As he watched the Blood Qi around Xu Yunfan gradually recede, Bi Yuan showed no sign of displeasure. Instead, a flicker of admiration passed through his eyes.
This young man before him wasn’t just soone who blindly practiced his techniques. He had been tempered by countless life-and-death battles, often fighting—and winning—against opponents of a higher realm. Only through such trials could one cultivate such a sharp, piercing aura.
To be able to face him, a Supre Grandmaster of the Nine Realms Qi Cultivation, with such composure was remarkable. Xu Yunfan’s Blood Qi was still surging, and his Strength hadn’t been suppressed or slowed in the slightest by his presence.
An ordinary Martial Artist would find their Blood Qi stagnating just by standing before him, yet the fighting spirit in Xu Yunfan’s eyes was as sharp and unconcealed as a newly drawn sword.
"What courage! To dare draw your blade against the strong!"
Bi Yuan suddenly clapped his hands and laughed, his voice shaking the hall’s beams. "A disposition like that is worthy of the title ’Inheritor of the Ancients, Successor to the Sages’! Even two thousand years ago, during the era of the Hundred Schools of Thought, you would have stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the ancient sages who founded their own sects."
But the clarity in Xu Yunfan’s eyes never wavered.
He noticed the star patterns subtly embroidered on Bi Yuan’s cuffs were slowly circulating. The man’s True Qi was as deep and vast as an ocean; even an unintentional wisp of it made him feel as imposing as a great mountain, impossible to ignore.
Every word of praise from the Sect Leader was accompanied by a probing of True Qi, as if he were appraising the quality of a peerless Divine Weapon.
When Bi Yuan ntioned he was "comparable to the great sages," Xu Yunfan even felt a faint tremor from his Dragon Scale Armor, as if it were warning him of so subtle ntal suggestion.
"You flatter , Senior."
As Xu Yunfan cupped his fist in a salute, the Linn Character Technique silently activated within him. Deep in his Sea of Consciousness, the unmoving Self-God Golden Statue suddenly erupted with a brilliant light, suppressing all the restless Blood Qi in his ridians.
This wasn’t a deliberate act by Bi Yuan. As the master of the Daoist Sect, renowned throughout the world for over 120 years, his spiritual cultivation had long reached the profound realm of "Unity of God and Dao." Over such a vast expanse of ti, Bi Yuan had already transcended the mundane, reaching an incredible state.
Bi Yuan seed to sense sothing and, with a hint of apology, flicked his sleeve and retracted his aura.
He mulled it over for a mont, then suddenly asked, "Young friend, are you aware of the current state of the world?"
Xu Yunfan replied, "The Empress of Great Zhou, that so-called ’Holy Emperor’ high on her throne, has slaughtered thirty-six million people across the land since her ascension. She did it under the guise of ’purging rebels,’ all for a blood sacrifice to gain another lifeti!"
"That Guo Lang of the Astronomical Bureau aids the wicked witch. The armies of the world were sent out in all directions, and the blood-sacrificial slaughter has stained over twenty states."
At this, Xu Yunfan couldn’t help but recall the Incense and Candle Sect and the hundred-thousand-strong Profound Armor Army he encountered back in Cangzhou and Wuzhou, who were acting under her orders.
’Even though I’m not originally from this world, I can still feel a surge of rage.’
"In Qingzhou, the rivers of blood didn’t clear for three days. Outside the Jade Capital Dao, bones are piled into towers. Yet that witch sits securely on her dragon throne, ignoring the fires of war raging across the land! She deserves to die."
His tone suddenly shifted to the north, the tragic scenes of Yanbei Dao’s blizzards flashing in his eyes. "And then there’s the True Blood of the Daqian Dynasty. Those nobles, who pride themselves on possessing ’True Blood,’ have long since stopped seeing commoners as their own kind! The ecstatic expressions on their faces as they drink the heart’s blood of young boys and girls mixed with Cinnabar... It’s the exact sa look the Empress has when she rips out the people’s blood for her sacrifices. They’re all the sa flock of ghouls!"
"In the Daqian Dynasty, which values bloodline above all, those with True Blood are the upper nobility, supported by the common folk. The two have beco different species in a class system where the lower class has no hope of ever rising. Although the True Blood nobles don’t engage in mass slaughter, the things they do during their rituals are no different from that female witch."
At this point, Xu Yunfan couldn’t help but add, "The Nine Radiance Sect is, after all, one of the Six Great Sects of Da Zhou. By holding their ground in the three states of Yanbei Dao, they’ve brought the Daqian Army to a standstill. Not long ago, three of their Supre Elders erged and slaughtered a hundred thousand Daqian soldiers, shaking the entire world."
Bi Yuan listened noncommittally, then suddenly said, "Three days ago, an urgent report ca from Yanbei Dao. The Daqian Royal Court unsealed six National Guardian Divine Weapons and dispatched nine True Bloods of the Purity Realm—comparable to Qi Cultivation masters—to wash the Nine Radiance Sect’s mountain gate in blood."
"The Nine Luminaries Burning Heaven Array, which had only just recovered so of its power due to the resurgence of Heaven and Earth Spiritual Qi, was broken. grez Peak collapsed. Zhou Tianyan’s master, the Supre Grandmaster of the Qi Cultivation Realm known as the ’Heaven-Burning Ancestor,’ was pinned to death before the Ancestral Hall by an Ancient Bronze Halberd."
Xu Yunfan’s Heart and Spirit jolted. His first reaction wasn’t shock, but a strange sense of delight. ’If this news is true, doesn’t that an there are no more restrictions on my cultivation of the Nine Luminaries and Ten Capitals True Force?!’
"The rise and fall of dynasties, the infighting between sects... these are but skin-deep afflictions."
Seeing the change in Xu Yunfan’s expression, Bi Yuan mistook it for anger. A faded, ancient silk scroll slipped from his sleeve, bearing the four archaic characters for "Qingwei Daoist Canon."
"My Daoist Sect has weathered twenty-seven great worldly calamities and has long seen through the Celestial Dao’s cycle of ’what is long united must divide.’ The true calamity..."
Bi Yuan suddenly raised his hand, pointing to the heavens outside the hall.
"Lies with those ’anchors’ hanging above our heads."
Bi Yuan continued, "Do you know why our Daoist Sect went to such great lengths to shatter the Little Heaven and Earth Secret Realm?"
Xu Yunfan replied casually, "Don’t tell it’s because Demon Fiends would escape from the Secret Realm?"
A faint smile touched Bi Yuan’s lips. "Yes, and no."
He pointed a finger to the sky. "Secret Realms... are the anchors of the Celestial Demons."
"Celestial Demons?"
Xu Yunfan was taken aback. He instantly recalled the Primordial Secret Technique that Jiaang Xu had used, and the strange look in Yuu Congling’s eyes as she gazed into the void while speaking of "shattering the cage."
Jiaang Xu, whom he had t in the Secret Realm, and Yuu Congling, the remnant will within the Extre Dao Relic Shell on his body, were clearly not from this world.
Bi Yuan’s voice seed to grind up from an abyss, heavy with the weight of ages. "The sixth, thirty-second, and forty-third generations of the Daoist Sect’s Ancestral Masters... all the way to the fifty-second generation Ancestral Master from two thousand years ago..."
He tapped his knuckles on the low table, each sound like a rap on the bones of fate. "All those who reached the peak of the Ninth Realm of Qi Cultivation were... erased by the Celestial Demons."
At this, Bi Yuan seed uncertain and continued slowly, "Perhaps not erased. An ancestor in the sect’s library once witnessed it firsthand. It seems they were... taken away..."
He shot to his feet, his black robes billowing like a cloud hanging from the sky, and strode out of the hall.
In the distance, golden light surged through the heavens, but the sea of clouds looked like a scab of congealed blood.
Bi Yuan’s pupils reflected that strange, celestial light, and the words forced from his throat were colder than a blade’s edge. "And now, a calamity that should have been three hundred years away... has had its curtain torn open prematurely by that Empress..."
A sinister wind suddenly swept past. He looked up at the firmant, as if eting an indescribable gaze head-on.
He spoke one word at a ti, each one shaking the soul:
"...The Celestial Demons... are coming."
-----------------
「Three days had passed since his conversation with the Daoist Sect Leader, Bi Yuan.」
The morning mist had yet to disperse, but a dull, thunderous roar already echoed across the Cyan Stone Platform on Divine Sky Peak.
The muscles in Xu Yunfan’s arms were like old vines wrapped around steel as he swung the Red Fire Dragon-Swallowing Mace, creating a dark rainbow of light. The opening move of the Nine Profound Dragon Whip—Azure Dragon Shakes its Scales—unfurled with sudden force.
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