The entire foundation of the Pear Blossom Grotto-Heaven had been drained dry, turning the whole realm into a lifeless wasteland. With the Pear Blossom Palace itself torn from the earth and launched into the sky, the cataclysmic force of the extraction caused the entire Grotto-Heaven to detonate and shatter.
Countless fragments of Spirit Lands—large and small—materialized in the void, hurtling in every direction.
Four wretched figures appeared alongside them, each wounded, their faces pale with lingering dread. Of the four, Zongzheng had suffered the worst—nearly half his body had been blown apart, and his exposed innards writhed visibly within the gory cavity.
It wasn't that Zongzheng's cultivation was inferior to the other three. He had simply been the unluckiest, bearing the brunt of that devastating strike.
That single blow had consumed every last drop of the Pear Blossom Grotto-Heaven's power. While it couldn't compare to a direct attack from an Eighth-Order Open Heaven cultivator, it was far beyond what any Seventh-Order could withstand easily.
Agony twisted Zongzheng's face into a grotesque grimace. He frantically channeled his power to seal the wound and stanch the bleeding, while pulling handfuls of spirit pills from his Small Universe and stuffing them into his mouth like beans.
A sharp pain erupted in his chest. Behind him, a sinister aura latched onto him like a venomous snake.
Zongzheng's body went rigid. When he looked down, a small child's hand protruded through his chest, bursting from the other side!
His eyes nearly cracked from fury as he snarled through gritted teeth: "You old ghost, Ziye!"
Behind him, the Purple Night Boy clung to his back like a shadow and grinned. "You're already this badly hurt—don't drag it out. Let me send you on your way!"
"Not a chance!" Zongzheng roared, but with the ambush already sprung and his body ravaged by grievous wounds, he had no room to resist. Ziye had seized the initiative while Zongzheng was off guard, and the combination of surprise and injury left him utterly helpless.
By the time his shout faded, Ziye's World Power was already surging through his body like a raging torrent, severing his lifeforce.
Ziye reached in and ripped out a fresh, blood-soaked liver from Zongzheng's body. He raised it to his mouth and tore into it with large bites, his expression one of pure bliss, like quenching one's thirst on a sweltering day.
Not far away, Granny Jiu and Zhu Lingshan watched the scene unfold with equally indifferent expressions. They showed no hint of alarm or sympathy.
On Broken Star, betrayal came faster than turning a page. If Zongzheng hadn't been the one most severely wounded, it could easily have been one of them. And had that been the case, whoever fell victim would simply have been unlucky.
Zongzheng's injuries had left him with no further fighting ability. Even if Ziye hadn't struck the killing blow, the other two would have eventually made their move.
Thus perished a mighty Seventh-Order Open Heaven cultivator.
Yet unlike a middle- or lower-rank Open Heaven, Zongzheng's Small Universe did not immediately collapse upon his death. Instead, it contracted violently, pulling his corpse inside before vanishing into the void without a trace.
Since ancient times, the Blessed Lands and Grotto-Heavens left behind by the fall of upper-rank Open Heaven cultivators had all come to be in this manner. As long as the owner's Small Universe hadn't sustained catastrophic damage while they were alive, a significant portion of it would survive their death.
What Zongzheng left behind was, without question, a Blessed Land.
A Seventh-Order Open Heaven's liver was a potent tonic for Ziye. In mere moments he had devoured it whole. He wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth, and the aura that had been flagging from his injuries had already stabilized.
Turning to gaze in the direction where the Pear Blossom Palace had vanished, Ziye spoke: "Forcefully channeling the power of an entire Grotto-Heaven—even with the Linglang Palace as an intermediary—must have taken a severe toll on Xia Linlang. This opportunity won't come again. I'm going after her. What say the two of you?"
Granny Jiu and Zhu Lingshan exchanged a glance and both nodded slightly. Moments later, three figures shot off into the distance at breakneck speed.
As for the Blessed Land left behind by Zongzheng's death—while it was certainly a prize, containing all of a Seventh-Order Open Heaven's lifetime of accumulated treasures—no matter how valuable those possessions might be, they paled in comparison to the Heaven and Earth Spring, one of the Four Pillars of the Universe.
Between the Heaven and Earth Spring and a Blessed Land, all three naturally favored the Spring.
Still, each of them had silently committed the location of the Blessed Land to memory, waiting for the chance to return and explore it later.
Inside the Pear Blossom Palace, blood trickled from Yang Kai's nose and mouth, while Xia Linlang's face was deathly pale.
Just as the Purple Night Boy had said, forcibly wielding the power of the entire Pear Blossom Grotto-Heaven was an enormous burden. Had Xia Linlang been shouldering it alone, she would have been completely spent by now.
Fortunately, Yang Kai had helped share the load, preventing her from being pushed to collapse—but she still needed time to recover, which meant the Pear Blossom Palace was temporarily under Yang Kai's control.
In this moment, Yang Kai was profoundly grateful that he had made the split-second decision to forcibly absorb the spear dao traces within the Pear Blossom Grotto-Heaven. Otherwise, all those dense spear dao traces would have been completely wasted, given that the Grotto-Heaven had most likely disintegrated entirely and ceased to exist.
Though they had escaped the Pear Blossom Grotto-Heaven, they couldn't afford to let their guard down. The Heaven and Earth Spring was simply too great a temptation—those four upper-rank Open Heaven cultivators would never give up easily. And Broken Star, a land of constant turmoil, was no place to linger for long.