Chapter 232: Last step
Only those who had laid eyes upon the Azure Dragon Continent with their own eyes remembered that such a colossal stretch of land even existed — a landmass so vast it swallowed the horizon, ancient and silent as a sleeping god. Yet even that knowledge amounted to nothing.
The Absolute Concealment formation was not merely carved into the land; it was woven into its very bones, etched into every grain of soil, every vein of rock, every breath of wind that stirred across its surface. Even if one had the desire to find it, even if one had the power to tear the heavens searching for it, there would be nothing to find. It simply was not there — not to the world outside.
And the world inside remained blissfully unaware.
The cultivators dwelling within the Azure Dragon Continent felt nothing. Not a tremor. Not a whisper. Even veterans tempered by centuries of cultivation, like Demon Queen Zi Han, showed no sign of awareness, their senses undisturbed as still water.
Ming Yao’s eyes had narrowed slightly, their sharp gaze drifting upward toward the open sky. A strange sensation had passed through her just a moment ago — brief and wordless, like a giant’s shadow falling over the sun, a colossal hand covering the heavens for a single, breathless instant. Then it was gone, leaving nothing behind but uncertainty.
What was that feeling just now...?
Instinct sharpened her senses. She cast a measured glance around her, half-expecting to find someone else standing with the same furrowed brow, the same flicker of unease in their eyes. But there was nothing. Zi Han sat in silent meditation beneath the shade of the Bodhi Tree, her posture straight and undisturbed, the faint violet energy around her as calm as a winter lake. Beside her, Fang Biyu was equally still, legs crossed, hands resting open on her knees, her breathing slow and even.
A cold gust of wind swept through the clearing, rustling through the Bodhi Tree’s fresh green leaves with a quiet, whispering sigh. The branches swayed gently, the dappled light scattering across the ground like scattered jade coins.
Ming Yao stood there in silence for a long moment, watching, listening. Then she exhaled softly through her nose.
...Maybe I was thinking too much.
Meanwhile, inside the sealed space, the weight of the world finally peeled itself off Wang Chen’s shoulders.
He shifted his attention inward at last, and the exhaustion he had been holding at bay came crashing down all at once. A long, exasperated sigh escaped his lips. His body moved almost on its own — he slumped backward into the old wooden chair like a felled tree, limbs sprawled, spine limp, not a single fiber of will left to hold himself upright.
First, a hundred thousand years grinding through remnant ghost kings inside that godforsaken tower. Then, the moment he stepped out — the formation.
He stared blankly at the ceiling above him, the carved wooden beams dark with age, familiar in the way only things seen across countless lifetimes could be. His eyes were half-lidded, heavy as stones.
He was just too damn tired. He wanted nothing more than to remain exactly as he was — a statue, an ornament, a forgotten relic — for at least a decade.
Time drifted by like smoke. True to his silent declaration, Wang Chen did not move for an entire day. Not a twitch. Not a shift in posture. Even his breathing seemed to slow to something barely perceptible, the room around him utterly still save for the distant, muted sounds of the world beyond the walls.
It was only a full day later that he finally stirred, pulling himself upright with a low, unhurried sigh that seemed to carry the weight of ages.
Above the gigantic mahogany table — its dark surface polished by years of use until it gleamed like still water — space rippled almost imperceptibly. A wooden cup materialized from within the distortion, trailing a thin thread of steam. Without hurrying, Wang Chen reached for the teapot and poured himself a cup of freshly brewed tea. The pale amber liquid caught the soft light as it filled the cup, carrying with it a clean, subtle fragrance.
He brought it to his lips, sipping slowly, and let the warmth settle into his chest.
His gaze drifted somewhere beyond the walls, beyond the room, beyond the present — and he got lost in memories.
Though it had been over a dozen lifetimes since he first set foot in this world, every detail remained vivid — sharp as a blade freshly honed, clear as water drawn from the deepest spring. Not a single memory had faded. Not a single face had blurred.
Growing step by step to reach the realm he was at now...
He turned the cup slowly between his fingers, watching the faint curl of steam rise and dissolve into nothing.
The old me could never have imagined reaching the fabled Unity Realm in just a few years.
Wang Chen continued to sip, letting the warmth of the tea and the warmth of memory settle together in his chest.
And yet — he almost felt like laughing at himself for even thinking that way. Forget about the Unity Realm. The Resonance Realm didn’t feel particularly distant either. Not anymore.
From the outside, he looked like a man doing absolutely nothing — slumped in a chair, cup in hand, eyes half-lidded and lost in thought. But beneath that stillness, something vast was quietly at work. Deep within his soul, the Eternal Flame burned like a captive star, radiating constant, unbroken light. It did not flicker. It did not wane. With every passing second, that radiance poured into his primordial spirit like sunlight into still water, renewing it from its deepest roots, refining what had already been refined countless times over.
Under that steady nourishment, Wang Chen’s primordial spirit pressed further into the Garden of Eternity — fusing with it at a level that had not been possible before, threading itself through the living architecture of that inner realm like roots pushing into ancient soil.
The implications were staggering, even to him.
Where the soul seas of other cultivators — even those who had climbed all the way to the Grand Ascension Realm — barely stretched across tens of kilometers, the Garden of Eternity was on the verge of breaching a hundred. A full hundred kilometers of living, breathing inner space. It was a number most cultivators could not even hold in their minds without the concept slipping away like smoke.
It had long since stopped being a simple spiritual reservoir — a quiet pool to gather and store qi. The Garden of Eternity had become something else entirely. Something alive. A realm, not merely a space. It exhaled. It grew. It remembered.
What the full measure of that transformation would bring, even Wang Chen could not say with certainty. This was uncharted ground. In all the recorded history of cultivation, no mortal had ever housed a living realm within their soul. Perhaps the immortal cultivators of the upper heavens had touched something similar — but for a mortal, walking the lower roads of the path? This was a first.
And firsts had a way of rewriting everything that came after.
Time passed quietly, indifferent as ever.
While Wang Chen drifted between rest and reflection, the outside world moved on at its own pace. The one-year deadline for the Morning Glory Divine Alchemy Sect competition drew closer with every passing day, approaching with the unhurried certainty of a tide.
But Wang Chen’s thoughts were no longer pointed in that direction.
Morning Glory Divine Sect had ceased to be the priority. The competition, the prestige, the politics woven around it — all of it had faded into background noise. What occupied his mind now, quietly but persistently, was something far more pressing.
Lin Huang.
Finding even a trace of his existence — that was what mattered.
And so, even though there was still time left on the clock, Wang Chen set down his cup, the last of the tea cooling at the bottom. He made his decision without ceremony, without hesitation.
It was time to move forward. To the upper realm.