Yet where Donghua looked, the clouds still drifted lazily, without the slightest sign of movement.
"Stop hiding your head and showing your tail. Come out!"
Purple-gold divine light surged in Donghua's eyes. The Jingyang Bell in his sleeve boomed, suddenly attacking the patch of void he had first fixed his gaze upon.
The bell's ringing transformed into golden ripples visible to the naked eye. Wherever they passed, space shattered inch by inch, spreading like a spiderweb.
Just as the attack that shattered space was about to annihilate that patch of void, a hazy figure suddenly appeared.
"Fellow Daoist, why the anger? This object has no fate with either of you." The voice was illusory and uncertain, as though it came from another spacetime.
He merely raised his sleeve, and a Bronze Ancient Door appeared from thin air.
Countless profound runes were carved across the door. The space within twisted, as though it connected to an endless void.
The golden ripples blasted out by the Jingyang Bell flowed into the Bronze Ancient Door like a hundred rivers returning to the sea. Every last strand vanished inside without stirring even the slightest ripple.
Donghua revealed a look of surprise. "An Innate Spiritual Treasure containing the Space Law. Interesting!"
The mysterious man chuckled without replying. Strange fluctuations arose in the void within the Bronze Ancient Door, transferring the swallowed force elsewhere. Through the doorway, one could faintly see countless stars being annihilated by the bell's ringing.
At that moment, beside the Four Symbols Banana Tree, a pitch-black spatial rift silently split open.
A phantom palm reached out from within, heading straight for the fully matured Wind and Fire leaves!
"Seal."
Just as the great hand was about to succeed, Taizhen's chilly voice rang out. Her delicate hand lightly lifted the Kunlun Mirror, which suddenly burst with Clear Radiance.
As light flowed across the mirror's surface, the Time Law rippled outward, precisely enveloping the intangible great hand reaching toward the banana tree.
In an instant, the trajectory of the Wind and Fire Banana Leaves as they fell froze in midair. The surging spatial rift stopped contracting, and the phantom hand remained frozen in the posture of grasping the spiritual treasure.
Clearly, the owner of the great hand had not expected Taizhen to possess such a Supernatural Ability.
"Since you've reached out, leave it behind." Donghua chuckled.
At the moment the phantom hand was immobilized in time, Donghua and Taizhen exchanged a glance. Without needing to speak, their perfect understanding was already complete.
"Yang Yuan Dao Jie."
Donghua pointed forward, and magnificent immortal light, brilliant as the sun descending from the heavens, fully unfolded from his fingertip!
Just as Donghua's devastating attack was about to touch the palm, Taizhen slightly raised her jade finger. The force of temporal stasis enveloping the phantom hand receded with pinpoint precision like a tide.
"Release."
Time resumed its flow.
The hand had only just broken free from time's imprisonment and had yet to react when Donghua's fully charged killing blow was already upon it!
Wherever the immortal light passed, that Daluo Immortal Body—transcending the River of Time and impervious to countless tribulations—began to be directly erased, like lingering snow thrown into a furnace.
This was not ordinary destruction, but a more fundamental dissolution.
The vital essence forming the life origin of the Daluo Immortal Body, illuminated by this utmost-yang and utmost-pure immortal light, dissolved and dispersed soundlessly like spring ice beneath the sun.
"Ughhh—!"
A muffled groan filled with unbearable pain and shock suddenly came from the depths of the void. Clearly, the complete erasure of the palm had inflicted an injury on his true body far beyond imagination.
"Fellow Daoist, you win. I'll give this object to you. You two had best not separate."
The voice carried a trace of barely perceptible anger and urgency. The figure flickered between solidity and illusion as the surrounding space began to twist, clearly intending to flee with the aid of a secret technique.
"Come whenever you wish and leave whenever you wish? What great authority you have, Fellow Daoist. It seems the lesson just now wasn't deep enough. Why not leave your avatar behind and let this seat examine it carefully?"
Donghua's gaze flashed like lightning. Before his words had even faded, the Jingyang Bell in his sleeve rang once more, and its mighty sound transformed into countless Golden Dao Patterns that flew toward him.
The illusory figure did not reply. Instead, it rapidly faded, as though it intended to merge completely into the void and escape this place.
Donghua's gaze turned cold as ten-thousand-year-old profound ice. Now that this cause and effect had been forged, how could he allow the man to come and go as he pleased?
He had tried to seize the treasure first and then spouted arrogant words. Now that the situation had turned unfavorable, he wanted to withdraw and flee into the distance. In the Primordial Wilderness, how could cause and effect be so conveniently settled?
"Do you think you can get away?"
Donghua took one step forward and unleashed Sunlight Without Trace, following like a shadow and clinging tightly to the illusory figure flickering through the void in an attempt to escape. In an instant, he tore through layer upon layer of space and gave chase across an unknown distance.
The fleeing figure ahead appeared flustered, yet its trajectory carried an indescribable eeriness.
Donghua's killing intent was set. Immortal light surged around him, while the Jingyang Bell hung above his head, cascading ten thousand rays of golden light to protect him. Locking onto his opponent's aura, he was determined to leave him behind and settle this cause and effect.
"Clang!"
A short, crisp bell chime rang out. The Jingyang Bell sent forth a condensed ring of dark-gold ripples—not toward where the opponent currently was, but precisely into the spacetime node he was bound to pass through during his next spatial jump.
"Buzz!"
The bell's sound cut through the silence of Buzhou Mountain like a blade.
"Pfft!"
The illusory figure had just forcibly squeezed out of the void when it seemed to crash into an invisible divine-metal barrier. The divine light protecting his body shook violently and suddenly dimmed, while his figure was blasted backward, his aura instantly thrown into disarray.
Shocked and enraged, he did not dare linger for even a moment.
He could only urge the Space Law to its utmost limit, his figure flickering constantly between reality and illusion.
At times, he transformed into a streak of light that tore across the galaxy, traversing the Sea of Stars. At others, his body collapsed and merged into the patterns of space, like a fish entering water, borrowing the momentum to flee ten thousand miles away.
He instantly split into hundreds or thousands of figures with completely identical auras, shooting off in different directions in an attempt to confuse his pursuer's perception.
Yet above Donghua's head, the Jingyang Bell continued on, neither hurried nor slow.
At times, the bell's sound transformed into invisible shackles, weaving an inescapable net through the void.
The figure that had originally merged into the patterns of space immediately found itself trapped in a quagmire. Every movement became incomparably difficult, and eventually, amid waves of spatial ripples, it was forced to reveal its true form.
"Where else do you think you can run?"
Donghua stood before him with his hands behind his back. The Pure Yang Daoist Robe snapped in the astral wind. With every step he took forward, the rocks beneath his feet turned to a lapis lazuli texture, and the surrounding space froze along with them.
The illusory figure was forced to reveal his true body. He was a Taoist with a pale complexion.
He gazed at Donghua approaching step by step, then turned to look at the retreat sealed by Dao Patterns. Despair finally appeared on his face.
"Fellow Daoist, do you truly intend to exterminate me completely?"
"Since you dared to reach out," Donghua said as Pure Yang Purple Qi flowed around his fingertip, tracing profound patterns through the void, "you should have thought of the consequences."
"If these are your final words, Fellow Daoist, then you may die."
As soon as Donghua finished speaking, the pale-faced Taoist suddenly revealed a strange smile. His hands moved as he rasped:
"Qiankun reverses, the stars shift and the Dipper changes."
A Taiji Diagram pattern spanning heaven and earth flashed through the air and vanished. The surrounding space shattered and reassembled like a mirror.
"You think that by shifting forms and changing positions..."
The next instant, the ground beneath Donghua's feet shook violently. A dazzling divine light suddenly erupted, trapping Donghua within it.
At the same time, patterns continuously emerged around them. Profound light markings appeared among them, linking together to form a strange and wondrous formation.
"What happened today, I will surely repay a hundredfold in the future."
The Taoist rasped with wild laughter as his figure turned illusory, about to flee into the depths of Buzhou Mountain.
"Seal!"
Before you continue