Abyss Pool Yields Its Essence, Zhou Yu Breaks Through

The daylight over Jinghai Prefecture grew brighter.

The Dawn Bell broke the colors of dawn, roosters crowed the night curtain open, and the order of the human world emerged from chaos, its patterns taking shape amid disorder.

High above, the Void Sun suspended in the fissure did not fade. Instead, it branded the light of [Pleiades Sun] into the Root Bone of this world with a deeper, more restrained force.

That light did not sting the eyes, but it carried immense weight. Each ray seemed to possess substance: where it fell upon a mountain, the mountain sank three parts; where it fell upon a river, the waters stilled three feet deep.

The Phantoms of five halls descended from the horizon like five enormous Dao seals, pressing deep into the earth's veins. A hum rose from underground, faint as a mosquito's whine at first, then loud as ten thousand drums beating together, before becoming one long sigh that faded among Jinghai Prefecture's Mountains and Rivers.

The five Phantoms sank into the earth's veins and became five golden channels spanning the prefecture. Like a person's five organs, each governed its own domain.

Along Jinghai Prefecture's eastern line, several warriors in coarse Daoist robes gathered beneath a hastily built reed shelter, their faces dazed.

Their cultivation was low, no further than Skin Grinding or Sinew Changing. They could not even approach the cold pool deep within the fissure, and could only watch from the outskirts.

"Did that great master of the Cangming Dao truly quell an entire prefecture's disorder single-handedly?"

A young Rogue Cultivator gripped half a piece of dry rations, his voice trembling. "My master said a place where Spiritual Essence has fallen into disorder might not recover for a hundred years. It's only been a few days..."

"A few days?"

An