Heaven's Might Overwhelmed All Arts, Divine Power in a Mortal Body

Morning mist shrouded Falling Geese Peak, and the chill seeped into the bones.

A rugged path paved with blue pebbles ran from the summit to the foot of the mountain. No one had swept it in two full years. Tough weeds and mottled moss had long filled its cracks, leaving it desolate and neglected.

"Step, step, step..."

Steady, measured footsteps broke the silence that had held the valley for two whole years.

Lin Qiye wore a coarse hemp robe faded from washing. Straight-backed as a spear, with a Broken Sword wrapped in old cloth on his back, he made his way down the mountain path at an unhurried pace.

He did not walk quickly, yet every step carried a strange rhythm. Had an expert versed in the Laws of heaven and earth been present, he would have been shocked to discover that Lin Qiye seemed to be treading not on ordinary stone, but on the "pulse" of Falling Geese Peak itself.

Deep within his Qi Sea, the dark-gold cauldron formed by the Eight-Nine Profound Art rotated along an arcane path, drawing in the purest blood vitality and Laws of heaven and earth. The deathly energy that had ravaged his meridians for two years had vanished without a trace. In its place was the essence of the Indestructible Vajra, solid as bedrock and heavy as a mountain.

The hidden Golden Mark deep in his forehead remained closed, but the supreme divine might of the True Lord of Qingyuan Miaodao within it lay like a primordial beast asleep inside his mortal body, radiating a silent, terrifying pressure.

At the foot of the mountain lay the Sword-Washing Pool, which connected the outer and inner sects of the Primeval Holy Land.

It was early morning. Dozens of outer sect disciples and several inner sect stewards had gathered by the pool to cultivate, drawing in spiritual energy amid a lively chorus of ringing swords.

Without warning, dense ripples spread across the pool's mirror-still surface.

Then the spirit swords held by dozens of disciples around the pool began to tremble violently at the same time!

Hummm!

The clear cries of their swords rose together, but they held no eagerness. They sounded more like common soldiers trembling and bowing before an emperor on inspection.

"What's going on?! Why can't I control my Crimson Flame Sword?!"

"My spirit sword's shaking too! What terrifying sword intent... Has one of the peak masters come in person?"

The disciples went pale and hurriedly circulated their power to suppress their weapons. But the blades' instinctive submission only grew stronger. Fine cracks even appeared on several lower-grade spirit swords.

As everyone watched in alarm and uncertainty, a tall, upright figure slowly emerged from the mist around a bend in the mountain path.

A plain robe, a Broken Sword on his back, and a handsome face set in a cold expression.

The instant they recognized his face, deathly silence fell over the Sword-Washing Pool.

"Lin... Lin Qiye?!"

An inner sect steward cried out, disbelief filling his eyes.

As a prodigy whose name had shaken the Canglan Realm two years ago, Lin Qiye was known to nearly everyone in the Holy Land. But after the calamity two years earlier, everyone knew that the former Holy Son had lost his eyes, his meridians, and all his cultivation. He had become a cripple who could do nothing but wait to die on Falling Geese Peak.

Yet there was not a trace of a cripple's dejection in the Lin Qiye before them.

His eyes were sharp and deep as a hawk's, with a faint golden gleam flickering in his pupils. Not a shred of the Canglan Realm's spiritual power emanated from him, yet merely standing there, he made everyone nearby feel as though an ancient divine mountain were bearing down on them!

"His eyes... He can see again?!"

"How is that possible? The Grand Elder examined him personally two years ago. He said the abyssal demon poison had destroyed his eyes completely, and even his Dao foundation had been reduced to nothing. What medicine in this world could possibly cure him?!"

The disciples drew sharp breaths, their minds going blank.

No one mocked him or tried to humiliate him. Faced with a prodigy who had once stood at the summit and now reappeared under an inexplicable, eerie pressure, an ordinary person's first response was not mindless provocation. It was instinctive awe and fear.

Just then, a dazzling streak of light cut across the sky.

A middle-aged man in an elder's Daoist robe appeared out of thin air and landed beside the Sword-Washing Pool. He was Elder Zhao, who oversaw order in the outer sect, and he possessed formidable mid-stage Dao-Slaying cultivation.

"Lin Qiye? You dared to leave Falling Geese Peak without permission?!"

Elder Zhao narrowed his eyes. His tone was stern, but his gaze was wary and assessing. He extended his divine sense, attempting to force his way into Lin Qiye's body and examine him.

But the instant his vast divine sense touched Lin Qiye—

Boom!

The Golden Mark deep in Lin Qiye's forehead quivered, forcibly awakening a thread of the war god's will that belonged to Erlang Manifesting Sage True Lord alone.

"Ugh!"

Elder Zhao grunted as if struck by lightning and stumbled back three steps. His eyes filled with crimson veins, and two streams of blood trickled from his nostrils!

In the vision his divine sense had just shown him, he had found no cripple. He had seen an ancient god whose head touched the heavens and whose feet trod the Yellow Springs, wielding a Three-Point Double-Edged Blade! The trace of divine might that had escaped in that instant had nearly cleaved his Dao-Slaying soul apart!

"You... What kind of fortune did you come upon?!"

Clutching his throbbing head, Elder Zhao stared at Lin Qiye in horror. Extreme fear sharpened his voice.

This was no cultivation art of the Canglan Realm! Such noble, tyrannical power, capable of rebounding upon a cultivator's soul regardless of the difference in their realms, surpassed even the Holy Land's Primeval Emperor Scripture!

Lin Qiye remained impassive in the face of Elder Zhao's panic.

He did not spare the elder another glance. He merely raised his head slightly and looked toward the Primeval Main Peak.

"I want to see the Holy Lord."

Lin Qiye's voice was calm and hoarse, yet it rang across the Sword-Washing Pool like a great bell:

"Elder Zhao, please send word. I, disciple Lin Qiye, have inherited a karmic bond with the ancient divine path. I have come to ask the Holy Lord for an audience, so that I may restore the path to immortality for our Canglan Realm!"

"Restore... the path to immortality?!"

Elder Zhao drew a sharp breath and stood frozen.

In the past, anyone who dared proclaim in the Primeval Holy Land that he would "restore the path to immortality" would likely have been condemned as a madman on the spot. But only last night, a peerless vision of the Heavenly Court Collapse and the severing of the path to immortality had appeared above the Holy Land. Today, a prodigy who should have been crippled had reappeared with terrifying ancient divine might, declaring that he would restore that path!

Elder Zhao would not believe there was no connection between the two even if it killed him!

"Y-you wait here! I'll send word at once!"

Elder Zhao dropped every trace of an elder's airs. With trembling hands, he crushed a highest-priority warning talisman and urgently sent news of what had happened to the Primeval Holy Hall.

Deep within the Primeval Holy Hall.

Ji Changkong sat with Heavenly Sword Guest and Perfected One Ten Thousand Laws beside the Southern Heavenly Gate White Jade Brick Fragment, trying to draw out the faint immortal energy that remained within it through various secret arts.

Suddenly, the Holy Lord's token at Ji Changkong's waist shook violently, and Elder Zhao's voice burst through the hall, filled with terror and shock:

"Report! Holy Lord! Lin Qiye has emerged from seclusion on Falling Geese Peak!"

"His... his sight has been fully restored, and the demon poison in his body is gone! I probed him with my divine sense and nearly had my soul shattered by the supreme divine might within him!"

"He claims... he inherited 'a karmic bond with the ancient divine path.' He asks to see the Holy Lord and says he will restore the path to immortality for the Canglan Realm!"

Boom!

Ji Changkong and the other two shot to their feet, their eyes blazing with disbelief!

"Lin Qiye? The Lin Qiye crippled by abyssal demon poison?!" Perfected One Ten Thousand Laws cried.

Heavenly Sword Guest's sword energy surged wildly. His sword-sharp eyes fixed on the entrance to the hall. "I examined his injuries myself two years ago. His Sword Heart was shattered, and his Dao foundation was gone. Unless an immortal pill from the Ancient Era reappeared, he could never recover! How could his sight suddenly return? And how could he possess 'ancient divine might'?!"

Ji Changkong's breathing grew heavy.

His gaze slowly settled on the Southern Heavenly Gate White Jade Brick Fragment on the table as he frantically linked everything that had happened over the past few days:

In the Library Pavilion, the mysterious mortal Su Chen had revealed the divine name "Southern Heaven" with a single remark;

In Sorrowwind Valley, they had discovered an immortal relic that had endured 120,000 years;

And now, a crippled prodigy on the brink of death had recovered without warning and returned to everyone's sight, bearing "a karmic bond with the ancient divine path"!

"So that's it... So that's it!"

Ji Changkong trembled slightly, his eyes blazing with fervor and reverence that bordered on madness:

"This is no coincidence! It's the will of heaven. The Desolate Ancient Heavenly Court is saving itself!"

"Elder Su Chen is the 'guide,' revealing heavenly secrets in a mortal body and awakening what remains of the Heavenly Court's Great Dao. Lin Qiye is the 'successor' chosen by the Heavenly Court for this era! He has inherited the legacy of an ancient god and will demand justice for what happened to the Heavenly Court 120,000 years ago!"

As Ji Changkong's reasoning fell into place, Heavenly Sword Guest and Perfected One Ten Thousand Laws drew sharp breaths. Not a trace of doubt remained in their minds.

"Quick! Come with me to greet him!"

Ji Changkong swept his sleeve. He could not even wait for Lin Qiye to ascend the main peak. He tore open the void before the Primeval Holy Hall and, with the two Dao-Slaying peak masters, became three vast shafts of divine light that streaked toward the Sword-Washing Pool!

By the Sword-Washing Pool, the wind howled.

Dozens of disciples and Elder Zhao stood rooted to the spot, hardly daring to breathe.

Lin Qiye stood quietly beside the pool, the Broken Sword on his back and his eyes closed, sensing the flow of spiritual energy between heaven and earth.

Suddenly, the void above twisted violently like rippling water. Three vast, abyssal presences descended!

Riiip!

A fissure was torn through the void. Ji Changkong, clad in a purple-and-gold Daoist robe, stepped across it with Heavenly Sword Guest and Perfected One Ten Thousand Laws.

"Greetings, Holy Lord! Greetings, Peak Masters!" Elder Zhao and the disciples dropped to their knees in unison.

Ji Changkong did not even look at them. The moment the three-thousand-year-old peak Dao-Slaying expert, who had extended his life by a century, touched the ground, his ancient, fathomless eyes locked onto Lin Qiye.

He was not alone. Heavenly Sword Guest narrowed his eyes, and the Heaven-Piercing Spirit Sword on his back let out a piercing cry.

As the Canglan Realm's foremost swordsman, Heavenly Sword Guest could clearly sense a tyrannical fighting spirit lying dormant beneath Lin Qiye's seemingly ordinary mortal flesh, one unlike anything he had ever encountered. It did not belong to this world. It stood above all arts and even faintly suppressed the supreme sword path he had cultivated for two thousand years!

"Lin Qiye."

Ji Changkong spoke slowly, a faint tremor in his voice:

"You said... you inherited a karmic bond with the ancient divine path?"

Lin Qiye opened his eyes. Meeting the gazes of the three Dao-Slaying experts, he bowed with neither servility nor arrogance:

"Holy Lord, my Dao foundation was destroyed two years ago, and I had reached a dead end. But in a dream last night, my soul crossed the River of Time and witnessed fragments of a calamity in which gods and Buddhas bled across the heavens."

"A mighty god manifested from chaos and bestowed a profound divine art upon me, restoring my body."

At the words "fragments of a calamity in which gods and Buddhas bled across the heavens," Ji Changkong and Heavenly Sword Guest exchanged a glance. Their last shred of doubt vanished!

It matched the vision of the Heavenly Court Collapse they had seen in the sky last night perfectly!

"What... was that god's name?!" Heavenly Sword Guest could not help stepping forward to ask.

Lin Qiye lowered his head slightly. His expression turned deeply reverent and solemn as he slowly spoke the name:

"The god called himself... the Ancient Heavenly Court's foremost war god, Erlang Manifesting Sage True Lord, Yang Jian!"

Boom!!

The instant Lin Qiye uttered the name, heaven and earth seemed to resonate with it. A muffled peal of thunder sounded high above, as though the damaged Heavenly Dao feared that sacred name, unheard since time immemorial!

"Erlang Manifesting Sage True Lord... Yang Jian!"

Ji Changkong repeated the name. His soul shuddered, and he seemed to see a supreme war god holding a Three-Point Double-Edged Blade, his head reaching the highest heavens, crossing countless ages to look down coldly upon this broken world.

"Good! Wonderful!"

Ji Changkong threw back his head and laughed, the sound filled with exhilaration and fervor suppressed for thousands of years:

"The myths return, and the war god's legacy has found an heir! Our Canglan Realm... has finally seen the dawn of the path to immortality!"

Ji Changkong turned sharply to Heavenly Sword Guest and Perfected One Ten Thousand Laws and issued a stern command:

"Pass down my decree!"

"From this day forward, Lin Qiye is reinstated as the Primeval Holy Land's 'First Holy Son'! He ranks below only me and Guest Elder Su Chen!"

"Devote every resource of the Primeval Holy Land to the Holy Son's Foundation Establishment! Anyone in the Canglan Realm who dares plot against him will make an enemy of our entire sect. All nine generations of his family will be executed!"

Elder Zhao and the disciples around them were stunned speechless.

They did not know what "Yang Jian" or "the return of myths" meant, but one thing was clear—

The fallen prodigy had not died at the bottom of the valley. Instead, he had returned to the summit with a supreme opportunity that drove even the Holy Lord into a frenzy!

Yet behind the jubilation that shook the entire Primeval Holy Land...

At the edge of the Holy Land, within the quiet Library Pavilion.

Su Chen withdrew the divine sense he had directed toward the Sword-Washing Pool, a knowing smile playing on his lips.

"Ji Changkong really does get things done."

Su Chen glanced at the tens of thousands of Karma Points that had once again flooded into his mind and lightly brushed his sleeve.

"My proxy has an official position now, and the Primeval Holy Land has become my outpost."

"Next... it's time for those scheming powerhouses in the surrounding worlds to feel the fear of a myth descending."

[Myriad Worlds Projection Mirror, activate!]