Chapter 1776: The Tenth Sun of Immortal Astral, Snow on Mount Tian

Cold sweat broke out on Du Qing’s forehead. He stared blankly at the location of the Immortal Cave in the back mountain; the Divine Sense that Wang Lin had been enveloped in for seven months suddenly vanished at that very moment.

This disappearance was not a retraction, but a true vanishing without a trace, as if it had merged with the heavens and earth.

This change was too sudden, Du Qing could not have imagined it at all, nor did he have any psychological preparation. It happened almost instantaneously as he casually swept his gaze with the intention of watching a joke.

After a brief moment of stunned silence, Du Qing’s body swayed, and he rushed out from his location, his Divine Sense spreading out, heading straight for the Immortal Cave in the back mountain. The moment his Divine Sense swept through the Immortal Cave, Du Qing’s body trembled violently.

“Gone… gone…” Wang Lin, who had been sitting cross-legged in the Immortal Cave for seven months, had disappeared.

Du Qing had not noticed Wang Lin’s disappearance at all; it was as if he had evaporated right under his nose, gone.

“This is impossible… this doesn’t make sense…” Du Qing now stood on the Peak of the back mountain, a patch of green grass beneath his feet. His expression was even more bewildered. He mumbled, rubbing his eyes hard, and unwillingly spread his Divine Sense to envelop the surroundings again.

Again and again, he still found no trace of Wang Lin’s Divine Sense.

“Impossible, his Divine Sense cannot merge with the heavens and earth. Such a thing has never happened; only old monsters at the Empty Tribulation Realm Peak can do it… He… he can’t possibly!” Du Qing’s face was pale, his eyes filled with intense shock. He suddenly felt as if he had been dreaming for the past seven months.

“Are you looking for me…?” Just as Du Qing was utterly unable to find Wang Lin, and his heart was unable to accept such a thing, a calm voice softly rose from behind him.

Du Qing’s body suddenly trembled. He spun around abruptly, his pupils contracting. He saw Wang Lin behind him, dressed in white, with a composed expression, not a hint of discomfiture.

Behind Wang Lin, layers of faint, shimmering ripples seemed to echo, quickly fading from view.

“You… you…” Du Qing instinctively retreated a few steps. Wang Lin’s appearance was too bizarre; he hadn’t noticed him at all. In fact, if the other party had made a move just now, he might have been severely injured.

Moreover, a chill from the heavens and earth seemed to emanate from Wang Lin. This chill dissipated slowly when it met the aura of the Azure Dragon Sect, but to Du Qing, it still felt like a cold wind blowing in his face.

The shock and horror in his eyes transformed into a wave of fear, making Wang Lin appear incredibly mysterious and terrifying in Du Qing’s eyes at this moment.

“It’s nothing… most of the Sect Disciples have returned, and they found quite a few branch veins and sub-veins… they also retrieved and Sealed some branch souls…” Du Qing forcibly suppressed the shock in his heart and quickly spoke.

Wang Lin casually glanced at Du Qing. Under his gaze, Du Qing subconsciously lowered his head.

“Send them to the Immortal Cave.” Wang Lin slowly said, taking a step forward and transforming into a long rainbow, he departed and returned to the Immortal Cave.

Only after Wang Lin had left did Du Qing feel a sense of relief, but his doubts, caused by the long rainbow Wang Lin transformed into upon leaving, once again permeated his mind.

“Absolutely impossible!! He shouldn’t have merged with the heavens and earth, otherwise, he could have just flashed away when he left just now… His aura disappeared earlier, this must be instantaneous movement. Yes, it’s instantaneous movement. This person must have failed repeatedly and couldn’t save face, so he ended it this way…” The more Du Qing thought about it, the more correct it seemed, and his expression slowly calmed down, even feeling a bit amused, especially when he thought of his own reaction just now, clearly he was just scaring himself.

“I knew it, he simply can’t do something like merging with the heavens and earth! Overestimating himself!” Du Qing sneered inwardly, even more convinced. He flicked his large sleeve, about to leave, when suddenly his body trembled violently. His eyes were fixed on the patch of grass where Wang Lin had just been standing, and his eyes widened, an overwhelming horror surging forth.

His mind buzzed incessantly, like countless thunderclaps exploding. Everything before his eyes vanished, only the spot where Wang Lin had just stood remained clear.

After a long while, Du Qing’s face was ashen. He subconsciously retreated a few steps, looking towards the Immortal Cave in the back mountain with an expression of terror and complexity.

Not far from him, on the patch of grass where Wang Lin had stood earlier, there was a small amount of green accumulated snow, shimmering under the sunlight and slowly melting.

Throughout the entire Tianniu Continent, only Mount Tian in the far west had this kind of green snow, and the round trip distance from Mount Tian to the Azure Dragon Sect, even if Du Qing traveled at full speed, would take several months… “Snow from Mount Tian… This person… a Prodigy!” Du Qing remained silent for a very long time, then murmured this sentence. The moment he uttered these words, all his disdain and contempt for Wang Lin over the past seven months vanished, replaced by endless mystery and unfathomability.

Faintly, he had already developed a fear of Wang Lin; this had nothing to do with cultivation, but rather a terrifying feeling in his heart arising from the unknown mystery.

Inside the back mountain Immortal Cave, Wang Lin patted his clothes, brushing off the lingering chill, and sat cross-legged. After seven months, he had finally awakened his Clone in the void layer.

The moment his Clone awakened, Wang Lin felt an indescribable enlightenment transmitted from the distant Clone through his mind. The instant it enveloped him, the barrier between heaven and earth that had troubled Wang Lin suddenly loosened, as if the Immortal Astral Law within it was clearly broken by Wang Lin at that moment, as if it had disappeared.

All sorts of insights emerged in his mind, seemingly clear, but upon closer thought, they became blurry again. Wang Lin knew this was because his Clone was still in the process of growing.

Once the Clone was fully mature, Wang Lin would have a clear and accurate understanding of everything concerning the Immortal Astral Law.

At the same time, that immense pressure, at that instant, melted like ice, as if countless invisible cracks had appeared, allowing Wang Lin’s Divine Sense to fully merge in an instant, no longer having to force its way in as before.

All of this was entirely due to his Clone!

The moment his Divine Sense merged with the heavens and earth, Wang Lin’s body disappeared, also merging with the heavens and earth. At that instant, he found the feeling of Shrinking the Ground into an Inch from the Immortal Cave Realm, a feeling he had long missed.

With a thought, he appeared at Mount Tian on this continent in that instant, seeing the green snow falling everywhere. For this first Shrinking the Ground into an Inch, Wang Lin had no direction, but simply walked casually to familiarize himself with it.

However, when he returned to the Azure Dragon Sect, with the image of the Azure Dragon Sect in his mind, he clearly appeared in the back mountain of the Azure Dragon Sect, behind Du Qing.

The round trip took less than half an incense stick’s time. If not for the green snow he inadvertently brought back on his feet, even Du Qing would not have known that Wang Lin had been to Mount Tian.

“My Clone has only just begun to grow these days, yet it can bring me such powerful assistance… If given more time, this Clone of mine will be the strongest body!” Wang Lin had long understood this in his heart.

“It’s time to go to the Great Soul Gate to absorb the main underground fire vein. Before that, I need to absorb the other branch veins and sub-veins to see to what extent I can condense my Fire Origin True Body.” Wang Lin knew that the later stages of condensing his Fire Origin True Body would be increasingly difficult.

The condensation of the head no longer required just pure Fire Origin; more importantly, it needed an essence of fire.

Du Qing came to pay his respects half an hour later, bringing some underground fire souls retrieved by his Sect Disciples, as well as a complete map of the Tianniu Continent. Various places on this map were marked with the presence of underground fire branch veins and sub-veins.

Wang Lin did not stand on ceremony and directly absorbed the retrieved underground fire souls. However, because they contained little will, they were not of much help in condensing the Origin True Body.

But the map Jade Slip was very useful to Wang Lin. After taking the Jade Slip, Wang Lin bid farewell to Du Qing. Du Qing knew what Wang Lin intended to do; he couldn’t participate in this matter, but he also wouldn’t leak any information, after all, he still had something to gain from Wang Lin.

More importantly, the glance Wang Lin gave him before leaving, calm and devoid of any emotion, yet the swirling ripples beneath his feet as he stepped, and the scene of his body suddenly vanishing before Du Qing, was more impactful than any threatening words.

Du Qing’s mind trembled. He watched Wang Lin disappear and sighed deeply after a long while.

“Fellow Daoist Du’s help, I, Wang, remember. If there’s an opportunity in the future, I will surely repay you.” After Wang Lin left, his voice echoed in Du Qing’s ears.

On the seventh day after Wang Lin’s departure, throughout the Tianniu Continent, various underground fire sub-veins rumbled and collapsed, and waves of fire permeated the Tianniu Continent. It seemed that even the aura of the heavens and earth contained a scorching sensation, and breathing it in subtly caused a hint of irritation.

As such incidents successively occurred in various places across the Tianniu Continent, they gradually attracted the attention of the various Sects within the Tianniu Continent. Large numbers of their Disciples, or even the Elders of each Sect, personally went out to investigate, but found no clues whatsoever. They often arrived at the collapsed sub-vein locations only to find ruins.

Half a month later, on a black mist-shrouded mountain Peak somewhere in the Tianniu Continent, there was once a Sect called Seven Dao Sect! Wang Lin’s figure emerged from the black mist mountain Peak, his expression melancholic.

He had to come here; here, he seemed to feel the aura of the Immortal Cave Realm, and Xuan Luo’s many years of waiting.

Stepping out of the black mist, Wang Lin looked back at the mountain Peak within the mist, remained silent for a while, sighed softly, and then turned to leave.

“Situ, Qing Shui, and Li Qianmei, and all of you who have undergone Reincarnation… where are you now…?” Wang Lin’s departing figure was desolate, exuding loneliness.

A day later, in the far west of the Tianniu Continent, within the area covered by the Great Soul Gate, at Mount Tian, as green snowflakes fell, a white-haired youth in white robes stood on the summit of Mount Tian, his gaze piercing through the falling snow to look at the other side of the mountain, to the west of Tianniu.

Standing here, the youth could vaguely see countless distant mountains, and in their deepest part, a crimson mountain Peak pierced straight into the clouds, visible from afar.

“Great Soul Gate…” The white-haired youth murmured, his eyes gleaming with sharp light.