Around Wu Ninglu, there was only boundless darkness; she could not locate the source of the voice.
Yet the voice chuckled weirdly without end, continuously provoking her.
"Get out here!" Wu Ninglu roared maniacally.
The other gave no answer. Instead, scenes of light illuminated the pitch-black void.
As Wu Ninglu looked, the resentment in her heart surged another level.
Those scenes depicted the grand, bustling celebration as the Sun Clan's wondrous child, Sun Tianci, born into Dao Integration, shook the world, with major clans across the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals sending envoys to offer congratulations.
Among them was even her own family, the Medicine Hall Chen Clan! Disregarding that they had previously torn all pretenses of cordiality with the Sun Clan, they still dispatched an emissary to offer felicitations. As the saying goes, one does not strike a smiling face; for the sake of the newly born Sun Tianci, the Sun Clan magnanimously accepted their gifts.
As for Wu Ninglu, the inexplicably missing biological mother of Sun Tianci, not a single person cared in the least.
...
"All of this glory and praise should have been mine!"
Such a stark contrast between mother and child's circumstances drove Wu Ninglu further into madness within the darkness.
She wept and shrieked, like howling ghosts and wailing wolves.
At that moment, the voice finally sounded again.
"Do you..."
"...want revenge against them?"
Instinct urged Wu Ninglu to lash out in curses, but what little reason remained within her gradually cooled her down.
Without hesitation, she replied, "I do! Senior, save me!"
"Hahahaha!"
A burst of wild laughter echoed from the dark. "Both your physical body and divine soul have vanished from this world, leaving behind merely remnants of divine thoughts. Even if you could return from death, what makes you think you could stand against the Sun Clan's five Dao Integration cultivators?"
Upon hearing this, Wu Ninglu's mind went completely blank.
Indeed. Never mind her current state—even if she had successfully devoured the Heaven-and-Earth Essence and achieved Dao Integration, how could she, relying on her strength alone, ever contend with a rising clan at the peak of its momentum like the Sun Clan?
All hope died in Wu Ninglu, yet in an abrupt flash, she realized: this senior, who had snatched her away right before three Dao Integration cultivators, could not possibly have done so merely for cheap amusement.
The reason he said this...
Wu Ninglu suddenly saw the light.
"I beg Senior to instruct me! Success or failure, Ninglu is willing to slave like a beast of burden or handmaiden to serve at Senior's side!" Wu Ninglu said through gritted teeth.
"Hmph. You are nothing more than a lingering thought barely clinging to life. If I wish to crush you, would I need your consent?"
A mighty pressure enveloped Wu Ninglu. Under the terrifying suffocation, she felt that what little consciousness she had left could be utterly annihilated at any second.
Her thoughts grew fainter and fainter, her heart drowning in despair.
Just then, the crushing tension around her vanished into nothingness without warning.
"Fortunately, you aren't completely stupid."
The voice sounded like heavenly music as it resonated by her ear once more.
Simultaneously, a text of profound mystery surfaced in her mind.
The Three Disasters and Hundred Tribulations Bright Spirit Technique.
From a single thought, ten thousand ghosts arise—this was a supreme divine art capable of bridging any disparity in numbers.
Wu Ninglu read every single character with ravenous intensity.
"The Sun Clan... the Sun Clan..."
Sustained by the dreadful obsession for vengeance that burned in her mind, the first fiendgod of intention, radiating a sky-piercing baleful aura, slowly took shape.
Hiding in the darkness, Li Fan's divine sense avatar nodded slightly as he observed the entire transformation from beginning to end.
Though the Sun Clan's sage could be considered raised by his own hands, that did not stop him from forging a natural nemesis for him.
As for when this peerless, terrifying fiend—driven solely by a lust for revenge—would be unleashed, or whether she would be released at all, that remained entirely unknown.
Everything was merely a spare move he casually left behind.
"In this lifetime, all manner of preparations are in place. All that remains now is to quietly await the grand show.
"Judging by the Sacred Emperor's disposition and the current balance of power, the first clash between both sides won't be long in coming."
...
Three months later, the first clash between the Sacred Dynasty and the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals unfolded in a manner no one could have anticipated.
The origin of the conflict was a streak of sword light arriving from beyond the heavens.
On that day, golden light arched like a rainbow, dazzling the firmament.
"Beyond the sea of stars, beneath the high wall, the Xuan Commerce Celestial Boat floats across tribulations."
Within the seven-colored rainbow light visible across the entire Xuanhuang Realm, sixteen characters shone brilliantly.
It seemed to be an extraordinary medium of communication; even when cultivators from the Alliance attempted to erase it, their efforts proved entirely futile.
They could only let the rainbow light drift quietly across the sky for seven days before it gradually dissipated.
Yet the shockwave stirred by those sixteen characters was far from settled.
Instead, it showed signs of escalating further.
Chizha Abyss, Broken Palm Immortal City.
Young Lord Shang recalled those sixteen characters, lost in thought.
"I knew he wasn't dead. Beyond the sea of stars, beneath the high wall...
"Has he already traveled so far?"
Holy Embryo Li Fan's ethereal, untrammeled bearing surfaced once more in Young Lord Shang's mind, stirring a twinge of nostalgia and a faint sense of loss.
"Beyond the Xuanhuang Realm...
"If I had cast everything aside back then and gone with him, what kind of sight would I be witnessing right now?"
After spacing out for quite a while, Young Lord Shang finally returned to his senses and got down to business.
He began transmitting messages to Diyi Jinglun, Ji Hongdao, and the others.
"Have you seen the rainbow light across the sky these past few days? That is the white-robed sword immortal I introduced to you earlier. Back then, you said I was prone to exaggeration. What do you have to say now?"
After flaunting to his heart's content, Young Lord Shang checked the quantity of Kongming Flowing Crystals in his private treasury.
Although the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals had long banned its circulation, the various major clans in the Alliance secretly hoarded varying amounts of it.
People had almost gradually forgotten about this item, but with the appearance of the seven-day rainbow light, Kongming Flowing Crystals surged back into the public eye.
The world had no idea how Holy Embryo Li Fan had actually departed the Xuanhuang Realm.
Thus, their instinctive guess was that he had used the same method as the sixteen Dao Integration cultivators who had departed the Alliance previously.
No one knew what those sixteen Dao Integration cultivators had sought in the depths of the starry sea, yet the information conveyed by the rainbow light was abundantly clear:
Beyond the sea of stars, at a place called the High Wall, lay a Xuan Commerce Celestial Boat.
This Xuan Commerce Celestial Boat possessed supreme dharmas capable of floating across tribulations!
A mere sixteen characters was enough to make countless cultivators swoon with longing and let their imaginations run wild, unable to contain themselves.
The brilliance of Holy Embryo Li Fan's message lay precisely in its ambiguity.
It fully unleashed the initiative of the Xuanhuang cultivators, rendering the Xuan Celestial Vessel of their imaginations ever more mysterious.
Some cultivators even rummaged through ancient texts and unearthed records about the Xuan Commerce Celestial Boat from antiquity.
"It was able to roam and shuttle between myriad worlds to trade! After all these years, it is clearly far more advanced than our tribulation-riddled Xuanhuang Realm!"
"The Xuan Commerce Celestial Boat—even the name alone fills one with yearning."
"Do you think that previous rainbow light could have been..."
"Fellow Daoist, watch your tongue!"
Regardless of the truth, Kongming Flowing Crystal had indeed once again become the hottest commodity in the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals.
Although the Alliance reissued bans, they could not stem the clans from secretly hoarding Kongming Flowing Crystals.
After all, this time there were simply too many cultivators doing so.
It had truly reached the point where the law could not punish the crowd.
Thus, the Alliance could only make examples of bottom-tier cultivators who lacked backing to muster a token deterrence.
In fact, even the Alliance's upper echelons developed differing opinions.
The Sun Clan.
Sun Luyuan returned to the secret chamber of the Boundless Mirror, laden with worries.
"Brother, are you troubled over the rainbow transmission that has been stirring up such a tempest lately?" asked the Boundless Mirror's spirit, Sun Luyao.
"Sigh, more than that. The critical issue is that this affair touches upon far too much. Mirror Keeper Fu, who was penalized by Chuanfa to undergo secluded cultivation, came out early because of this and made an appearance. He even specifically asked me about Tianci. That old bastard..." Sun Luyuan spat resentfully.
"His meaning was that although Dharma Transmitter Jiang is forcefully keeping a lid on things, the uproar has grown too immense. Throughout the entire Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals, all cultivators now want to know what is happening beyond the Xuanhuang Realm on the other side of the starry sea. If no explanation is provided, it might destabilize the Alliance's very foundation. And yet, ever since the Heavenly Venerable's last transmission, all contact has been lost...
"To stabilize the situation, the Alliance plans to announce to the world soon that it will forge another Kongming rainbow to fly beyond Xuanhuang.
"Piloting the rainbow requires cultivators at the Dao Integration realm. Our Sun Clan has risen to too great a prominence lately—with five Dao Integration cultivators in a single clan, everyone in the Alliance knows of us. I fear that if they truly seek suitable cultivators to head into the starry sky, our Sun Clan won't be able to escape it.
"Fortune and calamity are truly unpredictable. Had we known, we wouldn't have publicized Tianci's birth into Dao Integration so boastfully. It was our miscalculation; our heads were turned for a moment." Sun Luyuan sighed.
Hearing this, the Boundless Mirror spirit Sun Luyao also frowned, feeling the thorny dilemma.
"Based on the clues I gathered inside the Heavenly Mystery Mirror previously, the starry sky beyond is likely fraught with peril. Even with the precedent of the Kongming rainbow, this journey offers no guarantee of survival. If a Dao Integration cultivator from our Sun Clan is truly assigned to go, we must prepare for a sacrifice," he said in a heavy voice after a long silence.
"The few of us have already discussed it. This matter is virtually unavoidable. If the decree comes down, we'll have Luchang go. My only fear is..."
Sun Luyuan paused and sighed, his voice dropping significantly lower. "My only fear is that they might assign more than one from our Sun Clan."
The subterranean secret chamber instantly fell quiet.
"Brother, I actually have a brilliant plan."
Just then, Sun Luyao suddenly suggested.
"Oh?"
Sun Luyuan leaned in to listen, his eyes brightening.
Before long, rumors began circulating across the Alliance.
They claimed that the Alliance high echelon had already agreed to a plan to craft Kongming Flowing Crystals once more, and that the number of cultivators permitted to exit Xuanhuang into the starry sky this time might be even greater than before.
However, the specific quotas had likely already been divvied up and preordained by the leadership, with certain powerful clans securing more than one.
Such explosive news spread like wildfire.
Cultivators who heard it were all filled with righteous indignation and outrage.
Beyond the starry sky—what an immense opportunity and fortune that was!
And they just divided it up amongst themselves just like that?
Completely ignoring the feelings of the grassroots Dao Integration cultivators who labored hard garrisoning the various provinces!
Although the Alliance quickly debunked the rumor, as long as the roster remained undecided, the storm was destined not to subside.
A number of Dao Integration garrison cultivators from the various provinces who had not returned to Alliance Headquarters in years even made an unprecedented journey back, all to demand an answer.
As for the Alliance's repeated warnings that venturing into the starry sea carried mortal peril and that the odds of returning safely were virtually non-existent, the furious cultivators dismissed it all as mere excuses.
They had their own rhetoric to push back:
"It is said that if one hears the Dao in the morning, one can die content in the evening. What fear is there in a little danger?
"Who among those who reached Dao Integration hasn't traversed a treacherous road?
"Trapped in Xuanhuang for an entire lifetime, dying in the starry sea would leave no regrets!"
The Dao Integration garrison cultivators across the provinces were the bedrock of the Alliance's rule.
With them banding together now, even the Dharma Transmitters found themselves dealing with a headache.
After serious deliberation, they finally gave their response:
The Alliance would weigh the candidate roster with great care, striving to ensure fairness, impartiality, and public trust.
With the personal guarantee of the Dharma Transmitters, the garrison Dao Integration cultivators finally departed Alliance Headquarters.
Yet at the same time, this confirmed the previous rumor that the Alliance intended to forge another Kongming rainbow.
For a time, Alliance cultivators engaged in feverish private discussions.
With a first and a second time, the Alliance's exploration of the starry sky would certainly not end here.
Though they were not yet at Dao Integration now, who knew what the future held?
And even if Dao Integration was hopeless in this life, Kongming Flowing Crystal was something they could actually get their hands on, wasn't it?
If they couldn't eat the meat, couldn't they at least sip some of the broth?
In private black markets, the price of Kongming Flowing Crystal skyrocketed again. The moment any appeared, no matter how exorbitant the price, it would be instantly snapped up.
Meanwhile, clever individuals had already begun heading into various secret realms and pocket worlds, digging three feet deep into the ground searching everywhere for traces of Kongming Flowing Crystal.
Great Qi of the Sacred Dynasty.
Around the Holy Emperor Throne, Li Ping's disciples stood arrayed.
They were already well aware of the tumult within the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals.
However, all affairs of the Sacred Dynasty were decided by the Sacred Emperor's word alone.
Since Li Ping had spoken nothing of it, they could only act as though the matter had never occurred.
"Master, that Kongming Flowing Crystal—should we get involved?
"Breaking out of the Xuanhuang Realm and exploring the unknown starry sea... just thinking about it is exhilarating." Ou Shangtian, as bold as ever, asked with a grin.
"Since the Alliance wants to seek death, let them. The more Dao Integration cultivators they lose to the void, the better it is for us." With a single nonchalant sentence, the Sacred Emperor determined the direction of the matter.
Ou Shangtian showed a hint of disappointment.
The others, however, pondered the meaning behind the Sacred Emperor's words.
"Next, you must be on strict guard and prepared for battle at any moment."
The Sacred Emperor's subsequent words invigorated their spirits.
Sun Erlang nodded. "Those Alliance cultivators are acting like madmen right now, hunting everywhere across pocket worlds for that Kongming Flowing Crystal. Our Sacred Dynasty's homeland is one thing—they certainly won't stumble across it. The main concern lies with the numerous subsidiary pocket worlds we have already conquered..."
Li Ping said, "Avoid direct clashes for now, but there is no need to deliberately dodge them either.
"When you strike, be decisive. Do not leak any information regarding the Sacred Dynasty."
The Sacred Emperor's words left the disciples eager to test their mettle.
"Sun Erlang."
"This disciple is here."
"Yi Shu has stayed with us long enough. Accompany him and make another trip back to the Taiyan Sect," the Sacred Emperor said calmly.
"This disciple obeys," Sun Erlang bowed and replied.
Chapter 1256