The shattered cosmic starfield was mending. The torn web of Heavenly Dao's laws slowly drew together, and the world ravaged by battle returned to normal.
Eight mighty cultivators stood in the void, their faces cold.
Inwardly, though, they were disheartened.
They had planned this ambush for thousands of years, laying trap upon trap, veiling heavenly secrets and karma, and using a sword cultivator's primal hunger for a sword duel to lure their enemy onto a battlefield of their choosing. Every advantage had been theirs.
In battle, they had held nothing back. There had been no infighting. They had burned even their blood essence and souls, used secret arts that staked their lives, and remained grievously wounded to this day.
The price had been anything but small.
Yet this generation's Great Sun Sword Lord had still escaped.
Now that he had escaped, he would surely grow far faster than any of them and reach another height. Once he reached the peak of Void Refining, once he attained Dao Integration...
Even cultivators with no skill whatsoever in divination could foresee those terrifying possibilities.
As the cultivator most skilled in divination across this cluster of worlds, Heavenly Mechanism Divine Lord saw more. He could even see how he would die, how he would fall. Scene after scene seemed poised to unfold in the next instant, chilling him to the bone.
There was not a shred of hope.
That future shrouded in endless darkness...
The starfield lay silent enough to hear a pin drop. Even the omnipresent currents of Nether Soul-Eroding Astral Wind had vanished, frozen by the cold killing intent unconsciously spilling from the eight mighty cultivators.
"How about..."
"Slaughtering an entire realm for fun?"
The mighty cultivator of the Shadow Demon Abyss suddenly gave a soft laugh, impossibly alluring. "Let the fires