Crack! Crack! Crack!

The instant the sword's edge touched the grand formation, the clear light did not hold for even one breath before it burst apart like fragile glass!

The nine dragons and nine phoenixes let out a piercing wail.

And swiftly scattered into motes of clear light in the air.

The short sword kept coming down.

The War Temple's towering great hall simply shattered, laying bare the thirteen golden dharma forms seated within.

Boom!

As the short sword reached the midpoint of its fall, one of the shorter golden bodies — three zhang tall — came apart and turned back into a sky full of accumulated faith.

The War Temple Ancestor, picking at his toes, stared blankly at the sky.

His gaze grew clearer and clearer, the old dullness draining slowly away — only because he had sensed the breath of his own destruction.

That brief lucidity meant limitless torment.

Dense terror filled the Ancestor's eyes. Under the short sword's pressure, for all the strength in his body he could only put out one trembling hand.

And reach for the blade with the fingertip that had just been between his toes, as though to hold it back a moment.

Clang!

Through a scene that seemed to have slowed several times over, a crisp ring of metal on metal suddenly spread out.

The sound was vast enough to deafen nearly everyone for a moment.

Its source was something that had come flying out of the First Court.

A small purple-gold pill furnace, tumbling through the air trailing the black smoke of a fresh explosion, and it slammed hard into the short sword.

Fine cracks appeared across the furnace.

But the short sword it struck — which a breath before had carried a heaven-drowning aura — shuddered violently and blew apart into fragments.

Thud, thud, thud.

The furnace hit the ground, rolled a few times, and drew every eye.

"……"

The Spirit Emperor looked silently at the shattered sword.

Then turned his gaze on the figure beside the furnace.

A young man, likewise in a black robe, bent slowly and picked…