Time stretched long at that moment.
Above Jiepai Pass, the Heavenly Dao Wheel, flowing with the Origins of the three thousand Great Daos, hung a hundred zhang above Tongtian's head. Its rim had stopped, but myriad patterns of light still slowly flickered.
The aura of destruction still hung there.
Yet an invisible boundary barred it, keeping it from descending even half an inch farther.
Sect Master Tongtian had already put life and death aside.
He had also driven the power of Mythic Great Luo on the Qingping Sword to its peak.
The anticipated devastation did not come.
He looked up at the wheel suspended beneath the firmament, shock surging in his eyes that he could not conceal.
What happened?
On the other side, ripples unseen through the ages finally broke through Dao Ancestor Hongjun's eyes, which were united with the Heavenly Dao.
He distinctly felt an untraceable power sever his connection to the Heavenly Dao Wheel for a moment.
A brief moment.
Yet it was enough to halt the wheel's killing descent in midair.
The Heavenly Axe that had reached the end of its cleaving stroke had its haft seized by an invisible hand.
How was this possible?
The Heavenly Dao Wheel bore the will of the Primordial World.
By the old principles of the Primordial World, only a power surpassing all of heaven and earth had the right to stop it.
The mighty beings of the Three Realms watching this place were pressed into silence by the sudden turn, not daring even to shift their Primordial Spirits' divine eyes.
In the deepest part of that silence, a streak of light passed through the shattered void over Jiepai Pass.
The light came leisurely, without any earthshaking grandeur.
Like a pebble casually tossed by a mortal child, it drifted slowly through