196: Chapter 196 Divine Intervention Heavenly Venerable

The cold voice of prophecy slowly dissipated deep within the Sea of Consciousness, and the gloomy luster upon the mirror of prophecy dimmed accordingly, returning to silence once more.

Li Changqing slowly opened his eyes, a trace of unprecedented solemnity and resoluteness flashing across the depths of his eyes.

Sixty years was already half a lifetime in the eyes of a Mortal, but to a Cultivator, it was merely the snap of a finger.

"Sixty years later, the Tianyun Realm will welcome an opportunity for advancement..." Li Changqing muttered to himself, his finger pads gently rubbing the edge of the mirror of prophecy as the slightly cool touch seeped through his fingertips into his heart and veins.

He stood up tall, a definitive plan already formed in his heart—in these sixty years, not only must he refine his own cultivation, but he must also pave the way for his Family in advance.

According to conventional reasoning, after the Tianyun Realm advanced, its territory would violently expand a hundredfold or even several hundredfold, and the Spiritual Veins, mineral deposits, and blessed paradises between heaven and earth would inevitably emerge densely like gushing springs.

Just as the Righteous-Demonic War concluded at this very moment, low-stage Cultivators would sharply decrease by thirty to fifty percent, and the cultivation world would gain countless lands and resources out of thin air. For various Sect forces, merely digesting the newly born territories within their own borders might take anywhere from a short hundred years to a long thousand years before they could exhaust them.

Under this kind of situation, the entire cultivation world was bound to enter an extremely long and bizarre period of peace.

Having already foreseen this situation in advance, Li Changqing had to adjust his plan.

Not only must he preserve the Origin Qi of the Li Family Cultivators as much as possible, but he must also devise ways to reduce the losses of the Mortal population attached to the Family amidst the flames of war.

Deducting in reverse, he finally figured out one matter: that fifty-year Righteous-Demonic War was essentially a deliberate "clearing of the field" by the Tianyun Realm—no matter how many bottom-layer Cultivators and Yao Beasts died, as long as the core strength above the Nascent Soul Stage was preserved, the world's Foundation would remain completely unharmed, and it could recover to its original state after recuperating for several hundred years.

Driving high-stage Cultivators to break through Bottlenecks and allowing Yao Race mighty figures to break through their upper limits by utilizing the opportunity of advancement was the true strategic benefit sought by the Tianyun Realm.

...

At the same moment, above the Nine Heavens of the Tianyun Realm, in the realm's nexus—the Lingxiao Realm Ruins.

This place transcended the Five Elements and rose above the territories. It was the source of rules and the core of Dao Foundation for the entire Tianyun Realm, acting as the pivot that commanded the operation of all heaven and earth.

The Void Realm was vast and hazy, with seas of clouds spreading for ten thousand miles. Innate purple qi lingered everywhere, and endless golden Dao patterns floated and circulated, sometimes circling like star tracks or cascading down like waterfalls. An ancient and boundless might suppressed through the ages, inspiring awe in anyone who beheld it.

An immortal Dao-disputing platform spanning through the ages crossed the Void Realm. The surface of the stone platform was covered with mottled Dao marks precipitated by hundreds of millions of years of time, with every single pattern engraving the evolution and alternation of the Tianyun Realm from the primordial era to the present.

At this moment, around the Dao-disputing platform, figures stood solemnly, and all was dead silent.

Thirteen towering figures stood quietly in the air. Not a single person leaked their aura, and not a single person's spiritual light fluctuated. Yet simply standing there pressed the Void Realm until it was nearly solidified, pushing Spiritual Qi to the brink of stagnation.

They were all supreme existences in the Tianyun Realm whose cultivation was at the Late Stage of Divided Soul and above.

The leader in the center wore a plain white Dao robe, their face blurred as if formless, surrounded by three layers of Dao-rhyme halos. Every single layer emitted the rhythmic Law that resonated at the same frequency as the Origin of the Tianyun Realm.

He was the supreme expert whose strength firmly ranked in the top three of the Tianyun Realm—Heavenly Venerate Xuanchen, a supreme existence at the Peak of Divided Soul.

Lined up on his left and right were eight Human Race Cultivators and four Yao Race mighty figures.

The chasm of the Righteous-Demonic divide and the Mortal enmity of the Human-Yao divergence, viewed as heavenly chasms in the eyes of ordinary Cultivators, had long since become nominal to these top-tier mighty figures.

In the hearts of Divided Soul giants, the survival of the realm far surpassed factional disputes, and the advancement of the world superseded all grudges.

After a long time, Heavenly Venerate Xuanchen's voice slowly resounded through the Void Realm. Neither loud nor soft, it encompassed the entire Lingxiao Realm Ruins, carrying the indifferent impartiality of the Heavenly Dao:

"Sixty years later, the world advancement shall proceed as scheduled."

As soon as these words fell, the gazes of the other twelve Divided Soul existences shifted slightly, and they all raised their heads.

Heavenly Venerate Jiuyou, clad in profound black robes with all his Devilish Qi completely restrained, slowly spoke, his voice as hoarse as ten thousand years of windblown sand grinding against stone walls:

"This dimensional rise is the second grade leap of our Tianyun Realm—advancing from a medium-sized world to a large-sized world. At that time, the Dao shackles will loosen by thirty percent, the grades of Spiritual Veins will leap as a whole, and the cultivation upper limit of all living beings within the domain will be fully elevated."

His gaze pierced through ten thousand miles of cloud seas, overlooking the living beings below who were about to kill each other, his tone indifferent and waveless:

"This time, using the bloody battle of the low-stage living beings of the entire world for fifty years as a sacrifice is intended to purge the motley bottom-layer living beings and Mortal turbidity, thereby accelerating the process of dimensional rise and making the newborn Dao Origin purer and more condensed."

"All those who survive the fifty-year bloody calamity will have their Dao Hearts sufficiently tempered and their destinies resilient enough to bear it. Sixty years later, they can all receive the baptism of the Heavenly Dao Origin and obtain the blessings of advancement."

"Those who are mediocre, cowardly, weak, have a shallow Foundation, and fight without the Dao shall all bury their bones in the flames of war, turning into nourishment and dust for the realm's dimensional rise."

"By then, the thirteen of us can also use this opportunity to impact the Bottleneck and even harbor hopes of stepping into Body Integration."

As Heavenly Venerate Jiuyou's voice fell, the Dao-disputing platform returned to silence.

The thirteen mighty figures each maintained their silence, some lowering their eyes to overlook the mountains, rivers, and living beings beneath the sea of clouds, while others gazed at the golden Dao patterns slowly circulating in the Void Realm, each calculating the variables and nodes during these sixty years.

A moment later, an old Daoist with crane-like hair and a childlike complexion spoke, his voice clear and resonant like the clashing of gold and jade: "The nine medium-sized world realm cores, one hundred eighty small-sized world realm cores, and thirty-six hundred micro-sized world realm cores have all been prepared. Right now, the only thing missing is the half of the large-sized world realm core that Fellow Daoist Taixu is bringing back."

"By then, all realm cores, together with the hundreds of complete Small Worlds we prepared in advance, and all Secret Realms within the Tianyun Realm, will turn into nourishment for advancement, to be smelted as a whole and entirely swallowed. We only hope Fellow Daoist Taixu returns in time."

Hearing the four words "Fellow Daoist Taixu", the already heavy atmosphere on the Dao-disputing platform sank by a few more shades.

Heavenly Venerate Taixu was the undisputed number one person in the Tianyun Realm, having stepped into the Peak of Divided Soul for over three hundred thousand years, roaming across the realm without ever suffering a single defeat.

Right now, he was carrying that half of the broken large-sized world realm core, crossing the Void Realm from the distant Ziwei Star Province and hurrying back to the Tianyun Star Province.

Within this Universe, the hierarchical structure was divided from bottom to top into star sectors, star systems, and Star Domains.

Usually, a star sector could accommodate tens of millions of worlds, while a star system was composed of five thousand to ten thousand star sectors, and a Star Domain governed tens of thousands of star systems—that magnificent scale was difficult for even Divided Soul Cultivators to catch a glimpse of the full picture even by exhausting their Divine Thought.

For countless myriads of years, the Tianyun Realm had not even explored one-ten-thousandth of the Beihe star sector where it was located.

Below the star sectors, they were further divided into countless star provinces.

The Tianyun Realm was the undisputed overlord of the Tianyun Star Province, its fierce reputation spreading far and wide. Any world with a bit of knowledge would change its expression upon hearing its name.

Because the Tianyun Realm had always been famous for plunder and aggression, wherever it passed, realm cores were entirely seized and resources were thoroughly looted.

Therefore, those Small Worlds in the Tianyun Star Province that luckily had not been invaded hid their own coordinates extremely deeply and securely, treading on thin ice for fear that a trace of their aura would be sniffed out by the patrolling Cultivators of the Tianyun Realm.

"I have already calculated it; Taixu's trip this time will be entirely smooth, and he can return in about fifty years."

As soon as these words came out, upon the silent Dao-disputing platform, the gazes of many mighty figures all shifted slightly.

The person who spoke wore a plain divination robe, with wisps of destiny Dao patterns lingering around his body. He looked completely unremarkable, yet he was the Tianyun Realm's only seventh-rank diviner, with the Dao title of Heavenly Venerate Guanxing.

His deductions of heavenly secrets and calculations of chronologies had never had a single deviation for thousands of years, and he was likewise one of the few old monsters who had lived for nearly a million years.

Since he had uttered these words, the hanging stone in everyone's hearts landed for the most part.