The spiritual power unleashed by the great demon’s self-explosion shattered the barrier erected by the combined efforts of all the great cultivators. A ferocious spiritual storm swept through, engulfing several elders who hadn’t managed to evade it in time. They perished utterly, body and soul extinguished.
Even Shang Si, who had retreated with lightning speed, suffered considerable impact from this desperate final strike.
“Damn it all, I never imagined that old bastard Cheng Qi would be willing to drag us down with him. Has he gone completely mad?” Emerging from the storm’s epicenter just a second or half-second behind Shang Si, Lin Xiao cursed up a storm. The dashing young man, once so elegant and handsome, now looked utterly bedraggled.
He glanced over and saw Shang Si, who had also escaped with her life. Aside from some rips in her skirt sleeves, she was unscathed. It twisted his nose with rage.
Young disciples like Lu Shiyuan had pulled back hundreds of meters away long before.
Witnessing this earth-shattering spectacle, they remained dazed for a long while.
Shang Si flashed to Lu Shiyuan’s side in an instant.
“A Si.” Lu Shiyuan’s brows knitted tightly as she clutched her sleeve.
“I’m fine, but something just feels off…” With one hand clasped behind her back, Shang Si gazed solemnly at the chaotic ruins in the distance ahead, her expression grave.
She was pondering Cheng Qi’s final words before his death.
A man on the brink of death had no reason to spout empty threats like a sore loser in a childish brawl, just to become a laughingstock. There had to be something they didn’t know.
“I feel the same way.” Lu Shiyuan was surprised to hear Shang Si echoing her exact thoughts.
Yet all around them, everyone else was basking in the relief of “the matter resolved,” blissfully unaware that the conflict had ended far too easily—that the great demon from the Demon Realm had died far too simply.
Over the past few days, the unease gnawing at Lu Shiyuan’s heart had only intensified.
At first, she had chalked it up to worry over potential flaws in Shang Si and the others’ plan, fearing it might spark war between the realms. But now the dust had settled; the Jiao Dragon Clan’s patriarch had been forced to self-destruct. Her anxiety hadn’t faded—instead, it burned fiercer than ever.
It felt as though she could sense, deep down, that something momentous was on the verge of unfolding.
As if to validate Cheng Qi’s parting words and Lu Shiyuan’s premonition, Lin Xiao’s furious roar soon tore through the sky: “That knife-deserving bastard Cheng Qi actually left a contingency!”
In that instant, all feelings of relief and survivor’s joy froze solid.
Shang Si and Lu Shiyuan arrived at Lin Xiao’s side moments apart. In his hand glowed a Sound Transmission Talisman, still lit.
Someone had just relayed a message.
Before Shang Si could even ask, Lin Xiao turned to her with a bitter scowl. “Shang Girl, the Jiao Dragon Clan is marching toward Kunlun territory with their forces.”
“Kunlun?” Bewilderment flickered across Lu Shiyuan’s face. A sneak attack on their home base?
But that didn’t add up. Raiding just the Kunlun Sect—what significant blow would that land?
Besides, nearly every sect had emptied their nests for the battle at Lingxiao Palace, bringing along their top young talents. All that remained behind were gatekeeper disciples. What was there worth raiding?
An answer teased at the edge of her mind—that tantalizing sensation of brushing against the truth, yet always falling just short.
Shang Si pieced it together a beat faster.
“Oh no.”
“Shang Luo, rush back to Spirit Void Palace and check if the Teleportation Array is intact!”
Kunlun harbored a legend passed down through generations by word of mouth: its peak was the closest place to the heavens.
For millennia, people dismissed it as mere myth, forgetting that immortals had once truly walked the Six Realms.
And at a certain spot atop Kunlun’s peak lay the gateway from the Human Realm to the Immortal Realm.
Though the Immortal Realm had long faded into oblivion, Kunlun Sect elders across the ages had faithfully guarded that portal, barring outsiders from casual entry.
For one thing, the immortals might be gone, but their realm’s ruins endured—brimming with vast opportunities matched by perils just as deadly. A single misstep could spell doom.
For another, traversing Kunlun to the old Immortal Realm offered a shortcut to the ancient Netherworld Prefecture.
The very place now buried beneath Yedu City, where millions of resentful spirits lay suppressed.
If her guess was right, the Jiao Dragon Demon’s convoluted scheme—sacrificing even their aging patriarch—wasn’t aimed at Kunlun itself. No, they sought to exploit Kunlun’s Heaven-Piercing Gate, slip into the underworld beneath Yedu City, unleash the Million Resentful Spirits, and plunge both Yedu and the Human Realm into chaos.
This long-forgotten secret, on the cusp of erasure from memory, was clawing its way back into the light amid the farce.
Grasping the dire stakes, Shang Luo—who had lingered beyond the barrier—immediately ignited a Spirit Talisman at her little aunt’s command, dispatching it to the Ghost Guards stationed near the Teleportation Array.
However, dead silence came from the spirit talisman, with no relevant information returning at all.
The odds were grim—more ill fortune than good.
The group could only hurry back to the spot in Spirit Void Palace where the teleportation array had been placed. As expected, a brutal battle had unfolded here. The ghost guards assigned to watch the array lay dead or gravely wounded, and the central teleportation array—which could span ten thousand miles in moments—was all but destroyed.
“It’s busted, though not entirely. It might squeeze in ten more people at most before it gives out completely,” the elder from Purple Firmament said after leaping atop it for a close inspection. Moments later, her face grave, she delivered her verdict.
The array had survived this long only because there hadn’t been time to finish the job; they had reacted too swiftly.
“Can it be repaired?” someone in the crowd soon asked.
The elder shook her head, her voice heavy with thought. “Fixing it would take too much time and energy—not worth the cost. Right now, we need to dispatch people immediately to catch up and stop those demons from wreaking havoc.”
For a moment, no one knew what to do.
In ordinary times, the great immortal sects vied openly and covertly, all surface harmony masking deep rivalries where no one truly yielded. When trouble struck like this, only a figure of Ancestor Lin Xiao’s stature could command real action; the rest lacked the clout.
At that moment, Shang Si—who had worn a stony expression throughout—spoke up sharply, naming several people in quick succession. “Enough talk. Lin Xiao and I, along with Yedu’s two ghost generals, will head to Kunlun and pursue the Jiao Dragon. Shang Luo, once I’m gone, contact Nan Jin at once so they can shore up their defenses. The rest of you elders, return to your sects for now and guard against any further Demon Realm schemes disrupting the Mortal Realm’s peace.”
Ye Lord’s command carried real weight.
Yet some of the old-timers felt the team could use a few more hands. Murmurs rose, only for Shang Si to cut them off with brutal frankness. “Strength falls short? Then going is just suicide.”
“Any objections?”
“Or does someone care to wager their life on chance?”
Arrogant. Haughty. Utterly without peer.
But undeniably true.
This time, no one dared object.
“And what about me?” Her name hadn’t appeared in Shang Si’s orders. Lu Shiyuan bit her red lip, stubbornly voicing the question despite knowing the answer.
Only then did Shang Si turn to look at her.
“Junior Sister, your cultivation has advanced greatly, but even Master and the sect leader can’t meddle in this. You can’t help either. Return to Sword Spirit Sect with me,” Shen Guang interjected quickly, before Shang Si could respond.
Shang Si nodded, her tone softening naturally. “He’s right, Shiyuan. Go back to your sect.” By rights and sentiment alike, Lu Shiyuan counted as one of Yedu’s now—but Shang Si directed her to Sword Spirit Sect, not to join Shang Luo back home.
Privately, Shang Si sensed Yedu was in for turmoil this time around. She refused to let Lu Shiyuan walk into that danger.
“I understand,” Lu Shiyuan murmured, lowering her gaze and turning away with evident disappointment.
Shang Si felt a twinge of regret but couldn’t spare the distraction for matters of the heart just now.
No one knew Lu Shiyuan’s true thoughts.
She understood full well: in this situation, neither Shang Si nor the elders and sect leaders would approve her joining the teleportation array, no matter her pleas.
But she was going regardless.
Lu Shiyuan tightened her grip on the Azure Frost Sword.
An overwhelming urge deep within drove her onward.
She had a premonition: this calamity engulfing the Three Realms could be resolved by no one but her—and the key lay in that mysterious ancient ruin of the Immortal Realm.
Thus, once Shang Si and the others had departed, Lu Shiyuan mingled with disciples from the various sects, helping clear debris and tidy the battlefield.
Seizing the moment when vigilance slackened, she gathered her spiritual power and vanished in a flash—
“Lu Shiyuan!”
“Junior Sister!”
Chaos erupted.
