"This is..."
Jiang Ding shot to his feet.
His gaze turned slightly cold, a thread of killing intent flaring as he looked toward the distant stars.
That was the direction of the Supreme Clarity Spiritual Treasure Sect, the Azurewood Immortal Sect, the Heavenly Mechanism Immortal Palace, and the other realms. The Immortal Sect had settled them in that region of space.
Now, as the remains of the wooden stake revived, countless traces of Dao resonance and spiritual energy gathered. In the direction of the Supreme Clarity Spiritual Treasure Sect, faint wisps of flame appeared and steadily converged.
Some power crossed the vast reaches of the cosmos and gathered around the seed of inheritance.
Through those wisps of flame, he seemed to see generation after generation of the Supreme Clarity Spiritual Treasure Sect's forebears. The final thoughts of generations of supreme beings from the upper realm, their last attachment to their sect, were reaching this place across the endless stars through the power of a branch of the rules pushed to its limit.
Those flames were gathering something. Re-creating something.
What were the thoughts of those generations of Spiritual Treasure Realm forebears, who had hacked their way through brambles to build their sect, gathering into?
"The afterglow,"
"The last afterglow of an upper-realm Immortal Order..."
Jiang Ding was certain now. He spoke in a cold murmur.
An old friend, someone he had known since childhood, someone bound to so many memories of his past—those identities fell away in this moment, revealing what he had been all along.
An enemy.
An enemy of the Immortal Sect.
Someone capable of shaking the Immortal Sect's system of rule, someone who might threaten the happiness and safety of countless citizens.
Whatever feelings his old friend had stirred in him vanished without a trace. He did