"This doesn't feel good."
"The Hengyu Furnace and Void Mirror up there are far too overbearing. They're pushing the deity inside that primordial Ancient Emperor Weapon underground to the brink of awakening."
Duan De's expression turned slightly bitter.
Luo Yue's gaze also grew grave. Three Emperor Weapons cast their might across the four seas. Though none had fully awakened, they had locked down their surroundings, turning the space for a thousand miles around into a mire.
Before long, another roar erupted underground. Every mountain and rock within hundreds of miles collapsed into the dust. Even the bodies of some weaker unaffiliated cultivators shattered outright!
Had Luo Yue and the others not kept far enough away, and had her hidden Dao Protector not intervened, they would likely have been affected too. Still, with the Heaven-Mending Stone protecting her, she would not have died on the spot like the others.
Even Dragon Transformation cultivators struggled to move now, let alone escape using teleportation platforms.
Just then, a swath of black radiance, deep as an abyss, suddenly lit up the distant horizon!
That black radiance was not darkness that swallowed light. Within it lay the crushing weight and dominance of billions of stars perishing and the universe coming to its end.
An ancient, massive cauldron, seemingly carved from a single piece of cosmic black gold, silently tore through the void and descended above the Luoshui Ancient Mine!
Dragon patterns wound across its body like living creatures, emanating supreme majesty capable of suppressing all heavens and refining myriad Daos.
In an instant,
the Hengyu Furnace's crimson glow, the Void Mirror's dim radiance, and the primordial Ancient Emperor Weapon's golden light were forcibly compressed and divided by this sudden fourth surge of imperial might.
"The Dragon-Patterned Black Gold Cauldron! It's the Yaoguang Holy Land's Emperor Weapon!" a Holy Land elder cried out, his voice trembling with disbelief.
"They brought out their Emperor Weapon long ago too, but kept it hidden until now. They want to reap the fisherman's reward while everyone else fights!" someone exclaimed.
Beside the dragon-patterned cauldron stood two white-haired, white-bearded elders whose auras were as deep as a vast ocean. Both were secluded supreme elders of the Yaoguang Holy Land.
"Fellow cultivators, a fell creature is emerging here, and calamity is imminent."
"We have come with our Emperor Weapon not to vie for profit, but to lend our fellow Daoists a hand. Together, we shall suppress this primordial calamity and preserve the peace of our Eastern Wasteland!" declared the two supreme elders of the Yaoguang Holy Land.
Then the cauldron's mouth tilted slightly, pointing straight at that intact primordial Ancient Emperor Weapon.
"Those Yaoguang people... don't tell me they're trying to steal someone else's Ancient Emperor Weapon in the chaos?" Luo Yue's mouth twitched.
There was no need to wonder. These people really were capable of it!
"Immeasurable fucking Heavenly Venerable! Have the Yaoguang people lost their minds? They're really going to tear a hole in the sky this time! If the deity inside that Ancient Emperor Weapon truly awakens, all of Qingyun Province will be annihilated!" Dumbstruck, Duan De burst into curses.
A battered black bowl was already floating above his head. He looked ready to make a run for it.
"Yaoguang! How dare you!"
Jiang Wei roared from above. The Hengyu Furnace spewed blazing flames that took the form of a Divine Phoenix and swooped down to stop them.
Ji Wuque likewise gave a cold snort. The Void Mirror turned its surface over, twisting space in an attempt to sever that devouring force.
But all of this happened in the flash of lightning and the strike of flint!
The Yaoguang Holy Land's naked attempt to seize the primordial Ancient Emperor Weapon was like pouring ice water into boiling oil. It instantly ignited the towering fury the primordial creature underground had accumulated to its limit.
"ROAR!!!"
This time, the roar was no mere resurgence of imperial might. The earth cracked inch by inch like fragile glass, the fractures spreading for a thousand miles. Underground fire and magma burst free of their restraints, and heaven and earth shook violently, as though the world were ending!
The three Emperor Weapons of the human race simultaneously erupted with unprecedented brilliance. Phantoms of their autonomously awakening deities appeared beside them, each releasing a resonance of the Dao as they prepared to withstand this furious strike from the Primordial Imperial Clan!
Supreme imperial powers were about to collide, and the consequences would be enough to grind all of Qingyun Province to dust!
"!"
A long cry rang out from the distant sky, cleaving through the air with the force of ten thousand thunderbolts as it rapidly approached Luo Yue and the others. Old Master Luo had rushed over from the city.
At the same time,
a seven-story lightning tower flashing with silver lightning appeared in the sky, sheltering Luo Yue and the others beneath it.
It was Old Master Luo's Heavenly Dipper Tower!
Such a tremendous disturbance had clearly alerted every mighty expert lurking in secret long ago!
Old Master Luo, along with mighty experts from the Holy Lands of Desolate Antiquity, the Northern Region's great sects, and the Desolate Ancient Families, emerged one after another. If they stayed hidden any longer, Qingyun Province would truly be obliterated by these Emperor Weapons.
"Buzzz-"
The Jiang Family's hidden Dao Protector also appeared, bringing forth a Phoenix-Blood Furnace.
It was a replica of the Hengyu Solar Furnace. Now it hovered above Luo Yue's head alongside the Heavenly Dipper Tower, both elders tacitly shielding Jiang Yue.
"This is the power of Emperor Weapons. Billions of times more badass than nuclear weapons..."
Watching the apocalyptic scene stretching hundreds of miles ahead, Luo Yue felt her scalp go numb.
Today had certainly opened her eyes.
The dangers she had encountered in ancient tombs before were not worth so much as a fart before these Emperor Weapons.
At that moment,
countless cultivators wore looks of despair. Even figures like Old Master Luo, the Jiang Family's Dao Protector, and Yaoguang's secluded supreme elders had a trace of gravity and grim resolve flash through their eyes.
If this strike landed, never mind the Divine Source Ancient Mine-even all of Qingyun Province might be sunk!
However,
just as the deities within the Emperor Weapons were about to awaken and unleash their true power-
"Buzzz..."
An exceedingly faint vibration, yet one that pierced clearly through everything, sounded from deep within that ninety-foot mass of divine source.
Then the surface of the ninety-foot divine source that sealed a graceful silhouette suddenly lit up, blazing with radiance, followed by a sharp crack!
The divine source had fractured!
Then, like thawing ice and melting snow, it silently dissolved from its core and vanished.
A figure slowly awakened within it.
It was a woman.
A hazy halo shrouded her features, making them impossible to discern clearly. All anyone could sense was a bearing beyond the mortal world. She wore a plain white dress of an exceedingly ancient style, its hem embroidered with mysterious patterns of stars and moons, its fabric neither silk nor gauze.
What shook everyone to the core, Luo Yue included, was that the bloodline essence emanating from her was not the savage brutality they had expected of the Primordial Imperial Clan, but that of an utterly pure human!
Ancient, vast, and profound, it carried a loneliness weathered by the vicissitudes of countless ages, even faintly eclipsing the oppressive force of the Emperor Weapons' impending divine awakening.
She opened her eyes.
What kind of eyes were those?
They held no emotion, only endless depth and coldness, as though an entire desolate galaxy lay within them.
Wherever her gaze fell, heaven and earth seemed to stand still
, and everything instantly subsided.
Everyone stared at the scene, dumbstruck, their minds utterly blank.
"Who is she?"
That was the question in everyone's heart.
Several Emperor Weapons had appeared. If they truly clashed, untold tens of thousands of miles around would be destroyed in an instant. Yet now, that mysterious woman had forcibly halted the prelude to the awakening of their deities!
"She's terrifying! She emerged from divine source-she was awakened by the disturbance from the Emperor Weapons too!"
"Is she a primordial creature in human form? Or has an ancient sage of our human race returned to life?"
"No! She's human! I can sense it-a pure human aura. She's absolutely not a primordial creature!"
Some cried out that it was inconceivable.
Without question, this was an ancient human sage sealed within divine source, hailing from a past so distant it could no longer be traced!
A Saint of antiquity-those words, "of antiquity," meant that such a being could not possibly exist in the present age!
Yet now, a living Saint had emerged from divine source and appeared right before the eyes of the world!
"Was she looking at me just now?"
Luo Yue's heart was unsettled too.
She did not know whether it was an illusion, but she felt that the woman had cast a glance in her direction.
More precisely,
the woman's gaze had been fixed on the damaged Heaven-Mending Stone within her.