Chapter 21: Shattering the Path to Immortality-Modo Criativo do MC: Máquina Perpétua de Todos os Mundos em Atacado(De vez em quando, relaxo um pouco no trabalho.)

The purest form of power—an ultimate Yin energy so absolute that it could tolerate nothing else—began to transform toward the nascent Yin. With a single drop of living blood and a wisp of primordial spirit as its anchor, it began to gestate new life once more.

Thus, following the new moon came the crescent. Within that absolute darkness, a glimmer representing life quietly ignited. The waxing crescent, the first quarter, the waxing gibbous—the cycle of lunar phases signified the steady growth of vitality. When the final full moon arrived, marking the rotation of life and death, that immense lunar disc condensed back into a figure.

He stood tall and imposing, his long, pitch-black hair cascading like a waterfall. With sword-like brows and star-bright eyes, and a long blade hanging at his waist, he was the existence revered by countless humans as the Taiyin Human Emperor. Having been dead for hundreds of thousands of years, he had now returned in his prime.

Radiating a moon-like brilliance, Taiyin turned to look at the block-shaped humanoid behind him and let out a hearty laugh. Immediately, the Taiyin Lunar Blade hanging at his waist was drawn. Although the blade consisted of only a single shard of the tip, it had been reforged by Taiyin through the miraculous transformation of living his fourth life, and the deity within the blade had been reborn in its entirety.

It was like the rising sun and the setting moon—from life to death, and from death to life. As the Taiyin Rebirth Technique took effect, Taiyin traversed the cycle of life and death. Relying solely on a tattered, resentful obsession, he had lingered in the special environment of the law-bound barriers of the Path to Immortality for hundreds of thousands of years without being completely extinguished, only to have his primordial spirit reconsolidated by an external miracle.

Having survived this ordeal, Taiyin gained a brand-new understanding of his own Dao. At this moment, his comprehension of the Great Dao surpassed his previous peak; given time to settle, he would surely achieve a new breakthrough.

As he swung the Taiyin Lunar Blade, the power of Taiyin—transitioning from life to death—transformed into absolute stillness, carving out a path of pure black. This trajectory was intangible and shadowless; Yang was substance, Yin was void. It was the apex of Taiyin’s power, directly excising space itself, erasing the spatial path that should have existed, and bypassing the fundamental process of time to the point of striking the moment it was unleashed.

The strike was silent, yet it severed the bodies of tens of thousands of phantom gods and demons, shattering the chains of law that composed them. These beings, who should have been capable of being reborn countless times even after being pulverized, were left as corpses on the spot, blood flowing in torrents.

Although these phantom gods and demons were merely constructed from laws, their raw power exceeded the Ninth Heavenly Layer of the quasi-emperor stage, bordering on the combat power of the Supreme Dao. One must understand that while the gap between the Ninth Heavenly Layer of the quasi-emperor stage and the Supreme Dao of enlightenment is but a fine line, that line is an absolute chasm. Every Supreme Dao sovereign is a genius among geniuses, a miracle among miracles.

A low-level cultivator who can defeat enemies above their own rank is said to possess the talent to break taboos. Breaking one minor realm is considered one taboo; breaking eight is nearly the limit of human potential. The higher the realm, the greater the power gap between minor stages, making cross-realm combat increasingly difficult. Only the rarest of geniuses, those with the potential for enlightenment, can occasionally break absolute taboos and utilize power to an inconceivable degree. Without an increase in base strength, their combat power surges wildly; this is what is known as the "Godly Taboo."

Every Supreme Dao sovereign can permanently reside within this Godly Taboo. Even if they have been dead for tens of thousands of years, a mere remnant of their killing intent, provided it retains some semblance of reason, can rely on this incredible mastery of power to easily slaughter quasi-emperors of the Ninth Heavenly Layer who cannot achieve permanent Godly Taboo status.

Although these phantoms possessed power exceeding the Ninth Heavenly Layer, their construction from laws made their use of that power hollow and rigid, reaching only the eighth taboo. Yet, the gap between the eighth taboo and the Godly Taboo is an absolute chasm. With a gentle stroke of his blade, Taiyin instantly erased tens of thousands of the millions of gods and demons. Even these mindless phantoms, mere imprints left by past powerhouses, were shocked into retreat by this terrifying strike, waiting for an opportunity and daring not to attack rashly.

Having repelled millions of gods and demons with a single slash, Taiyin looked at Fang Zheng and laughed heartily: "Fellow Daoist, I have been reborn. Once I shatter this half of the Path to Immortality, I shall pierce a path back to our homeland. When that time comes, in my native land, you and I shall share wine and speak to our hearts' content!"

Immediately, he struck again. The heavens and earth were filled with endless points of light—the wailing of the Immortal Realm's laws upon the Path to Immortality. This vast, imposing barrier crumbled like a sandcastle destroyed by a child. The millions of phantom gods and demons were slaughtered like common poultry under Taiyin's blade. Endless light permeated and dissipated, and the entire law-bound barrier was swallowed by darkness amidst the changing lunar phases, leaving behind only infinite void and a very few existences.

In the void hidden beneath the original barrier lay half of a graying, withered corpse. It was undoubtedly the remains of a Supreme Dao-level figure; having endured such long ages, its essence had almost entirely leaked away. Yet, the face of the corpse was identical to Taiyin’s, only appearing significantly older. Taiyin wore a strange expression as he raised his hand and reduced it to ashes. "I truly never expected to see half of my own corpse. This feeling is quite peculiar."

In a small pocket of space before the original barrier, several hundred void blocks remained, continuously emitting chains of Dao laws that felt like the strike of a Supreme Dao sovereign every second. There were also a few square, solid blocks of bedrock, hovering in the void and enduring the onslaught of the chains of law.

Taiyin raised an eyebrow and lightly slashed at them, only to find that the strange-looking blocks remained unscathed, even against a strike capable of slicing through space-time; they were firmly anchored to reality. Recalling how the block-humanoid had placed the blocks several days prior, Taiyin pondered the relationship between these blocks and his fellow Daoist.

After a moment of contemplation, Taiyin swung his blade again. However, he did not continue to attack the unscathed bedrock or the void blocks emitting the chains of law. Instead, he sliced through space-time itself, carving out that entire patch of space and bringing it into his palm, placing it alongside the blocks that continuously exuded old blood, providing him with some replenishment.

After tidying up, Taiyin gazed into the void, sensing the differences between the laws of the Nine Heavens and Ten Earths and those of the Immortal Realm, observing the operation of the Great Dao. He could faintly sense that beyond this void lay an ocean formed of a broken world with different rules, as well as the aura of the Immortal Realm, which was extremely close to the Path to Immortality.

Taiyin could feel that shards of the Immortal Realm were drifting in that ocean; in a few years, or at most ten, they would come extremely close to the boundary wall of the Nine Heavens and Ten Earths. If he waited in this void left by the collapsed Path to Immortality for a few years, he might witness the approach of the Immortal Realm and have a chance to enter the Immortal World.

However, Taiyin shook his head, recalling the intelligence he had gathered while breaking into the Immortal Path, gleaned from the temporal echoes inscribed within the phantom laws deep within the barrier. "It is merely a false hope."

After living his third life, Taiyin had deduced that the Path to Immortality would not appear in the Big Dipper star field for another several hundred thousand years. If he did not wish to follow the path of the sovereigns in the forbidden zones—self-mutilating their Dao fruits to enter slumber—he would likely not live to see the opening of the Path to Immortality. Thus, after reaching the peak of his power in his third life, he had chosen to forcibly pierce the Immortal Path at the wrong time and place. At that time, he had been calm and unhurried, moving forward slowly to gain insight and extracting a vast amount of information from the law-bound phantoms.

The so-called Path to Immortality was not something that extended unilaterally from the Immortal Realm to the Nine Heavens and Ten Earths. It was a cross-boundary passage created by Immortal King-level powerhouses from the ancient past, maintained jointly by the boundary walls of the Nine Heavens and Ten Earths and the Immortal Realm.