Chapter 818: Changing Fate! (2/2)
His expression was numb, but intense terror could be seen in his eyes.
At this point, the faint glow of dawn was just becoming visible. Soon, the strange phenomena inside the courtyard would disappear.
Killing intent flickered in the eyes of the crowd outside. This was especially true of the cultivators from Mount Sun and the Song Clan, and the various Chosen who were smitten with Fan Dong’er from the Nine Seas God World.
Meng Hao frowned. After looking up at the sky, he walked back into the temple hall, where he looked around at the Dao Projections and the ancient bronze lamp. Finally, he sighed.
“49 days total, but only half of them have gone by. Obviously… there’s no way I can keep people out of this place for that long.
“There are simply too many of them outside. So far, I’ve only been able to stretch things out for two days….” He stood in front of the bronze lamp and looked at the flickering flame. During the day, the flame would go out, but after having observed the item for so long, Meng Hao knew that the flame itself wasn’t truly extinguished. The heart of the flame still existed.
The lamp itself only burned brightly at night.
Muttering, Meng Hao once again poured some blood into the flames, which hissed and then emitted a delicate fragrance that left him feeling enlivened after smelling it.
“I’m not supposed to let anyone come inside to touch the lamp and contaminate it with their aura. It’s… fundamentally impossible to meet that requirement.” Meng Hao sighed. The more he thought about it, the more it seemed completely unfeasible. Furthermore, the sky was almost bright….
Meng Hao could sense the killing intent coming from the groups outside the courtyard. He was like a thorn in their sides, someone blocking their path to good fortune. Furthermore, some of that killing intent resulted directly from him offending people.
“Well, if I have to ask for help from dad and mom because of something as trivial as this, then I’m not Meng Hao!” His eyes began to shine with a cold gleam. Before reaching Dao Seeking, he had not relied on any assistance from his father and mother. He had stepped halfway into true Immortality all by himself.
He had experienced multiple deadly situations, had battled the 10th Wang Clan Patriarch in the Milky Way Sea, had tread the narrow gap between life and death, had fought in the great war of the Southern Domain, and had risen to the pinnacle of prominence.
Those were all things that made Meng Hao feel quite proud of himself.
“Besides, my road leads beyond South Heaven, whereas dad and mom… must stay here for 100,000 years. I have to walk my path alone. If I want good fortune… I’ll take the risks myself and earn it myself!
“If I did it any differently, I’d be the same as all of those people out there.” The desire to fight gleamed in his eyes. He took a deep breath, when suddenly, a new idea appeared in his mind. He stopped in place, and a strange expression filled his face.
“Wait a second….
“That crazy old man said that I couldn’t let the flame be extinguished for 49 nights. He also said that I couldn’t let anyone come in here to touch the lamp.
“In other words, actually stepping foot into this place isn’t the problem. As long as no one touches the lamp, then the requirement will be met, right?” Meng Hao’s eyes sparkled.
“If that’s true, then it also goes to say that… it doesn’t matter what I do; I could even take the bronze lamp away from here. As long as nobody else touches it, and it remains unextinguished, then everything will be fine.”
Having reached this point in his train of thought, he began to pant. A gleam of determination appeared in his eyes, and he decided that since he couldn’t prevent everyone from entering this place, he might as well… try out his new idea!
He immediately stretched his hand out and grabbed the lamp. The instant he tried to actually pick it up, he realized that the lamp was completely immovable; there was no way for him to put it in his bag of holding. A strange light flickered in his eyes as he rotated his cultivation base at full power. His Dharma Idol appeared behind him, and Meng Hao used all the power he could muster to try to pull up the bronze lamp.
Shocking rumbles could be heard coming from within the temple hall. The ground trembled and the entire temple shook. A deep, subterranean rumble could be heard, as well as the sound of laughing and crying from the courtyard. The mountain range, and in fact, the entire land, was shaking violently.
The crowds outside the courtyard stared at the temple hall in shock.
In that instant, all of the lands of South Heaven were shaken, to the extent that the entire planet temporarily ceased to rotate!
The Milky Way Sea roared, and all the continents trembled. All the powerful experts in South Heaven were shaking in astonishment!
In the Tower of Tang, Meng Hao’s father and mother were in the middle of playing a game of Go when suddenly his father’s face flickered. Even as he looked up, Meng Hao’s mother’s face also flickered.
“That’s….”
“The Immortal Ancient is in motion. Not good! There must have been some kind of accident!” Meng Hao’s father rose to his feet and was just about to fly up into the air, when both he and Meng Hao’s mother stopped in place. Their expressions flickered as they saw a figure approaching from off in the distance.
He had long gray hair, an ordinary-looking robe, and looked completely archaic. His eyes were filled with the glow of heavenly bodies. Not only did he look like a person who existed inside a painting, he looked like the type of person who could paint a multitude of universes with a wave of his hand.
Meng Hao’s parents were immediately shaken. They clasped hands and bowed.
“Xiufeng offers greetings, senior!”
“Meng Li offers respectful greetings, senior!”
This was the same man who had appeared to them on Planet East Victory, and had indicated that they should come to Planet South Heaven. He was the one who had directed them to guard the planet for 100,000 years. He was… an Outsider!
If Meng Hao were here, he would immediately recognize that this person was… Shui Dongliu! [1. Here is a brief refresher about Shui Dongliu. He was introduced in chapters 194 and 197 during the Song Clan search for a son-in-law. He helped Meng Hao seal the Resurrection Lily into a painting in chapter 208. Er Gen joked about him in the interlude after chapter 222. He made a super brief appearance in chapter 383, when Meng Hao refined the Eyeless Larva. He prevented Ji Nineteen from severing Meng Hao’s Karma in chapter 425. Finally, he helped Meng Hao acquire the Eternal Stratum in chapter 693.]
“The chance for the Immortal was consumed by the Dao of Heaven,” he murmured. “The Dao path has overlapped with the ancient. I saw nine fluttering butterflies once again flying in approach [2. This is not the first time nine butterflies have been mentioned in the story. If you don’t remember you can check out chapters 555, 587, 613, 652 and chapter 664]. I saw the one who has vanished; and the look in his eyes as he turned his head to look back…. It can’t be predicted anymore, and I can’t see through it anymore…. He… actually managed to change his fate!” A strange gleam appeared in his eyes as he gazed toward the Immortal Ancient Daoist Rite Temple in the distant mountains.