Yao Lao and Cai Lin visit the Great Desolation Divine Lord!

As Ning Fengzhi finished speaking, Bone Douluo Gu Rong froze on the spot, as though someone had cast an immobilization spell on him.

His pupils contracted violently, and the scene of Chen Xin being teleported away suddenly surfaced in his mind.

That heavenly place where Sword Qi soared everywhere, where even the river water consisted of liquid Sword Qi.

That cowherd boy who could shatter Chen Xin's Martial Soul Avatar with a casual lash of a willow twig.

And that White-Clothed Youth who had not even drawn his sword, merely bringing two fingers together to slice open the starry river of the nine heavens!

That place was the Sword Domain!

"Good heavens..."

Gu Rong sucked in a breath of cold air. His scalp tingled, and even his voice began to stammer.

"That old bastard..."

"The place he went to was actually a supreme lineage presided over by a Saint Grade Heavenly Sovereign?!"

Previously, they had only thought the Sword Domain was powerful, without any concrete understanding of what that meant.

But now, after the Sky Screen's explanation.

They finally understood what a Saint Grade Heavenly Sovereign represented!

That was an existence standing at the very pinnacle of the Great Thousand World!

"Sect Master, this... this is a heaven-flooding windfall!"

Gu Rong slapped his thigh in excitement, his wizened old face now blooming with a smile as brilliant as a daisy.

"I knew it! That old bastard has been obsessed with the Sword Dao his whole life. How could heaven possibly treat him poorly?"

"Sure, he got taught a lesson by some Inner Sect disciple as soon as he arrived, but at least he kept his life!"

By now, Ning Fengzhi had recovered some reason from his extreme excitement.

With his hands clasped behind his back, he paced back and forth inside the main hall.

"Exactly!"

"Uncle Jian is a true sword fanatic. With his temperament and talent, he will certainly glimpse the Great Dao!"

With that, Ning Fengzhi stopped pacing and stared at the Sky Screen, his eyes blazing.

"As long as Uncle Jian can endure."

"As long as he can stay in that Sword Domain, even as the lowest menial servant, even if he can only watch those disciples practice their swordsmanship from the sidelines."

"As long as he can comprehend one ten-thousandth of the Great Thousand World's laws of the Sword Dao!"

At this point, Ning Fengzhi abruptly clenched his fists.

"When the day comes that Uncle Jian returns to the Douluo Continent with even a sliver of the Sword Domain's legacy."

"Our Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect will leap to become this continent's absolute ruler!"

"Spirit Hall? The Two Great Empires?"

"Before the lineage and legacy of a Saint Grade Heavenly Sovereign, they are all clay chickens and earthen dogs, unable to withstand a single blow!"

At that moment, the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect's two senior figures sank utterly into visions of the future.

For as long as Sword Douluo could survive within that Green-Robed Sword Saint's lineage, their Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect would surely reach the most glorious pinnacle in its history!

Meanwhile.

Just as the outside human world was experiencing all manner of upheavals over the Great Thousand World's cultivation ranks.

Deep within an unknown location on the Douluo Continent.

The sky here was shrouded year-round in a thick, blood-colored haze, and the air reeked of pungent blood and nauseating decay.

Strange buildings constructed from enormous dark-red stones stood in orderly arrangements throughout this underground world that never saw the light of day.

This was the most infamous and most mysterious place on the Douluo Continent.

Slaughter City.

At the very center of this city stood a blood-colored palace that towered into the clouds.

On an enormous skull throne deep within the palace.

A tall man clad entirely in blood-red robes sat quietly.

His face was as pale as paper, his eyes an eerie blood-red, and a pair of enormous blood-colored bat wings could faintly be seen flapping slowly behind him.

This man was the ruler of Slaughter City.

The King of Slaughter!

In truth, another, even more terrifying identity lay hidden within him: Tang Chen, the Peerless Douluo and former sect master of the Clear Sky Sect whose name had once shaken the world.

Unfortunately, during the Asura God Trial, the Rakshasa God had plotted against him, allowing the blood-red Nine-Headed Bat King to parasitize him and control his mind, reducing him to his current state, neither human nor ghost.

At this very moment, within this blood-colored palace cut off from the world.

An enormous Sky Screen radiating golden light likewise floated in midair.

Holding a goblet filled with crimson blood, the King of Slaughter watched the images on the Sky Screen with keen interest.

But when he heard that white-clothed maid on the Sky Screen casually mention "the Great Thousand World's cultivation system."

The King of Slaughter instantly crushed the goblet in his hand.

"Bang!"

Glass fragments mixed with viscous blood spilled onto the floor, but he sat motionless on his throne like a clay statue.

His blood-red eyes, once filled with brutality and slaughter, now surged with an unprecedented sense of bewilderment and absurdity.

"Saint Grade Heavenly Sovereign, Words Become Law, influencing the operation of the laws..."

"Dozens of Heavenly Sovereigns presiding over a single sect..."

The King of Slaughter's hoarse-

All along, he had considered himself the god of this underground world!

But now, seeing the Great Thousand World displayed on the Sky Screen.

He suddenly realized that his so-called divine testing ground was laughable in the extreme.

Yet, in that instant when the King of Slaughter's mind faltered.

The human consciousness long suppressed within him, the portion of memories belonging to the Peerless Douluo Tang Chen, actually showed faint signs of awakening.

"The Asura God Trial, reaching level one hundred and becoming a god..."

Tang Chen's hazy consciousness struggled painfully within his mind.

Back then, to pursue that elusive inheritance of the Divine Realm, to give Bo Saixi an answer, he had risked himself and come to this sunless Slaughter City.

He had endured countless torments, even becoming the host of a monster.

What had he sought?

Nothing more than to break through level one hundred and become one of the legendary gods of the Douluo Continent.

Yet the appearance of the Sky Screen today had utterly shattered that dream he had clung to back then.

"The Divine Realm, gods..."

"In the eyes of a Saint Grade Heavenly Sovereign of that Great Thousand World, those so-called gods probably aren't even worth a slightly larger ant, are they?"

"What I, Tang Chen, have pursued so bitterly all my life, even staking my life and dignity on it..."

"In the end, was it merely the most basic mortal realm in someone else's eyes?"

This pain was ten thousand times more intense than physical torment.

Clutching his head, the King of Slaughter let out beastlike roars from his skull throne.

The blood-colored mist around him churned wildly out of control.

At that moment, whether it was the blood-red Nine-Headed Bat King or the Peerless Douluo Tang Chen.

Both felt utter despair!

Meanwhile, in the Great Thousand World.

After leaving that solitary cliff suspended amid endless chaos, used specifically to keep the Nine-Clawed Chaos Ancestral Dragon.

Qian Renxue followed behind Yun Gugu, once again stepping onto the white-jade corridor leading back to the outer hall's Spirit Medicine Garden.

Even now, her steps remained somewhat unsteady, as though she were walking on cotton, while the terrifying sight of that enormous dragon swallowing a sun replayed endlessly in her mind.

She had thought that, after reconstructing her Light Spiritual Root, she barely had enough foundation to survive in this Great Thousand World.

But now it seemed that her meager cultivation, never mind before those Heavenly Sovereign elders.

Would probably be considered too gritty even to fill the gaps between the Divine Lord's mount's teeth.

"Whew..."

Qian Renxue took a deep breath, striving to steady her mind.

Just as the two reached the middle of the corridor and were about to turn toward the outer hall.

"Hum!"

Strange spatial fluctuations suddenly rippled across the sky above the Great Desolation Divine Realm, which had been wreathed in immortal mist, peaceful and serene.

Immediately afterward, the sky across millions of miles transformed in an instant into a sea of dazzling, fire-lit clouds.

The surrounding air began heating up at an astonishing rate, but the heat was not violent. Instead, it carried an upright, vast, majestic warmth.

Qian Renxue instinctively looked up.

Deep within those endless fire-lit clouds, the void was gently torn open through a mighty divine ability.

An enormous, resplendent Fire Lotus, burning with flames of several different colors, slowly descended from the Spatial Rift.

Two figures stood quietly atop the Fire Lotus.

The one at the front was a white-haired elder wearing an Alchemy Master's robes of an ancient style.

The elder had a kindly face, white hair, and a youthful complexion. Merely standing there quietly, he was surrounded by layers of strange, nearly tangible clouds and mist.

Qian Renxue caught only a distant trace of the delicate fragrance emanating from that mist, yet she felt her newly reconstructed Light Spiritual Root stabilize completely in an instant. Even her soul became incomparably clear!

Pill clouds? With every breath, this elder can actually condense immortal-pill clouds of this caliber out of thin air?

Qian Renxue's heart jolted, her eyes full of disbelief.

Beside the elder stood an exceptionally beautiful woman dressed in crimson brocade robes.

This woman's appearance was bewitching to the extreme, possessing a cold beauty and allure that could turn all living beings upside down and eclipse heaven and earth.

She was tall and slender. Even standing there casually, the immense manifestation of a towering python radiating nine-colored light flickered faintly behind her.

Though she deliberately restrained the pressure originating deep within her bloodline, it still sent faint ripples through the surrounding space.

"Distinguished guests have arrived. Do not be disrespectful."

Seeing that Radiant Flame Lotus descend from the sky.

Yun Gugu's expression turned solemn. She hurriedly pulled the still-dazed Qian Renxue to the edge of the corridor and bowed respectfully.

Seeing this, Qian Renxue dared not show the slightest negligence and hurriedly lowered her head as well.

In midair, the white-haired elder seemed to notice the movement below and glanced down.

When he saw the faint yet pure aura of light surrounding Qian Renxue, the elder smiled gently.

"Hehe, the Great Desolation Divine Realm's foundations are truly profound. Even an outer-hall maid who sweeps floors and waters flowers has such a thoroughly refined spiritual root."

The elder casually waved his hand.

A barely perceptible wisp of strange flame, carrying a trace of rich pill fragrance, drifted onto Qian Renxue's brow and instantly merged into her body.

Having done this, the elder and the woman in red rode the Fire Lotus toward the inner hall's main peak in the deepest reaches of the Great Desolation Divine Realm, evidently distinguished guests qualified to seek a direct audience with the Divine Lord.

Only after that immense pressure had completely dissipated.

Did Qian Renxue dare raise her head.

She touched her brow. After that wisp of flame entered her body, she felt as though her entire being had been washed in a pool of warm spring water.

The slight fright and disturbance to her Divine Soul caused by seeing the Primordial Chaos Ancestral Dragon had been completely soothed at that moment, and even her cultivation faintly improved.

"What... what a miraculous ability."

Qian Renxue swallowed and turned toward the white-clothed maid beside her, her eyes filled with curiosity and awe.

"Yun Gugu, those two distinguished figures are...?"

Looking in the direction where the Fire Lotus had vanished, Yun Gugu's eyes also revealed deep reverence.

"They are distinguished guests from the Endless Fire Domain, another supreme powerhouse of the Great Thousand World."

"The Endless Fire Domain?"

At that name, Qian Renxue's heart gave a slight jump.

When Yun Gugu had explained the distribution of powers in the Great Thousand World earlier, she had mentioned this name.

It was a superpower ranked alongside the Martial Realm and the Great Desolation Divine Realm!

"That's right."

Yun Gugu nodded, her tone carrying a touch of emotion.

"That elder is the honored teacher of the Endless Fire Domain's Flame Emperor, as well as one of the foremost Immortal Grade Alchemy Grandmasters in this Great Thousand World."

"The world respectfully calls him Medicine Venerable, Yao Lao!"

"And that peerlessly magnificent woman in red beside him is one of the Flame Emperor's Mistresses, Lady Cai Lin, whose true form is an ancient super Divine Beast, the Nine-Colored Heaven-Swallowing Python!"

The Flame Emperor's honored teacher!

The Nine-Colored Heaven-Swallowing Python, Cai Lin!

Listening to Yun Gugu's measured introduction, Qian Renxue opened her mouth, but could not utter a single word.

So those who had just flown over her head were actually legendary figures standing at the very apex of the Great Thousand World's pyramid.

"Yun Gugu, the mist that Medicine Venerable released just now..." Qian Renxue could not help asking.

"That was the fragrance of Saint Grade immortal pills transformed into clouds."

Yun Gugu glanced at Qian Renxue and explained calmly.

"Senior Yao Lao's attainments in Alchemy have long since seized the creative power of heaven and earth."

"Even a low-grade pill he casually refines can wrench you straight from the King of Hell's grasp, provided you still have a breath left, even if your Divine Soul has shattered."

"That trace of pill energy he bestowed upon you just now will spare you decades of detours when you break through to the Supreme Realm in the future."

Hearing the value of this gift, Qian Renxue felt rather dizzy.

Then she asked again, somewhat puzzled:

"But, Gugu, why would such important figures from the Endless Fire Domain suddenly visit our Great Desolation Divine Realm?"

Yun Gugu smiled, a trace of pride in her eyes.

"Naturally, he came to pay his respects to the Divine Lord and exchange resources."

"Our Divine Realm and the Endless Fire Domain have been on friendly terms for generations."

"The Flame Emperor seems to have been refining a batch of peerless Divine Pills lately, which requires an extremely rare principal ingredient."

"In this Great Thousand World, only the Ancestral Dragon Reverse Scale shed by our Divine Lord's Primordial Chaos Ancestral Dragon can withstand the raging medicinal power of Divine Pills of that caliber."

"So Senior Yao Lao must have brought immortal pills from the Endless Fire Domain on this personal visit to exchange for that Ancestral Dragon Reverse Scale."