Chapter 697: Aunt Ling—Ancestor Realm and Supreme Realm
"Langtian, do you… want to break through to the 'Ancestor Realm'?"
Ling Ying's voice suddenly echoed in Lin Langtian's heart, like celestial music. It jolted every cell in his body, and his pupils shrank slightly.
"Break through to the Ancestor Realm?"
It was the goal that haunted his thoughts every waking moment, yet hearing Ling Ying say it so bluntly made him feel as if his deepest secret had just been dragged into the light.
"Aunt Ling, even Ying Huanhuan only has a thirty percent chance at most. For me, the Ancestor Realm is still far out of reach," Lin Langtian said slowly, lips tightening.
The Ancestor Realm was his ultimate aim in this world.
But as for how to actually reach it, he had very few concrete ideas.
Ying Huanhuan had the Ice Spirit Clan's bloodline, and the resources the Symbol Ancestor had left behind. Only with both did she have the capital to attempt the Ancestor Realm.
Lin Dong was the Symbol Ancestor's other trump card. Later, he would touch the Dimension Spirit, and with the dimension's help—and Ying Huanhuan's—break through to the Ancestor Realm.
As for Lin Langtian, he had neither of those paths.
Within a single year, he did not see how he could possibly reach that height.
"Hehe, you can fool others, but you think you can fool me?" Ling Ying's red lips curled faintly. "You've been aiming at the Ancestor Realm from the very beginning. Otherwise you wouldn't have pushed yourself this hard."
"…You really see through everything, Aunt Ling."
He gave a wry smile.
"To be honest, the Ancestor Realm is my final goal," he admitted. "The Yimo Emperor is coming. Whether it's for the sake of every living being on this continent, or just to protect my family, my friends—and myself—I have to give everything I've got.
"To stand against the Yimo Emperor at all, I need the Ancestor Realm.
"But I don't see a clear path forward yet. Aunt Ling, I'm asking you… help me."
From the moment he realized he'd been reborn into the Tianxuan Continent, that sense of crisis had never left him.
Compared to the Dou Qi Continent he knew so well, the Tianxuan Continent—constantly shadowed by the Yimo—was incomparably more dangerous.
On the Dou Qi Continent, even if Hun Tiandi reached the Dou Di realm, he would not erase all life. The Soul Clan wanted dominance, not extinction.
The Yimo were different.
They were an extraterritorial evil race, fundamentally opposed to all life in the Great Thousand World. If they won, then every living thing on the continent—himself included—would live in darkness, on the edge of death, day after day.
He would rather kill himself than live like that.
So he had never wavered in his path.
He would become strong enough that no one could threaten him.
No one could force him into anything ever again.
And now the Yimo Emperor would arrive within a year.
The pressure weighed heavier than ever.
Without the Symbol Ancestor's back-up plans, his only hope lay in Ling Ying.
"Oh? To protect the continent, your loved ones… and yourself." Ling Ying's murmur carried a faint smile. "Simple, honest reasons.
"Many of the seniors who earned respect in the Great Thousand World started from the same place—and walked straight into death for it, when the time came to block the extraterritorial demons."
Lin Langtian fell silent.
He did not see himself as that noble.
In the Symbol Ancestor's place, he would probably have chosen to retreat first, rise to sufficient strength, then return to kill the Yimo Emperor and avenge the dead.
And he would not have regretted it.
"Hehe, enough of that," Ling Ying said at last, her tone sharpening. "In any case, we're bound by blood now. For that alone, I'm going to do everything I can to help you reach the Ancestor Realm."
The Symbol Ancestor might have had his own hidden moves left, but relying on another man's blade was never safe.
If those preparations failed, Ling Ying was not sure she could drag Lin Langtian out of the Yimo Emperor's claws alive.
She was a mighty Nine Nether Flame Sparrow, after all.
If the Symbol Ancestor could forge an Ancestor in a lower plane, then so could she.
"Really? Aunt Ling, you can really help me break through?"
His eyes lit up at once.
"This so-called 'Ancestor Realm' of yours is only equivalent to the Supreme Realm in the Great Thousand World," Ling Ying said, her smile edged with pride. "Impressive enough in a lower plane, or in some backwaters of the Great Thousand World. But to me, it isn't much.
"Only upon reaching Earthly Supreme can one truly step onto the stage of the Great Thousand World, qualify to found a sect, and leave a mark. That's the realm I stand in."
"Earthly Supreme…"
Lin Langtian's heart clenched.
In the Great Thousand World, an Earthly Supreme was already near the peak of the pyramid.
He raised a thumb in genuine admiration.
"Aunt Ling really is incredible," he said frankly. "Then… how will you help me?"
She was an Earthly Supreme, but far from her peak, and this was still a lower plane.
Could he really reach the Ancestor—or Supreme—Realm here?
"Even if the Ancestor Realm is 'only' Supreme, both the Symbol Ancestor and the Yimo Emperor are far beyond ordinary Supremes," Ling Ying said. "With your current strength, if you try to jump straight to Supreme, you'll die.
"Start with your foundation.
"There's one year left. Use it to push through all three Reincarnation Tribulations. Leave the method to me."
She left it there, holding some mystery back.
"…Fair enough."
Lin Langtian nodded.
His Yuan Power cultivation was still only at ordinary Reincarnation.
To even think about the Ancestor Realm, he needed at least three Tribulations, like the Ancient Masters.
Otherwise he'd be gambling his life on empty dreams.
With Ling Ying handling the path itself, his heart felt much lighter.
He finally had the space to look around.
The final confrontation with the Demonic Prison had collapsed into chaos with the Heavenly King Hall's mad gamble.
The armies had won nothing that felt like victory.
Everyone understood that the real crisis had only begun.
The seal was broken.
The Yimo Emperor was free of his inner shackles.
He waited now just beyond the dimensional rift, ready to step through at any time.
When he did, the real catastrophe would arrive.
Soon, the three great alliances withdrew from the Western Xuan Region.
Everyone but the very top experts went home.
Armies were meaningless now.
The news of what had happened in the Western Xuan Region spread across the land in days.
Panic followed in its wake.
People looked up at the blue sky and felt as if they could see, far above the firmament, a shape of pure destruction drawing closer and closer.
The pressure of it lay over the entire continent.
Fear simmered everywhere.
Yet most did not fall into complete despair.
They still had the Ice Master.
So long as she strove for the Ancestor Realm, there was hope.
For now, Ying Huanhuan was the only light in the dark.
As for Lin Langtian, he left the Western Xuan Region and went straight back to the Heavenly Mansion.
He would cross the three Reincarnation Tribulations in one leap.
…
Back mountain, Heavenly Mansion.
On a solitary peak, Lin Langtian sat cross-legged at its summit.
Mist rolled around the surrounding ridges in shifting waves.
His heart settled into calm.
He turned his head and smiled at Ling Qingzhu and the others waiting on a distant cliff, then closed his eyes.
The Reincarnation Tribulation sprung from within.
It made no sound or storm.
Yet every peak Reincarnation expert in history had feared it more than any blade.
Once you fell into the Reincarnation Tide, you never escaped.
You only sank deeper, forgetting yourself entirely until your body withered and your soul vanished.
Even the Black Hall's master, Bo Xuan, had died under it.
To face all three Tribulations at once was something almost no one in all of time had dared imagine.
Only the Ice Master, and now Lin Dong, had attempted it before.
As Lin Langtian's eyes slid shut, the Yuan Power wrapped around him vanished.
His aura faded completely.
A passing cloud drifted over the peak, hiding him entirely.
To any sense but the naked eye, he no longer existed.
On the cliff, Zhou Tong and the rest watched his qi disappear and knew he had already stepped into the Tribulation.
With a wave of Zhou Tong's sleeve, a glowing shield spread over the peak, cutting it off from the outside world.
"It's up to the Palace Master now," he said quietly.
"Big Brother will definitely succeed," Jinwu said, without a flicker of doubt.
He had grown up under Lin Langtian's shadow.
Faith in him was bone-deep.
Ling Qingzhu's lips curved slightly. "This breakthrough won't be a short one," she said softly. "I'll cultivate as well."
Her eyes lingered on the distant figure shrouded in cloud.
She had left too much to him already.
This time, at least let her stand at his side.
Her figure blurred and reappeared upon a neighboring peak.
There she sat, eyes drifting shut as a subtle, unfathomable aura seeped from her body.
"The rest of us… can only wait," Zhou Tong said with a sigh.
Time passed like running water.
Day after day, the invisible pressure on the world grew.
More and more people felt the approaching presence above the sky.
Fear mounted.
Only the Ice Master's secluded struggle for the Ancestor Realm kept the continent from tearing itself apart.
One after another, powerful experts made their way to the Chaotic Demon Sea, gathering near the formation where she cultivated.
Islands overflowed with people.
Tense, anxious gazes stayed fixed on the sky.
At the heart of the great formation, an ice sculpture remained as motionless as stone.
Ying Huanhuan drank in the torrent of power from the array like a bottomless well—with no sign of waking.
Uncertainty spread.
…
Half a year slipped by.
The Chaotic Demon Sea grew more restless with each passing day.
The Heavenly Mansion's back mountain, by contrast, stayed quiet.
Dust coated the lone figure on the peak.
Zhou Tong and the others kept watch from the cliff.
In those six months, Lin Langtian's body had changed again and again.
At first, he had aged with frightening speed.
Even his black hair had turned white, and a thick scent of death hung about him.
Their hearts had nearly stopped.
Then, at the height of his decay, youth had begun to return—too much of it.
His always-handsome face smoothed out into something younger, greener.
He looked exactly like the boy he had once been.
Time and again he cycled between withered and youthful, old and childlike.
Through it all, Zhou Tong and the others could feel the storms churning within him.
The changes in his flesh were only the surface.
The true struggle lay deep inside the wheel of Reincarnation.
No one could see that trial.
But there was no doubt.
It was the kind of trial that terrified even those who only watched from afar.
(END CHAPTER)
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