Although the Great Warlock had suffered severe injuries, he paid no heed to the Dao arts cast by the young masters and ladies, focusing all his efforts on confronting Wei Yuan. The dead branch filled him with indescribable terror; had it not been for the immense shadow holding him down, the Great Warlock would have risked severe damage to his Avatar to break free from it.

Little did he know that when the barrage of pathetic Dao arts struck his body, the Great Warlock suddenly let out a painful scream. To his shock, every spell inflicted pain that pierced right through his soul!

He was both stunned and enraged. Could it be that every single one of these people was a Chosen One? But if they were, then how could their cultivation be so meager?

The Great Warlock had long since realized that most of Wei Yuan’s current power stemmed from external enhancements, and such terrifying enhancements could not possibly last. A snake’s endurance was legendary, so he was planning to bide his time until Wei Yuan’s enhancements had faded. He would then find an opportunity to make a sudden break for freedom. But now, pounded by so many Dao arts, even his Avatar was wavering from the sheer pain. The wound where the dead branch had pierced the python’s head was beginning to show signs of disintegration as well.

He abandoned all dignity and screamed, “Phantom, save me!”

A sweet, syrupy voice rang in Wei Yuan’s ears then. “This isn’t right, little big brother! Why don’t you let him go? We promise to withdraw right away!”

A figure shrouded entirely in a hooded cloak appeared at Wei Yuan’s side. It seemed to be appearing and vanishing constantly and drifting erratically. Above its head, ripples of water with a shadow here and there had taken form.

It was another Great Warlock!

Before she could utter a second word, the vast shadow above Wei Yuan’s head suddenly solidified. The next moment, a mountain-like pressure rendered her unable to move!

Phantom never imagined that Wei Yuan still had reserves of strength, much less enough to subdue her as well! Though it was only temporary, the implications were terrifying.

Wei Yuan twisted the dead branch in his hand with all his might, causing both the crimson python and the Great Warlock to let out a piercing scream. A gaping hole immediately appeared in the python’s massive head.

Phantom dared not dilly-dally. She gathered all of her mystic energy and charged with all her might, instantly breaking through the oppressive shadow.

Just then, a bright, silent flash of a blade cut through the air. A huge gash immediately appeared on her lower body, cutting through her robe and exposing pale, slightly pink flesh. Startled, Phantom vanished and reappeared dozens of zhang away. However, another flash of blade appeared and sliced another gash into her body.

It was only after taking two consecutive blows that she finally got a clear look at her opponent. She was a petite girl with straight black hair tied back in a simple ponytail. She had a pair of large eyes and a delicate face that was currently wearing a hint of perplexity. Her small hands, so white that they seemed to glow in the sun, were gripping an eight chi long saber that was brimming with the intent of oblivion.

Though they were dozens of zhang apart, the girl reached Phantom in a single leap and lashed out with her disproportionally massive blade. She was able to carve a third gash into Phantom’s body!

Phantom would wink in and out of existence dozens of times in a row to escape the girl, but she just could not shake her off no matter what. It was like the hyperkinetic girl was her shadow, inescapable and inevitable just like the flashes of blade she was unleashing. Several more wounds, some deep and some shallow, appeared on Phantom’s body in just the blink of an eye.

A full round of combat later, Phantom finally realized that the girl was only in the middle-stage of the Dao Foundation stage. However, her physical body and her saber techniques were out of this world. Limited by her cultivation, the girl could only inflict minor injuries to her. However, her counterattacks were all neutralized with effortless ease as well. Clearly, the girl’s combat skills had reached an unimaginably high level.

That said, Phantom knew what to do now. She flickered over a hundred times per breath while simultaneously casting various curses on the girl, instantly cutting her speed by half. This finally allowed her to turn the tables against the girl and gradually build up an advantage.

That said, Phantom still couldn’t defeat the girl in the short term, so she yelled, “Hold on for a bit, Blood Eye!”

While Phantom was being tied up by the girl, Blood Eye’s situation had become critical.

For every breath passed, his Avatar would disintegrate a little. The dead branch was a bonafide immortal object that absorbed the destroyed parts of his Avatar instantly, meaning that it was a permanent loss. He was slowly and painfully losing decades of cultivation and blood sacrifice power amounting to tens of thousands of sacrifices!

Overcame by terror, Blood Eye screamed at the top of his lungs, “Where is the human Avatar who infiltrated the realm? Tell him to save me this instant!”

An Avatar infiltrated the realm? Tensing, Wei Yuan’s senses abruptly homed in on an unfamiliar man standing in front of the merit hall. Already, he was reaching out and opening the door.

The situation seemed dire, but Wei Yuan actually relaxed and focused on suppressing the struggling python. The hole inflicted by the dead branch was widening by the second.

The young masters and ladies were still flinging their Dao arts at the Great Warlock with all their might. As shoddy as their techniques were, Wei Yuan was empowering them all with otherworldly fortune. Thus, every single spell that landed on the Avatar’s body inflicted actual damage. Though each strike dealt only minor damage, the cumulative effect was still noticeable.

The man standing in front of the merit hall clearly took more interest in the merit hall and Qingming than in rescuing Blood Eye. After all, how many people could resist such temptation that was two immortal objects?

He was a young man who appeared to indulge excessively in wine and women, yet a faint stench of decay emanated from his body. He had materialized out of thin air before the merit hall; no one knew how he had managed to reach the very heart of the realm. Even Wei Yuan, master of Qingming, was unaware of his presence until the moment he pushed open the hall’s door.

Smiling, the young man stepped over the threshold and entered the merit hall.

Suddenly, the scenery before his eyes transformed, and the merit hall disappeared. He found himself standing in the middle of a clearing with a single door in front of him.

The young man sneered. “This one has studied the art of arrays for seven decades. What hope does a mere illusion array stand against me?”

He knocked on the door one time, and rows of text immediately appeared on its surface.

This method of protecting important sites using arrays was very common not just among the major clans, but also the immortal sects. The text usually served as instructions for entering the secret chamber. After all, the array was designed to deter ill-intentioned outsiders, not to completely prevent entry. Moreover, regardless of whether the instructions were provided, the principles behind all arrays remained fundamentally the same. That was why the young man felt confident and unafraid.

He stared intently at the text. It stated:

A comet (of a certain mass and velocity) is approaching a terrestrial planet (of a certain mass, stationary) along the following path. Question: Will the comet collide with the terrestrial planet[1]?

The young man was stupefied. He recognized every single word in the text, but he couldn’t make head or tail of it when they were put together!

A few seconds later, he said tentatively, “It... wouldn’t collide?”

The door swung open with a creak. The young man froze again before bursting out laughing. “And here I thought it was a serious obstacle. Turns out it was just a ruse!”

Still laughing, he pushed the door open and stepped inside.

The scenery changed once more after he stepped inside. The door behind him had disappeared as well. When the young man looked around, he discovered that he was standing in the middle of a dark, infinitely vast space.

He blanched. This was not an illusion. He was actually standing in the Void right now! The door wasn’t a door; it was a teleportation array!

The young man no longer dared to act recklessly. In the Void, a single misstep could lead to total disorientation. And if he lost his way, then heavens know when—if ever—he would find his way out. For obvious reasons, the person who had set up this array would never come to his rescue.

It was at this moment a terrestrial planet appeared before his eyes, and a melodious yet wholly malicious voice echoed beside him. “Please follow the comet’s trajectory stated at the entrance. You will reach Qingming in one hundred breaths. Note: If you deviate from the trajectory by more than five degrees, you will be lost. You must find your own way back.”

The young man’s face turned ashen. He had solved countless arrays in his life, but not once had he encountered something like this!

His ancestors preached that one should not burn their bridges completely; and that it was wiser to take one path while leaving the others open. But clearly, whoever had set up this array didn’t learn from his ancestors. By setting up such an array, wasn’t this person afraid of ending his own lineage?

He forced down his irritation and carefully inspected his surroundings, calculating. However, his face only grew uglier over time.

This was the true Void. The array had basically opened a gap in reality, and stepping through the door teleported one into the Void. The entrance back to the human world was where Qingming resided. It was also the entrance to the array and where he had come in from earlier.

There was only emptiness in the Void. He could not sense where the entrance was at all. The only solid object in the Void was the terrestrial planet; a refined piece of rock to be exact. On the surface, it looked like he might find a clue or two there. In reality, it was completely useless. Even if he managed to get there, he would still be stuck if he couldn’t find the exit.

Not only that, his ancestral calculation art warned him that the terrestrial planet was where the Door of Death lay[2]. He absolutely did not want to go there unless he had no other choice.

Actually, considering his cultivation, he would probably be fine even if he did go to the terrestrial planet. However, the choice felt terrible. It felt like doing so would be admitting that he was... something.

Anyway, it would appear that the only way out of here was to follow the comet’s trajectory. He had a question, though. Was the trajectory actually calculated? From his perspective, it looked like it was hand drawn.

He was still stuck between a rock and a hard place when a man surrounded by four immortal swords suddenly appeared on the terrestrial planet. He was none other than Zhang Sheng.

Standing on the planet, Zhang Sheng said slowly, “You’ve traveled a long way, Fourth Elder. I apologize for not fulfilling my duty as a host immediately. I shall now give you the hospitality you deserve. You will never want to leave after you’ve tasted it.”

The young man sneered. “You are but a meager Dao Foundation. How dare you make such a grandiose claim?”

A faint smile spread across Zhang Sheng’s face. “You are not the first to say such things to me, and you will not be the last. One thing for certain, everyone who has ever spoken this to me has become my Heaven Merits. You will not be the exception.” 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

The Fourth Elder of the Xu Clan was so angry that he laughed. “Come then! Show me the mettle of a Dao Foundation of the Palace of Absolute Beginning!”

On the battlefield, Wei Yuan had finally withdrawn Life is a Flash. The massive shadow above his head had disappeared as well. However, the crimson python was completely missing its head. Only its body was still struggling on instinct.

The second Life is a Flash disappeared, every human cultivator reverted back to their original strength. However, it was enough time for them to kill over twenty thousand Shamans and annihilate most of their fodders.

The human cultivators had been pushed beyond their limits while Life is a Flash was active. As a result, many of them felt like they were on the brink of collapse when the boon was lifted. Some people couldn’t even maintain a grip on their weapons and fell on their knees.

Sensing an opportunity, the man-bear on the platform struck the human-skin war drum once more. The routing Shaman troops immediately turned around and threw themselves against the human defenders once more. A good portion of the middle guard had joined the battle as well.

The Shaman army had just returned to the trenches when Life is a Flash activated once more. The human cultivators, who had been struggling to stay on their feet or even lying on the ground in exhaustion a moment ago, abruptly found their second wind and launched another ferocious assault!

The humans bled the Shamans like a pig and routed entire platoons like nothing. Some time later, Life is a Flash was lifted, and even more human cultivators collapsed to the ground, gasping for breath.

Unwilling to accept defeat, the man-bear struck the human-skin war drum for a third time. The Shaman army returned only to come face-to-face with a third use of Life is a Flash. They routed in the blink of an eye. This time, the man-bear dared not strike the drum a fourth time. Already, some of the Shamans in the rear were beginning to flee in secret.

In reality, Qingming had already spent most of its blue water. It could not use Life is a Flash a fourth time. But thanks to Wei Yuan prematurely ending Life is a Flash and provoking the Shamans into counter-attacking, he was able to deliver two crushing blows in succession and utterly destroy their nerve. They dared not test him again.

Meanwhile, Phantom was still stuck fighting against the small girl wielding a stupidly big saber. Although the upper hand was firmly hers, she could neither defeat the girl decisively nor escape her. Suddenly, she screamed, “How much longer are you going to watch?”

The scream forced out a silhouette who had been hiding in the sky this whole time. Just like Phantom, they were wearing a long robe that covered them up from head to toe. Phantom’s scream triggered an ancient tree to pop into existence above their head, but it disappeared the next instant. The third Great Warlock kept glancing back and forth between the dead branch in Wei Yuan’s hand and the merit hall, but surprisingly, they did not make a move.

It was at this moment the entrance to the merit hall opened. Then, Zhang Sheng emerged while carrying the severed head of the Fourth Elder.

The warhorns were blown, and the Shamans’ remnant forces finally receded like the tide.

We won?

Slowly, the human cultivators climbed out of the trenches. Some wounded were pushing away the bodies and climbing to their feet. For a few moments, they simply glanced at the mountains of corpses and rivers of blood around them as if they couldn’t believe their eyes. Then, thunderous cheers broke out loud enough to shake the sky!

Wei Yuan had completely depleted his reserve of fortune during this battle. But after the victory, more bluish qi was rising out of the earth of the Great Realm. In the end, a total of thirty-three bluish qi were formed. In particular, one of them was pure blue in color. Not only was it deeper in color, it was thicker and denser as well. It was on par with the advanced fortune the shadow in the moon had bestowed upon him.

1. HAHAHAHA why is the author hitting me with psychic damage my brain is already damaged enough man. T_T ☜

2. In some arrays, there are eight types of doors: Life, Death, Open, Delusion, Rest, Scenery, Hurt, and Fear. I shouldn’t need to tell you what the Door of Death leads to. ☜