Li Ping stood quietly, sensing the unyielding will of the vast sea beneath his feet.
Faced with a life-and-death crisis, any living being would struggle with everything it had.
Li Ping could feel the ocean's blazing desire to survive.
Yet to the Xuanhuang Realm, its will to live was nothing less than blatant malice.
Considering himself an Avatar of the Xuanhuang Heavenly Dao, Li Ping naturally could not side with the Congyun Sea.
"Since I have come, submit obediently.
"There is no need for further pointless struggle."
With a single thought, his divine sense swept out to encompass the entire Congyun Ocean.
The sights across the tens of thousands of islands scattered throughout it, and even the myriad creatures living within the waters, instantly surfaced in Li Ping's mind.
Li Ping fell silent for a moment.
"This is a necessary sacrifice."
A glint of resolve flashed in his eyes. Strands of golden light emerged from his body and dispersed to every corner of the Congyun Sea.
With power approaching Source Power Essence, no one in the Congyun Sea—where Soul Formation cultivators were the strongest—could detect it.
In just a few breaths, the golden light spread throughout the Congyun Sea. It pierced deep into the oceanic depths, reaching straight to the seafloor.
Beneath the Congyun Sea, violent tremors began to occur, unnoticed by anyone.
Viewed from the sky, a colossal net seemed to form across the ocean's surface, enveloping this azure sea of vibrant life in its entirety.
Dark clouds abruptly gathered across the sky.
The once-tranquil surface suddenly surged with tempestuous waves, far fiercer even than during past wind calamities.
Some islands were caught unprepared and capsized, while the spirit islands garrisoned by cultivators were left teetering precariously in the violent tempest.
Cultivators throughout the Congyun Sea looked up in shock and uncertainty at the sudden upheaval between heaven and earth.
Those with sharp spiritual perception felt a faint premonition of impending doom. Their expressions changed on the spot, and without a second thought, they fled through Wanxian Island's teleportation array.
Their flight drew the attention of quite a few people, and a small faction of cultivators chose to follow them.
Yet the vast majority sneered at these "panicky, cowardly" fugitives, remaining comfortably sheltered on Wanxian Island to watch the turbulent spectacle unfold across the sky and sea.
Li Ping paid no heed to the fleeing cultivators, nor did he care about the onlookers.
From beginning to end, his target was solely the lingering consciousness of the Congyun Sea.
The golden net, invisible to ordinary cultivators, had completely sealed off the sea.
The energy of the Source Power Essence accumulated and evolved within it; a grand formation was on the verge of revealing its full, terrifying might.
The consciousness of the Congyun Sea clearly felt the tightening restraint of the golden net, and the winds and waves it whipped up grew increasingly ferocious.
Yet in Li Ping's eyes, it was merely an outburst of helpless rage.
"How does one wear down and extinguish a world consciousness?"
Li Ping pondered the question even as he constructed the formation.
"I Refine the Multitude of Gods with All Living Beings."
He quickly recalled this peerless, sinister formation.
"An array capable of stalling even a True Immortal should have no great trouble dealing with a remnant world will.
"Bombarding it with countless meaningless stray thoughts..."
As Li Ping deployed the formation, strange, unprovoked visions began appearing in the sky above the Congyun Sea.
They were faces—twisted and filled with despair.
They wailed, flailing their arms.
Some seemed to plead for help, while others simply screamed in instinctive agony.
More and more of the bizarre faces surfaced on the firmament, densely packed until they filled almost every inch of the view.
Gradually, the creatures of the Congyun Sea could hear nothing other than the wailing of those human faces.
"Ah!"
Those weak of will were corrupted by these demonic faces and soon fell into matching despair and madness.
Even those who managed to hold on slipped before long into a boundless, horrifying nightmare.
Faintly, they seemed to see a black sun rising into the sky and the terrifying scene of an entire world on the brink of destruction.
Just like the despairing demonic faces above, they shared in that unimaginable catastrophe.
The teleportation array on Wanxian Island remained active.
Yet every cultivator who looked upon the myriad faces in the sky lost the ability to control their own thoughts.
Regardless of cultivation—from lowly Qi Condensation cultivators to Soul Formation Island Masters—all were struck alike.
Though boundless despair filled their minds, not a single thought of running away could take root.
And the formation Li Ping laid down was not even aimed at these cultivators.
Merely being caught in the collateral effect was enough to reduce them to such a state; one could only imagine what cruel spectacle the consciousness of the Congyun Sea was enduring.
The remnant world will of a single province was simply incapable of resisting it.
Amidst the ceaseless shrieks of billions of demonic faces, Li Ping felt the will of the Congyun Sea gradually dissipating.
The monstrous waves slowly subsided.
It seemed as though everything was passing, and the skies were clearing after the rain.
Yet Li Fan knew that from this moment on, the Congyun Sea would never be the same.
The process of grinding down the Congyun Sea's consciousness lasted an entire day.
During this time, every cultivator who entered the bounds of the Congyun Sea was affected, falling into terrifying illusions.
However, because no massive slaughter had occurred all at once, the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals had not yet had time to react.
The dark clouds in the sky dispersed, leaving the Congyun Sea beneath a pristine azure sky.
It was dreadfully quiet.
Li Ping sensed the scattered will of the Congyun Sea drifting between heaven and earth.
The golden net slowly retracted, drawing the remnant world will—already torn into countless pieces—back into his body.
"Ugh..."
As Li Ping absorbed the consciousness of Congyun, countless images began flashing continuously in his mind.
Even though he was accustomed to constantly monitoring everything within Great Qi, the sheer volume of information here was on a completely different scale.
Within the vast ocean, it was not only humans that existed.
Beneath the tranquil surface, trillions of living creatures multiplied and lived.
From Li Ping's subjective perspective, he would never have paid much attention to creatures lacking intellect.
Yet now he was absorbing it all passively.
In the view of a world consciousness, there was fundamentally no difference between these fish and human cultivators.
Enduring the agonizing pain tearing through his sea of consciousness, Li Ping took in all of the information.
As though he had consumed a potent tonic, his spirit-soul ballooned outward like an inflating sphere.
Among cultivators, Li Ping's spirit-soul was already remarkably resilient, yet in its rapid expansion, cracks inevitably began spreading across it.
Under such circumstances, an ordinary cultivator would have no choice but to wait in despair for their soul to shatter and scatter.
Li Ping, however, was different.
Mastering the Heavenly Emperor's Qi Canon, he possessed not only the hundreds of millions of citizens of Great Qi as his anchors, but also the transcendent Source Power Essence within his body.
Golden energy surged, mending the wounds of his spirit-soul while acting as a supplement to stabilize its expansion.
Once the initial perilous phase passed, Li Ping gradually adapted.
Chapter 1231