Above an endless expanse of deep yellow desert, an ancient bronze war chariot drawn by two silver giant eagles glowed faintly with azure light as it flew low through the sky.
At the center of the chariot, Han Li sat cross-legged with his eyes half-closed, a faint golden light shimmering and flowing across the surface of his skin.
Suddenly, his expression shifted. He raised one arm and swept his hand through the empty air before him.
Spatial fluctuations rippled beneath the chariot, and an azure sword qi over ten zhang in length materialized out of thin air, slashing downward with devastating force.
In the blink of an eye, the enormous blade of light vanished like a phantom into the sand below.
A heaven-rending roar erupted from beneath the desert. The surrounding sand surged upward in a torrent, as though a waterfall were flowing in reverse.
Amidst the billowing yellow dust, an ancient beast resembling a colossal silkworm — its body exceeding a hundred zhang in length — appeared in full view. But its massive form managed only to sway a few times in the air before suddenly splitting into several segments and plummeting earthward, simultaneously spewing countless streams of green blood.
The chariot did not linger overhead for even a moment. After a few flashes, it swept past and continued hurtling toward the distant horizon.
Han Li, seated in the chariot, never once opened his eyes throughout. After lowering his arm, he resumed his silent cultivation as though nothing had happened.
……
In the depths of an unnamed ocean, within a secret chamber of a colossal palace, a massive blood cocoon roughly seven or eight zhang in diameter floated suspended in mid-air.
Countless blood-red threads sprayed from the cocoon, densely filling every corner of the chamber until not a speck of empty space remained.
The cocoon itself was crystalline and semi-translucent. Peering through the thicket of blood threads from afar, one could vaguely make out a dark shadow inside that swelled and contracted rhythmically, growing larger and smaller in turn. Drawing closer still, one could hear a muffled thud at regular intervals — like a powerful heart beating at an extraordinarily slow pace.
……
Above an unnamed massive canyon on the Wind Origin Continent, a graceful woman in white and an ugly, black-robed giant hovered in perfect stillness. Around them, tens of thousands of alien beings had closed in so tightly that not even a drop of water could have seeped through.
These aliens were plump-bodied with green skin, extraordinarily long necks, and two forelimbs as sharp as great blades — they resembled enormous praying mantises capable of standing upright.
Beneath the canyon, however, the ground was already heaped with the corpses of the alien race. Severed green limbs carpeted the surrounding earth, a sight that was nothing short of horrifying.
Though the black-robed giant bore not a single stain of blood on his person, a savage aura erupted from him like a pillar piercing the heavens. Both sides of his face were covered in black scales the size of copper coins, and his two arms, exposed where his sleeves had rolled back, were an unnatural pitch-black. His palms had transformed into ten razor-sharp short blades, giving him the appearance of a ferocious demon reborn.
The white-robed woman, by contrast, stood serenely upon a blossoming pink lotus that had materialized beneath her feet, her expression one of absolute leisure and composure.
Though they numbered only two, the tens of thousands of aliens surrounding them shrank back in a mixture of rage and terror, none daring to advance a single step.
"I will say this one more time," the white-robed woman spoke. "Hand over your Green Limb Tribe's Sacred Crystal, and I will turn around and leave immediately. Otherwise, I will have no choice but to exterminate your entire clan and retrieve the crystal myself." Her tone was light and casual, as though she were discussing something utterly trivial.
"The Sacred Crystal is the supreme treasure upon which our clan's very survival depends. How could we hand it over to outsiders? No matter how formidable your abilities, esteemed Elder, this demand is utterly impossible." The alien standing at the forefront — his skin a shade darker than the others — cast a venomous glance at the black-robed man who had just slaughtered his people and spoke through gritted teeth.
He was a mid-stage Body Integration cultivator, one of the highest in Magical Power among the tens of thousands of aliens present.
Behind him stood three more cultivators at early-stage Body Integration, their eyes blazing with fury.
Yet during the battle that had just unfolded, he and the tribe's Grand Elder had been completely suppressed by the white-robed girl's overwhelming aura, unable to move a single muscle. They had been forced to watch helplessly as the black-robed man carried out a wholesale slaughter of their people.
Though their kin had fought back with everything they had, over a thousand had been cut down in mere moments.
The sheer power and ruthlessness of their opponents left them seething with rage yet chilled to the bone. They knew their clan had truly stumbled upon a catastrophe this time — that the peril of total extinction loomed before their very eyes.
And with an opponent of Mahayana-level strength before them, he...
" That is of no concern to me," the white-robed woman said flatly. "Either hand over the Sacred Crystal, or your clan will be erased from the Spirit Realm this very moment. There is no second option."
"As a Mahayana cultivator, you would bully our humble clan — one that has long since withdrawn from the world — and forcibly seize our treasure. Do you not find that beneath your dignity?" The Green Limb Tribe's Grand Elder hesitated for a long while before speaking again, unwilling to concede.
"Spare me your words of provocation. Your Sacred Crystal is very likely something of great use to me, and I am determined to have it. Do not harbor any false hopes. I will count to ten. If you have not handed it over by then, I will take it myself." The white-robed woman smiled faintly, but the words she spoke made every alien's heart sink.
" One..."
" Two..."
……
The white-robed girl actually began counting aloud in a leisurely, unhurried manner.