The Eighth Heavenly Stele and the Stealer of Dao

In ages past, the Nine Provinces and the World of Immortality had ancient temples and Daoist halls where, for a long and peculiar span, no spirit tablets of Ancestral Gods such as Yan and Huang stood. Yet before him was one who had once occupied the highest throne, who had drawn upon the most colossal tide of faith-power in existence.

“Hongjun!”

At the thought of that name, Xiao Chen’s eyes shot forth twin bolts of cold lightning. There was no mistake. This was the titan who had stirred up chaos during the false-god calamity. Hongjun had long been slain by the Yellow Emperor and the old Ancestral Dragon, but before him stood the Stone King—the original source of that fiend.

This was a fearsome Stone King of the Death World. Xu Tian had mentioned him more than once, spoke of him with dread, and had even schemed to use the Divine Diagram to kill him, claiming the man possessed heaven-defying abilities and could not be easily erased.

And Xiao Chen could sense it too—that terrifying aura, fathomless and profound. Beneath the dark, oppressive sky, the colossal Heavenly Stele towered, radiating a crushing pressure that weighed on the heart even from hundreds of li away.

The mighty Stone King circled the stele in flight. Before the mountain-like monument, he struck it repeatedly with his palms, each blow a heavy impact, his hands shrouded in a halo of light.

Xiao Chen was drawn by his movements. He saw a carving on the stele—a mysterious hand seal, strikingly similar to the divine seal the female corpse had used within the stone jar.

The Stone King was studying that diagram with great seriousness. He was not mindlessly striking the stele but injecting divine power in a measured rhythm, causing the inscriptions and carvings to manifest.

Xiao Chen did not act. He too studied the diagram from a distance. It radiated the ultimate essence of the Dao, dazzling and intoxicating. For a moment, he forgot everything else. Like the Stone King, he was mesmerized, unable to tear his gaze away, immersed in that stele.

Though merely a depiction of a hand seal, it seemed to possess a soul of its own, vivid and lifelike, as if it would leap from the stone.

Bang.

Who knew how long had passed? Xiao Chen felt the Five Emperor Tower floating above him tremble. He jolted awake, breaking free from that trance.

He was horrified to find that his divine sense had been damaged—as if a great hand had torn away part of his soul, leaving it dim and weakened.

This was a chilling discovery. That carving was like an abyss of hell, capable of devouring one’s consciousness. Xiao Chen looked ahead and saw that the Stone King’s body was blazing with radiance; he was actively piercing the stele with his divine thought.

He was even closer to the stele than Xiao Chen, nearly pressed against it. Had he been any less powerful, an ordinary being would have already had their consciousness shattered. But the Stone King did not fear it. Instead, he rode the wave, forcing his divine sense deeper, striving to grasp every shred of the primal Dao rhythm.

“A truly terrifying Stone King…” Xiao Chen’s heart tightened.

During the centuries of Xiao Chen’s seclusion, he had sensed disturbances beyond several times—all of them must have been caused by this Stone King.

Looking at the position of the seal diagram—about one-third of the way up the stele—it seemed the techniques above it had already been perused.

Just then, the Stone King suddenly clutched his head in agony, letting out a long howl. His stony hair flew wildly. His skull split open, and a vast flood of divine consciousness surged out, on the verge of collapse. That brilliant mass of light leaped from the Stone King’s body and began to adhere to the stele.

The eighth Heavenly Stele was truly terrifying—it had nearly drawn out the Stone King’s very soul. In the instant before the resplendent light vanished into the stele, the Stone King’s body trembled. Like a sea-eye, it violently sucked the departed consciousness back.

Bang!

The Stone King shuddered violently. His cracked skull resealed. He seemed to have endured a brutal battle, his whole frame exhausted; stone-man blood oozed from many places.

Now he could no longer hover near the stele. The immense pressure forced him to retreat.

Xiao Chen did not strike. Like a leopard in the dark, he waited silently for the right moment.

The mysterious Stone King withdrew a great distance, sat down in the void, and drew blood-colored lightning into his body. He was actually refining his flesh and spirit with the raging power of the Death World’s deepest reaches.

Half an hour later, he awoke. After a brief hesitation, he again flew toward the stele.

Xiao Chen had to admit he was outmatched. He could not compare with this Stone King. The original source of Hongjun was terrifyingly mighty; he had restored himself to his peak in such a short time.

To study the stele’s mysteries, one had to channel vast divine power. When he once more caused the seal diagram to manifest, his entire stone form became translucent and luminous, blazing with light.

Xiao Chen was astonished. Hongjun’s original source split in two—transformed into a yin-yang fish—then intertwined again, forming a Taiji Diagram.

The yin-yang diagram rotated slowly, flowing with the breath of the Dao, vast and unfathomable. It was breathtaking. Hongjun’s original source possessed profound skill—to transform his body into the Dao itself required a means that even among Stone Kings was rarely seen.

The yin-yang diagram gradually took shape and finally condensed into a Dao Diagram!

“A true figure indeed. No wonder Xu Tian dreaded him and sought to eliminate him by any means…” This Stone King had become a Taiji Diagram, radiating a mysterious, unfathomable aura as he began to forcibly extract the imprints from the Heavenly Stele.

Bang, bang, bang…

The Dao Diagram trembled unceasingly, but it successfully captured the primal Dao rhythm, merging with it. It neutralized the stele’s pressure, seizing what it needed.

Xiao Chen was shocked. The seal carving on the stele slowly faded, while within the yin-yang diagram, the very same technique began to manifest.

This Stone King was cheating Heaven and stealing the Dao. He was forcibly substituting the Dao imprints, letting the Dao rhythm merge into himself. Such a method was utterly heaven-defying.

It could also be called an expedient: instead of comprehending the Dao through personal enlightenment, he merged his own body with the Dao, making himself the incarnation of myriad Daos.

Xiao Chen could no longer remain still. If Hongjun stole the stele’s imprints like this, the stele would become truly wordless—nothing would remain.

A flash of light. The yin-yang diagram shot hundreds of li away, then reformed into a stone body, standing in the void like a mountain, as massive as an ancient peak. His hand formed a mysterious seal—so similar to the one the female corpse had used in the stone jar, exuding an awe-inspiring, world-shaking pressure.

As the seal took shape, the wind and clouds shifted, heaven and earth lost their color. The deepest reaches of the Death World instantly raged—countless blood-red lightning bolts converged there, and vast waves of energy howled.

But the moment the seal was completed, all that boundless power was suppressed. This seal eclipsed the sun and moon, overshadowing heaven and earth.

That aura made the mountains and rivers tremble, made the stars shudder. And it was only the aura—the seal had not even been discharged.

At last, the Stone King withdrew the seal. He did not unleash it.

Xiao Chen knitted his brows. This man was fearsome. Not comprehending the Dao but merging with it, cheating Heaven—it was hard to imagine how he had accomplished it.

The original creator of the stele’s mysteries left behind an imprint, and this man absorbed it for his own use. The resulting power was incalculable.

Hongjun re-formed into the yin-yang diagram and once again approached the stele, intending to study more ancient techniques.

But this time, as he focused on the next section, the Dao Diagram became unstable. A crackling sound came from it as it slowly fractured.

At that moment, Xiao Chen decided to act. He did not want Hongjun to take away the seal diagram from the Heavenly Stele.

With the Five Emperor Tower protecting him, he transformed into a streak of light and shot toward the stele.

But the Stone King’s vigilance was extreme. Although his Dao Diagram was cracking, it did not affect his perception.

With a divine escape technique at the limits of speed, he fled in an instant, without even offering resistance. Xiao Chen had even considered re-entering the female corpse’s body to use that supreme vessel to control the Five Emperor Tower and try to eliminate Hongjun, but he never expected him to be so cautious.

The Stone King fled without a fight! It showed how high his vigilance was—he refused to engage in a wounded state.

This was a formidable figure, possessing peak-level strength. If he succeeded in seizing all the stele’s imprints, few would be able to oppose him.

Xiao Chen did not pursue. He silently pondered how that Stone King had merged the Dao into himself. That method was worth learning from.

Now, although Xiao Chen was not a Stone King, he possessed the Five Emperor Tower. The stone pagoda floated above his head, swirling with boundless chaos aura, allowing him to advance unhindered by the pressure of the eighth Heavenly Stele.

Xiao Chen successfully reached the stele. Imitating Hongjun, he struck it with his palm, injecting divine power.

“Ah…”

The seal diagram reappeared. Though blurry at first, it gradually became clearer and deeper. The carving reformed.

“The ultimate Dao, the perfection of rhyme, infinite…” Xiao Chen gained a glimmer of understanding. “The Way that can be spoken is not the eternal Way; the Dao that can be stolen is not the complete Dao.”

One could grasp a single thread, could accommodate a hundred channels, but one could not seize the entirety of the Dao. There was always a fundamental Way beyond heaven and earth. A single Way was never exhausted; life and change ceaselessly recreated it. To achieve true greatness, one must form one’s own primal Way and personally evolve myriad Daos.

Xiao Chen entered that state briefly, then quickly awoke.

He began at the very top of the stele, injecting divine power and reading from the first chapter. After only a short while, he withdrew his power.

The revelations were profound. The eighth stele could not be cultivated without the first seven as a foundation. To force it would only wound one’s Dao body, and even a peerless genius could at best snatch a fragment of its meaning, never reaching perfection.

Xiao Chen was shaken. He could not yet train in this eighth Heavenly Stele. He had already gathered the methods of six steles; he still needed to find the seventh.

Hurriedly glancing at a few more sections, Xiao Chen felt his divine sense on the verge of shattering. He quickly withdrew.

But in that brief moment, his heart trembled. Two of the seal diagrams were strikingly similar to the divine seal the female corpse had used. With slight variations, they were the same technique. What was the connection? Which seal had been created first? The female corpse came from the mysterious world marked on the Ancestral Dragon skin map. Had the Heavenly Steles also come from there?

Xiao Chen moved to the other side of the stele. He poured divine power into it as well. To his astonishment, ancient characters and carvings also appeared.

These were not cultivation techniques, but to him they were even more important. They were records left by an unknown hand—completely different from the other side, not from the same author.

They documented where in the primordial age the first seven Heavenly Steles might have been suppressed, along with speculations on the origin of the steles themselves.