The entire Northern Region had plunged into total chaos. Mass troop movements were breaking out across every border, throwing the local Demon Race into a state of panic. Terrified and uncertain, the various beast clans scrambled for information, terrified that an apocalyptic crusade was knocking on their doors.
Meanwhile, a massive wave of human rogue cultivators and minor sects from other corners of the Zhuxia Divine Land were aggressively migrating toward the north.
The catastrophic news regarding the Heavenly Abyss was strictly classified, circulating only among the upper echelons of the Three Great Top Factions. Consequently, these rogue martial artists had absolutely no idea what was actually happening. But humans are naturally drawn to a spectacle—especially when there's potential profit. They figured that if they blindly followed the coattails of the Three Great Factions, they might just intercept some high-tier scraps when the dust settled.
For a time, the usually bleak Northern Region became the most crowded place on the map.
Li Xuanxiao's strike team finally crossed the threshold into northern territory. With a sharp gesture, Liang Jianqiu dissolved his ethereal longsword, and the five figures streaked through the sky under their own power.
Well, almost all of them.
Every single member of the squad was smoothly propelled by the dense, fluid movement of their personal Luck—except for Long Hui. No matter how violently the kid circulated his true essence, standard martial qi simply couldn't compete with the raw velocity of Luck.
Observing his disciple struggling, Lu Yixian silently drifted over and expanded the perimeter of his own Luck barrier, swallowing Long Hui into his slipstream. The boy's velocity instantly rocketed forward to match the group.
Long Hui flushed crimson, his voice dripping with shame. "Master... I'm dragging everyone down."
Lu Yixian sighed internally. In the past, his proud disciple would never have displayed such a defeatist attitude. It was glaringly obvious that Li Xuanxiao's absurd, logic-defying growth curve had shattered the kid's psychological core.
Lu Yixian shook his head gently. "Do not overthink it. Just focus on your training from now on. That kid Li Xuanxiao... he is a freak of nature. You cannot measure your own worth against a statistical anomaly."
After speaking, Lu Yixian couldn't resist subtly cutting his eyes back toward the front of the formation.
A dual cultivation of Buddhism and Martial Arts... and now he's casually achieving epiphanies in Daoist techniques? The man marveled. The kid is literally progressing through the Dao, Buddhism, and the Martial Path simultaneously! Is that even legally allowed? If he actually manages to master all three paths, he's going to become the most terrifyingly brilliant entity in human history.
Up ahead, Li Xuanxiao suddenly felt a prickling sensation, as if some dirty old man was staring at his flawlessly handsome face. He abruptly whipped his head back to check.
Nothing. Everyone looked completely normal.
An illusion? Li Xuanxiao shrugged it off and kept flying.
Eventually, the vanguard of five touched down inside a sprawling human city. The city served as a major hub for a nearby superpower—the Crimson Wheel Imperial Kingdom. Based on the global lore he had aggressively memorized over the last two weeks, Li Xuanxiao automatically categorized the kingdom's threat level.
Nations like Dayu and Qingluan Tianxuan, whose absolute peak powerhouses capped out at the early stages of the Source Realm, were considered low-tier small fry. Kingdoms like Yunqi, which boasted protectors at the Heaven Realm, were standard medium-tier nations. But this Crimson Wheel Imperial Kingdom? It was fortified by ultimate combatants at the Void Realm. That officially made it a certified large-scale empire.
Liang Jianqiu turned to face the group, his expression grave. "It was within the borders of this specific city that I briefly locked eyes with a member of the Devil Race a while back. Given how much time has passed, I cannot guarantee they haven't relocated."
"Everyone, split up," the senior commanded, retrieving a handful of specialized artifacts. "Use these Demonic Sense Spirit Beads distributed by Wenyuan Pavilion to hunt for traces of corruptive energy. Keep your operational radius within the borders of the Crimson Wheel Imperial Kingdom. The moment you ping a target, notify me instantly through your transmission jades."
The squad chorused their agreement and prepared to fan out.
Considering Long Hui was still just a Heaven Realm cultivator, Lu Yixian naturally intended to partner up with his disciple. However, the boy took a step back, flatly refusing.
"Master, let me do this alone. Please believe in me," Long Hui said, an unprecedented, stubborn fire burning in his eyes. "I refuse to be a liability to this team anymore."
Lu Yixian blinked in surprise, then nodded slowly, a trace of pride softening his features. "Very well. But the moment something feels off, you contact Senior Liang or myself immediately. Do not try to be a hero."
"Understood!" Long Hui cupped his hands, turned on his heel, and shot out toward his designated quadrant.
Lu Yixian watched his silhouette vanish into the streets before pivoting to begin his own sweep.
As a high-tier empire, the Crimson Wheel Imperial Kingdom didn't just have stronger guards; its territorial expanse was exponentially wider than small states like Dayu. The sheer workload dumped onto a five-man team was staggering.
Fortunately, they weren't entirely alone. Other strike teams from the Mystic Court, alongside the disciples of the Taiyi Dao Sect and Wenyuan Pavilion, were systematically blanketing adjacent empires. The entire Northern Region was crawling with human experts, leaving minor Yao beast clans shivering in their dens, praying they wouldn't get caught in the crossfire.
Meanwhile, Li Xuanxiao had picked a direction and was moving at high speed.
By channeling his Luck into the Demonic Sense Spirit Bead in his palm, he managed to amplify its radar radius to a clean ten miles. He hovered thousands of feet in the air, maintaining a steady cruising speed as he swept over the dense array of courtyards and manor houses below.
At this pace, standard protocol dictates it would take about the time it takes an incense stick to burn to clear a minor town. He figured a late-stage Void Realm like Lu Yixian or a Supreme Realm monster like Liang Jianqiu could probably do it in seconds. Even with his speed, completely auditing an entire empire like Crimson Wheel would burn at least three whole days.
"Tsk. Way too slow. There has to be a more efficient way to cheese this system," Li Xuanxiao grumbled internally.
He couldn't afford to waste days playing detective. His actual agenda was to farm Demon Value Points at maximum efficiency!
As he searched, a sudden spark of inspiration hit him. Wait... if the specialized eye-techniques from my Buddhist lineage are designed to peer through demonic illusions and spot hidden malfeasance, wouldn't they work on the Devil Race too?
Never one to hesitate when a shortcut presented itself, Li Xuanxiao decided to experiment immediately.
He rocketed straight up into the stratosphere, ascending until the entire sprawling city was laid out beneath him like a miniature map. At this altitude, the physical radar bead was completely useless due to the distance.
Li Xuanxiao took a deep breath, ignited his Luck, and unleashed a powerful, high-tier Buddhist manifestation:
「Vairocana's Seven Radiances」!
As his Luck detonated within his meridians, his pupils instantly liquefied into pools of brilliant, blinding gold. His silhouette seemed to fuse directly with the ambient solar rays, his entire body erupting with a majestic, sun-like Buddhist aura.
[Insert Blinded by the Light / Glowing Eyes Meme.gif]
When fueled by the reality-warping properties of Luck, the power of Vairocana's Seven Radiances was amplified tenfold. The resulting light was so intensely pure it rivaled the actual sun hanging in the heavens, piercing through every shadow on the earth below. Hovering in the skies, clothed in blinding gold, Li Xuanxiao looked less like a cultivator and more like a descending deity.
Down on the city streets, thousands of ordinary citizens caught sight of the sudden, secondary sun blazing in the daytime sky.
"A miracle! A miracle from the heavens!"
"The Buddha has manifested! The heavens are watching over us!"
Masses of commoners fell to their knees, kowtowing frantically toward the clouds. In any world, the powerless always outnumbered the cultivators; when faced with a supernatural event of this scale, religious fervor was inevitable.
High above, Li Xuanxiao used his golden vision to scan the settlements. With the absolute clarity of the Seven Radiances, the expressions, movements, and private actions of every single citizen were laid bare before his eyes.
He even casually peered through a few roofs, stumbling across several highly athletic, thoroughly inappropriate-for-children scenes.
"Holy hell, broad daylight and they're going at it like rabid rabbits! Impressive stamina..." Li Xuanxiao clicked his tongue in profound appreciation, before quickly redirecting his eyes to focus on actual security risks.
After a thorough, high-altitude sweep of the city center, he didn't detect a single anomaly.
Li Xuanxiao frowned, momentarily stumped. Is the city actually clean, or does this Buddhist technique simply not recognize the distinct energetic signature of the Devil Race? Without a test subject to confirm, he was just shooting in the dark.
But just as he was beginning to worry about wasting his energy, his golden vision caught a strange, microscopic detail. There was a faint, crimson mist radiating from his own chest.
What the...
He looked down and realized the red aura was leaking directly from the Wenyuan Pavilion's Demonic Sense Spirit Bead.
Li Xuanxiao's face instantly split into a wide, shameless grin. The core component used to manufacture these tracking beads was harvested directly from the harvested corpses of the Devil Race. Since his Seven Radiances could clearly isolate the latent crimson energy inside the artifact, it meant his eyes could absolutely detect live targets on the ground!
Li Xuanxiao chuckled to himself. With this visual hack unlocked, his search speed wasn't just getting faster—it was about to experience a paradigm-shifting leap.