Chapter 1664: Walking Alone, Establishing the Path Through Oneself

No one came before me, and no one will follow. This is destined to be a lonely path. In this vast and desolate world, I walk alone.

He had not yet reached the ultimate peak, but all predecessors were gone, and the path for future generations had been severed. Now, only Chu Feng remained. Amidst the ruins, in a dilapidated grand era, he walked alone through the mists.

He couldn't even find someone to talk to. No one could understand his feelings. He was out of sync with the entire era. Everyone and everything connected to him had turned to ashes and dust in the relentless tide of time.

Even standing in a sea of people, surrounded by bustling splendor, an eternal, profound loneliness lingered in his heart. The entire prosperous mortal world could not dispel the cold desolation he felt.

Chu Feng walked through the colossal city. The vast mortal world, with its countless inhabitants, became mere scenery along his path. Conversely, he himself was but a quiet embellishment in this world.

He shook his head vigorously. Nothing was unacceptable. Even if he were the last one remaining, he would not halt his steps. One day, he would engulf the ages and charge into the ominous land!

For hundreds of thousands of years, he had lived life after life, constantly reborn and transformed. Chu Feng was certain of his immense strength.

In ancient times, he could already contend with Immortal-level beings. Now, having become a true Red Dust Immortal, he was naturally even more unfathomable. Undoubtedly, he could effortlessly suppress and slay Immortal-level cultivators. He alone could sweep through all Immortals across the myriad worlds.

Yet, he felt no joy. Among those who eventually achieved the rank of Quasi-Immortal Emperor, who had not reached this stage? This was even more true for beings at the path's end.

The path ahead was still long. From this point on, he needed to forge his own path. Everything was just beginning.

Currently, he had no adversaries. He couldn't find ominous creatures to test his might against. At this stage, he needed to lie low, exercising discretion and patience. When the day came that he could rival the Ancestors, and was needed to soar heavenward, he would unhesitatingly dive towards the ominous land and fight a bloody battle on the plateau!

Even upon becoming a Red Dust Immortal, no lightning appeared, and no heavenly tribulation manifested.

As in the past, this was connected to the stone jar, and also due to the world having turned into ruins.

The Desolate Emperor's lightning pool had been destroyed. Furthermore, the Ancestors had shattered the Grand Dao, tearing apart the order of all heavens, and supreme beings had unleashed a strike of heavenly will. How could any lightning tribulation remain?

"I don't need the trial of a heavenly tribulation; my own path is the greatest tribulation!" Chu Feng whispered, and set out once more.

He only needed to become the strongest. He firmly believed that one day, even if a lightning tribulation appeared, it would be utterly docile before him; he would no longer need lightning to temper his body and refine his soul.

The Era of Spirit Depletion was truly an age unsuitable for cultivation. Such a world made many people of extraordinary talent feel immense despair, as there was no foundation for evolution.

Even Chu Feng had deeply felt that suppression over the years. It was like a heavy mountain pressing down, making cultivators feel suffocated.

Spiritual energy had dried up, and the essence of heaven and earth was so thin it was almost imperceptible. How could one evolve? How could one achieve transcendence?

It was truly not easy for Chu Feng to achieve Red Dust Immortal in this era. He had, after all, survived the tribulation of death, and his life was prolonged. He no longer needed to worry about dying of old age in this peculiar era.

However, after reaching the Immortal Dao realm, he still found things challenging. Though he would not face concerns about his lifespan for a very long time, rapid evolution remained difficult.

Most terrifyingly, the order of heaven and earth was fractured, laws were incomplete, and the Grand Dao had disintegrated. This was catastrophic for life forms in the Immortal Dao realm!

To advance and evolve further, he needed to comprehend the Grand Dao, and to perceive the rules of order, and so on. But all of these were broken, fragmented, and scattered.

Chu Feng's heart sank. He walked through the mortal world, traversing among the ruins of famous mountains and great rivers. He waited for many years, but the world did not 'warm up'; in fact, the suppression grew even more terrifying.

If this continued, even the lowest-level cultivators would become impossible to find. The world would be devoid of practitioners!

Indeed, Chu Feng's worries were not unfounded. Having traveled across the world, he genuinely found no other cultivator.

Though extremely difficult, Chu Feng did not abandon his path of advancement. Not discouraged in the slightest, he continued to read scriptures, study domain patterns, and forge his own path.

He diligently refined himself, from his physical body to his spirit. He hoped to achieve greater perfection, believing there should be an ultimate peak in this Red Dust Immortal realm.

Red Dust Immortal was already considered a peak realm, capable of suppressing all Immortals in the world. But he firmly believed that at the pinnacle of Immortality, there was an apex, the very peak of the pyramid, and he absolutely had to stand upon it!

His situation was exceptionally difficult. He could not sense the Grand Dao, nor touch the brilliant rules and order. In the world, there were only fragmented remnants of true meaning, like tattered scales and broken claws.

Chu Feng soared beyond the domain, looking down at the entire continent. It was immense and boundless. The land below must have once been a special ancestral land and pure land in this universe, but clearly, everything was now in ruins.

He ventured deep into the starry sky, occasionally discovering planets with life. But on them, spiritual essence was even scarcer, and the Grand Dao was even less apparent; they were far inferior to that continent.

Chu Feng knew it was time to leave. He needed to tear open the great universe's barrier and journey to other grand worlds. He wanted to see if other realms were equally barren.

Whoosh! That day, a beam of light burst forth from the depths of the dark universe. Chu Feng, wielding the power of a supreme Red Dust Immortal, cleaved open the universe and departed from this world.

The scenery was similar, the environment largely unchanged. It was still a land of spirit depletion!

Chu Feng traversed chaotic regions and broke into a new grand world. He saw no improvement whatsoever. Everywhere lay broken mountains. Even after hundreds of thousands of years, many ruins remained preserved beneath the soil. Spiritual energy had dried up, the lineage of cultivators was severed, and no practitioners remained in the human world.

His heart grew heavy. From this point on, would no one be able to cultivate?

Chu Feng walked across the land on foot, traversing mountains and seas. He searched for traces of the past, hoping to touch the remnants of the Grand Dao and its rules, but in the end, he was disappointed, finding only a few fragmented pieces of order.

Moreover, as time progressed, the situation continued to deteriorate.

Chu Feng discovered many ruins, from which he unearthed surviving stone carvings, inscriptions, and ancient texts. He collected everything, whether it was records related to evolution or domain runes. The latter, in particular, he prioritized collecting.

However, he did not take the originals with him. He firmly believed that one day, when spring returned to the land, these remaining jade scrolls and inscriptions would become sparks, allowing cultivators to reappear in the human realm.

Chu Feng explored the ruins in this world, comprehending his own methods and path, and stayed for over a thousand years.

Innumerable generations had passed in the world. But he was certain that indeed, not a single cultivator remained. Over a thousand years, he traveled across the world, encountering not a single being who had even tentatively stepped onto the path of cultivation.

The path of evolution was severed; no transcendence existed in any region. Yet, technological civilization began to flourish. Though impressive, Chu Feng sighed softly, considering the methods of the Ancestors and Immortal Emperors, for this could not alter the overarching trend.

One day, at the edge of the starry sky, Chu Feng once again tore open the great universe's barrier and departed from this realm.

Chu Feng continued his solitary journey, and tens of thousands more years passed. He grew somewhat disappointed, as spring never returned to the land, and the Era of Spirit Depletion grew increasingly cruel.

He explored and sought, wanting to unearth all ancient histories, to find all grand worlds and recreate what was.

Finally, one day, after entering a grand world of exceptionally high caliber, he sensed a different aura. In this universe, there were... Immortals!

This greatly invigorated him. Had he found fellow travelers?

However, he quickly calmed himself. Unless it was an old acquaintance, he should not reveal himself. He did not want to leave suspicious traces in the mortal realm before conquering the ominous land, as this was to prevent beings at the path's end from discovering any clues.

Prudence was not a fault; it was always better than carelessness.

He believed that with the stone jar concealing his aura, it would be difficult for outsiders to detect him.

Chu Feng lay low in this world. Besides excavating ancient ruins, collecting various scriptures and classics, and delving ever deeper into the domain evolution path, he also observed the Immortals of this world.

This universe was still a severe land of spirit depletion. Aside from a dozen True Immortals, there were no other cultivators.

The remaining Immortal-level beings were not in good condition. Some had severe injuries to their origins, and some True Immortals even exhibited signs of old age and fatigue.

Chu Feng realized: would even True Immortals slowly age? Was it simply that this process was extremely slow, and it only became gradually apparent in the Era of Spirit Depletion?

No wonder no one ever claimed True Immortals could be eternal; it truly made sense.

Ultimately, Chu Feng quietly left this world. He couldn't halt his journey for these unfamiliar Immortals; he intended to travel through all realms and perfect his own Dao.

Over the years, he had collected various scriptures, ancient tablets, and scrolls to verify his own methods, finding them of great reference value.

In the following years, Chu Feng also discovered Immortals in other universes. Sometimes one or two, sometimes three to five, but far fewer Immortal Dao beings than in the previous world.

Time flew, and another tens of thousands of years passed in the blink of an eye. Chu Feng was certain that in this most difficult era, he had reached the ultimate peak of Immortality!

In this realm, he could advance no further.

He believed that when facing swarms of Immortal-level cultivators, he could fight his way through them and obliterate ominous creatures of that level with a mere lift of his hand.

Soon after, Chu Feng revisited that grand world of exceptionally high caliber. He discovered that the condition of some among the dozen True Immortals had deteriorated further.

Among them, two had severe cracks in their origins, appearing exceptionally aged and fatigued. In the Era of Spirit Depletion, they found it difficult to grasp the Grand Dao, and they also couldn't absorb large amounts of spiritual energy and essence from heaven and earth. They were very weak. If this continued, it was truly possible that Immortals would perish.

In fact, due to unforeseen developments, the day True Immortals perished arrived much earlier than Chu Feng had anticipated.

On this day, rare Dao traces actually appeared in the heavens and on earth, finally coalescing into a blurry blade, which then descended along an unknown trajectory!

"Ah..." Some True Immortals cried out in sorrow, while some aging cultivators glared angrily at the indistinct butcher knife in the sky. But they were powerless to change anything.

On that day, the origins of all True Immortals across the myriad worlds collapsed. All True Immortals... perished!

The Blade of Heavenly Will from ancient times reappeared, not sparing even True Immortals. It rendered cultivators in the world almost entirely extinct, making it nearly impossible to find any more practitioners.

Chu Feng witnessed this scene firsthand, clenching his fists and remaining silent. Powerless to change anything, he watched as a dozen True Immortals successively dissolved into the Dao and perished.

He knew the stone jar had worked, obscuring everything. The Blade of Heavenly Will had not found him.

The Era of Spirit Depletion, severing the path and lives of all cultivators — this was the truth of this era!

On the plateau, three Immortal Emperors stood motionless. They scanned coldly across all worlds, without the slightest emotional fluctuation.

That Blade of Heavenly Will was still the one unleashed back then. However, remnant traces remained in the world. Now, they activated that residual blade representing destiny, harvesting even the True Immortals they deemed insignificant.

"With the weeds eliminated, spring plowing will come in due time. Let us first remain dormant for a long era," an Immortal Emperor spoke.

The Ancestors lay dormant at the end of the plateau. The three ominous Immortal Emperors also needed to recuperate, and they might obtain primordial matter, which could allow them to advance into the Ancestral realm.

For a considerably long period, they would likely not appear. Fearing any unforeseen incidents beyond their control, they had activated the Blade of Heavenly Will.

Not until this day passed did the blade marks left by the three outside finally completely dissipate. They vanished, and the ominous land fell silent.

***

The stars shifted, and time flowed onward. More than a million years had passed since that final battle.

Chu Feng traversed various realms, standing at the ultimate peak of Immortality. He was not anxious; even though heaven and earth remained in the Era of Spirit Depletion, he faced it calmly, continuing on his own path.

He patiently honed himself, from his body to his spirit. He hoped to be utterly flawless, truly capable of overlooking all enemies across myriad worlds in this realm. He believed one person could slay all creatures of the same level within the ominous land!

He imposed such strict demands on himself because he truly did not know how many monsters of the same level he would have to face when one day in the future he was qualified to kill his way to the end of the plateau.

After all, primordial matter existed there, along with an ominous, immense power capable of continuously resurrecting the Ancestors.

On this day, after Chu Feng forged his own path and deduced his own methods, his mind was profoundly shaken. The domain evolution path appeared even more brilliant in his eyes, accompanied by a feeling of profound enlightenment.

He gazed down at the earth, his voice resonant and powerful, saying: "Across all realms, the Grand Dao has collapsed, rules and order are fractured and unreachable. Since there is no longer a Dao, then I shall create my own. Where I stand shall be the place where laws and order are reborn, pioneered by me, establishing the Dao through my very being!"