In the dark, deathly stillness of the starry sky.
A rising sun emerged from the boundary wall of a small world.
That rising sun was so bright that, though it was still seven or eight hundred thousand kilometers away, its light and sword intent had already reached the two figures in the starry sky.
The two combatants stopped fighting.
One was a middle-aged cultivator with a long beard, a powerful build, and a striking face. His beard was neatly groomed in a style that had been fashionable in the Northern Plains Cultivation World some ten thousand years ago. Back then, male cultivators prized a fine long beard and called its owner a "lord of handsome whiskers."
In those days, a man with such a beard might even persuade a high-ranking female cultivator to marry beneath her station.
According to legend, this was how True Orchid Celestial Mother, the maternal ancestor of the Northern Plains bloodline Lineages, had married a Foundation Establishment Realm cultivator while she herself was already a Golden Core cultivator.
She had not taken him as a cultivation vessel. She had brought a substantial dowry and married an obscure man simply because he had a handsome beard, causing quite a sensation.
That Foundation Establishment cultivator had risen from there, advancing through Golden Core, Nascent Soul, and even Spirit Transformation before becoming unrivaled under heaven.
That man was the handsome-bearded cultivator standing here ten thousand years later—Celestial Lord Shuo Yang!
Facing him was an ordinary-looking cultivator whose entire body blazed with light. Endless destruction and scorching sword intent radiated from him. From afar, he looked like a Great Sun of the immortal path rising for the first time, casting boundless, domineering, destructive light across the stars.
He seemed born to rule the starry sky between worlds.
"Ming Guangzi, who