Chapter 1726: Primordial Chaos

The multi-decked ship ascended rapidly and finally floated to the surface of the great tide.

However, the Extraterrestrial Heavenly Demon did not give up. It continued its assault, sending wave after wave against them.

Zhou Mengyao and the Taiji Eight Trigrams Mirror pulled most of the weight in this battle. One attacked, while the other defended. It was only through this combination were they able to withstand the Extraterrestrial Heavenly Demon’s onslaught.

This was Qi Xuansu’s first time confronting an Extraterrestrial Heavenly Demon directly. No matter how much others described such a being, nothing could compare to experiencing it firsthand.

There were six stages in the evolution of the world: Taixu, Taiyi, Taichu, Taishi, Taisu, and Taiji.

Strictly speaking, during the Taixu stage, the world did not exist at all. It was a state in which qi had completely dissipated, the baseline from which all things began. Thus, Taixu was ultimately regarded only as the Sixth Tai and was not included among the Five Innate Tais.

Taiyi was the true beginning of a world. At this stage, qi had yet to manifest. Qi, form, and substance all existed but had not yet separated from one another. Hence, this state was called the primordial chaos.

Primordial chaos was essentially the entangled qi, form, and substance before they separated. Pure qi had not yet risen, nor had turbid qi descended.

As the world gradually developed, it was like molten iron cooling and transforming from liquid into solid. It became increasingly firm and stable, and its laws grew more complete.

This process was not necessarily irreversible. After all, molten iron could cool into a solid block, but the block could be melted back into molten iron once again. This was what it meant by reforging earth, water, fire, and wind and reopening heaven and earth.

However, an ordinary Immortal could never accomplish such a feat. Perhaps only someone at the level of the Primordial Daoist Ancestor might be capable of it. Even then, it was merely a possibility, not a certainty. This was nothing more than a theoretical conjecture.

Extraterrestrial Heavenly Demons used dead pocket realms, divine kingdoms, and small worlds as their bodies, forcibly melding them into one. It was like throwing all types of scrap metal into a single furnace and melting everything down into molten iron.

Thus, an Extraterrestrial Heavenly Demon was essentially a living small world in the Taiyi stage. It could naturally wield the power of primordial chaos, which bore a remarkable similarity to the Taiyi Supreme Technique.

That also made it easy to explain why Extraterrestrial Heavenly Demons devoured worlds. By melting more blocks of iron into molten iron, then assimilating greater quantities of that molten iron, they could continuously strengthen and expand themselves.

Extraterrestrial Heavenly Demons possessed intelligence, yet lacked any true core self. Since they were already chaotic amalgamations of countless consciousnesses, they had no fear of losing themselves through such a process. Their instinct was to expand without restraint and no concern for problems such as digestion, backlash, or the absorbed overwhelming the absorber.

In fact, as an Extraterrestrial Heavenly Demon continuously strengthened and enlarged itself, the collective consciousness that could no longer keep pace with the growth of its vast body would gradually dissipate into that ever-expanding and increasingly tangible form, much like the Green Emperor dissolving into heaven and earth. This would create an opportunity for the laws of the Heavenly Dao to emerge, making it possible for the Extraterrestrial Heavenly Demon to eventually become a true world.

The various pocket realms of the mortal world could either descend to become part of the mortal world or collapse completely and break away from the mortal world.

A pocket realm inherently existed in the gap between the mortal world and the heavens. If it could not descend into the mortal world, it would instead drift toward the boundless space, becoming a corpse wandering through a higher-dimensional world. Eventually, this corpse would absorb wandering souls, Three Corpses, thoughts born of worship, and other things, giving rise to a new collective consciousness. This collective consciousness would drive the decaying corpse to continue moving while constantly repairing and completing it, transforming the corpse into a true body and allowing it to undergo a second growth. This was how an Extraterrestrial Heavenly Demon was born.

Clearly, the Kunlun Paradise had become part of the mortal world. The manifestation of Jade Capital was clear proof of this.

On the other hand, the gradually collapsing Lingshan Paradise was about to break away from the mortal world. Its connection with the mortal world was growing increasingly tenuous, as proven by the steadily disappearing entrances to the Lingshan Paradise, to the point that one even had to resort to spatial traversal methods such as a pseudo-ascension to enter it. Another evidence was the temporal disorder within the Lingshan Paradise. This was why Qi Xuansu had repeatedly witnessed scenes from the past replaying themselves there, including the Ancestral Heavenly Preceptor personally slaying the Great Witches. The current Heavenly Preceptor himself had also admitted that, were it not for the unique nature of the Lingshan Paradise, even the power of the Emperor Willow would not have made it possible to return to the past.

An Immortal might be capable of creating a pocket realm, but that did not mean an Immortal’s power would necessarily surpass that of the pocket realm itself. It was like planting a seed. Once that seed grew into a towering tree, even the person who had originally planted it would be unable to shake it in the slightest. Only a storm could bring down such a deeply rooted tree.

Fundamentally, Extraterrestrial Heavenly Demons were entirely different from Ancient Immortals and ancient gods. Ancient Immortals and ancient gods could at least be communicated with and bargained with. So long as negotiations were possible and the benefits were sufficient, even an Ancient Immortal could come to love the Daoist Order.

However, it was impossible to communicate with an Extraterrestrial Heavenly Demon. Even if the Taiping Sect back then had been able to wield the Yellow Heaven, or King Xiao had been able to wield the Azure Heaven, they had most likely merely taken advantage of the circumstances and guided their momentum. It was like using a flood to submerge one’s enemies or fire to burn the enemy’s camp. One could not communicate with a flood or fire, but one could use them to cause harm.

Neither water nor fire could be reasoned or communicated with. One merely exploited the terrain, combined them with favorable timing and other factors to harness their power. Presumably, the Taiping Sect and King Xiao had done the same. Through various means, they had facilitated the descent of Extraterrestrial Heavenly Demons and used them as weapons, rather than reaching any sort of agreement with the Azure Heaven or the Yellow Heaven.

At this moment, Zhou Mengyao’s eyes had been completely engulfed by white light as she attempted to use Heavenly Calculation to discern the origins of the Extraterrestrial Heavenly Demon before them.

Immortals could look directly upon Extraterrestrial Heavenly Demons, but only Immortals who had entered the emotionless state could carefully observe or even study them in depth. Otherwise, they would fall into indescribable logical traps, causing inner demons to run wild until they descended into madness and destroyed themselves.

Since Zhou Mengyao was in an emotionless state, her expression did not change in the slightest, yet the words she spoke were enough to shock anyone who heard them. “This Extraterrestrial Heavenly Demon has already condensed the embryonic forms of some laws of the Heavenly Dao. It wants to drag us into the domain governed by its rules. Be careful!”

As soon as she finished speaking, Zhou Mengyao unleashed another strike with all her strength. In an instant, boundless blade light erupted, crisscrossing in every direction before spreading outward on all sides. This was Nine Heavenly Query.

Heavenly Calculation combined with the Nine Heavenly Query constituted the renowned Heavenly Blade. This was a supreme art of the Great Xuan royal family. However, because the Holy Xuan’s wife had never kept the art to herself, it had also spread within the Daoist Order. As descendants of the Holy Xuan’s lineage, the Zhou family had learned this supreme art as well and passed it down from generation to generation.

The trajectories of her blade techniques condensed without dissipating, like brushstrokes left permanently upon a painted scroll. They continuously intertwined and grew ever more complete. As time passed, it was as though a master painter were using line after line to sketch mountains, rivers, plants, birds, and fish, until they formed what appeared to be a real world in which turbid qi descended while pure qi rose.

The pressure exerted by the Extraterrestrial Heavenly Demon never reached Zhou Mengyao’s body. Instead, it was canceled out by the world she had “painted” into existence with her blade techniques.

Countless wounds immediately appeared across the grotesque human face, from which the power of primordial chaos flowed like a black liquid.

Unfortunately, Zhou Mengyao had previously fought Great Sage Jiang and had been decapitated by him, so she only had about 60% of her strength. As such, she still found the battle somewhat strenuous.

This was with Qi Xuansu and Su Yuanzai sharing at least half of the pressure as well. At the very least, they ensured that she had no need to worry about attacks from other directions and could focus entirely on striking the enemy. If the severely injured Zhou Mengyao had encountered this Extraterrestrial Heavenly Demon alone, she would have a slim chance of survival.

Of course, if Qi Xuansu or Su Yuanzai had encountered the Extraterrestrial Heavenly Demon alone, they would not even have had that chance of survival. For either of them, it would have been certain death.

Su Yuanzai even felt a lingering sense of fear. He had entered this place so many times without ever awakening this Extraterrestrial Heavenly Demon. Although that was partly because he had always been sufficiently cautious, he was mainly lucky.

In truth, the pregnant White Lotus Sect follower had already served as a warning to the trio. The reason the man had ended up in that state was very likely because he had seen the Extraterrestrial Heavenly Demon, been affected by it, and become its vessel. The fetus was probably from the Extraterrestrial Heavenly Demon. Yet at the time, neither Qi Xuansu nor Zhou Mengyao had given much thought to this possibility and still decided to go ahead.

Zhou Mengyao also attempted to close the distance and attack at close range, but the Extraterrestrial Heavenly Demon had already begun affecting space itself, causing her to retreat instead of advance, in defiance of all common sense.

This was a method commonly employed by Heavenly Immortals in the Star Sword Formation. However, this was an innate ability for an Extraterrestrial Heavenly Demon.

The next moment, the Extraterrestrial Heavenly Demon opened its enormous maw, which resembled a rift into the abyss, intending to swallow all three of them in a single gulp.

Compared to this giant maw, Su Yuanzai’s multi-decked ship was nothing more than a tiny skiff in the vast ocean that could capsize at any moment.

A twisted and eerie smile also appeared upon the human face. Its eyeless sockets continued to expand, and within the abyss were countless fragments and snippets drawn from the River of Time. Taking this very moment as their starting point, innumerable lines branched outward, and within every line were their figures, symbolizing countless possibilities.

In some timelines, the three of them were devoured by the Extraterrestrial Heavenly Demon. In others, they escaped from this place or defeated the Extraterrestrial Heavenly Demon.

These timelines continuously intertwined and entangled with one another. Some formed closed loops, repeating endlessly. Some became hopelessly tangled knots that were impossible to distinguish, and others simply came to an abrupt end, with no future beyond them.