Though the smoke of war over the Primordial Sanctuary had dispersed, the shadow cast by those high-ranking beings from the distant All Heavens still hung overhead like a sword suspended above their heads. Chu Qing stood atop the observatory of Stone Ridge Immortal City, overlooking the entire reconstructed starfield. The rigid, exclusionary laws that had once governed the Primordial Sanctuary had, under the nourishment of the Stone Ridge Great Dao, unexpectedly given rise to a new primal rhythm brimming with life.
"To contend with those 'Watchers,' the Immortal City's strength alone will ultimately be but a drop in the bucket." Chu Qing spoke slowly, his voice spreading through the Immortal City's formations to fill the entire Primordial Starry Sky. "From this day forward, the Primordial Sanctuary will be renamed the Stone Ridge Perimeter Defense Line. Here, I will forge an elite force truly capable of tearing apart the Logic Locks of the high-ranking beings—the Stone Ridge Sacred Guard."
Following Chu Qing's decree, the entire sanctuary began an earth-shaking "reforging of Dao lineages." He deeply fused the Stone Ridge Mountain lineage's cultivation methods, which embraced all Daos without being bound by convention, with the Primordial Sanctuary's originally incomplete yet solidly founded primal laws.
To select the first batch of qualified Stone Ridge Sacred Guards, Chu Qing set down a Ten Thousand Daos Return as One trial formation in the sanctuary's central Training Ground. This was a masterpiece born from his "simplification" of the laws of the All Heavens. Any cultivator who entered it had to instantly discard their old-fashioned divine abilities, cumbersome and riddled with logical flaws, and instead learn the pure true meaning of the Stone Ridge Dao Lineage.
This act immediately drew fierce dissatisfaction from the conservative priests within the sanctuary. Several malicious Dao protectors quietly infiltrated the area,