Mu Fengxian's determination didn't only show in love.
It showed in cultivation.
More than once, the high ancestor crashed into his courtyard in the middle of the night, phoenix aura burning, eyes like sharpened blades.
"Ren," she would say, voice rough from hours of training in lava caverns and flame arrays. "Dual cultivation. Now."
He'd look up from whatever he was pretending to read—a jade slip, a dusty scroll, a random array map he'd already solved twice—mouth quirking.
"Look at you," he'd drawl, lazy and amused. "Storming in like somebody ran off with your favorite treasure."
Her phoenix aura flared, pressing against his formations as if she meant to burn a path straight through his courtyard.
"Less talk. More—"
"Uh-uh." He stepped in, close enough that her fire curled around his chest instead of the walls, fingers lifting her chin with a gentleness that didn't match the heat in the air. "Tell me what you really want. You know you can't hide from me."
Her cheeks flushed, the color a vivid contrast against skin that had grown smooth and youthful again after her Life Destruction—no more wrinkles, only sharp beauty and sharp will. But Mu Fengxian had never been someone who backed down just because she was flustered.
"I want to grow stronger," she said quietly, every word pulled straight from her Dao Heart. "This old ancestor… does not want to be the weak link beside you."
For a moment, all the teasing dropped from his eyes.
"You're not," he said. No grand speech, no flowery coaxing—just simple, solid truth. "Not even close."
Her breath hitched, just once.
"But," he continued, grin sliding back into place, "if you're telling me you want to be stronger, I'm not exactly going to say no."
He coaxed the rest out of her piece by piece.
How it felt to watch him stand in midair and adjust an island-spanning formation with a single wave of his hand, like a man straightening a painting. How something inside her twisted when she saw Mu Qianyu, Mu Bingyun, Mu Qingyi, even little Xiaoqing stepping into monstrous realms one after another under his guidance. How desire and ambition tangled until the only way she knew to untie them was to throw both body and Dao at this maddening, infuriating, reassuring man.
Ren listened without interrupting, hands tracing idle circles against the side of her neck, eyes never once turning dismissive or bored.
He only smiled.
"Good," he said when she finally ran out of words. "Keep being greedy like that."
Then he pulled her into his arms, and the night turned into something fierce and bright.
He didn't just pour true essence into her and call it a day. Every time, he used the hours that followed to polish her Dao Heart as carefully as he tempered her Spirit Body—pressing praise between teasing, drawing out confessions with lazy kisses, pushing her just enough that when she staggered out at dawn, her aura burned a little clearer, her back a little straighter, and her eyes a little softer when they turned toward him.
Grandmist-laced lotus petals glowed faintly under her skin when she cultivated, Heavenly Demon Lotus patterns wrapping her Life Destruction foundation like a second skeleton. Within her inner world, the broken fragments of her old body had reformed again and again under tribulation lightning, every crack smoothed, every flaw ground away. Now, with Ren's aura braided into her meridians and that strange foreign Heaven whispering above her soul, Mu Fengxian's combat strength quietly climbed toward a level that is far superior to anything in the lower realms.
At dawn, elders on duty sometimes froze mid-step.
The high ancestor they were used to was stern, untouchable, carrying herself like a mountain that had forgotten how to bend.
The woman who walked out of Ren Ming's courtyard was still that mountain—only now, her hair was slightly tousled, phoenix aura honed to a razor edge, eyes bright as fresh flame. She walked a step ahead, chin lifted, every movement bearing the quiet confidence of a woman who had faced tribulation and desire both and refused to yield to either.
Ren followed half a step behind, hands tucked into his sleeves like some lazy young master who had accidentally become a calamity. One hand rested on the small of her back, thumb drawing idle circles there as if the most natural thing in the world was to be openly affectionate with the most revered woman of Divine Phoenix Island.
No one dared to gossip aloud.
But the ripples spread.
Mu Yuhuang alternated between exasperation and a warmth she refused to name. The Island Master would see Mu Fengxian laugh—actually laugh, freely, like the girl she'd once been—and the corners of her own mouth would tug up before she remembered she was supposed to be dignified.
Mu Qianyu often hid a smile behind her sleeve, eyes tender as she watched the two pillars of her life find a new balance. The way Ren called "Fengxian" by name with that infuriating ease. The way Mu Fengxian pretended to be annoyed but never actually pulled away.
Mu Qingyi and Mu Bingyun suffered more.
The first time they slid open Ren's courtyard door to discuss array adjustments, they froze like stone statues.
Mu Fengxian had him pinned against a pillar, phoenix aura coiling around his waist, his back pressed to carved stone. Her hands braced on his chest; his fingers tangled in her hair. Their lips were locked in a kiss that was neither gentle nor restrained.
And it wasn't just the Mu women.
The official reports that Divine Phoenix Island sent out were dry.
"Murong Zi, Qin Xingxuan, Bai Jingyun, Na Yi, Na Shui: all have stepped into Xiantian."
On jade, it looked like nothing. Five names. One realm.
In truth, every breakthrough had been a small storm.
A crimson spear shadow spun like a dragon around a slim figure. Murong Zi's long hair whipped in the cyclone's wind as scarlet true essence rose from her dantian, forming a vortex that pierced straight into the heavens. At its core, a lotus petal quietly turned, dyeing flame with a dark-rainbow sheen.
In another, Qin Xingxuan's spear light shot up, a slender yet unyielding column of power. The cyclone around her was not just wind—it carried faint echoes of dragon roars. The Azure True Dragon Infinity Seed in her bloodline pulsed; true essence surged, never thinning, only growing deeper, richer, steadier.
Na Yi's cyclone was heavy and deep, as if the earth itself had begun to breathe. Each revolution compressed element and force together, Heaven-Piercing Elemental Canon and Heavenly Demon Lotus intertwining until a dark lotus mark surfaced on her bare shoulder, wrapped in earth-yellow and thunder-violet light.
Na Shui's vortex was a twisting river, water and wind weaving together, ice-cold currents hiding blades of compressed Law, every turn storing impressions of force in bone and marrow. Bai Jingyun's was the quietest, yet the sharpest—her cyclone so clean it was nearly invisible, only the sword marks on the chamber walls proving it existed at all.
Five cyclones. Five Xiantian.
Divine Phoenix Island did not broadcast these scenes. There was no need. The proof of their advance was in the way their auras changed when they stepped back onto the training fields.
They no longer moved like juniors testing their limits.
They moved like blades being drawn.
Mu Xiaoqing's progress was even less dramatic on the surface.
In a secluded cavern warmed by the Phoenix flame sea, she sat cross-legged, her slim figure wrapped in three colors of light—fire, wind, thunder all circulating along the modified paths Ren had opened for her.
Her Revolving Core spun quietly in her dantian, shrinking.
Not weakening—compressing.
Each turn shaved away tiny imperfections, shaved away unnecessary turbulence in her true essence flow. The Heavenly Demon Lotus faintly imprinted on her back pulsed with her breath, sinking deeper into her meridians as her core grew smaller, denser, brighter.
By the time she exhaled, her realm hadn't leaped.
She was still at Revolving Core.
But now: peak Revolving Core, foundation polished to a terrifying smoothness, every thread of true essence so compressed it might as well have crossed half a great realm on its own.
To anyone watching from outside, it looked like a quiet seclusion.
To Ren Ming, this four-month period—filled with Life Destruction tribulations, endless formation revisions, and nights tangled with soft laughter and heated kisses—could be summed up in the most casual of phrases:
A damn good four months.
…
The rest of the world didn't see any of that.
What they saw were results.
Four months from now, the Seven Profound Valleys were supposed to host their usual Total Faction Martial Meeting.
Every kingdom, every martial family, every third-grade sect under their banner was commanded to send their finest juniors. In name, it was the same grand gathering held every three years—an internal culling, a way to select seeds worth investing resources in, a show of power to remind the South Horizon Region who sat at the top.
In truth, this time, everyone understood.
This gathering would determine how the Seven Profound Valleys faced Ren Ming from now on.
Originally, the plan had been simple.
Ren's disciples—Murong Zi, Qin Xingxuan, Na Yi, Na Shui, Bai Jingyun, and the newly elevated juniors from the Heavenly Abode—would face the Seven Profound Valleys' disciples head-on. A brutal but contained clash; a chance for the Valleys to test how deep his teachings ran, and for Ren to decide how much face he felt like giving them afterward.
The South Horizon Region, the neighboring Five Element Region, even distant provinces would watch with curiosity.
That was the plan.
Then Murong Zi shattered Thundercrest Sect's Thunder Soul and sent Lei Jingtian flying in a single exchange.
Then, across the Five Element Region, the other lotuses bloomed.
Everywhere they went, Ren's disciples carried lotus imprints on their backs and the strange, terrifying influence of his Heaven-Piercing Martial Intent in their strikes.
Everywhere they went, they left behind more than broken formations.
They left sects with cracked pride and shaken Dao Hearts.
By the time Thundercrest's full humiliation spread—Lei Jingtian injured, Thunder Soul fractured, an entire sect moving like mourners walking away from open graves—the Five Element Region's top sects were no longer merely curious about Divine Phoenix Island's new Guest of Fire.
They were under pressure.
…
In Sunfire Sect's main hall, elders sat in heavy silence. Jade slips floated before them, each one replaying a different defeat—Murong Zi's spear turning their Sunfire disciples' flames into scattered embers, Qin Xingxuan walking through their fire arrays as if through morning mist.
"Murong Zi, Na Yi, Na Shui, Qin Xingxuan, Bai Jingyun…" an elder muttered, face pale. "These children…"
He remembered the day Murong Zi had first visited their sect as an "exchange disciple"—a polite title for what had been a test. Back then, he'd watched her spear compress Sunfire Laws into a single burning pinprick before scattering them with one flick. He had comforted himself with the thought that she was simply a rare prodigy.
Now he read the report that Lei Jingtian—whose thunder had once made the heavens tremble—had been knocked away like a junior who had just formed his revolving core.
His heart went cold.
"If we stay away from the Martial Meeting, our juniors will spend the rest of their lives hearing stories," another elder said hoarsely. "Stories of Divine Phoenix Island's monsters. Stories of Murong Zi laughing as she shatters sect after sect. Those stories will carve shadows in their Dao Hearts."
The Great Elder's fingers tightened around his armrest until the wood creaked.
"Prepare," he finally said. His voice held the crispness of a man cutting his own path. "We will send our chief disciples. Let them see with their own eyes how wide the gap is. Whether they stand tall or kneel… it is still better than hiding."
Similar conversations unfolded in other halls.
At Deep Earth Sect, elders who had once clasped their hands behind their backs and offered excuses—"Our disciples were careless, their formations incomplete"—now stared at the cracked earth that had once been their pride. The floor of their council hall still bore the marks of Na Yi's fists.
At Arctic Ice Palace, Bai Aoxuan opened her eyes on her snow jade platform, frost swirling around her long sleeves. She watched Bai Jingyun's battle through a transmission array, the sight of flames slicing through her sect's ancient ice techniques leaving a bitter taste in her mouth.
At Storm Valley, at Verdant Wood Sect, at Golden Bell Mountain where bells rang hollow after being struck by lotus-backed fists and rune-wheels of fire, masters weighed pride against reality.
In the end, pride bent.
They chose to go.
…
And it wasn't only them.
Far beyond the Profound Sky Mountain Range, in the Profound Province, a floating palace of revolving black-and-white light shimmered above a vast city.
Yin-Yang Profound Palace—number one sect of the Profound Province, newly promoted to fifth-grade, a power whose name had already begun to spread across the Sky Spill Continent—cast its gaze southward.
Inside a hall where yin and yang light flowed like slow tides, the Xing couple—the Twin Stars of Yin and Yang—sat across from each other.
Xing Ji's eyes were half-closed, long fingers drumming a slow, thoughtful rhythm on the arm of his chair.
"…This Ren Ming," he said at last, voice low. "His Art is… strange."
Yin and yang light rippled along the walls as he spoke, reacting faintly to his unsettled mood.
Xing Can's gaze was sharper, cool and penetrating. Black-and-white reflections turned slowly in her pupils.
"The South Horizon Region is a countryside," she said. "Normally, we would ignore such commotion. But Divine Phoenix Island is a fourth-grade sect. If their foundation truly changes… and a man whose methods can raise so many monsters stands behind them…"
Her fingers tapped the chair's arm, a pattern that mirrored her husband's, but more decisive.
"We should at least take a look."
They had already heard rumors from the Divine Kingdoms—whispers of a "foreign Art" devouring thunder and fire like they were mere embellishments, of a man who killed Xiantian elders as if crushing ants and heavily injured a Revolving Core elder of the Seven Profound Valleys with casual ease.
A jade slip flickered before them, carrying the latest report.
"Let Xing Yang go," Xing Ji suggested. "Some juniors as well. And Elder Zizzan to watch over them. If this Ren Ming is truly so monstrous, our younger generation will at least broaden their vision. If not… our Yin-Yang Profound Palace loses nothing by sending a delegation to watch Divine Phoenix Island and the Seven Profound Valleys quarrel."
Xing Can nodded once, decisively.
"Send word to Zen City as well," she added. "The Great Zen Temple will not ignore such a gathering."
…
In the Great Zen Region, bells tolled slowly under a sky washed with incense smoke. The Great Zen Temple, an ancient fifth-grade sect that had dominated its region for thousands of years, had always prided itself on watching the world with calm eyes, stepping only when necessary.
A young monk knelt in a quiet hall, sunlight spilling across polished stone.
"Abbot," he said softly. "Reports from the South Horizon Region. A foreign Art is being cultivated under Divine Phoenix Island's roof."
Across from him, a white-browed abbot folded his hands, prayer beads slipping between his fingers.
"Foreign Art?" the abbot echoed.
"A man named Ren Ming," the monk continued. "His realm does not seem high by our standards. Yet he has killed multiple Xiantian elders as if slaughtering chickens, heavily injured a Revolving Core elder of the Seven Profound Valleys, and raised a group of women whose realms and battle power defy common sense. Their Daos… do not match this world."
Silence fell.
Then, slowly, the abbot smiled, eyes creasing at the corners.
"Interesting," he murmured. "The South Horizon Region is not usually where storms begin. Perhaps it is time our temple sent someone down the mountain to walk among common peaks again."
He rose, robes whispering.
"Inform Zen City," he ordered. "We will send observers to this Martial Meeting. Tell them to watch… and to learn. If this Ren Ming is a calamity, we will know. If he is an opportunity, we will also know."
…
Even within Divine Phoenix Island itself, pressure rose.
In a remote lava cavern beneath the island, Mu Chihuo stood alone, bathed in dim crimson light. Rivers of molten rock flowed beneath the thin bridges of stone, heat distorting the air, phoenix flames dancing along the walls like restless spirits.
A faint demonic aura leaked through a crack in space at his side.
Whispers slithered out with it, words carved from shadow.
"…Martial Meeting… preparations… send us every change…"
Mu Chihuo's hands clenched until his knuckles whitened.
On one side of his mind, he saw Ren Ming standing beside Mu Qianyu, casually directing the island's core fire arrays, lazy posture completely at odds with the ancient grandmist Heaven dimly visible behind his eyes.
He saw Ren calling Island Master "Yuhuang" like an equal, arguing about formation nodes with an easy smile, treating Divine Phoenix Island's inherited flames as if they were toys he could disassemble and rebuild with one hand.
On the other side, he saw the South Sea Demon Region's emissary sitting opposite him, that man's smile curved like a serpent's tail, voice as soft as dripping poison.
Mu Chihuo had already agreed.
He had already sent small pieces of information southward—Ren's sudden clash with the Seven Profound Valleys, the way Divine Phoenix Island's core elders were slowly aligning themselves around him.
He could not step back now.
"Ren Ming," he whispered, staring into the churning lava. "If you had not come, this Mu Chihuo would have become the next pillar of Divine Phoenix Island."
He closed his eyes.
The cavern stirred. Phoenix flames wrapped around him, but they no longer felt as pure as before. In their depths, a faint, oily darkness swam—traces of the South Sea Demon Region's demonic influence, slowly seeping into his Dao.
Greed and fear twisted in his chest until he almost couldn't tell them apart.
"…But now," he finished bitterly, "even my future will be decided by you."
Jade light flickered between his fingers as he sent another secret message into the shadows.
Somewhere far to the south, in the depths of a sea that had swallowed countless bones, an ancient demonic power smiled and changed its plans.
The Martial Meeting would not only test juniors.
It would be a stage.
…
The day of the Total Faction Martial Meeting arrived.
For the first time in many years, the Seven Profound Valleys felt… small.
The mountain range was wrapped in layers of formation light, seven great valleys linked together by glowing meridians of True Essence. Above each valley, huge suspended platforms floated like carved jade islands—Skysplitter, Acacia, Traceless, and the others—arrayed in a proud arc around the central arena.
Below, clouds were compressed into mist-waves beneath the platforms, faint patterns drifting within them. Kingdom banners snapped in a high wind, colors and emblems filling the sky—White Cloud, Splintersoul, Celestial Treasure, more. The subordinate martial families and sects of the Divine Phoenix Province gathered in full force, their uniforms and emblems lining the mountain slopes like layered scales.
On the surface, the Seven Profound Valleys' prestige was on full display.
At least, that was the intention.
On the main host platform, Jiang Wuji, Jiang Huang, and Shi Zongtian stood side by side. Robes neat, hair bound, expressions carved into masks of composed indifference.
They had practiced this look—the expression of sovereigns who had seen countless storms and never once bowed.
Cold. Detached. Above the dust of mundane disputes.
But behind their eyes, threads of unease wound tighter with every passing breath.
"News from Thundercrest," Shi Zongtian murmured, voice barely audible over the murmur of the crowd and the low hum of activated formations. "Confirmed again. Lei Jingtian lost in a single exchange. Thunder Soul fractured. Their elders still can't stabilize it."
Jiang Huang's brows twitched.
He had read that report three times. In his mind's eye, he could still see the phrases burned in: dark-rainbow lotus… Houtian junior… spear strike… fracture through the soul.
"Sunfire," Jiang Wuji added after a beat, eyes sweeping the guest platforms opposite them. "Deep Earth. Storm Valley. Arctic Ice. Verdant Wood. Golden Bell. Their core disciples all tasted defeat in the last few months."
He exhaled slowly, each word like a weight.
"Not at the hands of Life Destruction powerhouses," he said. "Not even at the hands of Revolving Core geniuses."
His gaze sharpened.
"At the hands of juniors," Jiang Wuji finished quietly. "His juniors."
Silence stretched between the three valley masters.
Shi Zongtian forced a laugh that sounded thin even to his own ears.
"What are a few junior duels?" he said, aiming for lightness and missing by a span. "The Five Element Region has always indulged competition."
His tone sounded reasonable.
His grip on his sleeve was white-knuckled.
They had, after all, personally watched Ren Ming walk into the Seven Profound Valleys alone and leave behind broken peaks and kneeling Sovereigns. They had felt the oppressive, alien flavor of his Dao—the way it had made their own Laws feel like clay toys.
Now, in only a handful of months, the ripples of that Dao had spread from Divine Phoenix Island to the Five Element Region.
Today, the entire Divine Phoenix Province was here to see how far those ripples had reached.
…
The guest platforms were arranged opposite the Seven Profound Valleys' main seat.
On the lower left, the banners of the Five Element Region's seven fourth-grade sects fluttered in a ragged row—thunder sigils for Thundercrest, blazing suns for Sunfire, stone and soil patterns for Deep Earth, a silver bell hanging for Golden Bell Mountain, green leaves for Verdant Wood, icy sigils for Arctic Ice Palace, and rushing cloud patterns for Storm Valley.
Below each banner, elders sat stiff-backed, faces carefully composed.
Thundercrest's seats were sparser than they should have been.
Where Lei Jingtian's imposing presence ought to have sat like a mountain, only a thinner thunder aura lingered. The man himself sat with a faint pallor, his expression calm, his spine straight—but every time his mind wandered, a phantom pain flared.
Thunder Soul.
Even here, half a world away from their main peak, he felt it: the cracked ancestral treasure, its thunderlight dimmed, its entire existence whispering a single truth—something stronger had forced it to kneel.
Opposite him, Sunfire's Great Elder clenched his jaw so tightly his teeth ached. Every time he blinked, he saw Murong Zi's spear compress their proud flame arrays into a single point before scattering them as if they had been dry leaves.
Deep Earth Sect's masters sat as if they were personally holding up mountains with their shoulders. Storm Valley's elders felt a phantom constriction in their chests, remembering rivers and winds twisting themselves into knots in Na Shui's hands until their disciples' techniques shattered.
They had come.
They had not dared do otherwise.
Further up and to the right, two entirely different auras pressed down like unseen skies.
One belonged to Yin-Yang Profound Palace.
Their guest platform was wrapped in revolving black-and-white light, yin and yang rising and falling in smooth waves. Elder Xing Zizzan sat beneath that radiance, his presence like a sheathed blade that still made the skin prickle. Around him clustered their chosen disciples and younger elders.
Xing Yang stood near the front, a portable yin-yang field swirling quietly around him, its currents adjusting with each breath he took. His gaze was calm, but the faint tightening at the corners of his eyes betrayed his interest.
They had not come because the South Horizon Region commanded their respect.
They had come because they had already tangled with Divine Phoenix Island once, in the Divine Phoenix Province's political maneuvers and the South Sea's chaos. They knew the name "Mu Fengxian." They knew what it meant for a fourth-grade sect to stand firm against them and the South Sea Demon Region both.
Ren Ming, the foreign Guest who had reshaped that island's foundation, was a variable they could not ignore.
On the far-right platform, simple golden bells and solemn Buddhist chants drifted through the air like a distant tide.
Great Zen Temple's delegation had arrived.
Their robes were sand-colored, plain and without ornament. Heads were shaven, beads dangling from wrists and necks. Yuan Kong and several other monks sat with palms joined, eyes half-lidded. Their presence did not crush; it simply existed, like an immovable stone in the middle of a raging river.
They were a fifth-grade sect that had dominated the Great Zen Region for thousands of years—a power that even the Five Element Region's seven fourth-grade sects had to bow their heads to.
Under ordinary circumstances, the Seven Profound Valleys would have been honored beyond words.
Today, Jiang Wuji mostly felt as if the roof of his own house had been peeled off, exposing every hidden flaw to the sky above.
"The Seven Profound Valleys welcome all honored guests," Jiang Wuji finally said, stepping to the edge of the host platform. His voice rolled across the air, boosted by formation lines etched into the very rock beneath his feet. "Today, we hold our Total Faction Martial Meeting as in years past. All kingdoms and sects under our banner have brought their finest juniors. We—"
"Not all."
The interruption was soft.
It still cut through his words like a spear through thin paper.
Jiang Wuji's gaze snapped upward.
A heartbeat ago, the sky above the central arena had been clear—blue, bright, only faintly warped by the Martial Meeting's protective arrays.
Now, without warning, a line had appeared in that sky.
Scarlet on one side.
Ice-blue on the other.
For a breath, no one understood what they were seeing.
Then the line widened.
Space groaned.
Everyone present felt it—martial artists, common attendants, even the mortals allowed to watch from distant mountain slopes. Heaven and Earth origin energy thickened as if a giant hand had pressed down on the clouds and forced them lower. The familiar aura of the Divine Phoenix Province—wood and water from the valleys, earth and wind from the surrounding mountains, fire from the volcanic veins—was pushed aside, replaced in part by something sharper, more ancient, and terrifyingly calm.
The sky split open.
A phoenix ship descended.
It was not built from ordinary spiritual wood or refined metal. Scarlet phoenix essence and pale-blue ice-phoenix flame had been smelted together, tempered in thousand-degree lava and deep-sea ice, then infused with threads of grandmist until the hull gleamed with a deep, subtle luster.
Along its underside, dark-rainbow lotus patterns had been carved directly into the keel. To the untrained, they were simply beautiful designs. To any formation master present, they were a walking Dao diagram—petals, veins, and arcs etched with such precision that each line tugged faintly on heaven and earth.
A faint Heavenly Demon Lotus aura spilled out from the ship like mist.
It did not roar.
It did not crash down like an arrogant heavenly tribulation.
It just… existed.
And the world remembered.
Thundercrest's elders stiffened at once.
In the shared link between Sect Master and Thunder Soul, Lei Jingtian felt his sect's wounded ancestral treasure shiver like a frightened beast. The moment that dark-rainbow aura brushed the sky, the Thunder Soul's fracture throbbed. For a terrifying instant, he felt as if the lotus pattern burning in his memory had appeared above Seven Profound Valleys as well, blooming in silent, merciless judgment.
On Sunfire's platform, a dozen ceremonial torches flickered. Flames that had always burn steady sank without warning, colors dimming by half. The fire-essence in them drew inward, as if some higher order of flame had appeared and the lesser ones instinctively knew to bow.
Deep Earth's elders shifted uneasily. The ground beneath their platform, stabilized by layers of earth Laws and formation, suddenly felt deeper—less like a foundation, more like the thin crust above a bottomless abyss.
Storm Valley's ever-present valley winds, summoned to dance around their platform in an elegant spiral, lost a sliver of sharpness. Air that should have cut like knives now felt just slightly dull in comparison to the invisible edges unfolding in the distant ship's shadow.
Even on Yin-Yang Profound Palace's side, Xing Zizzan's expression finally changed.
The yin-yang field around their platform rippled once, then twisted. For a brief moment, the perfectly balanced currents of black and white were pushed aside by something that refused to fit into their neat division.
He could feel it clearly—his carefully controlled Dao field being pressed down by an unfamiliar Heaven.
It wasn't obvious domination by brute power. It was more like the rules of the world had been gently edited, and yin and yang now moved within a broader, more indifferent framework.
"…That aura," Xing Yang murmured, fingers tightening around the railing.
On the Great Zen Temple's platform, the monks' fingers stilled on their beads.
Yuan Kong's chant faltered for the first time since he had arrived in the South Horizon Region. His eyes opened fully, pupils narrowing as he examined the grandmist-touched lotus patterns wrapping the ship.
He had seen many strange Dao fields—demonic Hells, righteous Buddha domains, twisted seals from extinct worlds.
This was different.
"…Interesting," Yuan Kong whispered again, but this time the word carried weight.
His heart, so used to stillness, quivered.