Chapter 1830: Hundred States

“Daozu?”

Upon hearing this, everyone’s mind was shaken beyond belief.

Beyond the Ten Ancestors, there was a Daozu, whose presence was so weak it couldn’t even compare to the Shi Zu, merely because he was consecrated as an Ancestor through the Way of Memory?

“Impossible!”

But it was only for a moment before everyone rejected the idea.

It was too absurd.

Not to mention the power of an Ancestor God, capable of dominating an era.

If the Yuan Tong in front of him were truly the Daozu, why would he be cowering in the Ganshi Emperor Realm, sharing resources equally with the other great Sacred Emperor families?

Judging solely from the performance of the little boy on the Yuan’s back from beginning to end, he couldn’t be called an “Ancestor.”

Everyone laughed, unmasking the mockery in his words, as if seeking death:

“How can an Ancestor God learn the methods of another family?”

“Don’t you see when Cuiyin first revived, he was repeatedly defeated by my true body and treated me like an ant, yet he still soared ahead on the path of术 Dao?”

“You? Daozu?”

As everyone spoke, he pushed his body upwards.

The old Yuan let out a low cry and actually moved his claws away.

Everyone quickly seized the opportunity to run out, tidying his disheveled clothes and getting up. He scanned “A Jie” up and down, then smiled again:

“What Way do you preside over?”

“Are you so weak that you need to observe my moves and techniques to figure out how to deal with my true body?”

He paused, put his hands on his hips, and brazenly shouted, “So, you’re the master of a weak Way?!”

The little boy on the Yuan’s back showed no anger. He pinched his chin, staring meaningfully at this outer incarnation of Xu Xiaoshou:

“The technique of Cuiyin forbids your Way of Forgetting.”

“My current plan forbids your outer incarnation.”

“He can be an Ancestor God, and I cannot be an Ancestor God?”

Everyone found himself unable to live and unable to die, a state of extreme discomfort.

But as long as this “Daozu” still had the desire to talk, he would have a chance to live or die. Upon hearing this, he burst into laughter:

“Alright then, Daozu, I’ll respectfully address you as Daozu for now.”

“But it’s not that I want to belittle you; I just have to speak honestly… Your tricks of pretending to be a god and your sneaky methods, not to mention being inferior to a single hair of Cuiyin, even Hua Weiyang! You know who that is, right? You can’t even compare to a Half-Ancestor!”

Humans inherently have seven emotions and six desires, and even Dao Qiongcang couldn’t avoid them.

When the flamboyant old Daoist was pointed at, even his delicate body trembled. Could this “Daozu” truly be an exception?

Everyone had no other choice but to think of outrageous words to see if he could provoke some emotion from the “Daozu.”

He was disappointed.

The little boy on the Yuan’s back seemed to have cultivated the Dao of Supreme Forgetting Emotions, no longer interested in his trash talk. He narrowed his eyes and smiled, “Show me.”

He clearly didn’t want to chat anymore; he just wanted to see Xu Xiaoshou’s abilities.

You say not to chat, and I won’t chat?

You say show me, and I’ll show you?

Everyone was not good-tempered. Since he couldn’t live and couldn’t die, it was all just “pain”—hadn’t he suffered enough pain?

At once, he spoke recklessly, spitting out:

“Daozu, stop pretending to be dead. At most, you’re just like that.”

“Cuiyin’s technique banned my Way of Forgetting because he had just revived and was not in good condition; he was using one-ten-thousandth of his power.”

“What about you?”

Everyone’s lips curled in disdain, and his eyes mocked, “You used all your strength to trap me in the Ganshi Emperor Realm, unable to kill me, unable to release me. What do you gain? You gain an enemy in me?”

These words truly hit home.

It was clearly a spear directly piercing the “Daozu’s” heart, making his eyelids twitch involuntarily.

“Provoking me?”

“Not provoking, Daozu, I’m just stating a fact. Besides abusing me and creating an external enemy for Ganshi, what other benefits can such an action bring?”

The old Yuan listlessly raised his eyelids, glancing at this noisy human, as if annoyed that the conversation wasn’t over yet.

The little boy on the Yuan’s back pouted, said no more, and waved his small hand downwards.

“Swish!”

Starlight scattered everywhere.

Before everyone could react to what this was, complex and chaotic memories appeared in his mind.

He instantly suffered from a splitting headache, screaming and wailing.

A brief life was suddenly implanted with tens of thousands of years of vicissitudes, like a narrow bottle being violently crammed with a colossal pestle.

“Ah—”

Everyone’s eyes were bloodshot, and his head felt like it was about to explode.

The blurred and complex memories coalesced into scene after scene.

There was his despair as an ordinary person, watching his rural parents being slaughtered and devoured by wild beasts; his helplessness as a wealthy woman, bullied and humiliated by ruthless bandits; his misery as an eighty-year-old man, tormented by over a dozen children…

“Fuck!”

All sorts of suppressions came one after another.

One miserable scene followed another.

In an instant, everyone lived through a hundred different lives and could no longer resist cursing.

If an ordinary person encountered such an overwhelming influx of complex memories, their sanity would likely be instantly destroyed, turning them into an idiot.

However, everyone’s Way of Intention was extraordinarily transformed.

And it was unknown whether it was intentional or coincidental on the part of the Yuan Tong, but the intensity of the memory influx was precisely at the limit of what everyone could endure.

“I’ll kill you!”

Everyone erupted, eyes wide with rage, unable to bear such harm any longer, and transformed into a Limit Giant for the second time.

He raised his fist, a heavy blow hanging in the air, ready to strike.

But his “perception” at the same time saw the calm little boy on the Yuan’s back, who made no movement.

This time, everyone saw even more clearly.

He clearly saw a translucent starry sky behind the Yuan Tong, with a few dim, sparse stars lighting up within it.

His every action, every reaction…

Every scene was projected and imprinted into the stars; every Dao rhythm was mimicked and recorded in memory.

Behind that starry sky were a few stars that were already shining brightly.

The scenes being projected within them were precisely his every word, action, and movement after entering Ganshi.

And not only that, the stars rapidly transformed, deducing the future from the past, allowing for myriad changes in an instant, simulating countless possibilities for development.

“Recording me?”

The Limit Giant hovered in mid-air, as if petrified.

Everyone felt as if he had swallowed a handful of mosquitoes, his emotions in turmoil, a mixture of five flavors.

At this moment, he didn’t even know whether to activate Mind Plunder, whether to unleash the Calamity Blade, or whether to let this Limit Giant’s strike fall…

“Ah!”

He roared.

In mid-air, he withdrew his fist, wanting to conjure the Immeasurable Stillness Seed, but then quickly pulled back.

Finally, he could only ignite the ordinary power within his self-Qi Sea, attempting a self-destruction with no destructive power.

“I told you, you won’t die.”

The little boy on the Yuan’s back saw his struggle and felt truly sorry for him. He waved his hand, and starlight scattered once more.

Instantly, everyone’s thought of self-destruction was cut off.

His mind was forcibly crammed with the extravagant lives of emperors and nobles, the graceful services of courtesans in brothels, and the mournful cries of soldiers in the bitter frontier…

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!”

Everyone was truly about to collapse.

This was not a Daozu, this was an Evil Ancestor, an Ancestor of Disgust!

Having followed his true body for so long—he came late, and his true body was already rising, never having suffered such torment.

“Dao Ganshi!”

Everyone’s eyes were splitting, screaming in unbearable pain, “Either kill me, or imprison me for life. You’d better not let me get a chance, otherwise today’s…”

Again, starlight swept over.

Everyone gasped, his eyeballs aching as if they were about to pop out.

The little boy on the Yuan’s back smiled, resting his chin on his hand, his lips moving:

“You hate me?”

“Your experience is shallow, like a thin sheet of paper. Your cultivation has progressed rapidly, but your foundation is unstable, like duckweed. What you lack most is the tempering of a hundred different lives.”

He looked at the giant twitching in mid-air and, seeing no good intentions, could only sigh:

“Do you know how much Rao Yaoyao contributed to cultivate the Mortal Dao, just to gain a single resource allocation from her clan?”

“Now I personally take action to help you experience and understand life. Although it’s a bit like pulling up seedlings to help them grow, extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures. Yet you resent me? Never mind.”

He lowered his head, patting the old Yuan’s back, and sighed deeply, “At this moment, you are in agony, but in the future, you will be grateful. And if I must bear this infamy and your hatred, though not my desire, I can accept it.”

After speaking, he looked up, grinned, beaming brightly, and casually scattered starlight once more.

Everyone: “Ah!!!”

“Where is this?”

Xu Xiaoshou looked left and right. This was no longer the Ghost Buddha Realm, but a winding mountain forest, lush and green.

He wore white clothes and held a sword.

His body seemed somewhat out of control. He inexplicably bowed towards the depths of the forest and burst into tears, speaking emotionally:

“Years from now, I do not know when I can return. Shifu’s grace of re-creation, Xiao Tu has no way to repay.”

He turned decisively and looked towards the west:

“I will travel west, with the sword in my hand, cutting through all directions until I find the great desert, find the sea of flowers, and find a new path for the ancient sword Dao.”

“Shifu, take care!”

With that, he strode down the mountain.

Xu Xiaoshou was baffled. What was all this? How did he suddenly end up here? An illusion?

He felt that this period of “life?” or “memory?”, or whatever it was, felt somewhat familiar.

He tried his best to lower his gaze, wanting to glimpse the sword in his hand and confirm something.

No result.

Until he uncontrollably walked down the mountain, he stopped, took a deep breath, pulled out the sword in his hand, looked at it, and said:

“Taicheng, the path is long and arduous. Are you ready?”

Taicheng Sword?

Xiao Tu? You Tu?

Wasn’t I in the Ghost Buddha Realm? How did I become You Tu? Where did this… memory come from?

Is this the scene from everyone’s side?

Xu Xiaoshou simply couldn’t figure out what was happening. He was inexplicably pulled into this “illusion.”

He continued his journey west, slaying gods and Buddhas in his path. With a single Taicheng Sword, he cut through the mortal world.

But suddenly, the scene shook, and the view before his eyes changed again. The surroundings were filled with icy cold seawater, yet he felt no suffocation; on the contrary, he was perfectly at ease.

“Underwater world?”

A massive palace cast from crystal lay below. The underwater world featured icebergs, coral, and various rare beasts.

But what caught the eye most was not the surrounding illusion, but the equally colossal ice crystal phoenix opposite.

It had long blue wings, a magnificent phoenix tail, an icy pearl beneath its beak that glowed like daylight, chilling all directions, and ice flames coiled around its body and claws—it was the Three Day Ice Calamity!

“Phoenix?”

Xu Xiaoshou still retained his self-will, but upon seeing this never-before-seen creature, he was astonished beyond measure.

He had seen dragons, but never a phoenix.

He inexplicably arrived in this underwater world and actually saw such an ancient creature?

“I! Born of heaven and earth, favored by creation, destined to be called a Saint on land, and to be called a Dragon in the deep sea.”

These words were not spoken by the ice phoenix opposite, but by himself.

Accompanying these strange yet understandable words of an alien race, Xu Xiaoshou’s eyes scanned around, and he could still see his blue dragon tail slowly and passively coiling.

I am a dragon?

His thoughts had no effect; his body continued to act autonomously, and his murderous words had not stopped:

“Bingfeng, you, leading the clan of the moon, wish to hinder my path to becoming an Ancestor?”

A great battle was on the verge of breaking out.

The great battle finally concluded.

The ice phoenix bled, and Xu Xiaoshou also expended great effort, even spitting out his dragon pearl, before defeating this fiend.

He experienced pure dragon power, somewhat similar to Ancestral Dragon power, but in terms of quality, it was far from enough.

He was still pondering a question:

Who am I?

Who am I playing now? It can’t possibly be the young Dragon Ancestor, right?

Kill, kill, kill!

He fought his way through the underwater world!

After an unknown number of millennia, having unified the various underwater clans, he led his forces to the mainland.

Xu Xiaoshou had completely immersed himself in the role. A dragon in the lead, he broke out of the water, transformed into human form, held the Sea-Guiding Divine Halberd, and roared loudly:

“Slay gods and seize the Way, destiny is with me!”

Behind him, a vast multitude of sea creatures stretched endlessly.

Their murderous shouts pierced the sky, calling out the name of the sole leader who would guide the sea creatures to the mainland:

“Dragon!”

“Dragon!”

“Dragon!”

“You said that this path of Qi Refinement can only be cultivated by disciples of your Spirit Palace, sects, and families? And that all of us from informal backgrounds are mere杂碎?”

A foot stomped down in response.

The head beneath his foot exploded into pieces.

Xu Xiaoshou followed his gaze, looking up, and what he saw was shocking.

The entire mountain was covered in blood, with corpses scattered for dozens of miles.

Yet, the entire mountain range was still filled with people.

Although they were all very short, most were merely at the Xiantian Yuan Court or Juwu Realm, and there were also a dozen or so supreme masters at the Shangling Realm in the sky!

Shangling Realm… what is that?

The three Xiantian realms: Yuan Court, Juwu, and Shangling.

Shangling, within Xiantian, is a king. Shangling to its extreme, that is the legendary Half-step Grandmaster!

“This is too strong, I just went through half of the Dragon Ancestor’s life…” Xu Xiaoshou quickly observed his Qi Sea.

My goodness, he was only a tenth-stage Qi Refiner.

He looked at the countless Xiantian masters in front of him, feeling a chill in his heart:

“The Dragon Ancestor had his own domineering power, his own path to becoming an Ancestor.”

“Now, merely at the Houtian stage, how could I possibly provoke such a vast army of Xiantian masters to besiege me? What kind of ruthless character have I possessed this time?”

It felt like a dream, like he had arrived in the land of Lilliput.

The people standing by the mountain range were all incredibly childish, none of them reaching the chest height of this host.

Without time to think, the surrounding people roared and shouted, attacking again, various spiritual techniques flying through the air.

“Bullying the weak with numbers, relying on strength to oppress. Zhao Tianling, so-called Tai Xu Zhao family, that’s all you amount to.”

“Xu Xiaoshou” laughed heartily, his laughter very bold.

He held a hammer in one hand and a wine gourd in the other, charging fearlessly towards dozens of people and dozens of spiritual energy lights.

Extremely fast.

After getting close, one hammer per person.

For each person hammered, he took a sip of wine. When the wine was finished, he thirsted for blood and flesh.

But human strength is ultimately limited. Even a Houtian Qi Refiner who has cultivated a Xiantian body cannot withstand such a continuous battle with Xiantian masters.

By the time his body was covered in wounds, his Qi Sea was empty, and only his will barely sustained his last breath.

The people in front of him continued to come, seemingly endless.

The Shangling expert Zhao Tianling attacked from high in the sky with a spear… My life is over!

At that moment of life and death, Xu Xiaoshou felt as if his mind had been struck by lightning, and he suddenly understood something.

His Qi Sea surged. He abandoned his hammer and wine, sat cross-legged with closed eyes, actually ignoring the Shangling expert’s sudden attack. Dao energy surged wildly around him.

It was like an instant, an eternity in a flash.

When his eyes reopened, his bones crackled, and thunder surged around him. Xu Xiaoshou followed with a roar:

“Tenth Stage is not the extreme stage! Combine stages to refine the Thunder Spirit! Open!”

With a boom, his Qi Sea collapsed, nurturing a ferocious Thunder Spirit.

This was not a breakthrough to Xiantian in terms of realm, but rather the creation of the eleventh stage of Qi Refinement, forcibly acquiring the power of Xiantian attributes with a Houtian body.

Thunder…

Eleventh stage…

Breaking through in battle, sitting cross-legged with closed eyes…

Xu Xiaoshou vaguely understood who he must have possessed this time, given such talent.

He felt for the first time what it was like to be a “genius”… no, he should be called a true “peerless prodigy”!

Just as he broke through to the eleventh stage of Qi Refinement and manifested the Thunder Spirit, it was as if an immortal guided his way in his mind.

He clearly had not cultivated any Xiantian spiritual techniques.

In an instant, he himself comprehended dozens of ways to utilize the Great Dao of Thunder—not spiritual techniques, but the application of the Dao.

“Heaven’s Punishment!”

He pointed into the air, and roared with a heavy voice.

Blue lightning descended from the sky. Zhao Tianling, the Shangling Realm expert who came with a spear, was instantly blasted into charcoal. He was actually struck down by the power of the Great Dao!

Xu Xiaoshou felt that his view of people… no, his worldview… no, his view of Qi Refinement had also been shattered.

Grandmasters touch the Dao, Thrones comprehend the Dao.

Tai Xu gathers the Dao throughout his life, transforming from mortal to saint.

This one, at the Houtian stage, cultivated to the eleventh stage, without entering Xiantian, had already comprehended the Dao?

“How dare you, brat!”

After Zhao Tianling died, only then did a phantom appear—a grizzled old man with eyes splitting from rage.

He formed a hand seal, and blood light gathered, shooting directly at the murderer, “Xu Xiaoshou.”

Xu Xiaoshou felt that this host was much tougher than “Dragon.” He was fighting not one level above his own, but several.

He actually didn’t evade at all, and with his Houtian body, he laughed wildly at the Tai Xu phantom:

“Why bother with bloodline tracing?”

“I, Cao Yihan, neither change my name nor my surname. If you have the ability, come and kill me. Let’s see if you die or I live?”

Three years passed in a flash.

Xu Xiaoshou followed Cao Yihan, fighting from the mountains into the depths of the mist, from strange beasts to the deep sea.

He was either fleeing or on the road to fleeing—it turned out that putting on a brave face had its price.

But the encounters along the way were astonishing.

Xu Xiaoshou had never seen or heard of such an outrageous way of cultivation.

Cao Yihan actually cultivated from the eleventh Houtian Qi Refinement stage all the way to the thirteenth stage, and when he broke through again, he transcended Xiantian and directly entered the Grandmaster realm.

As a Grandmaster, he comprehended the Dao under the sea, observed thunder in storms, and after another year and a half of silence, he directly entered the Throne realm.

Once he became a Throne, he fought his way back to the Central Region.

With the exhibition of the Thunder Dao, Tai Xu was annihilated, and the Zhao family was destroyed.

This process took several more years. The power of profound meaning had already been cultivated when he first entered the Throne realm, but no profound meaning array diagram appeared.

Everything merged into the Xiantian Thunder Spirit.

That Thunder Spirit was later renamed Shenxiao Leader by him.

The cultivation of the Kui Lei Han’s consciousness, from the initial spiritual consciousness to obsession, then to divine consciousness, had a traceable path—it wasn’t a sudden enlightenment while sitting cross-legged, but rather a culmination of long-term accumulation.

When he finally stood on the peak stage of the Ten Thrones as a King, his first encounter was with a rare, tall bald man…

“Hmph! With that physique, you also cultivate body tempering?”

“Ancient martial arts.”

“Oh? Ancient martial arts? Sounds good! A legitimate path?”

“So, you’re a mute. Then show me what you’ve got. I’m going to beat up you legitimate path practitioners!”