The Six Saints gathered.
Their saintly might was like a prison.
This tiny valley, this barren place too insignificant to even be marked on the Primordial World's map, had now become the absolute center of heaven and earth.
Primal Celestial Venerable, Sovereign of Heaven, Grand Supreme Elder Lord, Nuwa, Jieyin, Zhunti.
The six supreme beings who overlooked eternity and regarded all living beings as ants had completely sealed off the space-time around Yang Chen from six directions.
Their saintly bodies flowed with immortal Dao rhythms. With a mere gesture, they could recreate earth, water, fire, and wind. Their wills were the laws of heaven and earth, and with a single thought, they could decide the life, death, honor, and disgrace of countless beings.
Yet at this moment, those six waves of pressure, enough to crush the heavens and make chaos tremble, did not leak out in the slightest. Instead, they were tightly restrained by their owners, forming an invisible, inwardly compressed cage.
This cage was not meant for suppression.
It was meant to maintain stability.
Every one of their faces bore unprecedented gravity. As they looked at the young man in the center of the cage, their gazes grew incomparably complicated, mixed with terror, wariness, absurdity, and a trace of... pleading that even they themselves refused to acknowledge.
On Primal Celestial Venerable's cold face, the embodiment of Heavenly Dao's order and eternal constancy, the Dao mark between his brows, symbolizing supreme authority, twitched faintly beyond his control.
Sovereign of Heaven gripped the Green Ping Sword at his waist tightly. His knuckles had turned white from the force, and he forcibly suppressed within himself that sharp sword intent capable of cleaving apart everything, leaving his entire body radiating an explosive fury.
The color had drained completely from Saint Nuwa's holy face. Her gaze was locked tightly onto Yang Chen—or, more precisely, onto the Power of Guixu around him that was eroding the vitality of all things in the Primordial World. With every passing breath, she could sense the countless beings she had created with her own hands silently moving toward extinction. The pain stabbing at the foundation of her Dao Heart made the slender jade hands that had created humanity tremble violently inside her sleeves.
The dharma bodies of the two Western Saints had dimmed. The misery on Daoist Jieyin's face had become so thick it could not be dissolved, while Daoist Zhunti's signature smile had frozen completely, looking even uglier than a sob. They stared fixedly at Yang Chen, terrified that the spear of will would pierce Mount Sumeru in the next instant and destroy the foundation of the Western Teachings.
Most unnerving of all was Grand Supreme Elder Lord.
He sat atop the Green Ox, whisk in hand, still wearing that calm, detached expression. Yet the Green Ox beneath him pawed the ground in agitation, and even the breath blasting from its nostrils carried the scent of sulfur before destruction. Within Grand Supreme Elder Lord's eyes, which saw through all things and had always been as still as ancient wells, the revolving Taiji diagram showed signs of disorder for the first time.
They were all waiting.
Waiting for Yang Chen's response.
But Yang Chen still looked utterly unmoved.
He did not even glance at the six Saints.
He merely stood there, that twisted smile of great liberation and great freedom hanging on his face, as though these six Saints, who could make the Primordial World tremble with a stomp of their feet, were nothing more than six dull stone statues.
The black aura of karma around him was not suppressed by the pressure of the Six Saints. Instead, as if nourished by something, it churned even more fiercely and violently.
Hiss—
A strand of black karmic aura separated from the main body and tentatively touched the saintly pressure barrier laid down by Primal Celestial Venerable.
There was no earth-shattering collision.
The saintly pressure, capable of resisting the erosion of chaos, let out an overwhelmed wail the instant it touched the black karmic aura. Like ice and snow meeting a branding iron, it silently melted away, corroded into a gap!
Primal Celestial Venerable's saintly body jolted violently!
His face instantly turned darker than the bottom of a pot!
This was no longer a threat.
This was suppression in reverse!
The essence of the karma from the Immeasurable Tribulation upon this madman had already surpassed the level of power held by any single Saint!
The hearts of the Six Saints sank together.
They finally understood completely that this situation had already slipped entirely beyond their control.
Just as the tense stillness—or rather, the "Six Saints' one-sided tension"—reached its peak, and just as the twisted smile at Yang Chen's lips spread wider, seeming ready to ignite everything in the next instant—
The supreme existence above the Nine Heavens finally made its final, and most shocking, response.
Rumble—
The boundless tribulation clouds that had covered the entire Primordial World's sky, nurturing world-destroying divine thunder capable of knocking Saints from their holy thrones, suddenly froze without any warning.
Then, they did not disperse.
They were annihilated!
As though an invisible hand had erased them in a single stroke from the level of laws, from the very foundation of their existence!
One moment it was an apocalyptic heavenly punishment; the next, the skies were clear and bright!
This abrupt change caused the Divine Souls of every Great Power peering into this place to freeze.
However, this was only the beginning.
Within the void left behind by the erased tribulation clouds, endless Golden Light of Merit gathered into form without warning.
It was not a single wisp, nor a single beam.
It was a golden torrent, like the celestial river of the Nine Heavens bursting its banks, like the Sea of Chaos pouring backward!
Golden Light of Merit stretching ten thousand zhang!
Every drop of golden light contained enough vast energy to allow a Grand Unity Golden Immortal to break through a realm. And now, this endless merit transformed into an unimaginably massive pillar of golden light, pouring down from the Nine Heavens!
Its target was no one else.
It was Yang Chen, surrounded by the Six Saints!
"Buzz—!"
Along the eastern horizon, a vast purple aura came rolling in.
That purple aura was noble beyond measure. Wherever it passed, the laws of Heavenly Dao automatically retreated, the sounds of the Great Dao thundered without cease, countless golden lotuses bloomed from the void, and phantoms of celestial maidens appeared in the skies, scattering a rain of flowers across heaven.
Purple Qi Coming from the East spanned thirty thousand miles!
This was the supreme phenomenon that appeared only when a Saint was born, or when someone of immense merit emerged in the Primordial World!
It was Heavenly Dao's highest form of recognition and praise for a living being!
And now, it had appeared for Yang Chen—a "sinner" burdened with immeasurable karma!
And it was not over yet!
At the instant the purple aura surged forth and the golden light poured over his head—
A vast, cold, emotionless will containing supreme laws crossed space-time directly, ignored every obstacle, and branded itself fiercely into the deepest depths of the True Spirits of every being in the three realms of the Primordial World!
It also appeared with absolute clarity in Yang Chen's mind.
[Heavenly Dao senses: Dad, stop making trouble. I'll extend it for you!] [Heavenly Tribulation delayed by ten yuanhui!]
That will was none other than Heavenly Dao itself, supreme and exalted, regarding all things as straw dogs!
It, too, had compromised!
It had not only withdrawn the Heavenly Punishment Divine Thunder capable of erasing everything.
It had not only bestowed boundless merit as a gesture of appeasement.
It had not only manifested Purple Qi Coming from the East as a sign of recognition.
It had even made a promise that caused the Six Saints' breathing to halt and their Dao Hearts to quake violently—
The karmic reckoning against Yang Chen would be delayed for an entire ten yuanhui!
Ten yuanhui!
What kind of concept was that?
It was enough time for the Primordial World to be born, destroyed, and replayed several times over!
Heavenly Dao, that most ruthless, most impartial, most supreme collection of laws, had actually learned how to "placate someone" just to keep Yang Chen alive!
And even...
It had uttered the same form of address as those Saints—the one capable of overturning the entire ethical order of the Primordial World!
At this moment.
The six Heavenly Dao Saints were completely speechless.
The anxiety, wariness, and gravity on their faces all transformed into an extreme, blank bewilderment.
The twitching at the corner of Primal Celestial Venerable's eye stopped, because his entire body had frozen.
Sovereign of Heaven loosened his grip on his sword, because he had lost the ability to think.
Nuwa's trembling jade hands also stilled, leaving only incomprehensible shock in her beautiful eyes.
The bitterness and stiffness on the faces of the two Western Saints were replaced by an absurd feeling of, "Who am I? Where am I?"
Within Grand Supreme Elder Lord's ancient-well-still eyes, the revolving Taiji diagram came to a complete stop.
All living beings of the Primordial World had turned to stone.
They finally understood that this young man, whom both the Six Saints and Heavenly Dao were "placating," was no longer an existence they—or even the Saints—could comprehend.
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