The shadow behind the True Immortal Xuanming writhed once more.
The pitch-black markings on the back of his hand had already spread to his elbow.
A trace of impatience flashed through Xuanming’s eyes.
“They’ve all come out.”
“Good.”
He raised his hand.
The fissure of immortal light continued to widen.
An arm slowly reached through the barrier between the two worlds.
The laws of the Nine Provinces violently rejected it.
Countless bolts of lightning descended from beyond the heavens.
Every one of them far surpassed the violet lightning dragon of the Ninth Realm within the Thunder Abyss Demon-Suppressing Pagoda.
Yet when those bolts struck Xuanming’s arm,
they left behind nothing more than fleeting white marks.
Xuanming looked toward the nine Transcendent beings.
“Surrender your Great Dao.”
“This Immortal may allow your sects to continue existing.”
The Bell Ringer slowly rose to his feet.
He grasped the ancient bell beside him.
“Everyone.”
“This battle…”
“We may all die.”
Ancient Emperor Wuming pulled the first black spear from his chest.
Rotten blood gushed forth.
“I died long ago.”
The Sword-Burier’s voice came from within the ice coffin.
“A sword cultivator…”
“Never fears death.”
The Heaven-Bearing Old Man lifted the ancient bronze city upon his back.
“I’ve lived long enough.”
“Just in time to see…”
“whether an immortal’s bones are truly so hard.”
The Red Dust Demon Lord gently shook the copper bell around his ankle.
“Before I die…”
“If I can make an immortal cry out even once…”
“It won’t be a wasted death.”
The Dragon-Slayer raised his head and took a drink of wine.
“The mountains of the mortal world.”
“The rivers of the mortal world.”
“The people of the mortal world.”
“They are not for things from beyond the heavens to ravage.”
Nine Transcendent Great Daos
rose simultaneously.
The firmament of the Nine Provinces was illuminated by the radiance of the Great Daos.
Countless living beings looked up.
For the first time, they learned
that above the pinnacle of the mortal world,
there were so many mighty beings who had silently guarded this world all along.
The True Immortal Xuanming looked down upon them.
“A gathering of ants…”
“Still amounts to nothing more than ants.”
The Bell Ringer raised his hand.
The ancient bell rang out across all eternity.
“Kill!”
The nine Transcendent beings
struck the Immortal with their strongest attacks at the same time!
Dong!
The bell’s toll shook the past and present.
The Bell Ringer stood atop the divine mountain of the Central Province. His aged body became incomparably upright in that instant.
The ancient bell behind him rose into the air.
Across the surface of the bell,
one crack after another lit up with golden radiance.
Within every crack, the phantom image of a sacred ground emerged.
Seventy-two sacred grounds.
Countless disciples.
Thirty thousand years of incense and worship.
At this moment, all of it converged.
“Bell of the Sacred Dao!”
“Suppress the Immortal!”
The Bell Ringer struck the body of the bell with one palm.
Dong!
Golden waves of sound swept across heaven and earth.
The mountains remaining in the Dark Ancestral Court turned to dust beneath the toll of the bell.
The space surrounding the fissure of immortal light exploded layer by layer, like a shattered mirror.
The arm of the True Immortal Xuanming that had reached into the Nine Provinces paused for the first time.
On the back of his hand,
a tiny wound appeared.
The wound was barely half an inch long.
Not even a drop of blood flowed from it.
Yet every martial artist in the Nine Provinces was invigorated in that instant.
An immortal…
could be wounded after all!
“Kill!”
The Heaven-Bearing Old Man let out a roar that shook the Eastern Sea.
The ancient bronze city behind him tore itself from the ground.
Within the ancient city,
countless remnant souls awakened at once.
They were the living beings whom the Heaven-Bearing Old Man had rescued during the world-ending cataclysm of the previous era.
They had long since died.
Yet they had left behind a fragment of their faith within the city.
“Heaven-Bearer!”
“Fill the sea!”
The giant tortoise braced the heavens upon its four limbs.
The ancient bronze city crashed toward Xuanming’s arm.
This was no mere city.
It was the weight of an entire era that had survived its destruction!
Boom!
Xuanming’s arm was shaken for the first time.
The half-inch wound rapidly widened.
A drop of silver-black blood seeped from it.
Immortal blood fell.
Before it could even touch the land of the Nine Provinces,
the space spanning tens of thousands of miles around it began to collapse.
A single drop of blood—
as heavy as a star!
The eyes of the Heaven-Bearing Old Man lit up.
“So immortals bleed too!”
The Red Dust Demon Lord came treading across a sea of blood.
The copper bells around her ankles shook wildly.
Jingle!
The desires of all living beings transformed into a boundless crimson net.
Love.
Hatred.
Greed.
Fear.
Obsession.
Jealousy.
Every one of the most primal desires became entangled around True Immortal Xuanming’s arm.
The Red Dust Demon Lord raised her slender hand.
Her five fingers slowly curled inward.
“Immortals have no desires?”
“I refuse to believe it.”
The crimson net of mortal desires suddenly tightened.
Countless emotions briefly surfaced in True Immortal Xuanming’s eyes.
He saw himself before he had become an immortal.
His first time entering an immortal sect.
His first time killing someone.
His first time obtaining a legacy.
His first time crossing the Immortal Gate.
He also saw the catastrophe that had swept through the heavens when the Immortal Realm shattered.
Countless immortals howled in anguish.
One world after another went dark.
Something indescribable surged forth from the edge of the Immortal Realm.
Every immortal who came into contact with that thing underwent an irreversible transformation.
Fear flashed through the depths of Xuanming’s eyes.
It lasted for only an instant.
But the Red Dust Demon Lord caught it.
The smile on her face became even more bewitching.
“So…”
“Even immortals can be afraid.”
Xuanming suddenly raised his eyes.
“You’re courting death!”
A mighty immortal aura erupted with a thunderous boom.
The crimson net wrapped around his arm shattered strand by strand.
The Red Dust Demon Lord’s face turned deathly pale.
Blood trickled from the corner of her mouth.
Before Xuanming could strike again,
a sword came from the Northern Frontier.
At first, the sword light was only a single line.
As it crossed the Northern Frontier,
it expanded to a thousand miles.
When it passed through the Central Plains,
it stretched across a hundred thousand miles.
By the time it reached the Dark Ancestral Court,
it had become a blinding streak of light that cleaved heaven and earth apart.
Within the ice coffin,
the Sword-Burier brought two fingers together.
“I have buried nine hundred and seventy thousand swords in my lifetime.”
“Every one of them…”
“Once had its own master.”
“Today…”
“I borrow the swords left behind by all of you…”
“To slay an immortal.”
Ninety-seven ten-thousand sword cries rang out at once.
Some of those swords had already been broken.
Some were covered in rust.
Some had been reduced to nothing more than hilts.
Yet every sword still retained the unyielding will of its former master.
Ninety-seven ten-thousand sword intents converged.
In the end, they transformed into an invisible sword without physical form.
It cleaved open the heavens!
Slash!
The invisible sword struck True Immortal Xuanming’s arm.
The wound widened once more.
Immortal blood sprayed forth.
Drop after drop of silver-black blood fell toward the Nine Provinces.
The Dragon-Slayer stepped forward.
His rusted woodcutter’s blade held horizontally before him.
“Everyone.”
“Immortal blood cannot be allowed to touch the ground.”
“Otherwise, a million miles of mountains and rivers will become a dead zone.”
Four wings unfurled behind Cangxu.
“I’ll stop it.”
With a furious roar,
his primordial divine body swelled to ten thousand zhang.
He wrapped both arms around the first drop of immortal blood.
Boom!
Both of Cangxu’s arms exploded on the spot.
Most of the golden scales covering his body shattered.
Yet he still used his primordial divine power to restrain that drop of immortal blood with all his might.
The nine bodies of Venerable Nine Lifetimes formed seals at the same time.
“Nine Lifetimes of Reincarnation!”
“Banishment!”
Nine forces of transcendence transformed into a vortex, dragging the remaining immortal blood into the spatial turbulence.
Ancient Emperor Wuming pulled a second spear from his chest.
Then a third.
A fourth.
With each spear he pulled free,
his aura grew stronger by a fraction.
At the same time, his decaying body cracked apart a little further.
When all nine spears had been removed,
not the slightest trace of deathly aura remained upon Ancient Emperor Wuming.
He seemed to have returned to the height of his glory—
to the years when he had once reigned supreme over the Western Desolation.
The imperial robe billowed in the wind.
The imperial crown gleamed brilliantly.
Behind him stood billions of corpse soldiers in formation.
“I shall transcend through the Way of Corpses.”
“The people of the world all call me the Dead Emperor.”
“Today—”
“Even the dead shall slay an immortal!”
Ancient Emperor Wuming seized nine black spears.
The nine spears merged into one.
They transformed into a pitch-black war lance that pierced Heaven and Earth.
“The Immortal-Burying Lance!”
Boom!
The war lance stabbed toward Xuanming’s arm.
At the same time—
the Dragon-Slayer drew his woodcutter’s axe.
His blade produced no strange phenomenon.
It did not even gleam with sharpness.
Yet the moment he swung it—
all the mountains and rivers in the northwest of Great Xia resounded with dragon roars.
That land—
had once been the ancestral territory of the Great Zhou Dynasty.
After the Great Zhou fell,
the Dragon-Slayer had lived alone in the desolate mountains ever since.
What he chopped was not firewood.
He was cutting down the nine dragon veins of national fortune buried beneath Great Zhou.
With every stroke,
he drew out a strand of power from the dragon veins.
For seventeen thousand years—
all of that strength
had been reserved for this single strike.
“Dynasties may perish.”
“But the mountains and rivers shall endure.”
“Slay the dragon!”
The axe descended.
Nine enormous dragons of national fortune roared as they surged forth.
Together with the Immortal-Burying Lance,
they slammed into Xuanming’s arm.
Rumble!
This time—
the arm of True Immortal Xuanming that had reached into the Nine Provinces was pierced straight through!
Immortal blood poured down like torrential rain.
The nine Transcendents attacked simultaneously, sealing Heaven and Earth with their respective Great Daos.
Drop after drop of immortal blood was banished,
ground away,
and suppressed.
The people of the Nine Provinces watched with their blood boiling.
Above the Martial God realm—
the realm of Transcendence.
Mortals were defying an immortal!
The White Bone Old Monster trembled with excitement.
“We wounded him!”
“We really wounded an immortal!”
The Yellow Springs Ancestor, however, showed not the slightest hint of joy.
He stared fixedly at the shattered immortal domain.
“Something’s wrong.”
“Xuanming’s true body hasn’t moved.”
The excitement on everyone’s faces abruptly froze.
Indeed.
The nine Transcendents had joined forces,
yet the arm they had pierced was merely the one Xuanming had extended into the Nine Provinces.
His true body still sat cross-legged within the shattered immortal domain.
His posture had not changed in the slightest.
Even more terrifying—
the arm they had pierced was rapidly healing.
In every wound, black granules of flesh writhed.
Before even a breath had passed,
the wounds had already recovered completely.
True Immortal Xuanming lowered his head and looked at his arm.
His gaze grew colder and colder.
“You have dirtied this immortal’s blood.”
Heaven-Bearing Old Man threw back his head and laughed.
“I thought immortals couldn’t speak like ordinary people.”
“So you’re just putting on airs after all.”
Xuanming did not speak again.
He raised his other hand.
Both arms passed through the cracks in the immortal light.
Boom!
The Heavenly Dao of the Nine Provinces fell into complete fury.
An endless sea of lightning descended.
Scarlet lightning.
Violet lightning.
Black lightning.
Even white lightning capable of erasing the laws of martial arts—
all of it rained down upon Xuanming in a frenzy.
But Xuanming merely spread open the five fingers of one hand.
Every bolt of lightning halted in midair.
“Disperse.”
With that single word—
the boundless sea of lightning went out completely.
The Demon-Suppressing Tower of the Lightning Abyss trembled faintly inside Wang Hao’s body.
It seemed to feel a deep pang at seeing so much lightning being wasted.
Wang Hao continued lying there, pretending to be dead.
But his expression had already become immensely grave.
The disparity was simply too great.
The nine Transcendents joining forces could indeed injure Xuanming.
But that was all they could do—injure him.
Xuanming’s level of life had already surpassed theirs by far.
They were like nine ferocious ants.
They might seize an opportunity to bite through a person’s skin while he was not paying attention.
But the moment that person took them seriously—
one finger
would be enough to crush them all.
Xuanming pressed down with both palms at once.
This time—
his target was not any one person.
It was all nine Transcendents!
The Bell Ringer’s expression changed drastically.
“Form the array!”
The phantoms of the seventy-two sacred grounds converged in an instant.
The Sacred Dao Heavenly Bell stood at the very front.
The other eight Transcendents poured their entire Dao paths into the ancient bell.
Boom!
The bell rang.
The two immortal palms froze in midair.
True Immortal Xuanming’s gaze remained cold and indifferent.
His right index finger exerted the slightest pressure.
Crack!
The first fracture appeared across the surface of the Sacred Dao Heavenly Bell.
The Bell Ringer’s body trembled.
A mouthful of blood sprayed forth.
“Again!”
Boom!
The second peal of the bell rang out.
A corner of the bronze ancient city behind the Heaven-Bearing Old Man collapsed with a thunderous crash.
Cracks appeared in the copper bells around the ankles of the Red Dust Demon Lord.
The surface of the Sword-Burier’s ice coffin filled with countless spiderweb-like fissures.
Crack!
The Sacred Dao Heavenly Bell shattered once more.
The Bell Ringer’s arms exploded into a mist of blood.
Xuanming’s right hand continued to press downward.
“Pitiful incense offerings of the human realm.”
“And you dare presume to suppress an immortal?”
Bang!
The Sacred Dao Heavenly Bell was utterly destroyed.
The phantoms of the seventy-two sacred grounds collapsed simultaneously.
nd fell into a coma while saving his younger sister from an out-of-control car. He became a vegetable. No one knew that his consciousness had crossed into a world of cultivation. Over the course of sixty years, he began as the lowest kind of mine slave, struggling to survive amid mountains of corpses and seas of blood. By sheer chance, he eventually obtained the complete memories of a fallen Immortal King. Alchemy, medicine, formations, feng shui, physiognomy, artifact forging… Every great inheritance of the cultivation world was now his. But when he opened his eyes again, he discovered that ten full years had passed in the modern world. To pay for his treatment, his father had sold the family’s shop and house, leaving himself covered in lasting injuries and illness. His mother had cared for him day and night, and more than half of her hair had already turned white. His younger sister, who had been only fifteen back then, was now twenty-five. To help repay the family’s debts, she had been forced to lower her head and put on a smiling face in places of glittering lights and endless revelry. Only then did Chen Xuan understand that what he had lost was not merely ten years. He had lost the life his entire family was meant to have. The good news was that he had brought back the memories of an Immortal King’s entire lifetime. The bad news was that his soul had returned alone—his cultivation had not come with him. Spiritual energy was scarce, resources were depleted, and the modern world still had firearms, surveillance, capital, and laws. If he wanted to protect his family, break free from everyone’s control, and become truly invincible beneath the heavens, he would have to start all over again.
uld barely embark on the path to immortality. Just as he was on the verge of death, his golden finger awakened. No matter whether it was poison, drained blood and vital energy, diminished lifespan, or any other physical debuff caused by paying a price—once midnight passed, everything would be refreshed. From then on, whenever someone asked what kind of person Chu Ran was, the answer was simple: Forbidden arts that other cultivators dared not learn? Chu Ran would learn them. Prices that even demonic cultivators dared not pay? Chu Ran would pay them. Lifespan that even righteous cultivators dared not burn? Chu Ran would burn it. All the blood essence in his body? Take it. Want both his hands and feet? He would cut them off and send them to you. You say he’s finished? He wasn’t built to sit idle. You think he’s gone mad? No—he was simply waiting for midnight. From that day onward, Chu Ran would respect neither Heaven nor Earth, bow to neither gods nor ghosts. He had only one wish: For midnight to arrive a little sooner.
m back to his original world. In the end, he realized he had overthought things. [Hey, why is Shen Manni, the female lead, acting strange? Shouldn't she be fawning over the male lead at this point?] [Zhou Qiaoqiao, are you sick? Weren't you supposed to break off your engagement today?] [Damn it! An Youyi, please do your job as an undercover agent and sell my information to the protagonist, you idiot!] ... At this moment, Xu Mo himself didn't know that these female leads had already heard his inner thoughts. Then they decided not to play by the rules. Xu Mo: Please respect my profession as the big villain!
s the Eldest Princess, renowned for her cold and aloof detachment, became the most docile of lambs, obeying his every command without question. But when the final move was played on the chessboard, as Gu Chenghan seized everything and ascended on the verge of apotheosis, that very Princess suddenly embraced him from behind, her tone carrying a dependence never heard before: "Wait... you haven't yet... commanded me to love you forever." Gu Chenghan froze abruptly. She... hadn't been hypnotized?! ... [The Eldest Princess's Diary] [When my soul was extracted, becoming the sole spectator outside my own shell] [At first, there was overwhelming fury, until I saw] [How he used my sword to effortlessly shatter my inescapable doom] [How he wielded my authority to eradicate fatal conspiracies I had never even detected] [Like a deity, he rescued me from the deep mire I was trapped in] [If not for those annoying vixens, he and I would be a match made in heaven] [I think I am ill, gravely ill] [My deity should belong to me alone] ... "Hypnosis? Oh, it succeeded, my dear Master." "Only this time, it's my turn to hypnotize you."
