The Ancient Celestial Domain!

Here, betwixt the Inner and Outer Realms, lay the Ancient Celestial Domain!

A place countless ages older than even the Four Great Immortal Realms, it existed almost from the very genesis of this Inner and Outer world. For eons beyond reckoning, it bore but one name: the Ancient Celestial Domain. Venerated Immortals rose from its grounds, celestial consorts graced its paths, and all things ancient found their genesis within.

A vast and desolate landscape unfolded, freed from the limitations of mortal sight. The heavens, shrouded in perpetual twilight, seemed perpetually swept by countless tempestuous winds, a never-ending dance that had persisted since the dawn of time.

And upon this dim canvas blazed not one, but nine suns, their true forms obscured by swirling mists, yet their fiery outlines unmistakable. It was this sight that halted Wang Lin’s advance – nine suns amidst the swirling chaos.

“Nine suns… here as well?” Wang Lin’s pupils contracted, recalling the celestial vista he had witnessed upon the Immortal Astral Continent, where nine suns dominated the sky.

Their presence here sparked a nascent and unsettling understanding.

“Either this is a fragment of the Immortal Astral Continent I beheld… or it possesses a connection deeper than I can presently fathom.” Wang Lin contemplated in silence, his gaze sweeping across the alien terrain. As his power grew, so too did his knowledge, tearing away the veils of secrecy woven through the ages, drawing him ever closer to the ultimate, perhaps terrible, secret of the Inner and Outer Realms, of all creation.

This secret might be a devastating truth, a cessation of all things, or merely the dawn of a new epoch.

Two thousand years of cultivation, countless brushes with life and death, had brought Wang Lin to this day, to this Ancient Celestial Domain, the hallowed ground revered by all cultivators!

Silence blanketed the land, broken only by the silent sentinels – countless statues, each frozen mid-action, as if living beings turned to stone. Some stood defiant, others knelt in supplication, some roared at the heavens, their faces contorted in anguish. Like a petrified army, they had stood watch over this land for ages untold.

At long last, Wang Lin, standing in the sky, raised his head and peered into the blinding light of the nine suns. With a purposeful stride, he shot forward like a radiant meteor, the rushing winds howling in his wake.

The gale intensified as he approached the first sun, concealed behind a curtain of swirling mist. The tempestuous winds whipped at Wang Lin’s white hair and robes, threatening to tear him apart.

Yet, he stood immovable as a mountain, unshaken by the fury. His face, obscured by his wind-tossed hair, remained indistinct, but through the silken strands, his eyes burned with a keen and unwavering light.

Before the first sun, Wang Lin seemed infinitesimal, a mere speck of dust, yet from this speck emanated an aura of unimaginable power, silencing any who dared consider him insignificant!

An aura that dwarfed even the blazing sun, an aura with which the sun could not compete!

Wang Lin fixed his gaze upon the sun, its form intermittently obscured by the swirling mist. He raised his right hand and with a sweeping gesture of his sleeve, unleashed a thunderous wave of power. The mists, momentarily stunned, parted before him, as if facing a force of divine magnitude.

With the mists retreating, the first sun stood revealed in all its stark glory.

His eyes flashed with cold resolve, Wang Lin unleashed another wave of power. This time, the sun’s light dimmed perceptibly. It shuddered violently, then began to crumble before Wang Lin’s very eyes.

Explosions echoed through the desolate landscape, as the first sun rapidly disintegrated. Its radiant glow faded, disappearing into nothingness, while the sun itself shrunk dramatically, a mere shadow of its former celestial majesty. “This is no sun at all, but a construct of arcane power! It contains a fragment of heavenly tribulation, the very essence that summons the tribulations of this world!” Wang Lin’s eyes flashed with insight. He raised his hand again, unleashing a series of sweeping motions that forced the sun to shrink further and further.

Finally, with one last mighty sweep, the sun erupted in a cataclysmic blast, shattering into a million fragments before his gaze.

As it disintegrated, a writhing tendril of lightning, the color of nine distinct hues, appeared. It had been imprisoned within the sun, and its presence was the root cause of the first tribulation: the celestial thunder!

Gazing upon the captured lightning, Wang Lin felt a haunting echo of the first time he faced the wrath of the heavens, the terrifying descent of tribulation lightning.

“I have long suspected that nothing in this world appears without cause. The birth of all things, living or otherwise, is bound by causality… even tribulations are not self-generated, but forged by some strange force, or perhaps a mighty being!” Wang Lin muttered to himself, then reached out and seized the struggling, multicolored lightning. It pulsed and writhed in his grasp, defiant, and it would never yield unless his strength surpassed that of its mysterious creator.

With the captured lightning crackling in his hand, Wang Lin hesitated.

“I can glimpse the origin of tribulations… I have a suspicion. But do I dare seek the truth? Do I dare confirm my darkest fears?” After a long moment, determination shone in his eyes. He unleashed his boundless divine sense, plunging it into the heart of the captured lightning, seeking to unmask the architect of the heavenly tribulations.

The instant his divine sense touched the lightning, Wang Lin’s mind erupted in chaos, his vision blurring as if time itself was hurtling backward.

Slowly, he perceived a new world, bathed in the infinite glow of seven vibrant colors. This spectrum shrouded the land, rendering it dreamlike.

The world was vast, its boundaries lost to sight.

Within the swirling hues stood a man garbed in a seven-colored robe. His face was proud, his eyes burned with intensity, and his very presence exuded an immeasurable aura of authority.

He stood there, and the world lay at his feet, all things bound to obey, for he was mightier than the heavens themselves! A single thought from him could shatter reality, and his pride was steeped in chilling indifference.

His thin lips betrayed a stern and unforgiving nature.

The moment Wang Lin laid eyes upon this figure, his mind roared with recognition. He was a perfect likeness, an exact match, for the statue within his storage rift!

Wang Lin recalled his encounter with a seven-colored being when rescuing Qing Shui from the Seven-Colored Realm, yet this being paled in comparison, like starlight before the radiant moon.

While the two shared certain features and expressions, no one would ever mistake them for the same being.

“This Domain, crafted by my own hand, is a world unto itself, containing the essence of creation. All things lie within my grasp, obedient to my will… Though it cannot rival the Grand Venerate Sen Dao’s Senluo Realm, it is close enough… Alas, it lacks the essence of Heaven, the ability to generate its own cycles, to give birth to life, to extract incense… But that will change today, for I have seized a fragment of Heaven!”

The seven-colored man gestured toward the sky, and thunder roared, as lightning erupted from the void, coalescing in his hands.

With but a few hand seals, he molded the raw lightning into a force of tribulation.

“From this day forth, you shall watch over my Domain, punishing any who dare to defy me.”

The vision dissipated, and Wang Lin’s divine sense returned to his body, shuddering. His eyes widened with conflicted emotion as he regarded the still-struggling lightning in his hand.

“I should have known…” Wang Lin murmured.

“Domain… Domain… The old coot from the Battle Clan spoke of the Inner Realm as the Inner Domain. It was clear from the very beginning, but I refused to see it… Like the San Ling of the Seven Million Worlds, he uncovered the secret, and it almost drove him mad…”

“Domain… Domain… So the world in which I live, this Inner and Outer Realm, is nothing more than the Domain of a Grand Venerate from the Immortal Astral Continent!

So it is, so utterly absurd, that the beings of the Inner and Outer Realms owe their existence to this… Traitors… Tribulations punish traitors because they harbor a rebellious spirit, destined to seek the truth of this reality. Thus, the tribulations seek to punish those who seek enlightenment…

It is far more clever than the machinations of the Seven Million Worlds. I should have seen it coming… I could have… I simply did not want to believe such a truth!” Wang Lin laughed, a hollow sound that echoed through the sky, growing ever louder.