Some cultivators who had been meditating, their auras long and serene, were also jolted awake from their cultivation and enlightenment by the sudden thunder and lightning sent by the heavens.
Looking again toward that place, lightning filled the sky, blotting out the sun.
Some cultivators, their eyes dark and bright as stars, used their dharma eyes to glimpse a corner of heaven's secrets.
Amid all things, they saw a Great Dao, savage and ferocious, seemingly about to take root and transcend from illusion into reality.
At that glance, blood tears streamed from the eyes of quite a few people in an instant.
"Not good, it's backlash!"
"That Great Dao..."
Already, heavy thoughts sank in some hearts.
There were also wisps of gazes descending from above the Nine Heavens, watching silently.
On the surface, every figure appeared to be doing nothing, merely waiting in silence.
Yet Lu Qing, who had long witnessed these movements within the river of time, cultivated a different Great Dao. Watching the stirrings within this vast sea was like watching fish swarm in a pond.
He saw certain special schemes as well.
He also saw fellow Daoists from several opposing camps placing pieces and clashing.
Even though each of those chess pieces seemed to have nothing to do with them personally.
Yet amid tangled karma, for one piece to form a karmic connection with another was simplicity itself.
All it took was a slight alteration to a thread of fate.
Naturally, fitting guidance would arise, leading the two pieces into the same stretch of destiny.
And now—
Though every figure remained calm.
That was only because whatever needed to be done, whatever pieces needed to be placed, had already been laid down long before this game began.
Thus, on the surface, outside the chessboard, every fellow Daoist