Cang Yutian stood in the upper atmospheric layer of the Allheaven Expanse and looked at his own system panel for the first ti in long while.
Level 250.
He had looked at the number in his panel many tis over the years of his appointnt. Had looked at the gap between 240 and 250 with the specific patience of soone who understood what was on the other side of the threshold and could not cross it through any available ans.
The celestial appointnt bound him to the Thunder Dragon God’s side. The appointnt could not be suspended. The Thunder Dragon God required continuous protection.
Level 240 had been the number for a long ti.
Level 250 was the number now.
He closed the panel and looked at the upper atmospheric layer around him. The Thunder Dragon God continued its traversal on the patrol path it had maintained since long before Lin Yi had entered the expanse, the lightning arcs playing between its scales in the continuous discharge pattern that had not changed through the entire event period. The astral rivers moved through the upper layer in their slow cycles. The ambient lody that pervaded the expanse was present beneath everything as it always was.
He placed his hands in a seal configuration.
The specific seal formation he used was a seal taught at the Ninefold Heaven Gate Mountain on Tianyuan Star, the planet at the far edge of the lower domain, where the cultivation lineages had maintained their practices through centuries of careful preservation. He had learned it before his appointnt, in the period when he had been sothing closer to a conventional cultivator than a watcher of celestial appointnt.
He had not used it in the years since. The appointnt made it irrelevant because the appointnt did not end. It was always tomorrow. Always next cycle. Always contingent on the Thunder Dragon God’s protection being maintained.
The seal activated.
A rift opened.
Through the rift, at the path’s far end, the Ninefold Heaven Gate Mountain was visible. Not clearly visible. Its presence was communicated rather than seen, the way the presence of sothing very large at very great distance communicates itself as a quality of the air rather than a visual detail.
Tianyuan Star. The far edge of the lower domain. The planet where the cultivators who understood the path from level 250 upward had gathered their knowledge and preserved it through the centuries.
Cang Yutian looked at the rift for a mont.
He was level 250.
The rift to the Ninefold Heaven Gate Mountain was open.
The path to the Middle Domain was accessible.
And the agreent he had made with the E-Rank Laborer class student from Jianghe was t.
He looked away from the rift and looked toward the lower atmospheric layers of the Allheaven Expanse.
Sowhere below, Lin Yi was currently experiencing the release of the Celestial Slave Mark and standing at level 230 with zero EXP accumulated during the binding period and approximately one day remaining in the event.
He thought about the agreent.
If you reach level 250 for before the event concludes, I release the mark and spare your life.
The mark was released.
Life spared was the second part.
Cang Yutian’s mind began reeling, his expression calm but already deciding.
He has shown enough, Cang Yutian thought quietly. To raise from 240 to 250 within such a short span... that is not effort. That is inevitability. A man who can generate that much progress for another will one day claim it for himself. And when that day cos, he will step through the Ninefold Heaven Gate and enter the Middle Domain.
His eyes narrowed slightly. And n do not forget chains placed on them. When a grudge is planted, it grows roots that pierce the bone. He may speak of reason now, but power changes the weight of mory. By the ti he reaches my level, he will not be asking whether to seek out. He will simply co.
He exhaled once, slow and asured. I will not kill him for what he is. I will kill him for what he will beco. To spare the tiger cub is to invite the tiger to your door. He has already proven that his growth does not follow ordinary limits. Leaving him alive is not rcy. It is negligence.
In this world, hesitation is the crack through which ruin enters. When cutting weeds, one must remove the root. He has reached the point where his future is no longer uncertain. And because of that... His gaze hardened. I cannot let him live.
He then released his aura.
The full expression of a level 250 Deity-class that had just crossed the threshold into the Middle Domain. The full output, unrestricted, the weight of what he was operating at this level pressing outward through the upper atmospheric layer in a sphere that covered an enormous radius.
The Thunder Dragon God, continuing its traversal, did not react. It had existed alongside this presence for all of Cang Yutian’s appointnt. It was accustod.
Cang Yutian looked at the thunder dragon.
He had been stationed here as the Thunder Dragon God’s watcher. The appointnt’s purpose was protection. Three projections of the Thunder Dragon God could be manifested and directed independently of the creature itself, the technique a function of the watcher’s authority over the entity they were appointed to protect.
He ford the second seal.
The three projections separated from the Thunder Dragon God’s form, each one a complete expression of the creature’s power condensed into a directed entity. Not the full creature. Projected versions, each carrying a substantial fraction of the Thunder Dragon God’s power, each one operable at a distance from the original under the watcher’s command.
"Find him," Cang Yutian said.
The three projections moved.
They descended through the upper atmospheric layer into the mid-atmospheric zones below, the lightning energy of their bodies trailing discharge arcs through the astral rivers they passed, the scale of their passage producing visible disturbances in the ambient energy currents.
Cang Yutian watched them descend.
The agreent had specified: spare your life.
He had not specified for how long.
He turned back toward the rift.
Ninefold Heaven Gate Mountain waited at the far end of the path. The Middle Domain waited beyond the mountain’s ninth tier. Level 250 was where he stood.
He stepped through the rift.
---
The Predatory Instinct passive registered them before Lin Yi could see them.
He had been mid-traverse between cluster zones, Heaven Step carrying him toward a formation to the north with a density reading that Dao Sense had flagged as worth addressing, when the passive’s alert quality changed from the standard background scan to the specific register it used for entities that exceeded its normal threat classification paraters.
Three entities. Descending from the upper atmospheric layer. Moving with the directed intent of sothing that had been given a specific objective rather than operating on its own behavioral patterns.
He stopped the Heaven Step traversal mid-chain and looked upward.
The three Thunder Dragon God projections erged from the upper layer’s boundary. Each one covered a substantial portion of the visible sky above the formation zone he had been moving toward. The lightning energy between their scales discharged in the continuous arcs that the real Thunder Dragon God produced, but the output was not ambient. It was directed.
At him.
Cang Yutian, he thought.
The identification was imdiate and accurate. Three projections of the Thunder Dragon God descending with targeted intent in the final day of an event where the watcher had just received level 250 and had no further use for the agreent they had made.
The agreent had specified the mark’s release and the sparing of his life. It had not specified that the threat ended when the mark was released.
He then drew the Abyssal Celestial Lord Blade.
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