In the Plainlands, within the Great Void.
Li Fire billowed, vermilion at its base and apricot yellow at its tips, taking the shape of feathered flames. A man walked slowly out of it, broad-browed and high-nosed, clad in splendid golden robes, his bearing majestic.
He stood with his hands behind his back, silently watching the chaos below, without the slightest intention of stopping it.
Mysterious Yellow Essence gradually descended. Light filled the upper reaches of the Great Void, as though a curtain had been lifted, revealing a boundless scroll within. An ancient battlefield could faintly be seen manifesting upon it.
Bright Auspice activated his Divine Ability. Li Fire became threads, stitching this Dao Diagram firmly into place above Red Cloud. At its center lay an ocher-feathered Blackbird atop a mountain of corpses, with Wu Earth essence accumulating around the mountain's roots.
Golden blood spilled from the Blackbird, condensing into ancient characters corresponding to individual names: Zhu Yucheng, Wen Fufeng, Chen Changqi, and others. They shone with golden light near the top, while names such as Xu Xuan and Liu Qiuqi lay at the bottom, considerably dimmer.
Soldiers in regulation bronze armor surrounded the mountain's foot, while many immortal cultivators stood amid the clouds. Water and fire obscured the heavens. Above the ocher-feathered Blackbird's corpse stretched a fissure in the Great Void dozens of miles long, from which the radiance of the Gloomy Netherworld gushed.
Outside the mountain stood all manner of demons, each in its original form, their auras primordial and ancient. Among them were even many species long since extinct. They surrounded a four-legged, horned creature with a dragon's head and green hair, its body pure white, its presence wondrous beyond compare.
The Dao Diagram suddenly trembled. Clear, bright essence of fortune and virtue surged without cease. Song Zongxiang