The storm in the desolate stone canyon reached its absolute peak.
Sheet rain whipped through the narrow pass, driven by a howling wind that roared between the jagged basalt cliffs. Lightning flickered continuously in the dark, heavy sky, casting brief, stark white flashes over the barren rock. Within the sealed space of the Vajra Sealing Gilded Net, the golden mist swirled violently, illuminated by the blinding light of the columns of Qi rising from the ground.
Heng Wuchen stood at the end of the stone basin, his eyes burning with a dark, gold fire. The desire to capture Fang Lin alive and plunder the secret of his dual affinities and the legendary physique had completely overtaken his mind. He was no longer just executing a mission for the Temple; he was fighting for his own path to the peak of the cultivation world. He looked at the fourteen-year-old youth before him, a mere Spirit Foundation rogue, and a deep, burning jealousy seized his heart. A rogue cultivator from any backward region should not possess such terrifying battle prowess. There had to be a supreme legacy or an ancient sovereign's treasure hidden within his soul.
He had to go all-out and capture Shen Mo before others arrived! There was no other option. He had to finish this battle as fast as possible before people noticed them!
"Surrender your soul, Shen Mo!" Heng Wuchen roared, his voice carrying the full, desperate weight of his burning essence, core and bloodline.
He raised his heavy bronze staff with both hands, channeling every drop of core force into the weapon.
Boom!
A blinding column of golden light shot into the dark storm clouds. High in the sky directly above the canyon, a massive, solid phantom of a golden peak materialized—the Mount Sumeru Descending Strike. The phantom mountain, towering hundreds of feet high and glowing with pure, suppressive weight, began to descend. The sheer pressure of the descending mountain caused the basalt canyon walls to fracture, boulders tumbling into the basin as the air itself was crushed downward. The ground beneath Fang Lin's feet cracked, the ice sheet he had created earlier shattering into millions of tiny, glittering shards.
Fang Lin stood in the center of the collapsing basin, his chest heaving, his mouth stained with blood. He looked up at the descending golden peak. The weight was so immense that his knees bent slightly, his Netherskin straining against the crushing pressure. He knew that if that mountain landed, his body would be pulverized into paste, his soul shattered.
He had to go all-out. He had to use the ultimate card he had gained from his recent breakthrough.
Fang Lin circulated the Frozen Heaven Sutra, guiding the pure, freezing Qi through his dry, aching pathways.
A technique never seen before on the Starry River planet and across many worlds for a very long time, surfaced again in Demon Immortal Continent.
Freeze of Ages!
He thrust his hand upward, his fingers splayed.
A wave of translucent blue energy erupted from his body, spreading rapidly through the canyon basin, coating the basalt stone and the mud in a deep, absolute frost.
Suddenly...
The lashing rain in the air stopped. The howling wind died.
Within the bounds of the Freeze of Ages domain, the falling water droplets froze instantly, suspended in mid-air like millions of tiny crystal spheres. The wind was locked in a state of absolute stillness, and even the air itself became cold, heavy, and motionless. The lightning flashes from the dark sky reflected off the suspended ice droplets, casting a strange, glittering blue light over the entire canyon.
The descending golden peak of the Mount Sumeru Descending Strike hit the boundary of the blue 'Freeze of Ages' domain.
The crushing momentum of the phantom mountain did not stop, but it slowed down drastically. The descending peak seemed to crawl through the frozen air, its weight stalled and suspended by the absolute intent of "Stillness." The golden light of the mountain flickered, struggle lines appearing across its surface as the cold frost began to coat the phantom runes, freezing its very energy flow.
This was the micro-second Fang Lin needed.
It's not that he did not try to dodge, but he could not. He gathered every drop of remaining Qi into his legs and his sword arm. He focused his entire consciousness, projecting the unyielding resolve of his Mortal Will into the Night Burial Sword. His Mortal Will—the absolute intent to enforce "Stillness" and reject the laws of the outside world—flared like a cold, silent star within his spiritual sea.
Fang Lin leaped upward, shooting into the sky like a dark arrow. The hiltless Night Burial Sword was raised, the blade wrapped in a compressed, silent line of absolute darkness and freezing blue frost.
"Break!" Fang Lin roared in his mind.
He collided head-on with the stalled golden peak.
Boom!
The collision was titanic. The sound was so deafening that it shook the earth for miles around. A massive shockwave of blue frost and golden light exploded from the point of impact, tearing through the basalt cliffs, pulverizing the stone walls into dust. The Gilded Net above fractured, its golden net lines snapping like dry twigs under the sheer force of the energy blast. The golden mist was blown away instantly, replaced by a swirling storm of ice shards and golden sparks.
In the center of the explosion, the absolute Stillness of Fang Lin's Mortal Will clashed directly with the Temple's Law of Suppression. The unyielding Will broke through the golden peak. The massive phantom mountain fractured, spiderweb cracks spreading across its golden surface before it shattered into millions of sparkling fragments that dispersed into the storm.
The Night Burial Sword drove forward, clashing directly with Heng Wuchen's bronze staff.
Clang!
The legendary bronze staff, reinforced by Heng Wuchen's bloodline, could not withstand the absolute Stillness. It snapped in half with a sharp metallic screech. Heng Wuchen's eyes, filled with absolute disbelief, watched the golden light in his weapon die as the frost Qi instantly froze his hands. Fang Lin's blade did not stop. It cut through the broken staff and sliced clean through Heng Wuchen's chest, severing his core, heart and his life force in a single, freezing strike.
Heng Wuchen's eyes, still filled with greed and shock, went dark as his body, which had a huge hole in his chest, fell from the sky, crashing lifelessly into the pulverized rock below.
But the backlash of the collision was equally devastating.
The massive physical and suppressive force of the Mount Sumeru strike rebounded into Fang Lin's body. The bones in his sword arm shattered, fracturing into fragments under the immense pressure. His meridians, already dry and strained, tore in dozens of places, and his spiritual sea collapsed into a state of absolute depletion.
"Pfft!"
Fang Lin coughed up a violent spray of dark blood. He fell from the sky, crashing heavily into the muddy, ruined floor of the canyon basin, his body rolling through the gravel.
He lay there, unable to move a single finger. The pain was absolute, his vision blurring, his breathing a shallow rasp. His Night Burial Sword lay a few feet away, its dark iron blade covered in a mix of blood and frost.
With his Qi completely dry, his physical strength gone, and his soul exhausted, he could no longer sustain the transformation art. The temporary Qi-nodes that held his fake skeletal structure and face collapsed.
The disguise rippled. The face of the middle-aged merchant dissolved, the false features peeling away like dark mist, revealing his true face—Fang Lin—lying pale, blood-stained, and critically wounded in the center of the carnage.
At that exact moment, the space around the ruined canyon basin began to ripple violently.
The shockwaves of the clash had been too massive, acting as a beacon for every powerful cultivator in the region.
Space tore open in several places. Figures wrapped in powerful Qi barriers descended into the canyon, their feet landing on the frozen, pulverized gravel.
Among the first to land were Elder Feng and Feng Jiu'er, who had been searching the borderlands after hearing rumors of the Rivercloud gates clash. But they were not alone. Several other elders and disciples from the Green Bamboo Sect landed alongside them, their faces grim. At the same time, a group of senior cultivators wearing the sharp, blue-and-white robes of the Heavenly Sword Lake descended from the opposite side, their swords humming with warning Qi.
They all looked around the battlefield in absolute horror.
Six dead elites of the Demon Suppression Temple lay scattered across the canyon, their bodies either cut in half or frozen into blue stone statues. And in the center of the crater lay the shattered halves of the legendary bronze staff belonging to Legacy Disciple Heng Wuchen, who lay dead in the mud.
Then, their gazes locked onto the youth lying in the center of the crater, his disguise fully collapsed.
Feng Jiu'er took a step forward, her eyes widening in absolute, paralyzing shock. Her breath caught in her throat, her hands trembling as she stared at the familiar face and that extremely familiar 'Night Burial Sword'. She had suspected he was hiding something, but she had never, in her wildest dreams, imagined this. The quiet outer disciple who played a fluke winner at the sect trial competition was the monstrous demon Shen Mo who had slaughtered the continent's top geniuses.
"Fang Lin?!" a Green Bamboo Sect elder gasped, his voice carrying a tone of utter disbelief that echoed across the quiet canyon.
"What? It's him? Fang Lin, our outer disciple?" another Green Bamboo disciple cried out, pointing a shaking finger.
This public identification hit the canyon like a second thunderbolt.
The Heavenly Sword Lake cultivators instantly locked their gazes onto the wounded youth, their minds registering the truth. The connection was made instantly in their minds.
"Fang Lin... a disciple of the Green Bamboo Sect is the rogue cultivator Shen Mo?!" the leading Heavenly Sword Lake elder shouted, his Qi flaring with a cold, threatening light. "The Green Bamboo Sect has been harboring the rogue who slaughtered the major sects' elites! You must answer for this!"
"Explain this, Elder Feng!" the leading Heavenly Sword Lake cultivator demanded, his sword pointing directly at Elder Feng's face. "Your own disciple has been hunting our alliances, and you stand here and pretend ignorance?"
Elder Feng could only look at the body of the Legacy Disciple, his face pale, his throat dry, his mind racing through the catastrophic political storm that would now swallow their sect. If the major sects accused the Green Bamboo Sect of complicity, it would mean their destruction. He took a step forward, his hand reaching out to grab the unconscious youth, hoping to secure him before the Heavenly Sword Lake could act.
But before anyone could move, a blinding, grey light erupted from beneath Fang Lin's body.
The Ancient Spatial Furnace inside his chest flared, and the emergency spatial teleportation formation—which the Dark Flame Spirit had been preparing throughout the entire fight—activated. The grey space-light wove around Fang Lin's body, lifting him slightly from the ground as the spatial runes hummed with a deep, spatial frequency.
Fang Lin opened his eyes slightly, his vision blurred, but he met the shocked, disbelieving gaze of Feng Jiu'er one final time. He said nothing, his gaze carrying only a quiet fatigue.
"No! Stop him! Do not let the space fold!" the Heavenly Sword Lake elder roared, throwing his sword forward to disrupt the array.
But it was too late.
The space folded with a sharp, echoing pop. The grey light flared, and Fang Lin's body vanished from the canyon, along with the Night Burial sword, teleported thousands of miles away to a distant place, completely breaking the karmic and spatial tracking of his pursuers.
The sword struck empty air, clattering against the cold stones.
The canyon fell into a heavy, suffocating silence, broken only by the sound of the cold rain. The Green Bamboo Sect members and the Heavenly Sword Lake cultivators stood in the ruined basin, staring at the empty space where the youth had just been. They were left with nothing but corpses, debris, and a secret that would change the destiny of their sects, as the world-shattering news prepared to sweep across the entire Demon Immortal Continent.
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