Trials of the Abyss

Chapter 529: Unexpected Fortune

The Imperial Dominion was filled with incomprehensible phenomena.

True Gods and Rank Ten powerhouses emerged from the shadows one after another.

Six Mirror Tunnels lay hidden in the skies outside the fragmented land, waiting to ensnare unsuspecting True Gods.

Two clusters of clouds, each symbolizing a divine seat, appeared over the fragmented land as heretical cultivators attempted their ascension to the True God Realm.

In the south, Gui Mu slaughtered the Outer Gods of the Ghost Race and attacked the Rank Ten warrior, Wu Bi.

Meanwhile, the other True God of the Ghost Sacrifice Sect, Mu Wentao, had betrayed the human race and secretly aided Jiang Cen in ascending to the True God Realm.

Fortunately, Wanderer Tian Du, another True God, intervened.

A chain of unexpected events had unfolded across the Imperial Dominion, with many unimaginable occurrences occurring.

However, the most unbelievable thing happened after Jiang Cen's failed attempt at ascension.

The cluster of radiant clouds symbolizing a divine seat was heading toward Pang Jian!

Pang Jian was not even at the peak of the Nirvana Realm and clearly did not fulfill the necessary criteria for the divine seat to be drawn to him.

The Abyss, the bizarre mist, and the divine seats each had their own immutable rules.

Divine seats only ever gathered when a peak Immortal Realm cultivator attempted to ascend to the True God Realm.

This seemingly unshakable law was broken on this day.

"Pang Jian!"

The transcendent beings watching from the shadows were shaken to their cores.

The attention of True Gods, Outer Gods, and Rank Ten foreign race warriors alike was drawn to the cluster of radiant clouds descending toward Pang Jian.

Pang Jian stood in the heart of Imperial Dominion City, expression unfocused and bewildered. The Gate of the Abyss appeared to be pulling in the crystalline radiance emanating from the cluster of clouds symbolizing a divine seat.

The bronze pendant, a symbol of the World God, held unfathomable mysteries and could even revive fallen Rank Ten Fey Gods through blood essence.

Thus, while Pang Jian was astonished at the turn of events, he did not find it entirely beyond comprehension.

No occurrence surrounding the Gate of the Abyss, no matter how bizarre, could truly surprise him.

A moment later, he realized something was amiss.

The slightly ajar Gate of the Abyss emitted a prismatic ray of light, strikingly similar to the descending crystalline radiance.

It shot directly into his sea of consciousness and illuminated his golden divine soul.

This prismatic ray of light merely presented him before the cluster of clouds as if making it aware that another choice lay before it. It was not actively drawing the divine seat into the Gate of the Abyss.

The radiant clouds were heading toward Pang Jian's sea of consciousness!

It sought to merge with his divine soul!

How is this possible? Pang Jian's divine soul trembled with disbelief.

Whoosh!

The Heavenly Demon Armor covering his divine soul shifted back into a greenish-black sea of demonic energy that flowed from his sea of consciousness back to his dantian.

Unlike before, the greenish-black sea did not rest beneath the fragmented land, instead becoming a boundless ocean that spread across the fragmented land itself.

The demonic energy flows like water, formless and ever-changing. This sea seems to satisfy the missing element in your dantian, the Abyssal Demon observed. But the descent of these radiant clouds...truly defies all comprehension.

The radiant clouds pressed downward with an unyielding momentum, heading steadily toward Pang Jian's sea of consciousness.

Pang Jian's body and divine soul became locked in an immovable state.

He had no choice but to passively accept the inevitable.

An overwhelming wave of dread and unease washed over Pang Jian.

He knew his cultivation realm was insufficient and that his knowledge was shallow. His understanding of any of the Daos was far from the level required to ascend to the True God Realm.

This divine seat was like forcing a duck onto a perch, a coercive push in an act of forced ascension[1].

His master had suffered grievous injuries after failing to ascend to the True God Realm. Jiang Ran's failure had similarly resulted in a fall in his cultivation realm, leaving him broken in spirit and without the courage to make another attempt.

With great effort, Pang Jian managed to shift his eyes toward Jiang Cen.

Jiang Cen's body lay lifeless after failing to ascend.

The fact that the Abyssal Demon made no attempt to deliver a follow-up strike was a clear indication that Jiang Cen was undeniably dead.

Most of those who failed to ascend to the True God Realm suffered the same fate as Jiang Cen, with their divine souls completely obliterated.

Pang Jian did not want to die.

He vehemently resisted the descent of the divine seat. At his current strength, it was nothing short of a lethal poison promising an inevitable demise.

I never thought the Gate of the Abyss would be my undoing, Pang Jian lamented with a sigh of resignation.

A dazzling beam of light pierced his crown and into his golden divine soul.

Boom!

A multitude of enigmatic radiances burst forth in his mind.

Chaos always contained an inherent order and emerged as the natural state after the formation of heaven and earth.

There was a paradoxical unity in the boundless infinity of chaos, mirroring the vast diversity of an endless ocean.

Chaos, in its entirety, formed a complete path to godhood.

The ultimate number of nine governed one's progression through the cultivation realms, from the Qi Practicing Realm, the Meridian Opening Realm, the Marrow Cleansing Realm, the Innate Realm, the Profound Abode Realm, the Spirit Condensation Realm, the Soul Wandering Realm, the Nirvana Realm, and finally the Immortal Realm.

As the ninth and final realm, the Immortal Realm marked the threshold of becoming a divine being.

If one's divine soul achieved perfection at the penultimate Nirvana Realm, they gained the qualification to summon a divine seat and obtain the status of a True God while ascending to the Immortal Realm.

Purity was achieved by infusing one's divine soul with an abundance of divine consciousness during its refinement.

This fundamental knowledge of the Heavenly Daos became clear to Pang Jian when the crystalline radiance poured into his divine soul.

Pang Jian's divine soul had been refined using three thousand strands of divine sense imbued with divine consciousness when he ascended to the Spirit Condensation Realm.

Since the creation of the human race cultivation system, it had actually been theorized that reaching the Immortal Realm signified becoming a divine being, with the True God Realm merely being its perfected state.

No one ever drew a divine seat while still in the Nirvana Realm in the past simply because nobody had a flawless divine soul.

It was precisely because of imperfections in the divine soul that further refinement and tempering were required in the Immortal Realm.

However, Pang Jian's divine soul had long since achieved perfection, qualifying for a divine seat even while still in the Nirvana Realm and enabling him to achieve godhood earlier than usual.

His innate Primordial Chaos Spiritual Sea was, in itself, a complete path to godhood!

The fragmented land within his dantian contained the elements of Gold, Wood, Fire, and Earth, along with lightning, ice, and celestial bodies such as the sun, moons, and stars, reflecting the formation of the natural world.

The sea of demonic energy supplied the missing element of Water, thus completing the crucial balance of the Five Elements.

Though his Primordial Chaos Spiritual Sea had not yet reached true perfection, its embryonic foundation was sufficient for him to forge a path to godhood through the Dao of Chaos.

I-I actually qualify! I could ascend as an Immortal Realm God! Pang Jian trembled at the realization.

He was poised to ascend to godhood from the Nirvana Realm, an unprecedented feat in the history of the Abyss!

***

Whoosh!

Gui Mu's towering figure emerged from the southern barren wasteland of the Imperial Dominion, her azure robe fluttering around her.

Behind her, a colossal pool materialized out of thin air. Its sheer size nearly covered the southern skies. The pool was unfathomably deep and seemed to hold the souls of countless beings within.

The three towns, home to restless wandering souls and ghost cultivators—Dead Spirit Town, Ghost Spirit Town, and Sinister Soul Town—were drawn uncontrollably into the pool.

The pool slowly started to turn as it transformed into an unimaginably massive millstone.

As the millstone ground, the three towns, along with the wandering souls and ghost cultivators within them, were pulverized into dust and absorbed into the pool.

Jiang Cen's path to godhood involved replicating the Pool of Reincarnation to forge his Netherworld Pool, which would transform into a millstone beneath him.

Unfortunately, a replica, no matter how refined, could never match the original.

Although Jiang Cen had found a path to godhood and confirmed its viability with Zi Mo, he only realized the immense difficulty of forging this divine path when attempting to implement it.

His understanding of the netherworld and the insights he had gained from the Shadow Specter Arts were insufficient to sustain and complete this divine path.

Jiang Cen's failure to ascend was not because of Pang Jian's interference but his own shortcomings.

Like many predecessors over the past millennia, he believed he had mastered a divine path, only to falter halfway.

Most of those attempting to ascend to godhood failed.

Successful ascensions were far rarer, with only one in ten at most.

Gui Mu's brow twitched. "Drawing a divine seat while in the Nirvana Realm. This—"

Behind her, the pool that had transformed into the Reincarnation Millstone abruptly vanished. She then silently disappeared, only to reappear high above the fragmented land.

The deep blackness in Jiang Ran's eyes dissipated the moment she appeared in the sky, causing his body to plummet.

Gui Mu extended a finger, freezing Jiang Ran's corpse mid-air.

Doubt was painted across her face as she peered down at Imperial Dominion City.

She completely ignored the battle between her junior brother, Mu Wentao, and Wanderer Tian Du, instead watching as the radiant clouds symbolizing a divine seat entered Pang Jian's sea of consciousness and merged into his divine soul.

Astonishingly, Pang Jian's divine soul did not collapse.

The crystalline radiance, brimming with profound knowledge, pierced Pang Jian's crown, much as it had once done with Jiang Cen.

However, there was a stark difference between the peak of the Immortal Realm Jiang Cen and the Nirvana Realm Pang Jian.

Gui Mu's eyes reflected an unfathomable depth as she mentally sifted through her knowledge of the divine seats, True Gods, and cultivation realms.

***

In a forest of withered trees in the eastern region of the Imperial Dominion, the wooden figure that served as the vessel for an Outer God had been destroyed.

The Sect Master of the Blackwood Sect, Mu Weifeng, lay lifeless in a pool of blood, and all the disciples of the Blackwood Sect had been killed.

Their dissipating auras of death flowed steadily into an ancient well.

Another cluster of radiant clouds symbolizing a divine seat descended into that well.

An elderly man bearing a striking resemblance to Jiang Ran stood in the middle of the forest.

He gazed at Jiang Ran's corpse, which Gui Mu had frozen in mid-air, and let out a faint sigh. "Victory always comes with sacrifice. In the past, you sacrificed others for the cause. You can hardly blame me for doing the same to you."

This elderly man was Jiang Fan, the True God of the Boundless Sky Divine Kingdom, and the once steadfast pillar of support for Jiang Ran.

1. Forcing a duck onto a perch (赶鸭子上架) is a Chinese idiom that means forcing someone into a difficult or unsuitable position, often when they are unprepared or unwilling. ☜