Chapter 41: The Person Who Shoulders the Calamity

  In the place where the merciful and all-pervading gaze of the Jade Pure One cannot reach, the White Crane Boy grasped the Great Cave True Lord and rushed straight up to the clouds, not going to the Heavenly Court to pay respects to the Jade Emperor, nor going to the Jasper Pool to visit the Queen Mother.

  With just a flap of its two wings, it soared straight up to the highest realm of the thirty-third heaven.

  He relaxed his claws and threw Da Dong Zhen Jun into the clouds, spread his wings and flew towards the edge of the sky again.

  In the vast empty space above, the Great Sage of the Grand Void was in a sorry state, tumbling and falling on the clouds. As he struggled to get up, he was about to look for Ci Hang Pu Du desperately when he felt the gentle breeze blowing and auspicious clouds filling the sky. Looking around, there were no evil Buddhas or demons, only the distant green mountains stretching out in undulating waves.

  The sky is filled with bright clouds, reflecting the pure and clear blue light of the heavens, with countless changes.

  Dahong Zhenjun realized that this was the Taiqing realm of Da Chi Tian, and he couldn't help but feel a wave of sadness wash over him as he thought back to the fierce battle they had previously fought. He was standing outside the gates of the Douluo Palace when he suddenly came to his senses: "The Douluo Heaven Palace is above the Thirty-Three Heavens, it's where my ancestor, the Supreme Saint of Lihen Tian, resides... how did I end up here?"

  This is the sacred realm of Taoism, not a place where ordinary people can trespass. The Great Cave True Lord's heart skipped a beat as he stood outside the Tushita Palace, hesitating and not daring to enter.

  Just as I was hesitating, I saw a monk walking out of the Tusita Palace, wearing a Taiji Dao robe and holding a dustpan, with a gentle and elegant voice saying: "Foolish child, foolish child, aren't you coming with me to pay respects to the ancestral master?"

  Who is this monk if it's not Xu Xian or Xu Zhengyang?

  Dadong Zhenjun saw the face of his master, let out a sorrowful cry and wept: "Master, your disciple is ashamed to have repaid your kindness!" Xu Tian Shifu in the Taoist temple of the Supreme Deity would not be unaware of what was happening in the lower world. He merely sighed and led Dadong Zhenjun into the palace of Mount Kunlun.

  Dadong Zhenjun lowered his head and followed Ge Tian Shi into the palace, where Taishang Daozu was explaining the Huayuan Tao fruit to Yuqing Shengren on the third floor of the Zhu Ling Dan Tai pavilion. The Taicheng Gate had Xuan Du Dafashi, the Four Great Heavenly Masters, the Eight Immortals of the Upper Cavern, and fourteen disciples including Jintong and Yinzhi, all standing by listening to the lecture.

  Yu Qing Sheng Ren saw Xu Tian Shi bring Da Dong Zhen Jun into the palace, and only then did he listen to the lecture. He smiled and said: "Big Master Brother, this disciple of yours is indeed a filial person, good fortune."

  His disciples are not many, and after the Great Calamity of the Gods, more than half of them have broken through to Buddhahood. Among his third-generation disciples, except for Erlang Shen Yang Jian and Nezha, who were already famous in the Three Realms as sealed gods and war generals, none of the other children can defeat Da Dongtianjun.

  The old lord's eyes were slightly closed, and occasionally a bright light flashed through. He looked at the Great Cave True Lord and sighed: "The heavens and earth are constantly turning in a great cycle, this is both heavenly fate and fixed destiny."

  "From the ancient times of the Dragon Han's first catastrophe, to the ancient witchcraft and magic wars for dominance, and the Shang Dynasty's conquest of Zhou and the sealing of gods, every time a great catastrophe arrives, there are people born to respond to it. Now that my Tao is flourishing, it coincides with the principle of 'when full, then decline'. I miscalculated, thinking that the Heaven-born Stone Monkey was the key to this catastrophe, but unexpectedly, it was given away to the Western Heaven for a life of luxury."

  In Buddhism, there are eight sufferings of human life: the four sufferings of birth, aging, illness and death; the suffering of encountering hated ones; the suffering of separation from loved ones; the suffering of the five aggregates; and the suffering of not getting what one seeks.

  Many people living in the world have love, hate, greed, anger, and delusion. Every move, every gesture, and every interaction with others will inevitably lead to entanglements, this is karma. The mutual causality of cause and effect is woven into the fate of many lives, entwining endlessly, this is the power of karma.

  The Great Way is forty-nine, and whenever the accumulated karma reaches its limit, it causes the Pangu world to spontaneously produce a heavenly calamity.

  All those who have karma tied to their bodies cannot escape the calamity, only because each person's foundation is different and their blessings are thick or thin. When the great calamity of heaven and earth arrives, it is the time to verify one's merits. Those with high virtues and deep foundations will pass through the calamity safely, those with high virtues but shallow foundations will fall into the killing calamity, and those whose virtues and foundations are both inferior can only be transformed into dust to repay the destruction caused by the heavy evil karma in the world.

  Pangu opened the sky and earth, killing 3,000 chaotic demon gods, and had already accumulated the first thread of karma for the three realms. This thread of karma was the jealousy and hatred of the various demon gods in the chaos towards life between heaven and earth.

  Finally, after 3.65 million yuan conference triggered the first catastrophe between heaven and earth, the phoenix that ruled the sky, the qilin that governed the land, and the dragon tribe that dominated the ocean fought together, eventually falling together to become the first batch of living beings in the world of Pangu.

  Further down, 1,290,600 years later, the Three Pure Ones eliminated the dinosaurs and passed through the second great catastrophe of heaven and earth.

  After that, the Queen of Heaven established the Heavenly Court of the You tribe. The Emperor Jun and Taiyi ruled the world, and had a conflict with the twelve ancestors of the Wu tribe on the vast land of Honghuang, which led to a great calamity between the two tribes. After countless years, every Yuanhui had countless catastrophes, until the end of the Shang Dynasty when King Wu of Zhou launched a campaign against Zhou and triggered a catastrophe among the gods.

  Many saints thought they could live a leisurely life for a while, but they underestimated the increasing desires of the three realms' creatures, who were eager to gain fame and benefits at the expense of others. Six hundred and fifty years ago, the Supreme Saint had already predicted that a great calamity was coming, and he saw that the Mountain of Flowers and Fruits was the ancestral vein of the ten continents, the source of the three islands, and the origin of the universe after the separation of yin and yang.

  Then he saw that Sun Wukong was a heavenly-born stone monkey, unrelated to the resentment of all living things, and thought that this beautiful monkey king was the person who should be punished in this life.

  So the Three Pure Ones folded their arms and watched with cold eyes as the two Buddhas of Buddhism worked hard to set up a plan, and after much discussion, they came up with a Journey to the West to help them get through their tribulations. However, even when the Journey to the West was over, Sakyamuni Buddha divided the scriptures among the five saints, but still did not completely eliminate their karma.

  It wasn't until then that I realized I had been deceived, to put it bluntly, there were too few living beings involved in the journey to the west to be considered a great calamity of heaven and earth. It was just a matter of killing and conquering along the way, which managed to eliminate some of the evil karma between heaven and earth, and as a result, the number of great calamities was delayed by more than 500 years.

  Yu Qing Sheng Ren also understood the subtleties, and simply said: "During the time of the Sealing of the Gods, the three religions jointly discussed the sealing of the gods. Those with deep good fortune became immortal, while those with shallow good fortune became gods. My disciples all used transformation to resolve the calamity of killing, but this time's calamity number should not be involved."

  The last time the world was in great calamity, Yu Qing Sheng Ren took in those who were destined to be saved and gained an advantage, but miscalculated in terms of human emotions.

  What a wonderful massacre of gods and demons, cutting off the sect that had been cultivated by Wan Xian for generations, and also taking away half of the foundation of the Yan Sect.

  Two Western Saints who took advantage of the fishermen's profits.

  The Supreme Taoist Patriarch shook his head and sighed secretly: "In today's world, humans and demons are on different paths, yin and yang are in opposition, even the poor Tao can't see the changes in the three realms from now on." After the Investiture of the Gods, he successively took in Zhang Daoling, Xu Zhengyang, Sa Shoujian, Ge Xuan, and Ge Youxian, the four great heavenly masters.

  Also received poor and rich, noble and humble, male and female, old and young, eight immortals in the cave, where would they not understand the forms of the three realms?

  In the three realms, only humans are uniquely gifted and thrive endlessly. Nowadays, karma will also come from human beings, and for humanity to develop and grow, they must compete with gods, Buddhas, demons, and ghosts for survival space. It's not just about respecting them from afar, as even Confucius said.

  However, the demons and monsters living in the mortal world are already at odds with humans, with human cultivators seeking to slay them and the demons and monsters wanting to eat humans to supplement their powers. The Supreme Sage calculated that the person destined to resolve this calamity is undoubtedly Xuan Kong, who possesses the power of the Thunderbolt Tribulation, but as for how Xuan Kong can resolve this innate conflict, it's like watching flowers in the fog - unclear.