Vol 16 Chapter 5 (2/2)

“I ask to be carefree and unbound, to control ’s Dao-heart rapidly began to condense and strengthen, and as it did, the aura of the young body that was floating about within the Nihiluthen as well

Ning slowly regained consciousness His radually returned to him

That faith, that chant…it had come from his very essence, rather than from his mind or consciousness

Now that his an to heal eveneven firmer and more dense “It was indeed my fault that they died…but they are already dead All that is in the past There is no way to reverse the flow of ti one’s self for somade a fool of by fate! The only one who rules over myself…is myself!”

Whoooosh

The youth floating within the dark void waves of the Nihiluleamed like the stars, filled with unfathomable profoundness

“I survived The karmic sinflames…I endured them,” the youth murmured softly

The karmic sinflames had already turned invisible It was difficult to see them with the naked eye; one had to use divine sense or coresense to see them The invisible karer conjured any more illusions The likes of the ‘soulkiller tribulation’, the ‘red dust tribulation’, and the ‘thousand lives heart-tribulation’ would no longer appear The kar’s soul, causing Ning to feel pain

This pain could not co the first tribulation, the ‘soulkiller tribulation’; the soulkiller tribulation brought pain into one’s very essence, and thus could increase without any limit By contrast, there was a li

However…the pain one felt when one’s soul was being burnt was far greater than the pain one felt when one’s flesh was being burnt

Although surviving karony of having one’s soul being burned…this, too, was a form of punishment for sin

“No wonder everyone says that those who can survive kar sighed “If a vile fiend truly did decide to kill countless innocents and cause karmic sinflames to descend, and yet was still able to withstand the thousand lives heart-tribulation…one can iine what sort of a heart he has!”

“After having survived the karmic sinflames, my heart has reached the ‘iceheart’ level; in fact, I nearly reached the ‘ruler’ level,” Ning sighed to himself

At the last instant, he had broken free of his shackles and awoken

This was because within his heart, he had a powerful desire sustaining him…and this desire called hi realize that he had to be the one as the ruler of his own destiny Even if he was to die…he should only die if he himself chose to die As for any others ished to et about it!

Still, although he understood this in principle, Ning also realized that he hadn’t truly reached the ‘ruler’ level

[Houyi’s Archery] broke heartforce out into multiple levels The first level was the basic level, the second level was the iceheart level, and the third level was the ruler level!

Once one reached the ‘ruler’ level…one would be the absolute et about trying to shake one’s heart If one truly did reach the ‘ruler’ level, neither the red dust tribulation nor the thousand lives heart-tribulation would be able to cause Ning’s aura to weaken in the slightest This was because Ning would be able to con, outside es

If the ‘iceheart’ level could be described as co one’s inner heart fro utter cold calmness, then the ‘ruler’ level was a form of supremacy and transcendence It is better to channel than to dam; experts who had reached the ‘ruler’ level in heartforce would no longer act to intentionally suppress their emotions and desires, not even in the innermost depths of their heart

Let any e the floods, no matter aves or floods come, one would be the master of them all

“I’m not quite there yet”

“The final tribulation, the thousand lives heart-tribulation, causedperfection I’ knew this…but although he knew and could sense that at the end, when he was in the grips of despair, he even touched what it h to truly reach that level would take a long time

A breakthrough in the spirit…

This was evenin a Dao

For I of all was the Dao-heart Next cahts into the Dao Last of all was one’s cultivation base!

If one’s Dao-heart was insufficient…no h your cultivation base was or how many Daos you had co berserk The more powerful you were, the more likely you would die, in fact!

The Dao-heart had to be powerful Only with a powerful Dao-heart and enough insights into the Dao should a person break through to the next cultivation level For eniuses and reincarnated I enough Dao-hearts and enough insights into the Dao that they could simply use liquefied elemental essence and spirit-pills to increase their cultivation base to the level they wanted it to be at However, no matter what they did, they wouldn’t raise it to a level which was beyond what their Dao-hearts or cultivation bases could handle

One could rapidly increase one’s cultivation base, but there was no shortcut to strengthening the Dao-heart or co the Dao

“Despite all this, I was still unable to reach the ‘ruler’ level What a pity If I had reached it…I would have beco sighed

[Houyi’s Archery] divided heartforce up into five major levels

The third level was the ‘ruler’ level; at this level, one could be considered one of the supreme divine archers of the Three Realms

The fourth level was the level which the absolute best divine archers of the current Three Realms had reached

As for the fifth level…this was Houyi’s level However, this divine archer of the Primordial Era, Houyi, had disappeared for countless years Some claimed he was dead, while others said that he had secluded hioneIt was very rare for an expert to be patient enough to go into hiding for that long without interacting with any otherdead

Ning had nearly perfected the second level of heartforce, ‘iceheart’ His heartforce was so powerful that he could now be considered one of the top divine archers of the Three Realms

Before this, Ning had h to let hist the divine archers

Rumble…

A voidwave swept across Ning, pushi+ng hi him to his senses

“What a powerful wave If I hadn’t trained in the [Eight-Nine Arcane Art], I would’ve died long ago” Only now did Ning leave his state of pensiveness and cos He ithin an utterly dark void, and he could vaguely e about “What is this place? Uh…why isn’t there any natural energy here at all?”

Ning discovered to his astonishy of Heaven and Earth here Iy in order to replenish their elemental ki, while Iy

“And…where is the Dao?”

“The Dao of the Heavens?”

In the past, he could clearly sense the Grand Dao of the Sword, the Grand Dao of the Waterdrop, as well asdiscovered to his amazement that now none of them seemed to exist He couldn’t sense the…which meant that no matter how he infused his swordplay with the profound mysteries of the Dao, he wouldn’t be able to summon any of the power of the natural world at all

“No natural eley…and not even the Dao of the Heavens exists?” Ning stared into the black, dark void around him in disbelief “Where…where is this place?!”