First Lesson of the Dharma Ending Era

Who knew when it started.

Billowing dust and rolling banks of clouds gathered high above Sword-Wielding Mountain.

Endless black clouds surged in from all directions.

Howling gales poured down from the sky, and the vast spiritual energy trembled along with them, causing the barometric pressure to drop steeply and making one's hair stand on end and bones rattle.

Even with a princess's poise, as she lay within her master's warm and vast embrace, Xiao Ran shivered with cold and wished she could bury herself deeper inside.

Lingzhou Yue raised her gaze toward the firmament, her sword-like brows slightly furrowed.

"What a rare occurrence."

With a wave of her large sleeve, she summoned a suspended cyan Bagua formation.

Seeing this, Xiao Ran tactfully stepped down from her.

Steadied her mind, she stood at the center of the cyan Bagua light array.

It felt as though she were standing upon a suspended sheet of glass.

Closing her eyes, holding her breath and concentrating her mind, she listened to all things.

She sensed abnormal spiritual pressure within the clouds, where the space was distorting as if some unusual movement was about to occur.

"It seems... it has come for you."

Lingzhou Yue said.

Xiao Ran opened her eyes.

"It?"

Clearly, Master saw things that she was unable to hear.

After mastering the Art of Resonance, Xiao Ran could listen to all things and her divine sense had grown enormously, but compared to Master, she was still a hundred thousand miles behind.

In the blink of an eye.

Black fog shrouded the firmament.

A bloody slit suddenly tore across the gloomy sky.

Crimson blood dripped from its edge, staining the canopy of heaven.

A gigantic, withered and pitch-black humanoid arm reached out from the bloody spatial rift, as if traversing infinite time and space, and infinite ages!

It extended infinitely downward, clawing in the direction of Xiao Ran! Taking a closer look, its enormous palm was split open with hundreds of millions of densely packed white eyes! Carrying a sorrow and vast, silent majesty akin to an ancient primordial wilderness, the hundreds of millions of white eyes opened and closed in a bizarre rhythm, as if hundreds of millions of universes were being born and perishing simultaneously.

Xiao Ran's eyes stalled, her heartbeat halted, and her breathing froze.

It was as if an invisible giant hand capable of tearing the universe apart was ripping at her spiritual roots from across the void.

And it was as if sticky, muffled, bizarre syllables were striking her soul one beat at a time, like gods and demons tolling a bell.

A Wraith!

Xiao Ran steadied her mind and snapped to a realization.

This was her first time seeing a legendary Wraith with her own eyes! According to the theoretical knowledge she had scavenged over the past three years—

Wraiths were said to be otherworldly beings, and the chief culprits behind the advent of the Dharma Ending Era! They typically tore through the firmament and manifested in places where spiritual energy concentration was relatively high.

Wraiths possessed indescribable physical forms, taking on all sorts of strange shapes, but they commonly featured withered black tentacles, huge, wide-open white eyes, and crimson blood weeping from those eyes.

When they appeared, they were often accompanied by bizarre celestial phenomena, sorrowful whispers and shrieks, gloomy nether realms, and could even trigger large-scale catastrophes.

They carried somewhat of the flavor of Lovecraftian horrors from Xiao Ran's past life.

For cultivators, the terrifying aspect of a Wraith lay in three points—

They cannot be looked at directly!

They cannot be touched!

They absorb spiritual power!

First, Wraiths cannot be looked at directly.

Those who looked directly at a Wraith would either faint outright if weak, or plunge into madness if strong; only powerhouses who had undergone specialized training targeting the mind and soul could barely maintain their sanity, but even they would have their neural reaction speeds greatly slowed down, causing their combat prowess to plummet.

Second, Wraiths cannot be touched.

Those who touched a Wraith would have their bodies dragged into the spatial rift—the weak would directly be reduced to ashes, while the strong would face even more Wraiths swarming them from within the spatial rift, surviving with a mere sliver of hope.

Third, the nether realm absorbs spiritual power.

A Wraith's physical body was like an abyssal black hole, capable of rapidly absorbing surrounding spiritual energy and devouring all spiritual pressure, spells, or the spiritual power contained within spiritual artifacts.

Based on these three points, Wraiths had become the natural enemies of cultivators!

When facing a Wraith of the same realm, no matter how many cultivators there were, they could only submit to being slaughtered by the nether entity, entirely devoid of the power to fight back.

The first lesson of the Dharma Ending Era—

When encountering a Wraith, do not look, do not listen, do not think, and do not hesitate.

Run blindly... and then leave it to fate.

If not for Master being here, Xiao Ran would have nearly bolted.

If it were truly as Master said, and the Wraith had come for her, then running would be useless; staying by Master's side was the safest course of action.

Yet why had the Wraith come for her?

Could it be a side effect of the Art of Resonance? Xiao Ran shuddered at the thought.

Within Lingzhou Yue's clear, rippling eyes, a flash of excited sword light was reflected.

"Interesting... It's actually a humanoid Wraith."

It was said that humanoid Wraiths were upper-tier beings among Wraiths, possessing something akin to a civilization, and very rarely appeared at all.

Clang—

Clang—

Clang—

Zongzhi Mountain sounded its air-raid bell.

Upon hearing the sound, the lower-tier disciples within the sect moved into action, orderly fleeing into their dwelling caves in their entirety.

Normally, repelling a Wraith was the duty of a sect master, elders, instructors, and various direct disciples.

The gigantic withered hand accelerated its descent!

The sorrowful nether sounds grew increasingly shrill and frantic, emitting joyful shrieks like a bizarre battle prelude that tore at the listener's scalp.

Lingzhou Yue stepped forward.

Her right hand held the wine bamboo tube while her left hand drew her treasured sword, and she raised her head to say:

"If you want to snatch my person, you'll have to send a more decent Wraith than this."

She gazed into those hundreds of millions of white eyes, as if traversing infinite time and space, her clear eyes reflecting the stars.

When the abyss gazed upon Xiao Ran, Lingzhou Yue was gazing back at the abyss.

Suddenly.

The accelerating, probing withered black arm came to a halt.

In the hundreds of millions of white eyes across its palm, Lingzhou Yue's sword light was reflected in unison.

The starlight of hundreds of millions flickered, resembling the brilliant colors of a starry galaxy.

The withered black arm abruptly froze. With merely a momentary tremor, the hundreds of millions of white eyes emitted a silent shriek akin to a tearing soul.

Lingering for a moment, that indescribable withered black arm suddenly turned as flexible as a loach, and with a start, it shrank back into the blood-red spatial rift.

The spatial rift closed instantly, vanishing from the firmament in the blink of an eye. The black clouds suddenly scattered and the clear sky stretched for thousands of miles, as if nothing had ever happened.

Could it be that the Wraith... had fled?

Worst of all was the sudden quietness of the air.

Lingzhou Yue looked somewhat disappointed, she put away her sword and took a drink.

"Is that really all a humanoid Wraith amounts to?"

This was the first Wraith Xiao Ran had ever encountered, and it was even a superior humanoid one! Yet a Wraith renowned as the bane of cultivators had taken one look at Master and bolted straight away? She vividly remembered the first lesson of the Dharma Ending Era—

When encountering a Wraith, do not look, do not listen, do not think, and do not hesitate, run blindly, and then leave it to fate.

Could this be the Wraith's first lesson—

When encountering Master, do not look, do not listen, do not think, and do not hesitate, run blindly, and then leave it to fate? Could Master be even more terrifying than a Wraith? Xiao Ran shuddered to think further, looking at Master in a completely different light.

From the Wraith's appearance to its flight, barely a hundred breaths of time had passed. By the time the rest of the sect's elders and instructors mobilized, the Wraith had already run off without a trace.

At that moment, not far away, a white-robed cultivator stepped upon a sword and arrived, slowly asking.

"Master Uncle, where is the Wraith?"

Lingzhou Yue waved her hand.

"It ran off."

The white-robed cultivator approached closely, respectfully bowing in obeisance toward Lingzhou Yue:

"To know to run upon meeting Master Uncle—among Wraiths, that fellow is likely quite a considerable powerhouse."

Xiao Ran was dumbfounded.

Sensing Master's power and choosing to flee meant that entity was very strong!

And she herself, having mastered the Art of Resonance, could listen to the breathing of all things, yet even so, she could not probe the depths of Master's power.

Master truly was unfathomably deep! Xiao Ran made up her mind that she must tightly hug Master's thick, sturdy thighs.

And then frantically fleece her wool...

Lingzhou Yue took a sip of wine, casting a sideways glance at the white-robed cultivator out of the corner of her eye.

"Back when you and I contested for the position of Sword-Wielding Elder, had you known to run like that Wraith did, you wouldn't have been left with a sword affliction either, and by now, you'd likely be the acting sect master."

The white-robed cultivator lightly shook his head, bearing no resentment, and smiled without a word.

There was such old history as this?

Xiao Ran instinctively glanced at the white-robed cultivator.

This was a young man with a slender physique and classic features.

His facial traits were gentle and refined, yet fluttering like drifting clouds. Within his seemingly sharp eyes, a perpetually faint, non-contentious softness radiated, giving one the illusion of someone neither male nor female; perhaps calling him a neuter person would be more fitting.

Xiao Ran thought to herself, could the sword affliction Master spoke of mean that he was castrated?

Cough, cough.

At this moment.

The white-clothed youth was also sizing up Xiao Ran.

His gaze remained gentle and refined, revealing no particular stance, as he merely cupped his hands in a bow:

"This must be Master Uncle's newly accepted disciple—Junior Brother Xiao Ran."

Before Xiao Ran could return the bow, Lingzhou Yue, fiercely protective of her disciple, introduced him:

"This is the sect master's direct disciple, named... Right, what was your name again?"

The white-clothed youth bore no resentment.

"Bo Yunzi."

Only then did Xiao Ran cup her hands and return the bow.

"I have met Senior Brother Bo Yunzi."

Perhaps having suffered losses at Lingzhou Yue's hands, Bo Yunzi trusted her eye for choosing disciples.

At the very least, this person was quite handsome!

"Master Uncle's discerning eye is ruthless; Junior Brother Xiao is indeed a man of outstanding talent, and in due time, he will certainly be able to inherit Master Uncle's mantle."

Lingzhou Yue didn't buy into that routine.

"You've come here on official business, haven't you?"

Bo Yunzi offered another bow.

"Master was alarmed by the Wraith and has decided to temporarily come out of seclusion to convene an Elder Council, and he also wishes to see Junior Brother Xiao by the way."

"What time?"

"An hour from now, at the Affairs Pavilion."

"Good."

After Bo Yunzi left, Lingzhou Yue didn't ask much else.

In the cultivation world, everyone had secrets.

Regarding how Xiao Ran had so rapidly mastered the Art of Resonance, and why she had drawn the Wraith in the first place, Lingzhou Yue asked not a single question, only gulping down her wine.

Childishness was childishness, but Master was, after all, Master.

Xiao Ran felt a deep sense of admiration.

She had a premonition that the Elder Council an hour from now might turn out to be a public execution for Sword-Wielding Mountain.

To be cautious, she wanted to unify their narrative beforehand, so she asked:

"Regarding the Elder Council, does Master have any instructions?"

Lingzhou Yue raised her flask intending to drink, but the wine was already gone, so she merely answered listlessly:

"None."