Ch. 1366 - An Old Acquaintance From The Primordial Heartlands, Formation Emperor

Within that vast, ancient, and desolate world, the air felt heavy and dim. Standing in it, one couldn’t help but feel insignificant. Yet it was not completely silent, every now and then, faint movements could be heard, as if unseen beasts wandered through the shadows.

Had the middle-aged man not warned them beforehand, the three of them would have taken this world to be real.

“Remarkable,” Xu Zimo murmured in admiration. “A single heart of formation, capable of evolving all things between heaven and earth.”

“Now then, my guests,” the middle-aged man’s voice came from all directions, “this is a killing formation.”

The moment he spoke, a suffocating aura of slaughter filled the air.

The once-normal beasts began to mutate, their bodies swelling to a hundred times their original size. Land and sky teemed with them, flying creatures, crawling monsters, a tide of countless beasts charging toward the three.

“Good! Come then!” the Violet Mist Saint Sovereign shouted, violet radiance bursting around him.

But in the next instant, his expression changed slightly.

“My Primal Daos are being suppressed. This formation… it’s stronger than I thought.”

He could feel it clearly, his mastery over his own Primal Daos was sluggish here, restrained by some unseen power.

“Don’t focus on killing the beasts,” Xu Zimo said calmly. “Feel this world itself. You may gain some insight from it.”

The Violet Mist Saint Sovereign and Moonlight Fairy both nodded.

Xu Zimo didn’t summon Shadow Tyrant. As a beast lunged, he simply reached out, caught it by the neck, and with a single twist, snapped it.

When the creature died, there was no blood, no corpse, it dissolved into pure threads of formation energy.

Xu Zimo closed his eyes briefly, sensing the essence of that energy, then shook his head.

“Ingenious,” he murmured, “but lifeless. There is no soul in it.”

He knew what he was talking about, the God World he had forged was a living world. Every being there had its own breath of life.

When all the beasts had fallen, the middle-aged man’s voice came again.

“Next comes the trapping formation.”

In an instant, the colossal trees of the ancient forest began to sway violently.

Their roots tore free from the ground, and they marched forward, encircling Xu Zimo and his companions. Countless thick branches intertwined, forming a prison of living wood. Even beneath the grass, hidden tendrils crept forward to strike.

“Why don’t you just activate all the forms of your formation at once?” Xu Zimo said.

“In that case, watch closely,” replied the man’s voice.

The entire world trembled.

An immense surge of spirit energy erupted like a storm.

From the sky came the roars of divine beasts, creatures of myth and legend emerging one after another.

Golden lotuses bloomed from the earth. The heavens turned upside down, rivers of stars flowing across the firmament. The sun and moon rose and fell, cycling endlessly. The seasons shifted in an instant, spring, summer, autumn, winter.

This world was more complete than Xu Zimo had expected.

But to his eyes, it was still only an imitation. A dead thing.

He closed his eyes, feeling the rhythm of its existence.

Then he opened them again, and snapped his fingers.

In that instant, everything vanished.

All illusions dissolved, the beasts, the trees, the sky, the seasons. Gone.

For that brief moment, Xu Zimo became the master of the world itself.

He had taken control of the formation, right out of the middle-aged man’s hands.

“What’s happening?” the man exclaimed in disbelief.

This formation world was his creation, his life’s work. He knew every thread of its structure. Yet now, standing within it, he felt something foreign, something that no longer obeyed his will.

Because at that moment, Xu Zimo was the one in control.

He opened his hand, and the formation released its hold. The three of them stepped calmly out.

The middle-aged man hurried forward. “Honored guest, please instruct me, how did you do that?”

“Before that,” Xu Zimo said with a small smile, “tell me your name.”

“Mo Changtian,” the man replied.

“Should I call you Mo Changtian,” Xu Zimo said with amusement, “or the Formation Emperor? Though now that you’ve attained sainthood, ‘Emperor’ might no longer be the right title.”

The Formation Emperor, how many still remembered that name?

Back on the Primordial Heartlands, in the Eastern Continent, there had been a Mo Imperial Clan.

Their ancestor was this very man, the Formation Emperor.

In the past, he had left behind the legendary Hexa-Genesis Immortal Formation. It was said the formation could only be broken from outside; anyone trapped within could never escape.

Now that Xu Zimo had seen far greater worlds, he recognized the flaws in it, though back then, he had even recorded that formation into his Astrolabe.

“You’re from the Primordial Heartlands as well,” Mo Changtian said, realization dawning on his face. He sighed softly. “Each generation brings forth new talents indeed.”

Xu Zimo smiled faintly. Meeting someone from his homeland here was a kind of fate.

Since arriving in the Nine Heavens, he had learned little of the old Grand Emperors from Primordial Heartlands. Those who had reached that level were destined to seek higher realms, likely climbing to the upper domains of the Nine Heavens.

And Xu Zimo knew in his heart. The higher he ascended, the more familiar faces he would meet again.

“Please, Dao Brother,” said Mo Changtian earnestly, “teach me, how did you seize control of my formation?”

“Your formation is fascinating, I’ll grant you that,” Xu Zimo said. “But you wish to create an entire world from it. Even leaving everything else aside, there’s one thing you can never achieve.”

“What is that?” asked Mo Changtian.

“Your world operates only under your will,” Xu Zimo said. “That makes it a dead world. Everything within it follows patterns you set.

“A true world,” he continued, “is unpredictable. It has no set rhythm, no clear path ahead. Every living being follows its own destiny. That’s what we call the Grand Dao, infinite Daos, infinite choices. But in your world, though you’ve formed living creatures, there’s no life in them. They move only by your intent. Once I understood your intent, I could take control myself.”

Xu Zimo rarely interfered with the development of his God World for this very reason.

Every creature in a living world must have its own thoughts, its own will. Once that freedom is caged, the world becomes nothing more than a lifeless shell.

His words struck Mo Changtian like a thunderclap of revelation.

“Then, Dao Brother,” Mo asked quickly, “is there a way to fix it?”

Xu Zimo shook his head. “You’re too greedy. A formation-born world, it’s impossible. No matter which path you take, it can’t be done.”

He spoke as one who had already walked that road and knew its limits. This wasn’t a matter of missing some component, it simply defied the nature of reality itself.

Mo Changtian sighed, a faint smile on his lips. “True enough. I’ve felt it myself over the years, I must have taken a wrong turn long ago. But after ten thousand years, I’ve grown used to it. It’s hard to change now.”

“As long as you’re content, isn’t that what matters?” Xu Zimo said with a chuckle. “By the way, I have a question. We’re headed to the Huo Heavenly Clan, do you know the way?”

“There’s no fixed path to the Huo Heavenly Clan,” Mo Changtian replied. “Just follow the direction of the sun. You’ll reach it eventually.”

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