Follow the path of Dao from infancy Chapter 1785 - 461: My Heart Is the Heavenly Heart (2)
Previously on Follow the path of Dao from infancy...
Destiny's relentless lash ripped through the opponent's skin and flesh, extracting and shattering the True God Blood inside him, while he endured unending torment.
"Who... who are you?"
The Chaos Ancient Clan member stayed utterly composed, recognizing that the black-robed youth's command of the Great Dao Origin Realm far exceeded the grasp of the Immortal Monarch Realm—likely a reborn ancient beast!
Luo Ningshuang and Su Wanyi gazed in stunned silence at the spectacle, abruptly grasping that this fearsome entity had just seen his body demolished—how formidable must Li Hao be, the one who overpowered him?
...
Passing the black-robed youth, Li Hao pressed onward directly to the summit of the Heavenly Road.
The enigmatic murmurs grew sharper, and the terrain nearby shed its intricate law patterns, shifting instead into a haze.
In that haze, waves of Daoist resonance rippled to purify the spirit, yet they also muddled one's Divine Soul, dragging it into successive realms of illusion.
Before Li Hao's gaze emerged the entrance to the Dream Nine Abyss Sect, with a grand hall looming ahead—the Imperial Palace of the Dayu Divine Dynasty.
Abruptly, along the path in front, an elegant shadow lingered facing away from him. Merely catching her outline made Li Hao identify her instantly as Shi Miao.
Yet she couldn't possibly be present here. Li Hao steadied his mind, permitting these visions to unfold, but he forged ahead regardless.
Though he knew these were nothing but deceptions, the visions persisted without fading.
"Don't go any further."
"Look back; that path is destined to be lonely."
On the Heavenly Road, familiar shapes materialized: Feng, Emperor Yu, and even Ren Qianqian, who had wielded a sword on Li Hao's behalf, waited quietly at the edge, murmuring gentle warnings to Li Hao, their gazes brimming with concern, exactly as they lingered in Li Hao's recollections.
Even as Li Hao understood these were fakes, the deceptions refused to dissolve and kept murmuring their enticements.
"Don't joke with them!"
A flare of fury ignited in Li Hao's eyes, rejecting the notion of these forms being conjured by mere tricks.
"Break for me!"
He surged forward in a dash, unleashing a furious bellow toward the heavens, a roar akin to thunder that reverberated throughout the Heavenly Road.
The visions faded into translucence bit by bit, until they scattered entirely, and Li Hao's resolve sharpened, parting the fog and clouds in his path to unveil the soaring summit.
Is this the conclusion of the Heavenly Road?
Li Hao vaulted upward, touching down at the top of the stairs, where an odd relief washed over him as the ambient pressure vanished in a flash.
Scanning his environment, Li Hao's awareness plunged abruptly, drawn into an immense realm.
This sensation resembled ascending to immortality at its pinnacle, blending one's form with the cosmos.
A multitude of laws surfaced in Li Hao's awareness, joined by various Daoist Charms, encompassing the Heavenly Road underfoot and the throngs ascending it, all clear and present in his senses.
He appeared to fuse with the heavens and earth encircling the Heavenly Road.
"Hmm?"
Li Hao glanced skyward abruptly, detecting overhead, in the firmament crowning the Heavenly Road's apex, a grand and awe-inspiring aura hovering silently, much like a god surveying mortals below.
That transcendent and distant aura stirred a shiver in Li Hao, an instinctive impulse to kneel.
"Heavenly Dao?"
Something inside Li Hao's frame stirred, as though yearning to draw near that aura.
As doubts flooded Li Hao, an immense intent crashed down, enveloping him and freezing him in place like a monument.
The intent loomed immense, regal, and sublime, stripped of feeling—icy yet lucid—gently probing Li Hao's Divine Soul, resembling a chill vine grazing his brow.
In that moment, myriad ideas burst forth in Li Hao's Sea of Consciousness, mirroring the turmoil of creation's genesis.
Across his vision, endless radiant beams intertwined swiftly, forging an odd primordial domain.
Li Hao beheld chaos's primal split, heaven and earth's debut, watched hordes of Chaos Ancient Clans roam unbound in the ancient Primordial True Realm, endured disasters, celestial blazes, and bolt storms, and observed legions of Chaos Ancient Clans clash in carnage, their agonies mingling with infants' cries.
From the slain forms, dim Divine Souls were tugged by an unseen force, cycling into rebirth.
Without cease, the wheel of ruin and renewal spun on...
Until at last, from the ranks of Chaos Ancient Clans, a lineage arose, though these lineages entered the world as vacant shells, barren of vitality.
On that fateful day, no fresh existence graced the realm.
Hence, throngs of Chaos Ancient Clans banded together to probe this enigma, hunting its root, dispatching rulers from every lineage to a shadowy, uncharted void...
Through the flux of gleam and gloom, unnoticed, beyond the Primordial True Realm, a boundless universe unfurled, teeming with myriad lives that journeyed to this fresh domain.
But as lineages multiplied, the new realm swiftly descended into strife, butchery, and rivalry, the loop of rebirth and emergence recurring, as if fated and bound by an unbreakable Hex.
The boundless ground lay strewn with cadavers and gore in every direction.
Witnessing this vista, Li Hao felt stirred, an irrepressible sorrow swelling in his chest, profound enough to verge on hopelessness.
Just as this hopelessness loomed to swallow him, Li Hao wrenched free from the sentiment, and the vista dissolved, yielding to a gleaming silver radiance.
With his mind, he brushed it lightly and detected a pristine, sovereign intent within the glow, or perhaps a purpose.
Redemption, for every soul?
From this intent, Li Hao gleaned an ironclad belief, as if shouldering a grueling but noble obligation.
At the same time, he perceived that embracing it, claiming this intent, would bestow upon him colossal might, a strength not drawn from cosmic laws, but straight from that paramount Heavenly Dao!
Receiving the mandate of heaven grants one eternal life!
These eight words blazed in Li Hao's thoughts.
Upon claiming this intent, completing the task etched within, he would rise as the "Heavenly Son"!
His strength would match a Great Emperor's, fading with the stars and enduring alongside the cosmos!
Yet the duty tied to this intent proved staggeringly demanding—redemption of every soul, forging the keenest edge in the Heavenly Dao's grasp!
"Is this... the Heavenly Heart?"
Li Hao sensed confusion; this Heavenly Heart stood profoundly grave and holy, but oddly, he found himself reluctant to grasp it.
"Heavenward salvation should be all living beings saving heaven."
"It's not that the living need heaven, but heaven needs the living!"
Sensing Li Hao's withdrawing Daoist resolve, the emptiness boomed with thunderclaps, churning fiercely like a tempestuous thunder ocean poised to drown him, as if the ultimate power vented its ire.
Li Hao's locks whipped about, his garments billowing madly. In that instant, all sights before him evaporated, stranding him solo at the Heavenly Road's crest, with the formless, unreachable sovereign intent suspended high in the remote skies.
"Realize the Heavenly Heart, with my heart attesting the Heavenly Heart; my heart is the Heavenly Heart, not the Heavenly Heart as my heart!"
"All living beings have their destinies, even if transcending all beings, it cannot be forced..."
Li Hao murmured, prepared to shoulder that task and role yet unwilling to have it imposed, for it clashed with his Daoist resolve.
If shackled by bonds, how could one claim immortality?
Climbing the Heavenly Road, testifying to the Heavenly Heart, my Dao accords logic and heavenly sound!
Destroying all laws, defying causality, today, I realize I am myself!
"If heaven aligns with me, I affirm the Heavenly Heart; if not, I follow my true heart!"
Li Hao murmured.
With those words, a colossal thunderclap shattered the skies, as though the firmament fumed.
Next, Li Hao sensed a colossal intent quiver and plunge, laden with crushing weight, cascading from above to strike him. In a heartbeat, it slammed his frame against the Heavenly Road's summit, pressing him to the stone, immobile.
Li Hao felt his skeleton fracture, and the True God Blood in his veins was quelled by that overpowering force, unable to surge even slightly.