Crisis

In a secluded chamber, Wei Yuan sat facing a piece of blood jade, breathing slowly and steadily. Before him rested a red bottle from which wisps of blood qi rose, constantly absorbed by the jade. This single bottle contained the flesh, blood, and essence souls of a hundred thousand members of the Shaman Clan. Once all the blood qi was completely absorbed, Wei Yuan opened his mouth and exhaled a stream of white qi, which was likewise absorbed by the blood jade. Having gathered the mortal fortune of a million people, the blood jade suddenly burst with ten thousand fathoms of brilliant light. Thunder cracked across the clear sky above, and a bolt of lightning instantly plunged downward, seeking to shatter the blood jade before it could finish forming. But with Wei Yuan present, how could he let the heavenly tribulation succeed? Wei Yuan raised a finger, drawing the entire tribulation lightning onto himself. It fell into the Splendor of the Many Realms and crashed into an empty, boundless sea. As the tribulation lightning plunged into the water, countless minute sparks of life immediately emerged within the ocean. With the heavenly tribulation dispelled, the jade shed its intimidating blood-red glow, transforming into a clear, crisp blue light. The first boundary stone forged by Wei Yuan's own hands was complete. This boundary stone received its name from heaven and earth: the Sword and Blade Boundary Stone. It possessed only a single mystical property: once soldiers within its domain inscribed their names upon it, the sharpness of their weapons would advance by an entire tier. It was a classic conquest boundary stone, capable of significantly boosting the combat strength of warriors and cultivators in the domain. Unfortunately, Qingming had long since shifted from swords and blades to firearms; ordinary firearms received no benefit from it, though fortunately, flying sword guns could gain some advantage. The boundary stone's mystical property was of little practical use to Wei Yuan, but it covered a radius of a thousand li—the span of an entire commandery. However, its refinement had originally still lacked sufficient heat and time; Wei Yuan had assumed it would take another two or three months to complete, never expecting it to suddenly succeed tonight. Had something happened somewhere? Wei Yuan set up a divination formation to divine the cause, but found nothing. Even though he could not calculate it, he vaguely sensed that something seemed to have been concealed. Having such an intuition meant that something had indeed occurred. Wei Yuan did not grow anxious. Instead, he systematically reviewed recent major events concerning himself, looking for where a problem might have arisen. As he searched, he suddenly thought of the World of Returning Silence. His heart jolted. He immediately stood and exited seclusion, casually handing the boundary stone to the guard on duty and instructing, "Send this boundary stone to Eastern Jin and deliver it to Xiaoyu. Tell him to plant it at the terminus of the floating road and replace Eastern Jin's boundary stone." "Understood, Realm Lord!" The attendant departed to carry out the order, while Wei Yuan stepped through the Gate of the Many Realms into the World of Returning Silence. The World of Returning Silence had already developed color. The place where that cluster of life resided now radiated a hazy multicolored luminescence, but around the light, a vast shroud of gray fog had appeared at some point. Within this world, Wei Yuan's vision extended extraordinarily far, allowing him to perceive across hundreds of thousands of li. Yet within his range of perception, gray fog blanketed everything. Within this mist were countless minuscule particles of unknown composition. When Wei Yuan's divine sense swept past, they vanished, only to reappear once his divine sense moved on. Wei Yuan had ways of dealing with things that hovered between the illusory and the real. He flicked a finger, and the mortal fortune of several hundred thousand people erupted from his fingertip, illuminating the surroundings. Instantly, under the light shed by the mortal fortune, countless shadows emerged within the gray mist. The moment these shadows materialized, they shifted into all manner of bizarre, grotesque shapes and pounced ferociously toward Wei Yuan! Facing thousands upon thousands of twisted shadows, Wei Yuan showed no panic. He tapped his finger repeatedly. With every tap, thousands of hexagonal golden formation disks appeared in the air. In the blink of an eye, three hundred and sixty hexagonal formation mirrors fell into place, and three hundred and sixty rays of golden immortal light crisscrossed back and forth, furiously sweeping through the twisted shadows! The Great Zhou Heavenly Extinction Immortal Light possessed boundless might. Though each of these extinction shadows wielded the strength of the Dharma Idol realm, they would turn to ash after being struck a few times by the extinction immortal light. Yet they seemed devoid of fear and heedless of death, continuously spawning from the gray mist and surging toward Wei Yuan in an overwhelming swarm. In just a moment, the extinction immortal light was operating at peak speed, yet the rate of slaughter still could not match the speed at which they lunged forward, shrinking the perimeter of defense smaller and smaller. Wei Yuan's expression darkened. He retrieved two intricately structured hemispheres, snapped them gently together, and twisted them. The two hemispheres immediately locked tight, forming a complete sphere. Then, three-colored immortal light manifested between Wei Yuan's hands, enveloping the sphere. Unable to withstand the immense pressure of the immortal light, the sphere suddenly blurred, shrinking drastically in an instant, only to revert to its original shape before shrinking dramatically once more. This process repeated several times until the sphere abruptly vanished, and a single speck of fire ignited between Wei Yuan's hands! This fire was minuscule to the extreme, yet blindingly bright to the extreme, and scorching hot to the extreme! In an instant, the spark produced from compressing the sphere to its absolute limit transformed into a true great sun. True solar fire swept across a radius of a thousand li, obliterating all the shadows in a single stroke! Heaven and earth were cleared. Once the shadows were refined by the true fire, nothing remained of them but fine black granules. Innumerable black granules rained down, coating the ground in a layer of loose ash. The flesh and blood on Wei Yuan's hands had been completely stripped away, leaving only jade-colored hand bones. With a mere thought, however, flesh and blood regenerated, restoring his hands to their pristine state. Wei Yuan inspected his hands, then extended a palm and pulled all the black granules toward him, packing an entire Sumeru pouch full of them. No shadows remained around him now; evidently, that final strike had succeeded, wiping out all the manifested foes. His hands were still somewhat numb, however—no small price to pay. That final Dao art was the last of the three great Dao arts specially researched and developed by Qingming for Wei Yuan: Great Pure Yang Yuan-Gathering True Fire. This Dao art required a specially refined magical artifact as an initiator; by compressing it to the absolute extreme, it would transform into an entirely different substance and release boundless light and heat. The true fire at the core of a great sun originated in just this way. By incorporating a specialized magical artifact as an ignition mechanism, the Qingming cultivators had successfully allowed this immortal art—originally castable only by powerful immortals—to be replicated in Wei Yuan's hands, and with power even greater than the original immortal art. The only issue was that these Qingming researchers were merely Golden Core templates, theorizing on paper. The power of the Dao art they had designed was not merely slightly greater; it was outright absurd. Even Wei Yuan's dharma body could not endure it, costing him all the flesh on his hands. Had his physical resilience been even slightly lower, this Dao art would have sent him straight to his grave! For a moment, Wei Yuan could hardly tell whether these researchers had done it on purpose, or whether a few rebels from the Splendor of the Many Realms had managed to slip among their ranks. Nevertheless, the surrounding gray mist had thinned considerably. Though it was still slowly increasing, it would at least buy Wei Yuan ample time. Having dealt with the crisis in the World of Returning Silence, Wei Yuan suddenly frowned as a question he had nearly overlooked struck him. He had not noticed this gray mist before, but it was still far from being able to threaten the Seed of the World. Why would he have experienced such a sudden premonition over it? Wei Yuan's heart chilled. Could it be that what he had divined earlier was not the gray mist of the World of Returning Silence? Wei Yuan returned to Qingming at once and immediately began screening recent major events. This time, he did not limit his investigation to himself, but scrutinized major occurrences throughout the entire world. The Splendor of the Many Realms operated at full capacity. After analyzing an immense volume of data and devouring another five million points of Wei Yuan's mortal fortune, it finally yielded a result. Yet when returning the result, the Splendor of the Many Realms experienced a rare hesitation—a phenomenon virtually unseen before. Following that, static flickered across its reported result, flashing away in an instant before the Splendor of the Many Realms provided its conclusion: Suspected connection to the Eastern Jin floating road and the Pure Land. *** At that moment, in southern Eastern Jin, machinery roared across the construction site at the terminus of the floating road. Thousands of templates and tens of thousands of Body Casting cultivators labored without rest, laying prefabricated foundation blocks one by one into the deep trench. Each foundation block was half a zhang wide and weighed a hundred thousand jin, requiring ten templates working together to set in place. Golden Core cultivators darted back and forth carrying components weighing tens of thousands of jin each, hauling or installing them, too busy to even wipe their sweat. If nothing else, the sheer scale of this construction site could be called an immortal miracle. The foundation trench for the floating road alone was a hundred zhang wide and twenty zhang deep, with thousands upon thousands of cultivators laboring like ants. The colossal main structure of the floating road continuously stretched onward, gradually extending toward Northern Qi. Just then, the cultivators busy at the edge of the site suddenly stopped their work in unison, turning toward the east with bewildered expressions. From that direction walked a young, handsome monk. Smiling, he bowed with hands pressed together and said, "Benefactors, lay down the butcher's knife, and the shore of salvation awaits." *** Daylight had already broken. Li Zhi climbed off Princess Wancheng, his movements stiff and labored. Princess Wancheng was thoroughly exhausted, fast asleep. A layer of gold washed over Li Zhi's eyes, revealing a fine black-red line lurking between her brows. A flicker of vindictive satisfaction flashed through his gaze.