The old man's voice sank into some deeper place with the wind. "Senior, I have seen this place in its greatest days."
"I saw great Immortal Dao cultivators overlook the heavens. I saw heavenly prodigies gather in one city. I saw these mountains, these waters, every spirit herb, every cloud path, every banner, as they were at the height of their glory."
"Back then, I thought..." He gave a low laugh, and something words could not contain spilled from his voice. "This life upon the immortal path had already been worthwhile."
"But that day, the qi of Tiandi changed drastically, and the laws fell into chaos, birthing the signs of heaven's collapse."
"At that time, this old man was within the Mystic Garden. The ground suddenly shook beneath my feet. I looked up and saw a rift in the Skyvault, tearing from the horizon to directly overhead. There was light within that rift. That light was not immortal light, nor was it Dao Light. It was a bone-piercing light from some indescribable place, one that tore the soul apart."
"After that, the Shrouding Heaven war arrived."
"They fell. Their Dao Fruits shattered, their souls and spirits were annihilated. Not even a final lingering thought remained—they vanished utterly and completely."
"I saw immortal cities that had once stood as firm as mountains collapse with a thunderous crash in that battle. The banners atop their walls burned, then went out; went out, then burned again. In the end, everything burned to ashes."
"The ten-thousand-year spirit medicines within the Mystic Garden turned inch by inch into scorched earth beneath the shockwaves of that catastrophe. That fragrance, a fragrance that had pervaded thirty million li, vanished completely overnight. For hundreds of millions of years thereafter, it never returned."
"Those cultivators who had once possessed