"As I expected, the waters of the Thirty-Three Heavens run deep. There are indeed experts among the fish that escaped the net!"
In the Purple Ruins Universe, those terrifying eyes, tens of millions of miles wide, hung high above the firmament. Their arrival across worlds had inspired fear, trembling, and worship in countless living beings, yet their owner ignored it all.
Only the old man standing tall with a sword on his back deserved those eyes' attention.
He was gaunt, his face withered with age, yet his back remained perfectly straight, like an ancient pine or an immortal sword, unbowed despite the ravages of time.
"Lord of the Nine Heavens, Heng Emperor!"
Those eyes had done nothing at all, yet the sword-bearing old man's brows knitted tightly. He spoke their owner's identity in a low voice, as though naming a raging flood or savage beast capable of overturning the universe, his emotions suppressed to the utmost.
"That is me. How should I address you, fellow Daoist?"
The owner of those eyes visibly studied the sword-bearing old man for a long while before sending out that incomparably vast fluctuation of divine sense, asking his identity.
"Immortal Tribulation Sword Lord!"
The old man's voice was quiet, yet it echoed clearly throughout this stretch of heaven and earth. At that moment, endless tribulation light seemed to surge from his body, accompanied by the wails and roars of immortals and demons, contending against the eyes in the sky.
"Immortal Tribulation Sword Lord, Immortal Tribulation Sword Art. So that is how it is. So that is how it is!"
Only after a moment did that majestic laughter ring out from the pitch-black eyes spanning tens of millions of miles. There was not a trace of emotion in it. Behind the Immortal Tribulation Sword Lord, Female