Clash

"Infiltrating this time won't be quite so simple," Yaoguang thought to himself. A Star God's Life Force Field was effectively an absolute domain. Theoretically, slipping past it or even approaching unnoticed was completely impossible. Yaoguang had managed to enter the sensory range of Star God Barton's force field earlier partly because, as a Dharma Idol cultivator endowed with martial attainment far surpassing that of any Star God, his personal cultivation was not yet inherently overpowering. Much like a tiny mosquito alighting upon an ordinary human, he was unlikely to draw much notice in the short term. Had it been a giant insect, a small animal, or a savage beast, raw instinct would have put anyone on high alert immediately. This time, however... He, the "mosquito," would not merely land upon the man; he had to plunge into the very core of his Life Force Field and deliver a bite. Under such conditions, no matter how dull one's reflexes were, an alarm would inevitably sound. With that in mind... Yaoguang crept closer with extreme care, pulling his aura in until it was thoroughly suppressed. Yet while he was still over a hundred meters from the "vault" Barton was guarding, the Star God clearly detected something amiss. Barton rose to his feet, sweeping a stern, searching gaze across his surroundings. A moment later, his Life Force Field rippled outward like expanding waves. The instant the field shifted, Yaoguang—having already penetrated its outer perimeter—could no longer remain unseen. And from the moment Barton stood, Yaoguang had no intention of staying hidden anyway. He checked the heavily sealed external core within himself... The next instant, the external core unlocked! A torrent of energy, fierce and blinding as a blazing star, erupted violently with him at its center. "Who dares run wild in my Immortal Alliance?!" Barton realized the peril instantly. Roaring with fury, he immediately attempted to log into the Immortal Alliance's exclusive Virtual Spirit Realm to call for reinforcements. But when his spirit intent reached into the Virtual Spirit Realm, he discovered to his shock... He had lost all connection to it! The anomaly tipped him off in a heartbeat. *Another master?!* Right on the heels of that realization, the surging energy burst within his Life Force Field like a rising, scorching sun. Only then did Barton discover to his sheer horror that the assailant... Was barely a hundred meters away! A hundred meters! Forget a Star God—even for a Star Lord or a high-tier body cultivator, that was nowhere near a safe distance. Calling it face-to-face was hardly an exaggeration. A sudden detonation at point-blank range left the Star God terrified. While wildly mobilizing his Life Force Field to counter the explosive fury, he hurled his body backward in an instant reflex, desperate to open up enough breathing room. And while Barton was pouring all his strength into suppressing the eruption of Yaoguang's Crimson Golden Core with his field, Yaoguang's true form effortlessly shattered the heavy doors of Dengxian Tower's "vault." Wrapped in violent surges of power, a formidable astral force field swept clean through the vault, gathering all the supplies Yaoguang had long targeted and sweeping them into his spatial storage treasure. Immediately following another ferocious blast of energy, Yaoguang tore right through Barton's Life Force Field, shooting toward the edge of the sky amid a thunderous sonic boom. The sonic boom shattered the air. The resulting shockwave slammed into Dengxian Tower's headquarters like a detonated nuclear warhead, its flash and searing heat sweeping across the sector, instantly obliterating everything in its path. Obliterated alongside it was the Dharma Idol tracking mark wrapped in Yaoguang's divine mind—the one that had originally been planted on Sheikh. The sudden catastrophe tore the prestige of the world's foremost pill export syndicate to shreds in an instant, plunging countless people into agonized screams. Far off at the horizon, his Life Force Field torn asunder, Barton fled in blind terror, streaking at top speed toward the Immortal Alliance Golden Cores stationed high in the firmament. It was too terrifying. Too horrifying. Not only could the intruder slip right under his nose before being noticed, but he could also rip apart Barton's Life Force Field the moment they clashed. Even if it was an ambush, that briefest of exchanges proved beyond doubt that his opponent understood him far better than he could ever have imagined! A Crimson Golden Core who knew him inside and out... The mere thought sent chills down his spine! Had he truly tried to fight to the death... He would have been crushed like dry twigs, if not killed outright! *Hum—* As Barton hurtled toward the edge of the sky, a mighty divine mind reached straight toward the battlefield through the Virtual Spirit Realm. It was Feng Ao, the Immortal Alliance's Dharma Idol! Yet before Feng Ao could even reach the fray, a vast power—comparable in raw strength to his own, but infinitely superior in its command of divine mind and the laws of the Virtual Spirit Realm—crashed into the personal virtual domain he had established like a meteor slicing through the void! The strike struck with such suddenness and ferocity that Feng Ao barely had time to react before it hit home. The clash between his opened virtual domain and the mysterious attack of divine mind triggered an unprecedented cataclysm across the public Virtual Spirit Realm. In an instant, billions upon billions of beings across the world using the realm found their connections severed. A digital tsunami tore through the public Virtual Spirit Realm, laying waste to everything in its wake. "A peak Dharma Idol?!" Bearing the brunt of the shock, Feng Ao bellowed in fury, throwing every ounce of his power into warding off the concentric ripples spreading from the impact. Even so, under the relentless pounding of those ripples, his entire Virtual Spirit Realm shuddered violently, large swathes of it crumbling into collapse. In the ruin, untold amounts of precious data were lost, and countless administrative departments ground to a dead halt. Yet Feng Ao could not spare a second to care. Channeling every scrap of power he could summon from the realm, he collided again and again with the reverberations, slowly whittling away the sheer force of the blow. At long last... At the cost of nearly a third of his Virtual Spirit Realm, he barely managed to weather the impact of that divine mind secret art. Yet despite holding his ground, the Immortal Alliance Dharma Idol wore no look of triumph—only a dread beyond words. A single strike! Granted, the attacker had likely employed some secret technique! Granted, the assault had come without warning! Granted, he had successfully parried the frontal blow in the end! Yet nothing could change the fact that the opponent had delivered only one blow! A single blow... Yet it had obliterated a third of his Virtual Spirit Realm! The yawning chasm in strength left Feng Ao, a Dharma Idol standing at the pinnacle of the world, trembling to his bones. He was so shaken that he failed to notice right away that the strike seemed to have an ulterior purpose—that certain files originally stored within the Virtual Spirit Realm had been wiped out with calculated precision. *Whoosh!* Three formidable divine minds pierced the void, probing into the area. "Feng Ao? What happened?" "Were you attacked? Was it Yelisa? Did you two come to blows?" "Absurd! There is an agreement that Dharma Idols do not lightly take action, and I have every intention of honoring it. My Myriad Beasts Sect is not like your Wuji Astral Palace, treating rules and pacts as worthless paper." At the Dharma Idols' words, Feng Ao snapped back to reality. "Wait..." That divine mind that had blindsided him out of nowhere... Was not one of the Dharma Idols he knew. At the realization, he quickly projected his divine sense downward to investigate again, this time with utmost caution. As he cast his divine sense outward, his Virtual Spirit Realm retracted rapidly into a posture of total defense. Alas, his scan revealed only chaos across the attacked headquarters of Dengxian Tower. Star God Barton, who had been stationed there, had already taken to the sky, manifesting his Stellar Fiendgod form while tightening his Life Force Field, scanning his surroundings with paranoid vigilance. Just then, another mighty divine sense cut across the sky, accompanied by a shooting star streaking swiftly from the horizon. "Lord Feng Ao, we came under attack? Where is the enemy?" "Lord Miller," Feng Ao responded, adding in haste, "It wasn't just one assailant. There was also a Dharma Idol cultivator." He underscored the gravity of his words: "One far stronger than me, yet not belonging to any known Dharma Idol!" "What?! A fifth Dharma Idol?!" The newcomer, Miller, was the Golden Core cultivator backing the Mi family. Disbelief colored his divine sense. "From which sect?" "I do not know. Perhaps Barton knows something." Feng Ao's divine mind quickly echoed in Barton's spirit intent: "Lord Barton, what in the world just happened?" "A Crimson Golden Core attacked our vault! He looted every last pill we worked so hard to amass! At a conservative estimate, we've lost thirty million spirit stones' worth of goods!" Barton replied in a rush. "A Crimson Golden Core?! Who? The Brahma Divine Kingdom? The Shouyang Sect? The Brahma Cult? The Taiyi Cult?!" Miller's divine sense instantly locked onto Lin Deng of the Wuji Astral Palace, as well as another Dharma Idol, Luofu. "The only uncertain Crimson Golden Core in this world right now is Hu Xi of the Taiyi Cult, whom your Wuji Astral Palace has spent enormous resources cultivating! What does the Wuji Astral Palace hope to gain by sending Hu Xi to raid my Immortal Alliance?!" "Nonsense, utter nonsense!" Luofu vehemently denied it. "Hu Xi belongs to the Taiyi Cult, nothing to do with our Wuji Astral Palace! Besides, he is currently at the Taiyi Cult itself—how could he find the time to trespass into Immortal Alliance territory?" "Hmph! I shall pay a personal visit to the Taiyi Cult. They must give our Immortal Alliance an explanation!" Miller snapped. Listening from the side, Lin Deng seemed to catch onto something and chimed in, "Our Wuji Astral Palace has maintained excellent relations with the Immortal Alliance over the years. Stirring up friction between our two sides over mere misunderstandings and suspicion will only gladden our enemies and grieve our friends." He continued in a measured tone, "There are, after all, a fair few Crimson Golden Cores around, making them difficult to verify one by one. But Dharma Idols... there have only ever been four to this day. This fifth Dharma Idol appearing out of thin air is far too suspicious. Could it simply be a power on the level of a Dharma Idol rather than a true Dharma Idol?" "Dharma Idol-level power?" Miller caught his drift at once. Lin Deng smiled. "Precisely. I am referring to that entity in the Nine Cauldrons Sect suspected of possessing Dharma Idol-level power."