At the peak of the Spirit Tower, an old man with a face as pale as death and breath as thin as silk witnessed the entire war from the perspective of a bystander. Within his withered body, a strange, fierce heat began to burn...
What was supposed to be a meticulously planned death trap set by the former had been easily crushed by the latter.
The scarlet of the bridal gown and the brilliance of the youth rampaged through this battlefield without restraint. From shock to numbness, no amount of words could describe the complexity of his current state of mind.
Using every ounce of his strength, he struggled to lift his head. Ignoring the howling wind and the fury of the swords in his ears, he stared at the blood-red mass of light above with dim eyes and sighed with deep meaning.
“The gap between people... truly never ends at just cultivation realms.”
Ling Tang had fallen.
Dark Tiger was dead.
Within the Spirit Lord Hall of the Spirit Tower, not a single one of the dozens of bronze life lamps remained lit. The entire hall was pitch-black and gloomy.
Li Shuhe sheathed her sword. She stood on a stone pillar at the top of the Spirit Tower, arms folded across her chest as she leaned against her long sword. The eight people had been tossed onto the Spirit Tower by Xu Xian and were now gathered behind her.
Yet the slaughter continued. The sea of swords remained dense, and the surviving Grey Spirits and dark spirits continued to follow the final command of the deceased Ling Tang, carrying out their orders to kill Xu Xian.
Xu Xian fought fiercely, his six spirits protecting their master.
In contrast, the scene atop the high platform seemed entirely detached from the chaos below.
Lu Yuan and the other seven couldn't help, and Li Shuhe simply didn't want to.
No one dared to speak, even though they could see that Xu Xian held the upper hand despite being surrounded.
However, the chaotic battlefield and the cacophony of sounds still prevented their hearts from finding peace, as worry flooded their minds.
Among them, Lu Yuan steeled himself and approached Li Shuhe from behind. “Aren't you going to help?” he asked.
Li Shuhe glanced at him sideways with an arched brow. She looked at him meaningfully but offered no response.
Lu Yuan felt awkward and a bit frightened, but since Xu Xian's life was tied to his own, he mustered his courage and spoke again. “Please, go help him. There are too many of them.”
Li Shuhe didn't turn her gaze back, but she spoke in a rare, deliberate manner. “He and I had an agreement. I take those above the rank of Small Spirit Lord, and he takes those below.”
Lu Yuan was stunned. Then, he understood, yet he remained puzzled. He grumbled inwardly, Is she really that stubborn?
Lives were at stake here.
However, he also knew he couldn't persuade her. He wisely shut his mouth and continued to sweat in anxiety for Xu Xian.
Li Shuhe could sense the strange looks from the eight of them, but she didn't care.
She knew Xu Xian could do it. Previously, when a group of Small Spirit Lords had tried to hunt him, he had managed to resolve the crisis. He had even protected these eight people while facing a pack of wolves at the start of the battle.
Now...
The enemy was weakened, their numbers were plummeting, and he no longer had any burdens. Victory was certain.
Of course, she could step in and end it all sooner to prevent any further complications, but some paths had to be walked by Xu Xian himself.
She could protect him for a moment, but could she protect him for a lifetime?
The answer was yes.
But she would only protect him until they reached the spirit river. The road beyond that, he would have to walk alone.
Danger didn't only exist in the darkness.
The bright land that the living souls called the Immortal Land wasn't truly safe either.
All the surviving creatures of Cangming were gathered there, a motley crowd of all sorts.
Surviving in such a place might not be any easier than surviving in the darkness...
He came from the lower heavens and had no powerful backing or protection. He had to rely on himself for everything, so he naturally needed a different kind of trial.
So far, however, she was extremely satisfied with Xu Xian's performance. He was much more formidable than she had been at his age.
“Hmm...” she thought. “Only someone like him can achieve what I once couldn't.”
From the perspective of a spectator, Xu Xian had gone mad with slaughter. Only Xu Xian himself, in the midst of the battlefield, felt the sheer exhaustion of the fight.
Unleashing all six swords from the White Jade Capital to awaken the six spirits and then raising a million more swords—he appeared to dominate the battlefield, but in reality, he was worn out.
Maintaining the operation of such high-intensity killing moves consumed a massive amount of spiritual energy.
Originally...
He thought that once Li Shuhe finished her side, she would come to help him, allowing him to catch his breath.
But reality proved that he had been overthinking.
Li Shuhe had no intention of stepping in at all. Instead, she was standing there watching the show.
That “agreement” hadn't been a polite remark or a reminder; it had been a notification of her decision.
Xu Xian could naturally guess some of her intentions.
He didn't complain about it. Instead, he felt she was reliable—a woman of her word.
When she had said she could lead him out of this grey darkness, he had felt a few traces of doubt. But after this battle, Xu Xian's heart was exceptionally certain.
She truly could do it.
To end the battle as quickly as possible, he accelerated the speed of his sword strikes. Summoning a final burst of strength, he slaughtered his way through with exhilarating abandon...
He had not yet slain an immortal, but every dark creature he killed had once been one.
...
As the struggle in the Sword Province drew to a close, the battle in Huangzhou intensified. The clash at the Immortal King level affected the entire Black Spirit City of Huangzhou.
Under the terrifying aftershocks of the fluctuations, the Spirit Tower was smashed, collapsed, and sunk.
The bronze life lamps were buried under the ruins, but their flames continued to burn fiercely.
As for the light mass hanging high above, it crashed into the ruins and turned into a massive blood-red fire, incinerating the entire city in an instant.
In the sky, the aurora flooded through the dark clouds, moving and exploding...
The earth turned into a boundless sea of fire.
The surviving dark creatures were bathed in blood within the inferno, launching suicidal charges toward the Water Qilin, the Demon Flood Dragon, and the Nightmare without any fear of death.
It was as if they wanted to show their resolve, letting the high and mighty Ancestral Spirits see their fearlessness and courage.
They were mad.
The dark creatures had all gone mad.
The three old monsters had gone mad with slaughter as well.
The sky was dim, and the earth was dark. Smoke filled the air as the fire spread across the plains. The aurora was brilliant, and the rumbling sounds were like gods growling in the mortal realm as the mountains and rivers shattered...
Very, very far from this place, to the west of the three thousand provinces and bordering the Ten Lands, there was a magnificent palace within that Grey Realm.
Inside the towering hall, a grey-robed old man with two long tentacles on his forehead and a face like a cockroach knit his eyebrows, which were as thin as silk.
Before him lay a giant Blood Stone. The stone was blood-red throughout and almost transparent.
One could clearly see through to the other side. The stone was massive, about ten zhang wide and dozens of zhang long.
The Blood Stone was covered in dense lines, outlining it into small, irregular sections of territory.
Ancient symbols were marked on the territories, and above each small section hung a faint, white mist the size of a fist...
The most striking feature was a white light band hanging in the far eastern corner, looking like a river cutting off a corner of the giant stone.
That corner wasn't large—less than one percent of the giant stone's total area—but on that one percent, not a single cluster of light mist hovered, making it look completely out of place.
However, the old man's gaze was not fixed on the area east of the white light band, but rather on the area to the west of it.
Five sections of the territory there had gone dark.
They weren't large...
But they were very eye-catching.
Originally...
There had been light mist on them, but it had since been extinguished.
Three had gone out earlier, and two had just gone out—all within the time it took to drink a cup of tea.
The grey-robed old man stared at them, his eyes growing increasingly dark. “Two completely different directions, separated by four provinces... why did they go out together?”
An ominous premonition grew in his heart as he murmured to himself, “Are there two groups of people?”
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