At first, it seemed like nothing more than a subtle, ordinary shift.
All cultivators within the Immortal Nexus—long tormented by the dark aspect storms—suddenly began to glimpse fleeting fragments of the past.
It was as though they were gazing into a mirror.
The once-familiar world, their own childhoods, the years of hardship endured by their parents—layer upon layer of visions surfaced, stacking upon the mortal realm like overlapping reflections.
Across mortal kingdoms, cultivators clashed fiercely in the skies, flames illuminating the night like a second firmament. Within sects great and small, elders and predecessors discoursed on the Dao, expounding their methods with effortless grace, embodying the bearing of immortals amid casual laughter. Golden Core Perfected Lords commanded their Dao Fruits, their true forms spanning the cosmos, while fallen cultivators burst apart like radiant fireworks within the Light Sea—
History was slowly unveiling its true face.
One hundred and twenty-nine thousand six hundred years—the vast span since the Dao Lord battle. At this moment, the illusions of antiquity were no longer distant echoes, but vividly reflected before the eyes of all living beings.
Like scenery divided by a river—
Parallel, yet never intersecting.
Together, they formed a strange and variegated whole: clearly visible, yet utterly intangible, like a stage performance with no audience to witness it.
These anomalies did not remain confined to the Immortal Nexus. They spread across the entire Light Sea, permeating the Foundation Establishment Realm, and even extending upward beyond the [Sea of Bitterness]. Only the Netherworld remained excluded, faintly detached—as though it stood outside the system entirely. Even so, those alien reflections continued to encroach upon it.
"Boom!"
The [Purple-Azure Doushuai Fire] roared within the furnace. Lu Yang did not pause. Following the pill formula passed down by the First-generation Master of Beast Taming Peak, he steadily added auxiliary ingredients.
The greater part of his focus remained on the furnace.
Only a sliver of his awareness drifted outward, observing the unfolding transformations. As he watched the surging illusions, clarity arose in his mind:
It's the false history.
More precisely… the First History—the true history before the World Honored One attained the Dao. It has manifested. It is no longer concealed.
Lu Yang immediately understood.
It's beginning.
As though in response to his realization, the very moment the First History took shape as illusion, two radiant lights erupted into being.
Lu Yang saw them clearly.
They were the two immense figures that had previously pressed against the edge of the Netherworld, observing him with indescribable "faces." Now, as though satisfied with what they had witnessed, they withdrew their gaze and turned instead toward the unfolding currents of historical light and shadow.
In that instant, the Light Sea trembled.
Two unparalleled powers surged forward with unstoppable force, plunging into the flow of history, moving against the current as they advanced toward the source of karma.
Their coordination was flawless.
One surged like a boiling ocean, its spiritual power vast and overwhelming. The other gave rise to endless hues, condensing them into a single beam of profound mystic radiance.
[Myriad Laws!]
A formless voice rang between heaven and earth, its resonance like clashing metal. In the next instant, a sword cry erupted from the deepest layers of history—
"Zheng—!"
The sound of the blade was heard, yet no trace of its light could be seen. Only a brilliant expanse stretched across history itself, completely obstructing the mystic radiance formed from Dao Arts.
At the same time, the once-clarifying historical projections began to blur once more. Their connection to the mortal world weakened visibly. The two parallel strands—once so close—were forcibly pulled apart, their resonance severed, their shared future erased.
Sword Lord had made his move.
This Dao Lord—alone in sharing the benefits of the Grotto-Heaven Method with the Primordial Saint—now revealed his might, single-handedly holding back two Dao Lords.
Yet this was not without reason.
The First History—the so-called false history—the history in which Sisui had not perished—was the very foundation upon which the [Heavenly Dao] was established.
This was, by its very nature, Sword Lord's domain.
Under ordinary circumstances, Sword Lord alone would have been sufficient to repel the Dao Arts Dao Lord and the Spiritual Power Dao Lord, expelling them from the flow of history and severing all connections.
But this was no ordinary moment.
Because the gatekeeper—the World Honored One—had chosen not to act.
Though he was the foremost authority in such matters, he relinquished all intervention.
Indeed, the very emergence of these historical projections—manifesting across every corner of the Light Sea without warning—was itself his doing. Without his restraint, the Dao Lords of Dao Arts and Spiritual Power were free to intervene, granting the long-dead Sisui a fleeting possibility of survival.
[World Honored One, what are you trying to do?]
The formless voice resounded once more—vast, indifferent, devoid of anger, yet carrying the weight of absolute scrutiny. Though it echoed across heaven and earth, no living being could hear it.
The World Honored One offered no reply.
As the Dao Lords clashed, the historical projections continued to distort. The aftermath of their battle rippled backward through time itself, rewriting consequence and causality—
And countless lives within history were extinguished in the process.
However, the changes faded almost as quickly as they had appeared.
The conceptual imprints of the Spiritual Power Dao Lord and the Dao Arts Dao Lord vanished without a trace. The historical light and shadows seemed to revert to their original state, leaving behind not the slightest indication that any great battle had taken place.
This did not mean the Dao Lords had ceased.
Rather, their battlefield had already receded into the deepest layers of history. The visions perceived by ordinary beings were nothing more than the outermost remnants of that conflict. Only cultivators of sufficient attainment could pierce the veils of time and glimpse the unparalleled struggle now unfolding within history itself.
They fought in the era thirty thousand years ago.
In that age, Perfected Lord Ling Xiao, the Eastern Sovereign, had just attained the [Pine and Cypress Wood] Dao Fruit. The Grotto-Heaven Method, refined to its zenith, ushered in an era of extraordinary flourishing across the Light Sea.
They slaughtered in the era sixty thousand years ago.
In that age, the Dao Lords had already ascended the [Paramita], while the First-generation Master of Beast Taming Peak was laying the groundwork for the Netherworld. It was the resplendent era of the First-generation Four Peak Masters.
They waged a bloody battle in the era one hundred and twenty thousand years ago.
In that age—only nine thousand six hundred years removed from the Dao Lord battle—the conflict finally ground to a halt, settling into a precarious stalemate.
The power of the Dao Lords—formless and immeasurable—reverberated across that distant past. Even the faintest residue of their clash was enough to alter the entire trajectory of the Second History. Peerless geniuses rose in its wake; extraordinary figures fell because of it. World Realms shifted, and the Light Sea itself dimmed under its influence.
And at the origin of all this chaos—
At the heart of this temporal storm, where tangled karma converged—within that illusory history long dismissed as false—there shone four radiances that were anything but illusion.
Neither side would yield.
For whether Sisui lived or died determined, respectively, the continuation of the [Heavenly Dao] or the completion of the Three Foundations. Taken to its extreme, this was nothing less than a contention over the Dao itself.
How could there be compromise?
And this… was precisely what the World Honored One intended.
Above the [Paramita], the golden Buddha formed by the World Honored One lifted his gaze, looking toward that minute yet untouchable black figure standing at the apex of existence.
"What do you intend to do?"
Sword Lord, Cang Hao, Spiritual Power, and Dao Arts—the four Dao Lords were now entangled within the web of the Second History. There were no longer any tools left for you to manipulate from afar.
"If you wish to intervene, you must act yourself."
In the very next instant, as though affirming the World Honored One's judgment, the dense fog of the [Paramita] was torn apart. The tiny black figure remained standing high above, upon the dome of heaven.
"Hehe…"
A calm, measured chuckle descended.
At once, the winds and clouds churned violently. The spiritual energy of the Light Sea collapsed in an instant, transforming into a vast tidal surge that swept across multiple World Realms.
As this tide approached the Immortal Nexus, it condensed into a colossal palm—its lines clearly defined, bearing an overwhelming pressure capable of overturning heaven and earth. Descending from an immeasurable height, it shattered the void, transforming into pure radiance as it surged toward the Netherworld.
"Mmph!"
At that moment, Lu Yang—still focused on pill refinement—felt as though time itself had frozen. An eternal stillness enveloped his consciousness without warning.
Yet almost simultaneously—
"Amitabha!"
Accompanied by the solemn chant of a Buddha, an equally immense force of spiritual energy gathered and descended—this time taking the form of a colossal foot, which struck fiercely toward the incoming palm.
"Boom!"
Palm and foot collided.
In that instant, all brilliance within the Mortal World was extinguished. The stars dimmed, their light swallowed whole, leaving behind only the clash of supreme wills reverberating within the unseen.