Dao Heart Shattered, Heavenly Dao Blood Oath

Deep in the Yunmeng Mountains, in the far suburbs of the capital.

It was a desolate place, hiding an extremely concealed natural spirit vein node.

Li Miaoyuan sat cross-legged on a smooth bluestone.

His face was still a bit pale, but his breathing had steadied significantly. The internal injuries in his chest, caused by Shen Fei's Heavenly Demon Blood Escape, had been barely suppressed after days and nights of spiritual energy nourishment.

He was waiting.

Waiting for an opportunity.

His master had said that the path of cultivation was about breaking before establishing. He had suffered such a humiliating defeat in the mortal realm, and his Dao heart was frustrated, but as long as he could cross this hurdle, it would be a perfect opportunity to break through the peak of Foundation Establishment and form his Golden Core.

He closed his eyes, trying to sense that extremely ethereal Golden Core opportunity between heaven and earth.

However.

There was nothing.

He didn't sense the flash of inspiration for a breakthrough.

Instead.

He suddenly felt an extremely violent tremor.

It wasn't a physical vibration from the ground.

It was an extremely terrifying tearing sensation originating from the level of karma.

It was as if a giant invisible hand had forcefully snapped the most important thread on his body.

"Pfft!"

Li Miaoyuan violently opened his eyes and spat a mouthful of blood onto the bluestone in front of him.

A sudden premonition.

Something had happened to the sect!

Li Miaoyuan's expression changed drastically. Without even having the time to wipe the blood from the corner of his mouth, he directly activated an expensive Divine Speed Talisman, turning into a streak of light and fleeing madly towards the direction of the Taiyi Dao Sect in the western suburbs.

He had an extremely ominous premonition in his heart.

But he could never have imagined how ridiculous and pale that premonition would seem in the face of reality.

Half an hour later.

Li Miaoyuan stopped in the sky above the mountains in the western suburbs.

He didn't land.

Because he couldn't find a place to land anymore.

The Taiyi Dao Sect in his memory, shrouded in clouds and mist, fluttering with immortal aura, and possessing a millennium of inheritance.

It was gone.

The entire immortal mountain suspended in the folded space looked as if it had been repeatedly plowed over a hundred times by some extremely terrifying heavy weaponry.

The mountain protection grand array was shattered.

The white jade stairs were blown to powder.

The magnificent main hall was reduced to a field of scorched debris.

All over the mountains and plains.

There was not a single intact building, not a single surviving ancient tree.

There was only the pungent smell of gunpowder smoke and the extremely strong stench of scorched flesh and blood.

Li Miaoyuan hovered blankly in mid-air.

His mind was a complete blank.

"Master..."

"Junior Brother..."

He muttered to himself, his voice extremely hoarse, like a wandering ghost that had lost its soul.

He stumbled and landed in the ruins.

Under his feet was soil burned pitch-black.

He walked forward.

The surroundings were terrifyingly quiet. There was not even the sound of the wind.

Only the sound of his own footsteps echoed in the ruins.

He saw a blown-off section of a flying sword; it was his Second Junior Brother's favorite magical treasure.

He saw a bloodstained jade pendant; it was the token his Little Junior Sister wore close to her body.

Finally.

He walked to the ruins of the main hall.

There, he saw a puddle of grayish-white powder.

Beside the powder lay a somewhat deformed, scorched Sect Master's thumb ring.

That was the relic of his master, Daoist Qingsong.

Li Miaoyuan stared fixedly at that thumb ring.

A great cultivator at the Golden Core stage was dead.

Not only dead, but not even a corpse was left behind. All his life force and cultivation had been drained dry, turning him into this pile of ash.

"Thud."

Li Miaoyuan's knees went soft.

He knelt heavily in the center of this pile of ruins.

A thousand years of inheritance.

Hundreds of fellow disciples.

All gone.

He could even imagine what kind of tragic massacre had happened here at that time.

Those cultivators who usually stood high above, treating mortals like ants, how desperate and helpless they must have been when facing that kind of devastating modern firepower and extremely cruel suicide infantry.

"Shen Fei..."

Li Miaoyuan squeezed these two words out from between his teeth.

Every word carried an extremely rich smell of blood.

He knew who did it.

Other than that mortal demon who forcefully resisted the Soul Slaying Talisman without dying and even heavily injured him in return, no one in this world dared, nor had the ability, to do such a thing.

Humiliation.

Hatred.

Despair.

Countless extremely negative emotions frantically intertwined in Li Miaoyuan's mind.

The identity of a cultivator that he had always been proud of.

The Dao heart of being aloof from worldly affairs and looking down on all living beings that he had always held onto.

At this moment.

Shattered with a bang!

"Ah!!!"

Li Miaoyuan abruptly raised his head.

An extremely shrill, tearing roar erupted from his throat.

This roar was extremely loud, even directly vibrating a crumbling broken wall at the edge of the ruins into powder.

Black blood flowed down the corners of his eyes like two trails of bloody tears.

He was no longer that ethereal Eldest Senior Brother.

Right now, he was just a mad dog forced into a corner, having lost all its shelter.

Li Miaoyuan knelt on the ground and did not get up.

He slowly raised his right hand.

With extreme force, he bit his index finger open.

Blood gushed out.

With his bloodstained finger, he pointed at the gray sky.

"Heavens above!"

Li Miaoyuan's voice was extremely hoarse, every word like a curse squeezed out from the depths of his soul.

"I, Li Miaoyuan, swear a Heavenly Dao Blood Oath here today!"

"If I cannot skin and cramp this demon Shen Fei, and grind his bones to dust!"

"If I cannot exterminate the entire Shen family!"

"I, Li Miaoyuan, for all eternity, shall not form a Golden Core! Shall not ascend to the Immortal Realm! Even if my soul scatters, I will become a vengeful spirit to claim his life!!!"

An extremely venomous oath.

It echoed in the sky above the empty ruins.

"Boom!"

At the exact moment the blood oath fell.

The originally clear sky extremely abruptly sounded with a very muffled clap of thunder.

This was not an ordinary thunderclap.

This was the Heavenly Dao responding.

The Heavenly Dao witnessed the extreme resentment and resolute oath of this SSSS-rank Child of Destiny.

[Ding!]

In the mind of Shen Fei, far away in the urban area of the capital, the system suddenly emitted an extremely piercing prompt sound.

[High-dimensional causality fluctuation detected!]

[Warning: Target Child of Destiny Li Miaoyuan has sworn a Heavenly Dao Blood Oath!]

[Detected that the "Earth's Heavenly Dao" attention towards the host is rising abnormally! Suspected to have triggered the world's origin defense mechanism!]

Shen Fei, sitting on the sofa, listened to the system's warning.

The hand he was using to drink tea paused for a moment.

Heavenly Dao's attention?

World's origin defense mechanism?

This meant that the macro-will of this world had finally noticed the huge threat of him, an otherworldly villain, and was preparing to start showing favoritism.

"Interesting."

Shen Fei put down his teacup. His eyes were extremely profound.

"Pushed to the brink, even the Heavens are coming out to back him up?"

...

Western suburbs ruins.

Li Miaoyuan stood up.

The expression on his face had completely disappeared.

There was no more sorrow, no more anger. There was only a numbness and dead silence that was cold to the bone.

He didn't go to collect the relics of his fellow disciples.

Because he knew he had no time to grieve and wallow in self-pity now.

Since Shen Fei could ruthlessly wipe out the Taiyi Dao Sect, he absolutely would not let him, the only one who slipped through the net, go.

That giant net of death targeting him had surely already been spread out in this mortal world.

Right now, he was a true stray dog.

He had to live.

Only by living could he find the opportunity to break through to the Golden Core, and only then could he seek revenge.

Li Miaoyuan took one last look at his sect, now reduced to scorched earth.

He turned around.

He did not ride a flying sword, nor did he use any escape techniques that would drastically drain his spiritual energy.

Just like an ordinary vagrant, he tore the hem of his Daoist robe to conceal his face.

Head bowed.

He hurried into the dense forest on the outskirts of the ruins.

Heading away from the capital, he embarked on a long and humiliating escape.