Zhao Gongming had not died.
Just as the last flame of his primordial spirit was about to go out, a strand of purple-gray incense smoke descended from the darkness and locked onto the cracks in his Dao fruit.
His shattered sea of qi stopped collapsing.
The wounds cut by the Treasure-Dropping Golden Coin were also forcibly suppressed by an unfamiliar power.
Zhao Gongming's eyes snapped open.
What met his eyes was a ruined temple.
Cobwebs hung from the beams, thick dust covered the offering table, and several clumps of withered grass grew in the cracks at the foot of the walls.
The divine statue was old and damaged, its carved robes mottled, as though no one had worshipped it for years.
Yet one glance sent a violent tremor through Zhao Gongming's primordial spirit.
There was no netherworld yin energy here.
Nor was there any pull of reincarnation.
He was still in the mortal world.
But where in the mortal world could such Dao resonance exist?
A speck of dust rolled off the edge of the offering table.
Zhao Gongming's gaze fell on that speck, and his entire body froze.
Within that dust, karma flowed.
Beside it, a strand of spider silk swayed gently, actually drawing along space Dao patterns.
Wind blew through the gap in the ruined temple's doors, stirring a faint trace of incense smoke.
Within the wind were traces of time.
There was the vitality of creation.
And there were embers of destruction.
Zhao Gongming's breath caught.
He was the First Person of the Interception Sect's Outer Sect. He had entered Biyou Palace many times to hear Sect Master Tongtian expound the Dao, and had witnessed the true grandeur of the Saint Daoist Grounds.
The Dao of Biyou Palace was the Shangqing Sword Dao, the keen edge