Streaking fire, dark mist, the Immortal Blood Calamity—it was as though burning meteors streaked across the night sky, carving out long, blazing beams of brilliance. Swarming in dense waves, they pierced through the celestial vault and crashed violently toward the ground.
The expeditionary force from the Yujing camp was ambushed on their journey back.
The main body of the Immortal Blood Calamity—the Colossus—had manifested in the enclave and was already locked in a titanic battle against Yujing. Its aura could no longer be masked. Guided by an unseen pull, the scattered fragments strewn across every land seemed to answer a summons, emerging from hiding and swarming in from all directions.
The two sides were mortal enemies. The instant they met, violence was inevitable.
Shards of the Golden Roster fell in thick clusters like beams of radiant light, colliding fiercely with the mist-shrouded fragments of the Colossus amidst sprays of blood and boiling baleful energy.
In an instant, blazing flares spattered across the night sky as baleful auras churned furiously.
Across the firmament, it seemed as if shooting star after shooting star collided above this desolate realm. Clusters of them slammed head-on into each other, accompanied by shrill roars and slaughterous intent.
Yet this moment in time was peculiar. Most fragments of the Colossus were desperate to rush toward the enclave, eager to merge with the source of the Immortal Blood Calamity.
Meanwhile, on Yujing's side, those who had just withdrawn from the battlefield were mentally and physically drained. If given the choice, none of them wished to endure another life-and-death bloodbath.
A shard of the Golden Roster spoke, "From this moment on, you need only think of yourselves and fight for yourselves. Carry no burden. Find a way to survive, and that is enough."
It told the gathered crowd that the expeditionary army had fulfilled its duty and given everything it had. Now, staying alive was all that mattered.
Consequently, when most fragments crossed paths, it was only a fleeting brush. A few splatters of blood burst forth, portions of the dark mist were torn apart, and the two sides grazed past one another.
Though bitter mortal enemies, by some rare grace, they did not lock into an all-out fight to the death.
Yet that did not mean the encounter was entirely bloodless.
Whenever shards of the Golden Roster and fragments of the Colossus met head-on with nowhere to dodge, they collided violently in terrifying, catastrophic clashes.
Qin Ming's eyes burned like golden lamps. The snow-white exotic metal saber in his right hand—lustrous as mutton-fat jade—felt exceptionally well-balanced. When he slashed at the twisted faces writhing within the dark mist, it proved miraculously effective.
No wonder people said jade iron was rare and exotic metal was priceless. Such materials inherently suppressed fiends, phantoms, and all manner of incomprehensible, eerie phenomena.
Standing atop a shard of the Golden Roster, Qin Ming could not evade. Faced with fragments of the Colossus, he had no choice but to swing his blade, cleaving through the pitch-black night with dazzling arcs of saber light.
"Aaargh..."
Within the dark mist, the voices of men and women, young and old, merged into one. Wearing savage, contorted expressions, they let out piercing, bloodcurdling screeches.
One vague face after another shattered and burst apart beneath the exotic metal blade, hissing into nonexistence like flakes of snow falling onto a red-hot brazier.
"Hm?"
Qin Ming severed five heads in rapid succession, but as his edge sliced through the sixth, it felt solid and fleshy, possessing true substance rather than being mere condensed mist.
Moreover, black blood splattered from it before the figure detonated into black fog. Even its face and physical form had appeared vivid and lifelike.
His expression froze. Within this dark mist lurked peculiar monsters—astonishingly realistic creatures that seemed made of actual flesh and blood.
Beside him, Tang Yushang was also striking out. She opened immediately with supreme arts like the Primordial Jade Void Seal, the Seven Arrows of the Northern Dipper, and the Golden Palace Chains—all secret arts of Yujing that packed devastating lethality.
"Kill!" Bai Meng roared, taking charge of the war cries.
Though he was also fighting, he was overshadowed by the two standing beside him; his realm was simply not high enough, making his efforts pale in comparison.
No matter where one went, youths capable of slaying grandmasters were extraordinarily gifted anomalies.
Qin Ming and Tang Yushang brushed past the fragments of the Immortal Blood Calamity in this area. They did not linger in a prolonged bloodbath; both sides were trying to hurry onward.
Soon, they crossed paths with a second fragment.
Within that slightly larger mass of dark mist, even clearer faces emerged, exuding an aura that grew increasingly perilous.
Clang!
The instant the two sides closed in and collided, brilliant and razor-sharp sword light burst forth from within the Colossus's fragment.
With a sharp twang, one of the Golden Palace Chains Tang Yushang had deployed was actually sliced in two by that sword light.
She unleashed one trump card after another. The nine deities within her inner landscape merged into one, fusing with her very self. Dao patterns rippled across her glistening, pale skin, and an incandescent rain of ascension light surged forth. Only by exerting her utmost combat strength did she finally shatter that sword light and blast the figure to pieces.
From within this fragment of the Colossus, five sharp, shrill screeches rang out in rapid succession.
Soon, a vast expanse of dark mist surged toward them. Qin Ming channeled the Sky-Severing saber intent; saber qi billowed like an ocean, surge upon surge, sweeping forward in snow-bright waves of radiance.
In addition to the ordinary, contorted faces, a blood-colored figure lurked within this mist. Strikingly lifelike, with disheveled hair, it actually blocked one of his strikes bare-handed.
Amidst a storm of clangs, Qin Ming slashed repeatedly until he blasted the creature apart. Yet something felt distinctly wrong—five rapid bursts of mental soundwaves radiated outward, like vengeful ghosts transmitting a signal.
Sure enough, two more Colossus fragments came hurtling straight toward them.
Qin Ming and Tang Yushang realized what was happening. The more lifelike monsters they slew, and the more prominently they performed, the more they would be targeted—as if they were being marked.
The only silver lining was that all the Colossus fragments converging on their sector were small ones.
The larger pieces either vanished into the Chasm to seek the origin of the Immortal Blood Calamity or charged toward the larger shards of the Golden Roster. By instinct, they chose opponents of corresponding stature.
Then, a horrific scene unfolded nearby. A massive shard of the Golden Roster collided successively with several large fragments of the Colossus, triggering an earth-shattering clash.
An Earth Immortal coughed up blood.
He pierced through the dark mist and tore through several terrifying silhouettes, but in the end, he too was grievously wounded. Large fragments swarmed toward him in growing numbers.
Spurt!
The Earth Immortal's body was impaled. A bizarre mass of mist radiating a rare silver glow revealed a withered, yet completely physical, giant hand that ripped open the abdomen of the Seventh Realm powerhouse.
It was a brutal, tragic battle. The two sides became entangled, and amidst splatters of radiant, tragic Earth Immortal blood, the Seventh Realm expert's body was torn apart.
However, the withered monster within the silver-lit mist was shattered as well.
Moments later, two more peculiar clouds of gloom surged over, submerging the cracked body of the Earth Immortal. Amidst bursts of blood mist and boiling pure yang consciousness, the space erupted with a deafening boom.
The Earth Immortal fell, his physical vessel blown apart. His pure yang consciousness fled for a short distance before being blanketed by several patches of dark mist, unable to escape.
An Earth Immortal had died in battle—a sight that shook everyone to their core.
A seven-day stacker shouted in warning, "Keep moving! Do not get bogged down, and avoid getting marked!"
In a brief clash, both sides would likely suffer minor wounds before grazing past each other; that was the choice most people made.
Yet if one killed those near-flesh-and-blood creatures within the dark mist, they would be branded with a distinct imprint, drawing vengeance from companions on all sides.
Qin Ming and Tang Yushang felt their hearts sink. In just this brief span, they had already slain several of those peculiar living entities, and the two of them were clearly being hunted.
Fortunately, the only things rushing toward them were small patches of dark clouds.
"Get out of here, fast!"
This location was precarious—near the exit of the Celestial Abyss, it was a chokepoint through which both sides had to pass.
The Chasm, black as an abyss, was the most primeval Mist Gate, bridging the enclave to the territories under Yujing's influence.
"Those peculiar monsters slain by the Earth Immortal shrieked seven times before dying. Were they summoning Seventh Realm reinforcements?"
"The ones we killed each let out five shrill screeches. Were they transmitting signals that marked us for Fifth Realm amalgams?"
Qin Ming and Tang Yushang deduced the truth: the two of them had been marked as grandmasters.
Across this territory, many shards of the Golden Roster streaked by, flashing with light as they successfully escaped into the distance. Others were far less fortunate, suffering wave after wave of ambush.
Not only had an Earth Immortal fallen, but Sixth Realm experts had also perished, along with ordinary young cultivators.
Chaos reigned near the Chasm. Many managed to slip away smoothly without having to fight much, while others encountered misfortune, sinking into a quagmire after a single bloody battle.
Over eighty percent of the forces had already broken through, yet there were always those unblessed by fate who failed to break free immediately, trapped in desperate, bitter struggles.
Everyone on the return journey was utterly exhausted. If one were trapped within the Chasm, even an Earth Immortal would face mortal peril; the amounts of Absolute Beginning qi and Xuanhuang qi they possessed were minuscule.
Qin Ming felt heavy-hearted. He worried for his acquaintances; the faces of Yu Gensheng, Meng Xinghai, and Li Qingyun surfaced in his mind.
Though only ten or twenty percent of the contingent had been unfortunate enough to be pinned down here, if that included the people he cared about, the consequences would be unimaginable.
Qin Ming gazed into the distance, searching frantically, dreading that his old friends had met with disaster.
Bai Meng's breath came in ragged gasps, his nerves stretched taut. "Sis, Brother Ming, go all out! Let's fight our way out of the Chasm first! There are more and more peculiar monsters around us—they've detached from the dark mist and are charging straight at us!"
Qin Ming nodded. The Inner Landscape Heaven-Opening Axe, the nine-colored sword baleful aura, and snow-bright saber light erupted continuously. They were like travelers caught in a bog, on the verge of being swallowed whole.
At this point, even if they were marked repeatedly, they had to unleash their full power and carve a path forward with their deadliest methods.
Tang Yushang even unleashed a forbidden-domain ultimate technique: the Proliferation of All Phenomena.
Golden divine lotuses bloomed in clusters around her as celestial mist bore her aloft. Between heaven and earth, all phenomena flourished—meteors, divine cities, ancient monasteries, Golden Crows, and various scenes materialized, crashing forward like an overwhelming tidal wave!
"Kill!" Bai Meng howled as well.
Beneath their feet, the shard of the Golden Roster grew dim, yet it continued to carry them. The trio charged back and forth, darting through gaps in the dark mist as they fought to break free.
It was an extraordinarily brutal battle. Qin Ming and Tang Yushang had shattered countless patches of dark mist; their spirits were exhausted, and they were drenched in blood.
Yet an inexplicable substance clung to them—like an imprint that radiated a faint golden haze. It looked sacred, yet carried deadly peril.
Even as they fought their way out of the core area, monsters pursued them, locked onto their scent.
The blood and chaos here even drew the attention of larger Colossus fragments further off.
In the darkness, a pitch-black giant hand reached out—a power that far surpassed the limit of what they could withstand.
While still a great distance away, the bones of the trio began to groan and creak, on the verge of being crushed to powder.
Bai Meng's realm was insufficient; he relied entirely on the protective light barriers projected by Qin Ming and Tang Yushang. Otherwise, he would have detonated into a mist of blood already.
Even so, blood leaked from his seven apertures, and cracks spiderwebbed across his body. The armor on Qin Ming and Tang Yushang shattered into pieces, on the brink of collapse.
Qin Ming grabbed the wrists of the two beside him, letting out a thunderous roar. Chaos force boiled within him as golden threads twined around his frame and enveloped them both.
Without it, all three would have burst apart in the very next instant.
In the meantime, the Golden Roster shard beneath their feet darted through a narrow gap, finally clearing the Chasm completely.
Yet that pitch-black hand reached through, blowing apart the night mist with terrifying speed. It blotted out heaven and earth, seeking to seize and grind them into dust.
***
"Xiao Qin, where are you?"
Yu Gensheng had already traveled far into the distance, but at the final moment, he turned back. He had seen countless streaks of light escape ahead, yet Qin Ming was nowhere among them.
"Xiao Qin, are you still in the Chasm?" Yu Gensheng called out.
The Chasm was vast, spanning an immense expanse. Hovering nearby, he was on the verge of approaching that perilous ground once more, intending to venture in and look.
"Old Yu, have you found him?" Li Qingyun had also turned back.
"Not yet. I'm going into the Chasm!" Yu Gensheng said heavily.
He urged Li Qingyun to watch over the students from Shanhe Academy, with whom he had originally been traveling.
Li Qingyun's face was fraught with worry. "Old Yu, Senior, do not go in! Xiao Qin's life is sturdier than yours. Though you are a grandmaster now, you face even greater restrictions and should not fight! Look at you—just from stirring your spiritual field to search like this, blood is already trickling from the corner of your mouth!"
Yu Gensheng's hair was sparse, his appearance weathered and aged, yet his eyes shone like torches and his will remained ironclad. "It doesn't matter to me. I'm an old bag of bones in the twilight of my life, with neither future nor hope to speak of. I want to go in and search. I refuse to leave any regrets, and I certainly won't live to rue this day!"
He had heard that an unlucky few with transcendent talent, upon forcefully breaking through multiple layers of Colossus fragments, would be heavily marked and subjected to deadly pursuit.
"Help me look after those youngsters." Yu Gensheng shoved Li Qingyun back, forbidding him from following, while he himself stepped toward the Celestial Abyss.
***
Dense golden threads interwove across Qin Ming's body, enveloping all three of them like a heavenly net as they fought desperately to resist.
At that critical juncture, an anomaly occurred on Tang Yushang's body. A faint blood-colored phantom manifested from the broken shackles within her, flying outward.
With an earth-shattering boom, the pitch-black giant hand was blocked and collapsed in ruins.
"Is that... a life-saving trick bestowed by our ancestor?" Bai Meng gasped, dazed.
The three vaulted into the air, finally clear of the Chasm.
The larger Colossus fragments did not pursue further; their high-tier strength was consumed by the urge to merge with the source of the Immortal Blood Calamity to strike at Yujing.
Yet several distinct figures shrouded in dark mist continued to tail Qin Ming and his companions.
Qin Ming's mouth was filled with bloody foam, Tang Yushang coughed up blood repeatedly, and Bai Meng's body was riddled with cracks. All three were severely injured. Glancing back, they saw that those monsters were all at the Fifth Realm.
"Go! Ignore them!"
The dim shard of the Golden Roster carried them soaring into the sky.
Yet those lifelike silhouettes enveloped in dark mist moved just as fast, pursuing them relentlessly.
***
"Xiao Qin!"
Suddenly, Qin Ming heard a call.
Though this landscape was vast—resembling an unhealing wound carved across the firmament by a colossal axe, stretching beyond the horizon—Qin Ming's sharp senses still caught the spiritual fluctuation.
"Xiao Qin, where are you?"
This time, the voice was even clearer. Qin Ming heard Yu Gensheng calling out with frantic urgency and unease, his mental soundwaves trembling.
Qin Ming immediately shouted toward one direction, "Senior!"
"Ah?" In the distance, Yu Gensheng cried out in joy. Standing atop a shard of the Golden Roster, he stumbled forth, mouth covered in bloody foam as he rushed out from the pitch-black Chasm.
"Senior, why are you...?" Qin Ming hurried forward to meet him.
He understood instantly: this old man had turned back solely to search for him, braving the chaotic Chasm without hesitation, even though it was currently a deathtrap.
"Good lad, as long as you're safe." Yu Gensheng wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth, the wrinkles on his face easing considerably as his eyes shone bright. He let out a long sigh of relief.
Qin Ming knew this cruel era was unkind to Earth Immortals and left patriarchs in terrible shape; even great grandmasters suffered as if stricken with grave illness, their bodies in precarious condition.
Yet Yu Gensheng had disregarded his own safety, risking his life to find him.
For a moment, Qin Ming's eyes burned hot, and it took all his resolve to keep the mist from rising in them.
"Senior, your body..." Qin Ming noticed that Yu Gensheng's armor was shattered; his recent foray into the Chasm had clearly plunged him into mortal danger.
Moreover, the old man's arms were trembling slightly, his flesh split open and bleeding steadily.
Though Yu Gensheng forced it down, he still coughed up a mouthful of blood.
Stepping into that chaotic, bloody fray a second time had truly meant walking along the boundary of life and death, heedless of himself.
Even Tang Yushang and Bai Meng were deeply moved. Here was a venerable senior truly willing to lay down his life for Qin Ming. Such warmth and self-sacrificing devotion made their chests swell and brought a stinging ache to their noses.
"No matter. Let us be off!" Yu Gensheng waved his tattered sleeve backward, blasting four of the pursuing monsters to dust.
However, he staggered as well, blood leaking from his nose and mouth.
It was not that his cultivation was lacking, but that this era was unkind to him; the Dao resonance had retaliated against his exertion.
Taking Qin Ming's hand, his body began to glow as he extended his protection over Tang Yushang and Bai Meng as well, using the Golden Roster shard to speed away while deterring the pursuers behind them.
"Senior... you must not fight again." Qin Ming realized Yu Gensheng had fought multiple times while inside the Chasm; his body simply could not endure any more.
He genuinely feared the old man's physical form would collapse and his spiritual field would extinguish.
"I'm fine!" Yu Gensheng replied, his gaze fixed on their rear.
Qin Ming immediately reached into the rag and rummaged for divine medicine, finding a jade box. From within, he retrieved Longevity Leaves—an undying marvel he had won from the Black Tower civilization during their first encounter at the celestial sword duel.
A single leaf could extend a person's life by roughly fifteen years. Furthermore, it did not discriminate by realm; it worked on anyone across all cultivation levels, extending life from the very essence of existence.
Because of that, Qin Ming had never wanted to squander it at lower realms.
Now, he promptly pulled out four leaves and pressed them into Yu Gensheng's hands, urging him to consume them at once.
"This is... far too precious. An old ruin like me has no need for this!" Yu Gensheng refused, feeling it would be a terrible waste on himself.
Qin Ming said sternly, "You must take them, or I will throw them away."
Beside them, Bai Meng looked on in shock. *A Longevity Leaf?* During the celestial sword duel, this kind of undying-attribute supreme medicine had caused an enormous stir. Afterward, every ancient monster had sought to purchase it, and even Earth Immortals had looked upon it with burning, covetous envy.
He could only marvel inwardly, *Brother Ming is... filthy rich!*
Tang Yushang was equally astonished. Leaves from an undying tree were rare treasures that might not even be recorded in the secret vaults of Taixu.
***
Along the path leading deep into the territory under Yujing's influence, the shards of the Golden Roster grew increasingly dim. Many cultivators eventually fell from the heights, forced to travel on foot across the ground.
"To think... I did not perish in the Chasm, yet I am to die halfway home alongside my fellow sect members." Pei Shuyan felt deeply sorrowful. Just when hope of returning to his homeland was in sight, disaster had struck on the road.
Not far away, an Immortal Path grandmaster's physical body lay broken, battered to pieces by another's bare hands.
Pei Shuyan's own body had long been torn asunder, then shattered once more into dozens of pieces. Even his pure yang consciousness was fractured, disintegrating chunk by chunk.
Pei Shuyan sighed, his heart filled with bitter indignation. "Must you... outsiders also meddle in the war between Yujing and the Immortal Blood Calamity?"
He only knew that these people came from far away, belonging to a faction unaffiliated with Yujing's domain, but he knew nothing of their exact background.
In the night sky, a young man smiled faintly. "We are mere travelers from afar. We have no intention of taking the field; we merely wanted to test the strength of the native grandmasters in this land."
Beside him, an elderly man said, "You should not have struck. In a territory currently waging an external campaign, we are merely passersby and ought not to interfere in any matters, lest we suffer backlash."
The young man accepted the counsel humbly, nodding. "Understood. My hands were simply itching, and seeing an isolated, harmless straggler, I couldn't resist. From here on, let us observe carefully. We must extract a small sample of the Immortal Blood Calamity and bring it back, feeding it fresh blood to nurture it slowly and see what it amounts to."
Then, the young man turned his head to look into the distance. "More people are coming. Oh? They seem to have some skill—they're entangled with the golden imprints of the Immortal Blood Calamity. Worthy of study. We should capture them."
In the distant sky, Qin Ming snapped open his Eye of Rebirth, gazing at the young man and the elder ahead, and caught sight of the bloody scene on the ground.
"Don't... come over!" Pei Shuyan gasped weakly.
The young man smiled. "Acquaintances of yours? Don't worry, I'll have them keep you company."
Chapter 561