Normal space-time.
The Immortal Realm.
In that small temple on the Central Continent, the drowsy old man suddenly awoke.
Though he was dressed simply, with even a few patches on his Daoist robe, his eyes were extraordinarily vivid, as though an earth-shaking Dao diagram of heaven and earth revolved ceaselessly within them. Within it, universes pulsed and the Starsea rippled.
He extended a jade-like hand and calculated on his fingers, then suddenly said with a smile.
"The time is nearly upon us. It is our Immortal Clan's turn to leave something for the Mortal Realm of the new epoch."
With that, he casually cast a dozen or so bolts of white immortal light, like lengths of silk, into heaven and earth.
The dozen or so bolts of immortal light wound and drifted through heaven and earth, finally settling into a dozen or so profound, vast abodes of immortals.
One stood beside the sea in the Far North of the Immortal Realm, one upon an ethereal immortal mountain at the easternmost end of the Fifth Heaven, one in an abyssal palace deep beneath the Central Province of the Immortal Realm, and one in a rainbow palace beneath the world barrier in the south of the Immortal Realm, along with ethereal traveling residences throughout the Immortal Realm.
Seeing the immortal lights descend, the old Daoist nodded in satisfaction, then looked into unknown depths of the void and said in amusement.
"Fine lad, this path of the Demon Emperor is stronger than my path of the Dao Ancestor. Since that is so, I shall make things a little harder for you as well."
At the southern edge of the Immortal Realm, by the world barrier.
At the edge of the barrier stood a screen spanning heaven and earth, separating the Immortal Realm