"Who are you?!"
Lingxiaozi's furious shout echoed through the hall, his terrifying aura pressing down on the crowd, making it hard to breathe. The early Golden Core sect leaders turned pale, sweat beading on their foreheads.
Qi Tian, however, sat unfazed, his fingers lightly tapping the table. "That's a question I should be asking you… Ling Xiao."
The name "Ling Xiao" struck like a blade, and Lingxiaozi's face drained of color as if stabbed through the heart. He staggered back two steps.
"You…" His voice trembled, eyes wide with disbelief. "Impossible… It can't be…"
The hall erupted in murmurs. Ling Xiao? Wasn't that the founder of Lingxiao Pavilion, recorded in their annals from three thousand years ago? How could he be the present Lingxiaozi?
Qi Tian rose slowly, his aura intensifying with each inch he straightened. By the time he stood fully, his presence rivaled Lingxiaozi's, deep and boundless as an ocean.
"Ten thousand years, and you've regressed," Qi Tian said, reverting to his true appearance with a cold smile. "Back at Tai Xuan Sect, you were late Nascent Soul. Now, barely half a step into Nascent Soul… It seems your path of possession and rebirth hasn't gone smoothly."
Lingxiaozi—or rather, Ling Xiao—faltered, his expression shifting before he let out a twisted laugh. "Qi Tian… It's really you! I should've known—only you could see through me with a single glance!"
He tore away his disguise, revealing a sharper, slightly aged face with a prominent sword scar across his brow.
"Fellow cultivators!" Ling Xiao turned to the hall. "This man is a remnant of the Tai Xuan Sect from ten thousand years ago. Since he's delivered himself to us, let him taste Lingxiao Pavilion's might!"
With that, he formed hand seals, and countless blood-red runes lit up across the hall's floor, forming a massive array. The runes writhed like living creatures, exuding a nauseating stench of blood.
"The Blood Refining Array?!" a knowledgeable sect leader gasped. "Lingxiaozi, you…"
"Silence!" Ling Xiao roared. "No one leaves this hall alive today!"
He waved his hand, activating the array. Dozens of blood-red beams shot toward the sect representatives, latching onto them like sentient tendrils, voraciously draining their essence and blood.
Screams filled the air. Weaker sect leaders were reduced to husks in moments, collapsing lifelessly. Others resisted desperately but found their spiritual energy slipping away rapidly.
Lin Qingyu was targeted by a blood beam, but a clear light flared from a protective jade pendant Qi Tian had casually given her, repelling the attack.
Qi Tian stood unmoved, the blood beams stopped by an invisible barrier before they could reach him. He watched Ling Xiao's atrocities with cold eyes. "To restore your cultivation, you've resorted to every despicable means."
"Hahaha!" Ling Xiao laughed maniacally. "These ants should be honored to contribute to my recovery!"
He greedily absorbed the essence drawn by the array, his aura surging past peak Golden Core, reaching true Nascent Soul stage.
"Qi Tian, ten thousand years ago, you overshadowed me. Today, I'll make you pay in blood!" Ling Xiao's face twisted as he summoned a blood-red sword. "This Soul-Devouring Sword, forged from the souls of nine thousand nine hundred ninety-nine cultivators, was made just for you!"
Qi Tian shook his head, his eyes filled with pity. "Ten thousand years, and you're still this foolish."
He took a single step forward.
Just one step.
The entire hall froze. The rampaging blood beams halted in midair, Ling Xiao's sword-raising motion stilled, and even the drifting dust stopped moving.
Time itself seemed to pause.
"Why do you think I've survived ten thousand years without perishing?" Qi Tian's voice resonated through the frozen hall. "Why do you think I saw through your disguise in an instant?"
He walked toward Ling Xiao, a golden lotus blooming beneath his feet with each step. After seven steps, he stood before him and lightly tapped his brow.
"Because I have reached the Supreme Dao Realm."
Crack—
A sound like shattering glass rang out, and time resumed. Ling Xiao was flung backward like a lightning-struck puppet, crashing through several walls and embedding into a stone pillar at the hall's end. His Soul-Devouring Sword shattered inch by inch, reduced to ash.
Pfft!
Ling Xiao spat a mouthful of blood, his eyes wide with terror. "The Supreme Dao Realm… Impossible! That's just a myth!"
Qi Tian didn't pursue. Instead, he turned to the surviving sect representatives, barely clinging to life. With a sigh, he waved a hand, sending a golden light that split into dozens of streams, entering their bodies. A warm current surged through them, healing their wounds at a visible pace.
"Thank you, Senior, for saving us!" The survivors knelt, gazing at Qi Tian as if he were a god.
Ling Xiao seized the moment to break free from the pillar, transforming into a streak of blood light to flee.
"Running?" Qi Tian snorted, reaching out to grasp the air.
"Ah!"
With a scream, the blood light was yanked back by an invisible hand, slamming Ling Xiao to the ground. He struggled to rise, his earlier arrogance replaced by abject fear.
"Qi Tian… No, Senior Qi!" He groveled, pleading. "I was wrong back then, but I had no choice! The fall of Tai Xuan Sect has hidden truths—I can tell you…"
Qi Tian's gaze was icy. "Speak."
"It was the Upper Realm! Someone from the Upper Realm wanted Tai Xuan Sect destroyed!" Ling Xiao said urgently. "I was just a pawn. The real mastermind is—"
Before he could finish, the sword scar on his brow blazed with blinding red light.
"No!" Ling Xiao screamed in terror. "I didn't say anything! Spare me—ah!"
Boom!
His head exploded like a melon, splattering red and white across the floor. His headless body swayed and collapsed.
Qi Tian's brow furrowed, his gaze turning to the night sky. The crack in the heavens, imperceptible to most, had widened slightly.
"The Upper Realm…" he murmured. "As I suspected."
At that moment, a strange fluctuation pulsed from the distance. Qi Tian's expression shifted, his gaze locking onto its source—the courtyard where the Xuanzong Sect was staying.
"The Mysterious Yin Spirit Body is awakening?"
Ignoring the hall's occupants, he vanished in a flash.
——
In the courtyard, Liu Hanshuang sat cross-legged in her room, enveloped in silvery moonlight that formed a thin cocoon around her. Following the Mysterious Yin Scripture Qi Tian had given her, she was channeling lunar energy to cleanse her meridians. Initially, all went smoothly, but as she attempted to break through to Golden Core, chaos erupted.
Her Mysterious Yin energy surged out of control, flooding her body like a breached dam. The room's temperature plummeted, thick frost coating the walls and floor. More alarmingly, the moon in the sky seemed drawn to her, a massive beam of lunar light piercing the roof and pouring into her.
"Ah!"
Liu Hanshuang let out a pained groan, her body lifting involuntarily into the air. Her consciousness felt tugged by a powerful force, threatening to dissolve.
At that critical moment, a figure appeared in the room.
"As expected, it awakened early," Qi Tian said, observing the moonlit cocoon around Liu Hanshuang with a slight frown. "Likely triggered by Lingxiao Pavilion's array."
He swiftly formed hand seals, casting a series of intricate golden runes that wove into a three-dimensional array around her. The array tamed the wild lunar energy, guiding it smoothly into her body.
"Hold fast to your core and guide the energy along the Mysterious Yin Scripture's path," Qi Tian's voice echoed in her mind. "This is your opportunity—don't resist."
Clinging to his words like a lifeline, Liu Hanshuang's fading consciousness stabilized. Gradually, she regained control, the lunar energy strengthening her meridians and dantian in an orderly flow.
Qi Tian reinforced the room's wards with additional seals to contain the awakening's disturbances.
Yet he underestimated the phenomenon of the Mysterious Yin Spirit Body's awakening. Despite the wards, a trace of lunar energy leaked out, bathing Lingxiao Pavilion in unusually bright moonlight. Streams of lunar essence converged on the courtyard like summoned spirits.
"What's happening?"
"Such potent lunar energy!"
"That's… coming from Xuanzong Sect's quarters!"
Cultivators from various sects stepped outside, staring in shock. Seasoned elders paled, recognizing the signs. "A spiritual body awakening?!"
Lin Qingyu, having just fled the hall with her disciples, saw the phenomenon above the courtyard. Her heart sank, and she quickened her pace.
At the courtyard gate, she ran into Lingxiao Pavilion's Second Elder and several disciples, rushing toward the same destination.
"Sect Leader Lin!" The Second Elder's face was grave. "What is your sect—"
Lin Qingyu forced calm. "Just a disciple's cultivation mishap. No need to trouble you, Second Elder."
"Cultivation?" The elder sneered. "This is clearly a special physique awakening! By cultivation world custom, such a prodigy should—"
"Should what?" Qi Tian's icy voice cut through as he appeared silently at the gate, his gaze sharp as a blade.
The Second Elder's breath caught, and he stepped back instinctively. He'd heard of the day's events—even the Pavilion Master (unaware of Lingxiaozi's death) feared this man. He dared not provoke him.
"S-Senior…" Sweat beaded on his forehead. "I only…"
"Leave," Qi Tian said, a single word.
The Second Elder, as if pardoned, fled with his disciples without another word.
Lin Qingyu stepped forward. "Senior, is Hanshuang…"
"The Mysterious Yin Spirit Body is awakening—a good thing," Qi Tian said, his tone softening. "Though the commotion is larger than I expected."
As he spoke, the moonlight in the sky pulsed violently, then surged into Liu Hanshuang's room like a whale swallowing water. A powerful spiritual fluctuation rippled outward.
"She's formed her Golden Core," Qi Tian said with a faint smile. "And reached mid-Golden Core directly. Impressive."
Lin Qingyu and the disciples were stunned and elated. Liu Hanshuang, breaking through to mid-Golden Core in one leap? Unheard of!
The door opened, and Liu Hanshuang stepped out, her presence transformed. Her skin glowed like snow, her eyes shone like cold stars, and faint lunar energy swirled around her. With each step, delicate ice lotuses bloomed beneath her feet, lingering briefly.
"Senior…" She approached Qi Tian and bowed deeply. "Thank you for your grace in remaking me."
Qi Tian gestured her up. "This is your own fortune." He paused. "How do you feel?"
Her eyes sparkled with excitement. "Better than ever!" She raised a hand, a delicate ice lotus forming in her palm. "I can control a new kind of power."
Qi Tian nodded. "The Mysterious Yin energy. Master it well."
At that moment, Zhao Hu pointed skyward, shouting, "Look! What's that?"
All looked up. The crack in the heavens, previously visible only to Qi Tian, had materialized—a jagged, ominous wound across the sky, glowing with an eerie red light.
"The crack has taken form…" Qi Tian's face grew grave. "Ling Xiao's death has accelerated its expansion."
Though Lin Qingyu and the others didn't understand, they felt an instinctive dread, as if something catastrophic loomed.
"Senior, what is it?" Liu Hanshuang asked uneasily.
Qi Tian gazed at the sky, his voice low. "A heavenly tribulation is coming."