"Rumble...!"
Xu Taiping was about to explain to Blade Ghost, but before he could speak, a violent rumbling of heaven and earth beneath him cut him off.
What followed was a bone-piercing chill that poured down like torrential rain.
In that instant, even Xu Taiping, brimming with qi and blood as he was, nearly had his body invaded by the chill.
He could no longer attend to Blade Ghost's question and immediately withdrew his attention.
"Boom-!"
Just then, another explosive sound, as though the heavens were splitting apart, came from overhead.
Looking up, he saw dozens of crisscrossing fissures abruptly appear across the sky above. Pillars of Azure Netherlight shone down through them, finally merging into one enormous pillar that enveloped an area a hundred li in radius, centered on the Sword Platform.
Then Blade Ghost's voice rang out:
"When a cultivator breaks through to the Dao Integration Realm, the aura of their breakthrough causes the Shangqing Realm's own Heavenly Dao Edict barrier to allow Ancestral Qi to descend from beyond the realm."
"That helps the cultivator absorb qi and complete the final Dao Integration."
"But in doing so, the Sky Demons lurking beyond the realm will also catch the cultivator's scent and enter Shangqing alongside the Ancestral Qi in their True Spirit incarnations."
"And that is where the Otherworldly Heavenly Demons come from."
Watching the strange phenomena overhead, Xu Taiping nodded and said:
"I heard Venerable Jiaye mention this before. To those monsters beyond the realm, the cultivators of the Shangqing Realm are spiritual beings containing the Shangqing Realm's Dao Fruits. Eating them is immensely beneficial."
Blade Ghost, who had already entered the puppet body beside him, gave a small, impassive nod and transmitted his voice:
"Exactly. Eating us human cultivators is equivalent to obtaining the power of the