Dead Wood Blossoms Again, and the World's Great Powers Enter the Game

The Fallen Bell, whose dull, desolate toll had echoed across ten thousand miles, fell abruptly silent after its ninth strike.

The night returned to deathly stillness.

But not one of Primeval Holy Land's hundred thousand disciples could sleep. The shock of what they had witnessed struck every cultivator's soul like a hammer. The elders with the deepest cultivation clutched at their pounding hearts, feeling as though their blood were flowing backward.

Inside the Primeval Holy Hall.

Ji Changkong, who had been at death's door and ready to return to the void, now radiated a terrifying vitality.

A faint glow flowed across his skin, once as withered as ancient wood. Deep in his sunken eyes, the two flames of his soul that had nearly gone out blazed like suns, making the very space inside the hall ripple.

He had not died.

Far from it. From the depths of despair, he had forced his way onto a new path.

What cultivators feared most was not the end of their lifespan, but the collapse of their conviction in their Dao.

Ji Changkong had been trapped at the peak of Dao-Slaying for a thousand years, unable to touch the Emperor Realm. He had always believed he lacked talent and that the Heavenly Dao had cast him aside. That daily self-doubt and despair had been the true poison consuming his life.

Yet what he had just seen had struck like a great bell, forging his conviction anew!

"It wasn't that I lacked the ability..."

Ji Changkong slowly rose. His body was still stooped, but his spine stood straight. The crushing pressure of a peerless master swept through the hall once more like a tide.

"The path to immortality was severed! The Heavenly Court fell! Even that supreme being who surpassed Great Emperors shed blood in the Ninth Heaven. How could anyone in this world still become an Immortal?!"

"The Heavenly Dao is broken, and the Laws are incomplete. The heavens and earth are ailing, not my talent!"

The moment Ji Changkong understood this, the inner demons that had weighed on his heart for three thousand years vanished. His body, spirit, and will reached an unprecedented peak, and his depleted Immortal Platform even began drawing in spiritual energy from ten thousand miles around.

His cultivation had not advanced, but at the instant his conviction was restored, he wrested a full hundred years of life from the heavens!

"Congratulations, Holy Lord! You've found new life!"

Outside the hall, more than a dozen Grand Elders and peak masters sensed the vast aura surging skyward. After a moment of stunned silence, they dropped to their knees in delight.

"The heavens have not abandoned Primeval Holy Land!"

Then, with a boom, the hall's ancient bronze doors swung open, and Ji Changkong stepped out.

There was no joy on his face at having gained more years. Instead, he looked graver and colder than ever.

"Rise."

Ji Changkong's voice was low, yet everyone heard him clearly.

"What happened today is Primeval Holy Land's highest secret. Everyone who witnessed tonight's vision will swear an oath to the Heavenly Dao. Reveal so much as half a word, and your soul will be destroyed along with your entire clan!"

The elders shuddered at the killing intent in his words and hurriedly bowed their heads in assent.

Perfected One Ten Thousand Laws, master of Void Peak, dared to raise his head. "Holy Lord... that extraordinary vision just now. What was it?"

Ji Changkong stood with his hands behind his back and gazed at the night sky. It had grown calm again, yet something seemed to be missing. He let out a long sigh.

"A lingering image from the ages. The Heavenly Dao was warning us cultivators."

"The Great Emperor may not be the end of cultivation. In the lost Ancient Era, a supreme order called the Heavenly Court once ruled countless worlds. It held innumerable Immortals, before whom gods and demons bowed. That figure in the nine-dragon imperial robe was likely its ruler: the Heavenly Emperor, a being beyond Great Emperors!"

As Ji Changkong spoke, the reasoning in his mind grew clearer. Even he believed it without a doubt.

"But that battle was too devastating. The Heavenly Court fell, and the path to immortality was cut off. The catastrophe that left a gap in the Canglan Realm's history a hundred thousand years ago was likely the aftermath of that ancient war!"

The Grand Elders around him drew sharp breaths at his deduction.

They had spent millennia looking down on others, certain they understood the workings of heaven and earth. Now a mere glimpse of that ancient myth had overturned everything they thought they knew.

"Did the Heavenly Court truly exist? Were there really Immortals?" one elder murmured, dazed.

"They must have!"

Heavenly Sword Guest, master of Heavenly Sword Peak, slapped the sword at his waist. The Heaven-Piercing Spirit Sword that had accompanied him for two thousand years was trembling faintly, as though afraid.

"For an instant, I sensed something that stood above every sword path in the Canglan Realm: the essence of immortality. Had I not seen it myself, I would never have believed there was a Law in this world capable of suppressing all others. That was... a Law belonging to Immortals!"

"The Heavenly Court fell, and the path to immortality was severed... No wonder no Great Emperor has appeared in a hundred thousand years, and no one has ascended."

The elders voiced their agreement, every face pale.

Yet beneath their fear, a fervor they could not suppress rose in their eyes.

If the path to immortality had merely been severed, did that mean they might still restore it if they found the Heavenly Court's ruins and the lost inheritance of the Ancient Era?

Hidden inside the Library Pavilion, Su Chen watched these normally composed great figures work themselves into a frenzy over their own conclusions. He could not help smiling.

[Notice: Primeval Holy Land's leaders have reached a consensus. The concept of the "Desolate Ancient Heavenly Court" has forced a faint imprint into the Laws of the Canglan Realm.] [Bonus Karma Points awarded: +1,500!] [Current Karma Points: 3,900.]

"Nearly four thousand Karma Points..."

Su Chen stood by the window, studying his system panel.

It looked like a substantial sum, but it was still nowhere near enough to exchange for one of the truly powerful identities that could dominate the heavens.

Ji Changkong surviving was an unexpected bonus.

Su Chen rubbed his chin.

A living Holy Lord with immense influence in the cultivation world was far more useful than a dead one.

Ji Changkong would become his most devoted promoter of the myth.

As long as Ji Changkong believed it, he would commit all of Primeval Holy Land's resources to finding proof and tracking down traces of the Heavenly Court. Su Chen only had to drop a few breadcrumbs at the right moments, and the Holy Lord would lead the entire Canglan Realm deeper into his fabricated lie.

"But a fleeting vision in the sky isn't enough."

A calculating glint entered Su Chen's eyes.

"Visions fade from memory. Cultivators may revere what they saw, but given enough time, they'll start to doubt it. For a lie to become history, it needs physical evidence."

"History needs archaeology to back it up."

Su Chen opened the system shop again and carefully searched its tier-one and tier-two exchange lists.

He needed an object.

It could not be too powerful. At his current strength, he would be unable to control it, and it might even provoke a backlash from the Heavenly Dao.

But it had to be ancient enough to bear traces of Immortal Dao Laws that could not possibly be forged. It also had to fit perfectly with the vision they had seen.

After a moment, Su Chen's gaze settled on an item in the tier-two exchange section.

[Item: Southern Heavenly Gate White Jade Brick Fragment (weak spiritual grade)] [Description: A fragment of the Southern Heavenly Gate's foundation, carved from celestial jade. It has survived a great catastrophe and lost all its immortal essence, but after being bathed in the Heavenly Emperor's light and the auras of ten thousand Immortals, it remains indestructible. It contains an extremely faint residue of primordial immortal energy of extraordinarily high rank, which no method in the Canglan Realm can replicate.] [Exchange price: 3,000 Karma Points.]

"That's the one."

Without hesitation, Su Chen selected the exchange.

To make the fragment's appearance seem natural, he did not take it into his hand. Instead, he brought up the system's map placement function.

His sight passed through the Library Pavilion's rows of shelves and fixed on a forbidden area in the mountains behind Primeval Holy Land: Sorrowwind Valley.

Sorrowwind Valley was a place where life could not survive.

The Nine Nether Astral Wind blew there year-round, capable of dissolving cultivators' bodies and eroding their souls. None but great masters could enter. Ordinarily, no living creature dared set foot inside, apart from the rare madman nearing the end of his life who hoped to temper his conviction in the wind and make one last attempt at a breakthrough.

"This will do."

A smile curved Su Chen's lips as he tapped a pile of rubble deep within Sorrowwind Valley on the system's virtual map.

"Edit attribute: twelve hundred centuries of weathering." "Edit state: immortal light concealed, releasing a wisp of the ancient people's lament only when the Great Dao resonates." "Bind causality: Canglan Realm. Deploy!"

Hum.

The 3,900 Karma Points in his sea of consciousness instantly shrank to a lonely 900.

Deep within the void, beyond anyone else's perception, an unfathomable ripple of Laws silently descended into Sorrowwind Valley, a place that had known no life for ten thousand years.

A White Jade Fragment that looked ordinary, even somewhat dull and weathered, fell quietly among the rubble. It mingled with the dark brown stones that the Nine Nether Astral Wind had battered for tens of thousands of years.

With that done, Su Chen gently closed the Ancient Classic in his hands.

He blew out the lamp, turned, and disappeared into the darkness.

"The seed has been sown. Now I wait for the wind."

Early the next morning.

The atmosphere in Primeval Holy Land remained taut as a drawn bowstring.

At the edge of Sorrowwind Valley.

A young man in an inner disciple's robes carefully piloted a flying boat on patrol near the howling mouth of the valley.

His name was Lu Li.

Though only an inner disciple, he had been born with a powerful soul and was keenly sensitive to the flow of spiritual energy through the void. It was his turn to guard the forbidden area today, and after last night's vision had shaken the entire sect, he kept himself fully alert.

"What happened last night was terrifying. Even the Purple Qi Comes from the East Great Array was shattered..."

Lu Li steered the flying boat against the stray blasts of Astral Wind escaping the valley and sighed inwardly.

A low-ranking disciple like him had no access to the Holy Land's deepest secrets. All he knew was that the heavens and earth had changed last night, and the Holy Lord had somehow survived.

He was about to turn the flying boat toward the next watchpoint when something happened.

Without warning, the Fine Steel Longsword at Lu Li's waist let out a hum.

Its blade trembled and gave a clear, mournful cry, as though bowing in submission to something deep within Sorrowwind Valley.

"Hm?!"

Lu Li's expression changed. He grabbed the sword at his waist.

As a disciple of Heavenly Sword Peak, he was acutely sensitive to sword intent. The sword might have been forged mostly from ordinary steel with a little Spirit Gold mixed in, but it was still a spiritual weapon. It would never cry out for no reason.

Was something deep in Sorrowwind Valley drawing it in?

Lu Li raised his head and looked toward the depths of the valley, perpetually shrouded in black mist and violent wind.

Perhaps it was his imagination, but beneath the roar of the Nine Nether Astral Wind, he thought he heard a strange sound.

It was not the wind.

It sounded more like countless ancient people chanting a ritual hymn to the gods across the gulf of ages.

It was vast and solemn, yet carried a desolation that brought tears to his eyes.