A Saint entered the Mass Burial Grounds, and the wandering souls did not even dare flee.
The morning mist had yet to disperse.
A blue-robed Daoist walked slowly between the desolate graves.
His robes were clean, his face lean, and not the slightest trace of magical power leaked from him.
Yet with every step he took, the baleful winds of the Mass Burial Grounds weakened a little.
The remnant souls deep within the graves prostrated themselves in unison, shrinking their soul flames to pinpoints, not daring to release even a wisp of resentment.
Sect Master Tongtian raised his eyes toward the Ruined Temple ahead.
The temple doors lay shattered.
The walls were cracked.
Demon blood and broken timbers still littered the entrance.
The place looked utterly ordinary, as though any passing rain could wash it into rubble.
Yet Tongtian's gaze stopped above the doorway.
Half a broken plaque hung there.
Only a single word remained on it.
Fate.
Tongtian's fingertips paused.
The word was ancient and weathered, yet within its strokes lingered a blankness left by something someone had erased.
It was as though someone had personally severed the latter half of this place's karma.
"Interesting."
Tongtian chuckled and stepped across the threshold.
The temple's interior was small.
A crooked offering table, a dust-covered incense burner, shattered door panels, and several demon corpses.
Those demons still had their flesh, but their souls had been gnawed clean away, leaving only an empty shell of deathly energy.
A single glance was enough for Tongtian to recognize the traces.
"That Black Dog."
Able to bite through Guangchengzi's Yuqing Dao foundation, that dog's fangs had already surpassed an ordinary heavenly dog's inheritance.
More importantly, deep within that devouring aura lay a strand of unfamiliar Dao resonance with no place in the Primordial World's catalog of Daos.
Tongtian did not linger.
His gaze settled on the clay Divine Statue behind the offering table.
The Divine Statue sat upright upon its altar.
Its features were indistinct.
Dust covered its surface like a deliberately preserved disguise, suppressing every trace of its recent divine manifestation.
From the outside, the Divine Statue could not have looked more ordinary.
Common clay, a mortal sculpture.
Scant incense offerings.
Even the little statues in illicit wilderness shrines possessed more spirituality than it did.
Yet Tongtian narrowed his eyes.
His saintly sense reached toward the Divine Statue.
Three inches away.
A layer of purplish-gray Dao resonance silently emerged.
The moment his saintly sense approached, that resonance swallowed it without the slightest echo.
A flicker of surprise crossed Tongtian's eyes.
He strengthened his saintly sense a little more.
The result remained the same.
Outside the Divine Statue, there seemed to stand a curtain of Dao that did not belong to the Primordial World's Heavenly Dao.
Divination could not penetrate it.
Karma could not be tugged.
Even a Saint's divine sense could only halt outside.
Tongtian's smile deepened.
"No wonder Yuanshi suffered a setback."
This concealment had already reached the very essence of a Daoist Sanctuary.
A ruined temple, a clay statue, a burner of lingering incense-someone had actually refined them into a branch of the Primordial Divine Realm.
To force his way through, he could only shatter this branch temple with a Saint's power.
But doing so would bring this chain of karma completely into the open.
Yuanshi was unwilling to act rashly.
For the time being, those two from the Western Religion did not dare act rashly either.
As for him...
Tongtian raised his hand.
A strand of azure sword intent slipped from his sleeve and hovered above the incense burner.
Deep within the incense ash lingered a thread of purple.
Guangchengzi and Chijingzi's setbacks here most likely had much to do with it.
Tongtian slowly pressed his fingertips downward.
He wanted to see just where this strand of purple had come from.
But at the very instant his fingertips were about to touch the incense ash-
Guanjiangkou.
Deep within the Main Temple.
The Primordial Divine Realm suddenly shook.
Seated cross-legged inside the Divine Statue, Gu Changqing abruptly opened his eyes.
Within his sea of consciousness, the system interface instantly turned blood-red.
Warning runes appeared one after another.
[Warning! Heavenly Dao Sage arrival detected!] [Alert level: maximum red!] [Target: Jie Sect Leader, Tongtian!] [Target has entered the Chaoge Branch Temple and is making contact with the Incense Anchor established by the host!] [Saint's aura has triggered the Divine Realm Passive Defense Mechanism!] [Maximum Concealment Protocol activated!] [Primordial Purple Patterns operating at full capacity!] [Host's true-body karma transferred to the Deep Layer of the Divine Realm!]
Blood-red warnings piled layer upon layer, filling his sea of consciousness.
Gu Changqing's gaze darkened slightly.
A Saint had entered the game in person.
The weight of this far surpassed that single Dharma manifestation Zhunti had sent before.
He had long known that intercepting Yang Jian, taking Nezha, and accepting the Yin Shang Twins would sooner or later draw the Saints' attention.
He had simply expected the Jade Void Palace to move first.
Now that Tongtian had arrived first, it did fit the temperament of this Jie Sect Leader.
Yuanshi valued rules.
Tongtian valued a keen edge.
The more inscrutable a variable, the more readily it drew this Saint's sword heart.
Gu Changqing quickly calmed himself.
Tongtian's arrival was not necessarily a bad thing.
During the Investiture of the Gods Tribulation, the Interception Sect had been the faction surrounded and slaughtered by all sides.
If Tongtian could glimpse a different path ahead of time, the future chessboard would gain another hand with sufficient weight.
But to make Tongtian truly take this Ruined Temple seriously, merely concealing Heavenly Secrets would not suffice.
Tongtian trusted the sword most.
Then he would let him see that even within a ruined temple stood a door that not even a Saint's sword intent could easily cleave open.
Gu Changqing slowly closed his eyes.
A strand of divine sense descended along the Incense Anchor.
Ten thousand miles of mountains and rivers swiftly receded within his perception.
Chaoge.
The Mass Burial Grounds.
The Divine Statue in the Ruined Temple.
The next instant.
A line of Primordial Purple Patterns emerged between the Divine Statue's brows.
Inside the temple, Tongtian's hand stopped in midair.
He raised his head and looked at the clay Divine Statue behind the offering table.
Just now, that Divine Statue had changed.
Its previously silent gaze suddenly had a master.
The ashes in the incense burner rose without wind.
The offering table, temple walls, threshold, and broken plaque were all bound together by purple radiance.
Before Tongtian's eyes, a ruined temple that could collapse at any moment transformed into a Daoist Sanctuary with a master.
The azure sword intent trembled slightly.
Some of the amusement faded from Tongtian's eyes.
In its place came a seriousness he had not felt in a long time.
That gaze was faint.
There was no flattery.
No hostility.
Nor the fear one ought to feel before a Saint.
It merely seemed to regard a visitor who had finally reached the temple doors.
Tongtian had been a Saint for countless ages.
All beings of the Three Realms bowed their heads upon seeing him.
Even his fellow disciples who were also Saints took care over one another's karma and dignity.
Yet today, in this ruined temple outside Chaoge City, he actually sensed an utterly unruffled composure from a clay Divine Statue.
Tongtian slowly withdrew his hand.
The azure sword intent did not disperse; instead, it condensed into a single thread at his fingertip.
The Primordial Purple Patterns inside the temple lit up in response.
One azure, one purple.
Two auras faced each other across the incense burner.
There was no thunderous roar.
No explosion of magical power.
Yet the morning mist over the Mass Burial Grounds outside the temple was pressed into stillness in an instant.
Even the consciousnesses of the wandering souls deep within the graves froze.
The remaining demon corpses silently crumbled into dust.
Tongtian looked at the Divine Statue and suddenly smiled.
"You've hidden yourself so deeply."
"You stirred up Jade Void karma, intercepted Yin Shang's rightful heirs, and let your dog bite into Guangchengzi's Dao foundation."
"Now that I have come in person, fellow Daoist, are you finally willing to show yourself?"