"Dao brother Yuanzuo."
Those words drifted lightly into the Great Void, immediately drawing a response from the Great Dao.
Wind and rain suddenly arose over the Southern Continent. Dark clouds gathered, lightning flashed, and thunder rolled, shrouding distant rivers and mountains.
The Mingcang Great Marsh bore the brunt of it. Boundless water vapor stretched like smoke and mist across millions of miles, like a thick curtain veiling all ten directions, barring even the sun and moon from passing through. As the Manifest Netherworld Profound Dao Lord finished speaking, a current of presence broke through the murky Great Void, revealing an illusory figure.
It was a Daoist in ink-black robes, wondrous in form, indistinct in appearance, and seemingly insubstantial. At a glance, he appeared boundless and vast, surging mightily, as though he would overflow and fill the universe.
"Dao brother Mingxuan, you certainly hold a grudge. All those years ago, Tao Ran merely mocked Ning Hechu, whom you had taken a fancy to, and you remembered it for so long. You simply had to settle the score."
The ink-robed Daoist stepped into the Great Void and sat as an equal beside the Manifest Netherworld Profound Dao Lord. He slowly drew in that tremendous presence until it hung behind his head like a true sun. Its light illuminated the world, resembling a cosmic river without beginning or end, with countless living beings bobbing and sinking within it. "We demonic cultivators cultivate our own natures. Whether we put on false pretenses or laugh, curse, and rage, at least some part of it is true.
"Must we imitate immortal cultivators, using one to unify all, rigid and unchanging?"
The Manifest Netherworld Profound Dao Lord snorted. Facing his old rival, this usually inscrutable patriarch of a Sect-tier organization showed a little more vitality.
"That junior