After Song Changsheng finished his lament, his gaze once again drifted toward the depths of the starry sky, bottomless and unfathomable.
Throughout his life, he had stepped into countless secret realms and ancient ruins. What others had seen, he had seen—and what others had never seen, he had seen too.
In terms of experience and knowledge, he considered himself virtually unmatched across the vast Martial Cultivation World.
Yet this immense expanse of space filled him with nothing but curiosity and longing.
A desire to explore, long dormant, had been rekindled once more.
Even though he had silently reached an agreement with that white-robed woman—take the lotus and leave, go no deeper—he still couldn't bring himself to depart.
This place was something he had stumbled upon not long ago, entirely by accident.
But he had traversed nearly the entirety of the vast Martial Cultivation World. Why hadn't he discovered any clues about this place before?
Clearly, it had only opened a short time ago.
And the treasures within far exceeded his imagination—surpassing every place he had ever explored before.
That was precisely why he had lamented just how little he truly understood about this Martial Cultivation World.
For now, it appeared this place already had a master.
He guessed it was most likely the dwelling of an ancient clan.
That white-robed woman was probably a member of an ancient clan who resided here.
When the Era of the Gods had opened, she had not chosen to enter, yet she had intervened—no doubt to assert the majesty of the ancient clans.
But having crossed blows with her, he could sense her strength. Even he had no certainty that he could defeat that woman.
"I wonder if that senior knows about this place's existence."
Suddenly, another thought crossed Song Changsheng's mind.
"Chu Xuanyuan, you old fox."
"If only you two were still here."
The more Song Changsheng thought about it, the more wistful he became.
Those two had once been the greatest thorns in his side, each having snatched precious treasures right out of his hands.
He used to think that with those two gone, everything would be his for the taking.
But now he found himself missing the days when they were still around.
A place like this—if the three of them joined forces, perhaps they could truly uncover all its secrets.
……
At the same time, within the Ninth Heavenly River…
If even an ordinary world within it were to appear before the people of today's Martial Cultivation World, it would be enough to shock them beyond belief.
Take, for instance, a planet entirely brown in color. Its surface area was several thousand times that of the Pingyuan Upper Realm—comparable to an entire large star field within the Divine Body Heavenly River.
And everything within this world was colossal. The blades of grass and trees were more than ten thousand times larger than anything in the current Martial Cultivation World.
A single blade of grass could stand tens of thousands of meters tall, while the trees reached heights of several million meters.
The people who lived here—even the children—stood hundreds of thousands of meters tall, and the adults towered at a full million meters.
Of course, this was only extraordinary when viewed through the lens of a normal person. To them, their world had always been this way, and nothing about it seemed strange.
What was strange, however, was that at this very moment, the most powerful clan within this entire world had gathered in a circle, kneeling in orderly formation on the ground.
"Achoo~"
Suddenly, a sneeze rang out.
The tens of millions of giants shuddered in unison.
At first glance, the direction they knelt toward appeared to be nothing more than an empty patch of ground—devoid of anything.
But upon closer inspection, one would notice an existence so infinitesimally small that, by their standards, it was comparable to a speck of dust.
It was a figure—a perfectly ordinary human silhouette.
Anyone else would have had their courage shattered by even a single one of these giants. Yet here, surrounded by tens of millions of them, this figure showed not a shred of fear.
Instead, he lay flat on the ground, one hand tucked behind his head like a pillow. The other hand toyed with a fan, wafting cool air toward himself, while his crossed leg bounced lazily up and down—the very picture of leisure.
Because he was the one all those tens of millions of giants were kneeling to.
This person was someone both Chu Feng and Song Changsheng would recognize.
It was none other than Chu Feng's master—the old Daoist with the crooked nose.
Beside the old Daoist sat a massive alchemical furnace, flames roaring from within. Scattered around its base were enormous ant legs, though nowhere could one find the ants' heads or bodies.
"Why are you all kneeling to this old man? I still don't have enough ingredients for my pill. Go catch more Primordial Spirit-Condensing Ants," the crooked-nose Daoist said.
"My lord, we truly cannot find any more."
The voice that answered sounded like rolling thunder. When the giant opened his mouth, from the old Daoist's perspective, the very earth shook and mountains trembled.
"Cannot find any more?"