Black water surged, its tides rising and falling.
The splashing "waves" scattered the hazy, cloudlike primal chaos source substance in the distance, revealing the figures hidden in the void one by one.
Yet everyone stared blankly at the Blue-Robed Figure standing calmly amid the black water, their hearts surging like the rolling waters, each wave higher than the last.
Fan Wind and Thunder stood before the Spirit Source Prefecture palace and its cultivators, his head tilted slightly upward.
The Black Water Dao Domain and Sword Light collapsed together. The winds and waves they stirred swept through his white hair, but could not penetrate his silently stunned mind. His slightly pale face and damp, disheveled, frost-white hair together painted a picture of disarray and powerless desolation.
He murmured under his breath, seemingly bewildered, seemingly unwilling to believe:
"How could this be... how could this be..."
Above the black water.
Wang Ba's expression remained perfectly calm. He had not retreated so much as a fraction. Looking past the collapsing Black Water Dao Domain around him toward Fan Wind and Thunder, he called, "Prefecture Lord Fan, you still have one sword strike."
His voice was not loud, but none of the surrounding cultivators dared miss a single word, and naturally all heard him.
Yin Tianzhi looked at Wang Ba's back as he stood above the ripples with his hands clasped behind him. He opened his mouth, but ultimately said nothing to dissuade him.
In that instant, he had finally recognized a reality he had overlooked.
Over three hundred years ago, when Attendant Taiyi had first entered Tribulation Crossing, he could already sweep aside his peers and had even dared draw his sword against the Fake Palace Master of the Ten Thousand Devil Palace. Only three hundred-odd years had passed since then-a mere idle