"All right, playtime is over. Seeing as you know quite a bit, you may go," the woman said haughtily.
The avatar replied, "I will not leave."
The woman's expression turned cold. Innumerable threads shot forth from her fingertips, winding toward the avatar's sea of consciousness. Every single thread carried an aura of destruction and return to silence; wherever they passed, all things turned to void. With just this one flick of her finger, she pierced tens of thousands of irreparable holes into the avatar's mind.
"If you still refuse to leave, you will truly die here. Achieving Transcendence is no easy feat. Are you really going to throw your life away like this?"
The avatar smiled faintly. "If I wanted to leave, you couldn't keep me here. But I will not leave."
The woman scoffed coldly, "So many Immortal Lords cannot attain Transcendence, yet you, having achieved it, come seeking death?"
"You do not understand."
The avatar turned his head to glance at the Soil of Vitality. Reluctance and longing lingered in his eyes, but far more prominent were serenity and hope. Suddenly, he dissolved into a mist, blanketing the woman and enveloping her completely!
It was as though a layer of membrane had wrapped around the woman, one she could not break free of no matter how hard she struggled. Yet the membrane swiftly discolored, and vast stains of blood began to seep across it.
Upon the surface of the membrane, a face suddenly surfaced. It was no longer Wei Yuan's face, but that of an ordinary-looking man, visibly aged. He gazed toward the Soil of Vitality, his lips twitching slightly as though he wished to say something, when countless minute black threads suddenly surfaced in his eyes!
The black threads rapidly filled both eyes before his eyeballs burst apart. Countless fine filaments jutted from the eye sockets, writhing wildly in the air.
Soon, fine tendrils burst from his nose, ears, and mouth as well, dancing madly about. Blood seeped from every inch of the membrane until it finally tore down the middle. Drenched in gore, the woman clawed her way out, her eyes entirely pitch-black.
She looked toward the Soil of Vitality—the place the avatar had gazed upon in his final moments. With no one left to stop her, she finally saw that beneath the Leaf of the Great Dao, sparks of vitality were nurturing: one large and three small.
"Is this what you were willing to die to protect? Your children, or your family? It makes no difference. I will crush them to pieces, bit by bit, right before your eyes!" the woman spat through gritted teeth.
She reached out to gouge toward the Leaf of the Great Dao, intending to rip the leaf out alongside the life nestled within the Soil of Vitality.
Right then, an icy voice rang out beside her ear: "Why couldn't you wait a little longer and make your move after I arrived? What are you rushing for? Or rather... are... you... afraid... of... me?"
Those last words fell one by one like plunging boulders, each striking away a fraction of her momentum.
The woman's hand froze in midair, caught between advancing and retreating.
The voice remained frigid. "Go ahead and dig. Then you can be buried alongside this newly opened realm. If I could open Heaven and Earth once, I can open it a second time. And with you to serve as the foundation, it will go far more smoothly."
The woman's cheek twitched. After a momentary struggle, she slowly backed away and straightened up, turning toward the source of the voice. There stood Wei Yuan amidst the void, a swirling speck of multicolored merit light at the center of his brow. Wherever this light touched, all the sin-beasts ignited as if set ablaze, consumed by invisible fire.
The woman shrieked, "The light of merit! So you are the true remnant! You were the one who reopened this world?"
"Asking what you already know." Wei Yuan sneered. A long spear materialized in his grasp. "Do you have any last words?"
The woman acted as if she had heard the greatest joke in the world. "You haven't even ascended to immortality. What hope do you have of killing me?"
Wei Yuan let out another cold laugh. "I have explored the realms, reopened Heaven and Earth out of nothingness, and re-established the cycle of reincarnation! No matter how vast the faction backing you may be, what are you? Nothing more than a servant following orders! A mere menial servant dare compare herself to me, one who has reopened Heaven and Earth?
"Now, I shall avenge Brother Daoist Wuming!"
Wei Yuan raised his spear to the sky. A spark of radiance soared into the void and burst apart like blooming blossoms of fiery light. That single spark transformed into tens of thousands of shooting stars that slowly drifted downward, their flames swelling larger and blazing brighter as they descended!
Countless sin-beasts let out agonizing wails at the same moment. Even before the flames touched down, they were already smoking and burning.
Among the tens of thousands of shooting stars, one was multicolored, plunging straight toward the woman. Her complexion instantly drained of color. In her eyes, that speck of multicolored merit light towered like a majestic mountain, while she was merely an ant beneath it.
Never in her wildest dreams could she have imagined that Wei Yuan would directly unleash the merit born from reopening Heaven and Earth, intending to suppress and slay her with pure merit!
Every trace of defiance extinguished, she wanted nothing more than to flee. Yet though the thought crossed her mind, her body failed to move. She realized at once that time had been warped—a divine ability the avatar had used more than once just moments before.
A halo of time immediately rippled around her, forcefully accelerating time to seize a fleeting sliver of escape.
Yet one wave of power after another rained down upon her, joined by a dazzling sword light flickering in the air. Diverse as these forces were, every one held an exceedingly exalted status, pinning her firmly in place.
Seeing the light of merit draw nearer and nearer, the woman let out a shriek. The surrounding world shifted in an instant, morphing into a bizarre realm. Within it, earth, mountains, oceans, and skies intertwined like pieces of a chaotic jigsaw puzzle. Strange objects—impossible to distinguish as living beings or dead matter—lay strewn haphazardly across every corner, devoid of order or symmetry.
This was the woman's Immortal Heaven; as expected, the rules of its Great Dao differed vastly from those of this universe.
The moment she manifested this vast Immortal Heaven, the descent of the multicolored merit light was slowed. She burst into wild laughter. "Such a vast Immortal Heaven—you've never seen anything like it, have you? Remnant, your merit will run out eventually! When that day comes, I will return to take your life!"
Wei Yuan looked at that Immortal Heaven with a contemplative expression. "That Immortal Heaven of yours certainly has some novel ideas. But you call that... vast?"
Specks of lamplight suddenly flickered across the void, and an unimaginably colossal world slowly descended! The modest realm below was like nothing more than a single peak among the many mountains of this world, less than a hundredth of its size.
The Splendor of the Many Realms descended like an inverted cosmos, impossibly heavy, wholly irresistible!
The two worlds collided head-on, and the bizarre, distorted Immortal Heaven vanished like a bursting bubble in an instant. The woman's entire form twisted, crushed into a wafer-thin shadow before she could even scream. The multicolored merit light dropped immediately after, setting her alight like a torch and burning her to ash in a flash.
Within the Splendor of the Many Realms, countless inhabitants felt their houses shudder, table ornaments rattle back and forth, and their footing slip. Many cried out in alarm, "An earthquake?"
Yet the world merely trembled for a brief moment before settling back into stillness. The sky had briefly gone dark for an instant, but now it returned to normal, as if nothing had ever happened.
None of them realized that just moments ago, they had joined forces to suppress and annihilate an entire Immortal Heaven.
Summoning the Splendor of the Many Realms for a single instant had nearly depleted all the merit and karmic luck Wei Yuan had garnered from reopening Heaven and Earth. The cost was immense, but it had utterly eradicated the woman.
Wei Yuan opened his hand, revealing a handful of fine, multicolored sand—the sole remains of the slain woman. In addition, tens of thousands of gray grains of sand swirled around Wei Yuan. Whenever a sin-beast died, it left behind a grain of gray sand.
This gray sand was physical matter bearing karma. Though it possessed no special function, it was prime material for laying the foundation of the new world; otherwise, every grain of soil would require Wei Yuan to consume karmic luck to refine it bit by bit, or wait for the Leaf of the Great Dao to process the chaos before it could manifest.
These myriad grains of gray sand spared immense labor, significantly accelerating the evolution of Heaven and Earth. From this perspective, having more sin-beasts arrive did not seem entirely bad.
Wei Yuan extended his empty hand and pressed forward into empty space. Time warped violently, and the phantom of an ordinary-looking man emerged. He looked at Wei Yuan with a faint smile. "I did not misjudge you. She truly perished by your hand."
Wei Yuan offered a respectful bow. "How should I address Senior?"
The man replied, "Merely a wandering ghost, unworthy of being called Senior."
Wei Yuan said solemnly, "Senior's cultivation and realm are the highest I have ever seen in my life. You cannot be an unknown figure. Moreover, Senior gave his life to protect this newly established realm. Such kindness cannot be repaid. I can only record it in the chronicles so future generations may revere you for ages to come."
The man hesitated for a moment, then said, "I am Lu Cangshui, titled Sovereign Huangji... though that is all in the past. Seventy thousand years after attaining the realm of Immortal Lord, I finally took a step further and achieved Transcendence. But in the war of world destruction, our realm was no match for the enemies of the Dao, and it was thoroughly ruined. Relying on Transcendence, I escaped the great catastrophe, but ever since, I drifted endlessly through the chaos, evading pursuit, no different from a lone ghost.
"Only when I drifted here and chanced upon you reopening Heaven and Earth did the thought of settling down cross my mind. Borrowing your merit to re-emerge into the world, I was able to secure a place for my family."
Wei Yuan asked, "What was that woman's identity just now, and who destroyed Senior's former realm?"
The man gave a bitter smile. "To flee with my life, I had long discarded every piece of past karma that could be severed. Only then was I able to preserve a sliver of karma for my wife and children. Those responsible for destroying the world—I cannot remember them, nor do I dare remember them. That woman seems to have had some connection to them."
Wei Yuan looked toward the sparks of life beneath the Leaf of the Great Dao. "Are those Senior's wife and children?"
The man let out a long sigh. "Merely a tiny strand of karma. Only through the great opportunity of you reopening Heaven and Earth could they regain life. To allow them to see the world once more, my wishes are fulfilled. Having run for so many years, I grew weary of running. To contribute a bit of merit toward the world's reopening in exchange for a few spots for them—it is more than enough."
Seeing the man's phantom on the verge of dispersing, Wei Yuan hurriedly asked one final question: "The external enemies are ferocious. What advice can Senior impart to me?"
The man strained to remember, a look of sudden agony seizing his face. "There are many of them—far too many! Also, you must be careful... someone close to you deliberately leaked information to them—"
At this point, Wei Yuan could no longer maintain the distortion of time. The man's figure vanished completely, leaving not a trace of karma behind. Had Wei Yuan not continuously replicated it within the Splendor of the Many Realms through a secret art, he would not have even been able to remember the name Lu Cangshui.
Just hearing the title Sovereign Huangji was enough to know he must have been a pillar of the heavens in his original realm. Yet achieving Transcendence seemed only to aid in fleeing for one's life.
Everything returned to tranquility. Wei Yuan gently turned his hand, letting the multicolored sand fall upon the Land of Vitality. Waves of gentle radiance instantly welled up, warm and serene. The sparks of life within the soil sprouted smoothly, taking on tangible form.
The Soil of Vitality began to expand layer by layer, and the Leaf of the Great Dao continued to grow, putting forth a second leaf. Several hundred tiny sparks of life also surfaced in the soil; each grain of the multicolored sand left by the woman gave birth to a living creature.
Regrettably, these creatures were far inferior to the sacred spirits awakened by the God-Enfeoffment Method. Even so, they formed the bedrock of the world's vast ecosystem, the most foundational biome, the cornerstone of all variables, and the beginning of all hope.
Wei Yuan let out a soft breath and looked around. The void had regained its peace, as though the fierce battle had never taken place.
Yet the final words of Sovereign Huangji continued to echo in Wei Yuan's ears: "Someone leaked information to them—"
Chapter 1400