The Sovereign's Archive, a silent vault built to safeguard the secrets of the Cloud Heavens, became Lin Tian's final cultivation chamber. He had the knowledge, the power, and a looming deadline: Venerable Qiao, the Grand Unity Peak expert, was closing in fast. The spiritual chaos caused by the annihilation of the five Enforcers and Elder Fan was an open declaration of war against the Tier 2 realm, and Lin Tian knew Qiao would soon pinpoint his exact location.
He did not waste a second. Lin Tian, now stable at Grand Unity Immortal Stage 4, sat cross-legged on the floor of the Archive, initiating the most complex phase of his ascent.
[System Notification: Tier 2 Archive Acquisition Complete. Initiating Knowledge Integration and Grand Unity Peak Synthesis Protocol.]
The entirety of the Sovereign's Archive—the collective political, martial, and spiritual wisdom of the Cloud Heavens—was compressed and filtered by the Observer's Eye. Lin Tian's Divine Nascent Soul absorbed the knowledge, not as simple facts, but as fundamental Dao Code, instantly integrating every useful concept and discarding every flaw.
Lin Tian focused on the flaws he had cataloged in the Archives—the Heavenly Flaws that prevented Grand Unity Immortals from breaking through to the next level of power. He realized the bottleneck was ideological: the Grand Unity Peak required an Immortal to fundamentally understand and accept the chaos and imbalance inherent in the cosmos. Lin Tian, the ultimate strategist and optimizer, had already surpassed this ideological flaw.
He channeled his core power—the fusion of Fire, Earth, Water, and Wind—and began the final cultivation push. He pushed his power past Stage 5. His spiritual energy surged violently, but the Heaven-Shaking Soul Transformation Sutra provided a perfect anchor. He used the knowledge of the Heavenly Flaws to perfectly patch the minute, spiritual weaknesses that would have crippled any other ascending Immortal.
As he reached Grand Unity Immortal Stage 7, the power surge became too much for the Archive. The ancient, protective spiritual seals around the vault began to crack.
[WARNING: Spiritual Isolation Integrity Compromised. External detection probability: 80%. Initiate Evasion Protocol?]
No, Lin Tian commanded. The power-up is mandatory. The confrontation is inevitable. We maximize the speed of ascent.
He poured the entirety of the Archive's spiritual reserves—the energy contained within the jade slips and scrolls—into his core. The Archive, meant to last ten millennia, was instantly drained, collapsing into dust.
Miles above the Sovereign's Hall, Venerable Qiao stopped his frantic search. He felt the spiritual exhaustion of the Archive, followed by a sudden, terrifying spiritual spike erupting from the Hall's deepest levels. The spike carried the pure, unmistakable signature of the Divine Nascent Soul.
"There! The source!" Qiao roared, his gaunt face contorted in a mixture of terror and avarice. He plunged toward the Hall, activating his ultimate technique: the Grand Unity Collapse, a power designed to lock down a vast spatial area and crush any entity within it. He intended to trap and immobilize the thief before they could escape.
Inside the Archive, Lin Tian had just reached the final threshold. Grand Unity Immortal Stage 8. The energy was flowing perfectly, and the breakthrough to Grand Unity Peak (Stage 9) was within his grasp.
He felt the overwhelming, crushing pressure of Qiao's Grand Unity Collapse technique slamming down on the Hall. The pressure was monumental, far exceeding anything Lin Tian had faced.
Lin Tian opened his eyes. They glowed with the compressed, absolute power of his Divine Nascent Soul. He did not fight Qiao's technique. He used his knowledge. He found the flaw in Qiao's Grand Unity Collapse—a subtle ideological weakness related to the necessary balance between chaos and order.
Lin Tian channeled his power, but instead of attacking Qiao, he channeled the entire destructive energy of Qiao's technique into the surrounding Sovereign's Hall.
CRAAAAACK!
The Hall's massive, spiritual foundation—already weakened by Lin Tian's infiltration—buckled and broke under the pressure of Qiao's own attack. The entire Sovereign's Hall began to violently collapse inward.
Venerable Qiao screamed as his own technique, flawlessly turned against the environment by Lin Tian's strategic genius, destroyed the seat of his authority.
Lin Tian, using the brief window of pure, destabilizing chaos caused by the collapse, pushed his final reserves.
[BREAKTHROUGH ACHIEVED! Grand Unity Immortal Stage 9 (Peak). Host has reached the ultimate apex of Tier 2 power.]
Lin Tian did not linger. He used his newly stabilized Grand Unity Peak power to activate a massive spatial technique—the Void Step—a resource he had just synthesized from the Archive's most ancient data.
He vanished, leaving the Sovereign's Hall a heap of rubble and Venerable Qiao staring in paralyzed horror at the utter ruin of his world.
The Tier 2 game is closed, Lin Tian mused. Time to prepare for the final ascent.