Star Gate

Li Hao wasn’t interested in saying much else at present.

It wasn’t a matter of whether he was willing to share his dao or not, but that audience on the ground had indeed not reached the requisite level of knowledge to listen. They wouldn’t understand what he spoke of. In a similar vein, it was a waste for a college student to teach calculus to a group of kindergarteners.

The five boards swiftly became one, making each person’s individual progress visible to all. Li Hao was in the lead at roughly 8,200 squares. The Human King had furiously hacked his way to approximately 8,100 squares.

The other three had just made it past eight thousand and weren’t far from each other. They were starting to feel the strain now.

It was the first time that all five were in the same venue at the same time. They finally had a clear view of each other’s condition.

Seeing that the Human King was still whacking around with his blade... little girl Spring Autumn tittered. “Human King, so what if you make it to the end like this?”

“That means that what is considered space and the concept of all daos being one can be smashed through with a blade!” snorted the Human King.

Long Zhan punched out with his fist as well!

A dragon croon reverberated through the air as he dashed forward with a nod. “I agree with the Human King! Whether it is all daos being one or spatial dao being unparalleled, anything can be broken when they possess sufficient strength!

“Chaos dao is messy and disorderly. Everyone’s trying to organize it, but the dross can be separated from the essence. Some unwanted leaves can be pruned!”

“Ole Dragon speaks truly!” The Human King smoothly took over. “All daos come to me and I am all dao. I myself am dao. When dao is with me, it advances whenever I take a step. You guys see me as forcing my way through, but have no idea that this is my dao!”

He wasn’t arguing for the sake of arguing, there was no point in doing so. Fang Ping really thought this way.

I am dao, the dao is me. When I move forward, so does the great dao. Therefore, why do you care if I’m comprehending dao or not?

“I once thought of cells as worlds, blood as rivers, and dao as... meridians?” Li Hao quickly nodded in agreement. “I don’t know. The worlds nurture dao and dao hides within the body. The Human King’s dao is that of cultivating the self and body. He wields his blade to break dao. That coincides with my thoughts!”

His body suddenly fell apart into individual cells that melded with the world. Countless worlds appeared in response. Their world domains began to combine into one Li Hao...

The exalted emperors’ eyelids twitched as they watched the sight. The Human King’s eyes went wide as well.

He cultivated an inner world. What was meant by an inner world was the internal storage of the dao domain. But that... was clearly not what Li Hao was doing!

What was this?

Turning himself into a world and becoming part of the chaos?

“You’ve turned yourself into the chaos?” The Human King looked on solemnly.

“You can say that!” The young man walked forward with a nod. The ferocious tiger continued to lead the way as his voice traveled back faintly upon the wind. “In transforming into the chaos, it becomes the source of my life!

“The chaos has a source—a source of life. I have some theories these days that if I become part of the chaos and a world myself, my life will be preserved eternally. Perhaps this is what it means to be immortal...”

“So is the chaos a person?” murmured Chaos Sky. The man chose to hold nothing back after Li Hao demonstrated the true capabilities of his own dao.

Chaos Sky breathed out, his exhale becoming a gale force that swept through the chessboard and broke through one hundred squares in one go. He materialized near Li Hao and intoned, “Chaos dao is incredibly disorderly. If the chaos is as you say, a person, then... why is it such a mess? Have they been injured? Are they dead? Or what other possibilities might there be?”

Li Hao shook his head.

Long Zhan suddenly transformed into a massive dragon and churned through the premises with tremendous vitality. He was a resplendent sun blasting through many squares at once.

“You say that the source of life is human life... or the life of living beings,” he rumbled. “Doesn’t that mean that the chaos race stems from the foundation of life? Then why are worlds born...

“Based on what you say, the worlds would be a refresh of the cells. Dying worlds are old cells passing on, and new worlds are the newly born cells?”

“I don’t know,” Li Hao shook his head. “That might be it, that might not be it. But we can make that analogy!”

Spring Autumn was the only one listening to their discussion. The little girl was both confused and a bit serious. Her dao squares withered, shattering. She seemed to move over them like she was going for a casual walk. She remained at ease and skipped around like an exuberant child after exceeding eight thousand squares.

“Although grass withers, it is reborn when the spring wind blows again. The dao I cultivate is not of time, but of withering and flourishing! Time is relentless. They say that cicadas are so short-lived that they cannot experience both spring and autumn.

“But I... am Spring Autumn!” The southern overlord raised her little head high, demonstrating a carefree air that would not be restrained by anything. She no longer hopped around with giggles, but projected more of a dismal air, like the worlds had sunk into the abyss.

“When I was weak, I once encountered a big roc bird. The bird rose with the mind and soared upward into the sky! It laughed at me for not knowing both spring and autumn, the breadth of the worlds, and the desolation of time passing by...

“Therefore, I cultivated dao! I cultivate the dao of spring and autumn, the dao of withering and flourishing!” A sardonic expression appeared on her face. “I know both spring and autumn and have seen the worlds. That’s all there is to them! However high that roc might have flown into the sky, it does not measure up to the withering and flourishing of my seasons!”

A cicada...

Only now did Li Hao incredulously confirm that the monster spirit’s primary body... was an winter cicada!

That was a being that was born in the spring and died in the summer, or was born in the summer and died in the autumn. They could not experience both spring and autumn in their terminally short lives. As monster spirits, their lifespans were so short that they could barely become monster spirits!

But here, there was a cicada of a thousand autumns!

It was impossible for regular people to imagine how much time and effort she’d put into reaching this goal. She had been born a cicada that could live for only a few months, but was now the overlord of the entire southern region of the chaos!

Spring Autumn was not saying this to praise herself. Her train of thought was different from the rest. She reached Li Hao with a single step that was marked by the ponderous still of a quieted hell.

“Hao Moon, the seasons wither and flourish. Countless members of my race have died because of their lifespan! My race is so short-lived that I would like to ask, why is time so heartless?

“Some monster spirits are trash, yet they can live for thousands of years. Why is my race so pitiful? The Human King speaks of fighting, I have fought for countless eons. One withering and one flourishing, changing a body every year. I have changed out of thousands of bodies. Why can I not help my race break free from the shackles of time?”

It wasn’t that Spring Autumn liked to present herself in such a youthful manner, but that cicadas had a limited lifespan. Even she was no exception.

The way to get around that was exceedingly inconvenient. If she didn’t want to die, she needed to continuously change her shell. Hence, she’d come to see Li Hao just so she could ask why time was so harsh on her race.

She wanted to know how to counterbalance the effects of time!

She was the only one of the cicadas to break the cycle of life and death, to weather the rotation of spring and autumn without losing her life in the process. Almost no one else of her kind had successfully trained in that dao. Although her potential was stunning, she was still unable to break the shackles of life and death!

This was an exceedingly sorrowful and unbelievable feat—Spring Autumn had broken the limitations that were naturally placed on her!

Even someone as domineering and proud as the Human King had to pause in solemn respect. A monster spirit that could only live for a few months had made their way to being the southern overlord. The amount of effort that entailed made him think that the little girl would be a frightfully difficult opponent to encounter in battle!

She was an existence that’d struggle to rise from a most humble and helpless of positions. Spring Autumn was a much more terrifying existence than those who were born to strength.

“All living beings have their strengths and capabilities,” Li Hao said after some thought. “Those who are suited to the environment survive. Cicadas have endured through countless eons and never gone extinct. How can they only encounter two seasons in life?

“To be born in the summer and die in the autumn... withering with the passage of time... Is this not the key to the fellow daoist’s attainment of dao? Once your lifespan is at an end, you enter the ground to fall into deep sleep. The next year, you rise with the arrival of spring...”

“That is still a new birth!” Spring Autumn shook her head. “It is no longer that same person. If you gave birth to a son, is the son you? You’re just fobbing me off with nonsense, Hao Moon!”

“I’m not,” Li Hao smiled ruefully. “It’s just that the limits of lifespan... Although I cultivate time, I do not fully control it. I cannot give you a perfect answer, fellow daoist. Why are some life forms born with different lifespans? I do not have an answer for that!”

“The limitations of lifespan have to do with dao rules!” Long Zhan was the one who answered. “There is spirit in the rules! The cicada race has a shortened lifespan for only one reason—you have little spirit!”

Spring Autumn blinked. Little spirit?

“All things have spirit.” Long Zhan looked at Li Hao. “Based on what you say, the dao chess has spirit too. Everything has spirit and they form the rules. Some within a race have more, some have less. That is a kind of intelligence. The more intelligence there is, the longer your lifespan might be...”

“Human lifespans are generally much longer than that of your chaos race.” The Human King did not agree. “There are a lot of dumb beasts among your race. Are you making yourself better than you actually are?”

“......” Shut up, man! Your race is the dumb one!

Spring Autumn was also annoyed. Are you saying that my kind is stupid?

Fine. We are. A little.

But your chaos race is a muddled, hazy mess too. You’re not any better!

“Fellow Daoist Long Zhan might not be fully correct in this one point.” Li Hao couldn’t keep quiet since they’d brought up the subject of spirit. “But when it comes to the rules, they contain spirit only because rules arise from spirit. Intelligence creates rules, or builds them, rather!

“The current chaos is disorderly due to a lack of coherent rules and sufficient spirit! All things have spirit, but life itself is in a disarray with no one to organize it. Fellow Daoist Chaos Sky wishes to conquer the chaos, probably to build a larger dynasty and organize all living beings, correct?”

“That’s right!” Chaos Sky nodded. “I might not have been able to understand everything you were saying before, but now that I’m comparing what you share with what I know, I’m getting some of it. The unification of the chaos means the unification of the will. We can use human willpower to change the will of the chaos, which will bestow order upon it!”

They used different terms, but meant the same thing.

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