Volume One, Chapter Forty-Nine: The Great Battle Against the Will of the Celestial God

Chapter Forty-Nine: The Great Battle Against the Will of the Celestial God

At last, one day, Tu Zhe slowly opened his eyes.

His heart brimmed with joy and delight, yet also with regret.

He had touched upon the laws of time—he could now grasp some of the simpler principles, but the deeper, more intricate laws still eluded his understanding.

But that was enough.

He was but a humble butcher, a young heaven-born prince who had only just entered the world. How many ancient beings, who had lived for countless ages, had yearned to touch the laws of time and never succeeded?

Human desire knows no bounds—like a snake that tries to swallow an elephant.

Tu Zhe sighed, took out the soul crystal of the Celestial God, held it in his hand, and began to invoke the refining technique taught to him by Mu Xiu Lou Tuo, absorbing the crystal’s power.

At first, it went smoothly. The soul crystal was refined by his secret art.

Threads of soul energy flowed continuously along his meridians, transported to his spiritual platform. In an instant, the platform blazed with light; countless active energies began to devour the chaotic mists within.

These vibrant energies expanded, gradually stretching the bounds of the platform to infinity. Countless energies contracted and spun, forming celestial bodies like stars, hanging in the void, dazzling and radiant.

With the influx of power, Tu Zhe’s six senses became piercingly clear. Sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch, and thought—all were purified and sharpened without limit. He could perceive the farthest reaches, hear the faintest sounds, catch the most elusive scents; his consciousness became as unshakable as a mountain of stone.

Outside the egg-shaped space of his Alaya-vijnana within the platform, faint golden mists coiled and swirled—the transitional layer of consciousness: the Manas.

Gradually, the Manas too became enveloped and saturated by the power of the soul crystal.

But at that moment, danger struck. Tu Zhe was suddenly shrouded in a cloud of deluded suspicion, arrogance, and doubt—a strange force that questioned all, looked down on all, trusted only in itself, acknowledging only its own reality. This force swiftly spread within the Manas.

This stubborn suspicion fiercely resisted and repelled the power of the Celestial God’s soul crystal, refusing its influence.

In an instant, this resistance caused a violent explosion on the spiritual platform—flames erupted, thunder roared. The power of the soul crystal, carrying immense energy, swept through the platform as a raging storm, wreaking havoc. Tu Zhe cried out, blood spurting from his mouth—gravely wounded.

Far more terrifying, however, was the sudden emergence of a furious will from within the crystal’s power. This will radiated pressure in all directions, shattering the fabric of space and time.

In that split second, Tu Zhe saw an ancient Celestial God, towering to the heavens and stamping through the earth, bellowing at him—roaring at the suspicion and arrogance harbored within his Manas, enraged by the distrust toward the soul crystal’s power. The roar was like rolling thunder, threatening to shatter Tu Zhe’s very soul.

For a moment, Tu Zhe felt utterly powerless.

What the hell—even the bravest would harbor a little suspicion toward the unknown.

So what if he’d just worried a bit that this soul power might have some side effect on his consciousness? Was that such a grave offense? For that, the will within the crystal was enraged, threatening to snuff him out completely?

You arrogant thing. I’ve already died once—what’s another death to me?

A defiant energy erupted from the depths of Tu Zhe’s Alaya-vijnana, wrapped around a strange seed. Suddenly, the seed transformed into a monstrous beast, pouncing toward the will of the Celestial God. “I’ll devour you, you old bastard,” he thought.

And thus, the beast of Tu Zhe’s consciousness and the Celestial God’s will waged a great battle within the spiritual platform.

At first, every time the beast lunged at the god’s will, it was struck down and sent flying.

But the more the beast was beaten, the wilder it became. “I refuse to believe it,” Tu Zhe thought. “You’re nothing but a dead god, your bones long lost, and with just this scrap of will, you think you can throw a tantrum at me?”

Again and again, the beast attacked, again and again it was repelled. Yet as the battle raged, the soul crystal in Tu Zhe’s hand was slowly being refined. With each defeat, the beast absorbed more of the Celestial God’s soul power, and its speed at devouring this power only increased.

Now he was fighting the god with the god’s own power. “Let’s see who outlasts whom, you ancient tortoise!”

Ah! Ah! Ah!

The beast surging from the depths of Tu Zhe’s Alaya-vijnana only grew fiercer and stronger the longer the battle raged. Its gaping maw devoured all, swallowing the strikes of the Celestial God’s will, never losing a tooth, never bursting its belly, no matter how overwhelming the assault.

Tu Zhe marveled—this beast was an endless abyss, a bottomless pit that could swallow and dissolve anything.

What sort of seed was this?

Now, the Celestial God’s will grew all the more furious, unleashing countless grand arts—storms of soul energy transformed into fire, water, wind, and myriad divine weapons, sweeping to drown the beast.

At this point, Tu Zhe merely watched the beast’s battle as if he were a bystander.

The god’s arts shattered heaven and rent the earth, but could no longer harm Tu Zhe’s soul. His consciousness was sharp, his will like tempered steel. Calmly, he studied the subtlety of the god’s techniques, tracing them to their very source.

Could the energy of the soul transform into every disaster or calamity?

Could it become any sacred weapon of the great Dao?

If so, could the power of will be condensed?

Could the strength of the soul be solidified?

Could it be that my Manas could become a divine weapon, containing the delusive clinging of the Manas itself—filled with immense affliction, suffering, death, the darkness and destruction of endless cycles of samsara? Could it then be forged into a weapon to attack an opponent’s consciousness?

He shifted his awareness to the outer edge of the Alaya-vijnana, observing the Manas as it churned and writhed in the form of chaotic mist.

At once, Tu Zhe merged his consciousness and will with his Manas, feeling all manner of negative emotions—poisonous as venom. Now, he would forge a divine weapon of consciousness, transforming all these afflictions into a blade to slay the Celestial God’s will.

“Master the Manas—reshape the mind!”

The instant his will appeared, the churning mist began to writhe and twist, transforming into a divine blade a hundred yards long.

“Master the Manas—solidify the blade!”

The Manas Blade compressed from mist, issuing a tight, grinding sound, and in a single breath solidified into a razor-sharp long sword.

“Master the Manas—let all worldly afflictions merge!”

The blade now flickered with a black light; dark streams of affliction flowed along its surface, merging into the blade in an instant.

“Master the Manas—let all worldly sufferings merge!”

The blade now blazed with crimson light; searing flames of agony burned along its edge, fusing with the sword in a flash.

“Master the Manas—let the tribulations of life and death merge!”

The blade now shimmered with the glow of withering and flourishing; the wails of creation and destruction echoed upon it, all blending into the sword.

“Master the Manas—let the sorrows of samsara merge!”

Instantly, the blade flashed with the scenes of the Six Realms of Reincarnation—heaven, human, asura, animal, hungry ghost, and hell, all in endless cycle, lives sinking in the wheel, unable to escape. In a heartbeat, these visions too were absorbed into the Manas Blade.