A stifling silence immediately swept across the entire Sky Moon Tree square. Zhi Xuan slowly cracked his neck, his gaze sweeping across the surroundings and causing subtle vibrations in the air. He looked at Wan Xing and the Silent Hermit as if he were watching two insects struggling within a spider's web.

  "Forbidden techniques? The path of a devil?" Zhi Xuan repeated those words with a tone saturated with mockery. "If I attain victory, you call me a Devil. If I am defeated, what then would you say?"

  "In this Dao Discussion, I have not used any weapons," Zhi Xuan continued, spreading his arms wide. "Is that not the rule? If your Domain cannot bear the weight of the Six Paths of Reincarnation, then do not dream of claiming my position as the Dao Protector."

  The Silent Hermit stepped forward, piercing through the protective formation. His robes billowed as a dry, deathly aura intensified from dozens of zhang away. "Your arrogance is poison to your own soul, Zhi Xuan. If you feel as high as the heavens, then let the Eternal Desert bury you!"

  He struck his wooden staff onto the floating stone. Instantly, glowing reddish grains of sand began to manifest from thin air, swirling rapidly until they formed a sandstorm that swallowed the sunlight. Behind him, a True Domain unfurled, creating nine vortexes that devoured the surrounding rocks.

  "Nine-Hell Red Sands!" shouted one practitioner, recognizing the Silent Hermit's Domain. "It is said he realized this after burying himself beneath the Red Desert for a hundred years!"

  Those red sand grains were no ordinary dust; each grain carried the weight of a mountain and a dryness capable of sucking every drop of life essence from one's meridians. The air around the Silent Hermit howled, creating the sound of thousands of lost souls wailing in the eternal desert. The nine vortexes behind him spun in opposite directions, creating a pull so powerful that massive rock fragments nearby disintegrated into dust before they were even touched.

  "Die!" roared the Silent Hermit.

  A wave of red sand shot out like a hungry desert dragon, lunging toward Zhi Xuan with a speed that cleaved the battlefield. Zhi Xuan, who had been standing calmly, felt a different pressure this time. The desiccating aura of the Domain tried to force its way into his pores, attempting to forcibly dry up his blood and divine essence.

  Zhi Xuan frowned and performed a rapid backward maneuver, leaping over three large rock fragments until he landed on a stone dozens of zhang away.

  "Interesting," Zhi Xuan hissed. He felt the surface of his robes thinning and cracking due to the friction of the sand, which contained the law of decay. "The destructive power of time and dryness... the Red Desert indeed possesses its own uniqueness."

  "You won't be able to run, ghost of the past!" The Silent Hermit raised his staff higher. The nine vortexes merged into a single gargantuan hole that spewed an even more devastating sandstorm, blotting out all sight.

  Zhi Xuan stopped retreating. He stood tall, allowing his feet to plant firmly upon the violently vibrating stone. This time, he was no longer indifferent. His sapphire eyes glowed with a denser light as the Reincarnation Disk at his back triggered gray lightning in his surroundings.

  "Human Path, Deva Path! Unite Heaven and Earth!"

  WUUUUNG—!

  Two sections of the disk—one pure white and the other heavenly gold—glowed simultaneously. Instantly, two gates appeared and swung open, forming a white-gold vortex like a galaxy. The vortex expanded, forming a six-layered shield that encircled Zhi Xuan.

  The collision between the Red Sandstorm and the Reincarnation Galaxy Shield created a terrifying image. Every grain of red sand that struck Zhi Xuan’s shield layers triggered an energy explosion that pulverized the floating rocks around them. The atmosphere, previously dominated by the sun’s heat, turned into a chaotic field filled with ear-piercing grinding sounds and the heavy hum of heavenly laws.

  "Dry up his path! Shatter his essence!" the Silent Hermit roared. His wrinkled face appeared even more desiccated, as if he were offering his own blood as a sacrifice to strengthen his Domain.

  The nine red sand vortexes now lunged simultaneously, surrounding Zhi Xuan from all directions. The pressure was so immense that the giant rock Zhi Xuan stood upon instantly turned into fine powder. Zhi Xuan felt the weight of a thousand mountains crushing his shoulders. His feet sank into the rock fragment, and for the first time since his return, he felt a pressure capable of threatening his physical existence.

  "Ugh!" Zhi Xuan hissed softly. He felt the essence within his meridians slowing down slightly under the forced law of decay.

  Without wasting time, he leaped backward with a speed that surpassed common sight. His feet stepped lightly on the air, darting from one stone to another, trying to maintain distance from the vortexes that pursued him like a shadow of death. Every stone he left behind was instantly swallowed and destroyed by the red sandstorm within seconds.

  "Can you only run away?" mocked Wan Xing, who was still watching from a distance, though his eyes betrayed anxiety at the Silent Hermit’s sheer power.

  Zhi Xuan landed on the highest rock fragment. He turned around, his hands forming intricate ancient mudras. "Reincarnation knows no decay, for the end is but a new beginning!"

  The two gates—the Deva Path and the Human Path—behind him spun even faster, emitting a white-gold light so blinding it pierced through the density of the red sandstorm. The six-layered shield around him expanded, transforming into a wave of light that repelled everything foreign.

  BOOOOOM!

  The frontal clash between the white-gold wave and the red sandstorm created a shockwave that collapsed the protective formations around the Dao Discussion site. The Divine Transformation elders guarding the site immediately restored the barriers to contain the overflow of energy, which was capable of leveling mountain ranges.

  Zhi Xuan was pushed back several steps, his feet leaving deep cracks in the stone. His chest heaved, but his eyes radiated a wild battle-lust. "Now this is what I call an exchange of Dao! Your strength is capable of shaking the laws of my Six Paths!"

  The Silent Hermit panted heavily, his wooden staff beginning to crack. "Enough talk! If one vortex isn't enough, then feel the wrath of the nine desert heavens!"

  The red sand now condensed, forming giant spears coated in the fire of desiccation. On the other side, Zhi Xuan’s Reincarnation light began to form chains of laws that sought to entangle the storm. However, the imbalance stemmed from the fact that the Silent Hermit's True Domain had reached a stage higher than Zhi Xuan's.

  "Look!" roared one practitioner on the cliff. He sharpened his divine senses, and his face turned pale. "The Silent Hermit's True Domain has reached the middle stage! His cultivation is also at the middle stage of Weaver Transformation!"

  "No wonder! Isn't that nearly approaching Grand Perfection?" hissed another practitioner, staring intently at the weave of laws belonging to the Silent Hermit. "This is nearly one step away from Grand Perfection. How can a Weaver Transformation practitioner possess a middle-stage True Domain?!"

  "It’s not just that," said Zhu Yanghai. His eyes glinted deeply as a late-stage Weaver Transformation figure himself. "If he gains more enlightenment regarding his True Domain, he will leap into the late stage of Weaver Transformation. And that True Domain will transform into a World Illusion Domain, like those of Divine Transformation experts."

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  The shock to the Dao Hearts of the witnessing practitioners intensified. They realized the Silent Hermit was not an opponent who could be measured by ordinary genius logic; he was an old monster who had squeezed the remainder of his lifespan to touch the boundaries of the horizon.

  The Silent Hermit laughed—a dry sound that resembled bone scraping on sand. "Zhi Xuan! You have talent that pierces the heavens, but you are too young to understand that time is an enemy you cannot defeat. Under my law of decay, even your Reincarnation will become forgotten dust!"

  He struck his staff one last time. The nine sand vortexes completely merged, forming a faceless sand giant hundreds of zhang tall, wielding a massive scythe made of blood-red crystal.

  Zhi Xuan stood still amidst the surrounding aura of death. His dark purple hair covered part of his eyes, but the sapphire glow behind them dimmed, shifting into a tranquility that resembled the surface of frozen water.

  "Middle-stage True Domain..." Zhi Xuan murmured lowly. "You all consider natural laws as something to be understood, followed, and worshiped."

  He slowly lowered his mudras, withdrawing his domain and letting his defenses stand wide open. The sand giant before him swung its massive scythe, cleaving the clouds and creating a vacuum that sucked all energy around Zhi Xuan.

  "But for me," Zhi Xuan continued, his voice suddenly sounding from all directions as if he were the air itself, "natural laws are merely strands of thread that I must rearrange according to my will."

  He closed his eyes and moved his hands gracefully. From both his sides, a Sun and a Moon emerged. The Sun and Moon did not merge; instead, they devoured one another, creating an Eternal Eclipse that carried the weight of the Ancient Heavens. He opened his eyes, the sapphire glint sharpening as he caught the massive scythe with his bare hands.

  The collision between Zhi Xuan’s bare hands and the red crystal scythe produced an ear-splitting metallic chime—not the sound of tearing flesh, but the sound of clashing natural laws. Black lightning sparked from the point of contact, burning the red sand grains into shards of glass that fell through the clouds.

  The sand giant groaned. The pressure caused the massive stone beneath Zhi Xuan’s feet to explode into dust, forcing him to stand upon empty air. Yet, he did not fall. The Eternal Eclipse phenomenon behind him created a strange pressure, as if the center of the world had shifted to his palms.

  "You... caught my scythe of decay with your bare hands?!" The Silent Hermit’s eyes bulged. He spat out essence blood to force the scythe to press deeper. "Even a Vajra body should turn to dust within a single breath!"

  Zhi Xuan’s teeth gritted. His Heavenly-Blood Body Law, supported by thousands of Slaughter Seals, creaked loudly as it was forced to contend with the slash of that Law. Zhi Xuan stomped his foot in the air, coughing blood from his mouth as the Eternal Eclipse began to absorb every bit of energy released by the Silent Hermit.

  "Absorb!" Zhi Xuan roared. The Six Paths of Reincarnation Disk reappeared and sucked in the energy unleashed by the Silent Hermit.

  The black vortex in the center of Zhi Xuan’s Eternal Eclipse spun like a bottomless hole hungry for existence. Every strand of red sand mist that touched his aura no longer decayed; instead, it was sucked in, stripped of the law of decay, and returned to pure essence that merged into Zhi Xuan's meridians.

  "What are you doing?!" the Silent Hermit rauked. His already dry face appeared even more sunken, as if his bone marrow and soul were being pulled by the gravitational pull of that Eternal Eclipse. "That is my law essence! You cannot steal it!"

  Zhi Xuan did not answer with words. The veins in his arms bulged, glowing blood-red as thousands of Slaughter Runes pulsed violently beneath his skin. He felt a burning heat and a torturous dryness trying to destroy his body from within, but his Heavenly-Blood Body Law forged that pain into raw power.

  WUUUUUUUNG—!

  The Eternal Eclipse behind Zhi Xuan suddenly exploded in a haunting radiance. The bright sun side and the cold moon side merged completely, creating a black point that radiated heavy coercion. Instantly, the faceless sand giant began to shake violently. The red crystal scythe held by Zhi Xuan began to crack—not from physical strength, but because its constituent laws were being forcibly unraveled by the Reincarnation Disk.

  In a single breath, the air went silent before an explosion erupted as Zhi Xuan reversed all the energy he had absorbed, vomiting it all back out from the Six Paths of Reincarnation Disk. This triggered a blast that struck the protective formation, making it vibrate violently.

  The energy blast spewed by the Reincarnation Disk swept across the floating stones like a storm of judgment. The Silent Hermit, who was mentally linked to his sand giant, watched in horror as his own law manifestation turned back toward him with doubled intensity.

  "No—!" The Silent Hermit’s cry was cut short by a deafening boom.

  The hundred-zhang-tall sand giant shattered into pieces, unraveling back into red dust that was no longer deadly, but merely the remnants of essence that had lost its soul. The Silent Hermit was thrown far across the horizon, his body slamming into a stone pillar so hard that the pillar collapsed.

  Zhi Xuan stood in the center of the remaining energy vortex. His breathing was heavy, and a drop of silver-gold blood trickled from the corner of his lip, falling onto his black-and-white robes, which were now tattered at the sleeves. The wounds from the friction of the law of decay were real, but his gaze was even sharper, glinting with the fires of a war that had not yet ended.

  "The Silent Hermit has fallen!" the practitioners cried in disbelief. "How is it possible? A middle-stage Weaver Transformation practitioner with a middle-stage True Domain defeated by an early-stage Weaver Transformation?"

  "It’s not just about that!" another practitioner replied. "His True Domain is higher in terms of Law! Furthermore, he possesses many secret techniques. But look at him now; he has also suffered heavy losses."

  Zhi Xuan wiped the blood from his lip with the back of his hand. He stood on the smallest remaining rock fragment, yet his majesty seemed to transcend the highest mountain peaks. His sapphire eyes slowly turned, locking onto Wan Xing, who had been hiding behind the shadows of his own shock after seeing two geniuses toppled.

  "Now," Zhi Xuan’s voice sounded raspy but authoritative, "only you remain, the Son of Heaven from the West."

  Wan Xing trembled. He saw how two great geniuses, Lie Huo and the Silent Hermit, fell like dry leaves at the hands of this man. However, the shame and pride cornered at the edge of the abyss triggered a madness in his mind. He knew that if he ran now, he could never show his face in the Western Continent again, let alone before the Ancient Zhu and Hua Clans.

  Instead, Wan Xing waved his hand, and a technique disk appeared. "I, Wan Xing, wager with this Mountain and River Style Secret! Ghost of the past, you had better recover yourself before I crush you!"

  Zhi Xuan narrowed his eyes—not because of Wan Xing's patronizing statement, but because of that technique disk. He remembered that Ye Ming had once obtained it from Yao Gu, though that had been merely a dimension for protection and traps. In Wan Xing's hand, it looked like one of the Ten Great Secrets.

  "In the memories of the Ancient Heaven, the Ten Great Secrets are combat styles created by the Ancient Gods," Zhi Xuan thought, recalling Zhan Xianwang, who was still sealed in the Nine Heavens Bead. "If the Ancient Devils created the Ten Mysterious Treasures, then the Ancient Gods created combat styles known as the Ten Great Secrets."

  Zhi Xuan looked up fully, staring at the technique disk hovering above Wan Xing's hand. Even if it were a copy or an incomplete technique, it was still equivalent even to Eternal Treasures like the Heavenly Sword. Zhi Xuan smiled faintly; Wan Xing had brought it out in front of everyone, and he could not let this opportunity go to waste.

  "Mountain and River Style Secret?" Zhi Xuan repeated, his breath still ragged, but his eyes glinted for a moment before turning flat. "One of the Ten Great Secrets of the Ancient Gods?"

  Wan Xing smirked—an expression reflecting the madness of a gambler who had just bet his life on one final card. "You recognize it? Good! You wagered the Heavenly Sword, so I shall wager this if you win."

  Zhi Xuan dropped himself onto the stone, sitting cross-legged and forming a mudra. He smirked slightly and replied to Wan Xing. "Then you are worthy to be my next opponent. At least it will not be embarrassing for a little genius trying to become the Sacred Fairy’s Dao Protector."

  Wan Xing snorted coldly, though his heart was in turmoil seeing how calmly Zhi Xuan recovered in front of thousands of eyes. He knew that every second he gave Zhi Xuan to meditate was a huge risk, but his pride as a descendant of the Western Continent forbade him from attacking someone who was wounded and drained of energy.

  "Recover every drop of your essence, Zhi Xuan!" Wan Xing shouted, his voice filled with echoes of star power beginning to seep out. "I do not want the world to say I won the position of Dao Protector only by finishing off the remaining breath of a loser!"

  In the audience stands, Zhu Yanghai narrowed his eyes. His hands were clenched tightly behind his back. "Mountain and River Style Secret... where did that little rat get a copy of an Ancient God Style? If that truly is part of the Ten Great Secrets, then this fight is no longer just a Dao Discussion, but a struggle for a heavenly inheritance."

  Zhu Qinglan, who had been standing frozen near the planted Heavenly Sword, felt her heart race. She could feel the pull of Law from the disk in Wan Xing’s hand—a power that seemed capable of redrawing the world map with a single stroke of a divine brush. However, her gaze immediately shifted to the cross-legged figure surrounded by gray mist.

  "Zhi Xuan," Zhu Qinglan whispered. She waved her hand and levitated a jade spiritual bottle containing her cultivation's ice dew, disregarding that she was doing so in front of everyone. "Recover yourself; you are wounded after two Domain collisions."