Breaking Through the Realm

Inside the Kunlun Ruins, the aftershocks of the spiritual energy tide had yet to fully subside.

Plants and trees grew wildly. Spiritual seeds that had lain dormant for no one knew how long began to break through the soil. The entire secret realm seemed to wake from a long hibernation, blooming with unprecedented vitality.

The Guardians of the Ruins knelt on the ground, weeping tears of joy, praying and giving thanks in the most ancient tongue.

Zhou Qing held the cold, faintly cracked segment of the God-Beating Whip in his hand and looked at the scene before him, yet there was not much joy in his heart.

He did not linger in the secret realm for long.

After carefully putting away the God-Beating Whip and briefly speaking with the wildly excited Old Priest, Chen Ke, and the others, he left the Kunlun Ruins together with Long Aotian.

Passing through that spatial membrane and returning once more to the biting air of the Gobi Desert, it felt like a lifetime had passed.

Earth did not seem any different.

It was still the same dim yellow sky, the same cold sand and stone, the same howling wind.

But Zhou Qing could sense that some things were already different.

The spiritual energy in the air, once so thin it was almost impossible to perceive, was increasing at an extremely slow pace.

To ordinary people, this increase meant nothing at all. But to cultivators, especially Qi Refining to Godhood cultivators with senses as sharp as his, it was no different from long-parched land meeting sweet rain.

"The spiritual energy's return has begun."

Long Aotian stood beside him, looking at the sky in the northwest, his tone flat, with little emotion audible in it.

"However, this is only the beginning."

Over the next few months,