Hua Geng gave a light smile, as calm as a cloud. In youth, when one's looks are still fair, who is not a peerless beauty? Who has not been resplendent with grace?
The maiden ascended the steps, each footfall on the ladder of the Great Dao causing golden radiance to flow.
The golden rays converged into a golden river, which flowed high into the firmament, accompanying Hua Geng.
After millions of years of refining her Five Qi and Three Flowers converging at the crown, as Hua Geng reached over ten thousand steps, a myriad of auspicious clouds formed, blooming with golden divine flowers, and a golden tide surged, creating a magnificent spectacle.
The beauty took another ten thousand steps, her face flushed, breathing heavily, finding it increasingly difficult to continue.
The Dao manifestations gradually weakened, the Great Dao's restrictions making it hard for her to proceed.
Below, Qing Ling gazed upwards, watching that resilient figure, his heart filled with only the choice to believe.
He had given Granny Hua Geng a chance to defy fate, but that was all he could do.
Many Grand Unity cultivators struggled their entire lives without achieving the perfection of Five Qi and Three Flowers. Among those Grand Unity cultivators who perfected five out of ten profound Dao methods, only three out of ten could invoke the celestial Dao manifestations. And among those three out of ten who invoked them, only one in ten miracles could ascend to the other shore of Grand Unity.
With her immense willpower, Granny Hua Geng had achieved the perfection of Five Qi and Three Flowers. Qing Ling had invoked the celestial Dao manifestations for her to defy fate, but the path of ascension could only be trod by her alone.
Hua Geng's face had turned pale, her body trembling. With every step she lifted and every step she placed, her primordial spirit was shaken and battered by the Golden Metal Great Dao, causing her unbearable pain.
Yet, she lifted her head, looking at the remaining ten thousand-plus steps, and gritted her teeth to continue upwards.
Her physical form shed, a colossal golden python ascended the Dao ladder. With each forward crawl, thirty-six golden scales, along with flesh and blood, fell from its body.
However, the resistance against the giant python greatly reduced, and it desperately clawed its way towards the end.
Experts from all sides turned their attention, the wilderness of Du Guang stirred with renewed energy, and a Grand Unity being was about to manifest.
The golden python was covered in wounds, leaving a trail of bloodstains on the long Dao ladder, a testament to its dedication to the Dao and its faith in Grand Unity.
The Dao ladder was long, the golden python weary, disheveled, but it did not stop.
On the fifty-three thousand steps of the Dao ladder, the golden python crawled for three days and three nights. In the end, with every step, it would pause for half a moment. Little by little, even as its body grew colder and the dread of death enveloped it, the golden python never looked back, never stopped.
With a mad obsession in its eyes, the golden python took its final step, its serpentine body crossing the threshold. Grand Unity was achieved!
Golden celestial radiance rolled in, and an endless tide of spiritual energy surged. The golden python transformed into a human, but not a beauty; it became an old woman, leaning on a staff, standing on the other shore of Grand Unity.
The golden tide flowed beneath her feet. Where she walked, where she had crawled on the Dao ladder, the ladder, soaked in her blood, dissolved, replaced by a golden bridge connecting heaven and earth.
On the golden river, Granny Hua Geng, the elder, stood at the bridgehead, looking back at the shore. Flowers bloomed unfailingly, golden blossoms radiant.
A golden world manifested, standing at the bridgehead, its Dao immense and luminous.
Qing Ling's face relaxed, and he smiled with joy, "Congratulations, Granny, on attaining Grand Unity and transcending the heavens and earth!"
Hua Geng retracted her Dao manifestations, her eyes full of smiles, "It is all thanks to you. Without you, there would be no Hua Geng today."
Her moment of kindness back then had created an opportunity for the resurgence of Xi Mountain!
Qing Ling's eyes held reverence, "Granny's great courage and perseverance surpassed mine. It was merely limited by bloodline and physical form."
"Heh, it is a matter of time and fate. If it is my fate, then it is my time," Hua Geng chuckled, shaking her head.
Qing Ling and Hua Geng returned to Xi Mountain. A clan with two Grand Unity beings was a rare sight, even among the entire Dragon clan's tributaries.
The entire Eastern Wilderness fell silent due to the rise of Xi Mountain. The Eastern Wilderness, which had been plagued by countless years of war and turmoil, finally began to calm.
Qing Ling, too, was finally able to extricate himself from worldly affairs and embark on the cultivation of the Grand Unity realm.
Qing Ling had completely refined all twenty-seven layers of innate Dao prohibitions within the Mi Tian Rope.
On that day, above the Eastern Wilderness, azure chains obscured the sun and blotted out the sky, countless azure chains containing a portion of the heavens.
This spiritual treasure, which had been silent for countless years, finally returned to its origin and revealed its divine power to the world.
Qing Ling's primordial spirit entered a state of deep meditation. His left hand held the Spring God Seal, and his right hand held the Ancestral Beginning Seal. His foundation was the Wood Dao, extending the cycle of withering and flourishing, birth and death, converging into a single realm of life and death, withering and flourishing.
The Jianmu grew, absorbing the power of the nine heavenly winds of the first layer of heaven.
The wind howled and danced ferociously. Within the first layer of heaven, there was no cloud or water, only wind.
Amidst the whistling wind, the Jianmu gradually grew, three feet and three inches taller each day, ten feet taller each day. Though slow, it was steady and continuous.
Under the torment of the wind, the Jianmu's leaves withered and were reborn, died and were reborn again, an unending cycle of life and death. The Dao of wind lay in movement. All things in heaven and earth move with the wind, and wherever there is movement, there is wind.
The wind whispered, as if softly reciting poems, or like fierce wolves and tigers devouring everything with terrifying might.
Qing Ling stood at the tip of the Jianmu, feeling the wind from all directions entering his body. Void wind, soul-devouring wind, absolute cold wind, black wind, body-splitting wind, golden blade wind – traces of all kinds of winds were left on the Jianmu, which had been ravaged and reborn hundreds of times.
He felt the gentle whisper of the wind, its poetic beauty, its wild dance, its furious roar, its release, blowing through the heavens and earth, commanding all things to submit.
Qing Ling soared in all directions at the peak of the Jianmu, his eyes closed, sensing the wind. He stood there for countless years, for eons.
Amidst the gale-force winds, the Jianmu grew ten feet higher and higher. Innumerable winds gathered in the center, and a colossal tornado enveloped the Jianmu.
Within the first layer of heaven, the Jianmu's body was bathed in gentle breezes, while within the second layer of heaven, the wind raged and swept unrestlessly.
In the midst of the winds, Qing Ling's body gradually harmonized with the wind; the rise and fall of the wind were guided by his heart.
The Dao of Grand Unity, the apex of the Dao, once one path is attained, all myriad laws are understood.
One Yuan after another, time flowed like water, and eons passed like a waterfall. The Jianmu grew tens of thousands of feet taller.
At the peak of the Jianmu, Qing Ling bathed in silver radiance. Ripples of time spread out, and the winds of ten thousand years ago blew through the golden Jianmu.
Qing Ling's eyes snapped open. A fierce gale erupted, and the boundless wrath of the storm in the first layer of heaven gathered like thunder, tearing through the air with a deafening roar, like the cry of dragons and tigers, the wind shattering the long sky for eternity.
Thousands of wind currents converged, and the Jianmu grew with the wind, instantly surpassing hundreds of Yuanhui. The wind rose, the wood ascended, directly into the second layer of heaven.
Qing Ling's hundred acres of auspicious clouds absorbed hundreds of acres of wind. As the wind and rain fell, the auspicious clouds rose and fell above his head.
He wielded the authority over the wind and rain with the Spring God's palm, comprehending the Great Dao of wind. He realized that one path led to the first layer of heaven. The Jianmu grew tens of thousands of feet with the wind's power, bearing an additional third of the heavens' might.
Qing Ling's luck increased by three parts, and his cultivation advanced another level, becoming a second-layer Grand Unity Golden Immortal.
On this day, twelve Yuanhui had passed since Hua Geng attained Grand Unity. He had lived for fifty Yuanhui, his lifespan reaching six million four hundred and fifty thousand years.
Some of the clan elders, who were Golden Immortals, had perished. Dozens had been injured or killed, but he, a Grand Unity Golden Immortal, remained ageless and immortal, his appearance unchanged.
Within his body, in the world of Grand Unity beyond life and death, within the sound of the world, there were now gentle breezes and light rain, or roaring gales, guided by the wind. The four seasons turned by the wind.
The longer Qing Ling cultivated, the more his heart became immersed in the ancient ages. His emotions became difficult to stir, tending towards indifference.
Even as the elders of the clan passed away one by one, he merely sighed, his heart unmoved.