Chapter 116 The Heavens Above

As the Jiajing Emperor chanted, his appearance began to change, transforming into a towering Taishang Laojun (Supreme Venerable Sovereign).

Celestial clouds surged, purple energy came from the east, his white beard cascaded like a waterfall, his white hair like snow, yin and yang were distinct, and the Taiji (Supreme Ultimate) wheel revolved.

Then, he disappeared into the void.

It was a relatively long period of empty time, where nothing existed, neither light nor darkness could be perceived, the past and future were all gone, severing everything, which could no longer be described with words like "seclusion."

Great Sage Yuanmiao couldn't speak, and couldn't even circulate his thoughts. However, within this extreme emptiness, there was an ancient god, and that was Taishang Laojun.

The Jiajing Emperor, transformed into "Laojun," began to speak. Only when he spoke did everything within this Dao begin to flow, and only then could Great Sage Yuanmiao's thoughts be freed from that extreme emptiness.

This was the inside of the Dao.

Everything had to operate according to the Dao, all actions and thoughts were related to the Dao, everything was born from the Dao, and constantly produced new Daos to feed back to the original Dao.

"Incomprehensible. Unintelligible. Unfathomable."

"This is 'still and empty'."

"Taishang Laojun" spoke to Great Sage Yuanmiao, telling him the current situation. Although Great Sage Yuanmiao could move his thoughts, he could not make any thoughts that were unrelated to the outside of the Dao.

This was the best place to understand the Dao, and also the most terrifying prison.

There were other beings here.

Great Sage Yuanmiao saw that kind of existence. He saw it when Taishang Laojun was expounding the scriptures to him. However, those people were also in a state of "still and empty." They couldn't, wouldn't, or perhaps couldn't react at all to outsiders or new arrivals.

Two of the four great Perfected Beings who had already died were here.

Shangqing (Highest Clarity) Patriarch, Perfected Being Qingxu; the Water God, Divine King Yanggu.

"Two of the Four Great Perfected Beings were transformed into the Dao by Perfected Being Taiji after their deaths. What you see now are no longer the Four Great Perfected Beings of the past."

"As time goes by, under the influence of the Six Extremes Dao Chapter, they will gradually transform into the Dao of the world. Then, from their Dao, new worlds will be evolved, to be witnessed by new latecomers."

Laojun, transformed from Jiajing, patted Great Sage Yuanmiao, and a Dao form stood up, liberating Great Sage Yuanmiao's thoughts, but Jiajing still warned:

"Do not say words that are not beneficial to the operation of the hundred Daos. Do not raise thoughts that are not conducive to the evolution of the hundred Daos."

"It's not that I'm afraid that you will disrupt the operation of the Dao, but that I'm afraid that you will be erased by the hundred Daos. These useless thoughts will be eliminated by the Dao, and for us, once this kind of thought is eliminated by the Dao, it also means that this kind of thought is completely cut off in the Four Symbols."

For example, an emotion, the emotion of joy, is not conducive to the operation of the Dao. The Dao will discover the origin of this emotion and erase it. Then that person will lose the emotion of joy, and there will be no way to recover it.

Only thoughts that are beneficial to the existence of the Dao can last forever.

The Jiajing Emperor raised the Jade Divine Disc. The Jade Divine Disc had the power to connect to the Heavenly Dao, but in the world within the Dao, it directly merged with the Dao and transformed into the supreme will within the Dao.

The power of Shangqing radiated out, and a Dao form in the Jade Divine Disc began to descend. It was the existence of the Lingbao Tianzun (Lord of the Numinous Treasure), and this Dao form sealed in the Jade Divine Disc was the Shangqing Emperor.

That was one of the titles of Lingbao Tianzun, representing its important existence, just like the Yuqing (Jade Clarity) cultivators all have a circulating name of Yuanshi Tianzun (Lord of Primordial Beginning). Obtaining the title of Tianzun is like obtaining this part of the eternal circulating existence of Tianzun.

The Jiajing Emperor merged with the Shangqing Emperor, Taishang Laojun overlapped with the Shangqing Emperor, and then Jiajing tried to refine the Dao of Perfected Being Qingxu in order to stabilize the power of Shangqing, and let Great Sage Yuanmiao begin to overwrite the origin from it, but found a problem.

"The ancestral talisman of Shangqing, as expected, carries the secrets of Shangqing. Before Perfected Being Qingxu died, only half of the Dao existed in his body, and the other half turned into the ancestral talisman. That is the origin of Shangqing, from Yuqing..."

Jiajing couldn't learn more secrets from it. After all, if he could learn it, Perfected Being Taiji would have snatched it long ago and wouldn't have procrastinated for so long. No one knew where the Shangqing ancestral talisman fell, or where it was hidden. Now the Shangqing Three Sects are still arguing endlessly, and the Zhu Huo Palace and the Liuyun Palace are fighting for it, until they were slaughtered by Perfected Being Fire Dragon.

Seeing this situation, Great Sage Yuanmiao didn't look worried:

"No need to worry, half of the Dao is enough to complete the overwrite. I am using the Mandate of Heaven to change it. It doesn't matter even if the Dao is incomplete, it's just more troublesome, but it's not that it can't be done, so there will be no failure."

"Now that you have brought me into the Dao, I can overwrite it more easily among the hundred Daos."

The Jiajing Emperor asked, "It's strange, you, a mere Flying Immortal, can actually have the means to manipulate the Mandate of Heaven, and this is not the ability that your Great Dao characteristics give you."

"This is comprehension."

Great Sage Yuanmiao explained: "There are always people in the world who can, at a certain moment, in certain aspects, receive some guidance from Heaven, so as to obtain comprehension, and then comprehend the power above Heaven from the comprehension."

"No one needs to teach, no one needs to guide, no scriptures or codes are needed. There are always such gifted people in the world, just like those peerless figures who have transformed into the High Heavens or opened up the source."

"I am not boasting about myself, but confirming this matter, because I am such a peerless figure."

The Jiajing Emperor's eyes flickered, but even if he was Taishang Laojun here, he couldn't emit too many thoughts unrelated to the Dao, so he couldn't think deeply, but just left a feeling of "This son's words are not true, but it doesn't matter", and sealed it in the source of spirituality.

"Your Majesty doesn't believe me. But Your Majesty knows, what is the most important thought in my Divine Firmament Sect's Dao?"

"]"

"The origin of the Divine Firmament is not me, so before me, there was still the Divine Firmament, and after me, the Divine Firmament will never be cut off, but everyone in my Divine Firmament is cultivating one thought."

"Heaven and I are one."

Great Sage Yuanmiao saw that the Jiajing Emperor did not completely trust him. After all, this was an important moment, and Great Sage Yuanmiao was not ambiguous. He once again expressed to the Jiajing Emperor the attitude of "I have something to hide, but not much, and everything that can be told to you is here."

"Heaven...which heaven?"

The Jiajing Emperor already understood, but he still needed an exact answer. Within this Dao, this was of course related to the Dao, and even closely related to the Four Symbols and all the Heavenly Heart experts in the world.

Perhaps, this answer had already been learned by some Heavenly Hearts, but before today, they only laughed at this answer.

Light waves flowed in Great Sage Yuanmiao's eyes, and a Qi rose from an unknown place, turning into the wind of the clouds.

"The Heaven above Heaven. The Heaven in the echo of Heaven and Man, that is the Supreme and Unknowable Heaven equal to the Dao."

"It refers to that Heaven."

"Heaven has Nine Heavens, and this Heaven is the highest, just like the Great Dao is nameless, but it is forced to be called Dao, so we call the Heaven of Heavens—"

"Divine Firmament!"

Everything in the world is nameless, just like Yuanshi Tianzun has to return to the Xuanxiang (Dark Image).

And when did that Heaven above Heaven begin to manipulate the human world?

Perhaps, after being named.