The moment Zhunti's Dharma Form withdrew, the Three Realms fell utterly silent.
The Saint's might above Peach Mountain had yet to dissipate completely.
Yet every mighty being who had witnessed the scene was already speechless.
The Thirty-Three Heavens.
Kunlun Mountain.
Golden Turtle Island.
Fire Cloud Cave.
Gazes crossed the void toward Peach Mountain, only to halt before that shattered sea of clouds.
What had they just seen?
A Saint's manifested form had descended solely to suppress Nezha.
Yet that mysterious being had reached a finger across the boundless void, shattered the sacred light swept down by the Seven Treasures Wonderful Tree, and forced Zhunti's Dharma Form to retreat to the west.
That single finger had pressed a Saint's dignity into the dust before all living beings of the Three Realms.
"What exactly was that finger?"
"And whose voice was that?"
"When did someone like this appear in the Primordial World?"
Countless mighty beings frantically performed divinations.
But the Heavenly Secrets were a sea of chaos.
They could not see where he had come from.
They could not calculate his karma.
It was as though the Heavenly Secrets held no record of him, as though his karma never manifested, as though he had never entered the fate of the Primordial World.
A true wild card!
Kunlun Mountain, the Jade Void Palace.
Yu Ding Zhenren knelt in the center of the great hall.
His Daoist robe was torn, his aura was in turmoil, and his face was filled with shame and terror.
"Master!"
"Your disciple was incompetent. I failed to bring Yang Jian back."
"Yang Jian and Nezha are astonishingly savage, and the arts they cultivate are bizarre beyond measure!"
Yu Ding Zhenren's voice trembled.
"Yang Jian refused to join our Chan Sect, yet forcibly 'borrowed' the Eight-Nine Arcane Art."
"Nezha's demonic thoughts have seeped into his very bones. He even dared seize Deputy Sect Leader Randeng's Qiankun Ruler!"
Upon the cloud couch.
Yuanshi Tianzun lowered his eyes without a word.
The Jade Purity Immortal Light within the Jade Void Palace dimmed little by little.
He already knew what had happened at Peach Mountain.
Yang Jian should have become a disciple of Jade Void.
Nezha should also have had his lotus body reconstructed by Taiyi.
But now, someone had intercepted both of these pawns in the Tribulation.
Even the Eight-Nine Arcane Art had fallen into that person's hands.
This was no longer merely a slap in Yu Ding's face.
This was tampering with the Chan Sect's destiny!
Yuanshi Tianzun's gaze grew slightly cold.
Yet just as he prepared to divine the identity of the person behind it all, the Primordial Violet Finger appeared across the sky above Peach Mountain.
One finger forced Zhunti's Dharma Form back.
Yuanshi Tianzun stopped moving.
"It's him."
"Him again."
Every ray of Jade Purity Immortal Light within the Jade Void Palace froze at that moment.
Yuanshi Tianzun raised his eyes toward Peach Mountain.
To block a strike from Zhunti's Dharma Form from afar, that person's abilities must at least have touched the forbidden domain of Saints.
More terrifying still, he could not divine the man's origins.
That aura belonged neither to the Mystic Gate nor to the Western Religion, neither to demons nor to witches. It resembled no lineage in the Primordial World.
A trace of coldness flashed through Yuanshi Tianzun's eyes.
"Could a lingering will of one of the long-fallen demon gods of chaos have awakened?"
Yu Ding Zhenren shuddered from head to toe upon hearing this and dared not speak again.
In the west, Mount Sumeru.
Seven-colored treasure light slowly receded.
Saint Zhunti's manifested form dispersed. His true body sat cross-legged upon a golden lotus, his expression frighteningly dark.
Saint Jieyin saw that Zhunti's sacred will had suffered a setback and that even a corner of the Seven Treasures Wonderful Tree's phantom had been shattered. His sorrowful face grew heavier still.
"Junior brother."
"How are your injuries?"
Zhunti gritted his teeth.
"Nothing serious."
But he could no longer contain the fury in his eyes.
"Nezha seized the Qiankun Ruler and wounded Randeng's primordial spirit."
"The person behind him even dared strike my Saintly manifested form in full view of everyone."
"If we simply let this pass, what dignity will our Western Religion have left?"
Jieyin fell silent for a moment, then slowly shook his head.
"That man's origins are unknown."
"The Heavenly Secrets do not reveal him, and karma leaves no trace. If we act rashly, we may gain nothing."
Zhunti's gaze turned cold.
"Are we supposed to let him ruin our Western Religion's plans?"
Jieyin looked east.
"The Investiture of the Gods Tribulation has begun. The east's destiny will fall into turmoil."
"Our Western Religion's true opportunity still lies within the Tribulation."
"Others will be more anxious than we are over today's humiliation."
Zhunti's eyes flickered.
The east.
The Jade Void Palace.
The Heavenly Court.
And the Dao Ancestor who presided over the Purple Heaven Palace.
This karmic entanglement could no longer be easily settled.
The Thirty-Three Heavens, the Lingxiao Treasure Hall.
Before the Haotian Mirror.
Haotian Shangdi stared fixedly at the scene of Peach Mountain.
Zhunti's Dharma Form had withdrawn.
Randeng had been swept away.
Yet the Qiankun Ruler remained in Nezha's hands.
Not one immortal or god in the hall dared make a sound.
Haotian clenched his fists until his knuckles turned white.
The Saint's imposing might he had just borrowed had been pressed back by a single finger above Peach Mountain.
That was a Saint's manifested form!
If even a Saint had been blocked, could his personally led campaign still subdue Yang Jian and Nezha?
The instant that thought arose, Haotian forcibly suppressed it.
He was the Heavenly Emperor.
The nominal sovereign of the Three Realms.
If he retreated today, the Heavenly Court's dignity would be swept into the dust.
Haotian slowly turned, his imperial robes stirring without wind.
"Convey my decree."
"The Thunder Department, Dipper Department, Fire Department, and Plague Department are to continue assembling."
"Five Directional Guardians, seal off Guanjiangkou."
"I shall see whether the man hiding behind those two vile wretches truly dares appear in his real body!"
Every immortal and god in the hall bowed their heads in unison.
"As you decree!"
Yet their voices no longer held their earlier confidence.
Everyone understood.
What had been shaken today was no longer merely Peach Mountain's Sealing.
It was also the dignity of the Heavenly Court's imperial throne.
Higher than the Thirty-Three Heavens.
The Purple Heaven Palace.
Endless resonances of the Dao rose and fell.
Dao Ancestor Hongjun sat cross-legged upon a meditation cushion. His eyes, indifferent since time immemorial, slowly opened.
At the instant the Primordial Violet Finger appeared, an exceedingly faint disturbance arose within the Heavenly Dao Origin-
A tremor.
Ordinary Saints could not perceive it.
But Hongjun was united with the Heavenly Dao, and he felt it with perfect clarity.
That was not an emotion.
It was the instinctive yielding of the rules when confronted with a higher order of power.
For the first time, bewilderment appeared in Hongjun's eyes.
The Heavenly Dao of the Primordial World was this world's supreme law.
A power capable of making the Heavenly Dao Origin yield should never have existed within the Primordial World.
"Primordial..."
"The intent of gods and demons?"
Hongjun spoke softly.
As those words fell, even the resonances of the Dao within the Purple Heaven Palace halted for an instant.
He raised a hand and performed a divination.
The Heavenly Secrets lay silent.
Karma broke off.
Whether he investigated through Yang Jian or Nezha, every clue ultimately vanished into an impenetrable fog.
That fog did not lie outside the Heavenly Dao.
Yet it could evade the Heavenly Dao's divinations.
"How strange."
Hongjun's voice was low.
"To think such a wild card has arisen amid the Tribulation."
His gaze pierced the Three Realms and fell upon the area around Guanjiangkou.
The place appeared utterly unremarkable.
Ordinary mountains and rivers.
Meager offerings of incense.
Not even a trace of a powerful immortal's or god's aura.
Yet the more ordinary it appeared, the more wrong it felt.
Hongjun's gaze lingered over that stretch of land.
For a long time.
A very long time.
Guanjiangkou, within the dilapidated Mountain God Temple.
The Dark-Gold Divine Statue stood silently upon the altar.
Gu Changqing sat cross-legged deep within the divine statue, Primordial Purple Patterns flashing around him before vanishing.
He had sensed that gaze from the Purple Heaven Palace.
The Divine Realm operated in silence.
The system concealed cause and effect.
The entire Ruined Temple still looked like an ordinary abandoned temple, without the slightest sign of anything unusual.
Gu Changqing slowly raised his eyes.
"Hongjun."
"You've finally turned your gaze this way."
The next moment.
The System Panel before his eyes abruptly lit up.
Blood-gold light illuminated the depths of the divine statue.
[Ding!] [The host protected his disciple from afar, forcing Saint Zhunti's Dharma Form to retreat!] [The main storyline of the Investiture of the Gods Tribulation has undergone a drastic deviation!] [Dao Ancestor Hongjun has been alerted!] [Tribulation-tier ten-thousandfold return: settlement commencing!]