Shrouding the Heavens: The Ultimate Daoist Venerable

Chapter 1: In the world of "Covering the Sky," one attains the status of a Heavenly Venerable.

As time has passed, since the time of the Boundless Heavenly Venerable's transformation into a Daoist, tens of thousands of years have passed without any invincible being who has attained the Dao and become a Venerable.

Even in the mythical era, the environment for cultivation fluctuated. The previous tens of thousands of years were a period of decline, but now, we have entered a period of growth.

In this era, various royal physiques have emerged in droves. Legendary physiques such as the Supreme Immortal Physique and the Brahma Battle Physique have appeared one after another. Powerful bloodlines such as the Golden Crow and the Ancient Phoenix have also appeared in an endless stream. There are even legendary Kunlun Immortal Blood and Holy Spirits formed from the essence of heaven and earth. A golden age has arrived.

The brutal struggle for enlightenment began, and after hundreds or thousands of years of fighting, the struggle for enlightenment in this lifetime finally came to a conclusion.

Liang Yu, clad in a black Taoist robe, stood amidst the starry sky, his aura filling the universe, an invincible force that brought countless galaxies to a standstill.

A pagoda hovered above his head, its surface shrouded in chaotic energy. On each of its forty-nine levels sat a Daoist master, chanting scriptures. The pagoda was covered with various celestial spirits and mythical beasts, sacred mountains and rivers, and Daoist marks seemingly formed by the very heavens and earth, emanating an inexplicable Daoist aura. At the top of the pagoda was an extraordinary pearl, its interior ever-changing, sometimes a void, sometimes the creation of the world by the gods, sometimes the transformation of all things, and sometimes the annihilation of all realms.

This tower, named the Qiankun Creation Tower, was forged from the essence extracted from the Chaos Stone. It was made of the same material as the Wushi Bell of later generations and was Liang Yu's treasure for proving his Dao.

He stood ready, watching the lightning tribulation surging and evolving above, and sighed inwardly, "It's finally here, we've finally reached this point."

He wasn't originally from this world, but one day, on a whim, he decided to go for a walk and struck it lucky, dying instantly.

But for some unknown reason, his soul arrived in this world, born with all his memories intact. Judging from his subsequent experiences, this time travel seems to have significantly enhanced his comprehension.

At the age of eight, when he first came into contact with cultivation, he immediately realized that this was a world of shrouding the heavens. But when he heard that the current enlightened beings were called Heavenly Venerables, he still suffered a little breakdown.

This is a bit too far removed from the main storyline. If this were in the future, as long as he clung to Emperor Ye's coattails, his future would be smooth sailing. As long as he didn't die, he could enter the Immortal Realm. Moreover, after the Holy Ruins patch was applied, he could be revived even if he died.

But now, he is in the mythological era, where only seven of the nine Heavenly Venerables have appeared. The closest powerful figure to him is the Emperor Venerable, who may not appear for tens of thousands of years. But for some unknown reason, he is obsessed with sacrificing others, even confidently throwing himself into a three-on-one fight.

Considering his secret technique of increasing combat power tenfold and his experience of bullying various supreme beings with Heavenly Emperor-level combat power after changing his name to Emperor Venerable, this is a case of having excessively high stats and still crushing weaker opponents, to the point of losing his mind. He's definitely playing the stats-obsessed monster.

If he's not mentally unstable, then the problem is huge, because these actions are practically suicide. In short, whatever the reason, following the Emperor is a dead end.

As for Cao Yusheng, one can only say that he can't learn the secret to immortality, nor can he curry favor with any powerful figures, since he himself still needs millions of years to become a mortal immortal.

However, while the Underworld Lord attained enlightenment first, he was both a teacher and a friend to the Emperor Lord. This means that before the Emperor Lord's birth, the Underworld Lord's current life was not yet over. Therefore, the Underworld Lord may have severed himself, or he may have sealed himself away through other means to survive without interfering with future Daoists, and is very likely currently in the Underworld.

In any case, Liang Yu had no powerful backers to rely on. He had no choice but to rely on himself to achieve his goal.

In this life, he was born with some divine blood, likely because one of his ancestors possessed a divine body, and in his generation, a portion of that divine blood revived. He is naturally much stronger than an ordinary person, but ultimately, he is just a beggar's version of a divine body.

A complete divine body is roughly equivalent to those king bodies that reached their peak in the third stage of the game "Immortal Cultivation." Even if it's stronger, it's not by much. For example, there's the Azure Heaven King Body, the Twin King Body, the Feathered King Body... Oh, wait, at least the Feathered King Body has the potential to produce a Feathered Emperor. As for divine bodies, apart from Ji Haoyue who latched onto Ye Fan's coattails, no divine body has ever attained enlightenment. Even the God Venerable, who is suspected to be an evolved version of the divine body—the God King Body—stopped at an alternative path to enlightenment. Of course, the God Venerable has a very high chance of attaining enlightenment, but he was unlucky and didn't seal off his descendants.

In short, relying on physique alone was out of the question. Therefore, Liang Yu rose step by step through his exceptional comprehension. Since the Demon Emperor Xue Yueqing of later generations could transform from a snow rabbit into a true dragon, and I at least possess some divine blood, surely I can evolve into a true divine body, or even a god-king body?
Therefore, Liang Yu created the Divine Transformation Technique, which not only purified the original divine blood but also replenished it with divine medicines and other rare treasures to accelerate the transformation. Under the influence of this secret technique, Liang Yu's divine blood continuously improved, eventually transforming into a true Divine King Body, refining his divine blood to its ultimate level. Therefore, he can be considered the first person in history to attain the Dao with a divine body.

At this point, his physique was already comparable to that of a Holy Body or a Hegemon Body. In fact, since there were no restrictions that made it difficult to attain enlightenment, it wouldn't be unreasonable to say that he was even superior.

In other aspects, due to his poor background and relatively backward cultivation environment, Liang Yu also had to piece together a bunch of incomplete scriptures to cultivate, just like Ye Fan.

When competing with other outstanding talents, he was frustrated by the lack of profound secret techniques and could only try his best to learn from others or create his own.

This resulted in his knowledge of scriptures and Taoist practices being a hodgepodge, completely unsystematic and even unrelated. Therefore, he could only rely on himself to continuously summarize and synthesize, integrating the various miscellaneous scriptures and techniques.

When he first entered the Great Sage realm, he reached the forbidden domain and created his own supreme secret technique, but the result shocked him. His forbidden secret technique was identical to the "Fighting" secret technique.

Of course, this doesn't mean the effects are similar, but rather that the essence is the same. The secret technique Liang Yu wants to create is one that can simulate and evolve anything as a means of attack.

To his surprise, this secret technique could form a special connection with the other nine secret techniques. In other words, the secret technique he created was not like the "Fighting" secret technique, but was exactly the "Fighting" secret technique.

In other words, he became the second to last of the Nine Heavenly Venerables, and the creator of the Douzi Secret.

Is this the convergence of timelines? He, a transmigrator or reincarnator, still managed to fill the gaps in the Nine Heavenly Venerables' lineage. Of course, this could also just be a coincidence.

Because he lived in a mythological era closer to the Great Celestial Venerables, Liang Yu already knew about the first seven Celestial Venerables and the laws they created. They were: the Heavenly Venerable of Crossing Tribulations who created the secret of the character "Lin"; the Heavenly Venerable of Immeasurable who created the secret of the character "Bing"; the Heavenly Venerable of Longevity who created the secret of the character "Zhe"; the Heavenly Venerable of Freedom who created the secret of the character "Xing"; the Heavenly Venerable of Morality who created the secret of numbers; the Heavenly Venerable of Spiritual Treasure who created the secret of grouping characters; and the Heavenly Venerable of Nirvana who created the secret of the character "Qian".

Together with the Dou Zi Secret he created and the Jie Zi Secret created by the previous Emperor, they form the Nine Secrets. And these nine people will become the most prestigious group in the world of Shrouding the Heavens.

Five hundred years ago, Liang Yu defeated his strongest opponent of this life—Ying Zhao, who possessed the immortal blood of Kunlun—in the final battle after he had just entered the ninth level of the Quasi-Saint realm. From then on, the winner of this life was beyond doubt.

Now, his Dao has been perfected, the Dou Zi Secret has been basically completed, and his physique has also reached true perfection due to his self-created Transformation Technique. Therefore, he has accumulated enough to reach the critical point of the ultimate leap.

Liang Yu was only one final tribulation away from completing his path to enlightenment. At this time, Liang Yu was already 1,500 years old.

At this moment, thunder resounded throughout the universe, and a vast aura spread out, even awakening the supreme beings in the forbidden zone.

(End of this chapter)