Chapter 4837: Tempering
In the blink of an eye, a thousand years passed as Lin Moyu sat motionless before the divine hall.
A millennium was not long in a cultivator's life, just a flick of a finger, yet for Lin Moyu, these thousand years held extraordinary meaning.
He sought no realm breakthrough and no new laws.
He was comprehending the Dao true comprehension.
What he sought was not the so called Great Dao of heaven and earth, nor the Dao of rules, but his own Dao heart his own unique heavenly Dao.
"My Dao heart can contain all things, contain life and death, contain illusion and reality, contain yin and yang, and even contain heaven and earth."
"My Dao heart can bear the Great Dao of heaven and earth, can bear the rules of heaven and earth, can bear the time and space of eternity."
"My Dao heart stands above heaven and earth, at the peak of all living beings."
"My Dao heart can evolve all things and create living beings."
As he grasped the heart of the Great Dao, the protective divine radiance around Lin Moyu grew ever more brilliant.
Within that light, all kinds of lifeforms took shape, and faintly, a world emerged.
The world burst like a bubble and then gave rise to more worlds.
Uncountable worlds rose and sank within the divine radiance, and countless living beings were conceived within them.
The light shone without fading; within it, the worlds seemed to undergo cycles of reincarnation, experiencing endless time.
After a thousand years, a soft murmur slipped from Lin Moyu's lips.
"My Dao heart shall open the heavens and split the earth, create a void, and evolve infinite worlds."
His eyes snapped open.
His Dao heart roared; the protective divine radiance shot straight to the skies.
Above the clouds, the divine road and its halls rang in response, resonating with his light.
His Dao heart had changed, and with it the radiance, and with that, the very foundation of his formations transformed.
He took out the sixteen Dao heart source stones he had obtained before.
With a thought, his divine radiance washed over them, and the stones melted like flowing water, merging into his Dao heart.
His Dao heart grew solid; the protective radiance turned from illusory to real, and the worlds within it became tangible.
"My Dao heart has reached perfection."
He let out a long breath.
The protective radiance became the base of his formations, with worlds being born and dying inside each "foundation."
A single formation base was like a world.
It was as though he used worlds themselves as formation anchors.
The Nine Heavens Slaughter Formation appeared.
As the base strengthened, the formation itself grew stronger.
"The slaughter formation is at least ten times stronger, and my Dao heart has only just entered perfection and continues to grow it will only get stronger."
"It is time to enter the hall."
He merged with the sealing formation and strode into the divine hall.
The Nine Heavens Slaughter Formation fell into place in an instant.
The Primordial Savage Fiend had only just awakened before it could utter so much as a single vicious line, it was shredded by the formation.
The Nine Heavens Slaughter Formation, now more than ten times stronger, killed the fiend even faster and more brutally than before.
This was only the beginning.
Lin Moyu advanced from hall to hall, sweeping all before him, unstoppable.
The fiends grew stronger, but so did the Nine Heavens Slaughter Formation.
With the Dao heart perfected and the sixteen source stones slowly absorbed, his Dao heart's growth far outpaced the fiends' in the halls.
With every hall he cleared, his body and soul grew by another ten percent.
In just half a day, he reached the forty first divine hall.
The sealing formation here was stronger, yet still within his expectations.
Through it, he saw yet another kind of fiend.
The Primordial Savage Fiend had grown more powerful, but compared to the Nine Heavens Slaughter Formation, it was still far behind.
One glance was enough; Lin Moyu stepped in with easy confidence, and the Nine Heavens Slaughter Formation fell.
The forty first hall fiend suppressed and slain.
The forty second hall slain.
The forty ninth hall likewise.
A thousand years of enlightenment allowed Lin Moyu to surge to the fifty first hall in a single day.
Out of ninety nine halls, more than half were now behind him.
The fifty first hall was once again wrapped in a sealing formation, which meant, naturally, another Primordial Savage Fiend inside.
Standing outside, Lin Moyu faintly sensed a trace of the fiend's aura the seal had not fully isolated it.
"It has changed again.
"The Primordial Savage Fiend here is not simple."
The formation was extremely powerful, yet could not fully conceal the fiend within its strength was on a different level from the ones before.
Placing his hand on the formation, Lin Moyu saw the fiend inside.
A dragon shaped Primordial Savage Fiend was coiled in the center of the hall.
The instant Lin Moyu's gaze fell upon it, it opened its eyes.
Scarlet, ferocious pupils clashed with his line of sight.
Lin Moyu's soul roared, and even his Dao heart trembled.
"Very strong."
"The sealing formation could not fully bind it it only keeps it from moving."
He realized that even such a powerful seal had not knocked the creature unconscious, merely immobilized it.
Even with his Nine Heavens Slaughter Formation, killing it would not be easy.
"Difficult, but not impossible."
"Judging from past experience, the fiends in this set of ten halls will keep getting stronger.
"By the time these ten are cleared, the Nine Heavens Slaughter Formation will likely be at its limit."
"After that, easy suppression will no longer be possible.
"My Dao heart has already reached perfection and will not grow much further in the short term.
"It seems another method will be needed later."
"For now, kill first and think later."
Lin Moyu entered the hall, and the Nine Heavens Slaughter Formation descended with a roar.
The dragon shaped fiend thrashed wildly within, shaking the array, but Lin Moyu condensed the formation bases with his Dao heart and erased it bit by bit.
This battle lasted several dozen days.
It was far from the old pace of sweeping through twenty halls in a day.
This fiend marked a leap in level, as if it had jumped to a new major realm, putting no small pressure on Lin Moyu.
His Dao heart's growth was also nearing its end; the sixteen source stones had been mostly absorbed, and though he could still grow stronger, the speed slowed sharply.
He adjusted his rhythm, proceeding steadily and carefully through each hall.
By the sixtieth divine hall, the battle was brutally hard; it took three full years to conclude.
The fiend's attacks were ferocious beyond measure.
Had his body and soul not been strong enough, and had he not had the Dao heart radiance as protection, he might have perished.
This fight pushed the Nine Heavens Slaughter Formation to its absolute limit.
The array shattered again and again, and Lin Moyu repeatedly re cast it, wearing the fiend down a little at a time.
Had the fiend's strength been any higher, the balance of victory would have tipped the other way.
When his injuries had mostly healed and the creature's lingering power had been wiped out, Lin Moyu bathed once more in divine light; his body and soul were strengthened again.
By now, they had grown sixfold yet still had not reached their ultimate limit.
Body and soul were the foundation of everything, and Lin Moyu felt that the unknown master had arranged matters this way for a reason.
Only after fully recovering did he set foot again on the divine road, arriving at the sixty first hall.
"Changed again."
There was no sealing formation outside this hall, which meant no fiend inside.
Lin Moyu let out a quiet breath of relief.
Had there been yet another fiend, he truly did not know how he would cope.
He had gone all out in the last battle; there were no tricks left.
The master of the halls seemed to understand this as well and thus made a change here.
"What will it be this time?"
He studied the hall, yet saw no clues no stone tablets, no inscriptions, no hints.
His Dao heart and soul sensed no danger, either.
"It must be inside."
Lifting a foot, he stepped into the hall.
The instant he crossed the threshold, the hall vanished, replaced by a boundless void.
"This is…"
Lin Moyu saw a scene that shook him to his core.