Chapter 1 The Origin is Mysterious

Although Yuanshi Tianzun (the Primordial Celestial Worthy) didn't exist in the pre-Qin era, and his venerable title only appeared during Tao Hongjing's time, his powerful roots came from the joint sacrifices of thousands of disciples of the Taoist school over thousands of years. Together with the Three Pure Ones, they were created as the common supreme gods. Most of the cultivation world also believes that the power possessed by the Three Pure Ones is equivalent to the sum of the magical power of all Taoist disciples over the millennia.

But!

That's the problem.

Before Tao Hongjing, Yuqing cultivators already existed. Yuqing is the root of Shangqing, and both originate from Tianshi Dao (Celestial Masters Sect), which in turn originates from the Wudoumi (Five Pecks of Rice) Sect. However, according to what Xu Fu knew, the first cultivator to call himself a Yuqing dignitary predates even Ancestral Master Zhang Daoling!

Later, before Tao Hongjing wrote the name of Yuanshi Tianzun, a Yuqing cultivator colluded with ancient evil creatures and obtained a special power different from the world. That cultivator is now the person who calls himself Yuan Huang (Primordial Emperor).

The twelve temporary owners of the Yuanshi Tianzun divine tablets are all cultivators of the Yuqing Heaven, but no one knows when the first Yuqing cultivator appeared. Most of the ancient cultivators regard Yuan Huang as the first.

But the truth is not so. In terms of seniority, Yuan Huang is only the fourth Yuqing cultivator.

Therefore, the origin of Yuanshi Tianzun is actually extremely mysterious!

Xu Fu couldn't know the changes either. Even though he had watched the world for two thousand years, he had only entered Dafuli a handful of times. And those Celestial Worthies and Heavenly Gods in the deepest part of Dafuli, sometimes they didn't exist the first time he went, and the second time he went, they had already firmly occupied a very high position, and carried incredibly huge power, but they seemed to appear out of thin air.

Although in the pre-Qin period, there were also similar supreme gods who suddenly appeared and gained great power through being worshipped by the world, such as Haotian Shangdi (August Sovereign of the Azure Heavens) and Donghuang Taiyi (the Eastern Great Emperor), who were ancient Celestial Emperors left over from the Zhou and Chu divine systems respectively, until the two Han dynasties. Therefore, the people of the pre-Qin period did not find it strange that ghosts and gods, or even celestial gods, were born through sacrifices, but it was very strange to suddenly appear without warning.

Whether it was Haotian Shangdi or Donghuang Taiyi, their sacrifices all had a process of dissemination, which rapidly grew stronger in this process, but Yuanshi Tianzun suddenly appeared, and was at his peak upon appearance!

Countless thoughts flashed through his mind, like a revolving lantern caused by the doubts before death.

Xu Fu was actually stunned for a breath when facing the white jade hand. Within this one breath, thousands of thoughts spun, until Hideyoshi Toyotomi's terrified cry brought him back to his senses!

The big hand had already pressed down, and the entire land and rivers began to gradually turn into powder. From the height of the sky to the lowliness of the earth, everything it passed was annihilated!

Because this time, the hand of Yuanshi Tianzun was suppressing a powerful pseudo-immortal, rather than a crippled ghost immortal who had returned to life through a corpse, the speed of this hand's suppression was much slower.

Because it had to fight against the national fortune of the entire country!

"It's okay, the sky won't fall! This is my territory, my divine kingdom! I have pre-Qin secret techniques, earth-shattering methods, and the power to make ghosts and gods weep! A Yuqing cultivator who has not yet ascended to immortality, using some unknown means to drive a portion of Yuanshi Tianzun's power, wants to destroy me too!"

"I have seen too many supreme gods! You can't scare me!"

Xu Fu's expression became ferocious!

How could a pre-Qin body be suppressed by later generations of heavenly gods!

This high sky was created by himself. Compared to those who entered the inner mountains and rivers, his power was even stronger, because he opened up a world in the outer mountains and rivers! Wasn't this something to be proud of? Could this terrestrial divine kingdom be sunk by a single hand!

And hearing Xu Fu's harsh words, Ji Xiang's voice also came from the high sky:

"Whether it scares you or not is another matter, first take this blow from the Celestial Worthy!"

Xu Fu refused to be outdone, his national prestige boiling, and at the same time, the lifeblood of the entire country also began to operate!

National fortune, heavenly fortune!

Xu Fu howled!

This was his divine kingdom! He stood at the apex of this world, the sky of this divine kingdom was what he had transformed into!

"Attack it for me!"

Behind Xu Fu, the other two ghost gods began to act, but they did not fly towards the sky. One of the ghost gods overlooked the earth and let out a strange cry. This sound spread throughout Japan in an instant along with the national prestige. Immediately afterwards, in the high mountains, great peaks, rivers, deep forests, those false immortals who were sleeping, or were placed by Xu Fu to stabilize the divine kingdom as "nails," were now uncontrollably flying towards the sky!

Some people's expressions gradually turned to horror. They heard the summons of that ghost god. The immortal power on their bodies began to disintegrate as they approached the sky. The power of the entire fake immortal was integrated into the national prestige of the country!

"Emperor Jinmu, you are not keeping your word! We are just nails for you to stabilize the divine kingdom, we never said we would be used as food to replenish the divine kingdom!"

Miserable cries came from different places. The local people watched in horror as rays of light soared into the sky. Mortals didn't know what was happening, they only thought that immortals had appeared again in the spiritual mountains where legends said gods resided. So they kowtowed, until they heard the terrified, angry, and grief-stricken roars of these "ascended" "immortals." The originally joyful faces of the mortals gradually turned pale.

They didn't have much culture, and most of them didn't even know how to read, let alone cultivation or the grievances of kingship, but they knew one thing: the tone of this voice was completely devoid of joy, instead filled with anger and fear!

This didn't sound like ascension to Takamagahara (the High Celestial Plain).

It sounded more like the unwilling wails before falling into the Yellow Springs (underworld) and dying completely!

"Immortals, how could immortals wail? We must have misheard."

Some mortals could only comfort themselves in this way.

They didn't know what was happening.

Nor did they know what they should do.

Or perhaps, no matter what they did, it didn't matter, and it couldn't change the fate of this country.

The path ahead for the divine kingdom had been completely blocked by the controllers since ancient times. They were like sheep in a pen. Perhaps some could escape, but the sheep pen would always exist. If a place was damaged, it would be repaired, and there would only be more and more sheep.

After all, they were just... livestock!

One false immortal after another disintegrated, their power all returning to the national prestige. And by relying on instantly killing more than a dozen false immortals, the power of the national prestige increased by a large margin!

"Let's collide. Yuanshi Tianzun!"

Xu Fu, with the power of a pseudo-immortal, wielding the might of the entire country, crashed into Yuanshi Tianzun's white jade hand, forcibly confronting it head-on!

In this strike, all the sounds in the world disappeared, and light and darkness were mixed together indistinguishably, as if hitting the primordial era when chaos first opened. After a brief moment of silence, the clouds stretching for thousands of miles in the sky began to surge and leave in all directions!

The national fortune of the country cracked, but because of the sacrifice of many false immortals, it still maintained an undefeated posture, which made Xu Fu laugh loudly!

But!

A change occurred!

Yuanshi Tianzun in the Heavenly Gate seemed to be truly enraged. After the first white jade hand dissipated, Xu Fu looked up at the sky with a smile, and his smile gradually solidified.

More than a dozen white jade hands squeezed out of the Heavenly Gate!

This scene was shocking to the world, it was simply not a number of arms that humans could display. Even for the various heavenly gods who often manifested with three heads and six arms, these more than ten large hands were a bit too terrifying!

"No... not good! What are these things!"

Xu Fu's face, which had just been complacent, turned pale in an instant!

He didn't know what these big hands were.

But he knew that if he was hit by these more than ten big hands, his end would be very miserable!

A single blow from the entire country shattered one arm of Yuanshi Tianzun, and the highest Celestial Worthy in the sky was nothing more than this. This thought had only flashed through his mind for a moment, and what he faced next was actually a fierce attack more than ten times stronger than before!

This time, the previously condensed national prestige could not be stopped. It was as easy as a blade cutting through paper, as swift and violent as a hammer smashing glass. The sea of clouds between heaven and earth was completely dispersed, but there was no sunlight in the sky, only that Heavenly Gate replacing the sun, emitting blazing light!

And at this moment.

Xu Fu and Ji Xiang seemed to hear a voice coming from the Heavenly Gate at the same time, from far to near, but they didn't know what it was saying. It was more like the empty sound of celestial music, without specific meaning, just the sound that appeared when the natural energy surged.

However, in their hearts, within their souls, words appeared truly!

[Those with ten evils have firm habits, go against the path of life and death, and cannot be transformed. Like tiles, once broken, they cannot be rejoined.]

[I use great compassion to free these ghosts from suffering; future generations who wish to save the dead should follow this method to atone for past sins and resolve examinations.]

[Eyes emit light, like shooting stars; thunder shakes and lightning flashes. At that time, the immortal, bearing the power of the Way, responding to the gatha of the heavenly demon, immediately possessed numerous appearances, divine power with myriad changes, and all pores of his body emitted light!]

In the depths of those more than ten large hands in the Heavenly Gate, the Qi of the Great Void surged, gathering into a giant eye, ferocious and terrifying looking at the world!

At the same moment, words appeared on Ji Xiang's inner vision divine tablet:

[Killing Ghost Great Sage Form and Spirit: Incarnation of Yuanshi Tianzun! Humans and gods usher in prosperity, the secluded and the manifest are universally saved, the great transformation is vast, is it not joyful!]

[Transformation General Mighty Spirit: Celestial Worthy level supernatural power! Transform into the Killing Ghost Great Sage, whose method is "to subdue all demons and destroy all heresies"! People who are targeted by the Killing Ghost Great Sage will be regarded as heretical ghosts and demons. From the root of the operation of spells, the spells of the opponent will be torn to pieces. The spells destroyed by this method can no longer be used on the same person!]

The words on the inner vision divine tablet finished appearing.

A heaven-reaching clear smoke was actually manipulated by the inner vision divine tablet, out of Ji Xiang's control, and went straight into the Heavenly Gate!

"Sacrifice, sacrifice!"

Xu Fu was both shocked and frightened. With his roar, one false immortal after another in the entire country flew into the sky uncontrollably!

A large number of screams disintegrated in the national fortune. These false immortals controlled by Xu Fu had existed as nourishment for the divine kingdom since they first met Xu Fu. If the divine kingdom could be successfully constructed, they could also ascend to become true immortals. But if the divine kingdom suffered a major change, then they would be used as scapegoats to offset the disaster for the divine kingdom.

Not only that!

"Wuu... wu ah ah! Emperor Jinmu, don't kill me!"

In distant Kyoto.

The current emperor suddenly felt excruciating pain all over his body. Sensing the summons of Emperor Jinmu, he, who was indulging in pleasure, let out a scream that horrified the entire palace, and the beauties around him who were serving him wine and food were all frightened pale.

Those treacherous ministers looked terrified and screamed sharply, because at this time, the current emperor's body was rotting, and his form and spirit were also collapsing. People began to discover that the emperor's appearance was gradually becoming blurred, and they even had trouble remembering it.

All of this happened within half a quarter of an hour.

As a mortal emperor, if he lost the "form and spirit" inherited from Emperor Jinmu, he would lose his effectiveness as the core of the divine kingdom. However, Emperor Jinmu would not deprive him of this form and spirit, because since ancient times, what had been inherited by the emperors of past generations had long been closely related to the country, and even possessed powerful divinity itself, and was an important medium for perfecting the divine kingdom. If the bloodline of a lineage was easily changed, causing the form and spirit to lose their effect, it would be a loss for Emperor Jinmu.

But now, this form and spirit was actually being taken back!

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry! Your Majesty the Emperor, I am too incompetent, please forgive me!"

The current emperor was just a puppet of Hideyoshi. The person favored by Emperor Jinmu was Hideyoshi Toyotomi, not him. Although he had a sense of crisis about losing his position, he put his mind at ease after thinking about this emperor's form and spirit, knowing that he would not be easily abandoned.

But today, he was abandoned!

The current emperor thought that he was indulging in pleasure all day long, without any fighting spirit, which made Emperor Jinmu have the idea of changing the bloodline inheritor for this form and spirit, but he didn't know the actual situation. So he turned into a pool of rotten flesh amidst regret and wails, splattering on all sides of the hall, with a strong stench.

Mortals who were stained with the juice of the rotten flesh immediately transformed into wriggling, strange evil creatures amidst screams.

Monsters appeared in Kyoto, not belonging to demons, nor monsters, nor Yellow Springs yin creatures. These monsters ran out of the Kyoto emperor's residence, causing great disturbances in the world.

And this form and spirit that had been nurtured for thousands of years was forcibly retrieved by Xu Fu. The medium of the divine kingdom was interrupted at this time, and he felt extremely heartache, but immediately afterwards, his entire soul was trembling!

Yuanshi Tianzun's dozens of strikes fell down!

Osaka turned into ruins in an instant, but an astonishing thing happened: all the mortals who were not stained with the Qi of ghosts and gods survived and were unharmed, while those who were stained with the Qi of ghosts and gods all turned into powder under this earth-shattering blow!

Except for Hideyoshi Toyotomi.

Divine light surged on Hideyoshi Toyotomi's body, exuding a pure aura of heavenly gods. The attack just now allowed him to survive, and even he himself didn't know why. He secretly speculated that perhaps he was the first true "person to become a heavenly god," so this attack from Yuanshi Tianzun did not judge him to be someone from the ghostly divine path.

He raised his head in embarrassment and looked at the high sky. At this time, the clouds that stretched for thousands of miles had disappeared, and the remaining light of the sun fell on the earth again.

He saw Xu Fu. At this time, Xu Fu had ascended into the sky, but his aura was extremely weak. Most of the national fortune of the entire country had been shattered under the blow just now. The Heavenly Gate closed, and Ji Xiang was nowhere to be seen, obviously having escaped using遁術 (dunjutsu, escape techniques).

"Pfft!" Xu Fu's chest swelled, his eyes widened like copper bells shining, and he uncontrollably spewed out a strange essence from his nostrils and mouth!

"Hoo!"

"Damn... damn, damn! Damn heavenly demon!"

Xu Fu trembled as he looked at his body. The foundation of the pseudo-immortal was destroyed. The way of ghosts and gods that had been cultivated for thousands of years was completely shattered under that blow just now. And the foundation destroyed by the Killing Ghost Great Sage could no longer be repaired!

Moreover, the pre-Qin techniques were also sealed. But fortunately, his form and spirit had just been taken from the contemporary useless emperor, the emperor's form and spirit that had been nurtured for thousands of years. That was a unique thing, a treasure that he had refined with the techniques of a fangshi (alchemist/magician), a medium for completing the divine kingdom, and should not have been used to repair his form and spirit.

But there was no other way now. If it weren't for the emperor's form and spirit that had been forcibly retrieved just now, I'm afraid his form and spirit would have been torn to pieces by the Killing Ghost Great Sage, and would not be able to recover.

Most of the national fortune had also collapsed, which made Xu Fu furious. He saw Hideyoshi Toyotomi's terrified face and roared: "Immediately, immediately go find your servants! This Ming Dynasty immortal used such a degree of the Great Art of Inviting Gods, it is impossible not to have consumed him, he must be greatly injured now. Find him and tell me! This is my divine kingdom, how dare he be so presumptuous on my territory! I will personally kill..."

"Your Majesty the Emperor, be careful!"

Hideyoshi Toyotomi exclaimed!

Xu Fu sensed a crisis, and he suddenly turned his head!

He saw in the towering clouds of dust, the figure of the black-clothed youth was no longer the image of the Celestial Worthy, but had turned into the terrifying appearance of more than ten arms, throwing out a red divine banner that blotted out the sky, carrying 80,000 heavenly demon phantoms, smashing towards him!