The Nine Heavens, the highest celestial domain of the Emperor Realm.
Here, ordinary sects no longer stood in dense ranks. Instead, there were majestic, sacred cultivation grounds and holy lands bearing ancient legacies.
Those who could establish themselves here were, at the weakest, Late Emperor Lords. Only Peak Late Emperor Lords counted as core figures, while the legendary Perfected Emperor Lords who had already touched the threshold of a higher realm were its true rulers.
News usually reached the Nine Heavens more slowly than the lower heavens, but it ran deeper and was more accurate.
While the Eighth Heaven was still caught in the uproar over the deaths of the Soul-Slaying Hall's three venerables and the radicals' plot to invite wolves into their own home, several sacred lands in the Nine Heavens had already faintly sensed the terrifying fluctuations of that "Chaos Sword of Chaos" severing karma in the Fourth Heaven through higher-level divination of heavenly secrets or the tracing of karmic threads.
The Grand Void Sacred Land, one of the five great sacred lands of the Nine Heavens, was renowned for divining heavenly secrets and balancing Karma.
Deep within the sacred land, upon the Starwatching Platform, Emperor Void, the current Holy Master of Grand Void, slowly opened his eyes. His face looked youthful, yet his eyes seemed to hold the birth and death of countless stars and the weathering of endless ages. His cultivation had already reached the Peak Late Emperor Lord stage.
"The Chaos Dao... a sword of Karma..." Emperor Void murmured. "How many years has it been since a variable like this appeared in the Emperor Realm?"
He calculated on his fingers, but heavenly secrets seemed shrouded in a fog of chaos, impossible to perceive in full.
"Interesting. Even I cannot fully see through this young man's