast expanse.

The spacetime here was bizarre.

In fact, the very structure of spacetime beyond the universe surpassed Meng Chuan's comprehension. If he were traveling alone, he wouldn't dare to teleport casually, fearing he might stray into a dangerous area.

"Beyond the universe, it's boundless," Dao Lord Shan Wu said.

"Is this chaos?" Meng Chuan asked, looking outside the channel. He had heard that chaotic beings existed in the chaos beyond the universe.

Outside the iridescent spacetime corridor, it was pitch dark, with occasional flashes of light. The layers of spacetime were inexplicably strange.

"Yes, you need to be an Eighth-level Tribulation Being to travel long distances in chaos," Dao Lord Shan Wu replied. "Even chaotic beings only operate within the area where they were born. If they go too far, they can get lost and never return. Even with a clone to sense direction... in chaos, spacetime is so disordered that following a direction is utterly useless."

Meng Chuan nodded slightly.

"Only by fully mastering the rules of time and space can one roam the endless spacetime, journey to numerous mysterious places, and visit other universes," Dao Lord Shan Wu explained.

"How many universes are there in the endless spacetime?" Meng Chuan asked, curious.

"I don't know."

Dao Lord Shan Wu shook his head. "It's a mystery! In the endless spacetime, even an Eighth-level Tribulation Being who spends their entire life exploring will only cover a tiny fraction of it. It's rare to even pass by a hundred universes. In my life so far, I've only explored fifteen universes, though I've heard of over ten thousand."

"Over ten thousand?" Meng Chuan gasped.

"Universes are naturally born in the endless spacetime. Eternal Beings can create universes at will. Even the strongest of the Eighth-level Tribulation Beings can open up new universes. And universes also have a time of destruction, so their number is not fixed; it's constantly changing," Dao Lord Shan Wu said. "It's certainly far more than the ten thousand I'm aware of. It's just that the endless spacetime is too vast. How much can we Eighth-level Tribulation Beings witness in a lifetime? Only Eternal Beings can truly know all the secrets of the endless spacetime, I suppose."

"Eternal Beings?" Meng Chuan asked, voicing a doubt in his mind. "Dao Lord, is your master an Eternal Being?"

Dao Lord Shan Wu turned to Meng Chuan, a slight smile appearing as he nodded. "Yes, an Eternal Being stands at the pinnacle of the endless spacetime, overseeing all living beings and all universes. Truly omnipotent."

"Omnipotent?" Meng Chuan repeated. For an Eighth-level Tribulation Being to use the term 'omnipotent'?

"Eternal Beings are far, far stronger than Eighth-level Tribulation Beings," Dao Lord Shan Wu lamented. "You should know that with tribulation realm cultivation, each level is harder than the last. The leap from Eighth-level Tribulation Being to Eternal is like an unbridgeable chasm. Many Eighth-level Tribulation Beings have long given up hope."

Meng Chuan seemed lost in thought.

"When an Emperor's physical body reaches perfection or their primordial spirit breaks through, they can become a Tribulation Being. Newly advanced Tribulation Beings can generally reach the Second-level Tribulation Realm with ease. Becoming a Third-level Tribulation Being is slightly harder, and it gets progressively more difficult from the Fourth-level onwards," Dao Lord Shan Wu explained. "From Fourth-level to Fifth-level, only one in ten typically succeeds! From Fifth-level to Sixth-level, it's usually one in two hundred! And from Sixth-level to Seventh-level, only one in several thousand."

Meng Chuan nodded slightly. Becoming a Seventh-level Tribulation Being was indeed very difficult. While Seventh-level Tribulation Beings generally lived much longer than Six-level ones, there were currently fewer than thirty Seventh-level Tribulation Beings in their era.

"From Seventh-level to Eighth-level Tribulation Being? Even our home universe, which has a deep foundation, only produces one Eighth-level Tribulation Being for every tens of thousands of Seventh-level ones," Dao Lord Shan Wu lamented. "As for Eighth-level to Eternal? It's likely that even a million 'Eighth-level Tribulation Beings' wouldn't yield a single Eternal. In the endless spacetime... I don't know how many beings, or how long the ages, have passed, but only a handful of Eternal Beings have been born."

"Not even one out of a million Eighth-level Tribulation Beings?" Meng Chuan was stunned.

Is it that exaggerated?

"Eighth-level Tribulation Beings are also very rare," Dao Lord Shan Wu said. "When we travel through chaos, it takes a long time to encounter another. We are actually quite lonely; many times, we sleep for millions, even hundreds of millions of years."

Meng Chuan considered this and agreed.

Universes were incredibly far apart. Dao Lord Shan Wu had only explored fifteen universes so far, and exploring a universe didn't mean he would meet all the Eighth-level Tribulation Beings who had ever existed in its history. Some Eighth-level Tribulation Beings were traveling abroad, some had died, and some had simply passed this point in time, choosing to appear billions of years in the future.

Thus, it wasn't easy for Eighth-level Tribulation Beings to encounter one another; it was indeed a lonely existence.

"It's rare to even meet an Eighth-level Tribulation Being, and meeting an Eternal Being is even harder," Dao Lord Shan Wu remarked. "That's why becoming my master's registered disciple was a great fortune for me, and it's a great opportunity for you too. You must seize it."

Meng Chuan nodded slightly.

"My master, having cultivated to the Eternal realm, is omniscient in various paths, be it painting or swordsmanship," Dao Lord Shan Wu said with admiration. "Simply by looking at my nineteen paintings, he was inspired to create that 'Six Strokes' painting. To comprehend this secret art of painting, the threshold is extremely high. First, one must be at least a Seventh-level Tribulation Being, capable of comprehending it only by mastering primal-source rules. Second, one must possess extraordinary comprehension. Third, and most importantly, one must have 'eyes that paint the world.'"

"'Eyes that paint the world'?" Meng Chuan mused.

"The secret art my master created is a method that uses the path of painting to deconstruct all things," Dao Lord Shan Wu explained. "To comprehend it, a cultivator must first have long practiced deconstructing all things through painting. Only by possessing these 'eyes that paint the world' can one hope to learn this method."

Meng Chuan nodded slightly, understanding.

In fact, his previous cultivation also involved "painting the world." His self-created primordial spirit method was even called "Painting the World," which condensed a scroll-like primordial spirit that reflected everything in the world.

He was already on this path, and the 'Six-Stroke Talisman Seal' represented an extremely high achievement along it. Only with sufficiently deep accumulation on this path and high comprehension could one learn this method.

"In the endless spacetime, cultivators walk arduous paths; there's no favoritism without reason," Dao Lord Shan Wu stated. "Eternal Beings have extremely high requirements when selecting disciples. For example, for you, only after comprehending the secret art of painting and then passing the Qianyuan Mountain trial will you become a registered disciple."

Meng Chuan nodded slightly.

"Actually, becoming an Eighth-level Tribulation Being is already quite excellent," Dao Lord Shan Wu said, looking out. Their speed within the spacetime channel was terrifyingly fast, covering the distance of countless universes with every instant. "Although there are strengths and weaknesses among Eighth-level Tribulation Beings, once one becomes an Eighth-level Tribulation Being, they master spacetime rules and possess various abilities, making them extremely difficult to kill at that level."

"Difficult to kill?" Meng Chuan couldn't help but ask. "In our home universe, there are quite a few remains and corpses of Eighth-level Tribulation Beings."

"Eighth-level Tribulation Beings control spacetime. Even a drop of blood, a strand of hair, or even a book they personally wrote... can serve as an imprint for rebirth," Dao Lord Shan Wu explained. "So, for Eighth-level Tribulation Beings, unless the power gap is truly outrageous, they are virtually unkillable."

"What do you mean by 'outrageous'?" Meng Chuan asked.

"Eighth-level Tribulation Beings also have levels of strength, roughly categorized into ordinary Eighth-level, top-tier Eighth-level, and ultimate Eighth-level," Dao Lord Shan Wu said. "Ultimate Eighth-level Tribulation Beings... have truly reached the pinnacle. Many of their abilities are already similar to those of Eternal Beings, such as creating or destroying universes. Furthermore, any being below the Eternal realm, upon merely hearing their name, can cause them to resurrect. Any book that records their name can also bring them back to life."

"They can live as long as they're remembered?" Meng Chuan found it hard to believe.

"Therefore, only an Eternal Being can truly end them, by erasing all traces of their existence across the endless spacetime, and by ensuring that no living being, no Eighth-level Tribulation Being, remembers them. Only then will they truly die," Dao Lord Shan Wu said. "This is what an ultimate Eighth-level Tribulation Being is. The Dragon Ancestor of our home universe is at this level, which is why our home universe is renowned throughout the four directions."

Meng Chuan was deeply shocked.

No wonder generations of Seventh-level Tribulation Beings in his home universe knew little about Eighth-level Tribulation Beings and weren't clear about which ones had existed historically, yet they all vaguely believed that the Dragon Ancestor was the strongest, a belief that no force had ever contradicted.

"An ultimate Eighth-level Tribulation Being can only truly kill an ordinary Eighth-level Tribulation Being," Dao Lord Shan Wu continued. "Once one reaches the top-tier Eighth-level, their methods become even more sophisticated, and even an ultimate Eighth-level Tribulation Being cannot easily subdue them. In our home universe, five well-known figures, such as the Master of Demonic Mountain and the Master of Eternal Tower, are all top-tier Eighth-level Tribulation Beings. As for me..."

Meng Chuan looked at him curiously.

"My cultivation years are a bit shorter, and my comprehension is a bit lacking, so I am still just an ordinary Eighth-level Tribulation Being," Dao Lord Shan Wu sighed. "It's truly shameful."

Dao Lord Shan Wu was merely an ordinary Eighth-level Tribulation Being? It seemed that advancement for Eighth-level Tribulation Beings was also very difficult.

"Of course, I am fortunate enough to be under my master's tutelage, so I will only die of old age; I cannot be killed," Dao Lord Shan Wu said, glancing at Meng Chuan with a smile. "Even if I were to truly die and all traces of me were erased from the endless spacetime, my master could still retrieve me from within spacetime."

Meng Chuan was astonished.

He could still live even after that?

"To be a disciple of an Eternal Being means it's impossible to be killed; this is one thing many Eighth-level Tribulation Beings envy about us," Dao Lord Shan Wu said, looking into the distance. "So, you absolutely must pass the Qianyuan Mountain trial."