Duty

The five Immortal Kings of the Ancient Immortal League struck with exquisite timing. At this moment, Immortal King Wumu had risked discarding millions of years of cultivation to buy time for Immortal King Longxiang to gather his decisive, lethal strike. Yet when facing this fatal blow, Immortal King Nizhuan and Immortal King Alpha had faltered in cowardice and abandoned their efforts halfway. The abysmal performance of these two Immortal Kings plunged Immortal King Xuanqing—who had originally been confident in breaking this supreme immortal art, Heaven's Execution—into a position of dire peril. As the two supreme immortal arts, Universe Inversion and Heaven's Execution, collided, the horrifying shockwave unleashed by their explosive power swept across nearly half of the Immortal Realm in an instant. For millions of li around, stretching across an entire domain, hundreds of thousands of immortal cities collapsed and pulverized into dust. Amidst this tempestuous destruction, not only was Immortal King Xuanqing severely injured, but the immortal bodies of two Immortal King-tier directors directly disintegrated. What was worse, they suffered a fate even grimmer than Immortal King Wumu's: not even a wisp of a remnant soul remained, and they were wiped out on the spot, their existence entirely deleted. The Tier 18 clearance level they had painstakingly achieved over millions, or even tens of millions of years was instantly reset to zero. Thousands of Grand Dao shares surged out from the two Immortal Kings. If enough Void Shattering cultivators had been present, who knew how many Dao Lords might have been born. "Hahaha!" Amidst hearty, unrestrained laughter, Immortal King Longxiang—whose immortal body had been blown apart by his own supreme immortal art—activated a secret treasure. Cocooning his remnant soul within it, he fled directly in the direction of Tianyuan Group. Yet at that most crucial juncture, the Immortal Kings of the Ancient Immortal League intervened, annihilating him on the spot. The laughter came to an abrupt halt. Having appeared out of nowhere, Immortal King Tianming swept downward with his formidable immortal art, which had long been gathering power, slamming violently into Immortal King Xuanqing—the greatest threat to the Ancient Immortal League. The other four Immortal Kings struck simultaneously as well, slaughtering toward the other two teetering Immortal Kings and the rapidly retreating Immortal Kings Nizhuan and Alpha. "Tianming!" Immortal King Xuanqing's divine sense vibrated with fury and killing intent. At this moment, he seemed to suddenly realize something. Neither their own unyielding resolve to slay Longxiang and the others, nor Longxiang and Wumu's desperate, suicidal counterattack had been quite normal. Coupled with Immortal King Tianming's sudden emergence, and the supreme treasure bearing the authority of fate held in the Ancient Immortal League Leader's grasp... "It was you?!" Everything became blindingly clear. "Correct. Your reward shall be to turn into light that illuminates the Immortal Realm!" The immortal art gathered by Immortal King Tianming pressed down with crushing force. He himself commanded the Grand Dao of Order. Yet over countless years, taking advantage of his status as the Ancient Immortal League Leader and the various immortal artifacts in his possession, he had long cultivated the Dao arts of dozens of other Grand Daos on the side. Although the Dao art he unleashed now could not match Xuanqing's Universe Inversion or Longxiang's desperate Heaven's Execution, the number of Grand Dao resonances it triggered still reached nine times nine, eighty-one kinds. Without the assistance of the "Lord of Yuanxi," he had relied purely on his own strength to forcefully comprehend eighty Grand Daos beyond the Grand Dao of Order, forging them into a supreme-tier composite immortal art. From this alone, one could see just how terrifying Immortal King Tianming's natural talent was. Right now, this supreme immortal art centered around the Grand Dao of Order and coalesced from eighty-one Grand Daos came crashing down—and it struck right as Immortal King Xuanqing had just clashed head-on against a supreme immortal art. It instantly exceeded the limits of what Xuanqing could withstand. "No!" Accompanied by a despairing burst of divine sense, the Grand Dao power throughout Xuanqing's entire being converged into a single point. As if wagering everything on a single throw, it transformed into a desperate, final strike, colliding viciously against Immortal King Tianming's poised supreme immortal art. The frontal clash between the two immortal arts once again detonated a torrent of destruction barely inferior to the previous collision of supreme immortal arts. The area stretching a million li around the two combatants was battered directly into primal chaos. Yaoguang could even peer through these zones to glimpse the boundless nothingness beyond the chaos. Though Immortal King Xuanqing, already grievously wounded, mustered the full might of his Grand Daos to shatter Immortal King Tianming's counterattack, he ultimately could not withstand the recoil of the colliding immortal arts. In the end, his immortal body crumbled. He had to rely solely on his remaining power to wrap around his soul... Or rather, his Tier 19 clearance core, seeking to escape this place. Right at this moment, Yaoguang's divine sense arrived like lightning: "Chairman, come to me! I am a Void Immortal King; I have a way to lead everyone to a safe retreat!" Sensing this divine message, Xuanqing was shaken to his core. The elation of escaping death swiftly suffused his soul. In a daze, he seemed to see a holy beam of light shining down from the firmament, dispelling the gloom hanging over their hearts in one stroke. That was right! They still had Immortal King Yuxiao! Immortal King Yuxiao had been occupied with refining Immortal King Tianyu's void shares earlier and had not taken part in the siege, so he was currently at the peak of his condition. Moreover... Having received the inheritance of the Void Dao Ancestor, his realm of comprehension was exceedingly high, and he was a Void Immortal King. Even if he could not defeat the Immortal Kings of the Ancient Immortal League who had ambushed them, bringing them away safely was by no means an extravagant wish. With this thought, Xuanqing felt as though he had survived the catastrophe, and he immediately sent a message via divine sense to the other directors: "Quick! Regroup around Director Yuxiao and let him lead our retreat!" At that moment, the two directors betrayed by Immortal Kings Alpha and Nizhuan had also chosen to self-detonate their immortal bodies, preserving their Tier 18 clearance in remnant soul form beneath the onslaught of the Ancient Immortal League's Immortal Kings. Upon receiving Xuanqing's transmission, they rushed toward Yaoguang at top speed, as if grasping at a lifesaving straw. "I possess a treasure called the Human Sovereign Banner, which strengthens the mind and nourishes the soul. Quick, fellow directors, enter my Human Sovereign Banner!" Yaoguang produced a top-grade soul-type immortal artifact he had crafted long ago specifically for confining souls and consciousness, gesturing with a wave of his hand. With Chairman Xuanqing and the other two flying over willingly, both sides hit it off at once. The Creation Group chairman and the two directors flew straight into the Human Sovereign Banner. "Yuxiao!" Almost the moment the Creation Group's Immortal Kings entered the Human Sovereign Banner, Immortal King Tianming arrived not far in front of Yaoguang. But he did not attack right away; instead, he spoke: "I should call you Yaoguang instead! For I know you are not like the other Immortal Kings of the Hunyuan Realm; you possess grander ideals and pursuits! Your goal is not merely elevating your clearance to Tier 19, or even Tier 20 to rival an existence like the Lord of Creation. You wish to govern an entire world and become a magnificent lifeform on equal footing with the Lord of Yuanxi!" Seeing this, Yaoguang paused his movement. "How do you figure that?" "Everything is guided by fate." Immortal King Tianming spoke with absolute conviction: "The Lord of Yuanxi can monitor the Immortal Realm, yet why are there still so many unforeseen events beyond his control within it? It is because of the power of fate and karma. Compared to the Lord of Yuanxi, fate and karma are far more profound and arcane. Why do you think the Lord of Yuanxi invaded our Ancient Immortal Realm? It was because he coveted the marvels of fate, hoping to harness its power to achieve his own metamorphosis and become an even more supreme, even more magnificent form of life!" "Are you trying to tell me that everything is within fate's control? That fate is more powerful than the Lord of Yuanxi?" Yaoguang seemed to show a glimmer of interest. "Precisely." Immortal King Tianming nodded. "The Hunyuan Realm wishes to swallow our Ancient Immortal Realm, but does our Ancient Immortal Realm not wish to swallow the Hunyuan Realm just the same? Over countless years, the development of the Ancient Immortal Realm reached a certain threshold long ago, and it urgently required another metamorphosis to become a truly great world, allowing the Dao Ancestors standing atop our realm to step into a brand-new plane. And the opportunity for this metamorphosis lies within the Hunyuan Realm." He gave a cold sneer. "To outsiders, it may seem that the Hunyuan Realm holds the absolute upper hand, having even infiltrated the entire Ancient Immortal Realm. But in truth, the moment they infiltrated their power into our realm, they had already lost." A trace of fanaticism flickered in the Immortal King's eyes. "At this moment, the power of fate has already been set in motion. The Hunyuan Realm and the Ancient Immortal Realm will merge into a single entity, indistinct from one another. Yet the ultimate master will definitely not be the Hunyuan Realm's Lord of Yuanxi, but our Ancient Immortal Realm's Gate of Fate!" "Fate." Hearing this, Yaoguang frowned slightly. The Ancient Immortal Realm's seeming helplessness... Was it merely luring the enemy in deep? "Still, your price was a bit too steep. Both the Time Dao Ancestor and the Void Dao Ancestor fell. Whether this was a crushing defeat or luring the enemy, I think anyone with clear eyes could tell at a glance," Yaoguang said. "That was part of the plan. Since we intended to lure the enemy, we naturally had to offer bait of sufficient value." Immortal King Tianming was not surprised that Yaoguang raised this question. "This plan was devised long ago when the Time Dao Ancestor and Void Dao Ancestor charged into their territory. Back then, they sought to carry their power into the Hunyuan Realm—just as the immortal spirits invaded our Ancient Immortal Realm—so that our realm's power could blossom everywhere in theirs. But later, they realized that approach would not work." His gaze settled on Yaoguang. "Therefore, they concentrated their power, planted a seed in the Hunyuan Realm, and left behind a legacy! A legacy capable of concealing itself from the Hunyuan Realm!" A seed? A legacy? Yaoguang seemed to have already guessed what Immortal King Tianming was about to say. And Tianming, just as Yaoguang anticipated, spoke with anticipation and longing in his voice: "And you are the one who cultivated that seed, the inheritor of that legacy! The Void Dao Ancestor and Time Dao Ancestor never truly left us; they have revived by manifesting as you! Thus, you were born to stand alongside us, to join hands with us, reverse the heavens, and sound the clarion call for the Ancient Immortal Realm's official counteroffensive against the Hunyuan Realm!" "Born to stand alongside you..." Yaoguang felt a faint aversion to those words. "You must also be aware of the Lord of Yuanxi's objective. Once he achieves total victory, the entire Ancient Immortal Realm will cease to exist, and every being that lives by the Three Thousand Grand Daos will be devoured by him, becoming part of his existence. Thus, if only for the sake of 'survival,' you ought to resist alongside us to the very end." Immortal King Tianming looked at Yaoguang, his eyes shining brightly. "What's more, now that you have inherited the legacy of the Void Dao Ancestor and Time Dao Ancestor, you should naturally shoulder your due responsibility and take the initiative to raise high the banner of resistance against the Hunyuan Realm!" Having said that, he added with heavy emphasis, "With great power comes great responsibility. This is your duty, and the very meaning of life bestowed upon you by this legacy!"