The Azure Cloud Dao Soldier's task had now been completed, so there was no need to keep it any longer.
With a sweep of Fang Xiao's sleeve, it gradually turned illusory before finally dissolving into a haze of azure radiance and drifting away.
Yet he did not leave afterward. Instead, he turned and sealed off every spatial passage within this grotto-heaven.
It was not that Fang Xiao did not intend to leave. He simply could not leave for the time being.
The reason was simple. His cultivation had long accumulated to its limit; within the Small World, there was no further room for advancement. Only by enduring the heavenly tribulation could he make another breakthrough.
Of course, with his current control over the Small World, it was not impossible for him to open it completely, connect it to the outside world, and draw down the heavenly tribulation.
In truth, he simply did not dare do so.
There was nothing wrong with the Small World extending outward through the Xuanhuang Gourd.
But once he allowed the greater world to force its way in, given the disparity in scale between the two, Fang Xiao feared that the Small World would be eroded by the greater world and reduced to a vassal.
If that happened, no matter how great the Small World's potential was, it would become an appendage of the greater world, its upper limit forever locked in place.
Thus, things from the greater world could be replicated and imitated, but they absolutely could not be directly introduced. Though that seemed convenient and swift, it was in truth destroying one's own foundations.
And Fang Xiao firmly believed that as long as the Small World's Dao of Tribulation and Fortune gradually became complete, it would one day give birth to tribulations of its