The sky cracked.
Not gently.Not with ceremony.It broke.
Seven beams of divine light punched through the ruin's mist-veiled sky, spiraling upward like spears meant to pierce the heavens.
Each one burned with different power green, silver, crimson, violet, black, white, and a strange, soul-deep gold.
And from each, a pillar descended.
Ancient. Inhuman. Alive.
The Seven Pillars of the Void-Sealed Sage.
Heaven-ranked legacies sealed by a Nascent Soul cultivator mad enough to challenge the heavens—and smart enough to bury his power across seven trials, so no one person could ever take it all.
But he'd miscalculated one thing:
Everyone still would try.
Across the shattered ruin-scape, cultivators surged toward the pillars.Sect emblems flashed Snow Jade Pavilion, Crimson Night Sect, Divine Spring Sword Hall.But not just them.
From the sky descended three new figures strangers to most, but whispered of in corners where elders never listen.
Bai Lie – the White Flame Barbarian
Zhao Wuhen – the Ghost-Faced Blade
Lan Suya – the Harmonized Saintess
And suddenly, the battlefield wasn't a trial.
It was a war zone.
"Those aren't trials," someone gasped."They're thrones!"
"Grab one hold it until the pillar recognizes you!"
Mu Qingxue stood atop a floating terrace of ice, calm.
Xu Weiran phased into space near the Pillar of Shifting Void, blade half-drawn.
Yao Ling'er gritted her teeth as disciples surrounded the Verdant Venom pillar.
And Jiang Yunfan?
He just whistled, stepping into the open like a man arriving late to his own funeral.
"So it's musical chairs. Just with more stabbing."
He unsheathed Wordless Edge.
Blades clashed everywhere.
Formations collapsed.Blood flew.One genius from a side sect was cut down before he even reached a pillar his head bouncing twice before vanishing into the mist.
Yunfan met a pair of dual-saber twins guarding the approach to the Silent Steel pillar.
They moved like mirrored lightning fast, perfect, fatal.
He didn't speak.
He danced.
Sword in one hand, zither in the other, Yunfan stepped between them like a drunken breeze.
Three notes.
Two slashes.
One step.
And both twins dropped without a sound.
"You don't get to protect something you're not ready to die for," he muttered, walking over their bleeding bodies.
He reached the pillar.
Placed one hand on the cold steel surface.
And it resisted him.
Not rejecting.
Challenging.
Behind him, another cultivator tall, cloaked, crackling with wind rushed in.
"Move," he snarled. "This one's mine."
Yunfan didn't look.
"Then prove it."
In the distance, Yao Ling'er was surrounded.
Three Crimson Night disciples circled her, each with poison arts refined to a needle's edge.
She grinned then released a pulse of her own blood, tainted green and gold, and struck the ground.
A wave of venomous vines erupted, catching one of them mid-flash step and shredding his spirit shield in an instant.
Above, Mu Qingxue blocked five cultivators with a single sweep of her ice-wrapped blade, each of them crushed beneath illusionary snowstorms that stole their senses before cutting their nerves.
And at the Pillar of Shifting Void, Xu Weiran clashed with Lan Suya, her song-blades dancing around him while he phased in and out of space like a flickering echo.
"You're fast," she murmured, smiling."You're late," he replied and struck hard enough to tear a crater in the air.
All across the sky ruin, battles raged.
Geniuses fought.Weapons broke.Spiritual blood painted ancient stone.
And still the pillars did not choose.
Not yet.
"This isn't about power," Yunfan whispered, blocking a third attacker with his zither frame."It's about pressure. Intent."
His eyes narrowed.
"You want a sword?"
He stepped forward.
"Then withstand mine."