A Forbidden Ground Stirs, Ensnaring the Holy Lord

The wind slashed like knives, raging through the pitch-black mouth of the valley.

The Nine Nether Astral Wind in Sorrowwind Valley was no ordinary wind. It was a Netherwind laced with the earth's most extreme yin energy. Even divine iron would be reduced to scattered fragments after three to five days in it.

Lu Li stood at the edge of his flying boat, his face a little pale.

His spiritual power drained rapidly as he maintained the Defense Light Barrier around the boat. But more frightening than that drain was the almost pleading tremor coming from the sword in his arms.

"Could a peerless treasure really have appeared at the bottom of the valley?"

Lu Li gritted his teeth, hesitation flashing through his eyes.

As a cultivator, he could not pretend the opportunity held no appeal. But he also knew Sorrowwind Valley was forbidden ground within the Holy Land. One careless move could mean death and the destruction of his Dao.

"I'll only take a look from the outer edge. If there's danger, I'll retreat at once!"

His desire to grow stronger finally overcame his fear. Lu Li slapped his Storage Pouch, drew out a Wind-Averting Talisman glowing faintly yellow, and fixed it to himself. Then he put away the flying boat and carefully glided down the sheer cliff like a nimble wild goose.

The wind grew stronger and stronger.

The surrounding rocks were a chilling, lifeless black, marked by tens of thousands of years under the Nine Nether Astral Wind.

But after Lu Li descended about five hundred zhang and landed on a jutting pile of rubble, his gaze suddenly froze.

Not far ahead, amid the dead-black stones and debris, a patch of soft white light shone out of place.

It came from a White Jade Fragment about the size of his palm.

It lay quietly among the rocks. Though the Nine Nether Astral Wind could erode divine iron, the fragment remained translucent and spotless beneath its assault, without even the slightest sign of weathering.

Against the valley floor's darkness, deathly stillness, and decay, that touch of white looked as holy as a star fallen from the highest heavens.

"What... what kind of jade is this? Even the Nine Nether Astral Wind can't damage it?!"

Lu Li's breath caught as shock surged through him.

He forced down his astonishment and walked toward the White Jade Fragment, step by step.

When he was still ten zhang away, a sudden boom sounded in his ears. The sacrificial chanting he had heard earlier swelled countless times louder!

It was no hallucination.

For a moment, he seemed to see a vast scene: countless towering figures in ancient Immortal Armor, their auras so terrifying he could not even conceive of resisting them, knelt in dense ranks before an unimaginably majestic gate. They bowed to the void, chanting a lost sacrificial hymn.

"Pfft—!"

Merely glimpsing a corner of that scene struck Lu Li like a heavy blow. He spat a mouthful of blood and flew backward, crashing hard against the cliff.

Blood slowly seeped from his eyes, ears, and nostrils.

"Im... Immortals!"

Lu Li did not bother wiping the blood from his face. Terror filled his eyes.

The faint residual might of a single fragment had nearly shattered his soul! This could not be an artifact made by any cultivator of the Canglan Realm. Even the Holy Lord's divine weapon could never be this terrifying!

Something huge has happened!

Lu Li struggled to his feet. He knew an inner disciple like him could never lay claim to this thing. Fixing the White Jade Fragment's location firmly in his mind, he endured the agony in his soul and raced almost frantically out of the valley.

Half an hour later.

Primeval Holy Land, Heavenly Sword Peak.

Inside the main hall, Heavenly Sword Guest, the master of Heavenly Sword Peak, sat meditating with his eyes closed. After witnessing the Heavenly Court vision the night before, he had sensed his swordsmanship bottleneck begin to loosen. Now he was doing all he could to grasp that insight.

Suddenly, hurried, stumbling footsteps came from outside the hall.

"Peak Master! Peak Master, help! I'm your disciple Lu Li, and I have a matter of the utmost importance to report!"

Heavenly Sword Guest frowned slightly and slowly opened his eyes. A sharp glint of sword qi flashed through them.

"What has you in such a panic? Compose yourself."

The hall doors flew open. Covered in blood and with his soul badly weakened, Lu Li stumbled and scrambled inside before dropping to his knees.

Heavenly Sword Guest was displeased at first. But when his gaze fell on the sword in Lu Li's arms, his expression abruptly changed.

The Fine Steel Longsword Lu Li normally treasured was covered in dense cracks. More astonishing still, a faint yet supremely exalted Profound Aura clung to its tip.

That aura was identical to the Supreme Law that had appeared in the sky last night!

"Where did you encounter this aura?!"

Heavenly Sword Guest shot to his feet. Terrifying Sword Pressure spilled from him involuntarily, making the void creak.

Enduring the pressure, Lu Li cried out, "P-Peak Master, it was at the bottom of Sorrowwind Valley! I was patrolling the forbidden ground today when I found a White Jade Fragment there. It carried Supreme Heavenly Might. I only approached it, and its aura cracked my sword and nearly destroyed my soul!"

"What?!"

Heavenly Sword Guest's pupils shrank to pinpoints.

Without the slightest hesitation, he swept his sleeve. A gentle current of spiritual power lifted Lu Li, and Heavenly Sword Guest transformed into a streak of Heaven-Piercing Sword Radiance that tore across the sky toward Primeval Holy Hall!

Several breaths later.

Primeval Holy Hall.

Ji Changkong had received the news. Almost the instant Heavenly Sword Guest landed, he appeared out of thin air before the hall.

He was not alone. Perfected One Ten Thousand Laws, the master of Void Peak, and several Grand Elders who rarely showed themselves also arrived as streaks of divine light.

Last night's vision of the Heavenly Court Collapse had left them all on edge. Now that they had heard of a mysterious piece of white jade in Sorrowwind Valley bearing the same aura, these foremost figures of the Canglan Realm could no longer maintain their usual composure.

"Lu Li, is what you said true?!"

Ji Changkong stared hard at Lu Li. The immense presence of a mighty expert at the peak of Dao-Slaying nearly froze the air throughout the hall.

Deathly pale, Lu Li raised a trembling hand and pointed toward Sorrowwind Valley. "I... I'm willing to swear an oath to the Heavenly Dao! Not a word of it is false! That piece of white jade is lying among the rubble deep in Sorrowwind Valley!"

"Good! Good! Good!"

Ji Changkong said it three times, fervor nearly spilling from his eyes.

"Everyone, come with me!"

Ji Changkong did not even summon a flying boat. Purple Qi surged around him and formed a vast hand that swept up Heavenly Sword Guest, Perfected One Ten Thousand Laws, and Lu Li. He took one step, sending ripples through the void, and vanished.

At the bottom of Sorrowwind Valley.

The Nine Nether Astral Wind still howled, but under Ji Changkong's protection, the wind that could erode divine iron could not even touch the hems of their robes.

"Holy Lord, it's that pile of rubble ahead!" Lu Li pointed forward, instinctive fear still coloring his voice.

The others looked where he pointed.

When they saw the fragment emitting a faint white glow among the rubble, Ji Changkong and the others stopped breathing at the same moment.

"This... this is..."

Perfected One Ten Thousand Laws stepped forward. His hands began to tremble.

As the Canglan Realm's foremost master of formations and the workings of the Heavenly Dao, he needed only a glance to see that the space around the jade was collapsing in a deeply unnatural way.

It was not because of gravity. The jade's very standing was so high that the incomplete Laws of this world could not properly contain it!

"One hundred and twenty thousand years..."

Ji Changkong slowly closed his eyes and extended his vast divine sense toward it with extreme care, like a probing tendril.

Through his divine sense, he felt weathering on the jade that had endured countless years. That mottled weight of time matched perfectly with the cataclysm recorded in the sect's Ancient Classics—the one that had severed the Canglan Realm's history a hundred thousand years ago.

"One hundred and twenty thousand years of change, with Nine Nether Astral Wind scouring it to the bone. The Immortal Spirit Qi within it has nearly drained away, yet its essence still stands above us mortals..."

Ji Changkong reached out with a trembling hand and gently beckoned.

The White Jade Fragment, heavy as a thousand jun and faintly rejected even by the Laws of heaven and earth, slowly settled into his palm.

"Hum—"

The instant he held it, a wave of ancient sorrow rushed through his palm and into his mind.

In a daze, he heard the roars of countless powerful beings, heard Immortal Palaces burning above the nine heavens, and heard the furious defiance of bleeding gods:

["The Southern Heavenly Gate has fallen... Divine Strategy Army, hear my command! We retreat only in death!"]

["His Majesty the Heavenly Emperor has decreed... Sever the Connection Between Heaven and Earth! Seal the Myriad Realms Passage! The corruption must not reach the lower realms!"]

["Kill—!!"]

A tragic battle hymn exploded in Ji Changkong's mind.

"Pfft—!"

Ji Changkong shuddered violently. His face flushed, and he could not help coughing up a mouthful of blood essence.

Yet he showed no pain. Instead, he burst into wild laughter, his voice filled with unprecedented shock and delight.

"The Southern Heavenly Gate!"

"This is... a fragment of the Southern Heavenly Gate!"

Ji Changkong raised the White Jade Fragment and pointed to its uneven broken edge, shouting hoarsely to the elders beside him:

"Look at this break! It wasn't weathered away. Some supreme sword qi severed it in a single stroke! Even after one hundred and twenty thousand years, the sword intent left on it makes my soul tremble!"

Heavenly Sword Guest stared fixedly at an almost imperceptible mark on the white jade.

At a single glance, two streams of blood ran from the eyes of this swordsman hailed as the greatest in the Canglan Realm. He did not seem to notice. Instead, he cried out as though he had found a priceless treasure:

"What terrifying sword intent... This strike transcended the bounds of time and space! No mortal wielded that sword. It was... an Immortal's sword!"

"It all fits!" Perfected One Ten Thousand Laws was flushed too, his whole body shaking with excitement. "In last night's vision, the Heavenly Court collapsed and the path to immortality was severed. Today, we found a fragment of the Heavenly Court's Southern Heavenly Gate in the forbidden ground!"

"What does that mean? It means pieces of the Heavenly Court fell into our Canglan Realm during that Ancient Era cataclysm!"

"Our Canglan Realm... was once part of the Desolate Ancient Heavenly Court, or perhaps one of the myriad realms under its rule!"

For a time, all these mighty figures were swept up in their own deductions.

In their minds, they connected last night's vision with the broken piece of white jade found today, forming a flawless chain of reasoning.

None of them suspected it had been fabricated.

The "immortal aura" lingering on the jade was of such a high order that neither Ji Changkong nor even the legendary supreme emperors of the Canglan Realm's history could have forged it!

They were being deceived by a power on an entirely different level.

Using genuine Laws of the Immortal Dao to fool mortal cultivators who had never even touched the gates of immortality was easier than tricking children.

[Ding!]

At that very moment, Su Chen sat in the quiet Library Pavilion with a cup of tea, calmly listening to the storm of system notifications in his mind:

[Present-day mighty expert "Ji Changkong" has discovered a mythic relic and inferred "the mystery of the Ancient Era cataclysm and the gap in the Canglan Realm's history." His reasoning forms a perfect closed loop.] [Spread of the "Desolate Ancient Heavenly Court" entry increased: 5% -> 12%!] [Karma Points gained: +6,000!]

[Mighty expert "Heavenly Sword Guest" has observed immortal sword intent, giving rise to self-doubt and profound awe... Karma Points gained: +2,200!]

[Mighty expert "Perfected One Ten Thousand Laws" has expanded his understanding of the mythic world... Karma Points gained: +1,800!]

[...]

[Congratulations, host. Total available Karma Points: 10,900!]

"Over ten thousand."

As Su Chen listened, he took a small sip of Spirit Tea. A calculating depth flickered in his gentle eyes.

A single white jade brick worth 3,000 Karma Points had brought him a return of over 10,000.

More importantly, that "seed" had now taken root in Primeval Holy Land.

From this day forward, all of Primeval Holy Land would become the sharpest piece on his board. They would devote every resource and ounce of strength to verifying the Ancient Era secret they believed they had "discovered."

But just as Su Chen was about to check the system shop and plan his next exchange, a red warning suddenly appeared on the system panel.

[Warning: Rapid increase in Karma Points has intensified the Heavenly Dao's awareness. The Canglan Realm's surviving Heavenly Dao will is attempting to analyze the rules underlying the "Southern Heavenly Gate Fragment."] [If the analysis succeeds, the Heavenly Dao will detect the fragment's illusory nature, causing the myth to collapse and a karmic backlash to occur.]

Su Chen paused, his teacup suspended halfway to his lips.

"Heavenly Dao analysis?"

His brows drew together slightly.

He had overlooked that. Though the Canglan Realm's Laws were incomplete, it still possessed the will of a world. Faced with "Laws of the Immortal Dao" that did not belong to it, it would instinctively try to consume and analyze them.

And this white jade brick was only the lowest-grade item manifested by the system. Given enough time, once the Heavenly Dao's rules assimilated it, the lie would unravel on its own.

I need to put another "lock" on this fragment before the Heavenly Dao finishes analyzing it.

Su Chen narrowed his eyes and looked back at the system shop.

He needed an ancient concept that stood above the Canglan Realm's Heavenly Dao, one that could even forcibly block its perception.

And he, the one "in the know," would have to be the person who unlocked it.

Just then, the animated voices of Ji Changkong and the others came from outside the hall.

"Holy Lord, there seem to be ancient divine characters carved on this fragment of white jade!"

"What a pity... After one hundred and twenty thousand years, time has worn them away. They also contain Laws of the Immortal Dao. If we force our divine senses into them, their immortal might will shatter our souls!"

"Must we stand before an immortal opportunity and only admire it from afar, unable to do a thing?"

Listening to them, Su Chen slowly smiled an inscrutable smile.

"They can't read the divine characters?"

"Isn't that the best lock of all?"

He gently set down his teacup, stood, and brushed nonexistent dust from his blue robe.

"It's about time this 'Su Chen' identity showed those mighty experts a little... insignificant value."