Lin Moyu did not say a word. He swung his fist and hammered it toward Boyang Supreme. Vast soul force poured down like a waterfall from the Ninth Heaven, forcibly locking onto Boyang Supreme and preventing him from escaping. Supreme aura raged wildly in the void, the posture almost one of fight to the death.
"We can talk this out, do not…" Boyang Supreme did not even finish speaking before he was drowned under Lin Moyu's fists. In an instant it was tens of thousands of punches. Boyang Supreme defended with all his strength, but his defense lasted less than half a second before being blasted apart. Lin Moyu's fists were very, very heavy, beating Boyang Supreme until his skin split and flesh tore, screams unending. On the level of the body, Boyang Supreme was far inferior to Lin Moyu. Facing Lin Moyu's sudden frenzied bombardment, he could only endure the beating.
In just a few seconds Lin Moyu had thrown at least several hundred thousand punches, every blow landing solidly, nearly blasting Boyang Supreme's body apart. After that storm-like pummeling, when Lin Moyu finally stopped, Boyang Supreme no longer looked human.
Lin Moyu let out a long breath. "That felt good. I said before I would hit you. I, Lin, keep my word."
Green radiance flickered over Boyang Supreme's body. His mangled form slowly recovered, though he carried a hint of anger. "You went a bit too far."
Lin Moyu chuckled. "You lot forcibly took my wife away. I beat you once, and that is going too far?"
Boyang Supreme said, "We did it for your own good."
Lin Moyu snorted in disdain. "I do not care about your reasons. The fact is you separated me and my wife. There is no arguing that away. And do not claim you had no selfish motives. Everyone knows the truth in their hearts. You do not need to explain and I will not listen."
Boyang and Purple-Star, that pair of Dao companions, took his wife away. On the surface it was to protect him, to keep the Calamity Supreme from abducting her and to lessen his weaknesses. In fact they also had their own motives. They wanted to use Ning Yiyi and the others as leverage against him. They had at least shown some restraint and treated Ning Yiyi and the rest reasonably well. Otherwise this would not have been settled with a simple beating.
Boyang Supreme smiled wryly. "Plans never keep up with change. Daoist Lin's cultivation speed is truly astounding."
"All right, I have already beaten you. We are even," Lin Moyu said. "Now speak. What did you come to me for this time?"
He had long since understood Boyang Supreme's plan. After learning that the Calamity Supreme was not dead, Boyang and the others had deduced his layout and started looking for ways to respond. By coincidence they had also found another Heaven-and-Earth, which gave them hope of breaking through to Supreme. Unfortunately, despite many years of effort, Purple-Star Supreme had not succeeded. Later Lin Moyu had given Purple-Star a lump of Primordial-Beginning Qi. With good fortune, she might leverage that to push a little further, but reaching the Calamity Supreme's level would be extremely difficult.
Boyang Supreme's form gradually returned to human shape, though his body was still mottled red and purple. Lin Moyu's fist force was not so easy to expel. With a helpless smile he said, "I actually came to thank you for the opportunity you provided. Purple-Star is just a step away from breaking through, so I came to find you."
"You should understand that with only that lump of Primordial-Beginning Qi, at best she can barely surpass the Supreme level. There is still a gap to the realm those few have reached," Lin Moyu said. "But as long as you use it properly, you may be able to get through this Great Calamity safely."
"We know," Boyang Supreme said. "But in that case we would be too passive."
Lin Moyu frowned slightly. "You want to act first."
Boyang Supreme nodded. "To be frank, we have found another Heaven-and-Earth. That one seems stronger and also more dangerous. So we wanted to invite Daoist Lin…"
"You want to trade," Lin Moyu said, looking at him.
Boyang Supreme grunted acknowledgment. "I do not know if Daoist Lin would be willing."
"It is not a matter of willing or not," Lin Moyu replied. "It is a matter of what exactly you want to do. Do you want to preserve your lives, or do you want to compete with them for a place?"
"You have helped me many times," he went on. "So I will speak plainly. If you want to stay alive, I can help. If you want to compete, I can only advise you to forget it. The Transcendent seat of this Heaven-and-Earth is already decided. It will not be yours."
Hearing that, Boyang Supreme seemed to understand. "The Great-Sword Supreme."
In Boyang Supreme's words, the one who ruled the Upper Region, Baizhong Supreme, sat over Heaven-and-Earth Sourcewater. The Sourcewater constantly filtered the Dao, making all Dao in the Upper Region extremely pure. That was both good and not good. Solitary yang does not grow, solitary yin does not give life. Baizhong Supreme wanted to change this. He planned to add another layer above the Heaven-and-Earth Sourcewater so that some Dao would not pass through it. In this way the Upper Region would change and there would appear some unfiltered Dao. Any being who cultivated and comprehended such Dao could become the other side of the Upper Region, allowing yin and yang to complement and balance one another. He had worked hard on this, but with little result.
Boyang Supreme took Lin Moyu straight to the core of the Upper Region, where the Heaven-and-Earth Sourcewater lay.
"This is the Heaven-and-Earth Sourcewater," Boyang Supreme said. "Daoist Lin, does it look familiar?"
"So this is Heaven-and-Earth Sourcewater," Lin Moyu said quietly.
It was his second time seeing the Heaven-and-Earth Sourcewater. The first had been back in the Great World, when he had just stepped into the Other Shore. Then he had seen a pool of water with a large gourd hanging above it. The gourd was covered in small holes, from which Ancestral Water continuously flowed. Part of it fell into the pool, and part flowed toward the myriad worlds of Heaven-and-Earth. He had thought he was just seeing a scene within the Great World, but he never found a corresponding location there. Later, when he saw the Realm Sea and learned of the Origin Continent, he thought the Ancestral Water might come from there, yet he still did not find it. After that he grew lazy and decided to leave it to fate. He had not expected the source of Ancestral Water to be in the Upper Region of this Heaven-and-Earth.
The structure of the Heaven-and-Earth Sourcewater was extremely complex, its whole form like a pagoda. A lake floated in the highest part of the void, constantly overflowing its waters. That lake was the Heaven-and-Earth Sourcewater. It filtered the Dao. All Dao in the Upper Region had to pass through its filtration. Once filtered, the Dao became incomparably pure and all impurities were left in the lake. As the overflowing water flowed downward, below it were countless gourds, all identical in shape and covered in small holes. They received the Heaven-and-Earth Sourcewater and, after a second round of filtration and fusion, the water flowed out through the myriad holes. Part of it formed small pools under the gourds and the rest poured into the void and vanished.
What Lin Moyu had seen before was one such gourd and pool. There were at least tens of thousands of these gourd-pools, staggered at different heights in the void, forming the overall pattern of the Heaven-and-Earth Sourcewater.
Boyang Supreme explained, "The lake at the very top is the Heaven-and-Earth Sourcewater. The gourds below are called Ancestral Water."
Lin Moyu grunted softly. In many of the Ancestral Water pools he saw beings moving about, collecting Ancestral Water. Ancestral Water had many uses. It could be used for battle, cultivation, or even pill refining and artifact forging. He still had a single drop of Ancestral Water essence in hand which he had never used. Now it was already obsolete.
His gaze swept across the Sourcewater and soon landed on a point of light he knew all too well. It was exactly where the Calamity Supreme's array was placed. The Calamity Supreme had set the Upper Region array near the Heaven-and-Earth Sourcewater to draw on its power. As one of the rarest waters in the Chaotic Primewild, the Sourcewater contained immense power at a level beyond Supremes and close to the rules themselves.
In the end, no matter how strong the Calamity Supreme's arrays were, they could only adapt to the rules, not surpass them. He used the arrays to draw in the Sourcewater's power to form a part of the formation as a whole. Only when the power drawn from all twelve arrays merged might it reach an entirely new level. At that time, the Calamity Supreme's full plan would be completely revealed.
"Since it is here, I may as well save myself the trouble of looking," Lin Moyu thought. He had come to the Upper Region to find this last array anyway. Now the work of searching was gone.
Letting his gaze pass beyond the array to the lake of Sourcewater, he saw the space above the lake rippling in a highly unnatural way. There was a spatial passage there that led to another Heaven-and-Earth. Outside the passage, Baizhong Supreme stood in white robes, already aware of Lin Moyu and Boyang Supreme. His voice floated over from afar.
"Daoist Lin, please come up."
"We should go," Boyang Supreme said. "The fellow is probably getting impatient."
The two of them flew up and stood above the Heaven-and-Earth Sourcewater, clearly feeling its wonder. The Sourcewater and the Heaven-and-Earth Watermother seemed to share the same origin, though their roles differed. The Sourcewater filtered Dao impurities, making the Dao pure. After filtering, it turned the Sourcewater containing Dao impurities into Heaven-and-Earth Ancestral Water and sent it to the myriad worlds. In some lower level worlds those Dao impurities were already extremely pure and powerful forces. The Heaven-and-Earth Watermother, on the other hand, dissolved the Dao and turned it into nothing.
In Lin Moyu's eyes this was a kind of cycle, a cycle belonging to the Dao. The Heaven-and-Earth Sourcewater represented life, while the Heaven-and-Earth Watermother represented nothingness. He realized that Baizhong Supreme's effort to alter the Sourcewater and reform the Upper Region was, in fact, the wrong approach. What he should have done was seek out the Heaven-and-Earth Watermother and use both Sourcewater and Watermother, these two waters of the same origin, to comprehend Heaven-and-Earth and to purify himself. That might have given him a chance to shatter the limit of Supreme.
There were many ways to break through Supreme. The path was not just one. It only depended on whether you could find it.
Seeing Lin Moyu silent, Baizhong Supreme asked, "Daoist Lin, did something occur to you?"
"Nothing," Lin Moyu said. "I just remembered the past."
Baizhong Supreme smiled. "Back then, this old man only wished to meet Daoist Lin and form a bit of goodwill."
"I understand. The Heaven-and-Earth Ancestral Water you gave indeed helped me greatly. I remember that favor," Lin Moyu replied.
"This is just a small matter. Daoist Lin need not dwell on it," Baizhong Supreme said.
"Daoist Baizhong is kind with water, so naturally you know even a drop of grace should be repaid with a spring. I am clear in my heart. When it is time to repay, I will naturally do so," Lin Moyu said.
Baizhong Supreme did not linger on the topic and turned to the main matter. "Boyang has already told you of the situation here, has he not?"
He glanced at Boyang Supreme and paused briefly. Only then did he notice Boyang's face, mottled red and purple, with faint fist marks still visible. Clearly he had been beaten. It did not take much to guess who had done it. There were not many in this Heaven-and-Earth who could pummel Boyang Supreme. Baizhong naturally did not expose it and kept his expression calm, preserving Boyang's dignity.
"Yes," Lin Moyu said. "I assume you have already visited that Heaven-and-Earth."
Baizhong Supreme nodded. "It suddenly appeared and drew in a large amount of Heaven-and-Earth Sourcewater. Once I discovered it, I immediately formed an avatar and followed the Sourcewater through. After the avatar arrived, it only saw a few broken scenes before falling. That Heaven-and-Earth is extremely dangerous."
He gently tapped a finger in the void, revealing what the avatar had seen. The avatar of Baizhong Supreme had passed through the spatial passage with the Sourcewater and entered that Heaven-and-Earth. Immediately, the Heaven-and-Earth Sourcewater vaporized, and the avatar himself also vaporized. Before that happened he had seen a silver-white giant mountain, glowing. It was the light from that mountain that had vaporized the Sourcewater and Baizhong Supreme's avatar.