Mountain God Shrine, Origins of the Secret Realm

Above the altar, a river of stars poured down.

Under the pull of Chu Bai's formidable spell power, the more than a hundred Azure Nether Pearls were no longer scattered beads. They became rings of burning blue-gold comets, spinning rapidly around the Mountain God's enormous body.

The pearls had formed from fragments of this world's Divine Dao. Now, summoned by a kindred presence, they sent waves of dragon-like resonance through the void.

"By edict!"

Chu Bai's voice cracked like spring thunder, and his hands snapped together.

The river of stars burst apart, becoming an intensely pure blue-gold mist, thick as syrup, that surged into the Ridge Vein Mountain God from every side.

Before the naked eye, the Mountain God's battered armor, mottled with black and red baleful stains, began to peel away layer by layer with sharp cracks like splitting ice.

His skin, once dry as rotting wood, drank in that vast spiritual power. As the baleful energy receded, it regained the metallic sheen of cast bronze, enduring through ten thousand calamities without wear.

The demonic aura that could devour living beings was driven deep into his divine body by wave after wave of Divine Dao fragments.

Yet Chu Bai's brow did not ease. It furrowed more deeply.

To his senses, the body was growing stronger at astonishing speed, but it resembled an exquisite porcelain statue without a soul.

No matter how much energy the Azure Nether Pearls poured into it, those hollow eyes remained as still as a dead pool, without the slightest glimmer of true spirit.

"His spiritual essence has been scattered too long... After ten thousand years of solitude, can his Divine Soul truly never be called back?"

The little old Land God knelt below, his voice trembling as he looked up at the green-robed figure on