Chapter 633: The Ancient Will
The Falling Star Sword, raised above Chen Yan's head, swept downward, and the low, chanting resonance of the immortal path came to an abrupt halt.
What disappeared was not only the low chanting of the lingering immortal resonance, but also, in that same instant, the sounds of the waves, the wind, and the sword's own slash all vanished from the world.
After Chen Yan shouted that single word, "Open!", the entire world seemed to have been muted completely.
But time did not stop flowing.
Beneath Chen Yan's feet, upon the vast and boundless Endless Sea, countless fine black cracks appeared along the trajectory of the Falling Star Sword's slash—these represented the collapse of the laws of heaven and earth.
Then, a single straight fissure, tens of thousands of zhang long and hundreds of zhang wide, emerged across the surface of the Endless Sea, as if it had split the entire sea in two.
On either side rose dark, sheer water walls tens of thousands of zhang high, smooth as mirrors, completely isolated by the "cause and effect interference" of Chen Yan's strike, and therefore showing no sign of healing whatsoever.
Chen Yan's gaze fell upon the bottomless abyss that his sword had just carved open.
That strike he had just delivered should have been enough to rival the feat of Realman Bai Shang of Wind Ravine Valley, who had split a ten-thousand-zhang chasm into the Northern Region of Chenping Continent with a single sword stroke all those years ago.
The only difference was that Realman Bai Shang had split the land, while he had split the sea.
These trivial thoughts flashed through his mind in an instant, and then, having recomposed himself, Chen Yan released his grip on the Falling Star Sword.
The Falling Star Sword dropped about half a zhang toward the abyss below before it once again vanished into the void, disappearing from sight, waiting silently in the emptiness for Chen Yan to summon it anew.
Gazing at the seawater he had parted with a single strike, no trace of pride arose within Chen Yan's heart.
Because this was only the beginning.
Chen Yan hesitated no longer. His form shifted, transforming into a beam of clear light, and he resolutely plunged into the abyss below.
The light from the sky above rapidly dimmed and vanished.
In its place came an indescribable darkness—viscous, thick, and profound.
This darkness carried the deathly stillness of ten thousand ages and a bone-deep chill.
Chen Yan continued to delve deeper into the abyss. Through his spiritual sense, he could perceive that the Endless Sea itself seemed to harbor a weighty, immutable will that had persisted since time immemorial.
And that will appeared to be trying to tear apart Chen Yan's spiritual sense and soul.
Clear radiance swirled around Chen Yan. As a cultivator of the Immortal Ascension Realm, he was able to activate the Hidden Immortal Art to resist the tearing of his soul by that heavy will.
But as he continued to plunge deeper into the abyss, the pressure exerted by that will upon him only grew greater.
That heavy will seemed to be attempting to assimilate Chen Yan.
To assimilate him into a part of the Endless Sea itself.
As Chen Yan sped toward the bottom of the abyss, his originally resolute gaze briefly flickered with a moment of dullness and daze—then he quickly snapped back to awareness. Recognizing that the situation might be even more dangerous than he had imagined, Chen Yan hastily began to circulate the Emptiness Annihilation Art, using the severance of cause and effect to resist the erosion of his being by the Endless Sea's heavy consciousness.
It was fortunate that his current cultivation was at the Immortal Ascension Realm.
If he had still been at the realm Below Immortality, he would likely have been completely assimilated into the Endless Sea before he had even ventured far into this abyss.
Chen Yan did not know how deep into the abyss he had traveled.
But in the next instant, the erosion of that ancient, immutable will of the Endless Sea that had been pressing upon him suddenly vanished.
No—it did not vanish.
It was being neutralized by something—
The lingering might of a Sage.
That terrifying aura, carrying ultimate annihilation, rising from the depths of the abyss below, was the residual Sage's might of Bai Chen, the Ultimate Sage of Imperial Void.
Even the ancient will of the Endless Sea dared not trespass against the lingering might of an Ultimate Sage.
Even Chen Yan, now the Steward of Chenping Continent, Realman Du Cang, could not help but be shaken by this powerful, inviolable remnant of Sage's authority.
How many years had it been since Bai Chen had fallen?
If Heavenly Summit Mountain was the legacy of the Ultimate Sage of Imperial Void, Bai Chen, then from the founding of Heavenly Summit Mountain to the present day, a full one hundred and forty thousand years had passed.
If Bai Chen's Sage's might could still remain so powerful after falling here one hundred and forty thousand years ago...
Just what kind of formidable existence was a cultivator of the Uncarved Simplicity Realm?
Chen Yan continued to dive deeper into the abyss, and the darkness around him gradually began to recede.
It was not that light had appeared.
Rather, at the very bottom of this abyss, a gray, withered, and void-like hue had replaced everything.
Chen Yan floated within this nothingness, gazing at everything before him.
Beneath his feet was not the seabed, but an endless expanse of shattered continental remnants.
This debris floated silently within the void—mountains toppled, riverbeds dried up, as if this place had been completely abandoned by Heaven's Dao. Everything was shrouded in a despair-inducing deathly gray.
There was no sign of life whatsoever. Only decay and ruin.
Just like the destruction of Chenping Continent that Chen Yan had witnessed with his own eyes before returning to eight thousand years ago.
And yet, with a single glance, Chen Yan noticed that figure seated at the center of the shattered continental remnants...
Or rather, that corpse.
A young man clad in a white daoist robe sat cross-legged atop the summit of a collapsed mountain. Despite the countless ages that had passed, the corpse of the Ultimate Sage of Imperial Void still appeared lifelike, as if he were not dead, but merely sitting in meditation.
Chen Yan slowly approached the corpse and finally came to a stop before Bai Chen.
His gaze rested upon Bai Chen's remains.
If, in the distant ages past, when Tianji Continent was on the verge of complete collapse, Bai Chen had calculated that the "cause and effect" he bore was itself a fragment of his own "corpse"...
Then what had this Sage of Imperial Void been scheming for, after learning of his own future ending?
Before Heavenly Summit Mountain came into being, Chenping Continent possessed an even more ancient, and largely unknown, history.
Perhaps within that history, the answer lay?
Chen Yan took a few more steps forward, his gaze still fixed upon Bai Chen. After a moment of contemplation, he raised his right hand and began to make calculations with his fingers.
As if he had obtained some answer, Chen Yan's expression instantly froze, and his pupils contracted sharply.
Just as he and Mr. You had speculated earlier, Bai Chen had indeed severed all the threads of cause and effect he carried into several segments, leaving them scattered across various corners of the world.
Because Chen Yan had just derived through his calculations that the corpse before him carried not a single thread of cause and effect. It was merely a hollow shell.
If that were the case...
Chen Yan took a few more steps forward, coming to a stop at a distance of only about three chi from where Bai Chen sat cross-legged upon the ground.