The permanent star was getting farther away, and there was no light anymore. It was dark and soundless in the surroundings. It was unclear where those regular monsters like the Dai Xu and the Half Tail had gone. It was believed that they were far away from the space crack of the Heavenly Fire Industrial Base and couldn't go there to cause trouble for the fleet.
The problem was that the dozen mother nests seemed to have the ability to pass through the space for a short time in the Sea of Dark Matter. Though they traveled very slowly, it was hard for Jing Jiu to get rid of them. In other words, those mother nests would catch up with him if he couldn't get rid of them for a long time.
The dark energy in the Sea of Dark Matter was smaller than the bloody thumbs and spores, like neutrinos. Normally, neither the ascendants nor the monitoring equipment could sense it; but the gloomy, desolate and destructive energy gave it a sense of existence. Driven by the tentacles of the mother nests, the energy seemed to turn into a black wind, ruffling his monk robe gently.
The rims of his robe were ruffling and gradually became tattered, resembling a withering flower.
Looking at the invisible dark world in Silence, the Joyous Monk raised his right hand and slowly moved one of the prayer beads.
The movement looked ordinary, but it was like he had ignited a lighter. There seemed to be a crisp "pah" sound in the empty and silent space.
More than three hundred golden flames spurted out of his body, passed through his tattered robes, and instantly rolled into a golden fireball in the gravity-free universe, wrapping him up and blocking the dark breeze. At the same time, it burned the blood thumbs and spores hidden in the gaps of his robes.
The burnt bloody thumbs and spores fell down like ashes and landed on the Grand Nirvana Disc. Then, they were absorbed by the surface of the slow-flowing metal disc and entered the side compartment in the middle, deepening the black gold color inside.
"It's very far away. Find a way to come back." The voice of Ceng Ju rang out in the spiritual awareness of the Joyous Monk. It was unclear how the Sage of the seventh generation of Yimaozhai could deliver the message to such a distant place, and to a completely different world.
The Joyous Monk gazed at the approaching mother nests through the burning golden fireballs. "These mother nests have more self-awareness than those we have seen before, meaning that they have a commander," he replied.
The meaning of this statement was clear; he still believed that the Snow Girl was here.
It was true that Jing Jiu left the Scorching-Sun Battleship and came to this dangerous dark world under the gazes of millions of people. Besides bringing away the troublesome monster invasion, Jing Jiu's true purpose was to find the Snow Girl in the Sea of Dark Matter.
He wanted to find her, help her, and then submit to her.
There were no spatial markers in this dark world, so there was no way to know where he was. Naturally, there was no direction to speak of, but he had never deviated.
However, Jing Jiu hadn't found any trace left by the Snow Girl after he came to the Sea of Dark Matter for a while. Should he kill one of these hives in an attempt to draw her attention? But Merry Monk quickly denied his own thoughts. To His Majesty, an ordinary Broodmother like this was no different from an ant. It was meaningless to kill them. If he could kill another Virgin here, it might be of some use.
With this thought in mind, Jing Jiu continued heading toward the deep part of the Sea of Dark Matter, and those mother nests followed him. He had drifted in the Sea of Dark Matter for a few days. Ceng Ju's voice never sounded again, which meant that he had really left the human world, and no one knew if he would ever have the chance to return.
An ordinary Broodmother like this couldn't pose a threat to the Merry Monk; the real trouble was the Sea of Dark Matter itself. The dark energy affected the golden body and attacked the Zen mind all the time. Even though he was the grandmaster of the Zen sects and had a heart as steady as a rock and was protected by the Buddha fire, he had seen many illusions.
The description or speculation of the heavenly demons in the outside world by the Cultivation circle in Chaotian had its own logic.
The Merry Monk found himself on the official road in Moqiu. There were no patients on either side of the official road, only the starving people lying in the barren fields. It was because the Guocheng Temple hadn't existed back then, and he hadn't studied medicine yet, so he didn't have any monk doctor.
In the next moment, he found himself on the battlefield in the northwest. The army of the Imperial Court was fighting against the rebels near the Cold Mountain, and some deviant practitioners and swordsmen of the orthodox Cultivation sects were fighting on a high mountain in the distance. Though he was a powerful general, he could only look at them from a distance, not daring to approach them.
In the next moment, he became a swordsman. The general who had comprehended the Dao on the battlefield concealed his identity and intended to go to Aoyama to learn the sword work secretly, but he was exposed by the immortal master at the South Pine Pavilion. Fortunately, the sword master of Aoyama felt sorry for him and didn't punish him. He let him leave on his own and gave him an introductory sword script.
Later, he went to the Thousand-Mile Wind Corridor. He walked for a long time while holding the willow tree against the knife-like wind before he arrived in front of a few thatched huts. Many years later, he still couldn't figure out why the lotus flowers on the surface of the lake covered his skirt so tightly when the wind was so strong there.
His Teacher had ascended. He left Yimaozhai and went to many places. In the end, he returned to Moqiu and built a temple there.
The starving people and the poor on both sides of the official road in Moqiu were replaced by those who came from various states and counties to ask for help. The official road was full of horse-drawn carriages.
As more and more monk doctors came to the Guocheng Temple, he could finally take a rest. So he went to White Town to resist the monster invasion of the Snowy Kingdom. He stayed there for a few hundred years.
Two thousand years later, he came back to the Guocheng Temple and passed away sitting on the spot, becoming a golden Buddha and coming to this world.
According to the book, the Guocheng Temple was still the same Guocheng Temple, and Yimaozhai was still the same Yimaozhai; and the small temple in White Town had a successor. There was a pagoda for him in the pagoda forest of the Guocheng Temple. Though his ashes were not in it, they were placed in the front and in the best position.
All of this made him feel gratified.
He of course knew that all of this was an illusion.
Yet, there was no audience or reader in the Sea of Dark Matter, so he had no need to say it out loud.
He had always thought that he was a farmer who cultivated the fields. It was only because of his good fortune that he met many people who were willing to help him that he could achieve what he had today. Yet, the description of this in the Illusionary Realm was too little, and it was not clear. It meant that he had come up with this idea by himself, and it was not an objective fact.
He opened his eyes and woke up. The golden flames once again surged out, forcing the mother nests further away.
The Buddhas had their own flames. He could drift in the Sea of Dark Matter for a long time with the help of these flames. It was because he was standing on the Grand Nirvana, which could last for hundreds of years. However, the universe was vast and the ocean was boundless; when would he find the Snow Girl?
He was already far away from the crack in space, and he didn't know which direction he should go back to. If he couldn't find the Snow Girl, he had no choice but to drift in this place. It was like swimming in the ocean under a thick layer of ice. He could only float to the surface of the ocean if he was lucky enough to find the exit; otherwise, he would suffocate one day.
The situation reminded him of many years ago, when there were more than two hundred doctor monks in the Guocheng Temple, and he hadn't rested for more than seventy days. When he had finally treated or sent away the seriously ill patients on both sides of the official road in Moqiu, he found that the Imperial Court and the Zhongzhou School had sent more wounded patients to him.
The wounded patients came like the tide, filling the fields outside the Guocheng Temple again. He was exhausted and puzzled. After asking a few questions, he learned that a monster invasion had occurred in the snowland. He thought that this was not the solution and that he should deal with the monster invasion first. As such, he went to White Town.
In White Town, he had killed many monsters of the Snowy Kingdom, including those powerful humanoid guards. But he found that these monsters lived in the ice and snow, and they were endless. He couldn't kill them all even if he stayed here forever. He thought that this was not the solution and that he should deal with the Snow Girl first. As such, he went to the icy peak.
Unsurprisingly, he was defeated by the Snow Girl. His golden body was broken and his Zen heart was shattered before he could even see the Snow Girl. He was sent flying from the icy peak after flying for miles in the sky. He fell on the Snow Sea in the Northernmost, penetrated the thick layer of ice, and sank to the bottom of the ocean.
When he woke up in the ocean, he had already sunk to the deepest part of the ocean. The golden body had great benefits, but it also had some inconveniences.
He could touch the sand with his hands, but he couldn't feel the roughness of the sand because it was too deep and the seawater was too cold.
His injury was too severe, so he couldn't use the Heavenly Eye. All he could see was darkness.
After resting at the bottom of the ocean for a few days, he recovered a little bit and tried to float up. It took him a long time to come to the surface of the ocean, but he found that there was an endless layer above him, which he couldn't break.
After trying a few times, he rationally chose to give up and just floated under the ice, letting the seawater carry him.
He didn't need to breathe. He floated under the ice for many days. His face grew paler, and his skin became more wrinkled. He even looked like Shen Yunmai's face that Tong Yan saw when she broke the black battleship. Of course, he didn't know that scene at that time, or at this time.
There was only one word he could think of at that time.
So powerful.
The Snow Girl was so powerful.
Since then, he rarely called her the Snow Girl. He preferred to call her the Queen.
Or the Emperor.
Or the Queen.
His pride and confidence … were gone just like that.
He was pushed by the ocean current like a floating corpse, rubbing against the ice, and moving deeper and deeper toward the north of the Snow Sea.
The layer of ice grew thicker and thicker until it was dozens of feet thick. His pale and deformed face couldn't be seen from above. He couldn't see the light on the ice anymore. The world became dark again.
It seemed that he had returned to the bottom of the ocean.
His injury didn't worsen, nor did it get better. He had no way to break through the ice. If he kept drifting like this, he would die one day.
It was the same for him, who was drifting in the Sea of Dark Matter.
One day, he suddenly saw a sliver of light in front of the dark world.
His desire to survive and an invisible energy made him energetic again, and he tried his best to swim toward it.
That sliver of light was indeed the natural light.
A seemingly natural crack appeared on the layer of ice one hundred feet thick; but everybody knew that it couldn't have been formed naturally.
The Joyous Monk drifted to the lower edge of the crack and reached out his hand to grab the ice. He summoned the Grand Nirvana with the last of his energy and then lay on the ice.
The Grand Nirvana flew toward the surface of the ice shakily while carrying him on his back, looking like an old and thin horse on the verge of death.
Pah!!! The Grand Nirvana landed on the surface of the ice, breaking off some ice chips. It took him a long time to come back to his senses. He turned around and looked at the sky. The smile on his face after surviving a calamity was instantly replaced by a complicated emotion.
There was a snowy mountain in the sky. It was not the lonely icy peak in the deep part of the snowland, but a regular snowy mountain with a cliff by its side.
The Snow Girl stood by the cliff's edge, looking down at him in Silence.
Though he hadn't seen the Snow Girl with his own eyes, he knew she was the Snow Girl.
The Snow Girl's black pupils didn't show any hint of mockery or contempt, but only curiosity and interest.
The Joyous Monk hadn't communicated with her, but he firmly believed that she couldn't be a ruthless, bloodthirsty demon who wanted to destroy everything. Otherwise, she wouldn't have parted the icy sea, let the natural light come, and summoned him to come here and let him live.
Regardless of his injury and fatigue, he raised his head and looked at her attentively and earnestly.
The Snow Girl looked down at him.
It was unclear how long they had been gazing at each other; it might have been a few days, or a few years.
"Yip, yip."
The Snow Girl suddenly uttered a sound.
The Joyous Monk understood what she meant: "If you don't wake up soon, you will die."
What did she mean by this?
Did it mean that those things had never happened, and that they were merely his imagination?
The Joyous Monk suddenly felt very sad. Then, he opened his eyes and woke up.
It was still dark in front of him. He was not at the bottom of the Snowy Sea in the North, but at the bottom of the Sea of Dark Matter.
The dozen Mother Hives were not far away from him, waving their tentacles slowly.
Somewhere further away, there was a powerful and evil will that traversed tens of thousands of kilometers in the universe and enshrouded his body.
The Joyous Monk realized that he had entered another Illusionary Realm after waking up from the previous one.
The influence of the dark energy was only part of the reason; the main reason was that powerful and evil will.
The will came from the Mother Hive of the highest state, the Virgin.
The Virgin had almost dragged him into the abyss of consciousness. If he hadn't woken up, he would have sunk deeper and deeper into the Illusionary Realm and stared at the beautiful figure on the icy cliff for a longer time, or even forever. By then, he would have died.
After the Joyous Monk figured it out, his first reaction was not vigilance or fear, but relief.
It turned out that the Emperor was reminding him.
What had happened back then had indeed happened, and it was not his imagination.
The question was, who had woken him up from the Illusionary Realm?
Was it the Emperor?
Or was it the Emperor in his mind?
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