Half a day later, Chu Mo stood on a pale expanse of ruins after following High Person Yuanbai to clear out the last few native strongholds.
"What? Are you saying that we gathered in Hidden Mist Valley because the 'Spirit of Heaven' was pulling strings behind the scenes, all to try to revive a few surviving totems?"
Chu Mo had yet to recover from the windfall of contribution points he had just received when he heard this shocking news.
"The Spirit of Heaven?" A faint curve crossed High Person Yuanbai's lips. "That is what this realm's natives call it. We cultivators generally call it the Savage Heaven's Dao."
"Heaven's Dao..." Chu Mo's brows knitted tightly. "Why didn't I notice anything at all?"
Even looking back now, he still felt that he had made each judgment and choice on this journey himself, following the clues step by step.
High Person Yuanbai spoke evenly. "Even now, when it is barely clinging to life, its invisible, formless influence can still toy with fate in the palm of its hand. This is the shroud of heaven's will, something no ordinary person can see through."
Chu Mo fell silent. Were even his own choices encompassed by heaven's will?
Yuan Bai said no more. With a sweep of his sleeve, a brilliant golden vortex appeared out of thin air.
[Map: Fuli Heaven] [Recommended player level: 1-100]
"Our business here is finished. It is time to return." Before Chu Mo could take a closer look, Yuan Bai led him into the golden vortex.
Inside the passage, the world spun in that familiar way. Fighting back his dizziness, Chu Mo recalled the "last lingering light" the other man had mentioned earlier. Had he merely meant clearing out a few strongholds?
"Look down." Yuan Bai's voice sounded beside his ear.
Chu Mo looked down as instructed, and his pupils abruptly contracted.
The entire Savage Realm was disintegrating and collapsing at a speed visible to the naked eye.
Vast landmasses split apart. Earthfire, wind, and water lost their balance, and violent energy swept through every corner, swallowing mountains, rivers, forests, and even the surviving living beings.
He "saw" a vast will, brimming with resentment and defiance, struggling madly at the core of that crumbling world.
An inexplicable understanding rose in his heart. Without any explanation from Yuan Bai, Chu Mo already knew: that will was the Savage Heaven's Dao.
His ability to "see" all this did not come from his own power. Rather, the influence radiating from Fuli Heaven's exalted standing had briefly granted him a perspective on the same plane.
The dying "Spirit of Heaven" seemed to sense the gaze from above. Gathering its last strength, it became an enormous blood-red spear that tore through heaven and earth.
Resolved to take its foe down with it, it thrust without hesitation at the vast presence "above" that represented Fuli Heaven. This was a clash between worlds, and the Savage Realm's final counterattack.
Yet what answered it was a single, clean "slap." It was no tangible palm, merely a light touch from Fuli Heaven.
"Smack!"
The "Spirit of Heaven," which had gathered the Savage Realm's last fortune and will to resist, failed to muster even a semblance of resistance before it was slapped apart.
At the same time, the Savage Realm's map marker in his field of vision caught Chu Mo's attention.
[Map: Ruined Savage Realm]
The map's name remained unchanged, but its color had turned gray, as though the map's data had been completely deleted and entry was no longer possible.
"The Savage Realm has been... destroyed?" What was this supposed to be? A server shutdown? Had the map file been shredded?
"Destroyed? No." Yuan Bai's tone was indifferent, as though what had happened below was nothing out of the ordinary.
"This is called 'myriad domains returning as one.' Fuli Heaven has drained this realm's source dry, and its remains will fall into the World Sea, becoming sustenance for our realm. It is their honor to become nourishment for Fuli Heaven's growth."
Chu Mo had no words. He merely watched the Savage Realm's "last lingering light" in silence.
The next instant, the sensation of the world spinning abruptly vanished.
There was the familiar Cloudsea Hanging Mountain. The surroundings were no longer filled with malicious energy, but with abundant spiritual qi of heaven and earth. He had returned to Fuli Heaven, to the Duo'e Sect's Dharma Transmission Plaza.
Before Chu Mo could shake off his daze, something suddenly changed!
"Humm-!"
The entire Duo'e Sect seemed to tremble gently.
Immediately afterward, immense spiritual qi poured out of the void and flowed into the world.
The spiritual qi became streams, then gathered into rivers, surging mightily through everything in the Deliverance Sect. It was everywhere, filling every space; even the clouds overhead were tinted with rosy light.
Within a breath, mist began rising across the plaza-numinous vitality that had almost taken physical form.
"Ah!" "What is this?!"
The hundred or so disciples who had returned from the Savage Realm were engulfed by the boundless spiritual tide before they could understand what was happening.
"What's going on? Isn't this a bit over the top?" Chu Mo stared at the spiritual mist before him, his eyes filled with shock.
With each breath, pure spiritual qi entered through his mouth and nose, flowing into his meridians and surging into his dantian of its own accord. Without even requiring deliberate refinement, it became a new strand of crimson-glow primordial qi.
Infused by this spiritual tide, his true qi grew at an unprecedented speed. Fine strands gathered together, and the change in quantity brought a change in quality.
As though breaking through some invisible bottleneck, his dantian trembled softly with a boom. The number of fine strands of true qi soared, becoming as dense as mist in an instant and rapidly filling his entire dantian.
At the same time, a strange perception arose from the ancestral aperture between his brows and swiftly spread outward.
Without opening his eyes, he could perceive everything within a radius of a hundred feet: drifting dust, flowing spiritual qi, and the mingled delight and astonishment on the other disciples' faces, all reflected in his sea of consciousness like high-definition images.
This was... divine sense!
Only after a long while did the torrent of spiritual qi ease somewhat, dispersing once more between heaven and earth.
[Character information] Player: Chu Mo Race: Human Dao path: Cultivator Level: 5 Cultivation method: Dawncloud One-Qi Profound Cavern Scripture... Skills: Soul-Severing Sand, Golden Baleful Bone-Piercing Art, Dust-Treading Art, Mind-Cleansing Mantra, Green Vine Bind... Yin-Yang Jade: Three Inventory: Scarlet Sun Needle, Blazing Fire Bow, Yin Soul Umbrella...
Chu Mo clenched his fists, feeling the mist-dense true qi within his dantian-fifth-layer Qi Refining. He had broken through without obtaining the subsequent cultivation method.
Spiritual light flared here and there across the plaza, while cries of surprise mingled with shouts of wild joy.
Almost every disciple who had survived the Savage Realm had gained enormous benefits from this raging tide of spiritual qi, and quite a few had broken through to a new stage.
"Silence."
A cool, clear voice rang out, instantly suppressing all the noise in the plaza.
Chu Mo looked up. The speaker was a female cultivator whose aura was deep and unfathomable. Yuan Bai had already returned soundlessly to the raised platform.
Only seven Foundation Establishment cultivators stood on the platform now. The [Level 25 · High Person Xuanji] who had presided over the assessment at the outset was absent.
"This is a gift from heaven's Dao, and your opportunity." The female cultivator paid no heed to the excitement of those below, offering only this matter-of-fact explanation.
Her voice was not loud, yet it reached everyone's ears clearly. "The Savage Realm has been incorporated into Fuli Heaven. The outer sect assessment will conclude early. The tallying of merits begins immediately."