The Great Venerables were deeply moved, while the Venerables had words stirring within them that they could not voice at this moment.
The Blood-Robed Sword God had invited them here, yet it was not to unite with them in confronting the Great Tribulation?
His confident, overbearing declaration echoed in their ears, refusing to dissipate for a long time.
More than a few Great Venerables felt a pang of shame.
Perhaps it was their hesitation, their self-preservation, that had chilled the Blood-Robed Sword God's heart.
Was that why he had chosen to cast everyone aside and battle the Great Tribulation alone?
"Blood-Robed Sword God..." Great Venerable Huangniu gritted his teeth. "My strength is humble, but I am willing to go with you and face the Great Tribulation together!"
He felt that having lived for most of a lifetime was long enough. It was time to strike against the nightmare that was the Great Tribulation, even if it meant dying in a blaze of ultimate brilliance.
Qi Yuan cast a glance at him. "You are too far away. You cannot reach the Central Heavenly Domain within three days, so don't bother coming along."
Saying so, he swept his eyes over everyone present.
"All of you only need to return to your respective domains and announce to the world that 'Qi Yuan Eliminates the Great Tribulation' has begun. Do not fret over any abnormalities. As for the rest, you have me," Qi Yuan declared with utter confidence.
He was no longer the greenhorn Qi Refinement newbie who had to sneak around in the dead of night to obliterate the Black Mountain Sect; nor was he the minor Origin Core cultivator who had to make all manner of provocative posts under multiple alts to stir up conflict and destroy the Palace of Light.
He was ranked among the grand Purple Mansion cultivators! In the Canglan Realm, he could claim a mountain as king, revered as a patriarch and ancestor!
This time, he declared war directly, telling the Great Tribulation: I, Qi Yuan, am coming to wipe you out.
Then he would head there in person and destroy it.
It was that simple, that casual!
"What immense confidence the Blood-Robed Sword God possesses! Such a formidable aura—one look and anyone can tell you are a magnificent man. Being so capable, surely your end will be quite different from all those other fools who resisted the Great Tribulation," Great Venerable Hunqiong grinned at that moment, baring his teeth.
Only his avatar had arrived while his true body stayed hidden, so he acted far more carelessly.
If his voice were swapped for a woman's, and if he transformed into a girl, eyes sparkling with stars, clutching tiny fists and shouting, 'Big Brother is so amazing!' the sheer flavor of it would have been peerless.
Qi Yuan's gaze landed upon Great Venerable Hunqiong. "Why do you speak with such sarcastic yin-yang mockery? Could it be... you share an affinity with my Yin Yang Forbidden Ground, destined to become a pile of dog crap inside it?"
The smile in Great Venerable Hunqiong's eyes froze. "Everyone claims the Blood-Robed Sword God is raving mad and slaughters by the myriad, yet it turns out you understand human speech after all. I only wonder how grief-stricken and agonized your parents, your kin, and your friends will be once you perish in the Great Tribulation."
"Hey, please, can't villains just chop their own heads off? Why must you run your mouth so much? Are you getting paid by the line?"
Without the slightest hesitation, a massive blood-red hand reached out toward Great Venerable Hunqiong.
Great Venerable Hunqiong's expression remained steady, perfectly calm and composed. "Losing your temper already? You don't possess a shred of the bearing expected of a true expert."
He flicked his sleeve, completely unbothered by Qi Yuan's attack.
After all, this was merely an avatar projection, utterly negligible.
As long as the consciousness was extinguished, he could return to his true body.
The Canglan Realm was boundless. Hidden away in a distant corner, even if the Blood-Robed Sword God overturned heaven and earth, he would never find him.
Yet the moment that blood-red palm clamped around his entire form, his expression abruptly shifted.
A piercing sense of peril erupted within him. He felt like an infant held in the palm of a colossal deity.
Every single trace of his existence seemed wholly gripped by this blood-robed man before him.
"In the Canglan Realm, as long as any villain catches my eye, they cannot escape my palm. Do you even know what kind of weight a grand Purple Mansion cultivator carries? Die... for me!"
Within the blood-red hand, blood qi boiled and surged.
With a crisp snap, Great Venerable Hunqiong's body fractured inch by inch.
Incredulity flooded his eyes.
For his consciousness perceived that what was snapping was not merely this avatar, but his true body as well!
His true body was clearly tens of thousands of li away in an unknowable location.
Formations were arrayed densely there; even if a Mythological being arrived in person, they could not penetrate those barriers in a short span.
Yet right now... how was this possible!
He stared in sheer horror at the blood-robed man, eyes pleading for mercy alongside profound incomprehension.
"Just how... did you do this?"
As his body crumbled, fissures spread through his consciousness. In that instant, both blood and divine soul were ground into dust.
Qi Yuan narrowed his eyes, his expression aloof. "Did you think my beating people through the ethernet cable was just talk?"
After obliterating the Palace of Light, Qi Yuan had tracked down his foes across the network to strike them.
Today was merely walking that old path once more.
Did distance make any difference?
Back then, a disciple from Taihuang Palace had talked big directly from the Upper Realm, only to be crushed and destroyed when Qi Yuan slammed a phantom sun down upon him.
As for Great Venerable Hunqiong, why bother with a phantom sun? Crushing him directly was enough.
With Qi Yuan's current strength as a grand Purple Mansion cultivator, bluntly speaking, who in the Canglan Realm could stop him aside from the Great Tribulation?
Great Venerable Hunqiong perished, dissolving into a mist of blood.
This was an obliteration at the level of the divine soul. Even if a Great Venerable could regenerate from a single drop of blood, he could never walk the mortal world again.
The other Great Venerables witnessed this scene, shock and wonder filling their eyes.
Great Venerable Huangniu trembled. "Great Venerable Hunqiong... is dead?"
This death was not merely the death of an avatar, but the total annihilation of the true body.
The other Great Venerables all sensed it. As for the Yin God Venerables, they failed to realize, assuming only Great Venerable Hunqiong's avatar had been destroyed.
Qi Yuan dusted his hands off; killing Great Venerable Hunqiong had been no different from squashing an ant.
"Everyone, I leave the publicity to you," Qi Yuan's tone relaxed back into an easygoing lightness.
The Yin God Venerables present all breathed a sigh of relief.
"We shall certainly promote 'Qi Yuan Eliminates the Great Tribulation' with all our might."
"Within a single day, half the inhabitants of the Canglan Realm shall know of this plan!"
"Senior Blood-Robed Sword God, please be exceedingly careful. The Great Tribulation... is not so easily handled. Otherwise... for so many years, the Canglan Realm would not remain like a pigsty!" an elder sighed, intense longing burning in his eyes.
For cultivators like them, ascending to the Upper Realm was almost a lifelong desire.
In the Lower Realm, their hands and feet were bound, unable to obtain sufficient immortal spirit essence to irrigate their divine forms, as if living in a sewer ditch.
"All right, enough idle talk. I have already drafted the promotional copy myself; you only need to copy, paste, and broadcast it. You handle the publicity, and I handle the execution. Bye-bye! Oh, and cleaning up the cultivation climate of the Canglan Realm is everyone's responsibility—start with yourself!"
With that, Qi Yuan vanished into thin air.
He left behind a hall of Great Venerables and Venerables wearing dazed, bewildered, and tangled expressions.
"Can the Blood-Robed Sword God truly do it?"
"That is the Great Tribulation... a calamity that not even Yang Gods could destroy!"
...
Central Heavenly Domain.
Inside a tavern, a young man's eyes widened in astonishment.
"There are still centuries before the Great Tribulation begins. How dare the Canglan Realm declare war on it ahead of time? Why didn't they build up their strength a bit longer?"
"What? Declared war? Why would they do that?" The female cultivator beside him looked equally astonished.
The two of them hailed from the Xingli Realm.
Like the Canglan Realm, the Xingli Realm was one of the Three Thousand Realms that had plummeted into the Lower Realm from Taihuang Palace.
Compared to the Canglan Realm, the Xingli Realm was far more powerful.
In the past, three Yang Gods had emerged together to strike against the Great Tribulation, but unfortunately... they suffered a catastrophic defeat in the end.
Even so, the cultivators of the Xingli Realm had always taken resisting the Great Tribulation as their duty.
Many cultivators even departed from their own world to enter other worlds kept like livestock, seeking out experts to rally against the Great Tribulation.
However, their efforts yielded little success.
"Could it be Great Venerable Baiyu? But that doesn't match his temperament!" Wang Lingshan guessed.
Great Venerable Baiyu was ostensibly the number one powerhouse in the Canglan Realm. If anyone were to propose resisting the Great Tribulation, it should have been him.
"It isn't him. It's the Blood-Robed Sword God, an expert who emerged in the last two years. Strange, records about him are scarce. And I can't shake the feeling... that this uprising against the Great Tribulation seems a bit childish, like... a joke. Who opposes the Great Tribulation like this?" Wang Lingtong said with a trace of helplessness in his voice.
He handed several jade slips to Wang Lingshan.
These jade slips belonged to organizations similar to the Divine Flower Society, and one of them happened to be from the Divine Flower Society itself.
Many announcements were published across them.
Wang Lingshan extended her divine sense into them, and her expression turned bizarre.
[One day equals a hundred years; the Great Tribulation's end draws near!]
[Qi Yuan eliminates the Great Tribulation; Canglan gains new life!]
[Better to descend into the Netherworld than leave the Great Tribulation alive!]
[The Great Tribulation gone, righteous ways restored, Canglan's spiritual energy soars through the roof!]
[Qi Yuan is strong, the Tribulation bows along, run through brick walls for Qi Yuan!]
Staring at these declarations, Wang Lingshan was rendered speechlessly stunned.
"Is this... real or fake?"
"This is far too reckless, just like a farce. Won't doing this infuriate the Great Tribulation?"
"No matter what, if he intends to eradicate the Great Tribulation, our Xingli Realm must lend some aid. Even if he ultimately fails, biting off a piece of the Great Tribulation's flesh would still be worthwhile!"
At this moment, throughout every corner of the Canglan Realm—whether in cultivation worlds or the mortal realm—the most heated topic was "Qi Yuan Eliminates the Great Tribulation."
Inside the Divine Flower Society, countless members were completely dumbfounded.
"What? We're starting to eliminate the Great Tribulation?"
"Are the cultivation methods truly poisoned? Why haven't I felt anything?"
"Last night I was discussing matters in the boudoir of my third aunt's cousin. She said the poisoned methods only affect those big Yin God bosses, having nothing to do with us at all!"
"Exactly! How could small fry like us catch the Great Tribulation's eye? Now they're coercing us into resisting it. If that angers the Great Tribulation and drags us down, what will we do?"
"Have you no conscience? If the methods are poisoned, our lives and deaths are constantly held in someone else's hands—is that a good thing? If our descendants are born, they will become provisions as well. Do you want that to happen?"
"If you put it that way, wouldn't it mean... even if this Qi Yuan wins against the Great Tribulation, we might still die?"
"Why is this person named Qi Yuan? It sounds a bit like that First Purple Mansion of the Divine Light Sect from before. Could they be the same person?"
"Sharing the same name is normal. How could one person be a Purple Mansion while the other is guaranteed to be a Great Venerable!"
Everywhere, discussions buzzed incessantly over Qi Yuan eliminating the Great Tribulation.
Even the secluded Divine Light Sect learned of the matter.
Yet no one connected this Qi Yuan who was to eliminate the Great Tribulation to the Qi Yuan on Seven Colors Peak.
Even though True Monarch Kumu knew Qi Yuan was extraordinary, and Kang Fulu understood that Qi Yuan was far stronger than imagined, in their eyes, eliminating the Great Tribulation was practically equivalent to contending against the Heavenly Dao. That was simply impossible for Qi Yuan.
Meanwhile, within the Origin God Sharing Society, Jiang Lingsu held a jade slip from the Divine Flower Society, looking utterly incensed. "Despicable! These people are truly sickening. It's one thing not to support him, but they are actually slandering him!"
Qi Yuan showed no surprise upon hearing this.
As for the noise online, he couldn't be bothered to care.
He believed that once the Great Tribulation was wiped out, with his presence, the atmosphere of the Canglan Realm would only get better.
"It's fine. If anyone posts nonsense, just report them to Little Fox Girl," Qi Yuan said casually.
"Still, I'm so angry!" Jiang Lingsu fumed. She had already switched between several alt accounts to defend her Eldest Senior Brother. Sadly, one person could not out-argue so many. "People like that ought to go straight to hell!"
Looking at Jiang Lingsu's adorably furious look, Qi Yuan smiled. "Perhaps... everyone will go to hell?"
Hearing this, Jiang Lingsu's heart clenched with an aching pang, and she hurriedly spat, "Phooey, phooey, phooey! Don't say such depressing things! The Great Tribulation is sure to be destroyed, and you will be safe and sound, Eldest Senior Brother!"
"Don't worry. Hell is my home; even if I descend into hell, I'll be fine."
"That seems true too. Last time you had the Eccentric Painter paint the Netherworld," Jiang Lingsu said, tilting her head as she remembered.
"There's even a plot of land in the Netherworld that you invested in, remember?" Qi Yuan's gaze was relaxed.
Back in the early days at the Divine Light Sect, aside from what he obtained from his white moonlight, Qi Yuan's cultivation methods and spirit stones had come from his well-endowed junior sister.
A blush crept across Jiang Lingsu's pretty face. Remembering something, she tugged at Qi Yuan's sleeve, her eyes earnest. "Eldest Senior Brother, this time... you must, must be careful. If... if there's even the slightest chance you can't beat the Great Tribulation, just run away!"
She knew Eldest Senior Brother was incredible.
Yet she had once caught a glimpse of the Great Tribulation through her clan's supreme treasure.
That kind of power was insurmountable.
She simply could not fathom how Eldest Senior Brother could overcome it.
After all, a little over two years ago, she had followed him in fearful suspense, tailing a powerful enemy, only for Eldest Senior Brother to ambush and strike down that Foundation Establishment foe with a kitchen cleaver.
Now, openly declaring war on the Great Tribulation gave her a surreal feeling of living in another lifetime entirely.
At the same time, recalling how thick the murderous aura on Eldest Senior Brother used to be, a trace of tenderness flickered in her eyes.
Just how hard had Eldest Senior Brother worked, and how much suffering had he endured, to reach where he stood today?
Sadly, she knew nothing of it.
"Don't worry. As long as a plan is set, I will definitely see it through! I could even destroy the Palace of Light—what does a mere Great Tribulation amount to?" Qi Yuan declared impassionedly.
Jiang Lingsu: "...Eldest Senior Brother, please stop talking. I'm worried about your mental state."
The Palace of Light was strong, but compared to the Great Tribulation, it was as fragile as an ant.
"Eldest Senior Brother, I believe in you!" Jiang Lingsu pumped her fists, her expression emotional. "I support you both spiritually and physically!"
Yet the moment the words left her mouth, her face flushed red again.
Physically support him? How?
However, seeing that Eldest Senior Brother didn't seem to notice the slip in her words, she let out a breath of relief, though accompanied by a tiny pang of disappointment.
She resolved to register a few more alt accounts and flame everyone who dared badmouth Eldest Senior Brother until they questioned their very existence!
Chapter 400