Chapter 1026: 33 Realms; Mountain and Sea Tribulation!

As soon as Meng Hao pushed his hand down onto Yi Fazi’s head, his mind filled with rumbling sounds so intense it felt like it would explode. Numerous images and vast amounts of information poured into him from Yi Fazi’s brain. Meng Hao’s divine sense fused with Yi Fazi’s memories, and he was able to see everything clearly.

He trembled, and began to pant, his eyes shining with disbelief. Although he had prepared himself mentally, he was still profoundly shocked by what he saw in Yi Fazi’s memories.

Yi Fazi screamed miserably as he experienced more pain than he had ever experienced before in his life. Never in his dreams could he possibly have imagined that someone who was as important as he was in the Spiritstar Realm would one day be Soulsearched.

He frothed at the mouth, and his bloodshot eyes bulged out dramatically. His body twitched violently as he experienced a sensation like a giant hand rifling through his brain, grabbing things from inside of his head. The pain... was literally impossible to describe!!

His screams were enough to cause anyone to seize with terror.

Meng Hao’s hand seem to be exuding an incredibly powerful gravitational force as it latched onto Yi Fazi. No matter how violently Yi Fazi struggled, it was impossible for him to escape Meng Hao’s grasp.

At the moment, Meng Hao had no time to even pay attention to Yi Fazi’s struggling. He panted as he looked at the thoroughly shocking images playing out in front of him.

“This....” he murmured.

He was looking at... an entire world!

In this world, everything was the opposite of how it should be. The sky was below and the earth was above. All of the buildings and mountains and rivers were suspended from up above.

The sun, the heavenly bodies, the moon, were all down below!

If you stood on those heavenly bodies, or on the surface of the sun, and looked up, you would see endless lands, filled with mountains and ancient cities.

Within the cities, statues could be seen, each one depicting a nine-headed python!

Meng Hao could also see innumerable life forms. Most of them looked just like Yi Fazi, neither completely human nor completely beastly.

There were some that looked like ordinary cultivators. However, Meng Hao got the feeling that even though they wore that appearance, they were actually just like those other part-human, part-beast beings. The aura they emitted was one of complete brutality and mania. They were cold, with explosive murderous auras.

This... was not any place in the Nine Mountains and Seas.

This was... a world that existed outside of the Nine Mountains and Seas!

Although Meng Hao had never actually left the Ninth Mountain and Sea, now that he could clearly see and sense Yi Fazi’s home, he could tell that the natural law and the undulations in that world were different than what he knew.

It was a brutal place that was diametrically opposed to his own world. It was as if in this other world, slaughter was the most powerful natural law.

“What is this place?!” he thought, gasping as his mind spun. Earlier, he had been certain that Yi Fazi’s origin was mysterious, but now that he could see this other world with his own eyes, he was absolutely certain that Yi Fazi... was most definitely not a being from the Nine Mountains and Seas.

Almost in the same moment that Meng Hao caught sight of that other world, information from Yi Fazi’s memories suddenly began to crash into Meng Hao’s mind. They exploded thunderously inside of him, threatening to turn what he knew of the world upside down.

“In ancient times, the Higher Realm had Immortals!

“Where there were Immortals, Paragons were born among them. Because of the position of that Realm, and because of its incredible power, it came to be known as... the Paragon Immortal Realm!

“The Paragon Immortal Realm, the first Realm in all the Heavens and the starry sky!

“Beneath it were 3,000 other Realms that relied on the Paragon Immortal Realm to survive. From generation to generation, they worshiped the Immortal World. Countless living beings practiced cultivation with the hopes of being able to fly up and enter the Immortal World.

“Everyone sought to reach Immortal Ascension!

“Spirits Realm, Star Realm, Waterwood Realm, Deva Realm, Spiritstar Realm, Torrentfall Realm.... 3,000 Realms, all of which bowed in worship to the Paragon Immortal Realm!

“Anyone who descended from the Paragon Immortal Realm to one of those other 3,000 Lower Realms would be like a god!

“Epochs came and went, and after an incalculable amount of time passed, catastrophe struck....

“Everything that happened during that catastrophe was recorded on a huge mural that had existed for eons in the Spiritstar Realm.... On that day, in one part of the starry sky nine suns appeared, which dragged an enormous, colorful statue to sweep across the skies. The statue depicted a man whose hair was eternally white! [1. Regarding the man with white hair, I suggest you click the link to the following baidu image search, look at the search terms, and then check out the first few picture results.... I'm not saying that the person in those images is being referenced here, but it's certainly something that would have crossed the minds of Er Gen fans. Alternative search with more art here.]

“On that day, in another part of the starry sky, nine butterflies appeared, dragging an enormous coffin that crushed the void. That coffin was carved with the depictions of all living things!

“Both of those powers were strong enough to rival the Paragon Immortal Realm, and make all of the 3,000 Lower Realms tremble in fear.

“The catastrophe had just begun... a war began in which all of the 3,000 Lower Realms turned traitor. At the critical juncture, they rebelled against the countless epochs in which the Paragon Immortal Realm had weighed down on them. They joined with those other powerful forces to destroy the Paragon Immortal Realm!

“In that war... the Immortal World was shattered. Countless members of the Immortal bloodlines died, and numerous ancient Immortals perished. The powerful Allheaven Dao Immortals perished, and the nine Emperors died. The only survivors were three great Paragons, who used some unknown magical technique to form nine mountains and nine seas that became the broken remnants of the Immortal World. [1. "Allheaven" could be transliterated as "Luotian." Luotian 罗天 is a concept from real Daoist mythology. Among all the various heavens that exist, it is the absolute highest heaven. Luo 罗 is a character which can be translated a lot of ways, but in this situation basically means "net." The idea is that this heaven stretches out to cover over all the other heavens like a net. However, instead of calling it Net Heaven (sounds like a bad internet cafe or perhaps a fishing shop), I will use "Allheaven." Incidentally, I've also translated the character luo 罗 as "sieve" in the past, most notably in the name of the Black Sieve Sect"]

“By the time the war ended, more than ninety percent of the 3,000 Lower Realms were destroyed. In the end, only 33 Realms remained, which rose to prominence and glory, acting like 33 locks, sealing the Immortal World completely!

“Later, those 33 Realms took to killing Immortals for pleasure, as a hobby. People who killed Immortals and were baptized in their blood would become famous in all of the 33 Realms!”

Meng Hao trembled as all of the information poured into his mind. He didn't realize it, but as this was happening, Yi Fazi gradually grew weaker and stopped struggling.

Fissures began to spread out over his head, and the flame of his life force was gradually being extinguished. His soul was beginning to collapse, and his life force was being exterminated.

Gradually, his body grew cold, and his eyes turned gray.

Cracking sounds could be heard as the information in Meng Hao’s mind turned into something like a windstorm. Unaware of what he was even doing, and unable to control his own power, he instantly crushed Yi Fazi’s head into bits.

When the head exploded, Yi Fazi’s body fell down into the void and gradually became a part of the Ruins of Immortality. Meng Hao lowered his hand and made a grasping motion, collecting a ring that had belonged to Yi Fazi.

In the moment that Yi Fazi died, the screaming Xuanwu turtle suddenly quieted down. Its body no longer trembled, and it once again sank down into the pond, unmoving.

The water in the celestial pond returned to normal. No ripples could be seen on its surface, which once again resembled a mirror.

The cultivators of the Ji Clan breathed sighs of relief. At the same time, Ji Tian’s voice echoed out into the minds of the Dao Realm experts in the Ruins of Immortality.

“Fellow Daoists. Ladies and gentlemen. Please be informed... the Outsiders have been hunted down and killed.”

The massive waves of shock that had filled the Ninth Mountain and Sea now faded away. The Dao Realm experts who were already in the Ruins of Immortality stopped in place. After looking around at the mysterious ruins around them, they turned and left.

Fang Shoudao hesitated for a moment, and then also chose to leave.

The Ruins of Immortality returned to normal. Everything quieted down. The eternally drifting corpses continued their neverending journeys.

Deep within the ruins, Meng Hao looked up, and his eyes were blank. Currently, all of the information he had gleaned from the Soulsearch swirled around inside his mind.

After a long moment, a complex expression appeared on his face. Although he didn’t completely believe everything he had acquired from Yi Fazi’s memories, based on what he already knew, as well as his powers of reasoning, he was eighty percent confident that most of it was real.

“So, is that really the history of the Nine Mountains and Seas?” he murmured.

“The Paragon Immortal Realm.... That explains some of the strange things I heard back on Planet South Heaven.

“Immortals....” His eyes began to shine with a bright light.

“The League of Demon Sealers must have something to do with the Nine Mountains and Seas,” he muttered. “In fact, there is a high likelihood that they also have something to do with those three great Paragons!” With that, he lifted his head and looked up into the starry sky.

“33 Realms, standing guard outside.... Looking down upon the Nine Mountains and Seas....

“33 Realms, 33 Heavens....” As he followed this train of thought, he recalled something that he had heard from both the Sixth Generation Demon Sealer and the Eighth Generation Demon Sealer’s jade slip....

“Mountain and Sea Tribulation....

“Each generation of the League of Demon Sealers must attempt to transcend the Mountain and Sea Tribulation. Clearly, that is the tribulation destined for each generation of the League of Demon Sealers. In other words... they want to fight their way through the 33 Realms, slaughter them to break through to freedom!” Meng Hao took a deep breath. His mind trembled for a long time before he finally calmed himself. He knew that despite knowing about this secret, with the low level of his cultivation base, it would be impossible for him to completely understand it, nor do anything about it.

“The Echelon....” he thought, eyes shining brightly. Finally, he looked around, picked a direction, and began to fly. He took all of his doubts and speculations and buried them deep inside. He knew that the most important thing right now was to leave the deadly and mysterious Ruins of Immortality. He needed to get to the Ninth Sea, and the Nine Seas God World.

“I need to go to the Nine Seas God World to collect the reward owed to me by the Three Great Daoist Societies. Then, in the Three Great Daoist Societies, I can grow stronger, step into the Ancient Realm... and then begin to search for my way into the Dao Realm!

“If every generation of the League of Demon Sealers has to face the Mountain and Sea Tribulation, then I need to continue to get more powerful. Eventually, the day will come... when I will make my own attempt to break through the veil that covers the Nine Mountains and Seas! I will make my own determination... of whether the information in Yi Fazi’s memories is true or false!” His eyes shone with the gleam of obsession, and his trembling heart gradually returned to normal.

He turned into a bright beam of light that sped through the Ruins of Immortality. As he traveled, he looked at the ruins and corpses floating about, and thought about the legends regarding the Ruins of Immortality. Supposedly... they were a piece of the Immortal World that broke off during that huge war.

He flew along silently, divine sense spread out in all directions. He carefully avoided any dangerous locations, and was frequently forced to stop in place while various dilapidated statues or other gigantic creatures passed by. At the same time, images from ancient times rose up in his mind, images similar to what he was currently seeing.

Time passed. Soon, half a month had gone by.

During that time, Meng Hao passed through the center of the Ruins of Immortality. At times, he flew along with explosive speed. Other times he slowed to a crawl. At one point, he turned his head to find that, not too far off in the distance, was an area that was completely black, filled with countless weeds. Many of them... were actually rare Immortal plants that were extinct in the outside world!

As soon as he saw that area, he felt like his scalp would explode.

“Well if it isn't….” His eyes widened.