My Journey to Immortality Begins with Hunting-Chapter 709 – The Land United, the Beast Still Struggles - Part 2

Chapter 709 – The Land United, the Beast Still Struggles - Part 2

Li Yuan asked many more questions after that, but when it came to the fall of the Yu Dynasty or how the Gods and Buddhas had vanished from the world, neither of them knew anything. In fact, they were stunned to learn those powers had disappeared entirely.

When they had first awakened into this new world, both of them had felt like they’d stepped into another realm altogether. The Gods and Buddhas that had once held unrivaled sway in their time had completely vanished, without a trace.

But the longer they lived in this new era, the more they realized that this wasn’t another world.

It was the same land they once knew, just tens of thousands, maybe over a hundred thousand years later.

Li Yuan pressed on. “Then do you know of the Radiant Treasure Buddha?”

Mister Mu furrowed his brow. “Judging by the name, it sounds like a great figure from an overseas Buddhist sect. Likely someone from the fourth realm. But aside from that, I’ve heard nothing.”

Li Yuan could only sigh in disbelief. It turned out he knew more than these two ancient reincarnators did.

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That night.

Li Yuan lay on the bed, holding Xie Yu in his arms.

By now, Xie Yu and Lady Yu had grown quite close. The two had fully accepted each other.

Earlier today, while Lady Yu was deep in her cultivation, Xie Yu happened to come out of her own training and was the first to see Li Yuan.

One thing led to another, absence makes the heart grow fonder, as they say, and the two of them ended up tangled in passion. Now they lay together, limbs still warm from that storm, slowly settling into calm.

Xie Yu closed her eyes and drifted off into peaceful sleep.

Li Yuan gently ran his fingers through her silk-smooth hair, brushing over her skin, then down to her shoulder and back. His palm slid to her waist, where he carefully shifted her, helping her roll onto her side so she could rest more comfortably.

Eventually, they both lay on their backs, gazing up at the ceiling.

His heart was unusually calm. And in that quiet, his thoughts were sharper than ever.

Three matters weighed on his mind, the true origin of Polaris and the Northern Dipper, the ghost sealed by the Radiant Treasure Buddha, and the state of his own Six Paths Transformation, which oddly only had four paths.

If starkin are one of the six paths...if they are born from starlight, each star birthing a spirit...then Polaris, Northern DIpper, Southern Dipper, and Valley Obscura,may not have been native to this land at all. They came from the stars.

He suddenly recalled the moment just before the Great Upheaval of Heaven and Earth. At the end, as the Northern Dipper turned to ash, she had lifted her head toward the sky, singing a strange, haunting song he didn’t recognize.

And then it hit him.

That must’ve been a song from her homeland.

So then...after she died, would she still enter the cycle of reincarnation?

Li Yuan didn’t know why, but something deep inside whispered an answer.

No. She wouldn't.

The Northern Dipper had truly perished here, her soul scattered, becoming one with the mountains and rivers of this world.

And as for his earlier assumption, he now realized he’d been wrong. Neither the Northern Dipper nor Polaris had likely practiced the Life Star Art.

That method was brutally demanding. Even with his system-enhanced cheats, it had taken everything he had to reach peak third rank of Heaven, Earth, and Human Soul.

If starkin were indeed born of starlight, then their very essence was likely what he’d always suspected, a higher form of ghost, something born of the spirit world.

That theory matched the facts.

The Dragon Vein of Polaris and Ghost Lake of the Northern Dipper were ghost domains tied to the earth. It made perfect sense for injured starkin trying to cling to existence.

That would explain why the Northern Dipper had chosen to serve him, first out of desperation, then out of ambition. At first, she’d done it just to survive. But later, she’d wanted to seize his body, steal the Life Star Art he was cultivating and use it to climb even higher.

If starkin must descend to the Ancestral Land in search of a sliver of hope...then could there be more than just the four of them?

What about the ghost sealed by the Radiant Treasure Buddha? Could that be another starkin, one that simply took a darker path?

Perhaps Polaris and the Northern Dipper weren’t exceptions, just the strongest of the bunch. And among the Six Paths, with two now broken...

That alone meant this world no longer supported the advancement of those two paths.

But why was the path of starkin cut off? And chaos...I haven’t even seen chaos. Has that path ended too?

Yet if chaos was the stars themselves, if the entire night sky was chaos, and even the ground beneath his feet was part of it, then maybe that path hadn’t vanished after all.

Maybe it was still watching, silent in the dark, waiting to move.

The more Li Yuan uncovered, the more he realized just how deep the fog of this world ran.

He would never let his guard down. He would never forget, this era he lived in, this brief chapter of strife and power, was nothing more than a single grain in the vast riverbed of history.

Even that northern reborn powerhouse, Yu Lie, who'd clawed his way back from death, was just a lucky fish that happened to flop back onto shore when the tide of time surged. Nothing more.

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Half a year passed in a blink.

Together, the Tang Sect and the Great Zhou swept through the Central Plains, absorbing what remained of the Gao, Song, and other fragments of the former Eight Pillar Clans. Territories were claimed, power reshuffled, and the old blood quietly replaced.

Then, as spring faded, Li Tianshi personally traveled to the Tang Sect to pay his respects to Li Yuan. There, he formally invited Li Yuan to take up residence with the Li Clan and to ascend the throne.

Li Yuan did not refuse.

Li Tianshi, tactful as ever, made sure Li Yuan’s name resounded across the land. The mountains, rivers, and heavens themselves now recognized Li Yuan as the rightful master of this realm.

And Li Yuan wasted no time in repaying that trust. One by one, he replaced the regional generals with his own loyalists.

The four maids, Joy, Anger, Sorrow, and Delight, were elevated to rule over the four directions, their influence second only to his.

It was also worth noting that the reason Tang Aizhu had been able to assist Li Tianshi in seizing power the previous year was because she had broken through into the Lesser Insight Realm at a critical moment. But her breakthrough hadn't come from sheer will or enlightenment, it came from Li Yuan’s Old Man Fist and her unconscious visualization of him during their time together.

As a result, Tang Aizhu's path to the extraordinary followed the Wood component of the Dusk character, rather than Li Yuan’s hand that mastered myriad martial arts.

Her power was poison. With the boost from the Lesser Insight Realm, that poison evolved into a terrifying Heavenly Poison Mist.

Once unleashed, it could congeal and linger, a miasma that refused to dissipate. Over time, it could blanket the sky itself and spread outward like a growing shroud.

A killing force that was truly dreadful.

Armed with the knowledge gleaned from Tuoba Yin and Mister Mu about the Northern Wasteland’s cultivation techniques, and now witnessing Tang Aizhu’s sect-establishing breakthrough firsthand, Li Yuan knew it was time to recruit even more loyal experts.

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Early autumn.

Li Yuan officially ascended the throne, fulfilling his promise to reunite with the Li Clan.

He was no stranger to the theater of political marriages, and had long stopped resisting them. Besides, this so-called reunion was just a formal gesture. A symbolic way of turning the once-acknowledged Li Clan into his Li Clan.

He took Li Tianshi’s second sister, Li Youning, as his Empress.

Li Youning had no talent for cultivation. And as for Lady Yu and Xie Yu, after witnessing the vast hierarchy of the extraordinary realms, they had little interest in the title of Empress. More importantly, they understood that the title meant responsibilities. After the coronation, much of the palace administration would fall to the Empress. They had no desire to be burdened with trivial matters.

At the same time, Li Yuan granted Joy, Anger, Sorrow, and Delight the Li surname, formally welcoming them into the family as elders of the Li Clan.

With that, the Tang Sect and Li Clan were bound together for good, inseparable in blood and power.

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One month later.

Li Yuan led his ministers to a certain region in the Central Plains. There, atop a sacred peak, he conducted the bestowal rites, offering sacrifices to Heaven and Earth.

He declared the founding of a new empire.

The nation would be called Tang.

Its capital would be the Cloud Capital, the key stronghold in Westgorge.

He then conferred titles and appointments to his loyal followers, Mister Mu and Tuoba Yin chief among them.

Li Yuan knew well that spies were watching from the shadows. So, without holding anything back, he loudly proclaimed the origins of Mister Mu and Tuoba Yin for all to hear. Then, sweeping his gaze across the assembly, he declared.

“I know that among the Northern Wasteland, there are still many reborn powerhouses, now bandits and rebels. But if I can accept Mister Mu and Tuoba Yin, I can accept the rest of you too. The north is narrow, its rivers and mountains small. The Central Plains are vast. This is the heart of the world. Only here can you walk the true path.”

The news of Li Yuan’s bestowal ceremony spread swiftly across the realm.

In the already fractured Divine Dominion, waves of pro-surrender factions began to emerge.

Even among the faction loyal to the Divine Sovereign, those who had hoarded power and wanted to install a puppet heir from the divine bloodline, splits began to appear. A portion defected straight to the Skygale Sect faction.

Li Yuan had long been planting the seeds for this. He had deliberately emphasized reincarnation over the years and tirelessly promoted the figure of Xie Yu. Under the weight of growing political authority and cultural momentum, what once sounded like myth began to feel like truth.

The reborn founder of the Skygale Sect was no longer a questionable rumor. Now, people were saying that she was probably real.

And at last, the Skygale Sect faction of the Divine Dominion quietly assembled a diplomatic envoy and sent it to the Cloud Capital to pay respects to their founder.

It was exactly the bait Li Yuan had set from the beginning, a lifeline for a cornered beast.

Because when a beast was truly trapped, it lashed out with deadly fury. But give it a path to escape, and it would sprint toward that opening with all its might.

Xie Yu, Founder of the Skygale Sect was the road Li Yuan offered the Divine Dominion, a chance to surrender with dignity.

He didn’t raise troops against them. He gave no excuse for others to attack him. And now, the time had come to take an entire nation, without shedding a drop of his own blood.

The Cloud Capital was still under construction. The palaces were rising, the new imperial capital slowly taking shape.

Several advisors had suggested that he, former Emperor of the previous dynasty and now founding Emperor of Tang, should relocate to the Jade Capital first, and wait for the Cloud Capital to be completed before formally declaring it the capital.

But Li Yuan refused.

He had chosen Westgorge not for its political convenience, but because it was once the heartland of the former Cloudpeak Province, close to where he could resume his search for Sheng’er.

As for the north, he remained vigilant, but never considered it a real threat.

Soon, the secret envoys from the Skygale Sect faction of the Divine Dominion arrived in the Cloud Capital.

Among them were elders with ancient lineages and deep knowledge. But the truth was revealed the moment they laid eyes on Xie Yu. They fell to their knees and addressed her as their founder.

That was all the confirmation needed.

From then on, everything fell into place.

Xie Yu, devoted to the sword and having forged her own path, had recently stepped into the realm of the extraordinary. Now, she became the spiritual pillar of both the Skygale Sect faction and the Divine Sovereign faction’s surrender wing.