“The heavens have a will, the earth has a spirit; humanity is supreme, so how can demons endure...”
The sky was as black as ink. Only in the east was there a faint, ethereal layer of clouds, with no sign of dawn yet.
It was the final moment before dawn.
Where the mortal realm met Nanwangzhou, high above the Luan'an Mountain Range, Gu Ningyun's spirit energy suddenly seized. Her soul shook violently, as if struck by an unbearable impact.
Gritting her teeth, she squeezed out, “Did you hear some kind of sound?”
As soon as she spoke, she realized she didn't need an answer.
The identical expressions of agony on the faces of Wen Xuan and the other three had already told her everything.
“Block your hearing!” Jiang Yao shouted in a panic.
Even with their hearing blocked, the sound pursued them like a shadow, seemingly piercing directly through their minds and straight into their seas of consciousness.
In fact, the longer they hovered above the Luan'an Mountain Range, the closer and clearer the sound became.
“The heavens have a will, the earth has a spirit; humanity is supreme, so how can demons endure...”
It sounded like a chant, a sigh, a sorrowful lament, a resentful cry.
Her sea of consciousness throbbed with a needle-like pain. This agony was hundreds of thousands of times more intense than walking the Path to Immortality or enduring the thunder tempering on the Shocking Thunder Platform—pains that merely targeted the physical body.
Even a tough person like Gu Ningyun couldn't hold it in. She clutched her head tightly with both hands and let out a miserable shriek.
She tried to mobilize her spirit energy to fly away on her sword.
But her entire pool of spirit energy felt as if it were suppressed by a crushing weight of ten thousand jun, completely immovable.
And because the last trace of spirit energy maintaining her sword flight was disrupted, she plunged straight down from midair.
“Don't use spirit energy...”
It was too late.
Before her voice could even fade, four distinct rushing sounds echoed right behind her, cutting sharply through the chanting.
Twigs snapped and branches crackled all around as Gu Ningyun became wedged in the boughs of a thousand-year-old tree. She clutched her head, her teeth clenched so hard they nearly bled.
Falling from such a height was nothing to the five body cultivators; they didn't even sustain a scratch.
Yet the sorrowful, resentful chanting suddenly amplified, roaring inside their seas of consciousness.
Gu Ningyun finally made out the rest of the song.
“The heavens have a will, the earth has a spirit; humanity is supreme, so how can demons endure?
Humans and demons are no different at their core, so why bestow favor upon only one?
The Heavenly Gate opens for immortals, yet demon cultivators face endless tribulations.
Heaven is ruthless, earth is devoid of virtue.
The Great Dao is silent; heaven derives forty-nine paths, yet only human cultivators receive that one extra chance...”
The voice was neither male nor female, completely genderless.
No source could be found, and no destination could be traced.
It was infinite, endless, and ceaseless.
The raw emotion packed into the song was so intense that words failed to describe it.
Gu Ningyun felt her soul tremble as her sea of consciousness churned, on the verge of tearing apart.
“Could we have walked into an ambush? Is some great demon attacking us with their divine sense!” Wen Xuan gasped out with great difficulty.
“It's not a divine sense attack.”
Gu Ningyun and Mu Chenze spoke in unison.
Gu Ningyun's deduction came from the fact that the little fox necklace hanging around her neck had not reacted.
This necklace was one of the many pieces of jewelry her first senior brother had given her, capable of resisting divine sense attacks from the Golden Core stage and below.
Even if it were a divine sense attack stronger than the Golden Core stage that the necklace couldn't block, the moment it was hit and destroyed, it would still alert its owner and serve as a warning.
Now, even though the song had been ringing for so long, the necklace showed no sign of triggering, proving that this was indeed not a divine sense attack.
Mu Chenze's eyes were bloodshot from the pain. “I remember now! The elders mentioned this when they taught us the history of the cultivation world!”
He took a deep, ragged breath and spoke rapidly, “Tens of millions of years ago, during the ancient era, a powerful human cultivator and a great demon fought a battle at the edge of Nanwangzhou.
“That battle collapsed mountains and rivers, and made the oceans flow backward. The southeastern corner of Nanwangzhou was blasted away entirely.
“No living creature dared to approach the clash between the peak experts of the human and demon races.
“Later generations only knew that the battle raged for several years.
“When the fighting finally ceased and the pressure of those mighty figures dissipated, people went to investigate.
“They discovered that a piece of land was missing from the southeast of Nanwangzhou, replaced by a new mountain range.
“Beyond the mountain range lay a devastated land, almost entirely devoid of spirit energy.
“At the border between the land and the mountain range, there were fresh traces of seawater erosion.
“Its shape and area were almost identical to the missing corner of Nanwangzhou.”
Gu Ningyun made a logical guess. “So after it was broken off, some powerful cultivator kicked it back into place?”
“The historical records do suggest that,” Mu Chenze nodded with difficulty.
The song seemed to possess a spirit of its own. As if understanding Mu Chenze's words, the emotions in the melody grew increasingly volatile, surging forward like a massive tsunami.
Jiang Yao grew anxious. “Get to the point! How do we solve this!”
Before Mu Chenze could answer, Jun Luo doused their hopes. “There is no way to solve it.”
Clearly, Jun Luo had also heard of this piece of history.
Jiang Yao's eyes widened, not quite processing the words. “What...”
Mu Chenze's next words reignited his hope. “There is no solution, but when dawn arrives, the song will fade as the first light of day and the first ray of purple qi sweep over the land.”
From the moment they heard the song above the Luan'an Mountain Range to their fall, only a dozen breaths of time had passed.
Gu Ningyun clutched her throbbing head, feeling as though years had gone by.
With their current cultivation levels and the state of their seas of consciousness, could they really hold out until dawn?
Amidst the tearing pain churning in her sea of consciousness, she gathered a tiny thread of consciousness, trying to find a single coherent thought in her chaotic mind.
Sunlight...
Purple qi...
The sun...
The sun... stars!
Purple qi was also a form of star power!
There was no time to hesitate; her sea of consciousness was on the verge of splitting open!
As if catching a glimpse of hope, Gu Ningyun seemed to gain immense courage and energy, which she suddenly unleashed in a powerful burst.
In that instant, she broke through the song's suppression on her sea of consciousness and abruptly reined in her mind.
Her focus finally locked in.
Holding her breath and focusing her mind, she sank into a state of deep meditation.
The Record of Primordial Stars.
This cultivation technique, which normally ran automatically on its own, had ground to a halt the moment the terrifying song began and she plummeted from the sky, likely due to the sheer horror of the melody and her own low cultivation level.
Only now did its master gather her focus once more to mobilize it.
Within her dantian, her meridians, and her acupoints, the silver star power suddenly flared to life.
Every night spent beneath the stars, every meditation session, and every wisp of the morning's first purple qi she had ever absorbed came rushing together from all corners of her body.
Wisps of purple threads began to separate from the pure silver.
Following the Major Orbit, they gathered in her dantian before surging back out.
This time, what flowed into her acupoints and meridians was no longer a delicate thread, but a trickling stream of purple.
The movement of the cultivation technique was no longer sluggish, as if bogged down in a swamp.
Instead, it broke through all obstacles like an unstoppable force.
The purple stream broke past the constraints of the mysterious song, flowing into every single corner of her body.
It grew smoother and swifter by the second.
The song grew louder, and the emotions woven into the melody became even more intense...
Yet, the pain in her sea of consciousness drifted away.
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