Crisis in the Nine Heavens and Ten Lands

(Morning of the First Day After Returning)

In the distant, deathly silent frontier of the universe, Taiyin stepped out from a vast rift in space that radiated destructive energy and the light of heavenly tribulation.

He sensed the familiar Myriad Daos of heaven and earth, yet a complicated expression appeared on his face.

He opened his hand, and specks of golden radiance came from across the universe, gathering in his palm into a dense mass of divine light. He was slightly startled.

Within it, he saw a memory engraved there.

It was a memory imprinted within the power of faith by countless people who believed in the Taiyin Human Emperor and prayed to be saved during ancient times.

Hundreds of thousands of years ago, after Taiyin lived his third life and entered his later years, when his combat strength had reached its peak, he broke through the Immortal Ascension Road at the wrong time and in the wrong place. At the end of the Immortal Ascension Road, he suffered grave injuries in the Boundary Sea and encountered some inexplicable strangeness. His Primordial Spirit shattered, and he lost much of his memory.

Dragging his crippled body along with his shattered Primordial Spirit, he barely returned to the Immortal Ascension Road. Only after leaving behind half his body did he break through the road and return to his homeland. Yet he had no time to do anything. He could not even leave behind the intelligence he had obtained on the Immortal Ascension Road before he was attacked and killed with his final breath still unspent.

However, his regrets had also left behind resentment.

Taiyin could sense that not long ago, the resentment he had left in the Nine Heavens and Ten Lands had regained its sanity. After briefly awakening, it had dissipated.

Through the resonance of the Myriad Daos of heaven and earth, the memories of that resentment flowed into his heart, allowing him to see everything it had witnessed and learned after awakening.

His expression was complicated, filled with fury and sorrow. Then he let out a sigh and fell silent.

Taiyin had been born in the archaic era. At that time, the human race throughout the universe was weak, reduced to livestock bred by the myriad races as blood food. Their living conditions had been unimaginably harsh.

He had fought his way forward with overwhelming force, proving his Dao and becoming an emperor. He had pulled the human race back from its former plight and was revered as the Human Emperor by countless humans. He possessed two imperial weapons.

The Taiyin Moon Blade, forged from Profound Yin Moon Soul Gold, had accompanied him from weakness to strength throughout a lifetime of war. It was his Dao Proving Artifact, made for slaughter.

After proving his Dao and being honored as the Taiyin Human Emperor, he obtained another divine material. In order to leave behind as much strength as possible to protect humanity after his death, he refined a Human Emperor Seal focused on suppression and defense.

Taiyin formed a hand seal and summoned the Human Emperor Seal that he had left behind in his homeland to protect humanity when he had once fought upon the Immortal Ascension Road.

Through the memories of that resentment, he had discovered some conspiracies that had occurred after his death over the ages, but he had also gained even more doubts.

He wanted to summon his weapon and learn from the weapon spirit what had truly happened back then.

As an invisible ripple spread out, Taiyin frowned. "Such a weak response. Has the Human Emperor Seal been shattered?"

He immediately activated a secret technique and attempted the summoning again through the resonance of Taiyin Dao laws.

Billions of light-years away lay an ancient land of life known as the Flying Immortal Ancient Star Domain.

On Flying Immortal Star stood an ancient land of immense antiquity, said to contain the secret of immortality. It was called Kunlun.

Within a Secret Realm stood an incomparably aged old man whose cultivation had reached the seventh heaven of the Quasi-Emperor realm.

Holding a treasure gourd, he was operating a secret technique. Using the Soldier Character Secret, one of the Nine Secrets, together with the ocean-like Taiyin Moon Essence Liquid accumulated within the gourd over thousands of years, he was cleansing and worshipfully refining a black, ancient seal that had a missing corner and cracks that nearly split it in two.

It was the Human Emperor Seal, discovered by the Kunlun Remnant Clan among the stars after a divine battle erupted on Yinghuo Ancient Star in ancient times.

This sacred artifact of humanity, which had once protected the human race for tens of thousands of years, had drifted through the stars like a meteorite.

In that inexplicable great battle on Yinghuo Ancient Star, the fully awakened weapon spirit of the Human Emperor Seal had joined a battle against Supremes. Though the Human Emperor Seal had been terrifyingly powerful, capable of injuring figures at the Supreme level head-on, its weapon spirit had still been grievously wounded, its main body shattered, and nearly all its divine power lost.

After the Kunlun Remnant Clan found it, generation after generation spent tens of thousands of years refining it through secret techniques. Only then had they barely restored a portion of its power and brought it under their control.

Yet at this very moment, the black seal enshrined within the divine hall and worshiped as the foundation of the Kunlun Remnant Clan suddenly began to tremble.

"What?!" The old man refining it with secret techniques froze. His expression changed as he sensed the gradually awakening power within the Human Emperor Seal.

Boom!

A thread of Extreme Dao Pressure spread out. The sleeping weapon spirit within the seal slightly awakened, and a strand of Extreme Yin Power leaked out.

Although the weapon spirit immediately suppressed its own power, it had still nearly frozen the seventh-heaven Quasi-Emperor old man into fragments.

Then, even as the formations throughout the divine hall immediately sealed the void, the Human Emperor Seal effortlessly pierced through space and fell into it, vanishing without a trace. Only the old man, slowly reassembling his body where he stood, remained behind.

Only a single sentence remained in place: (Though you have cleansed and worshiped me for tens of thousands of years, I have also served at your command. We owe each other nothing.)

As a pitch-black spatial rift was forcibly torn open, a wholly black great seal burst through the void.

The stars of the heavens glittered upon the seal, while patterns of flowers, birds, fish, stones, and human survival flickered in and out of view. Yet this sacred imperial weapon, which should have been flawless, was missing a corner, and a shocking crack nearly split it in half.

Taiyin stroked the Human Emperor Seal, his expression impossible to read as a faint sigh echoed through the void.

He activated a secret technique, transforming endless Lesser Yin Moonlight Power that nourished the weakened weapon spirit within the Human Emperor Seal like a gentle stream.

The weapon spirit of the Human Emperor Seal manifested as a blurry shadow and sent out a weak Divine Sense. "Taiyin, I have failed you. I have failed humanity..."

Taiyin sighed softly. "You did your best. First, do your utmost to absorb the blood and recover. I have returned. With me here, everything will be fine."

Then he took out tens of thousands of the blocks he had previously stored away, each continuously producing his old blood, and sent them all into the inner space of the Human Emperor Seal. The blood, surging with endless moonlight and Taiyin Power, continuously washed over the grievously damaged Human Emperor Seal from within.

His gaze turned toward the far side of the universe, killing intent surging in his eyes as though it were tangible.

However, when he sensed the undisguised auras of more than thirty Imperial Dao Supremes throughout the universe, his brows furrowed tightly as hesitation filled him.

With Fang Zheng's Power, Taiyin had already lived his fourth life. He was confident that his strength stood above all others, yet in the face of more than thirty Supremes, even he felt some apprehension.

"Can the living beings of the universe endure such a brutal battle?"

Since ancient times, all Supremes waiting for the Immortal Ascension Road had cut themselves with a single stroke, falling from their perfected states in order to seal themselves away in slumber.

Yet the years were long. Even after falling from their perfected states and sealing themselves away, their lifespans would still slowly drain away.

When their lifespans neared their end and they could no longer remain sealed, they would unseal themselves and devour the life energy of endless living beings to prolong their lives. This was the so-called Dark Turmoil passed down among the universe's living beings.

During the archaic era, after Taiyin proved his Dao, he consumed an Immortal Medicine and lived a second life.

In his later years of that second life, four ancient Supremes saw that he had grown old and brazenly unleashed a Dark Turmoil.

At that time, Taiyin desperately tried to stop them and was besieged by all four Supremes at once. Though he struggled to kill one Supreme, he was grievously wounded as well. Only after that Supreme's corpse was divided and consumed by the remaining three Supremes did the Dark Turmoil temporarily come to an end.