Chapter 1200: No One to Hold Back the Sky
Years ago, when Yi Shu had first encountered the theories of the Salvation Sect, he, like most cultivators of the Taiyan Sect, had dismissed them with utter contempt.
To shrink away when calamity loomed, not by seeking a solution but by pinning one's hopes on some ethereal, prophesied savior... It was the path of a coward. A gamble on a variable that was entirely baseless and unpredictable.
And yet, the Salvation Sect was one of the Ten Great Immortal Sects, their lineage tracing back to the Tiandu Grandmaster himself, founded in the most ancient of times. To have endured for so long, their philosophy must have held some peculiar truth.
It was simply a truth whose depths remained unseen by outsiders.
Today, as Yi Shu stood in the Sage Dynasty of Great Qi—a power that seemed to have sprung from the very earth, fully formed—he witnessed technologies rivaling the apex of the Ten Thousand Immortals Alliance. Then he saw it: a new cultivation method, so radically different from the current path that it threatened to shatter the very foundations of the Dharma Spreading Heavenly Sovereign’s rule over the Xuanhuang Realm.
In that moment, the words of the Salvation Sect, spoken so long ago, echoed in his mind with crystalline clarity.
At that time, the great calamity had just begun to manifest. The core leadership of the Ten Great Immortal Sects had gathered to discuss possible countermeasures.
Every sect offered its opinions, except for the Salvation Sect, whose attitude was remarkably passive.
The master of the Indeterminate Prison, Xiahou Yan, ever the most volatile of them, shot back with a dark scowl.
"Is *that* why your Salvation Sect has been planting those so-called 'World Observing Divine Eyes' everywhere?"
"Xiahou, you do not understand," Lu Chengheng replied serenely. "It is a necessary measure to await the arrival of the Savior of the Xuanhuang Realm."
"Savior of the Xuanhuang Realm? Nonsense!" Xiahou practically roared. "In the face of this calamity, all life will be extinguished. Once everyone is dead, where is this savior supposed to spring from?"
"Are you questioning the legacy of the Grandmaster?" Lu Chengheng's single question silenced Xiahou Yan completely.
"Besides, we still have all of you," Lu Chengheng added with a faint, meaningful smile. "The Xuanhuang Realm is not so easily destroyed. If any cultivation world in this star sea can cling to life until the very end, it will be ours."
Hearing this, none of the other sect leaders offered a rebuttal.
After a brief silence, perhaps to placate the others, Lu Chengheng offered a concise explanation. "The doctrine of salvation is not baseless speculation. Great calamities, the cycles of life and death—they are all part of the natural order of the cosmos. Even the great cataclysm in the Immortal Realm was likely not beyond the foresight of the True Immortals."
"You are all paralyzed with fear, but look to the Grandmaster. Has he shown even a flicker of concern?"
Xuan Ji, the leader of the Supreme Sect, who had remained silent until now, finally spoke. "The Grandmaster's power rivals creation itself; he could walk through the Immortal Ruins as if it were a garden. A disaster that could annihilate the Xuanhuang Realm is of no consequence to him. But it is to us. Brother Lu, if you choose the path of seclusion, I will not stand in your way. But you cannot refuse to contribute anything at all to facing this calamity."
As the gazes of everyone present fell upon him, Lu Chengheng finally nodded in compromise.
But his final words plunged them all into silence once more.
"One day, you will all know that the Salvation Sect was right."
Now, across a chasm of several thousand years, that sentence echoed within the collective consciousness of the Taiyan Sect, residing in the body of Yi Shu.
After gaining a rudimentary understanding of the principles behind 'Foundation Establishment Through Oneself,' the Transformation Dao Stone Mother had incorporated this new variable into its deductions of the Xuanhuang Realm's future.
The future, once so clear, was now obscured, as if thrown into turmoil by a chaotic tempest.
Even with the Stone Mother's nigh-miraculous deductive power, the path ahead had become uncertain.
The Taiyan Sect, too, had once attempted to deduce a new method capable of subverting the Dharma Spreader's system.
But...
Creating something from nothing, however, was an entirely different matter from deducing the future based on existing data.
The Transformation Dao Stone Mother had determined that such a possibility existed, but its probability was infinitesimally small.
It was a chance even slimmer than the Dharma Spreader’s survival against the combined might of the Longevity cultivators in the ancient past.
Beyond the sheer difficulty of inventing such a method, there was a more critical obstacle: the Dharma Spreader's omnipresent influence over the Xuanhuang Realm.
It was an influence that caused cultivators to gradually forget past calamities, to subconsciously ignore the geological shifts that had reshaped the world over millennia.
To deduce a new method was not merely an act of supreme creativity.
It was a direct struggle against the Dharma Spreader's pervasive influence.
Thus, in the calculations of the Transformation Dao Stone Mother—which was acutely aware of the Dharma Spreading Heavenly Sovereign's true power—the probability of a new method emerging naturally approached zero.
And yet, the impossible—something far beyond the realm of calculated probability—had happened.
In a forgotten corner of the Xuanhuang Realm, drifting through the void, a fledgling power had emerged unknown to the wider world.
And within it, the new method had not only taken root but had already developed to the Golden Core stage!
The revelation was so staggering it caused the Transformation Dao Stone Mother’s deductions to falter for a moment.
Based on all known factors, there was no logical reason for this new method to have appeared at this specific point in time.
The only possible explanation lay beyond the realm of predictable variables: the Savior of the Xuanhuang Realm.
Privately, the Ten Great Immortal Sects had discussed the potential nature of this Savior.
They had reached a near-unanimous conclusion: if such a figure truly existed, they would have to be an outsider from beyond the Xuanhuang Realm, or perhaps the reincarnation of some ancient, mighty being.
For a native cultivator, relying solely on their own strength, to rise up and hold back the falling heavens...
It was simply impossible.
Even the greatest genius would fail.
The very soil of the Xuanhuang Realm was no longer fertile enough to nurture a foundation capable of challenging the Dharma Spreading Heavenly Sovereign.
"This faceless Sage Emperor of Great Qi," Yi Shu pondered, "what are his true origins?"
At that moment, any trace of condescension vanished from the mind of Yi Shu—or rather, from the collective consciousness of the Taiyan Sect.
They now regarded the Sage Dynasty of Great Qi as an equal, perhaps even a superior power.
And they began, in earnest, to calculate the probability of an alliance.
As one of the former rulers of the Xuanhuang Realm, now confined to the small Taixuan Realm by the pressure of the Ten Thousand Immortals Alliance, it was impossible for the Taiyan Sect not to harbor a deep-seated resentment.
They might no longer need vast territories or resources, but the bitterness of having their legacy stripped away lingered in their collective consciousness—a nightmare from which they had never truly woken.
"The Great Dao Sect, the Supreme Sect, and the others... on the surface, they resist the Ten Thousand Immortals Alliance, but in truth, they have long since been corrupted, no better than the Dharma Spreader’s lapdogs."
"But I suspect that, like us, they have not truly surrendered. All they lack is an opportunity."
The emergence of the Sage Dynasty of Great Qi, and especially its new cultivation method, offered them that glimmer of hope.
Still, this was a sect that had survived since the ancient calamities.
They approached any decision that touched upon their destiny with the utmost caution.
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