Chen Qingyun. In Jiang Guixian’s memory, he was a mediocre talent who had barely reached the Golden Core stage by gorging on pills. How could such a man take that final step into the Nascent Soul realm?

  The pressure descending from the heavens was no illusion. It was so heavy that Jiang’s proud soul trembled; it was so vast that he felt cast back a hundred years to the desperate moment when the three sects had cornered him, leaving him with no path to heaven and no gate to the earth.

  Jiang Guixian struck his chest violently. Beneath his refined, scholarly skin, something began to writhe frantically.

  "Chen Qingyun! So what if you’ve reached Nascent Soul!" He roared, his voice cracking. "Do you think I, Jiang Guixian, am still that stray dog you slaughtered a century ago?"

  He thrust the bronze Myriad Ghoul Casket high above his head. With every ounce of strength, he spat out his essence blood—a cocktail of virulent spite and unyielding resentment—onto the box.

  Hum!

  The casket let out a dull, mournful wail. The insect patterns on its ancient surface suddenly came to life, erupting with an eerie, destructive purple lightning.

  "My Sky-Pool Lightning Fleas, nurtured for a century!" Jiang screamed. "Come forth!"

  Crack!

  A hairline fracture appeared on the casket's lid. An indescribable aura of annihilation leaked through the gap. It wasn't a foul stench or a potent poison; it was a pure sense of silence and extinction, born from the Heavenly Tribulation itself.

  Then, a cloud of specks smaller than dust motes billowed out. They didn't form a cloud or make a sound. They simply drifted above Jiang Guixian’s head, forming a shimmering purple nebula of crackling electric arcs.

  Magnificent. Dreamlike. Deadly.

  This was Jiang Guixian’s ultimate trump card. Legend had it that these exotic insects were born in the "Lightning Pools" left behind after high-level cultivators failed their tribulations. They fed on the remnants of Tribulation Lightning and naturally wielded a sliver of Heavenly Punishment.

  A single flea was enough to make a Golden Core master retreat. Here, there were tens of thousands.

  "Chen Qingyun, even if I die today, I will drag your Maple Red Valley down to the grave with me!"

  Driven to madness, Jiang commanded the nebula of death to descend toward the arena below.

  "Is that so?"

  Chen Qingyun’s flat, emotionless voice rang out again. The pressure intensified.

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  Thud.

  Jiang Guixian’s knees shattered instantly. He was pinned to the ground by an invisible force, unable to move a finger. The once-mighty purple nebula froze in mid-air, its leaping arcs of lightning turning sluggish, as if encased in ice.

  "So, there is an accomplice?"

  This time, Chen Qingyun’s voice was directed at Chen Gensheng. Or rather, at the figure standing beside the fallen Insect Demon.

  A gaze pierced through the veil of the Myriad Ghoul Casket, through the barriers of space, and landed precisely on Gensheng.

  Found out!

  A thousand thoughts exploded in Gensheng’s mind, only to be crushed into powder by the terrifying pressure. He was a piece of meat on a chopping block. No, he wasn't even meat—at best, he was a cockroach waiting to be squashed.

  Run? Where? Under the gaze of a Nascent Soul monster, he didn't even have the strength to twitch his pinky.

  It was over. He, Chen Gensheng, had climbed from a tiny insect, relying on eating and hiding, only to reach this height. He was about to reach the peak of his "Insect Life," only to trip here. Trip over a "War of Gods" he never wanted to be part of.

  If he had known, he never would have listened to this old madman and come to the back mountain to "watch a show." Now, he had become part of the play.

  Just as Gensheng was preparing to give up—wondering if being slapped into a meat paste would hurt less than having his soul searched and refined—a movement came from the arena.

  The white figure moved. Saintess Lu Zhaozhao looked up.

  Her gaze crossed the wailing crowds, crossed the rampaging insects, and locked precisely onto Gensheng’s panicked eyes. Time seemed to stand still. Gensheng’s mind went blank.

  He saw Lu Zhaozhao’s lips move slightly. In the next second:

  "Sect Master, Uncle."

  "Please, stay your hand."

  "That man... is my Dao companion."

  Silence fell over the high peaks. It lasted so long that many thought they had hallucinated. Finally, Chen Qingyun’s voice rose, filled with a mix of strangeness, scrutiny, and disdain.

  "Zhaozhao. Are you jesting with me? A peerless Golden Core Saintess... claiming a Qi Condensation disciple as her Dao companion?"

  Lu Zhaozhao spoke again. Her voice was cold, yet it carried an immovable persistence. "Since I began my cultivation, I have never harbored selfish or distracting thoughts. I spent years in seclusion, seeking the Dao, indifferent to the world. Only this man is the sole lingering concern in my heart."

  She paused and looked toward the cliff where Gensheng stood.

  Why? Gensheng’s mind screamed. Why would she do this? For a fake lover who only existed in a hundred-year dream? To turn against the entire sect? To throw away her future, her path?

  "Zhaozhao!" Chen Qingyun’s voice finally carried a note of fury. "You are confused! That Insect Demon is insidious and vile. This disciple standing with him is clearly a corrupted accomplice! They have slaughtered our disciples and harmed our Elders. Their crimes are monstrous!"

  "How am I to explain this to the ancestors? How am I to explain this to the valley?!"

  The pressure on Gensheng grew even heavier. He felt his bones were about to snap. But Lu Zhaozhao’s voice remained calm.

  "Uncle, you are right. He has indeed killed many."

  "But... so what?"

  She turned to face the thousands of dumbfounded disciples below the gallery.

  "In this world, whose hands are not stained with blood? Uncle, when you achieved Nascent Soul, how many withered bones did you tread upon? Elders, which of you did not crawl out of a sea of blood? Even the Junior Brothers and Sisters here—when you go out to 'slay demons,' do your hands ever tremble?"

  "The path of cultivation has always been the strong devouring the weak. He kills because he has the capability. He lives because he has the capability."

  Her words vibrated in everyone's ears. "Uncle, you want to kill him only because he threatens the sect's interests. But I do not care about that. I only know that he is my Dao companion."