Chapter Thirty-Six: Entering the Domain of Thunder

Standing to the side, the Divine Sovereign Liyang was a bundle of nerves, anxiety and worry flooding his heart in waves. As soon as the Divine Healer Baicao withdrew his law and rose to his feet, Liyang could not wait for him to speak, and hurriedly asked, “Brother Yishan, how is the child?”

“The situation is dire. The child’s sea of consciousness is in chaos, his soul is shattered, and his meridians are all severed. Fortunately, your profound cultivation preserved his life,” replied the Divine Healer Baicao, who truly admired Liyang’s unfathomable strength.

He continued, “This time, brother, I’ll need your assistance.”

“Through fire and blade, I will not refuse. Whatever you need, just say the word,” Liyang answered, though a hint of doubt flickered in his eyes.

The Divine Healer Baicao explained, “The child’s condition is grave. Several of the necessary medicines require spiritual herbs over a hundred thousand years old. Do you remember the incident when I was in peril last time?”

Liyang could hardly forget such a remarkable event. Had the Divine Healer Baicao not encountered danger a century ago, and had Liyang not acted out of kindness, there would be no exchange of aid today.

“Of course I remember. If I hadn't chanced upon you in distress while wandering the starry skies, I would not have the opportunity to ask for your help today,” Liyang replied, a note of nostalgia in his voice.

“To heal the child, we must venture to several places to gather rare spiritual herbs. Some of these locations are guarded by formidable beasts, each with tens of thousands of years of cultivation, power beyond measure, and vast magical abilities. With my own strength, I am hesitant to act alone. Thus, I need your help, Liyang,” Baicao confided, a trace of lingering fear in his expression.

So much time had passed since Lihao’s injury that Liyang’s anxiety was mounting. He urged, “Then there is no time to lose. Through fire and blade, I will keep you safe, brother. Let us go.”

Immediately, Liyang summoned his cultivation and called upon the laws of heaven and earth to envelop Baicao, hastening with utmost urgency toward the starry sky beyond the Lujia Mountain star system. But Baicao quickly grabbed him and said, “Don’t be so anxious, Liyang. I have protected the child’s sea of consciousness with a medicinal pill for now. The body is preserved on the Yin-Yang Cold Bed. As long as we repair the fragments of the soul and meridians, the other injuries will heal slowly on the Yin-Yang Cold Bed.”

The Yin-Yang Cold Bed was a treasure born from chaos itself, gathering the laws of heaven and earth within and serving as a supreme artifact for healing.

At this point, Liyang realized he didn’t even know their destination and felt a little embarrassed. Hearing Baicao’s explanation, he was greatly reassured.

Baicao then produced a green medicine chest, roughly twenty-five centimeters long and fifteen centimeters wide. Carved on its exterior was a small red turtle, looking both amusing and adorable. But this charming little chest was a priceless treasure, unique in the entire Lujia Mountain star system. Within lay a secret—twelve compartments, each about ten cubic zhang in size, compressed into the space inside. Thus it was named the “Spatial Medical Chest,” a rather rustic-sounding name for such a miraculous item, and Baicao carried it with him at all times.

“Liyang, we must travel straight in this direction for eighty million li. While searching for higher-grade spiritual herbs, I once passed by a region shrouded in lightning. With my spiritual sense, I found many ancient herbs growing there, some capable of healing the soul and sea of consciousness. At the same time, I sensed many powerful life forms, so I did not act rashly. You know my life has been devoted to the medical arts; my combat ability is mediocre, but I was born with the gift of discerning the properties of countless herbs,” Baicao explained in detail as they hurried onward.

“Husband, last night while meditating, I dreamed you took Hao’er away,” Mo Rou, the wife of the Supreme Sovereign Litian, said sorrowfully, resting her head on his sturdy shoulder. Perhaps this was a woman’s innate sixth sense.

“Rou’er, you have mentioned this twice already. If that is truly the case, it may be the best possible outcome,” Litian replied gently. He trusted in his father’s extraordinary abilities—if even the Divine Sovereign Liyang could not resolve the issue, then he himself was powerless.

“Why would Father take Hao’er without telling us?” Litian mused to himself, though in his heart he doubted this possibility.

“Rou’er, since you said so, we should look into Father’s whereabouts. Perhaps we’ll be pleasantly surprised. Father has wandered the cosmic starry skies for so many years; we all miss him dearly,” Litian said after much thought. Over the past millennium, there had been no matter in the Litian Star Domain that only Liyang could resolve. His father, the Divine Sovereign Liyang, was as elusive as a dragon, never reuniting with his family nor sending word.

What Litian did not know was that every hundred years, or every several centuries, Liyang would return to the starry sky ten thousand li outside the Litian Star Domain, using his divine sense to observe its every movement. Sensing that all was well, he would quietly depart again. He hoped his son would grow stronger and support the star domain with his own strength. Thus, Liyang always came and went without a word.

The region they approached was shrouded in lightning year-round. Its mountains, rivers, flora, and fauna—all brimmed with the attribute of lightning, born of thunder and favored by it. This region was called the Thunder Domain. Creatures unable to adapt to its lightning, or lacking in strength, would be reduced to ashes before even reaching its borders—a terrifying thought, making one acutely aware of the fragility and insignificance of life. The creatures of the Thunder Domain, living all their lives amid violent lightning, had fierce tempers to match.

Three thousand li from the Thunder Domain, drifting in the starry sky, stood two figures: one a tall, stern elder with sword-like brows, an imposing presence, dressed in a golden robe, white-haired yet youthful in visage; the other, refined and approachable, in blue-violet robes with a lovely, exquisite little chest at his waist, also white-haired yet youthful. These two were none other than the Divine Sovereign Liyang and the Divine Healer Baicao, now arrived three thousand li from the Thunder Domain.

The starry sky is a part of the universe, an extension of the laws of earth. From afar, one could see the various colored star systems glowing like spheres. Many intelligent civilizations called these luminous regions ‘planets’, hence the term ‘starry sky’.

“Brother Yishan, is this the Thunder Domain you spoke of?” Liyang asked, his voice tinged with doubt.

“Yes, Liyang, this is indeed the Thunder Domain,” Baicao confirmed.

Having been warned of the powerful beings within, Liyang did not act rashly. He stood in the starry sky, spreading his divine sense to probe the Thunder Domain. Only after careful investigation assured him there was no mortal danger did he use his powers to slowly part the domain’s protective barrier. They had come to seek medicine, not to seize by force; as the saying goes, “One who takes without offering is always in debt.” Liyang, for all his strength, did not act wantonly.

Once inside, the two elders hovered high above the Thunder Domain and beheld a sea of purple. Peaks rose in layers, vast and strange, wreathed in lightning. Deep valleys stretched below, filled with water through which lightning coursed.

The valleys seemed to form the meridians of the Thunder Domain itself. The peaks took myriad forms: some like enlightened sages pointing the way, the purple vegetation their robes and the wild lightning lending an air of mystery; some like mighty lions bathing in the thunder, the plants their purple mane and the lightning their strength; some like eagles poised to soar beyond the domain, the plants their feathers and the lightning their haughty aura; some like purple spears piercing the heavens, the lightning sharpening their edge. Countless forms, impossible to enumerate.

Within the deep ravines and lofty mountains, strange creatures and plants abounded. There were monstrous beings, bodies flickering with lightning, with oxen heads and serpentine bodies stretching a thousand meters, neither dragon nor snake nor ox. There were wolf-bodied, dragon-headed, snake-tailed, tiger-legged beasts with wings upon their backs, towering a hundred zhang high. There were bizarre avians, wings like phoenixes, heads like tigers, bodies like fish, tails like chickens, enormous beyond measure. There were twisted trees, their trunks winding, branches cascading like waterfalls, leaves needle-thin. And there were ordinary animals and plants too, but all wreathed in lightning. Sensing Liyang’s formidable aura, these creatures remained docile, none daring to move.

In the very heart of the Thunder Domain, the two elders hovered high above as Baicao extended his divine sense, meticulously searching for the required spiritual herbs.

“Liyang, we must travel another three thousand three hundred li in that direction,” Baicao said, pointing his left index finger toward a region dense with lightning.

Once the location was certain, the two elders used their divine arts to traverse space, arriving in an instant. Before them, a riot of bizarre plants grew: mushroom-like forms glowing red and crackling with lightning; miniature humanoid plants, beards longer than their bodies, golden in color and radiating electricity; spirit grass shaped like a bear’s paw, with a single stalk and a lone leaf, colored purple and green and charged with lightning; clusters of pale green saplings swaying in the wind like dancing maidens, shrouded in electric light, lending them a mysterious allure. There were countless other strange and unnamable lifeforms.

Among these oddities was a ten-thousand-year-old lingzhi, its leaves golden, its trunk blood-red. This was one of the two elders' chief objectives, an herb known as the Blood Spirit Lingzhi.

The Blood Spirit Lingzhi, combined with other aged auxiliary herbs, could be refined into a pill to repair the sea of consciousness and strengthen the vital essence. This was precisely the medicine most needed for Lihao—to mend his sea of consciousness and consolidate his soul. The Blood Spirit Lingzhi was the indispensable main ingredient.