Chapter 1152: Worlds Apart (II)
Chapter 1152: Worlds Apart (II)
Luo Chen then asked whether any of those descendants had actually succeeded in entering the Dao Sect, and Seven Lamps confirmed that they had. The promise was not merely bait used to lure powerful cultivators from the other territories; the Dao Sect was genuinely honoring it.
After learning all this, he could not help but feel deeply moved. No wonder the Star Gate had managed to attract so many powerful Sages from across the world. It offered them more than the possibility of advancing to Divine Transformation. It also took care of the worldly ties they could not simply cast aside, ensuring that their descendants would still have a future after they were gone.
As that thought settled in his mind, another quietly followed. If I went back and brought my people here, could they have the same opportunity?
The cultivation philosophy of the Central Continent might not align with the path Luo Chen had chosen for himself, but the appeal of life here was undeniable. This land had known peace for millennia. Competition still existed, whether between disciples of the same family or among rival families, but minor disputes rarely escalated into killing, much less the senseless bloodshed so common elsewhere.
In that respect, the Dao Sect truly deserved to be called a Holy Land! And the more Luo Chen learned about it, the harder it became to cling to his earlier conviction that he was merely a passerby. For the first time, the possibility of truly settling here began to take root in his mind.
It was just as he was lost in these thoughts that the clouds and mist across the plaza trembled; then, white chairs formed from clouds, mist, and a huge amount of spirit energy rose into the air.
The same aged voice that had announced the opening of Heaven-Earth Peak rang out once more. "Fellow cultivators, take your seats!"
"It's Sect Master Mo," Seven Lamps said.
He floated gracefully into the air, and Luo Chen followed. An unseen force seemed to guide him upward until he came to rest on one of the cloud chairs high in the sky. Once seated, he found that the boundless sea of clouds no longer obstructed his vision. When he looked north, he saw fifty chairs arranged opposite them.
His attention was immediately drawn to the two seats at the very edge. Among the cultivators seated high above the clouds, one man stood out. The reason was simple: He was the only Adept present!
Could those two be the representatives of the Lesser Houses?
What led Luo Chen to this conclusion was the man seated beside the Adept. It was none other than Dragon Abyss! Although he was a Sage, the Liu House remained a Lesser House and had yet to rise into the ranks of the Noble Houses. If those seats had been assigned according to family status, then the Adept beside him was most likely another representative chosen from among the many Lesser Houses.
As Luo Chen studied them, Dragon Abyss noticed his gaze and gave him a slight nod.
Luo Chen frowned faintly. What is that supposed to mean?
He did not dwell on it, however, and instead swept his gaze across the other forty-eight chairs, which seemed to belong to the representatives of the Twelve Great Houses and Thirty-Six Noble Houses.
***
Far below, the Cloud Sea Plaza was packed with cultivators ranging from Qi Refinement to Golden Core Realms. Most were younger members whom the various families had brought along to witness the ceremony. Among them, three cultivators stood together, searching the sky above before finally finding their target among the Sages seated to the south.
"There he is!"
Guan Xiaoping stared upward in disbelief. "Senior Brother Longwind, are you really sure that's him?"
Wu Tao was equally doubtful. "He looks completely different, and even the way he carries himself isn't the same. Are you sure the intel is right?"
Longwind nodded, though even he found it difficult to reconcile the man above with the person he remembered. There was little reason to doubt the Shen family's intelligence. If Wilderness Hermit was indeed Devil Lord Azure Yang, then Luo Hai could only be Luo Chen, who was now seated high above.
Once Longwind confirmed it, Guan Xiaoping and Wu Tao could only stare in a daze.
Decades ago, Luo Chen had been nothing more than a rogue cultivator who happened to guide them for part of their journey. Yet while they had spent all those years advancing from the early stage of the Golden Core Realm to the middle stage, he had already crossed the threshold and taken his place among the Sages above.
They kept staring upward, but Luo Chen never once looked down at them. It was not that he was deliberately ignoring them; from his position, there was simply no way for him to notice three Adepts among the countless people gathered in the plaza below.
If anything, that realization made the distance between them feel even more absolute. The gap between Adepts and Sages was vast enough to separate them into two different worlds.
***
Among the many family representatives, Luo Chen soon spotted Fu Chaosheng. The two merely exchanged smiles from across the distance, without bothering to speak through divine consciousness. He then turned his attention to the representatives of the Twelve Great Houses. Every one of them was a Sage with profound cultivation, and none lacked the imposing bearing expected of the Central Continent's most powerful families.
After taking their measure, he looked toward the western side of the plaza, where another group of cloud chairs had risen into the air. These were far more decorated, their surfaces covered in detailed patterns that distinguished them from the other viewing areas.
Luo Chen recognized a few of them from the gathering in the Peach Garden. There were the monks from the Western Deserts, the black-robed cultivator from the Southern Frontier, and the representative of the Nether Origin Sect from the Eastern Wilderness. He had little impression of the others, but altogether, more than a dozen cultivators occupied the western seats.
By now, Luo Chen had a rough sense of the scale of the ceremony. More than a hundred Sages had gathered from the Star Gate alone, while the Central Continent's major families and the three other territories had each sent their own representatives.
This Ascension Ceremony is even grander than I imagined!
The magnitude of the gathering alone showed how seriously the Dao Sect regarded Chu Yan. Inevitably, another thought followed.
If I or some other cultivator of the Star Gate reach Divine Transformation and ascend to the upper realm one day, would the Dao Sect hold a ceremony like this for us as well?
He was far from the only person wondering the same thing. Among the Star Gate Sages seated high above the southern side of the plaza, few could remain completely unmoved while witnessing an Ascension Ceremony of this scale. Each had their own ambitions, hopes, and calculations.
Nor were the representatives from the three territories any better. The monks of the Western Deserts looked completely composed, but there was a constant movement of the prayer beads between their fingers that showed they were not quite so calm as their faces suggested. The man from the Nether Origin Sect wore a somewhat gloomy expression and kept glancing around, as though he were waiting for something to happen while simultaneously hoping it would not. As for the black-robed cultivator from the Southern Frontier, Luo Chen could read almost nothing from them, though they sometimes turned ever so slightly toward the Star Gate cultivators seated to the south.
Suddenly, everyone's thoughts came to a pause. Almost instinctively, every gaze turned eastward. Three figures slowly emerged from the sea of clouds, yet everyone ignored the other two and focused solely on the old-looking man in the lead.
"Greetings, Sect Master!"
No one could tell who spoke first, but the greeting spread almost instantly until thousands of voices joined together. Their thunderous chorus seemed to shake the entire continent. Even the representatives from the three other territories rose to offer their respects.
"Greetings, Sect Master Mo!"
Luo Chen naturally stood with the others and offered his respects.
The old man before them was Mo Shouzhuo, the master of the Dao Sect. Naturally, he was an Ascendant; yet what struck Luo Chen most deeply was not the pressure of his cultivation but the authority he commanded!
Apart from the representatives of the other territories, nearly everyone gathered on Heaven-Earth Peak belonged to the Dao Sect in one way or another. Great Houses, Noble Houses, Lesser Houses, Star Gate, and countless disciples all rose together to greet the same man. For the first time since arriving in the Central Continent, Luo Chen truly felt the weight of the power that ruled it!
Until now, he had encountered one powerful house after another. He had seen some representatives of the Twelve Great Houses, learned of the Thirty-Six Noble Houses, and witnessed the formidable strength amassed within the Star Gate, yet even for all the reverence the Dao Sect commanded throughout the Eastern Wilderness and Northern Sea, it itself had always seemed strangely indistinct to him. Even after traveling through the Woodrot Mountains and living on Heaven-Earth Peak, he had never truly felt its presence.
But at this moment, he finally understood. The Twelve Great Houses were the Dao Sect. So were the Thirty-Six Noble Houses, the countless Lesser Houses and minor cultivation families, and the Star Gate of Heaven-Earth Peak. None of them stood apart from it. They were all branches of the same vast whole. There was only one Heaven Origin Dao Sect, and under that single name stood hundreds of Sages, generations upon generations of cultivation families, and a Central Continent spanning untold millions of li.
For a moment, Luo Chen felt an intense yearning rise within him. Now this is what a Holy Land should look like!
Having taken the seat of honor, Mo Shouzhuo raised one hand and gently pressed it downward. The earthshaking chorus ceased at once. In an instant, thousands of voices vanished into complete silence.
Only then did he speak. "Let us begin."
The moment the words left his mouth, Heaven-Earth Peak quaked. Everyone felt as though this mountain, which had towered above the Mountains and Seas Realm since times immemorial, had come alive. An indescribable aura rose from deep within, faint at first, then rapidly swelled until its overwhelming power flooded outward.
BBBOOOOOOMMMMM!!!!!
Powerful winds swept across the plaza as the sea of white clouds began to churn. Amid the swirling cloud, a colossal phantom gradually took shape in the sky. The figure was overall misty and blurry, but her facial features were perfectly clear. Her delicate brows arched above limpid eyes like autumn waters, while a straight nose complemented the graceful contours of her face. Her lips were lightly parted, like cherry blossoms on the verge of blooming, and the fullness of her cheeks lent a touch of vitality to an otherwise frail appearance. Everything looked perfect and everything was perfectly in place, as though some ancient master sculptor had painstakingly shaped every feature to perfection.
Throughout the plaza, countless cultivators raised their heads and stared at the colossal visage suspended above Heaven-Earth Peak.
Among the representatives from the three territories, the man from the Nether Origin Sect clenched his hand so tightly that his fingertips dug deep into his flesh.
As for Luo Chen, he was captivated as he stared at the phantom in astonishment. The yin soul turned into yang, and the Nascent Soul transformed into divinity. What manifested before him was the Primal Soul of an Ascendant!
At that moment, even though he had already attained the Nascent Soul Realm he had dreamed of reaching since he was young, all sense of accomplishment seemed to fade away. Before this phantom, he was no more significant than the clouds below his feet.