Wang Changsheng's words thoroughly extinguished the anger and impulsiveness burning in the hearts of the Wang Family.
The Clan Elder's lips trembled. For a long while, he could not utter a word.
The Wang Family elites around him, their weapons clenched tight and their faces filled with grief and indignation, lowered their arms one after another.
The dark gold nail that pierced the heavens and plunged deep into the leylines still bore no trace of the Great Dao's divine radiance. Only a pure, primal gravitational pressure held the surrounding tens of thousands of miles of space firmly in place.
"Gather the surviving scriptures and books, and the clan's young seedlings."
Wang Changsheng withdrew his gaze, his voice so even that neither joy nor anger could be discerned.
"Abandon the ancestral land."
"We are relocating the clan."
Those words sent a tremor through the hearts of every Wang Family elder present.
For an Immortal Family to abandon its ancestral land was a humiliation unheard of since the Immortal Ancient Era.
Wang Da clutched his neck, his face ashen, and said quietly, "Father, if the outside world asks..."
"Shut up."
Wang Changsheng's eyes were icy as he swept his gaze over every direct-line member of the Changsheng Wang Family present.
"Tell outsiders only that the ancestral land's immortal veins have naturally run dry, and that the Wang Family is choosing a fine tree in which to roost."
"If so much as half a word of what you saw and felt here today leaks out, even if you flee beyond the Nine Heavens and Ten Lands, I will extract your soul and burn it as a sky lantern for ten thousand years."
"No one is to mention this thing, much less how large it truly is."
Wang Changsheng understood better than anyone.
Once such a forbidden truth spread, it would not win the Wang Family any sympathy. Instead, it would alert the other Immortal Families and the Celestial God Academy to clues, inviting undeserved calamity.
More importantly, if they disturbed that unknown being sleeping deep within the chaos, the Wang Family would not even qualify to become ashes.
That afternoon, countless great sects within Boundless Heaven, one of the Nine Heavens and Ten Lands, were shaken.
The Changsheng Wang Family, which had stood for countless generations, sealed off the Ancient Ancestral Land without any warning.
Tens of thousands of warships streaked across the sky, quietly relocating toward an extremely remote, desolate star domain in the far east of Boundless Heaven.
From top to bottom, the Wang Family kept their mouths sealed about the earth-shattering upheaval that had suddenly struck their ancestral land. No matter how outsiders probed, they never disclosed a single word.
It was as though the Supreme Pure Land they had cultivated for generations truly was nothing more than a worthless stretch of wasteland.
At the same time.
At the foremost edge of the Nine Heavens and Ten Lands stood the Borderland Imperial Pass.
This supreme imperial city barred the Foreign Realm's iron cavalry, its entire structure built from refined stars.
Its towering walls soared into the clouds, their countless blade and spear scars telling of the bloody, brutal battles that had continued from the Immortal Ancient Era to the present.
Beyond the Imperial Pass lay the boundless Heavenly Abyss.
Within the Heavenly Abyss, endless Immortal Dao Laws became crimson chains of order, surging and churning like an ocean. They severed the space between the two realms, ensuring that the Foreign Realm's Immortals dared not lightly cross even half a step.
Yet today, the alarm bells above the Imperial Pass rang madly.
Dong!
Dong!
The deep, desolate toll rang nine times in succession, shaking the entire mighty borderland fortress.
On the walls, countless soldiers clad in bloodstained armor wore solemn expressions and tightened their grips on their battle spears.
The Supreme Beings overseeing the Imperial Pass emerged from seclusion almost simultaneously and took their places on the foremost lookout platform.
Across the Heavenly Abyss, at the end of the great desert.
Impenetrably thick black mist blotted out the sky and sun.
Accompanied by hoofbeats that shook heaven and earth, tens of millions of soldiers from the Foreign Realm flooded over the horizon like a black tide.
Banners obscured the sun, and murderous energy surged into the heavens.
Several figures as towering as primordial demonic mountains stood proudly amid the army, radiating immortal majesty.
The Foreign Realm's army had come to challenge the pass!
"Have they gone mad? The Heavenly Abyss's laws haven't weakened yet! If they attack now, aren't they afraid the divine chains of order will burn away their Dao foundations?"
On the Imperial Pass's walls, a commander stared fixedly at the distant Foreign Realm vanguard, his eyes bloodshot.
But soon, the Supreme Beings of the Imperial Pass noticed something strange.
The Foreign Realm's army did not charge straight toward the Heavenly Abyss. Instead, it formed an extremely tight defensive formation, even showing signs of falling back to hold the boundary of chaos ten billion miles away.
And that was not all.
Before the Foreign Realm's forces, space tore open. A spear radiating towering golden light emerged across the sky, and behind it manifested a majestic figure.
The manifestation of the Immortal King, An Lan!
Meanwhile, on the other side of the Heavenly Abyss, immortal light gushed through the space of the Nine Heavens and Ten Lands. Faint phantoms of True Immortals projected from the direction of the Immortal Domain descended, watching the desert with grave expressions.
This was no ordinary exchange of attack and defense.
The great figures of both realms had turned their attention here at once, yet the focus of their gazes was not the opposing camp!
The defenders on the walls followed the Supreme Beings' gazes and strained to look into the distance.
In the barren, deadly reaches of the Far North, where the desert met the Heavenly Abyss.
There had originally been nothing there but an abyssal storm of emptiness.
Yet now, deep within that chaotic vortex capable of tearing apart a Heavenly God's flesh, an immense dark gold object lay stretched out beyond sight.
It was like a heavenly chasm suspended between the desert and the Heavenly Abyss, extending for untold billions upon billions of miles.
Its incomparably thick body pierced straight through the Heavenly Abyss's most violent crimson chains of law.
The flames of the Immortal Dao, which even Immortals had to give a wide berth, struck its dark gold hide without raising so much as a wisp of smoke.
"Wh-what is that?"
A Supreme Being of the Imperial Pass sucked in a cold breath, his fingers turning faintly white around his scepter.
"It's a section of a tail!"
Beside him, an elder versed in ancient formations activated his divine pupils and saw through layer upon layer of chaotic mist. He cried out in shock, "That isn't a mountain range! It's the end of some giant beast's body!"
"It spans the Heavenly Abyss! More than half of it stretches straight into the abyss of space over by the Boundary Sea!"
Silence fell throughout the Imperial Pass.
The Heavenly Abyss's laws of Immortal Dao order were a natural barrier laid down by countless Immortal Kings of the Immortal Ancient Era at the cost of their lives.
Even beings as powerful as An Lan and Yu Tuo, if they wished to cross the Heavenly Abyss, had to hold the Primordial An Lan Spear overhead and support the Immortal Ancient Palace in one hand, exhausting their reserves merely to contend with it for a brief moment.
Yet this inconceivably massive dark gold tail simply lay across the rift between the desert and the Heavenly Abyss.
No matter how the Heavenly Abyss's Dao flames washed over it, it remained utterly unmoved.
Even... the sheer physical gravity exerted by its enormous body forcibly pressed nearly tens of thousands of miles of the Heavenly Abyss's once-raging tides of law into stillness!
Across the Heavenly Abyss.
The commander of the Foreign Realm's vanguard stood on his chariot, cold sweat streaming down his forehead.
An Lan's manifestation towered above everything, but his right hand, which held the golden spear, remained beneath his robe and had not advanced so much as half an inch.
Beside him, another Immortal's divine sense fluctuated violently:
"Ancient Ancestor, this tail has blocked the opening in the Heavenly Abyss."
"Our scouts report that the waves on the outskirts of the Boundary Sea subsided several days ago precisely because this beast's body spans the chaos."
"Does it belong to the Nine Heavens, or the Immortal Domain, or is it... an ancient taboo from the far shore of the Boundary Sea?"
The eyes of An Lan's manifestation were fathomless, and the Immortal Laws around him rose and fell unevenly.
He recalled the web of his hand that had been split open earlier. That absolute physical hardness, which surpassed the Great Dao, still left him shaken.
"Order the vanguard to restrain its fighting intent."
An Lan's grand voice rang out in the hearts of the Foreign Realm's tens of millions of soldiers. Within its majesty was a trace of caution that ordinary people could scarcely detect.
"Do not approach that enormous body, and do not activate world-destroying formations within hundreds of millions of miles of it."
"This thing... is not a hidden reserve of the Nine Heavens and Ten Lands, nor does it belong to the Immortal Domain."
"It is sleeping."
The Foreign Realm's generals were horrified.
Even the Immortal King who swept through the heavens and regarded the Nine Heavens and Ten Lands as worthless grass had actually ordered a retreat!
On the opposing walls of the Imperial Pass, the defending commanders likewise exchanged bewildered looks.
"Did it block the Foreign Realm's army for us?"
A young armored soldier swallowed and said quietly, "Could it be... a supreme War Beast left here by an ancient Immortal King?"
"Absolutely impossible!"
An old Supreme Being who had guarded the Imperial Pass for hundreds of thousands of years rejected the suggestion outright, his voice dry.
"During the Immortal Ancient Era, no True Dragon or member of the Ten Fiends possessed a body large enough to span realms."
"Look at the Heavenly Abyss's chains of law..."
Everyone focused their attention on them.
Although the Heavenly Abyss's crimson chains could not wear away the slightest trace of the dark gold dragon tail, every few hours, that immense tail rose and fell with an extremely faint rhythm, even if only by an imperceptible fraction.
Just that tiny rise and fall.
The gravitational field across the entire desert was forcibly warped, and vast stretches of sand collapsed directly into bottomless chasms.
The old Supreme Being of the Imperial Pass looked extremely grave as he slowly exhaled:
"It is neither protecting the Imperial Pass nor targeting the Foreign Realm."
"It is merely resting wherever it pleases in the chaos outside the realms. Its body is too long, so its tail happens to lie here."
"The life-and-death catastrophe of our two realms, in this creature's eyes... probably amounts to no more than a quarrel between a few ants beside its feet."
Just as countless cultivators of both realms held their breath and watched that enormous dark gold tail as though confronting a mighty enemy.
Deep within the Heavenly Abyss, fierce winds of chaos howled.
The dark gold tail tip lying across the boundary between the two realms suddenly swayed ever so slightly along the turbulent currents of space.
In that instant, on both shores of the Heavenly Abyss, the hearts of the Foreign Realm's tens of millions of soldiers and the Imperial Pass's countless cultivators all skipped a beat.
The dark gold tail tip lying across the boundary between the two realms suddenly swayed along the turbulent currents of space.
The movement was minuscule.
But before that absolute mass that transcended dimensions, even a displacement as tiny as a speck of dust was a world-destroying catastrophe.
Above the desert, space shattered with a crash like fragile ice.
The spatial laws across hundreds of millions of miles were instantly ground into nothingness beneath the compression of pure physical kinetic force.
A vast, visible storm erupted from the dark gold tail tip and swept madly toward both sides of the Heavenly Abyss.
On the walls of the Imperial Pass, the city's protective formation let out a piercing wail.
Several old Supreme Beings grunted in unison, alarming streams of blood spilling from the corners of their mouths.
They did everything they could to stabilize the formation, their eyes filled with horror.
This was merely the aftermath of one imperceptibly slight sway!
Had the Heavenly Abyss's remaining rules not stood in front of them, that storm would have wiped the entire Imperial Pass flat just now!
Deep in the desert, the Foreign Realm's tens of millions of soldiers likewise suffered a terrifying impact.
An Lan's manifestation snorted coldly.
He did not thrust his spear. Instead, with the supreme magical power of an Immortal King, he forcibly erected a screen of light ahead, blocking the physical storm's assault.
Even so, hundreds of thousands of Foreign Realm vanguard troops were shaken until their blood and vital energy churned. Many mounts burst apart and died on the spot.
The army was forced to retreat another million miles.
Behind the Foreign Realm's army.
Aboard an enormous floating White Bone Warship.
Several young prodigies of the Foreign Realm gathered together, their burning gazes fixed on the colossal dark gold object deep within the Heavenly Abyss.
They were all descendants of Imperial Clans, with the true blood of Immortal Kings flowing through their veins. Born high above others, they looked down upon their peers.
One of them, with a pair of silver wings growing from his back, was named He Ziming.
Another, surrounded by scarlet lightning, was named Chi Meng.
"The ancient ancestors are being far too cautious."
Chi Meng sneered, his eyes filled with greedy fervor.
"It's nothing more than the remnant body of a sleeping beast, or perhaps some ancient corpse that drifted over from the Boundary Sea."
"No matter how large it is, if it doesn't move at all, what waves could it possibly stir up?"
He Ziming spread his wings slightly, the corners of his mouth curling into an arrogant smile.
"The ancient ancestors look far ahead. Their concern is the overall situation between the two realms."
"But for us, this is a supreme opportunity that comes once in a thousand years!"
He pointed at the dark gold section of tail.
"Look at the material of its hide. Even the Heavenly Abyss's Dao flames cannot leave the slightest mark."
"If we could peel off a single scale, or extract one drop of true blood..."
"We would surely forge the strongest Immortal Dao Foundations of all time. Even surpassing the ancient ancestors in the future might not be impossible!"
The Imperial Clan prodigies exchanged glances, each seeing the madness in the others' eyes.
Accustomed to running rampant throughout the Foreign Realm, how could they know what true fear was?
In their eyes, an immense opportunity lay right before them.
Ancient Ancestor An Lan had ordered the army not to approach, but he had not established an absolute restrictive barrier in the rear.
"Let's go!"
"Fortune is won amid danger!"
Chi Meng brought forth an ancient Void-Piercing Talisman.
It was a lifesaving trump card bestowed by an Immortal, powerful enough to traverse endless space in an instant.
Light flashed.
The Imperial Clan prodigies vanished directly from the warship, slipping out of the Foreign Realm army's sight and heading straight into the depths of the Heavenly Abyss.
At the edge of the Heavenly Abyss, chaotic currents sliced through everything like sharp blades.
Light flickered.
He Ziming, Chi Meng, and three other prodigies of the Imperial Clan relied on artifacts bestowed by Immortals to force their way across hundreds of millions of miles of the Void, arriving before that dark gold tail section.
The instant they appeared.
All five turned deathly pale, their breathing coming to a halt.
From afar, they could only sense its immensity.
Now, within arm's reach, they truly understood what suffocating despair meant.
There was simply no way forward.
As far as their eyes could see, a dark gold "metal wall" completely blocked their view.
Even a single natural pattern on that wall was a hundred times broader than the Foreign Realm's most magnificent mountain range.
Space here had been compressed to the extreme, turning into crystals as hard as divine iron.
Under the pressure of the mass naturally emanating from their surroundings, the divine light protecting their bodies began to crack, unable to bear the burden.
"What kind of freak is this...?"
One prodigy's legs went weak, and he almost wanted to prostrate himself in worship.
"What are you panicking for!"
Chi Meng forcibly endured the trembling of his soul and bit through the tip of his tongue, using the searing pain to keep himself lucid.
"It's asleep, utterly defenseless!"
"This is divine material bestowed by heaven!"
His eyes were bloodshot as he stared fixedly at a tiny gap between two scales ahead.
Though called a tiny gap, it was tens of thousands of miles wide.
Chi Meng summoned a blood-red war spear.
Dense Immortal Laws coiled around its tip; this was a genuine, damaged immortal artifact.
"Break open!"
Chi Meng roared, burning all the Imperial Clan true blood within his body and driving his cultivation to its peak.
The blood-red war spear became a streak of blood-red lightning that pierced the river of stars, carrying the power to destroy heaven and earth as it stabbed viciously toward the gap between the scales.
He vainly sought to pry loose a sliver of flesh and seize a fortune.
The other four prodigies held their breath, their eyes full of anticipation.