Li Xuanxiao stood completely dumbfounded, briefly questioning whether his entire reality had been hijacked by a high-tier illusion art.
But no, that wasn't it. The cold, hard proof lay right beneath his feet: this grand imperial city, which by all accounts should have been a buzzing hive of mortal civilization, was now a hollow, echoing shell. The sheer logistical nightmare of making an entire population evaporate in seconds hinted at a terrifying, esoteric malice.
Liang Jianqiu's gaze remained grimly focused. He didn't for a single second doubt Li Xuanxiao's report just because the Devil Race was currently missing. Given the absolute, bizarre unnaturalness of the scene, it didn't matter who or what was responsible—the Human Race was facing an unprecedented anomaly.
The two men advanced through the deserted streets with maximum vigilance, wrapped in a heavy, suffocating silence.
The market stalls were still lined with rows of neatly stacked, fresh fruits and vegetables. Inside a local academy, open scriptures and bamboo slips rustled softly in the evening breeze, a half-inked brush still dangling directly over a wet inkstone. At a nearby teahouse, the coals beneath the brick stove were still weakly glowing; the water in the porcelain pot had fully boiled, sending a steady stream of steam whistling into an empty room. Down the lane at a pharmacy, the herb cabinets sat wide open, exotic ingredients scattered wildly across the counter beside a pestle still damp with freshly ground medicinal juices.
It was a chilling tableau. It was as if the citizenry had been actively living their lives one millisecond, and had been violently scrubbed from existence the next.
Before long, a torrential wave of human martial artists breached the city gates. The vanguard of the allied sects collectively gasped as they took in the eerie desolation.
"What kind of demonic sorcery is this?!"
"There are fresh signs of human life at every corner, yet there isn't a single soul in sight!"
"Could this be the work of the Yao beasts or the Demon Race?"
"The Demons? Don't be absurd. If those bloodthirsty monsters raided a city of this scale, the streets would be painted in gore and littered with severed limbs. This place is pristine—it's too clean!"
The gathered cultivators bickered fiercely among themselves, completely unable to form a coherent theory.
Lu Yixian, Long Hui, and the remaining members of their squad arrived shortly after, converging on Li Xuanxiao and Liang Jianqiu's position. As more time elapsed, the elite cadres of the Taiyi Dao Sect and Wenyuan Pavilion began to flood the sector.
Among the arriving Daoists were Immortal Master Lingwuzi and his disciple, Wu Jiangming. The moment the latter spotted Li Xuanxiao's flawlessly handsome face, he practically bounded over with a massive grin.
"Brother Li! I had a feeling I'd run into you in the North!" Wu Jiangming was practically vibrating with excitement. "Come on, guess what Realm your brother has climbed to now!"
Guess your head, Li Xuanxiao grumbled internally, but keeping up his perfect, shameless social mask, he offered a look of mild curiosity. "Oh? What Realm?"
Wu Jiangming snorted proudly. He planted his feet, threw his chest out, and aggressively circulated his meridians, unleashing a sudden, localized tempest of spiritual energy.
It was the undeniable, crisp aura of a Heaven Realm cultivator.
Li Xuanxiao flawlessly executed a face of absolute, jaw-dropping shock, clapping his hands together in mock reverence. "Jiangming! You truly are a peerless prodigy among men! To achieve such heights... you are undoubtedly the undisputed heir to the next Dao Sect Heavenly Venerable throne!"
Wu Jiangming practically preened under the aggressive flattery, waving his hands in a terrible attempt at humility while chuckling like a maniac. "Ah, it's nothing, really! Far too kind, hahahaha!"
"Honestly, it was all thanks to my Master's profound tutelage," Wu Jiangming bragged, puffing his chest further. "I experienced a sudden, paradigm-shifting epiphany while meditating, allowing me to smash through the bottleneck into the Heaven Realm!"
Li Xuanxiao secretly covered his mouth to suppress a smirk. An epiphany? More like a sudden enlightenment while sitting on the latrine. Now that was a breakthrough with some serious flavor. Real pungent flavor!
Before Wu Jiangming could finish gloating, Lingwuzi glided over and casually slapped the back of his disciple's head with his horsetail whisk. "In the future, when you travel the mortal realm, do not tell people you belong to my lineage."
Wu Jiangming rubbed his head, thoroughly annoyed, and muttered under his breath, "Fine, see if I care! Just wait until I master the 「Immortal Slaying Formation」—I'll ascend and leave your old ass in the dust anyway!"
Lingwuzi flicked his whisk again, dusting the boy's robes with a serene smile. "Foolish disciple. When you plan on badmouthing your master, you should at least check if he's standing within striking distance."
Li Xuanxiao found the exchange thoroughly entertaining. Wu Jiangming was an absolute clown, but his master, Lingwuzi, was a genuine powerhouse who had done him a massive favor in the past. If the old Daoist hadn't stepped in back then, stripping that troublesome Qilin tracking mark from his soul would have been an absolute nightmare.
Stepping forward, Li Xuanxiao bowed deeply and with genuine respect. "Disciple Li Xuanxiao pays his formal respects to Immortal Master Lingwuzi."
Lingwuzi offered a gentle, knowing smile, nodding slowly. "A scholar who has been away for three days must be viewed with entirely new eyes."
The old Daoist's eyes twinkled with a profound light. "Fellow Daoist Li... you have left my unaccomplished disciple so far behind in the dirt it isn't even a contest. To think that in the brief window since our last meeting, you have actually forced open the gates to the Void Realm!"
Wu Jiangming—who had been internally scoffing at his master's praise, considering he had just pulled off a massive leap from the Fifth Layer of the Origin Realm straight to the Heaven Realm—completely froze. His smirk evaporated instantly.
"The... The Void Realm?!"
[Insert Shattered Glass / Brain Blast Effects.gif]
Wu Jiangming stared at Li Xuanxiao like he was looking at an alien creature. The existential shock ripping through his soul was exponentially deeper than what Long Hui had suffered. Because he had known Li Xuanxiao since his early days, he had essentially watched the guy's progress in real-time. Hearing that his peer had casually skipped a whole tier to become a Void Realm vanguard completely shattered his brain.
Suddenly, a wave of intense, burning shame washed over Wu Jiangming's face. He remembered that literally ten seconds ago, he had been smugly flexing his tiny Heaven Realm muscles right in front of the guy.
It was the ultimate cosmic embarrassment—like a toddler swinging a plastic butter knife in front of the God of War.
Damn it all... he even called me a peerless prodigy! If I'm a peerless prodigy for hitting the Heaven Realm, what kind of freakish monster does that make him? He was just using me to indirectly compliment his own absurdity, wasn't he?! Wu Jiangming gritted his teeth internally. Just you wait, Li Xuanxiao! The moment I learn that 「Immortal Slaying Formation」, I'm liquidating all of you!
Wisely, Wu Jiangming kept his mouth tightly shut this time.
"Immortal Master Lingwuzi," Liang Jianqiu stepped forward from behind Li Xuanxiao, politely cupping his hands.
Lingwuzi returned the gesture with equal grace. "Fellow Daoist Liang flatters me. In the presence of a venerable vanguard of the Mystic Court, I dare not claim the title of Immortal Master. Simply call me Lingwuzi."
Liang Jianqiu laughed heartily. "Immortal Master, there is no need for such humility. To successfully manifest the legendary Daoist Dharma Eye—the 「Clear Radiance Bright Pupils」—while still maintaining a peak baseline at the Void Realm... you are more than worthy of the title."
After the standard polite protocols, the atmosphere turned strictly professional as the powerhouses focused on the empty streets.
"In all my centuries of cultivation, I have never witnessed a phenomenon of this nature," Liang Jianqiu admitted, his voice dropping low. "Does the Immortal Master possess any insights?"
A brilliant, pristine light began to flow through Lingwuzi's pupils as he silently scanned the structural lines of the abandoned buildings. "Does Fellow Daoist Liang recall the catastrophic Descent of the Heavenly Abyss roughly a century ago?"
Liang Jianqiu nodded. "Naturally. Though back then, I had only just entered the outer sects of the Ancient Martial Mystic Court as a novice. I never personally engaged the vanguard of the Devil Race."
Lingwuzi gently shifted his whisk. "I, too, was merely a young rogue Daoist back then, safely coddled behind the defensive arrays of my masters. But do you recall the exact data regarding how the Heavenly Abyss originally breached our world?"
Liang Jianqiu closed his eyes, digging through ancient archives. "According to the grand records penned by our predecessors... the Abyss seemed to manifest out of thin air, tearing open the skies directly above the Central Continent without warning."
Suddenly, Liang Jianqiu's eyes snapped open, a look of profound realization striking his features. "Does the Immortal Master mean to suggest...?"
"The Devil Race inherently possesses an esoteric technique capable of instantaneous, large-scale spatial teleportation," Lingwuzi confirmed with a heavy nod. "Initially, it was merely a fringe theory compiled by Wenyuan Pavilion. But the haunting vacancy of this city seems to definitively validate the hypothesis. Otherwise, how else do you explain an entire civilian population vanishing into the ether without a single drop of blood being spilled?"
Li Xuanxiao, seeing his opening to correct a massive piece of misinformation before the old men over-engineered a false conclusion, calmly stepped forward.
"Seniors, Immortal Master, please allow this junior to clarify a vital detail," Li Xuanxiao said, his expression completely serious. "When I first breached the airspace of this city and made visual contact, the streets were not populated by humans. The entire settlement was already packed to the brim with the Devil Race."
Liang Jianqiu blinked, suddenly recalling the chaotic alert Li Xuanxiao had broadcasted through the transmission jades. The kid had explicitly stated the city was infested with Devils, not that a kidnapping was in progress.
A sharp, incredibly perceptive glint flashed beneath Lingwuzi's serene expression. He turned his luminous eyes toward the young cultivator. "Fellow Daoist Li, I mean no disrespect to your capabilities... but how can you be so structurally certain that the city below was packed with the Devil Race, and not a massive gathering of standard human civilians?"