The Azure Sword Sect’s grand flying ship broke through the final layer of clouds, casting a massive shadow over the lush valleys of the Central Continent.
Before them lay Golden Dragon City. It was a sprawling, opulent metropolis of white marble and gold, but today, it did not look welcoming. A massive, impenetrable dome of brilliant golden light encased the entire city. It hummed with the combined power of the surrounding ley lines, radiating a suffocating, majestic pressure.
This was the Nine-Heavens Absolute Array. A continent-grade defense designed to withstand the siege of a hundred Grandmasters.
On the deck of the flying ship, Su Mei gripped the wooden railing, her knuckles turning white.
"Lord Yan," Su Mei whispered, her voice trembling as the ship sailed closer and closer to the golden dome. "The barrier is still up. If our ship touches that light, the backlash will instantly vaporize the hull. The defensive runes are fully charged!"
Yan Shuo didn’t look worried. He was sitting on his plush silk cushion, casually adjusting the sleeves of his pristine white robes.
"Patience, Miss Su," Yan Shuo said mildly. "True corruption takes a moment to properly digest."
Down in the city, hidden within the Eastern Directional Tower, Elder Han sat in profound meditation. He was known as the Iron Judge, a man who had executed his own disciples for pocketing extra spirit stones.
But right now, his hands were violently shaking.
In his lap sat a flawless jade bottle. The medicinal fragrance leaking from it was so pure it made his ancient meridians ache with longing. It was a Supreme-Grade Marrow-Cleansing Pill.
Elder Han looked up at the ceiling, tears streaming down his wrinkled face. His crippled grandson would walk again. He would cultivate again. The Iron Judge closed his eyes, let out a long, ragged breath, and quietly reached out to snap the connection to his array flag.
In the Western Tower, Elder Lin didn’t weep. He stared at the ancient bamboo slip in his hands with bloodshot, manic eyes. The Heavenly Breath Lotus Art. He had been stuck at the middle stage of Nascent Soul for fifty years. His hair was white, and his lifespan was a dying candle.
He didn’t even hesitate. He severed his connection to the array, rolled out his meditation mat, and instantly entered closed-door seclusion, completely ignoring the warning bells ringing in the tower.
Back on the flying ship, Su Mei braced herself for impact. They were less than a hundred feet from the golden dome.
Suddenly, the brilliant light of the Nine-Heavens Absolute Array violently flickered.
The seamless golden dome groaned, the ancient runes scrambling as two of its four foundational pillars abruptly vanished. Without the eastern and western anchors, the continent-grade barrier simply tore itself apart.
A massive, gaping hole silently opened right in front of the ship’s bow.
"Heavens..." Su Mei gasped, her pink fox eyes wide with absolute, mind-shattering shock.
She had known the bribes were priceless, but seeing the legendary, impenetrable defense of the Righteous Alliance simply turn off because a fifteen-year-old boy threw some items out of his pocket was terrifying. The wealth and calculation required to pull this off were demonic.
The Azure Sword Sect warship sailed smoothly through the hole, completely bypassing the outer defenses, and drifted into the airspace of Golden Dragon City.
Down in the streets below, absolute chaos erupted.
Millions of cultivators stopped in their tracks, pointing up at the sky in horror. The warning bells of the inner city began to toll wildly.
"The barrier is breached!"
"Is it a demonic invasion?!"
"Look at the hull! That’s the emblem of the Azure Sword Sect! Why did the Gatekeepers let them in?!"
Yan Shuo ignored the screaming masses below. He pointed his folded paper fan toward the highest peak in the center of the city.
"To the Patriarch’s palace," Yan Shuo ordered the disciples steering the ship. "And don’t bother docking quietly. Park it right over his front courtyard."
Tantai Zhi, who had been quietly sitting beside him, finally stood up.
She didn’t look at the city. She didn’t care about the Righteous Alliance. She just reached out and gently smoothed a minor wrinkle on Yan Shuo’s shoulder.
"Husband," she murmured, her golden eyes filled with an intense, protective warmth. "There are many bugs down there. Do you want me to clear a path so they don’t look at you with their dirty eyes?"
"Let them look, Zhi’er," Yan Shuo smiled, reaching up to gently squeeze her hand. "Today, we are here to teach them manners. A lesson requires an audience."
Tantai Zhi’s breath hitched at the sound of her name. A beautiful, radiant blush instantly swept across her cheeks. She obediently lowered her head, hiding her flustered smile behind his shoulder. "Whatever Husband wants."
The massive warship glided over the bustling merchant districts and arrived directly above the Righteous Alliance Headquarters—a sprawling, majestic palace complex carved entirely from white jade and gold.
The ship didn’t land. It simply anchored itself in the sky, casting a massive, insulting shadow directly over the Patriarch’s grand plaza.
Below them, the inner palace was swarming like a kicked anthill.
Hundreds of elite, silver-armored Enforcers poured out of the grand halls, drawing their glowing sabers and forming massive battle arrays on the jade tiles. A dozen Late Nascent Soul Grandmasters took to the sky, floating just below the ship, their auras blazing with furious, righteous indignation.
Finally, the grand golden doors of the main hall slammed open.
The Patriarch of the Righteous Alliance stepped out. He was an imposing man with a thick white beard, wearing majestic golden robes adorned with roaring dragons. He carried a heavy, authoritative aura that demanded absolute submission from the mortal realm.
He looked up at the warship, his face twisting in unadulterated fury.
"Sect Master Zhao!" the Patriarch’s voice boomed, amplified by his profound Qi, shaking the very clouds. "Have you lost your mind?! You dare to break into the Central Continent?! You dare to hover your ship over my palace?! Come down here and face the judgment of the Alliance!"
The Patriarch fully expected the cowardly Sect Master to crawl to the railing and beg for mercy.
Instead, the wooden ramp of the ship slowly lowered.
Two figures walked down.
Yan Shuo strolled down the ramp with his hands clasped casually behind his back. He wore pristine white robes, his dark hair tied perfectly with a silver ribbon. He looked completely relaxed, like a young noble taking a stroll through a flower garden.
Right beside him, her hand resting delicately on his arm, was Tantai Zhi.
The moment her boots touched the jade plaza, the atmosphere in the Central Continent violently shifted. The bright morning sun seemed to dim. The suffocating, world-ending spiritual pressure of the absolute peak of the mortal realm washed over the hundreds of elite Enforcers.
The sheer weight of her presence forced the flying Grandmasters out of the sky. They landed heavily on the plaza, their faces pale as they struggled to keep their knees from buckling.
Yan Shuo stopped ten paces away from the furious Patriarch.
"Sect Master Zhao is busy sweeping the peach blossoms back home," Yan Shuo said, his voice entirely calm and conversational. He snapped his paper fan open. "I am here in his stead."
The Patriarch glared at the fifteen-year-old youth. He recognized him from the reports. This was the trash. The soft-rice eater. The anomaly who had somehow chained the Saintess to his side.
"Insolent brat," the Patriarch sneered, his eyes darting nervously to Tantai Zhi before locking back onto Yan Shuo. "You think because you hide behind a woman’s skirt, you can disrespect the Heavenly Dao? You bypassed my outer walls with dirty tricks, but you have walked directly into your own grave."
Yan Shuo didn’t flinch. He didn’t puff out his chest or yell.
"I didn’t come here to disrespect the Heavenly Dao, Patriarch," Yan Shuo said mildly. He reached into his sleeve and pulled out a small jade vial.
He tossed it onto the ground at the Patriarch’s feet. It shattered, revealing a small pile of foul, blackish-green ash. The remnants of the Nine-Venom Karmic Nail.
"I came here to collect a debt," Yan Shuo stated, his voice dropping an octave, carrying the heavy, chilling authority of a warlord. "Your lapdog, Elder Mo, threw this toy at me yesterday. My wife caught it. It scratched her hand."
Yan Shuo stepped forward, his dark eyes locking entirely onto the Patriarch.
"I am a very reasonable man," Yan Shuo whispered, the cold malice in his voice making the surrounding Grandmasters violently shiver. "Drop to your knees. Press your forehead against these jade tiles. Apologize to my wife for scratching her hand. Do it now, and I will let this palace remain standing."
A dead, horrifying silence fell over the grand plaza.
The elite Enforcers couldn’t believe their ears. A Foundation Establishment youth was demanding the leader of the entire cultivation world to kowtow like a beaten dog?
The Patriarch’s face turned purple with absolute, uncontrollable rage.
"Kneel? To you?!" the Patriarch roared, his Nascent Soul aura exploding outward in a golden shockwave. "You arrogant filth! You think I fear this lunatic woman?! This is my domain! I am the law of this continent!"
He didn’t draw a sword. He raised his hand high into the air, clutching a glowing, octagonal array compass.
"You think you caught me off guard?!" the Patriarch sneered, his eyes burning with absolute triumph. "I knew you would come! The Honored Guest warned me that your arrogance would blind you! Let us see how the Saintess protects you when her Qi is severed from the earth!"
He violently crushed the array compass in his grip.
BOOM!
The jade tiles beneath Yan Shuo and Tantai Zhi violently erupted with a dark, heavy, suffocating purple light.
It wasn’t a standard Righteous suppression array. It was the inner defense array Su Mei had warned them about.
Instantly, the natural gravity within a fifty-foot radius of Yan Shuo multiplied by ten thousand. The sheer kinetic force was designed to instantly crush the bones of anyone carrying a heavy, abnormal foundation, locking them to the floor and cutting off all ambient spiritual energy.
The Patriarch laughed, a cruel, victorious sound. "Die under the weight of your own sins!"
Tantai Zhi felt the crushing gravity hit her shoulders. It was heavy, but to a peak expert, it was merely an annoyance. She immediately moved to step in front of Yan Shuo to shield him, her golden eyes flashing with apocalyptic murder.
But a hand gently caught her wrist.
"Wait, Zhi’er," Yan Shuo murmured softly.
Tantai Zhi blinked, looking back at him.
Yan Shuo was standing perfectly straight. The ten-thousand-fold gravity array was blazing beneath his feet, projecting enough crushing force to flatten a mountain.
But his pristine white robes weren’t even fluttering.
Deep inside his dantian, the Abyssal Star-Core—the heaviest, most violently dense object in the mortal realm—began to slowly, hungrily rotate.
The array was designed to use gravity to crush a cultivator. But trying to crush the Abyssal Core with gravity was like trying to drown an ocean with a cup of water.
Yan Shuo simply opened his spiritual sea, and the Heaven-Swallowing Abyssal Art flared to life.
CRACK.
The dark purple light of the array didn’t crush him. It was violently, forcefully sucked directly into the soles of Yan Shuo’s boots. The terrifying array wasn’t suppressing him; he was actively devouring it.
The Patriarch’s victorious laugh died in his throat. His eyes widened in absolute, mind-bending horror as he watched the fifteen-year-old boy casually absorb a supreme-tier defensive formation.
Yan Shuo let out a soft, relaxed breath, feeling his core grow slightly heavier with the stolen energy. He looked up at the trembling Patriarch, a dark, completely demonic smile spreading across his face.
"You really should have checked my diet, Patriarch," Yan Shuo whispered, his dark eyes promising absolute ruin. "I love heavy meals."