Southern Luofu, Northern Chì Lè—among cultivators, these two phrases spoke of the mystery and power of the Luofu Sect and the Chì Lè Sect. They were not the absurd tales spread through Wind Moon Pavilion, where some technique was said to be wondrous beyond compare, only to prove nothing special upon trial. For hundreds of years, even in the eyes of profound sects such as Qingcheng and Kongtong, already considered immensely powerful by most cultivation schools, masters would often add a sentence almost without thinking after teaching their proudest spells and arts to their disciples: whenever descendants of Luofu and Chì Lè walked the world, they would surely possess cultivation shocking to heaven and earth. Ordinary cultivation sects were no match for them. Never provoke them.
But those two phrases were incomplete. The full saying should have been: West Kunlun, Southern Luofu, Northern Chì Lè!
Though this teaching had been passed down for centuries as casually as the basic knowledge one needed to understand cultivation, there were still quite a few sects in the world that had never crossed paths with Luofu or Chì Lè and did not even know of their existence. Yet among the cultivation sects of this world, there was likely not a single one that did not know Kunlun.
For hundreds of years ago, Kunlun had already stood faintly as the leader of all Daoist sects under heaven. Hundreds of years later, it remained so.
Countless weak cultivation sects were protected and commanded by Kunlun. Even prestigious great sects like Qingcheng were, in ways unseen, subject to Kunlun's restraint.
A Kunlun Token—merely one of Kunlun's own command tablets—could mobilize innumerable cultivation sects. A cultivator from a small sect had once told his disciples that this was not something to be envied, because this was a foundation!
A foundation accumulated over hundreds, even thousands, of years!
This foundation lay not only in possessing the spiritual vein richest in spiritual energy beneath heaven, or in having countless disciples of peerless cultivation. It also lay in the awe-struck submission that made others fear becoming its enemy.
Kunlun had ten figures of supreme cultivation, known throughout the cultivation world as the Ten Golden Immortals of Kunlun. Legend said that any one of these ten possessed cultivation invincible beneath heaven. Many cultivators of extraordinary attainment and talent held doubts about this legend. For just as with the legendary Five-Clawed Golden Dragon, certain supreme existences could never gather in clusters. The truer the powerhouse, the more they preferred to keep far from all living beings and look down upon the multitude. It was understandable for one sect to produce one or two, perhaps even three or four, astonishing geniuses worthy of others' reverence. But ten? That inevitably made people feel these ten were merely ordinary flood dragons, not supreme Five-Clawed Golden Dragons. Yet any cultivator who had visited Kunlun and witnessed its true face would never again dare harbor the slightest doubt.
Nine concentric islands, suspended a thousand zhang above the ground; vast rolling waters, Spirit Beasts everywhere; a spiritual vein richest in spiritual energy beneath heaven—Kunlun, faintly the commander of all Daoist sects, hid its true mountain gate from mortal eyes within a formation, just like most sects.
At the center of the nine concentric islands, spiritual springs surged across an immortal isle where all manner of rare treasures and exotic fruits, scarcely seen in the world, grew in abundance. Within a pool several dozen zhang wide on its western side flowed nothing but Stone Milk Jade Fluid—an exceptionally rare treasure brewed only within spiritual veins overflowing with spiritual energy. A single drop could strengthen one's foundation, nurture one's origin, and save a thousand days of bitter cultivation!
This central island was Kunlun's forbidden ground.
"He has come!" On the eastern side of this forbidden island of Kunlun, before a broad spiritual spring pool blooming with white lotuses, a man in a gilded long robe, its chest fastened only by a jade clasp, his long hair nearly reaching the ground, suddenly spoke those three words softly.
Though he merely stood there in silence, his entire body radiated a kingly aura unique to heaven and earth, to the nine heavens and ten lands.
He faced the pool of white lotuses, seemingly gazing at the blossoms that exuded spiritual energy rich enough to shake ordinary cultivators to their core. Yet his eyes had never opened upon his pale face, pale almost to the point of sickness.
"Huang Wushen!" While that golden radiance carrying a pressure as though it could destroy heaven and earth was still a hundred li from Kunlun's mountain gate, a cool, indifferent voice rang throughout Kunlun's hundreds of thousands of qing. "Now that I have come, will you still not emerge and meet me?" Though cool and detached, this voice was like thunder rolling through the nine heavens, falling thread by thread from a height so lofty and distant that neither man nor god could reach it. It was also like icy needles, piercing directly into one's Primordial Spirit and Sea of Consciousness! Even the Great Sumeru Positive and Negative Nine Palaces Formation, which guarded Kunlun's mountain gate and concealed all of Kunlun within the misty, boundless sea, could not block it.
Kunlun was the greatest sect in the world, a sect all cultivators beneath heaven had to look up to. Within its hundreds of thousands of qing were a hundred thousand disciples, yet beneath that single cool voice, tens of thousands immediately turned deathly pale, their bodies freezing as though struck by hidden thunder.
Twelve Heavens Secret Demonic God Sound!
One of Great Freedom Palace's supreme arts. Even if it were performed by Kuang Hanyue, the current Palace Master of Great Freedom Palace, it could never possess such power!
"He actually took the initiative and attacked Kunlun!"
"His actions are decisive and fierce. It seems I still underestimated him!"
Within Kunlun's many concentric islands, several people unaffected by the demonic sound raised their heads at once, different lights flashing through their eyes.
A scripture pillar!
Upon a towering mountain on the third of the nine concentric islands, ten thousand ren high and wrapped in clouds like white dragons, stood a white scripture pillar.
This scripture pillar stood several zhang tall, yet it lacked the sacred majesty of ordinary scripture pillars. Instead, it overflowed with monstrous killing intent and baleful aura!
For it was, shockingly, a scripture pillar formed from human heads!
This white scripture pillar was piled entirely from densely packed human skulls, no fewer than a thousand at a glance. Though these skulls had all turned to white bone, residual ripples of magical power still lingered upon most of them. Those lingering ripples alone allowed one to sense the extraordinary nature of their former owners!
These were all the heads of powerful experts with peerless cultivation!
A man standing with his hands hanging at his sides also raised his head at this moment.
This man was none other than the arrogant man in the silver mask who had, that day in Luofu, made all living beings avoid him with nothing but his blazing, overbearing aura.
Now, apart from a flash of surprise that vanished in an instant, his eyes burned with boundless fervor! Even the air around him seemed about to ignite beneath his gaze!
"Yuan Tianyi, there has been no grievance between my Kunlun and your Luofu. Why have you invaded Kunlun without cause?" The man in gilded robes, facing the endlessly spreading white lotuses, still kept his eyes closed as he softly spoke these words. The moment the Silver-masked Man raised his head, his voice had also resounded through Kunlun's skies.
"Since you and I are bound to fight today, why waste so many words?" Within the golden radiance stood Yuan Tianyi, barefoot and dressed in coarse white robes, as though he did not belong to the mortal world. Yet in his ever-cool eyes now shone a peerless splendor never seen before, like a snow lotus atop an icy peak blooming furiously at this moment. "Huang Wushen, since you dared send people to probe my Luofu, do you not dare come out and fight me?"
"So this is Yuan Tianyi, Sect Master of the Luofu Sect?"
Kunlun's disciples alone enjoyed the blessings of an unparalleled spiritual vein and a millennium-old foundation, while the techniques they studied were profound and peerless, beyond comparison with ordinary cultivation sects. Any Kunlun disciple who went out into the world stood high above the rest and looked down upon ordinary cultivators. Yet though this visitor was still a hundred li away, the pressure he radiated had already made the bodies and Primordial Spirits of most Kunlun disciples tremble involuntarily.
The legendary Huang Wushen, Kunlun's unmatched sect leader who had not shown himself for decades, stood quietly, seeming to breathe in the faint fragrance released by the endless white lotuses, or perhaps as though he had not heard Yuan Tianyi's words at all.
A hundred li vanished in an instant. The air currents and raging waves raised by Yuan Tianyi's swift flight were erased without trace before the vast, invisible Great Sumeru Positive and Negative Nine Palaces Formation. Receiving no reply from Huang Wushen, Yuan Tianyi merely gave a cold smile and calmly uttered one word: "Break!"
Standing in the void, his black hair dancing like serpents, Yuan Tianyi extended his hand.
Millions of qing of seawater surged upward from level ground, congealing into heaven-shaking waves over a thousand zhang high. A roar like tens of thousands of giant dragons bellowing exploded at once, while countless bolts of deep-blue lightning, each as thick around as a grown man, twisted and swam through the towering waves, several thousand zhang high and blue as jade.
Six great pillars of fire swept up fierce hurricanes and shot straight into the heavens. A Karma Red Lotus spanning a hundred zhang then bloomed eerily in the sky.
Heavenly Sound Gui Water Divine Thunder!
Six Paths Purgatory Karmic Fire Red Lotus!
Gathering the limitless Gui Water true qi of the sea to condense water thunder, endlessly renewing itself; using Heavenly Gang golden fire as its catalyst to gather the netherworld flames that burned all things to ash—the blooming Karma Red Lotus. The might of heaven and earth summoned by these two world-destroying incantations, which had appeared only several times in the past thousand years, crashed mercilessly against Kunlun's Great Sumeru Positive and Negative Nine Palaces Formation at the same time!
The Great Sumeru Positive and Negative Nine Palaces Formation had been laid according to the principle that heaven and earth had neither beginning nor end, boundless and infinite. It was one of the strongest defensive Formations in the world. Even Yuan Tianyi's two heaven-destroying arts striking it together merely caused the space around Kunlun to ripple and tremble in waves.
But along with that word, "Break!", a golden blade of light like amber glaze also appeared in Yuan Tianyi's hand. The instant this blade struck the vast and mighty Great Sumeru Positive and Negative Nine Palaces Formation, it scattered into countless minute grains of glittering golden sand.
Empty Life Extinguishing Sea Glazed Art!
Though tiny and imperceptible, these grains of golden sand contained power capable of extinguishing gods, slaughtering immortals, even shattering space itself. With a thunderous boom, the vast invisible divine force enveloping all of Kunlun cracked apart like an eggshell! Hundreds of white columns of air, each more than ten zhang wide, erupted chaotically from the ten-thousand-zhang depths of the sea and surged straight into the sky.
Hurricanes! Raging waves! Pillars of surging air that seemed to hold up heaven and earth! Blood-red streams of flame scattering through the skies! Heaven and earth themselves changed color, black clouds churning as enormous golden lightning serpents danced wildly!
"The heavens have shattered!"
A thousand li away, fishermen who saw this sight found their minds utterly blank, leaving only this single thought.
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