137: Chapter 137 Boundary Sea

Back at the Imperial Pass.

When Chu Tianjiao placed Shi Hao into the hands of Meng Tianzheng, the white-haired elder's eyes were filled with shock and vigilance.

"Who is he..."

Meng Tianzheng looked at the unconscious youth in his arms, then raised his head to look at the black-haired young man with unfathomable temperament before him, his heart churning with stormy waves.

He could tell what this young man had just done outside the Imperial Pass—he had allowed Shi Hao to ascend to the Immortal King Realm in just a few breaths, forcing back An Lan!

Such a method was unheard of.

"He is fine, and he will recover very soon."

Chu Tianjiao waved his hand, interrupting the question Meng Tianzheng was about to ask.

His gaze lingered on Meng Tianzheng's face for a moment, a trace of complexity flashing in his eyes.

This elder would, in the future, become Shi Hao's teacher in the path of using his body as a seed; he would protect that youth at the most critical moment, and he would burn himself in a desperate situation to pave the way for Shi Hao.

He was worthy of respect.

"As for my origins, do not ask, and do not think about it."

Chu Tianjiao's tone was calm, yet it carried an unquestionable certainty.

"It is useless for you. When you reach my Realm, you will naturally understand."

Meng Tianzheng opened his mouth, but ultimately swallowed his full belly of questions.

He had lived for long, long years and had seen too many incredible things; he knew that there were some existences that he could not inquire about.

"Many thanks, Senior."

He solemnly bowed to Chu Tianjiao.

Chu Tianjiao nodded and took one last look at the unconscious Shi Hao.

That youth still had the exhaustion of the great battle on his face, but his breathing was steady and his aura was stable.

Within his body, although the power of those four drops of essential blood had been exhausted, the insights from that battle were already deeply branded into his Divine Soul.

Next time, when he truly stood before An Lan, he would no longer need external force.

Chu Tianjiao withdrew his gaze and turned around.

With one step, his figure vanished into the Void Realm above the Imperial Pass.

Meng Tianzheng stood in place, watching that disappearing figure, silent for a long time.

After a long while, he looked down at Shi Hao in his arms, a trace of complexity flashing in his eyes.

"Child, what kind of existence... exactly did you encounter?"

He murmured, but no one could answer him.

---

In the Void Realm, Chu Tianjiao's figure rapidly swept across Star Domains.

He had not expected that he would return to the Chaotic Ancient Era.

He had expected even less to return to this point in time—the critical moment when An Lan was about to breach the Imperial Pass and take away the Sin Province.

He had acted.

He did not overthink, and he did not hesitate.

It was not because of any great righteousness, nor was it to change history—it was simply because that was Shi Hao.

It was the future Emperor Huang.

It was the man who, at the end of the Boundary Sea, fought alone against four Quasi-Immortal Emperors and protected the world behind him with his life.

It was the figure who, when the Ancestor descended in a moment of despair, still stood before him.

It was also the future guide of Xiao Shitou.

"The favor I owe you, I will repay a part of it today."

Chu Tianjiao murmured to himself, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

"When we meet next time, I will have to properly collect it from you."

An Lan had failed to take away the Sin Province.

What did this mean? It meant that Huo Ling'er would not be taken to the Foreign Realm, it meant that Shi Hao would not have to experience that heart-wrenching pain of separation, and it meant that the path the youth would walk in the future would be much smoother than in the original work.

Of course, it would also mean missing some bone-deep tempering.

But Chu Tianjiao did not regret it.

"Those tribulations, it is better to leave them to others."

He shook his head.

Shi Hao's path would not become mediocre just because of the lack of this tribulation involving Huo Ling'er.

That youth's Heart-Nature, perseverance, and talent were the fundamentals of him eventually reaching the Peak.

Chu Tianjiao reined in his thoughts and turned his attention back to the present.

At this moment, he was facing a more thorny problem—

Willow Deity and the Green Emperor were gone.

The Desolate Pagoda had brought the three of them back to this era together, but after landing, only he remained.

Where did Willow Deity go? And where did the Green Emperor go?

He closed his eyes, his Divine Thought spreading out, instantly covering this world.

Nine Heavens and Ten Earths, the Foreign Realm, the Immortal Domain—every place he could reach, he searched carefully.

Nothing.

Willow Deity's aura, not a trace.

The Green Emperor's aura was likewise untraceable.

Chu Tianjiao opened his eyes, his brows furrowed tightly.

He recalled the plot of the original work at this point in time.

Willow Deity... should be at the Boundary Sea.

At the end of the Chaotic Ancient Era, Willow Deity was already an Immortal King Titan.

In order to find an opportunity to resist the darkness and to follow in Shi Hao's footsteps, she had once ventured deep into the Boundary Sea, experienced countless life-and-death battles there, and finally encountered something in the depths of the Boundary Sea...

Encountered what?

Chu Tianjiao's memory was somewhat blurry.

The original work "Shrouding the Heavens" did not provide much detail about Willow Deity; most of it was pieced together through Shi Hao's memories and fragmented words.

But he remembered one thing—the Boundary Sea was very dangerous.

It was a place that even Quasi-Immortal Emperors had to treat with caution, a graveyard where experts had fallen for countless eras.

Even Immortal Kings had the risk of falling upon entering the Boundary Sea.

Willow Deity was an Immortal King Titan, but her condition...

Chu Tianjiao remembered that the last time he saw Willow Deity, although her aura was powerful, she was far from having recovered to her Peak.

Eight hundred thousand years of cultivation in the Immortal Domain had allowed her to re-enter the Immortal King Domain, but she was still some distance away from being a true Titan.

For her to enter the Boundary Sea like this...

"Troublesome."

Chu Tianjiao rubbed his brow.

But he did not hesitate.

He had to find Willow Deity.

Not only because she possessed the method to return, but also because—

She was Willow Deity.

She was the existence who, when the Ancestor descended in a moment of despair, stood before him.

She was the figure who, through countless days and nights, had quietly guarded his cultivation.

She was the existence who, when he was most exhausted and most powerless, let him lean in her embrace and fall into a peaceful sleep.

The title "Godmother," although it carried a bit of a joke, that sentiment was real.

Chu Tianjiao took a deep breath and gazed into the distance.

There was the direction of the Boundary Sea.

It was a place that even Immortal Kings had to fear, a graveyard that had buried countless experts over countless eras.

But he had to go.

With one step, his figure vanished from where he stood.

The Boundary Sea was not in the Nine Heavens and Ten Earths, not in the Foreign Realm, and not in the Immortal Domain.

It existed at the end of All Heavens and Myriad Worlds.

To go there, one needed to traverse the endless Void Realm and cross layers upon layers of Chaos.

With Chu Tianjiao's strength as a Peak Immortal King, these were not too difficult.

What was difficult was after arriving there.

When he finally stood on that embankment, the scene before him made him fall silent.

It was an embankment.

An embankment that had existed since ancient times.

It was built of earth and stone, tall and thick, stretching across the front, blocking everything outside.

This side of the embankment was a relatively safe world; and the other side of the embankment—

—was the Boundary Sea.

Chu Tianjiao stood on the embankment, gazing at that "sea."

That was not water.

That was a "sea" piled up from countless shattered worlds.

Since the Emperor Fall Era began, one era after another had passed, and countless worlds had long since perished.

Those shattered worlds made up this Boundary Sea, and each wave was a shattered world.

They were stacked together, undulating, boundless, forming a magnificent "ocean."

Black "waves" rose and fell constantly, each wave being a shattered world, containing the Dao aura of different eras and different times, carrying the sedimentation of hundreds of millions of years.

Some shattered worlds were still glowing, which was the final echo of the Dao Law; some were already completely dark, leaving only void; some were slowly rotating, as if still reenacting the final scene of that world.

Those shattered worlds collided, compressed, shattered, and reorganized, emitting a deep roar.

That roaring sound entering the ears was not a sound, but the wailing of Law, the sigh of time.

The auras of countless shattered worlds intertwined, chaotic, violent, and indescribable.

There were fragments of the Immortal Domain, ruins of the Foreign Realm, final traces of the Nine Heavens and Ten Earths before it shattered, and countless strange worlds whose names could not be called.

An Immortal King's Divine Thought venturing into it would also be disrupted by those mixed auras, losing its way.