Confrontation

"The Cangwu Great World." Jiang Tianzun looked down upon the world beneath his feet, a place both familiar and foreign. Familiar, because he had grown up here since childhood. Here, he had cultivated, refined qi, established his foundation, and eventually forged an Immortal Foundation to become the Artifact Sect's Dao Child, regarded by everyone throughout the sect as their future. Foreign, because in his life of under a century, he had spent the greater part of it elsewhere. In a world where cultivation flourished far more, endowed with vastly richer resources. Beihai Star. A cultivation world akin to vast space compressed and congealed into solid form, ultimately shaping something like a planet—or rather, a cosmic crystal, a world heart. Like a scholar who had achieved success, left his hometown in adulthood to work in a bustling metropolis, and returned twenty years later, he naturally felt this mingled sense of the foreign and familiar. Yet, compared to the anticipation he had felt just before returning, not a shred of ease or joy remained in his heart. "Tianzun, do not lose hope in the Cangwu Realm entirely. In a world so large, there will always be a few bad apples. You must not immerse yourself in this negative state. Instead, use these violent emotional upheavals to face your true self, perceive your true form, and coalesce your true spirit," Wan Liugui advised with a solemn expression. The Void Piercing Realm! The most crucial step was to pierce through to the true nature of one's Dharma Idol—the truest self deep within one's heart. Only then could one refine the void into reality and condense a true spirit, ultimately using that true spirit as a guide to open up heaven and earth, evolve a grotto-heaven, and establish the cornerstone of the Void Piercing Realm. A Void Piercing cultivator without a true spirit—much like him, like the other Void Piercing cultivators of the Cangwu branch, and like those Golden Cores who took radical shortcuts—was incomplete. "Elder Wan, I know what I am doing," Jiang Tianzun responded calmly. "I destroyed that planet because my Jiang family was gone. Without them, there was no need for that planet to exist. But Cangwu Great World is, after all, the homeland that nurtured me. I will naturally not go so far as to destroy Cangwu alongside it." He still needed to retain the support of the Cangwu branch within the Taiyi Immortal Sect. If he destroyed the Cangwu Realm in a fit of rage, it would draw immense resentment. Moreover, a great world could yield some resources for him. Though ordinary in quantity and quality, it was still better than nothing. He understood the calculations of profit and loss well enough not to lose both people and resources over a momentary burst of temper. Listening from the side, Wan Liugui did not approve in his heart, but Jiang Tianzun had already gathered unstoppable momentum. After being accepted as a disciple by Supreme Elder Yuhuang, the rest of the Cangwu branch saw him as the hope leading their resurgence. Under such circumstances, Wan Liugui's personal opinion mattered little. In the fiercely competitive, brutally unforgiving Cangwu Great World, ordinary cultivators could only survive by huddling together. Though he had reached the Void Piercing Realm, he had walked the path of a Battle Immortal, and could not be considered a truly formidable figure or personage of power. "Jiang Tianzun." "We respectfully welcome Jiang Tianzun's honorable arrival." "After sixty years, Jiang Tianzun has returned to Cangwu! All of Cangwu is bathed in glory, and everyone takes pride in Jiang Tianzun's magnificent achievements!" Having hurried over, Susan, Qiao An, Yang Han, Lu Xi, and the others bowed in greeting to the group who had warped through space. Yet Jiang Tianzun did not spare them a glance. He merely spoke in an indifferent tone: "Where is Su Yaoguang?" At these words, everyone present froze. Su Yaoguang? Who was that? Wait! Su Yaoguang... Yaoguang? Quick on his feet, Qiao An immediately asked, "Does Tianzun seek the Realm Lord of the Yaoguang Realm, Perfected Yaoguang of the Nine Cauldrons Sect?" As he spoke, his gaze quickly turned toward the distant star that had been continuously collapsing inward, now shrunk to a span of mere thousands of li. No! It could no longer be called a star. A brilliant yet somber blaze encircled that region, painting a three-dimensional ring of interwoven black and red, while at the center of that ring, a terrifying aura was radiating outward. Such omens... "Another person from our Cangwu Great World has attained the Void Piercing Realm?" Wan Liugui glanced over, his brow instantly furrowing. "With this form, the breakthrough is far too forced. Its stability is so poor that even without fighting, he will hardly survive three to five years!" A Void Piercing cultivator, having accommodated the grotto-heaven opened through a true spirit, possessed vast and stable power. Bolstered by this might, they could warp space-time to buffer the erosion of passing years, easily living for ten thousand years or more. They were said to enjoy boundless longevity. However, Void Piercing cultivators on the Battle Immortal path did not fall into this category. Not only was their condition abysmal, with their chaos caverns liable to collapse at any moment, but their lifespan received no increase whatsoever. Surviving seven or eight hundred years was considered long-lived for them. Many Void Piercing cultivators forged through the Battle Immortal path lived only three to five hundred years, no different from the ancient Core Formation cultivators of the Cangwu Great World. And if the opened chaos cavern proved unstable, three to five hundred years could instantly dwindle to three to five years. Back when they launched the counteroffensive against the Moon Demon Empire's homeland, many Golden Core cultivators who broke through to the Void Piercing Realm perished in their very first battle—dying upon breakthrough, their lifespans lasting only a few days. That tragedy remained vivid in memory even now. Yet Jiang Tianzun's gaze did not linger on this being breaking through in the Cangwu Great World. In his master's words, Battle Immortals were cannon fodder. A Void Piercing Battle Immortal was nothing more than high-grade cannon fodder. A tool slightly better than beasts of burden. When useful, one treated them with a veneer of dignity; when not, one paid them no heed, letting them fend for themselves. They were not on the same level as cultivators like him. Jiang Tianzun's gaze moved past Qiao An and the others, falling straight upon a figure standing not far from that Void Piercing presence. Though there were minor changes, Jiang Tianzun recognized him immediately based on the information gathered from his interrogations. "Su Yaoguang." He looked calmly at Yaoguang, as if stating the most ordinary matter in the world: "For the sake of our shared Cangwu lineage, I will grant you a chance to take your own life. Do so, and I will only exterminate your ten clans rather than destroy the entire Nine Cauldrons Sect." Yaoguang looked at this Jiang Tianzun. Unlike other Golden Core cultivators whose auras blazed like scorching suns, shining across tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of li, Jiang Tianzun carried a deep, chasm-like authority that made him hard to look upon directly, yet he appeared far more normal. If he reined in his aura, he would seem no different from an ordinary practitioner. A return to simplicity. Or rather, his mastery over his own power had reached the absolute pinnacle. "Did you destroy the Yaoguang Realm?" Yaoguang asked. "With no Jiang family members remaining, that planet naturally lost its reason to exist," Jiang Tianzun said calmly. "Just as now, exterminating your ten clans so that everything connected to you ceases to be will slightly soothe the grief in my heart. After all, I am currently at a critical stage of cultivation; you truly should not have stirred my emotions. That is a price no one in the Cangwu Great World can afford." "So, I should thank you for your magnanimity and benevolence?" Yaoguang said. Hearing this, Susan barked impatiently from the side, "Su Yaoguang, have you lost your mind?! Did you not hear True Disciple Jiang's words?! Take your own life at once, and the heritage of your Nine Cauldrons Sect can still be preserved! If you stir unnecessary emotions in True Disciple Jiang, or provoke his fury, even dying ten thousand times would not atone for the guilt of your entire Nine Cauldrons Sect!" Hela chimed in immediately, "To pull weeds, you must dig up the roots; to wipe out a house, you leave neither chick nor dog, lest endless disasters follow! That is the iron law of Beihai Star! True Disciple Jiang values sentiment and loyalty, willing to pursue only you, the chief culprit, and spare the sect out of regard for our shared Cangwu roots. What immense mercy is this?! Why do you not take your own life and give thanks for his grace?!" Before Yaoguang could respond, a formidable divine sense swept across the void from the three-dimensional ring that had already shrunk to several thousand li, descending upon this star region. "I would like to see who dares wipe out my Nine Cauldrons Sect!" The next instant, the ring of several thousand li contracted violently. The surrounding space caved inward around him with terrifying frenzy. It was as if several thousand li of starry void had been forcefully compressed into several hundred li, then tens of li, several li, and finally mere hundreds of meters. As the spatial warping slightly settled, a figure stepped forth from the distortion. It was Li Hanqiu. Seeing this, Qiao An, Lu Xi, Miller, and the others, who knew Li Hanqiu's capabilities intimately, once again felt an indescribable, earth-shaking shock. He succeeded?! Li Hanqiu had actually pulled it off?! Even if, as Wan Liugui said, this success came at the cost of risking his life to seize a mere sliver of survival, and the duration his chaos cavern could maintain was inferior even to the earliest generation of Void Piercing cultivators—leaving him with only three to five years without combat, and death after a single battle—he had succeeded nonetheless. With the conviction of one who could die content having heard the Dao at dawn, he had stepped into the Void Piercing Realm. For that alone... *Li Hanqiu... I am not his equal,* Lu Xi sighed inwardly. Qiao An, Zhan Ke, Miller, and the others looked at him with tangled emotions. There was envy, admiration, and regret... Of course, more than a few Golden Core cultivators wore sneers. When the mighty experts of Beihai Star had returned, he had been dragged down by Yaoguang to the point of risking his life to force a breakthrough to the Void Piercing Realm. Though he had succeeded, he had only three to five years left to live... How pathetic, how laughable. Yet immediately afterward, these people realized something else. Wait. Li Hanqiu had achieved the Void Piercing Realm?! And Wan Liugui was his master?! Then what now...? "Hanqiu?!" Wan Liugui was momentarily stunned as he looked at the figure emerging from the warped void, but a look of joy quickly surfaced on his face. Li Hanqiu was also taken aback upon seeing Wan Liugui acting as Dao protector beside Jiang Tianzun, and a wave of excitement rose in his heart. Yet before he could show it, he remembered the present circumstances, reined in his emotions, and bowed deeply to Wan Liugui: "Master." This respectful bow, maintaining a deliberate distance, caused Wan Liugui to realize the truth, and he fell silent. Beside him, Jiang Tianzun watched Li Hanqiu step directly to Yaoguang's side, shielding him behind his back. Perceiving the situation, a flicker of expression finally crossed his indifferent, placid face. He frowned, but his brow soon smoothed. "Very well. Out of respect for Elder Wan, I will not wipe out the Nine Cauldrons Sect down to the last man. You may also accompany me to Beihai Star. However..." Jiang Tianzun pointed behind Li Hanqiu: "Su Yaoguang and his nine clans must be exterminated." "Thank you, True Disciple Jiang." Wan Liugui cupped his hands gratefully toward Jiang Tianzun, then turned to Li Hanqiu. "Though your breakthrough to the Void Piercing Realm was reckless, as long as you come to Beihai Star, a way can always be found to stabilize your chaos cavern and extend your lifespan. Now, come over. Do not interfere with True Disciple Jiang's affairs." Li Hanqiu glanced at Wan Liugui, yet his body did not move an inch. After a brief silence, he spoke in an unshakable tone: "Master, True Disciple Jiang... Yaoguang is under my protection."