Chapter 147: The Gates of Purple Heaven Palace Open

In the perception of Patriarch Hongyun, it seemed as though it had been a very long time since he had seen the Great Dao so clearly.

The Dao of Time, the Dao of Space, the Dao of Qiankun, Yin and Yang, the Five Elements...

Various Daos combined and pieced together. The Three Thousand Great Daos seemed to be right before his eyes, and even the slightest flow of their Dao essence could give birth to spiritual awareness, nurturing the cycle of creation, destruction, and reincarnation.

The Great Dao was, after all, what Golden Immortals of Da Luo craved the most. It was like looking at the models in a fashion show he had longed to see, passing by in a blur of flowers that left his eyes thoroughly feasted.

Yet in the very next moment, his mind shook, as if he had discovered something incomprehensible, and his own spiritual energy directly surged into motion.

He wanted to break free from it!

For in his perception, although the Daos here were exquisite to the extreme, they were fundamentally not the Daos he knew.

As a top-tier Daos of Da Luo Golden Immortal in the Primordial World, a renowned mighty transcendental being who had self-proven Da Luo and achieved his Dao fruit long ago, his very existence was a manifestation of his own comprehension of the Great Dao.

Yet just now, the Daos he had seen were different from the Daos he knew.

This difference was not like the affinity between water and ice; it was completely contradictory.

Wrong, wrong! The Dao of Clouds gathers and disperses without form. Even if calamity and clouds share the same origin, secretly corresponding to the Dao of Heavenly Punishment, it is still not like this. How can clouds condense into vapor, where a single droplet of mist holds a galaxy?

Unheard of!

Wrong, wrong! The Dao of Illusion projects falsehood into reality. True and false, the convergence of the virtual and the real constitutes illusion, just like a mirage. How can the true become the illusionary Dao, and the end of illusions be utter desolation?

Violating the tracks of the Dao!

Wrong, wrong! The Dao of Poison disperses into plagues and condenses to infect the cosmos. Even if the Dao of Poison connects with the Dao of Healing, it is just a matter of a single thought. Poison is poison; how could it be transmitted in a single thought?

Ridiculous, utterly ridiculous.

......

For a time, Hongyun’s heart was in a state of chaos.

Among the Three Thousand Great Daos, though he had not meticulously studied all of them—practicing only a dozen or so back and forth—he had still touched upon the other Daos, as well as thousands of heterodox paths.

Having his cultivation insights overthrown again and again gave him a deeply absurd feeling.

It was as if, previously, he had been feasting his eyes on the models on stage, sated and warm, only for his eyes to open and close and find that they had all turned into genuine skeletons wrapped in pink flesh!

Under such an impact, he forgot what he had intended to do next.

He only felt that things were not as he had imagined.

If he could truly comprehend them thoroughly, the gains would naturally be beyond imagination.

The Dao of the Great Dao is infinite. Although it contradicts the Dao within, it ultimately does not depart from the Dao itself, just like the Taiji and the Two仪 (Yiyi), or the dual breaths of Yin and Yang.

Though solitude achieves the Dao, it is hard to grow by itself...

At this moment, many principles he had already known suddenly became clear, and his entire being's grasp of the Dao became much brighter than before.

Clang—

Clang—

......

At that moment, a sound faintly echoed within his sea of consciousness, causing his soul to tremble slightly and pulling him back from that state.

What had happened?

Hongyun opened his eyes in a daze and looked around. He saw that the Daos of Da Luo Golden Immortals had already formed a vast sea, with all sorts of auspicious cloud palaces being secured in the chaos by the mighty transcendental beings.

Upon them, a sparse number of figures flickered, evidently servants and disciples of various kinds.

"Brother Hongyun, just now I was wondering how to wake you, but it turns out I was worrying needlessly."

At that moment, Zhenyuanzi's voice appeared in his mind, his tone slightly relaxed, clearly in a good mood:

"Calculating the time now, the second sermon is about to arrive. If you hadn't woken up, you might have missed it."

The time was almost here?

A sense of realization rose in Hongyun's heart, and he expressed his gratitude to Senior Brother Zhenyuanzi.

Had he remained in that state of sudden enlightenment, relying solely on his own grasp of time to wake up, everything would likely have been too late.

Even if Zhenyuanzi had not directly awakened him, it showed considerable concern on his part. If he failed to see even this clearly, he would have lived in vain for so long.

Clang—

Clang—

......

As Hongyun was deep in thought, the door rings on the previously closed gates of the Zixiao Palace sounded once more, compelling Hongyun to look up involuntarily.

Though the sound was not loud, it was exceptionally deafening. No matter what method he used to block the sound from entering his sea of consciousness, it was all in vain.

Such indiscriminate force—he could also execute it, but only to a certain extent against juniors.

To truly unleash such a method indiscriminately upon all the Daos of Da Luo present—a method akin to causing no harm while snapping every single Da Luo back to their senses—was something not only he could not do.

Even Donghuang Taiyi, who wielded the Pangu Bell among the supreme treasures of bell kind, probably could hardly accomplish it.

However, this could only be considered a conjecture on his part. As the primary hidden and overt expert among the demon race, what trump cards he truly possessed were likely known to no one.

The door rings on the gates of the Zixiao Palace had sounded twice, yet there were still no major changes.

However, all the Daos of Da Luo had been startled awake by this and were now standing with solemn expressions in the chaos outside the Zixiao Palace, meticulous and unmoving.

This was an attitude—a respect for the saints.

Even though the saint had not imposed rigid demands, who would dare to behave dissolutely here, lest they become the target of public criticism?

This state of silence lasted for an unknown amount of time. Accompanied by the third chime of the door rings on the Zixiao Palace gates, the earth, fire, water, and wind surrounding the Zixiao Palace were completely scattered.

The great doors trembled slightly, and a pair of small hands rested upon the door frame, pushing the gates open to reveal a crack.

Another pair of small hands came to assist, and the two poked their heads out together, emerging from within and pushing the heavy doors with considerable exertion, opening them bit by bit.

The moment the doors swung wide open, a breath seemed to emanate from the Zixiao Palace, causing the boundless turbid Qi in the chaos to begin churning and scattering, surging like boiling hot water that refused to settle, spreading out toward the surroundings.

"Respected mighty transcendental beings, we pay our respects to you all.

As the time has now arrived, we, Yaochi and Haotian, have specially opened the palace gates to welcome you all.

Please follow the decree of our master and enter according to the previous seating arrangement. If a seat is empty, let it remain empty."

Yaochi and Haotian wore expressions of children trying to act like adults, their demeanors quite solemn:

"Those who failed to enter the Zixiao Palace last time will naturally remain as the master said, and their status will not change. Please forgive us, everyone."

As these words were spoken, they dashed the hopes of quite a few Daos of Da Luo present, causing their expressions to shift slightly.

After all, there were indeed some who had not arrived for the first Zixiao Palace sermon, or who had newly ascended to Da Luo during the great calamity; they had never listened to a saint's sermon.

Those who had come hoping for a stroke of luck never expected their hopes to be crushed even before entering the gates of the Zixiao Palace.

"We are also Daos of Da Luo, why can we not enter?"

At that moment, an indignant voice echoed through the chaos, causing the expressions of many Daos of Da Luo to shift slightly.