Chapter 1887: Chapter 19: Ascending Immortal Platform
Divine Ancient Continent, Diancang Kingdom, Lao Mountain.
This was a hidden place at the very center of Diancang Kingdom, like a Taoyuan; unless an ordinary person possessed immortal fate, it would be absolutely impossible for them to set foot in this realm.
At this moment, within the Immortal Spirit Cave Heaven, inside a lofty suspended peak, pavilions and towers rose upon its platform, ethereal like clouds, and under the backdrop of the surrounding mist and fog, it seemed as though an Immortal Realm had descended upon the mortal world, stunningly beautiful.
Only, on these dreamlike buildings, if one stood close to observe, one could see mottled cracks and lines on their surfaces, as if flaws had stained a peerless painting, leaving one with a sense of regret.
These marks were left by the passage of years, telling the world that the history of this place was already exceedingly long.
This was the Small Immortal Palace.
The Small Immortal Palace had once been the most powerful sect in the Lower Realm during the age of cultivation, and was also the subordinate power of the Heavenly Immortal Palace among mortals.
Now, with the End of Dharma Catastrophe, Spiritual Energy had withered away, and the entire Cultivation World had been utterly wiped out; let alone this Small Immortal Palace here, even the Immortal Palace of the Immortal Realm no longer existed.
Several years ago, after Zhang Xiaoman consolidated his realm and returned from the Second Universe, he rested for a short time on Water Blue Star, then came straight here.
The Guiding Immortal Road leading to the Immortal Realm was located here; he needed to use this route to open the gate to the Immortal Realm, go there to explore the Hidden secrets, and by the way see whether he could obtain other opportunities.
Of course, with his current strength, even without passing through the Guiding Immortal Road, he could directly force his way through the boundless deep space and still reach the Immortal Realm, and that was indeed what he did at the beginning.
Only after he arrived in the Immortal Realm did he discover that, because he had not proven the Dao as a True Immortal but had used another cultivation method to reach such heights, although his cultivation realm was equivalent, the Immortal Realm did not acknowledge such an existence as him; this caused the entire Immortal Realm to reject him, forcing him at every moment to resist that power of rejection.
The repulsive force of the Immortal Realm was extremely strong—after all, it was a high-level world—so even Zhang Xiaoman as he was now could not forcibly remain in the Immortal Realm for long; in the short term he could only make a single round trip, which caused his progress in exploring the Immortal Realm to become exceedingly slow.
Later, after being given a hint by Ni Yang, he learned that to resolve this situation, either his strength had to reach the point where he could suppress the entire Immortal Realm, or he had to join the Immortal Realm and become a True Immortal, or he could only rely on the Guiding Immortal Road to assist him in his exploration.
The feasibility of the first two methods was not high: if he could directly suppress the Immortal Realm, it would mean that the place already held no more value for him to explore.
And the second method was even more impossible; to join the Immortal Realm and become a True Immortal would be to make him abandon his Human identity and become an emotionless Alien Race, something he would absolutely never consider.
Thus, Zhang Xiaoman could only adopt the last method, which was to use the Guiding Immortal Road as a guide, constantly marking his aura, deceiving the eyes of the Immortal Realm so that he could remain there for extended periods.
But this approach had a drawback, namely that during the period when Zhang Xiaoman was exploring, the Guiding Immortal Road had to remain open at all times and could not be interrupted; otherwise he would very quickly be rejected out of the Immortal Realm.
To keep the Guiding Immortal Road open, in addition to consuming Spirit Stone resources every moment, it also required an expert to sit in town on the Ascending Immortal Platform, using their own Spiritual Power as a medium to maintain the constant opening of the Immortal Path.
Therefore, Zhang Xiaoman summoned dozens of Controllers from the organization to take turns sitting in town on the Ascending Immortal Platform, maintaining the opening of the Immortal Path for him.
The one currently stationed here was an Inspector of the Star Alliance, Su Changqing.
Su Changqing originally would not have appeared here, but recently Heavenly Demons from the Immortal Realm had been emerging endlessly within the Guiding Immortal Road, so he needed to personally come and verify the situation here.
At this moment, upon the Ascending Immortal Platform, Su Changqing’s figure sat upright, and beside him were more than a hundred powerful cultivator guards; on the outer perimeter of the platform were even more low-level cultivators clustered together, and at a glance their number was no fewer than ten thousand.
Almost all of these people were Disciples of the Tianyuan Sect, and among them were also quite a few Loose Cultivators of decent strength; now they had all gathered here to jointly resist the Demons from beyond the heavens.
The so-called Demons were, in truth, nothing more than the name people in this world gave them; on Water Blue Star and in the Second Universe, they had another name—Demon Clan.
Ever since the Guiding Immortal Road had been opened, the obstructing barrier between the Immortal Realm and the Mortal World seemed to have loosened; coupled with the failure of the Ten Thousand Tribulations Soul Locking Array, Demon Clan members had begun to descend from the Immortal Realm to the Mortal World one after another, and the very first places they appeared were the Ascending Immortal Platforms where the Guiding Immortal Road had been opened.
"If we were to close the Guiding Immortal Road, would those Heavenly Demons still appear?"
On the outer edge of the Ascending Immortal Platform, among the crowd of Disciples, a young-looking cultivator quietly asked the companion beside him.
That companion appeared slightly more mature, seemingly someone who had seen a bit of the world, and he immediately gave an answer to the little cultivator’s question.
"Fellow Daoist, you must be new here, right? A year ago, Elder Pei once, at the Sect Leader’s suggestion, temporarily closed the Immortal Path for a period of time, but those Heavenly Demons did not thereby vanish. On the contrary, they actually began to appear one after another in other places in this Mortal World, slaughtering the common folk, committing atrocities in the mountains..."
