"Move if you are capable of bearing the burden of heaven and earth's separation," Zhi Xuan hissed, moving his fingers downward. "Xuan-Huang, suppress!"
BUM!!!
The ground around the rift sank dozens of zhang deep. The Underworld General let out a raspy roar as his knees, made of stacked ancient armor, shattered into pieces. The thick death aura around him was forcibly sucked into the cauldron's vortex, purified, and then thrown back down as an unbearable, heavy weight.
"He... he is suppressing that Underworld General all by himself!" shouted one of the Heavenly Leaf Sacred Pavilion disciples in a nearly hysterical tone.
DONG!
The fourth strike exploded from beneath the cauldron. This ti, the force was so imnse that the Heavenly Trifold Reincarnation Cauldron vibrated violently and was thrown back toward Zhi Xuan in its small, original form. The Divine Cauldron humd subtly beside Zhi Xuan.
The vibration from the fourth strike was not just a sound wave, but a backlash from a higher law, an authority that refused to be suppressed by anything. Zhi Xuan caught his small cauldron with a numb palm, feeling the residual vibrations that had almost cracked the very foundation of his soul.
"That bell... it protects the denizens of the underworld," Zhi Xuan thought, his eyes narrowing as he stared at the black smoke billowing from the bottom of the crater.
The black smoke suddenly solidified, and from it erged new figures of generals. Not just one, but five Underworld Generals with different armors appeared, each carrying a death aura capable of freezing the flow of spiritual essence in the air. They stood surrounding the rift, acting as sentinels of the gateway.
Zhi Xuan snorted coldly. He closed his eyes for a mont, and when he opened them again, the sapphire blue flash in his eyes sharpened. He floated high, stomping his foot against the void of the sky, and three vortexes appeared from the void behind him.
"Heavenly River Flowing through the World!" Zhi Xuan cried, his voice thundering through the roaring Huang Tu winds.
Zhi Xuan clasped his palms together. Ti froze for a second before a tidal wave of river water collapsed from the three void vortexes behind him. Every droplet struck like thousands of mountains rged into a single drop.
BUM! BUM! BUM!
The five Underworld Generals raised their massive weapons—rusted swords, bone axes, and spears shrouded in green fire. However, the mont the heavenly river water touched their bodies, the ancient armor wrapping their rotting flesh instantly shriveled and disintegrated.
Tens of thousands of Bone Demons trying to crawl out were swept away like snowflakes in winter. The opportunity was seized by the elite Ancient Chen Clan disciples who had been previously suppressed; they shot forward, approaching the creaking Golden Seal of the Emperor.
"Golden Seal, Glow!" roared the Ancient Chen Clan elite disciple. He brought out a law board, and pure energy flowed without residue into the fading ancient characters.
The golden light flared up again, attempting to close the widening gap. The rift slowly, bit by bit, began to close until only dozens of zhang remained open. The ocean below was still sweeping, but the Golden Seal of the Emperor was now under control.
"The Underworld is open!" roared one practitioner among the Pavilion of Heavenly Secrets group. "The opportunity to see the underworld is right before our eyes."
"Staying still will only leave you behind by the dust of history!" shouted a middle-aged practitioner, his face red with overflowing greed. "The gate is wide open! Treasures from nine thousand years ago await behind that darkness!"
"Do not be reckless, you fools!" roared Elder Xuan Ji, his voice thundering to hold back the wave of practitioners who were about to charge. "Do you not see those five Underworld Generals were just pulverized by Senior Gu's technique? Entering now only ans surrendering your bodies to beco fertilizer in the Jiu-Quan soil!"
"Hmph, Elder Xuan Ji is right," Wei Tianfeng snorted, his eyes staring sharply at the rift that was still emitting a cold aura. "Anyone who leaps there without preparation will only find their soul torn apart by the remnants of the unpurified death aura."
"But Brother Tianfeng, look at the Ancient Chen Clan!" Ji Yuanyi pointed toward the majestic qilins that had begun to dive down. "They have already started securing the path! If we do not move now, will we only get the leftover bones?"
"Wait for Senior Gu's command," Ji Haoxuan hissed with a firm, undeniable tone. "Look at him; he hasn't moved from the sky. If a figure like him is still alert, then there is a monster larger than just those rotting generals down there."
"Senior Gu!" Wu Xinghan exclaid, his voice trembling slightly. "Is it ti? The golden seal is stable, but the aura down there... why does it still feel so heavy?"
Zhi Xuan remained floating in the air, his eyes never leaving the darkness beneath his slowly receding heavenly river. Xiao Die shot out; the Thousand Feathered Moth expanded, and from her wings erged essence threads that reached toward the spatial rift, as if tasting the death aura there.
"This aura... is not just death," Xiao Die hissed, her antennae vibrating subtly. "But Senior, the gate of the underworld has indeed opened. The Golden Seal of the Emperor, under the Ancient Chen Clan lineage, has stabilized, but down there is a realm different from the world above."
Zhi Xuan took a deep breath, allowing the turbulent spiritual energy within his ridians to calm. "We descend."
Zhi Xuan shot straight down like black lightning splitting the orange horizon, followed by Ji Haoxuan, Ji Yuanyi, Wei Tianfeng, the Wu siblings, and Lu Qingyan. Around them, hundreds of practitioners from various sects and small clans began a freefall like rain.
As their bodies crossed the line of the pulsing Golden Seal of the Emperor, the souls of the practitioners felt as if they were being pulled across an endless world. Separating the boundary between the world above Huang Tu and the one below, a warped distance stretched before every practitioner's eyes, montarily shaking their divine souls.
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The shock to their divine souls lasted only an instant, but for the Weaver practitioners, it felt like being pulled through thousands of samsaras in a single breath. When their consciousness recovered, the sight before their eyes was sothing never seen by mortals.
The ruins of Grand Palaces of Gods and Devils stood majestically, alongside a vast expanse that was the remains of the sealed immortal world. Around them, the Jiu-Quan basin flowed like the earth's veins for the world above; these were the remnants sealed by Great Emperor Chen.
In the distance, the great clans began to disperse. The qilins of the Ancient Chen Clan glided toward the center of the ruins, where a floating palace, half-destroyed, appeared enveloped in eternal blood mist. anwhile, mortal practitioners began to scramble to loot whatever was scattered among the ruins.
Zhi Xuan landed lightly on a destroyed pillar. His eyes swept the ruins before him. Beside him, two faint lights suddenly appeared and ford Su Ling and Wei Shuo, who bowed slightly and clasped their hands in front of their chests.
"Senior, are you willing to walk with the Sacred Pavilion?" Su Ling asked, her voice full of respect. "If Senior is willing, we would greatly welco being able to walk alongside our Holy Maiden's Dao protector."
"I have my own path," Zhi Xuan answered. "Your Holy Maiden also did that; she never followed my steps. The Sacred Pavilion has its own path, and so do I."
He turned toward Ji Haoxuan and the others, each of them walking cautiously in the surroundings. Zhi Xuan smiled thinly, then shifted his gaze forward again. Su Ling and Wei Shuo were silent for a mont before they straightened their bodies.
"In that case," Su Ling said, waving her hand and handing over a jade tablet with respect. "If Senior ever requires the authority of the Sacred Pavilion here, this jade tablet will always serve as a reminder that the Sacred Pavilion does not hesitate to support you."
Zhi Xuan accepted the jade tablet with a slow movent, letting his fingertips feel the coldness radiating from the heavenly leaf carving on its surface. He did not refuse, but neither did he give any promises.
Su Ling and Wei Shuo bowed once more before their bodies dissolved into a green glow, darting toward a different direction, chasing the shadows of other elite disciples beginning to infiltrate the labyrinth of the palace ruins.
"This buried world..." Zhi Xuan murmured, his voice nearly sinking. He set his foot upon the ground. "A fallen immortal world; is this the form of things from the Upper Realm?"
Around him, Ji Haoxuan and the others stood with bated breath. The majesty of these ruins oppressed their minds; the stone pillars soaring thousands of zhang high seed like giant fingers trying to reach back for the sky that had discarded them.
"Senior Gu, this place... it is so suffocating. Even with my Weaver cultivation, I feel like an ant walking at the feet of a giant," Ji Haoxuan whispered while scanning the towering pillars.
"Don't just stand there, Brother! Look beneath your feet!" Ji Yuanyi exclaid in surprise. "This ground... it is no ordinary soil! Could we be walking on the dust of the bodies of Gods and Devils?"
Suddenly, from the northeast, an explosion of deep red spiritual energy soared high, followed by a high-pitched shriek that split the silence. A group of mortal practitioners who had just entered were seen running away from a small, tilted temple. But before they could reach a safe distance, black shadows resembling giant strands of hair shot out from within the temple, coiled around their necks, and dragged them back into the darkness in an instant.
"Brother! They're gone!" Ji Yuanyi whispered, her hands trembling violently seeing fellow practitioners of her level dragged like insects into a spider's nest. "What creature was that? I didn't feel any aura of life from there at all!"
"Retreat!" Ji Haoxuan cried while pulling Ji Yuanyi's robe collar. "Tianfeng, don't let them scatter!"
"I know! Wu Xinghan, don't be stupid, don't go near that temple!" Wei Tianfeng stomped his foot, creating a barrier. "Xingyan, behind you!"
"Begone!" Wu Xingyan moved her fingers, severing the shadow strands trying to creep over the ground. "Brother, this aura... these are not Bone Demons; this is Death Intent that has beco a spirit!"
"Careful!" Lu Qingyan flicked her fan, triggering blades that instantly obliterated those strands. "Haoxuan, that temple isn't the only one! Look behind those giant pillars; they're starting to creep out from every crack in the ruins!"
Zhi Xuan did not move an inch, but his sapphire irises flashed as he watched thousands of shadow strands creeping like black snakes from behind the ancient pillars. He moved his fingers; his forehead glowed for a mont and ford a formation that protected him.
That formation carried the rotation of the domain laws he mastered; the essence of Reincarnation enveloped his surroundings and spread to the practitioners behind him. Instantly, within a ten-zhang radius, those shadows seed to hit a transparent barrier, yet they did not break and continued to circle the formation.
Outside, one by one, the practitioners probing the underworld treasures slowly beca filled with madness; the underworld aura crept in and disrupted their souls, making those who were unprepared re vessels for those shadows to prey upon.
"Even Weaver experts won't last a hundred breaths after arriving here," Zhi Xuan murmured. "Truly cruel."
"That is the will of the Gods and Devils!" Lu Qingyan gasped, her finger pointing toward spirits that seed to solidify in the underworld sky. "They devour souls, taking over the body..."
"Wait, quiet!" Zhi Xuan hissed, his jaw instantly clamping shut as he warned them, his fra freezing like a statue.
The silence forced by Zhi Xuan’s warning instantly choked the air inside the formation circle. Ji Haoxuan and the others froze, their breath held; Ji Haoxuan even had to cover Ji Yuanyi's mouth as a fog of darkness began to creep in from the distance.
The sound of shrieks and the clashing of practitioners around them slowly fell silent and seed to be devoured without rcy. So tried to release their domains and flee through their Divine Spirits, but it was as if the dark fog devoured those who kept moving.
Zhi Xuan did not move; the fog around the formation was split by it, only revealing shadows that kept clawing and forcing their way into the flawless formation. Behind him, the Wu siblings huddled together, not daring to make a sound.
"Weaver experts... swallowed just like that?" Wu Xingyan thought, her heart trembling. "This... this is like nothing ever seen in the Nine Plains; this fog... devours practitioners like they are no more than small candle flas."
"Fortunate are those who entered the remains of those palaces; this fog... they avoid the palaces," Wu Xinghan thought. "Casualties are falling; even those who cultivated to the Weaver stage cannot survive when taking a wrong step..."
From behind the thick, roiling fog, the sound of heavy, dragging footsteps began to be heard. The sound did not co from one direction but echoed from all corners of the ruins, as if every stone pillar in that place were breathing in the sa rhythm.
Zhi Xuan narrowed his eyes; his divine sense, which had rged with the law of Reincarnation, caught giant silhouettes moving within the fog. Those were no longer lowly Bone Demons, but a line of entities wearing shattered war armor, holding torn banners stained with blackened dry blood.
At the tips of their weapons were impaled the bodies of practitioners who hadn't managed to avoid the dark fog; their bodies were dry, appearing to shrivel as fast as possible until no life radiated within that fog of darkness.
Behind Zhi Xuan, Lu Qingyan’s face turned pale until it was nearly transparent. She saw one of those entities—a giant headless figure holding a large bronze axe—stop exactly tiga paces in front of Zhi Xuan’s transparent formation.
The entity stood as still as a statue. Its gaping neck cavity emitted cold steam carrying a thick aura of death. The weapon in its hand was impaled with the body of a practitioner still dripping with remnants of corrupted spiritual essence.
Ji Yuanyi trembled violently, tears pooling in the corners of her eyes, but Ji Haoxuan’s hand covering her mouth felt as solid as a mountain, forbidding her from making a single squeak. The air inside the formation felt increasingly thin, heavy with pressure from the outside that seed to want to crack space itself.
The headless entity sniffed the air, its giant axe slowly rising, radiating a pure killing intent; seconds passed like thousands of years. Finally, the entity lowered its weapon and continued its march, rging back into the line that disappeared into the thick fog.
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