Just as the defensive line was about to collapse completely, and the dark giants, wearing cruel smiles, prepared to reap the lives of the last resisters—
Just as even Lu Xuan was prepared to unleash the Chaos Bell imprint at any cost for one final gamble—
Another unexpected change arose!
Above the World Sea, the firmament that had been filled with the auras of the dark giants, like an iron curtain, was without warning
suffused by a gentle radiance even vaster, even more supreme, as though it stood above all myriad Daos.
The radiance was not dazzling, yet it carried a mighty power that could soothe all wounds and settle all chaos.
It spread silently. Wherever it passed, the boiling World Sea grew calm, shattered stars ceased their disintegration, and even the fragments of Dao laws scattered by fallen Immortal Kings seemed to be gently guided and pacified by this power.
Immediately afterward, beneath the stunned and uncertain gazes of all the survivors—including those dozens of dark giants—a figure appeared soundlessly at the very center of the battlefield, above the World Sea.
He was not especially tall or majestic. His form was even somewhat indistinct, his features impossible to make out clearly; one could only vaguely see a plain azure robe. He did not emit any aggressive aura. He simply stood there in silence, yet seemed to have become the center of the entire universe, the source of all Daos in the heavens!
He was not Xi Huang!
“It’s… it’s him?!” An ancient Immortal King of the Divine Kingdom who had survived recognized this figure. He trembled with excitement, tears filling his eyes, as though he had seen the ultimate hope.
And those arrogant, overbearing dark giants, the instant they saw this figure clearly, all let out spiritual shrieks of terror pushed to the extreme:
“Impossible! How could you appear here?!”
“Shouldn’t you be in…”
“Run!!!”
However, it was already too late.
The azure-robed figure did not even seem to glance at those dark giants. He merely raised one hand, lightly and indifferently.
There were no earth-shaking energy fluctuations, no dazzling chains of divine law. He simply, so simply, pressed that hand gently downward toward the dozens of dark giants radiating apocalyptic auras.
As if words became law the moment they were spoken; as if the Great Dao itself had decreed it.
“Buzz—!”
An invisible, incomprehensible, irresistible force of confinement and suppression instantly enveloped every dark giant!
Time seemed to freeze in that instant.
The rotting giant hand halted in midair, the twisted shadow stiffened motionless, the bone spear that pierced through the sea of stars broke apart inch by inch…
Dozens of dark giants—whether ordinary Immortal Kings or Emperor-light-level existences—all their movements, all their divine abilities, all their laws were forcibly fixed in place beneath that single press!
As though they had become insects trapped in amber, embedded against the void backdrop of the World Sea!
Their faces still retained expressions of shock, fear, and disbelief. The ferocity and cruelty in their eyes had been replaced by endless terror, yet they could no longer make even the slightest sound or send out even a thread of divine will!
With merely one casual lift of his hand, understated and effortless, he had suppressed all those dozens of dark giants—beings powerful enough to overturn the heavens and bury an era!
Between heaven and earth, all was deathly still.
Only the azure-robed figure remained standing quietly, as though he had done something utterly insignificant.
His indistinct gaze seemed to cross endless time and space, pausing ever so slightly… on Lu Xuan.
Within that gaze was an indescribably complex emotion: scrutiny, inquiry, a faint trace of almost imperceptible… expectation?
And also a hint of understanding, as though he had seen through the karma of all ages.
Then, the azure-robed figure slowly dissipated, as if he had never appeared. The gentle radiance that had filled the World Sea also withdrew with him.
Yet that suppressive force did not vanish. The dozens of dark giants, like the most exquisite sculptures, were eternally frozen in the void of the World Sea, becoming the most shocking monuments to this world-shaking battle.
The soldiers of the Divine Kingdom who had survived the calamity looked at those dark giants suppressed in an instant.
They looked at the wreckage and tragic remnants left behind by countless fallen comrades, then erupted into heaven-shaking cheers and sobs of relief after surviving disaster.
Lu Xuan stood alone amid mountains of corpses and seas of blood, gazing in the direction where the azure-robed figure had disappeared. The waves surging in his heart far surpassed the wild tides of the World Sea.
That Quasi-Immortal Emperor!
Why had he acted?
And what had that final glance meant?
The mysteries of the Emperor’s Fall Era had not only remained unsolved; because of the appearance of this mysterious Quasi-Immortal Emperor, they had become even more perplexing, even deeper and grander.
And after this battle, Lu Xuan understood even more profoundly that before truly supreme existences, even Immortal Kings were like ants.
His road was still very, very long.
This battle had ended, but the campaigns and explorations that belonged to him were still far from over.
He composed himself, transformed into a blood-gold rainbow, and continued firmly toward his goal.
The Immortal Realm had just begun to open, carrying the final sparks and hopes of the Emperor’s Fall Era as it quietly gestated at the edge of the heavens.
Lu Xuan, however, chose to go in the opposite direction.
He resolutely turned and stepped alone into the even vaster, boundless World Sea and the countless ancient great realms connected within it.
No longer was he confined to the single corner of Xi Huang’s Divine Kingdom. Instead, he regarded the entire boundless World Sea and all the myriad worlds of the heavens as a trial ground to temper himself.
He drove the light of the blood-gold War Immortal, shuttling through turbulent currents of time and space, setting foot in one bizarre and fantastical great realm after another, each with differing laws.
He restrained the illustrious title of Golden Crow War God of Xi Huang’s Divine Kingdom. Like an unnamed ascetic cultivator, wherever he went, it was only to seek the Dao, only to wage battle!
His first stop: the Ancient Realm of Yuan Magnetism.
All things in this realm contained divine yuan magnetic power. Its laws leaned toward attraction and repulsion, and its cultivators all practiced yuan magnetic divine abilities, capable of manipulating stars and distorting space.
The moment Lu Xuan entered this realm, his wholly different Dao laws drew the challenge of the strongest local prodigy—the “Yuan Magnetic Saint.”
With a wave of his hand, the Saint laid down the Yuan Magnetic Heavenly Prison, drawing upon endless gravity in an attempt to crush Lu Xuan into pulp.
Yet Lu Xuan resisted it with the body of a War Immortal. His feet stepped in profound patterns, and he actually caused the other party’s yuan magnetic power to backfire. Turning his opponent’s own Dao against him, he struck out with a fist imprint containing the profound meaning of Chaos Evolving Yang, shattered the Heavenly Prison, and blasted the Yuan Magnetic Saint into the heart of the earth, shaking the entire ancient realm!
After this battle, the legend of “the Nameless War Immortal, whose fist broke yuan magnetism” was left behind.
His second stop: the Netherworld Death Realm.
This realm was the destination of the dead, dense with sinister yin energy. The laws of reincarnation manifested here, and most living beings were soul bodies or undead creatures.
In this realm, Lu Xuan encountered the heir of the “Huangquan Ferryman” lineage, an eerie prodigy who drove a ghost ship of the netherworld and wielded a portion of reincarnation’s authority.
The two sides battled upon the Wangchuan River. The Ferryman stirred the wailing of ten thousand ghosts, and the power of reincarnation sought to drag Lu Xuan into rebirth.
Lu Xuan manifested the Glazed Heart Lamp of his “Good Corpse,” its light shining everywhere and purifying the netherworld. He then used his “Self Corpse” to anchor the pull of reincarnation, punched through the ghost ship, and forced the Ferryman to flee into the depths of Huangquan, never daring to appear in the world again.
The tale of “the Radiant War Immortal, who trampled through the netherworld” spread through this realm.
His third stop: the Star Sword Domain.
The cultivators of this realm all revered the sword above all. Everyone cultivated the sword, and their sword Dao civilization had developed to its utmost extreme.
When Lu Xuan stepped into this realm, he attracted the attention of the current “Star Sword Child.”
The Sword Child set up the Myriad Swords Returning to the Origin Grand Formation within a meteor belt, drawing upon the power of the stars throughout the heavens, sword light descending like a river of stars.
Lu Xuan brought two fingers together like a sword and used his claws in place of a weapon, condensing his battle intent and Solar Immortal Flame into a supreme sword intent. With claws against swords, he forcefully clashed with the myriad-sword grand formation!