In this reclamation, no one had imagined they would actually unearth a multitude of immortals!
It was not a matter of one or two immortals; they had dug out an "immortal nest."
The crowd had no idea what the ancestral masters felt, but at the periphery of the vast desert, cultivators of every path were sinking into despair.
One could say that across all past Great Openings, there had never been such a nightmarish beginning. There was a real possibility of their entire race being exterminated in reverse.
"The ancestral masters possess the courage to slay immortals and annihilate gods, but facing this many immortals, how can they fight?" Even some grandmasters had grown deeply pessimistic.
Dao rhymes stretched out, surging like an ocean and paving a dazzling path that extended forward through the void. Atop it stood five figures.
The immortal-like being at the front seemed to say something to the ancestral masters below.
The ancestral masters' gazes were icy; they felt no fear toward the immortal-race beings in the sky.
They were calm and steady, their aura incomparably formidable.
"The immortal-like being seems to be trying to recruit the ancestral masters, demanding their submission," someone discerned.
Unfortunately, cracks had appeared across the Heaven-Illuminating Mirror, and the information transmitted was not clear enough.
The ancestral masters were unyielding. Not one wavered. With unshakable conviction, every single one chose to attack, soaring into the heavens in an instant to do battle with the immortals.
The combat armor on each ancestral master turned translucent, woven with patterns before erupting in blinding radiance. Facing a perilous crisis that could very well end in total annihilation, they showed not a shred of fear.
"Kill!"
Through the treasure mirror, onlookers caught sight of the terrifying spectacle: the moment the two sides collided, the heavy dark clouds blanketing the sky ruptured completely, illuminating the entire night sky as bright as day.
The mirror's surface burst apart, and everything vanished from view.
Yet at the edge of the desert, even without the Heaven-Illuminating Mirror, people discovered in horror that the darkness over the desert's outer reaches had been dispelled. Had the battle's fallout reached all the way here?
How vast was the area engulfed by their clash!
The ground was shaking. The boundless desert rose and fell like seawater, waves of sand crashing like tempestuous surfs upon a shore, hurling an endless sea of sand high into the sky.
Everyone was retreating. Two airships were swallowed by the yellow sands.
The entire great desert roiled in turmoil, its core erupting as if sun after sun were detonating.
"Ancestral Masters!"
Many cried out under their breath, intensely uneasy, terrified that all the ancestral masters might perish in battle. The mighty path-blazing ancestral masters had indeed slain immortals in the past, but they had never encountered so many at once.
"Heaven bless our race!" someone prayed.
If the ancestral masters fell in defeat, the consequences would be unthinkable.
In this world of night mist, once a race grew frail, it was likely to be targeted by countless scarlet eyes lurking in the dark. The direst consequence... was the total extinction of the race.
The region where the Five Immortals were was now impossible to observe; immortal light surged into the firmament, and the fluctuations were too violent.
Grandmasters like Ling Canghai and Lin Yuchen brought forth another Heaven-Illuminating Mirror and suspended it over nearby terrain, seeking to view the battlefield from another angle.
"This... how can there be other immortals?"
Even the most composed grandmasters turned pale. It was not a lack of faith in the ancestral masters, but that their opponents were simply too strong and too numerous, far beyond the reach of human strength to withstand.
What was projected this time was not an otherworldly domain, but real, physical tombs.
A massive burial mound was splitting open as boundless light blossomed, and an extremely formidable being was stepping forth.
Bathed head to toe in golden light that seemed to destabilize space itself, a white-robed man possessing an indestructible Vajra physique strode out. Every gesture and step radiated an unrivaled sense of power.
The expressions of many onlookers shifted. This person's physique was absurdly powerful, capable of warping space with golden haze.
Qin Ming was astonished. Could this be the man who had mastered the Vajra Scripture?
Beside him were two tall men: one had billowing blood vitality, while the other's consciousness was rather chaotic. They were two supreme drudges.
"As expected, it's the trio who mastered the Vajra Scripture!"
Su Yuxiao murmured, "Replacing divine bones, mending immortal skin, and the two drudges jointly fused and refined the Four Symbols sacred baleful energies. If they join hands, their strength can rival the most exalted figures in an immortal Dao arena."
Of those two drudges, one had fused the Vermilion Bird and Xuanwu sacred baleful energies, while the other had fused the Azure Dragon and White Tiger sacred baleful energies. The Four Symbols spanned the void, encircling the two supreme drudges.
"A mountain-high tomb buries an immortal—then there must be at least a dozen immortals here!" an old man voiced this despair-inducing truth.
The faces of several grandmasters turned deathly pale. In this reclamation, they seemed to have plunged straight into a pitch-black abyss.
"The sun elven race truly deserves total extermination—not a single one should be spared!" someone shouted in fury.
An elephant trumpeted, ringing through heaven and earth. A massive, snow-white six-tusked dragon elephant leapt into the void, closing in on the great tomb and aggressively launching an assault against the two supreme drudges.
At the same time, a purple lightning beast, cloaked entirely in lightning, soared through the sky and arrived as well, swooping down toward the white-robed man who had mastered the Vajra Scripture.
Behind the two beasts, a gigantic turtle emerged from the white mist, joining the charge.
"The ancestral-master-level powerhouses among the non-human beasts have come as well, but facing over a dozen immortal-like beings, it's still not enough!"
Immediately afterward, the mirror's surface shattered, and the scene vanished.
By this point, there was no place left in the depths of the desert where a Heaven-Illuminating Mirror could be deployed. The energy radiation across the battlefield vastly exceeded safe limits; any mirror suspended there would surely be destroyed.
"Let us retreat. This reclamation has failed!" a renowned figure spoke out in sheer despair.
"Where could we even retreat to? If the ancestral masters lose, wouldn't those immortals trace our origins?"
Deep within the boundless desert, the great battle was terrifying and brutally savage. Even from a great distance, one could see the night sky dyed crimson with blood.
When exalted figures broke apart, their blood essence resonated with Dao rhymes, spreading across the sky like sunset glow—seductive yet glaringly harsh.
Some of the crimson glow was Pure Yang blood, while some was the blood of physical flesh, both brimming with the origin essence of the mighty.
After a long time, the terrifying fluctuations in the deepest reaches of the desert began to ebb, growing less violent.
The hands of several grandmasters were trembling faintly, their knuckles white from clenching. Sensing something, they refused to give up hope and once again brought forth a Heaven-Illuminating Mirror to inspect the battlefield.
In a sea of blood, the small boat crafted from immortal wood had capsized and was shattered.
On the shore, the Present Rulai sat cross-legged. Bleeding from his seven facial apertures, his eyes remained shut and motionless, looking as though he had already... entered nirvana.
"Ancestral Master!" Xiang Yiwu and the others cried out, their eyes rimmed with red.
The gray-robed man who had been aboard the small boat knelt on one knee on the shore, coughing up blood incessantly. Faint white immortal mist curled around his body; he was not dead.
In another treasure mirror, what appeared was the land outside the Yin soil. A woman draped in a white gauze dress sat drenched in blood atop a large bluestone. On the ground before her lay shattered flesh and broken armor.
The image shifted. Atop a great mound, six enormous tusks lay broken, a massive tortoise shell was shattered, and a purple lightning beast was torn apart. The mound was thoroughly soaked crimson with blood.
In the distance, Helian Chengyun's crimson-gold armor was in tatters, his body bathed in blood. His final arrow had detonated a pitch-black, mountain-sized immortal-like creature.
Yet right at that moment, as though another realm had opened up at the main tomb, an enormous, pristine white palm reached out.
With a resounding bang, the giant hand seized Helian Chengyun—who was in the form of a stern youth—and squeezed with its five fingers, snapping every bone in his body as blood splattered high into the air.
Then, crimson clouds dyed the night sky as Pure Yang blood burst and scattered.
"Ancestral Master!" many from the immortal path cried out in grief.
"Old Ancestor!" Helian Yunji, Helian Yaoqing, and the others swayed violently, nearly collapsing to the ground.
Further away, the disheveled man whose left side had translucent flesh while his right side was decayed and blackened lay supine on the ground. A spear had impaled his skull, and thunderfire burned away, destroying his consciousness.
Translucent petals and falling yellow paper all turned to ash, burying him beneath.
Beside him, the old ancestral master of the esoteric sect sat motionless in silence. As the ground beneath him caved in, his body fell apart—he had already been cleaved in two from top to bottom, having perished together with the immortal-like creature in mutual destruction.
"Old Ancestral Master!" many on the esoteric sect's side cried out as well, hot tears rolling from their eyes.
Every sight that met their eyes was horrifyingly tragic.
In another spot, the sea of sand had vanished, leaving the ground like a vast abyss. Several ancestral masters were gasping for breath. Not an inch of their armor remained intact, its luster extinguished, their bodies covered in wounds and blood.
Before them, five immortals lay dismembered.
Yet there were also shattered flesh and broken bones left behind by ancestral masters; an untold number of senior predecessors had died in battle.
"Some ancestral masters are still alive! They slaughtered five immortals!"
People's hearts shook with emotion as a sliver of hope rekindled, bringing a glimmer of anticipation.
Suddenly, from the core of this region at the main tomb, a grandiose voice boomed out. It sounded like thunder, or like heaven and earth colliding, deafening to the ears.
"Very good. All of you possess the cultivation of the strong sixth realm, or even an anomalous sixth realm. It seems your civilization is exceedingly splendid; every being who stepped forth is overly strong for their cultivation level, with great promise of blazing a path into higher realms in the future."
At the main tomb, black mist and white mist roiled together, jointly constructing a Bridge of Yin and Yang that seemed to connect life and death, leading into a realm of Yin soil.
"However, this current hurdle is not one you can overcome. Even if you defeated several immortals, that merely granted you the preliminary qualifications to meet me."
Within the main tomb, the Yin soil was boundless and vast. A colossal golden lotus bloomed, its core pitch-black as ink, upon which sat a being shrouded in white mist.
"An Earth Immortal?" Outside the desert, several grandmasters gasped in the night mist, feeling terror and shock.
"Why are there so many immortals here?" They could not understand. And shockingly, an Earth Immortal truly resided in the main tomb.
The ancestral masters were already gravely wounded; those who survived likely possessed little combat strength left.
"By ushering my emergence into the world, you have earned merit. Do you wish to follow me and attain the status of Heavenly Immortals?" spoke the entity suspected to be an Earth Immortal from atop the colossal golden lotus.
The surviving ancestral masters, most of their armor broken and missing, supported themselves as they stood up. Though their vital energy had waned, their aura remained formidable. Showing not the slightest respect toward the Earth Immortal, they held fast to their powerful conviction.
With a thunderous roar, they all erupted into blinding brilliance, looking as if they were setting themselves ablaze.
Simultaneously, thirty-six metallic pillars surfaced across this domain, densely covered in runes that illuminated this stretch of heaven and earth, bringing the entire great desert to the verge of boiling over.
"The Thirty-Six Dragon-Tiger Heaven-Anchoring Divine Stakes?" Ling Canghai cried out in shock, losing his composure completely.
These were divine stakes capable of stabilizing the lands and rivers, forged jointly by all the ancestral masters of the immortal path, the esoteric sect, and the Newborn path. They were lethal ultimate weapons, deployed only when the rise and fall of their race's fate hung in the balance.
Sure enough, they had brought them along on this reclamation.
However, it had a fatal flaw: activating such an ultimate weapon required the deaths of many ancestral masters.
For each divine stake already had an extraordinary origin as a forbidden object, and after being reinscribed with runes and continually refined by the ancestral masters, they had become even more perilous.
The surviving ancestral masters jointly activated the thirty-six divine stakes, even as their own bodies neared dissolution.
"We will either refine and destroy you, an Earth Immortal, or reseal all of you immortal-like creatures back where you belong!"
The surviving ancestral masters chose mutual destruction.
"How dare you!" The Earth Immortal could no longer sit still and surged toward the heavens from the giant lotus.
Yet, as if meeting a barrier, he was forced back into the seal.
Not only the Earth Immortal, but all other surviving immortal-like beings were being coerced and compressed by the thirty-six divine stakes, tumbling backward into the world behind them.
In the process, those ancestral masters were breaking apart, continuously disintegrating, burning into radiant light.
"Why must you do this?! We can sit down and talk!" the Earth Immortal shouted from within the Yin soil.
"In years to come, our descendants will pay you a visit in our stead and contest supremacy with you once more!"
The ancestral masters' voices were resolute. Standing before the thirty-six Heaven-Anchoring Divine Stakes, their flesh and blood shattered amid the flames. Even in death, they looked down upon the immortal-like beings—unyielding, confident, and composed, their remaining skeletal frames standing without a quiver.
"Ancestral Masters!"
Outside the desert, countless people cried out, tears streaming down their faces.
This Great Reclamation was simply too tragic!
"How could the ancestral masters die like this?" Many could not bear to accept such an outcome.
"I don't believe this is real!" Cui Chonghe growled low. He saw his master, Sun Taichu, shedding his usual gentleness; in his final moments, Sun Taichu was exceptionally resolute and unfeeling as he perished amid the flames.
Qin Ming was deeply shaken, his heartstrings trembling. Was this real? Had all the ancestral masters withered away and died?!
He looked up and saw Lu Zizai.
"Senior Brother Lu!"
Lu Zizai stood at the very front of the crowd, expressionless, his eyes deep as he stared at the night sky, motionless in the silence.
Chapter 305