Inside the Immortal Relic.

  The cultivators present learned a piece of earth-shattering news: time flowed differently inside the relic than outside.

  Ten years within the relic equaled only one year in the outside world.

  This fantastical revelation left every cultivator stunned at first, but shock quickly gave way to irrepressible excitement.

  It meant they could skyrocket their cultivation speed. Tenfold time dilation—more than enough to catapult them to new heights of power.

  Almost no one could keep their cool.

  Tantai Xuan, however, felt a faint pang of melancholy when he heard it.

  He had wandered the relic for days and gained absolutely nothing—no opportunities, no treasures, nothing.

  In the end, he made his choice. He did not stay. He turned his back on the relic, stepped out of the secret realm, and left the sea behind.

  “Great Xuan still needs its king.”

  Those were the words he left behind.

  When he finally emerged from the Origin Waterfall and stood at the prow of his ship, he looked back at the cascading torrent glowing brilliantly under the setting sun, the immortal relic shimmering faintly behind it.

  He smiled.

  There was relief in that smile.

  Perhaps this was simply the fate of someone eternally cut off from immortal destiny.

  While every other cultivator remained inside the relic cultivating, the outside world was bound to descend into chaos sooner or later. As the bearer of the Imperial Dragon Qi, it fell to Tantai Xuan to stand up and hold everything together.

  …

  In the center of a vast and majestic formation lay a lion.

  A golden lion, its fur gleaming like molten gold poured over living flesh. A terrifyingly powerful creature.

  Every breath it took made the entire formation tremble.

  Overlord stared at the beast sprawled at the heart of the array, his heart pounding.

  Suddenly, the lion opened its eyes. It glanced lazily at the man about to step inside.

  The lion yawned, revealing a maw full of deadly fangs.

  “If I were you, I’d think twice.”

  Its voice rumbled out—clear human speech.

  Overlord froze mid-step.

  “This is the Heaven and Earth Origin Formation,” the lion explained. “Step inside and the origin energy will scour and temper your body, granting explosive growth in power. But… while your strength surges, the formation will also birth nightmarish illusions to torment your soul.”

  “Once you fall into those illusions, you may lose all sense of time.”

  Overlord’s eyes narrowed. This was undoubtedly one of the supreme immortal opportunities left behind—an ultimate cultivation accelerator.

  Havingaf1 Having just broken through to Nascent Soul, he could clearly feel that the Nascent Soul stage was all about refining origin. Being bathed in pure origin energy could catapult his cultivation forward by leaps and bounds.

  But…

  Lose track of time?

  A heavy weight settled in his chest.

  That was a suffocating risk.

  In the distance, mysterious ripples kept pulsing from the Dao steles—someone had comprehended another profound intent.

  The immortal steles inside the relic were bestowing heaven-defying fortunes left and right.

  Whooshing sounds filled the air as familiar figures arrived: Nie Changqing, Jing Yue, and the black-robed Li Sansi who seemed to hide his face from the world.

  Overlord exhaled slowly and turned back to the golden lion.

  “If I want to break the formation and leave later, what must I do?”

  The lion flopped back down, yawned again, and looked half-asleep.

  “Beat me.”

  With that, it closed its eyes once more.

  Once upon a time, it had been the proud Lion Demon King. Now it was reduced to playing guardian games for weak little humans. Pathetic.

  At first it had refused, but after the torments of the Prajna Continent and remembering the terrifyingly mysterious Young Master Lu—who had not only restored its cultivation but pushed it even further, turning it into this golden form—it had meekly accepted its role.

  Overlord’s heart skipped a beat.

  To leave, he had to defeat this monster?

  How strong was it?

  At his current level, Overlord didn’t stand a chance.

  He hesitated. If he got trapped inside for countless years, who knew what the outside world would become?

  In that moment, he seemed to see her lonely silhouette waiting by the Eastern Derive River.

  His gaze hardened.

  He remembered Luo Mingsang’s words before he left—go find the destiny that belongs to you. He remembered her encouragement.

  Once a choice was made, there was no room for second-guessing.

  The last of his hesitation vanished.

  Overlord strode forward and stepped boldly into the formation.

  The array roared to life.

  Thick origin energy surged like a storm. Overlord stood motionless at the center, eyes closed, instantly sinking into a profound state.

  His flesh drank deeply of the origin; every inch of skin, every meridian, every bone was being remade.

  He was growing stronger—fast.

  Outside the formation, Nie Changqing didn’t hesitate either. Dragon Slayer on his shoulder, he marched straight in.

  A true cultivator charges forward without fear.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Jing Yue and Li Sansi followed without a second thought.

  Like Overlord, they all sensed it—this formation was an unparalleled stroke of fortune.

  Within the immortal relic, everyone was growing by leaps and bounds.

  Time lost all meaning. The intoxicating rush of power drowned out everything else.

  Lu Changkong had also entered the relic.

  In the courtyard of an immortal palace, he discovered an ancient, withered herb field several acres wide. The soil had long lost its divine luster.

  He felt a twinge of regret, but it was to be expected—how many millennia had this place stood abandoned?

  What truly excited him, however, were the countless perfectly preserved spiritual herb seeds he found inside the palace. Spiritual energy swirled around them; rainbow light shimmered faintly. These were no ordinary seeds.

  For a man intent on compiling the Hundred Herbs Codex, this was treasure beyond measure.

  Lu Changkong settled down right there. He tilled the soil, planted the seeds, and began living the quiet life of a hermit farmer—occasionally studying the Golden Body Fruit tree, trying to grow a second Creation Fruit tree from its husk.

  He even planned to transplant the divine tree back to the Five Phoenixes one day.

  Gongsun Yu brought his disciple Aru into the relic as well. They found an immortal refining palace and countless spirit tools. Master and disciple dove over their heads into research, reverse-engineering immortal crafting techniques.

  Inside the relic, time ceased to matter.

  Every soul poured everything into cultivation.

  This was a great metamorphosis for the entire Five Phoenixes cultivation world.

  …

  Outside, in the Five Phoenixes continent.

  Tantai Xuan returned to Great Xuan.

  He revealed nothing about the secret realm.

  He continued stationing Xuanwu Guards on the Bloody Battlefield, treating it as the ultimate defensive line protecting the Five Phoenixes.

  He dispatched countless craftsmen who built a towering city right on the blood-soaked plains.

  Tantai Xuan personally named it—Tian Sai Pass: Heaven’s Fortress.

  Because of the immortal relic, the entire continent fell into an eerie calm.

  The Five Phoenixes and Tian Yuan cultivators coexisted peacefully; their common goal was exploring the relic.

  Conflicts still happened, but they were minor skirmishes—nothing compared to before.

  A month slipped by in the blink of an eye.

  …

  Golden Body Continent—Origin Space.

  Lu sat with a grave expression.

  It had taken him an entire month of nerve-wracking focus to fuse the Golden Body origin with the Five Phoenixes origin.

  His spiritual energy income had skyrocketed, yet because most of the Golden Body powerhouses had been slaughtered by Wu Xing, the explosive leap in strength he had hoped for never came.

  What surprised him was something else.

  The origins of Prajna and Tian Luo—two supreme mid-tier martial worlds—had drifted over of their own accord.

  Rumble!

  The swirling vortex of Five Phoenixes origin shuddered violently.

  Inside the vortex, the colossal Golden Body origin spun like a primordial titan.

  Compared to it, the Tian Yuan origin looked almost pitifully small.

  “I miscalculated.”

  Seated on the Thousand Blades Chair, Lu’s white robes fluttered though there was no wind.

  He frowned, murmuring to himself.

  He had wanted to raise the Five Phoenixes cultivators gradually by slowly integrating origins.

  He had never expected the chain reaction fusing the far stronger Golden Body origin would trigger.

  Trying to merge a weaker origin into a stronger one was defying the heavens themselves.

  The balance was shattered; the vortex could be crushed at any moment by the overwhelming Golden Body origin.

  He needed other origins to counterbalance it.

  Almost instinctively, the Five Phoenixes origin had pulled in Prajna and Tian Luo.

  Now the arrow was nocked—there was no turning back.

  “If I fuse Prajna and Tian Luo as well… we’ll inevitably charge straight toward high martial.”

  Lu took a deep breath.

  He hadn’t wanted to rush into high martial yet. The cultivators of the Five Phoenixes lacked the necessary foundation.

  He needed more time.

  But if he did nothing, the Five Phoenixes origin would collapse—and that would be far worse.

  In the vast origin space, white robes drifting, Lu stared at the colossal swirling vortex and inhaled deeply.

  Fine then.

  Let’s go all in.

  “Let the whole world… go mad with me.”

  The words fell.

  Terrifying spiritual pressure exploded outward.

  The massive Prajna and Tian Luo origins rolled forward like unstoppable juggernauts.

  Against them, the vortex-shaped Five Phoenixes origin looked small and fragile.

  According to Lu’s estimate, fusing Prajna and Tian Luo would take quite a long time—at least a year or two, if everything went smoothly.

  If it failed…

  Heaven and earth would collapse, and the Five Phoenixes would be torn apart.

  …

  Golden Body Continent.

  “Reckless fool!”

  The old man growled, yet he no longer dared strike the formation.

  He feared the slightest disturbance might break the concentration of that mad young man inside the origin space.

  If that boy got distracted even for a second and the fusion failed—not only would the boy die, all four continents would crumble into wasteland.

  He was powerless to stop Lu.

  “Young people—full of vigor and no fear of the unknown.”

  The old man shook his head with a wry smile.

  Maybe… just maybe… the kid could actually pull it off.

  After all, Lu had already created one miracle—successfully merging the weaker Five Phoenixes origin with the overwhelmingly stronger Golden Body origin.

  Hope flickered in the old man’s eyes, mixed with complex emotions only he understood.

  He sat cross-legged atop a desolate peak on the Golden Body Continent, quietly sensing the shifting origin energies, watching over the fusion of the final two continents.

  …

  In the boundless void.

  The moment Lu completed the fusion of Five Phoenixes and Golden Body origins, the entire void trembled faintly.

  Countless hidden gazes locked on.

  Sensing the disturbance, they grew excited, then quickly concealed themselves again—spreading the news.

  On a barren, lifeless continent, an old man who looked like withered wood slowly opened his eyes.

  Sunken sockets, eyes deep as the abyss.

  He felt those eager, greedy auras.

  A long sigh escaped him.

  “How tragic. A world constantly evolving upward has become a treasure tree about to bear fruit. Its soon-to-be high martial origin is a spiritual fruit on the verge of ripening…”

  “Powerhouses are watching, filled with greed. How utterly pitiful.”

  His sigh drifted through the frozen void around the dead continent.

  Then he moved no more, returning to his deathlike meditation.

  Yet faint runes of array formations rose from his desiccated body, drifting into the darkness like fireflies.

  Far away, in the endless dark, countless eyes opened—predatory eyes gleaming like wolves in the night.

  They stared hungrily at the Five Phoenixes.

  A howling wind rose as a frigid continent barreled closer.

  Atop it stood a towering figure clad in crimson armor wreathed in roaring flames, mounted on a steed forged entirely of fire.

  And that was merely one.

  Many more sat upon their own dead continents, terrifying auras intertwining across the void.

  The rippling origin had drawn packs of starving wolves.

  Even on smaller asteroid-like rocks, powerful wanderers stood poised.

  Nascent Soul, Infant Transformation, Spirit Severing…

  Wanderers of every realm watched from afar, waiting like vultures for a newborn to take its first breath.

  They drifted closer, sharks scenting blood in an endless sea.

  BOOM!

  Just as they neared the Five Phoenixes—

  Brilliant array patterns wove together in the darkness, forming a magnificent scroll that slowly unfurled across the void.

  “An array?!”

  Shock flashed in the wanderers’ eyes.

  Many cried out.

  The flaming-armored giant roared in fury.

  BOOM!

  A Nascent Soul wanderer charged into the formation.

  An instant later—agonized screams, blood spraying everywhere—he exploded into a crimson mist.

  A killing array.

  A Nascent Soul cultivator, dead in the blink of an eye.

  Wanderers cherished their lives above all. The first death froze the rest.

  “That’s a formation from the Six Armor Array Sect!”

  “Only the sect leader Qi Liujia could lay down a killing array of this level!”

  “Is that old monster trying to hog the entire fortune?! He’ll burst!”

  On their floating continents, the furious wanderers snarled.

  Many hesitated, watching.

  Soon they spotted the withered old man seated motionless on a barren continent.

  Their suspicions were confirmed.

  The one blocking their path with this killing formation was indeed the leader of the Six Armor Array Sect—Qi Liujia.

  On a continent soaked in blood, a seductively dressed woman with bared skin flicked her snake-like tongue, eyes gleaming.

  “Perhaps Sect Leader Qi only set up the array because he fears we might ruin this fortune?”

  Her enchanting voice spread through the void, stirring discussion.

  “We came following the message from the High Martial Buddhist World’s honored one. Who would have thought a mid martial world truly on the verge of ascending to high martial would appear in this void…”

  “We can’t wait forever. Word is, although high martial overlords can’t descend into this void, the holy sons and holy maidens of various sacred grounds are already on their way.”

  A hunched, wild-haired figure with spikes growing from his back rasped.

  Panic rippled through the crowd.

  “High martial holy sons and maidens—arrogant heaven-chosen monsters. If they arrive, what share will be left for us?!”

  “Who cares about Qi Liujia?!”

  “Together—tear this array apart!”

  “Anyone who blocks another’s fortune is our blood enemy!”

  “Kill!”

  Roars shook the void.

  Dead continents exploded into motion.

  Wanderers burst with radiant light, streaking like a waterfall of meteors toward the withered old man.

  The old man sat unmoving, head bowed, as if all life had already drained from him.

  BOOM BOOM BOOM!

  The killing array awakened.

  Array runes lashed out like monstrous whips, detonating the void.

  Every wanderer who entered exploded into bloody mist.

  Only Spirit Severing cultivators managed to preserve their souls and flee.

  Nascent Soul and Infant Transformation cultivators perished like fireworks in the night.

  The snake-tongued woman’s pupils contracted.

  “What a ruthless heart…”

  “No wonder he ranks among the top ten wanderers in this void…”

  “But Qi Liujia, you can’t swallow this alone. Soon the holy sons and maidens will arrive. What will you do then?!”

  “You only dare act mighty against small fry like us!”

  The withered old man said nothing.

  Silence fell like death across the void.

  With his silence, his stance was clear.

  Cold smiles spread across the faces of the wanderers on their dead continents.

  They sat down cross-legged, eyes blazing with murderous light fixed on the old man.

  A battle of patience?

  They could wait.