Welcome, Holy Sect Master!
Speck of Dust Grotto-Heaven.
The milky white radiance spread out like solidified clouds, without sun or moon, only the radiant light behind the head of the Great Sun Purple Ultimate True Lord illuminated this small world as clear as crystal.
Qi Yun three zhang away.
He lowered his eyes and stared at his palm.
That wisp of bright yellow light, refined from the [Supreme Sovereign Mystic Firmament Dao Foundation], was now resting quietly in the deepest part of his palm's Spirit Vein.
It doesn't flaunt its strengths.
Without revealing murderous intent.
It flowed as gently as ordinary Law Power.
He looked up.
He looked towards the Great Sun Purple Ultimate True Lord, who stood with his hands behind his back three zhang away, bathed in Infinite Light.
"Fellow Daoist."
He spoke, his voice not loud, yet it was as if the first chime had been struck in an ancient, desolate temple.
"It's about to begin."
The Great Sun Purple Ultimate True Lord nodded slightly.
He did not adopt any defensive stance.
He did not activate the projection of the Great Sun, nor did he unfold the Divine Court form, nor did he even solidify the naturally blooming white lotus beneath his feet.
He simply stood still.
Like a solitary peak towering ten thousand feet high, I remain steadfast amidst the winds and rains of the sea.
Only a pair of clear, glass-like eyes gently closed.
Qi Yun said no more, and with his right hand, he made a very natural, almost imperceptible gesture forward.
The movements were understated and casual.
Like the Sage of Calligraphy making his final stroke on the Xuan paper, like a woodcutter splitting dry wood in the mountains, like an emperor writing "Approved" in vermilion ink on a memorial.
There is no track.
There was no afterimage.
There wasn't even a lingering trace of any Law Power fluctuation.
Because it's too fast.
The concept of "fast" itself is still in its infancy.
So fast that the Long River of Cause and Effect couldn't even record the trajectory of this attack, leaving only a blank space in the the Unseen.
So fast that even the attacked being—that supreme being standing in the position of True Lord —only realized it the instant the attack had already landed:
He was beheaded.
"Laugh----"
A soft sound.
It was as subtle as a silkworm gnawing on a mulberry leaf in spring, or as delicate as dew falling from an autumn leaf
A hundred feet behind the Great Sun Purple Ultimate True Lord, a thin crack suddenly appeared on the boundless, milky-white, radiant earth.
The slit was as straight as a string, and its edges were as smooth as a mirror.
It is bottomless.
It was as if this strike had not cleaved through the void, nor through the Principle, but rather through something more essential, the very essence upon which this Speck of Dust Grotto-Heaven depended for its existence.
And the Great Sun Purple Ultimate True Lord -
He remained standing with his hands behind his back.
His face remained gentle and serene.
The Purple Ultimate Dao Pivot mark between his brows still shimmered with a faint, glassy luster.
Only a single strand of dark hair at his temple, cut clean at the root, hung down.
The fracture surface is smooth.
It's like being gently brushed by the sharpest blade at the most opportune moment.
The strand of hair drifted down from the air, and before it could touch the radiant earth, it turned into specks of light and vanished without a trace.
The Great Sun Purple Ultimate True Lord opened his eyes.
He looked down at his empty hands.
a long time.
He spoke, his voice still gentle, yet carrying an extremely rare, almost hesitant solemnity: "Just now—"
He paused, as if savoring the memory of that now-vanished attack.
"I saw it."
"I saw the trajectory of that slash."
"I saw how it tore apart cause and effect, how it transcended space, how..."
He raised his eyes and looked at Qi Yun: "How did it land three inches in front of my brow?"
Qi Yun did not respond.
He simply waited quietly.
The Great Sun Purple Ultimate True Lord continued, "I saw it."
"But there's no escaping it."
He spoke calmly.
It's like stating a universal law.
"That slash, in terms of cause and effect, was already destined to hit its mark."
"When I saw it, it was already aimed at my brow."
"To see is to be in the middle."
"Anyone ranked below you—in the middle—will surely die!"
Qi Yun lowered his eyes, looking at his empty palms.
That glimmer of bright yellow light had completely faded.
Like an emperor who, after delivering his final blow, lies down exhausted and must wait for the sunrise before donning his armor once more.
"One day."
He spoke softly, his voice not loud, yet it echoed clearly in the cave that trembled slightly from that slash.
"Can only be used once."
The Great Sun Purple Ultimate True Lord nodded. "That is indeed the case."
He stared at the lingering, bright yellow aura in Qi Yun's palm, a knowing glint in his eyes. "This technique is too domineering."
"So domineering as to defy common sense."
"Without this limitation, the wielder of this technique would not be human, but an executioner sent down by the Heavenly Dao."
Qi Yun did not refute.
He knew that the Great Sun Purple Ultimate True Lord was right.
This [Immediate Execution by Beheading] was a rift Qi Yun the world by [Supreme Sovereign Mystic Firmament] through countless battles and the embers of countless ages. After a long silence, he slowly clenched his fist and stored the completely dormant bright yellow light in his palm into the deepest part of his Purple Mansion.
That wisp of bright yellow, like a sword sheathed, lay quietly beside the emperor's throne.
Let's wait and see tomorrow.
northwest.
The sky hangs low over the wilderness, the land stretches endlessly into the distance.
This place is called [Black Abyss Rift Valley]. It is not within the territory of the Wuji Sacred Sect, nor within the sects of the Azure Sect, Phoenix Helm, or Yellow Springs Netherworld.
It is the collective karma of the Northwest Demonic Path.
Ten thousand years ago, this valley no longer existed.
At that time, the Northwest was still Savage Wilderness and desolate place of exile. The righteous and the demonic paths were locked in fierce battle. A demonic True Lord fell here, his blood splattering for thousands of miles, carving this bottomless fissure into the earth.
Later, more and more Devil Cultivator fought to the death here, died here, or were hunted down to their deaths here.
Their resentment, hatred, bitterness, and curses before their deaths seeped into the earth's veins and fused into the rock layers, turning this fissure into a "demonic brew" that had been boiling for millennia.
There are no sects here.
There is no mountain gate formation.
A blessed land where no one holds power.
There was only a vast, barren black wasteland, where the wind whispered like the murmurs of ghosts, and a hideous rift that stretched between heaven and earth, as if the earth had been cleaved open by some ancient god.
But tonight.
This place came to life.
The first thing to arrive was the wind.
It wasn't the typical biting wind of the Northwest, carrying sand and gravel and scraping like a knife.
It's a cold wind.
Emerging from the depths of the Black Abyss Rift Valley, carrying with it millennia-old chill and mournful howls, it caused the gray-white skeletons that had accumulated over hundreds of millions of years on the wasteland to churn and roll.
As the wind passed, the thin layer of frost on the ground cracked with fine lines.
The patterns spread, intertwined, and connected, eventually converging into thick, dark blue veins of light, like pulsating blood vessels.
Those are ley lines.
It is the legacy of countless sages who perished here throughout the millennia of the Northwest Demonic Path, their mutilated bodies, shattered Dao Foundation, and resentful spirits paving the way for future generations.
Formation.
Tonight, the formation has been activated.
The first beam of light came from the most remote place in the northwest, [White Bone Hill].
They were a group of monks dressed in greyish-white linen robes, their faces withered like dried corpses.
They do not ride swords, clouds, or any Law Artifact.
With bare feet treading on the thin layer of frost on the wasteland, each step caused the soles of the feet to lightly touch the vein patterns of the earth, and the person had already floated dozens of feet away.
silent.
Like a ghost.
The old man at the head of the group fluttered slightly in the wind, revealing his wrist bones, which were no longer flesh and blood, but stark white bones, with black gold threads connecting the joints. With each movement, there was a fine rubbing sound.
A young disciple beside him asked in a low voice, "Grandmaster, our White Bone Hill lineage has never emerged into the world for three hundred years. Why is it so tonight—"
The old man did not turn around.
He simply gazed at the Black Abyss Rift Valley that stretched across the heavens and earth in the distance, and at the countless streaks of light slowly illuminating the edge of the chasm, converging from all directions.
a long time.
He spoke, his voice dry and hoarse like the scraping of rotten wood. "There's going to be war in the Northwest."
"They're attacking the Central Land."
He paused, and two eerie green phosphorescent lights flickered deep within his sunken eye sockets. "The Central Land —we haven't been allowed to set foot there for ten thousand years."
The young disciple remained silent.
He remembered what his master had said before he died.
Master said that the founder of White Bone Hill was originally a Foundation Establishment True Person of the righteous immortal sect in the Central Land Plains. However, he was accused of being a demon by his fellow disciples for practicing the art of corpse dissolution, and his Dao Foundation was destroyed and he was expelled from the sect.
He dragged his crippled body and crawled for three years to reach the Northwest.
He died at the edge of the Black Abyss Rift Valley.
Before his death, he used his last bit of Law Power to carve four words on the ground:
I am not reconciled.
The third, the fourth, the fifth...
The visitors to [Soul-Devouring Cliff] are the quietest.
They were just a group of silent figures draped in black cloaks, their faces obscured, standing silently on the edge of the wasteland, neither moving forward nor speaking to anyone.
But all the cultivators who came within a hundred feet of them couldn't help but shudder.
That wasn't cold.
It is the instinctive fear of the true spirit being "watched".
The cultivators from the Five Poisons Cave arrived riding on a dark green cloud of insects formed by millions of poisonous creatures.
The buzzing of the insect's wings could send chills down one's spine even from dozens of miles away.
The old woman at the head of the group leaned on a cane carved from a centipede's spine. Her cloudy old eyes swept over the growing number of her companions on the wasteland, and her withered lips moved slightly: "Quite a few people—"
A young woman beside her whispered, "Grandma, our Five Poisons Cave has never interfered in sect disputes, why tonight—"
The old woman did not answer.
She simply raised her cane and pointed to the eastern horizon.
There, in the deepest part of the night, a faint, almost imperceptible bluish-white glow could be seen.
That's the direction of the Central Land.
"Little girl."
The old woman's voice was hoarse, like dried tree bark. "Do you know how the founder of the Five Poisons Cave died?"
The young woman shook her head.
Thirteen thousand years ago, the demonic forces of the Northwest launched their first counterattack against the Central Land.
"The Patriarch was the only one among that group to survive and reach the border of the Central Land."
"She stood before the boundary marker, and was killed by a Foundation Establishment Late Stage True Person from the Sword Pavilion with a single sword strike."
The old woman paused, and deep within her cloudy eyes seemed to reflect a blurry scene from ten thousand years ago. "That sword pierced through her brow and exited through the back of her head."
When she died, she was still clutching a handful of soil she had brought from the Northwest.
She wanted to scatter that handful of soil on the land of Central Land.
The young woman remained silent.
The insect cloud continues to flap its wings, its buzzing sound like the eternal tide.
Edge of the Black Abyss Rift Valley.
More and more streaks of light converged from all directions in the northwest.
There are those who ride on clouds of corpses.
There are those who have traversed the Blood River.
Some are hidden in the shadows, their silhouettes only occasionally flashing in the moonlight.
There were those who wielded flying swords made from the spines of living people, the blades still dripping with undried blood.
There was one whose body was entwined with the shrill cries of infant spirits, and with each step it took, a blood-red lotus flower bloomed beneath its feet.
This is the Northwest.
This is the demonic path.
This is a land beyond the reach of civilization, condemned for millennia by the righteous sects of the Central Land as "Outer Dao" and "devoid of all human ethics."
Their cultivation methods, in the Central Land, would result in them being sent to the Immortal-Slaying Platform, having their Dao Foundation destroyed, and their Divine Soul banished to the Nine Nethers.
Their ancestor was chased for three thousand miles, five thousand miles, and ten thousand miles by the righteous immortal sects, and finally died on this desolate land due to exhaustion.
Their fellow disciples died in one "purge of the demonic path" campaign after another, their bodies and spirits annihilated.
It's been ten thousand years.
Ten thousand years of accumulated resentment.
Ten thousand years of forbearance.
Dormant for millennia.
Ten Thousand Years -
I'm not reconciled.
The escaping light is still gathering.
One hundred thousand.
Three hundred thousand.
Five hundred thousand.
No one is counting.
There's no need to count.
Because the entire edge of the Black Abyss Rift Valley, stretching for thousands of miles, is now covered with all sorts of demonic escape lights.
No one spoke.
The million Devil Cultivator remained silent, as if dead.
Only those countless streaks of light illuminated this ancient, desolate Black Abyss Rift Valley, making it resemble a sea of aurora suddenly appearing in the polar night.
Cyan, red, black, white, dark blue, dark gold, pale green----
That is the original color of all kinds of demonic Cultivation Method.
That is the inextinguishable flame that generations of Devil Cultivator in the Northwest have ignited on this barren land with their mutilated bodies, shattered Dao Foundation, and resentful spirits over the past ten thousand years.
Suddenly.
A slight commotion arose in the crowd.
It's not fear.
It's a kind of almost instinctive palpitation.
Everyone—whether it was the Nether Ghost Dao cultivator riding the bone dragon, the Blood River Sect elder sitting cross-legged in the center of the Blood River, or the Soul-Devouring Cliff assassin standing silently like a tombstone on the edge of the wasteland—slowly raised their heads at the same instant.
Looking due north towards the rift valley.
There, in the deepest darkness, the void is silently tearing apart.
When Qi Yun stepped out of the void rift, there were no unusual phenomena under his feet.
Like an emperor at dusk on an ordinary day, he walks out of the palace with his hands behind his back to keep a promise he has waited for for ten thousand years.
Half a step behind, the direct descendants of the Holy Sect, including Black Mountain True Person, True Person Qianxin, and True Person Qingli, followed in silence.
There was no grand procession.
It lacks a grand and imposing aura.
However, when Qi Yun's deep blue figure stepped onto the highest black cliff at the edge of the Black Abyss Rift Valley, a million Devil Cultivator simultaneously lowered their heads.
A deafening shout instantly soared into the sky.
"Welcome, Holy Sect Master!"