The True Lord Returned!
Two streaks of light flew side by side, traversing the shattered landscape of the Zombie Alliance headquarters.
Scattered bursts of spiritual light and fluctuations of Law Power could still be seen along the way, and those small-scale battles continued to erupt.
Why did you steal someone else's cauldron?
True Person Qianxin glanced at Qi Yun, recalling his earlier act of uprooting the three-legged bronze cauldron, and couldn't help but smile.
"Although that cauldron is made of extraordinary materials, it can hold and nourish the corpse blood of Great True Person."
However, the core requires the secret methods passed down by the Zombie Alliance to drive the process, drawing upon the yin energy of the earth's veins and harmonizing the resentment of the corpses.
If an outsider gets their hands on it, it's nothing but an inanimate object; at most, they can melt it down and use it as a top-grade material for crafting Yin-attribute Law Artifact.
"I have a feeling... it might be of some use." Qi Yun's gaze swept over the chaotic ruins below, his tone carrying a hint of barely perceptible contemplation.
His intuition has always been accurate.
If you accepted it subconsciously, there must be a reason.
The Zombie Alliance's headquarters covers a vast territory. Although it is not as boundless as the Great Void Mirror Heaven of the Wuji Sacred Sect, it is still a vast area.
Even after being divided using the astonishing method of [True Lord Vast Sea and Fine Dust] to extract the essence.
The massive mountain gate collapsed, the earth's veins were extracted, and the spiritual energy dissipated, but the remaining fragments were still numerous.
Similar conflicts fortuitous opportunity, like their struggle for the [Undying True Blood], are still unfolding throughout the ruins of the Zombie Alliance.
Countless cultivators, from Qi Refining to Foundation Establishment, frantically devoured the remains of this dying giant whale, seizing every possible value.
Greed and slaughter constitute the main theme of this ruin.
However, no one noticed.
I don't know when it started, but the color of the sky has quietly changed.
The sky, which had appeared dark and broken due to the great battle and the intervention of the True Lord, gradually took on an eerie, dim yellow hue.
This yellow hue is not the warm glow of the setting sun.
Instead, it was a deathly stillness, a dullness, as if the color of accumulated dust from countless ages had silently spread and enveloped the surrounding area.
In the center of this dim, yellowish sky, a weathered, ancient wooden coffin floats silently.
The wooden coffin appeared ordinary, even somewhat dilapidated, with peeling paint revealing the dark wood grain beneath.
It emitted no powerful aura, no oppressive force, no spiritual light; it remained motionless, like a cold, solitary eye suspended in the heavens, indifferently gazing down upon the homeland being devoured.
Strangely, all the cultivators below...
Whether they are Qi Refining cultivators or Foundation Establishment True Person.
No one looked up, nor did anyone notice the strange color that enveloped the sky and the existence of the hanging coffin.
Qi Yun was discussing with True Person Qianxin about heading to the next place where there might be fortuitous opportunity when the [Great Luo Heaven] within his body suddenly trembled slightly without warning.
An indescribable, strange feeling swept over me.
He felt something and subconsciously looked up at the sky.
A fleeting glint of bluish-gray light flashed in his eyes like lightning.
The next instant, Qi Yun's pupils suddenly contracted, and the calm on his face was replaced by an unprecedented solemnity.
He grabbed True Person Qianxin's arm with such force that True Person Qianxin was taken aback.
"What's wrong?" True Person Qianxin turned his head in confusion, following Qi Yun's gaze, only to see a deathly still, dim yellow sky that he didn't find unusual.
"Walk!!"
Qi Yun offered no explanation, nor did he have the time to.
The feeling that the mottled wooden coffin gave him was far deeper, more restrained, and also more dangerous than the magnificent Sword Intent of [True Lord Vast Sea and Fine Dust] before.
This is a return that has been silent for eternity, carrying endless sorrow and the will of death!
He transformed into a fierce and resolute crimson rainbow, the phantom of Hundred Li Fire Cloud flashing past behind him. The blazing Southern Ming Li Fire Sword Intent enveloped True Person Qianxin, pushing his escape speed to its limit!
Boom!
The sonic boom cloud exploded in the air, and the space where the two had been standing was slightly distorted.
Zhu Hong was like a shooting star tearing through the sky, not asking where it was going, only seeking to get away.
In the blink of an eye, it had transformed into a tiny point of light at the edge of the sky, disappearing thousands of miles away!
Only after the light of his escape completely disappeared from the edge of perception did Qi Yun's suppressed voice, like a cold wedge, pierce deeply into the mind of True Person Qianxin Sea of Consciousness: "That True Lord who traveled far beyond the realms has returned!"
Upon hearing this, True Person Qianxin turned around abruptly again, gazing at the dim yellow sky, and extended his Divine Sense with all his might.
This time, he finally caught a faint outline of the hanging coffin.
A chill instantly shot from my tailbone to the top of my head!
"Just running isn't enough!"
True Person Qianxin's voice was hurried, and fine beads of sweat appeared on his forehead; he was no longer as composed as usual.
"The True Lord has condensed his Dharma Body to remain in the world, and has long since transcended the constraints of the mortal world. He can disregard ordinary precepts of cause and effect, and reverse cause and effect."
We are tainted by the karma of the destruction of the Zombie Alliance and the plunder of the remnants. To think we can escape the True Lord's perception range simply by relying on our speed is as difficult as ascending to heaven!
He spoke very quickly, with obvious fear in his voice.
No one could predict how a True Lord, whose stronghold had been destroyed and whose lineage was on the verge of collapse, would unleash his boundless rage in such a terrifying and bizarre manner.
That was a power that no Foundation Establishment Realm could withstand.
"How do we eliminate it?" Qi Yun's gaze was deep and focused, his Great Luo Law Power surging within him, maintaining his maximum escape speed, yet his voice remained steady.
"Either immediately return to the Holy Sect and ask Desolate Halberd True Lord to protect you, using the Holy Sect's mountain gate formation and True Lord's power to sever the cause and effect."
"Or—" True Person Qianxin gritted his teeth, a resolute look flashing across his face.
"It all depends on our luck!"
With a flick of his wrist, the nine [Undying True Blood] pills that he had just acquired and hadn't even had time to warm up appeared in his palm.
The dark green and gold blood beads exuded boundless vitality and immortal Dao intent. Without hesitation, he separated five beads and stuffed them into Qi Yun's hand.
"Nephew Qi, I will now pass on a technique to you!" True Person Qianxin's tone was more solemn than ever before. He took a deep breath, and the bizarre and colorful [Thousand Illusions Mortal World Realm] that reflected all the phenomena of the mortal world suddenly appeared behind him.
A thick red mist enveloped him and Qi Yun, slightly shrouding the space several feet around them and temporarily isolating them from the outside world.
"This method was something I obtained by chance in my early years, and it's called: [The Tribulation-Avoiding Incantation]!"
"This incantation is mysterious. It can use spiritual objects containing abundant vitality or special Dao intent in the world as a guide to cultivate a magic spell that can take the place of Death Substitution and ward off disaster within a cultivator's body."
Once mastered, if faced with an insurmountable calamity, this spell can be automatically activated to bear the suffering and neutralize it once.
I obtained this method myself, but because its conditions for use are harsh and it requires the consumption of precious spiritual items, and I do not know the limits of its effectiveness, I have never used it.
It is unknown whether it will be effective in the face of the True Lord's wrath.
He spoke extremely quickly, yet each word was clear, like the tinkling of gold and jade. A profound and mysterious ancient scripture, containing the Daoist meaning of "avoiding calamity and eliminating disaster," directly entered the depths of Qi Yun's Sea of Consciousness.
"Time is limited, and it's probably too late to escape back to the Holy Sect for help."
The only option now is to try anything, even if it seems hopeless, and use this [Undying True Blood] as a catalyst to refine the [Tribulation-Avoiding Incantation].
Whether we can survive this ordeal depends on our Creation!
Upon receiving this obscure and ancient teaching, Qi Yun's [Great Luo Myriad Laws Dao Foundation] spontaneously activated, rapidly deciphering its core True Intention.
He nodded slightly, indicating that he understood.
Upon seeing this, True Person Qianxin immediately sat cross-legged within the escaping light, formed hand Hand Seals, took out a [Undying True Blood] and held it in his palm, closed his eyes, and chanted incantations.
He began to follow the methods of the [Tribulation-Avoiding Incantation], guiding the Law Power within his body in an attempt to refine it and imprint that mysterious life-saving curse deep within his Divine Soul and Dao Foundation.
Qi Yun no longer hesitated. While maintaining the extreme flight of the Zhu Hong Fire Cloud, he also took out a piece of Undying True Blood.
His eyes gleamed with a bluish-gold light.
Quickly understand and comprehend this [Tribulation-Avoiding Incantation].
As the Method Formula was activated, the dark green and gold blood bead in his palm trembled slightly, gradually melting and transforming into fine yet incredibly mysterious golden runes.
As if it possessed a life of its own, it slowly wrapped around Qi Yun's wrist and seeped into his body.
A strange power began to emerge, enveloping him and forming an illusory yet crucial defensive line.
The golden thread incantation condenses very slowly.
Qi Yun attempted to use his magical Law Power to accelerate its formation.
However, this [Tribulation-Avoiding Incantation] is very strange; it can only be formed along a predetermined path.
Despite the torrent of Law Power surging in, he remained calm and unhurried.
Just as Qi Yun and True Person Qianxin were racing against time, using the Undying True Blood as a catalyst to forcibly condense the ethereal [Tribulation-Avoiding Incantation].
Above the sky, there was a mottled wooden coffin that had been hovering for a long time, like a cold, one-eyed monster.
Finally—it moved.
There was no earth-shattering roar, no overwhelming force.
It was a faint sound, almost drowned out by the wind, yet clearly pierced the souls of every living being below.
"Squeak"
The heavy coffin lid, marked by the passage of time, seemed to be pushed open by an invisible hand, slowly revealing a crack.
But with just this one crack opening, the "rules" of the entire world seemed to distort and solidify.
The fighting, struggle, and escape continue on the ruins below.
Everything was like a flying insect thrown into amber, its movements becoming incredibly slow, and its thoughts almost coming to a standstill.
Only the boundless fear, stemming from the instinct of life and the face of the supreme being, instantly overwhelmed all minds like ice water!
Immediately afterwards, a hand emerged from the dark crevice of the coffin and pressed heavily onto the ancient rim.
The moment that hand touched the edge of the coffin, an indescribable, immense pressure was finally no longer concealed.
Like a terrifying demon god who had slumbered for millennia, it was fully awakened and descended with a deafening roar!
Buzz-!!!
The world has lost its color, and all things have fallen silent!
The originally yellowish sky was now painted a dark, despairing red, like dried, congealed blood.
The earth below, centered on the wooden coffin, collapsed and crumbled downwards in waves.
The next moment!
A blurry, withered figure slowly sat up from the coffin.
Xiu's face was shrouded in a distorted shadow and flowing dark red patterns, making it difficult to see clearly.
Only a pair of empty, lifeless eyes, reflecting the annihilation of all spirits and the end of reincarnation, pierced through the endless void, indifferently sweeping over the ravaged homeland below, and those tiny "thieves" who seemed frozen in time.
There were no angry roars, no venomous Curse.
The returned Zombie Alliance True Lord simply sat quietly in the coffin, slowly raising the withered hand that had been resting on the edge of the coffin.
With his five fingers slightly spread, he gently clenched his fist over the endless ruins below and over all the beings within them tainted by the karma of the Zombie Alliance.
This grasp is not a grasp on a physical object.
Instead, it reached out to grasp the invisible cause and effect, intertwined and interwoven in the the Unseen.
"Tracing back."
A hoarse, ancient syllable, composed of the wails of countless dead souls, escaped from its mouth.
Words spoken, laws followed!
Rumble rumble rumble-!!!
It was not a tremendous noise on a material level, but a tremor of cause and effect!
In that instant, all the cultivators who had participated in dividing up the Zombie Alliance's legacy and were tainted by the cause and effect of the Zombie Alliance's destruction...
No matter where you are in the ruins, no matter your cultivation level, from Qi Refining to Foundation Establishment.
They all felt an indescribable pain and a sense of being ripped away from the depths of their Divine Soul.
Then, to their astonishment, they saw countless fine, dark gray threads appear out of thin air on their bodies.
These threads connect at one end to their own destiny, Divine Soul, Dao Foundation.
The other end points towards the hanging coffin, and towards that True Lord.
This is the cause and effect of their involvement in the collapse of the Zombie Alliance.
At this moment, these causes and effects are being forcibly traced, pulled, and tightened by an irresistible and terrifying force.
"No--!"
A Foundation Establishment True Person was collecting a Law Artifact let out a desperate roar.
He watched helplessly as his palm, along with the Law Artifact, began to crumble from his fingertips, like a weathered sand sculpture, inch by inch, until it was reduced to the finest dust.
It's not just shattering, but the complete erasure of its "existence".
His roar abruptly ceased, and along with his Divine Soul imprint, it was erased from this world by the invisible force of cause and effect.
Vast areas, including the cultivators themselves, the treasures they had just seized, and even the traces of their presence, were silently and inexplicably annihilated.
There was no explosion, no glory.
Only the despairing "non-existence" remains.
This is the wrath of the True Lord!
To reverse cause and effect, to erase existence!
The torrent of destruction is spreading silently and rapidly, centered on that hanging coffin.
Qi Yun and True Person Qianxin, who were in the Zhu Hong Huo Yun, were thousands of miles away, but they also felt that deadly pulling force.
The causal relationships binding them were also trembling violently.
Life and death hang in the balance, separated by a mere instant!
"Quick!"
Qi Yun's forehead veins bulged as he felt a tearing sensation, as if the causal threads binding him were about to snap.
The invisible force of annihilation emanating from the True Lord was already ever-present.
As his eyes closed, the azure-gold divine light vanished, and a nine-colored divine radiance erupted!
[Wield Myriad Laws]!
But this time, he was not wielding any other supernatural Divine Ability.
Rather, it is the [Tribulation-Avoiding Incantation] that he is painstakingly refining!
The surging, nine-colored divine light contained the Supreme Dao intent that governs all laws.
Like a burst dam, it surged fiercely into the nascent spell on his wrist, which was only half-finished and whose golden light flowed somewhat sluggishly!
"Buzz--!"
The golden incantation, which had been slowly evolving, emitted a clear and rapid hum under the intervention of the nine-colored divine light!
Countless golden cloud-shaped runes, as fine as dust and with extremely complex structures, were accelerated to the extreme, frantically generating, combining, and intertwining!
Whoosh--!
In just a fleeting moment!
The [Tribulation-Avoiding Incantation], which would have taken an unknown amount of time to completely assemble into a ring, was instantly perfected under the domineering intervention of [Wield Myriad Laws]!
A perfectly formed, interconnected golden incantation was deeply engraved on Qi Yun's wrist veins.
As the incantation flowed slowly, it exuded a strange Daoist meaning of "avoiding calamities and disasters, and being impervious to all difficulties."
The causal threads that were trembling violently around him were temporarily isolated and blurred.
"Call----"
Having successfully condensed the [Tribulation-Avoiding Incantation], the fatal feeling of being stripped away suddenly lessened by more than half, and Qi Yun finally had time to exhale a breath of turbid air.
However, before he could exhale completely, he heard a suppressed groan from True Person Qianxin!
Looking to the side, I saw that True Person Qianxin's face was deathly pale.
The golden incantation on his wrist flickered intensely. The evolution of the incantation had reached its final stage, but the last fifth of the rune structure was still unable to completely condense and close!
Its body was surrounded by swirling red dust and malevolent mist, desperately resisting the obliteration of cause and effect.
But the situation is clearly dire!
"Uncle-Master!"
Qi Yun's gaze sharpened, and without the slightest hesitation, he raised his hand again!
[Wield Myriad Laws]!
The nine-colored rays reappeared, but instead of rushing into True Person Qianxin's body, they precisely wrapped around the unfinished gap in the spell on his wrist.
Qi Yun used the Great Luo Law Power as a guide and his own newly perfected Tribulation-Avoiding Incantation as a reference to forcibly guide and fill in the final rune structure!
True Person Qianxin felt a heat in his wrist as a powerful yet mysteriously guiding force surged into him.
Under the illumination and guidance of the nine-colored divine light, his stagnant incantation quickly became clear and solid!
Buzz!
Another clear chirp!
On True Person Qianxin's wrist, the golden [Tribulation-Avoiding Incantation] finally closed completely, transforming into a complete ring, deeply imprinted!
Just as the Tribulation-Avoiding Incantation on their wrists lit up simultaneously, and the moment they were fully activated, an extraordinary phenomenon occurred!
The two Tribulation-Avoiding Incantation spontaneously detached from their wrists and transformed into two lifelike golden fish!
No, it's not a swimming fish.
Upon closer inspection, they were two long rivers of seal script composed of countless tiny golden runes!
These two rivers of runes circled around Qi Yun and True Person Qianxin, swirling and flying faster and faster, showering down a shower of golden light.
The rain of light intertwined and connected, eventually forming a delicate and translucent [golden light canopy] with flowing runes three feet away from the two of them.
This luminous banner is not perfectly round; its shape is ancient and simple, resembling an inverted glass bell, and its entire body is composed of billions of golden cloud-shaped runes that are constantly being created, destroyed, and evolved.
It emitted a faint, yet powerful, sound, seemingly from an ancient ritual!
Beyond the light banner, the invisible force of causal obliteration surged forth like a raging undercurrent.
Whenever this power touches the golden light canopy, the runes on its surface suddenly light up, rippling with golden light.
The force of annihilation was like an attack landing on some kind of "conceptual substitute".
The vast majority of the power was strangely deflected, dispersed, and channeled into nothingness.
Looking into the distance, it's a scene of destruction where everything is dark and everything is withering.
Only this golden rune-inscribed light banner, no more than ten feet in diameter, stubbornly resisted the karmic reckoning from the True Lord level.
Within the luminous canopy, the figures of Qi Yun and True Person Qianxin appeared and disappeared amidst the flowing runes.
Although his expression was solemn, he managed to stabilize himself for the time being, preventing himself from being instantly annihilated by that terrifying power of obliteration.
The [Tribulation-Avoiding Incantation] held!