Deep within a mountain range, towering ancient trees rose on every side in lush, verdant thickets.
Enormous vines snaked endlessly across the terrain, rugged and archaic.
The place resembled an untouched, primeval wilderness brimming with vigorous vitality.
At this moment, four or five figures stood gathered together, each radiating an intensely powerful aura. Every one of them was at least in the third stage of evolution.
The strongest among them was a white-haired man bearing a pair of wings. Arcs of lightning danced across his body, and a torrential well of energy surged within him. Just a stray wisp of his leaking aura caused a boulder not far off to fracture and crack into pieces.
Beneath his feet lay an enormous creature, hovering on the brink of death.
The beast did not hail from Earth; it was an extraterrestrial entity. It stood at the Sovereign King Realm, yet it had been effortlessly crushed into submission.
"Go back and tell your people that even in an era of grand contention, there are things you still have no right to touch."
The man—Lei Xuan—spoke with sharp, cold eyes before slowly lifting his boot.
Over this period, as he made his way toward Mount Kongtong, he had also taken action against other extraterrestrial beings.
The Milky Way Star Sector had been unsealed. From across the cosmos, clans from the Three Thousand Star Domains had flocked here, nearly all eager to claim a share of the grand era's spoils.
As a member of the Celestial Clan—one of the great clans from the top hundred star sectors—Lei Xuan naturally found this intolerable. In his view, those minor clans had no qualifications whatsoever to be here; they would only muddy the waters.
And so he had chosen to intervene, establishing a deterrent.
After all, in his eyes, the only rivals worthy of contending with the Celestial Clan were the other great powers from the top hundred star sectors. Anyone else joining the fray was merely making a nuisance of themselves. This was also an ideal opportunity to burnish the Celestial Clan's name once more.
Having heard Lei Xuan's warning, terror filled the extraterrestrial creature's eyes. It stammered frantic affirmations before scrambling to flee the area as fast as it could.
"Lord Lei Xuan, we have received word that Lu Yuan set out for Mount Kongtong some time ago," a member of the Zhou family stepped forward and reported with deep reverence.
Even though the Zhou family's forces were currently lying low and staying hidden, they still maintained their own intelligence network. Furthermore, Lu Yuan had made no attempt to conceal his departure from Mount Tai; nearly everyone knew where he was headed.
"Oh? He has finally come out, has he?"
Hearing this, Lei Xuan narrowed his eyes slightly, a faint smile playing at the corners of his lips.
The aura rolling off him began to recede, his wings of wind and lightning folding away, and he soon looked no different from an ordinary human.
Turning to gaze in the direction of Mount Kongtong, he murmured, "It seems our plan can officially begin."
After leaving the Zhou family's secret stronghold, he had started making various preparations. Both the Three-Headed Ghost Clan and the Origin Demon Clan had already agreed to strike when the time came, and to do so with everything they had.
On this matter, the interests of the extraterrestrial great clans aligned completely.
None of them wished to see a peerless powerhouse emerge from the Milky Way Star Sector. That would spell endless trouble.
With that thought, Lei Xuan spoke once more: "Pass the word to every Celestial who has descended: converge on Mount Kongtong!"
He would not strike lightly, but once he did, it would shake the world and deal a lethal blow in a single stroke. That was his resolve.
Naturally, he was not the only Celestial Clan member to have descended into this world. Several others at the Sovereign King Realm had arrived as well.
Of course, he alone bore the title of sequence.
"Understood, Lord Lei Xuan." The Zhou family member bowed his head and hurried off to relay the command.
After taking a brief respite, Lei Xuan set off at full speed toward his destination.
By now, the anomalies surrounding Mount Kongtong had grown far more pronounced than before. Radiant clouds draped the mountain day and night, an unmistakable sign that a great fortune was about to reveal itself.
The extraterrestrial beings were the most eager of all, as this was precisely what they had crossed the stars for. By contrast, ordinary spiritual fruits and exotic herbs held little appeal to them; what truly mattered were the formidable ancient heritages.
Naturally, true divine treasures were an entirely different matter.
Many Awakened from Earth were also rushing toward the site. Some sought the heritage for themselves, while many others simply wanted to see what would unfold when the extraterrestrial prodigies clashed with King Lu.
***
Meanwhile, high in the sky aboard a military transport plane...
Lu Yuan sat alone with his eyes closed in meditation.
He was channeling his internal power to refine his five viscera and six bowels once again.
This process was exceptionally intricate, demanding a meticulous, step-by-step approach rather than attempting to temper everything at once.
The heart came first. As the chief of the five viscera, it served as the very foundation of human life and vitality.
Lu Yuan had previously fused the bloodlines of two divine creatures, rendering his internal organs remarkably robust. Refining them again required vastly greater power, but to him, that posed little difficulty given the profound depth of his foundation.
As the refinement progressed, his heartbeat grew steadily louder, thudding like the cadence of a war drum.
Within his veins, golden vitality surged in a torrential rush, radiating a supremely terrifying aura.
Even though he was not deliberately releasing his might, Zhu Qingyu and the others sitting nearby could feel the tremendous force emanating from him, their hearts pounding in shock.
"He hasn't even engaged in battle—this is just ordinary cultivation and evolution—and yet he's already this formidable?"
Ice Fairy's eyes widened with shock, finding it hard to believe.
She had assumed that after reaching the Shackle Realm and obtaining fortunes from Mount Tai and the Dragon Palace, her abilities had improved across the board to the point where she could at least look up to King Lu from a measurable distance.
Yet seeing him now...
The further she evolved, the more acutely she perceived just how terrifyingly strong he truly was.
"He is King Lu, after all. He has always walked ahead of everyone else," Gu Sang remarked with a sigh.
Back then, he had once believed he stood on the same tier as Lu Yuan. Today, that notion had long since vanished, replaced entirely by profound respect. Recalling the title of "Northern Emperor" he had once borne, Gu Sang felt somewhat at a loss for words.
Then again, it was only natural. In the early days of the global upheaval, when extraordinary powers were still an unfamiliar sight, meddlesome onlookers had thrown around rankings and lofty titles. Nowadays, no one even brought them up anymore.
Though Little Celestial Master Chunyang and Monk Huikong remained silent, their thoughts mirrored those of the others.
Back at Ancient Shu's Sword Mountain, they had taken pride in their own talent and comprehension, believing few could surpass them anytime soon. But looking at Lu Yuan now, the gulf between them remained vast.
Particularly in recent times, quite a few people had visited the Sword Mountain of Ancient Shu. Yet the outcome was always the same: not a single person could walk up before the ninety-nine sword steles. It was likely that no one ever would again.
Lu Yuan was naturally unaware of their private musings. He remained entirely focused on driving his inner energy to temper his heart.
While called refinement, there was actually nothing left to improve in terms of raw physical constitution; he merely needed to divinize it. In essence, that meant using his unlocked genetic shackles to establish a resonant harmony with the organ.
As time slipped by, Lu Yuan felt the power surging from his heart grow steadily stronger.
It felt somewhat akin to shattering a genetic shackle, yet distinct—clearer, more direct, unlocking an even greater well of latent potential.
Finally, after an indeterminate stretch of time, his heart gave a powerful contraction, and a boundless wave of energy instantly flooded every corner of his body.
Lu Yuan deliberately kept it under tight restraint. Had he allowed it to erupt unchecked, the sheer force would have torn the military plane to shreds.
"The divinization of the heart is complete. Next is the liver," he murmured softly, opening his eyes with an expression of quiet calm.
It seemed simple on the surface, but in truth, it had consumed a great deal of time, having started the moment they set off. As he progressed deeper, the subsequent stages would only grow more difficult.
After all, the step following this was entry into the Saint Domain Realm.
Putting the thought aside, he glanced out the window at the scenery below.
Endless ranges of rugged peaks crisscrossed beneath them, blanketed in a boundless ocean of ancient trees stretching beyond the horizon.
"We should be nearing Mount Kongtong soon, shouldn't we?" Lu Yuan turned his head and asked.
"Yes, King Lu. Three days at most," Zhu Qingyu replied. Attentive and sharp, she had been keeping close track of their progress. "From what I've gathered, many others are also arriving. Word came from the Mount Tai Cultivation Academy as well.
"They report that the disturbances around Mount Kongtong are intensifying. The realm should fully open within the next few days."
Official intelligence moved swiftly and covered every angle, always keeping them informed at the earliest possible moment.
"Understood."
Lu Yuan nodded, saying no more.
***
Meanwhile, elsewhere...
A colossal, magnificent mountain stood between heaven and earth, towering into the clouds.
Above its peaks, waves of radiant dawn light surged into the sky, brilliantly illuminating the firmament. The glow was so dazzling that even in the dead of night, it bathed a hundred-li radius in shimmering light.
Upon closer inspection, one could faintly discern an immense, boundless space hidden within the luminous haze. Yet the imagery remained excessively blurred, as though existing in an entirely separate dimension, currently inaccessible.
This was Mount Kongtong, one of the legendary Daoist sanctuaries of the immortal Guangchengzi.
At the foot of the mountain, a large crowd had already assembled, consisting of both humans and extraterrestrial beings.
These extraterrestrial entities came in vastly different forms. Some resembled humans but stood much taller; others bore bull horns and tails, their auras as feral as savage beasts; still others were the size of small hills, generating gale-force winds with every breath they took.
The humans of Earth and the extraterrestrials remained clearly divided, keeping their distance from one another.
The humans felt an innate dread and wished to avoid unnecessary trouble, while the extraterrestrials, well aware that Earth harbored an extraordinary powerhouse, refrained from acting recklessly and chose to wait in silence.
Of course, there were exceptions—certain humans stood alongside extraterrestrial beings, having formed secret alliances behind the scenes.
*Buzz—*
Just as everyone waited in anticipation, a formidable aura surged forth from behind the crowd.
Heads turned, only to see a tall figure shrouded in swirling mist emerge. His facial features were completely obscured, yet his imposing presence was overwhelming. As he drew nearer, his form gradually shrank to the size of an ordinary human, his eyes gleaming with a sinister, demonic light.
At the same moment, a three-headed figure descended from the sky wielding a halberd. A chilling, baleful aura slowly rippled outward from him, forcing nearby beings to scramble backward in retreat.
Yet no one dared to voice a complaint. Lowering their heads, they stepped aside to clear a path.
Behind these two formidable beings marched dozens of their respective clansmen, bearing identical features.
*Rumble—*
The very next instant, a bolt of lightning crashed down from above.
Everyone looked upward to see five or six winged figures descending, their appearances strikingly similar to the Winged Celestial of old.
The one at the center was the most powerful among them, arms crossed over his chest, his entire body crackling with arcs of lightning.
Beholding this sight, the humans of Earth couldn't help but swallow hard.
The three sequence prodigies of the three great extraterrestrial clans had all arrived!
Chapter 146