Within the halls of the Tai Xuan Sect.
"The Divine Hall has been destroyed—wasn’t it obvious this thing would break free?"
Feng Guanhai couldn’t help but stomp his feet in frustration. "It’s all because of you thieves stealing the True Breath! Only our Zhongxing Sect is clean!"
That much was true.
Neither Daoist Cangyue nor Xu Junzhu could refute him.
"Ahem, ahem." Daoist Cangyue swiftly changed the subject. "What’s done is done. Pointing fingers won’t help. The urgent matter now is to arrange the Divine Master’s sacrifice to stabilize this thing—otherwise..."
He didn’t need to finish. Everyone knew catastrophe loomed.
The northern sky seemed to have collapsed, revealing a monstrous abyss amidst rolling thunderclouds. The mere glimpse of the colossal entity exuded an aura of death and ruin, chilling to the bone.
"Whoosh—whoosh—whoosh!"
Crane puppets, one after another, flew in with the wind, delivering the latest reports from all corners.
The breach of the Yellow Springs monstrosity had shaken every fragile seal in the underworld. Now, all seals were on the verge of collapse, and a tide of demons was about to engulf the world.
"The sacrifice cannot wait!" Daoist Cangyue declared gravely. "At this critical juncture, anyone who obstructs it is an enemy of all!"
Weighed against the fate of the world, what was one life?
He turned to Feng Guanhai, waiting for the old man to speak—but the old man remained silent.
"I remember," Feng Guanhai finally drawled after a long pause, "on the day of the Azure Cloud Assembly, some fool yammered in my face about how Daoists should be the first to die."
Daoist Cangyue frowned.
Feng Guanhai continued, "I found that extremely irritating, so I shut him up right then—if he expects me to die for him, he should go die first!"
Daoist Cangyue’s expression darkened. "What are you implying? Are you saying the Divine Master shouldn’t sacrifice himself for the world?"
Feng Guanhai waved a hand. "What I mean is, if we can take him down, then we should just tie him up and throw him to the sacrifice. If we can’t, then there’s no point whining like a fool!"
Xu Junzhu: "...Senior speaks his mind."
"So?" Daoist Cangyue’s voice was icy. "Are we joining forces to subdue him or not?"
Xu Junzhu shook her head. "You both know my senior brother’s nature. If the world is in peril, he would never stand by and do nothing."
Daoist Cangyue narrowed his eyes. "You’re saying he’d willingly offer himself?"
Before Xu Junzhu could answer, Feng Guanhai burst out laughing. "No way! That kid would just charge in and fight to the death!"
Everyone: "..."
You really do know him well.
"BOOM—"
Another earth-shaking tremor.
The land for thousands of miles rippled like waves.
A new development appeared in the distant sky—three dazzling beams of spiritual light formed a massive shield, blocking the Yellow Springs monstrosity.
The clash between ancient, sinister death and the radiant shield sent ripples of colorful ionized clouds across the heavens, their ethereal glow stretching for miles.
Someone had intervened!
Xu Junlan leaped up in excitement. "It must be Luo Luo and Senior Brother!"
"Well, well!" Feng Guanhai stroked his beard, chuckling. "This generation of youngsters is truly remarkable! Unless my eyes deceive me, those are three strands of ancient True Breath?"
Daoist Cangyue’s expression remained grim. After a long silence, he muttered, "Do they intend to emulate the Three Sovereigns of antiquity and use the True Breath to rebuild the Divine Hall, sealing this monstrosity away?"
Before he finished, a clear, bright voice rang through the hall.
"Wrong!"
Everyone turned to see Luo Luo flicker into view, striding forward with urgency.
As she marched past, she declared, "That thing—it IS the Divine Hall!"
Everyone: "?!"
Wh—what?!
Xu Junzhu’s eyes frosted over. "Luo Luo, what exactly is going on?"
Time was short. Luo Luo tossed a small dreamscape into her hands.
"Let’s talk on the move!"
Hongmeng Jun’s soul burned.
He felt split in two—one half screaming to flee, the other recklessly charging forward like a moth to flame, determined to protect this broken world.
"Why am I doing something so stupid... I’m not an idiot like Lingxue... Why?!"
The grass puppets crumbled to ash, scattering in the wind.
His blazing soul stood like a titan, propping up the three strands of True Breath and shaping them into arrows, shooting them at the Yellow Springs monstrosity.
"BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!"
The True Breath struck below the colossal eye, shimmering like three glowing teardrops.
With this done, his soul was on the verge of dissipating.
‘Hah... Dying to protect the world... doesn’t feel... so bad?’
‘Was I actually a good person all along?’
Just as his thoughts faded, a final spark of clarity flashed through his mind.
Scattered memories connected like a thread.
‘Wait—no—was I protecting... Du Juan?!’
But it was too late.
His last wisp of consciousness vanished into the wind, leaving no trace in the cycle of rebirth.
As they raced forward, goosebumps rose on Xu Junzhu’s cheeks.
"So..." Her temples throbbed, pupils trembling. "The Sage made a great vow—to eradicate the ‘evil’ on the other side of the passage... for the sake of all living things."
Luo Luo nodded solemnly.
"The Divine Hall is his physical form. Even after his death, his body would fulfill the karmic obsession he planted. So, his form crossed the passage to the other side, to destroy the source of the malevolent invasion... Du Juan." Xu Junzhu inhaled sharply, her gaze lifting.
It was here.
It descended with the will to annihilate.
"Right," Luo Luo confirmed. "The other side of the passage is our world—‘Du Juan.’"
These were two different worlds.
Though strikingly similar, Luo Luo had witnessed the Sage’s world firsthand. Comparing it with the historical records of her own, she spotted unmistakable differences.
The Sage’s body arrived with an unshakable resolve to exterminate.
Before his arrival, he never imagined the other side would be a world of mountains, rivers, flowers, and birds.
His form, devoid of consciousness, couldn’t rectify this mistake—and nearly destroyed "Du Juan."
Fortunately, there were still Taiyi, Tian Yin, and Hongmeng Jun.
Lost in dreams, they never left the Divine Hall. Instead, they followed the Sage’s will, crossing the mirror-like passage of the Yellow Springs.
They inherited the Sage’s soul power—and the karma of his vow to protect all life.
The Three Sovereigns of antiquity, dazed and unaware, never realized they had entered another world.
Witnessing the apocalyptic horror of the Yellow Springs, they acted on the Sage’s legacy, channeling his soul-infused True Breath to strike it.
Replacing the intent to destroy with the will to protect.
Thus, the ultimate terror vanished from the world, and the colossal Divine Hall materialized—two sides of the same entity. The Yellow Springs monstrosity and the Divine Hall were one and the same.
Xu Junzhu understood: "The Divine Lord is the Sage's apocalyptic obsession."
"Exactly!" Luo Luo told her, "Li Zhaoye said that thing only knows how to kill, kill, kill, kill, kill."
Xu Junzhu drew a sharp breath: "If that obsession returns to its physical form, it would truly bring about the end of the world!"
There was no force in this world capable of standing against it.
Luo Luo nodded vigorously: "That’s why I dragged him away as fast as I could!"
She tugged lightly at the nearly invisible sealing threads in her hand, which connected to Li Zhaoye floating in the distance—like flying a very disgruntled kite. "If I didn’t hold onto him, he’d go pick a fight with that thing! He’s so stubborn!"
Xu Junzhu: "..."
They raced southward at full speed.
Though the three of them stood at the pinnacle of cultivation in this world, the oppressive shadow looming from the north drew closer and closer.
Xu Junzhu gazed at the sky and sighed. "Just how powerful is this Sage...?"
"As you can see, he’s nearly reached the level of the Heavenly Dao," Luo Luo said solemnly. "To our world, he’s also one massive Du Juan."
Xu Junzhu chuckled wryly. "No kidding."
How destructive could a "dead Heavenly Dao" be?
Even the sky was on the verge of collapsing under its weight.
"Wait," Xu Junzhu asked, "Didn’t Hongmeng Jun already repel the three breaths of truth?"
She turned to look back—silver-white, golden-bright, and ink-black breaths were embedded in the eyes of the colossal netherworld entity, like three shimmering teardrop marks.
"They’ve changed hands a few times. The soul force and wish power aren’t as strong anymore," Li Zhaoye, the human kite, drifted back. "But the obsession has only grown heavier."
His face was deathly pale, the two scars beneath his eyes almost bursting through his skin.
Luo Luo could only sigh helplessly.
In the final moments, the three lords, even as they perished, remained steadfast in their duty to protect the world. With their last strength, they sealed the obsession that had latched onto living beings, entrusting the world to safeguard this "Divine Lord."
The Divine Lord—master of the Divine Seal Temple.
Luo Luo murmured, "Using the body once inhabited by obsession as a sacrifice… what geniuses."
Xu Junzhu sighed. "All for profit. The people spared no effort in offering tributes to the immortal sects and the Divine Palace, all to preserve their peaceful lives. In the past, someone had to regularly cleanse the Divine Seal Temple and its surroundings, consuming vast resources."
"Oh—" Luo Luo understood. "Sacrificing the 'shell' once used by the obsession would provoke and awaken its true form. Under its terrifying pressure, even demons would be suppressed, eliminating the need to exterminate them."
Xu Junzhu smiled faintly. "But the annual tributes to the Divine Palace never decreased, did they?"
Luo Luo gritted her teeth in frustration. "So much money, so much money!"
Li Zhaoye looked utterly defeated. "All gone with one glance from that thing."
Luo Luo: "..."
Right. With one sweep of the netherworld colossus’s gaze, the entire sacred mountain had crumbled.
Luo Luo’s heart turned to ash. "All that money! Gone!"
Xu Junzhu exhaled. "At this point, shouldn’t our biggest concern be something other than material possessions? What’s your plan, you two?"
Without even turning around, the three of them knew the entity was closing in.
The massive shadow of the netherworld loomed overhead, deathly pale.
Where its sinister presence passed, the flowers and grass withered, lifelessly drooping to the ground.
Ahead lay the Winter Lord’s Ridge.
Luo Luo narrowed her eyes, her expression grave. "Make it see us."
"Huh?"
She explained seriously, "I shared its emotions for a fleeting moment. In its eyes, this world is nothing but turbid evil energy. We’re like worms squirming within it—no, even less than worms. It’s too vast, too powerful to even notice us."
"We have to make it see."
Her lips curled into a mysterious smile. "Make it see that there’s something formidable here."
Xu Junzhu stared blankly at the sky.
In her vision, heaven and earth were nearly indistinguishable.
This entity… akin to the Heavenly Dao itself. Make it… see?
She tried summoning frostfire.
The frostfire of a nascent Dao-unity cultivator couldn’t even illuminate a sliver of the netherworld’s deathly gloom.
The colossal eye in the sky felt like a planet about to collide with the earth.
She frowned. "The gap is too vast. How do we make it see?"
Luo Luo hesitated. "I’ll need to borrow Senior Sister’s spirit mountain."
Xu Junzhu laughed. "If the world’s ending, what’s one spirit mountain?"
As they spoke, the three of them descended upon Winter Lord’s Ridge.
The tallest peak was entirely composed of spiritual veins. Above the snowline, the summit was perpetually blanketed in snow condensed from spiritual energy.
From afar, the mountaintop was the only place still reflecting a faint glimmer of distant sunlight.
"Whew…" Luo Luo let out a relieved breath. "We’ve successfully lured it here!"
Li Zhaoye raised a brow. "Will this work?"
Luo Luo grinned. "Of course!"
"Fine." He tilted his head toward Xu Junzhu. "Buy your junior sister some time."
"Just tell me what to do."
The two of them darted forward, one after the other.
Luo Luo stepped onto the snow, pausing briefly before her spiritual energy erupted into flames.
The fire surged wildly, growing fiercer by the second until her body and soul were entirely consumed by the blaze.
Brilliant flames flickered as she formed a seal with one hand—then slammed it down!
The spiritual fire, radiant as a meteor or a phoenix, crashed into the mountain’s spiritual veins.
Luo Luo scattered into countless embers of drifting flame.
The world was already shrouded in the netherworld’s deathly darkness.
Her faint spark was nearly invisible.
I am but a firefly’s glow.
She flowed through the spiritual veins—from the earth’s pulse to the mountain’s peak.
So what?
Beneath the rocks, within the snow, across the jade steles, inside the wooden huts… one by one, sparks ignited into wildfire.
With this firefly’s light, I dare shine alongside the sun and moon!
