A World Worth Protecting

As Xie Haiyang listened to the old man’s report, He Yunzi was leading the severely sealed royal clan in a grand sacrificial ceremony on the main star of the Divine Eye civilization!

Zi Luo, the perfected Spirit Immortal realm cultivator from the Violet Gold civilization, served as support, while the Planet realm cultivator resting in the lamp served as tinder. He Yunzi steered almost all members of the royal clan into gathering at a single location.

Even those with the most remote blood relations to the royal clan had arrived. There were more than a hundred thousand of them, all of them clustered in the royal city. The grand ceremony was initiated via the bronze lamp’s bloodline. At that instant, everyone’s bloodline began to rouse.

Beams of light radiating from their bloodlines surged out and flooded the entire royal city in a sea of red. The sight should have drawn the attention of the three greater sects and their spies, but it was clear that the Violet Gold civilization had ways of hiding what was happening from spying eyes. As a result, the three greater sects had no idea what was going on.

The ceremony went on for half an hour. During that half an hour, many clan members were overwhelmed by the awakening of their bloodlines. Their bodies shriveled, and they died almost immediately. But He Yunzi had called upon them in the name of the royal clan and for the sake of their clan’s glory. The clan members who were still alive didn’t give up. They unleashed furious roars and allowed their bloodlines to burn and be spent.

Half an hour passed, and the sky above the royal city transformed drastically. As the winds howled and the clouds stirred, He Yunzi ignored the mouthful of blood he had just spilled and watched as an enormous, illusory Eternal Star slowly formed above the royal city.

The Eye of the Eternal Star resembled an eye. It was a projection of the Eye of the Eternal Star. The royal clan had sacrificed their bloodline and their cultivation technique in order to summon it.

Hope and excitement appeared in He Yunzi’s eyes as he watched the projection of the Eternal Star appear above him. He swept his arms out wide and howled.

“Open… the Eternal Star Gates!”

The bloodlines of the entire royal clan went into overdrive once more as his words reverberated in the air, and almost a third of the remaining clan members shriveled up and died. Every beam of red light rushed towards the bronze lamp in that instant. The light within the lamp turned crimson red and rushed towards the sky in a single pillar of intense light that charged straight at the projection of the Eternal Star.

The projection shuddered, and a vortex gradually formed on it, growing larger until… it transformed into a black hole and activated.

At that instant, a similar sight appeared on the actual Eye of the Eternal Star in the Divine Eye civilization. The Eternal Star shuddered, and a vortex formed rapidly on its surface and transformed into a black hole…

As the black hole came into being… a pathway for teleportation appeared to be unlocked. Numerous indistinct silhouettes appeared. They were all struggling. They seemed ready to rush out of the black hole. It didn’t take long before waves of Eternal Star spirit energy surged outward. Before they could reach the rest of the civilization, waves of laughter had rung out in the cosmos, and three figures had dashed out of the black hole!

They were dressed in rainbow-colored robes. Despite the purple masks on their faces, it was easy to tell that two of them were middle-aged, while the last was an old man. In fact… if Wang Baole were present, he would be able to recognize the old man’s aura… as the Planet realm cultivator in the bronze lamp!

They unleashed their cultivations as they charged out thunderously. They were clearly all… at the Planet realm. They didn’t leave after exiting the black hole. Instead, they took position at a corner, formed a series of hand seals, and then made a grab through space at the edge of the black hole. Then, they yanked. The Eternal Star shuddered once more, and the black hole expanded. Battleships and cultivators dashed out of the black hole in the next instant!

There were almost a hundred thousand battleships and five times as many cultivators. All of the battleships were rainbow-colored, as were the robes that the cultivators were wearing. This clearly showed… that all cultivators in the Violet Gold civilization were dressed in that fashion. If that weren’t the case… then it meant that the first incoming batch of cultivators was simply one of many political factions in the Violet Gold civilization!

The eyes of the incoming cultivators were filled with greed and excitement as they stepped through the black hole alongside their battleships. They eyed their surroundings, then greeted the three Planet realm cultivators. At that point, there was no need to explain who the three Planet realm cultivators were.

“Greetings, my lord. Greetings, elders!”

The arrivals weren’t the full might of the Violet Gold civilization but one of its sects. The old Planet realm cultivator burst out laughing after receiving the greetings from his people.

“What a civilization this is. Even though it’s relatively primitive, the teleportation capabilities of its Divine Eye alone are proof of its value… It’s capable of transporting our Heavenly Spirit Sect across hundreds of lightyears instantaneously…

“We shouldn’t delay any further then. According to our plans… one-tenth of our forces will be led by six of our leaders and head for the main Divine Eye star. They will lead our allies out of their imprisonment. The remaining forces will follow the two sect elders and me… We’ll first eliminate the weakest greater sect, the Earth Hexagram Unity Sect!

“We’ll crush the sect with lightning speed and destroy the balance amongst the three greater sects. Then, we’ll split our forces. One elder will follow me into battle with the Divine Sovereign Justice Sect, while another elder will lead his forces to battle the Violet Gold New Dao Sect. If we succeed… there’ll be no need for reinforcements from other sects in the Violet Gold civilization. We, the Heavenly Spirit Sect, will trample this civilization alone!”

“Let the war begin!” The Planet realm sect lord laughed and sped in the direction of the Earth Hexagram Unity Sect. Following behind him were his two sect elders, ninety thousand battleships, and more than four hundred thousand cultivators. They unleashed their full speed and charged ahead.

The remaining force—ten thousand battleships and more than fifty thousand Heavenly Spirit Sect cultivators—fell under the command of six perfected Spirit Immortal realm cultivators and charged towards… the Divine Eye civilization’s main star!

As all of that was taking place, somewhere in the Realm of the Nine Spectrals, a statue was still sinking deeper into the abyss, without an end in sight.

The Realm of the Nine Spectrals was like a world on the other side of a mirror. It was difficult for an ordinary person to unlock the door to this realm. Only a cultivator at the Planet realm was able to open the door temporarily. Most of the time, the Realm of the Nine Spectrals was sealed.

The realm had its own natural laws and was unaffected by the outside world. At the same time, it appeared to exist everywhere, like how death existed wherever there was life. There was no distinction between the heavens and the earth in this realm. What it contained was thick fog, thick beyond measure. As the fog moved sluggishly in the air, emotionless faces would appear inside. They were like witnesses to death in the realm.

Gathered in the realm were the souls of the dead who had once lived in the Divine Eye civilization. The living rarely stepped into the realm, as only those who had acquired Planet realm cultivation could survive a short stint within. However, even they couldn’t remain in the realm for long. The aura of death inside tainted everything. No one knew how many dead souls were trapped inside the realm.

They only knew that the Nine Spectrals was a part of the Never-Ending Dao Domain. Legends spoke of its origins in… the previous Heavenly Dao that had existed a long, long time ago. During that time, the Nine Spectrals hadn’t been sealed away. When the living died then, their souls were to return to the underworld. It hadn’t mattered if one had been an ordinary soul or had a soul that had belonged to a powerful person. There had been no exception.

The rise of the Never-Ending Clan had ended that particular natural law, had marked the end of the Heavenly Dao. The Nine Spectrals had continued to exist, but it had been sealed away. The Never-Ending Clan had also set down rules. When cultivators at the Planet realm or higher died, their souls wouldn’t enter the Nine Spectrals or the cycle of rebirth and would wander the universe instead. If they had the means to do so, they could return to life!

That was the legend that had been spread across the universe and the Never-Ending Dao Domain. Few knew if there was something going on behind the legend or if there was a hidden conspiracy.

In the eye of the sinking statue, inside the Divine Eye civilization’s imperial cemetery, in front of the million kneeling dead souls and the bowed heads of the twelve emperors, stood Wang Baole. Inside his body, the fight between possession and hunt had reached its climax!

The old ghost, whose cultivation had reached the mid-stage Spirit Immortal realm, had unleashed his full power and was fighting to possess Wang Baole’s body, something his cultivation should have allowed him to do. He had even evaded the Eternal Star Fire and the Planet realm palm, focusing his attacks on Wang Baole’s soul as he tried to devour it.

But he had suffered under the hands of the numerous strange and bizarre powers that had been inside Wang Baole’s body in the past. That was why he had set aside a bit of his power and transformed it into a seal to stop anything from interfering with his attempted possession, preventing any unexpected accidents from happening at the same time.

A strange thought had appeared in Wang Baole’s head when he had realized what the old ghost had done. It had popped up as a thought that he had concealed from the old ghost.

The old ghost’s actions would seem completely reasonable if he were fighting my true form now, but this is only an avatar of mine. My scabbard and the devouring seed are all inside my true form. The avatar is merely an illusion, so why did the old ghost bother then? Could it be… that he missed something despite his careful planning? Does he not know that this is an avatar? He thinks that I’m the real deal.

At that thought, Wang Baole suddenly shuddered slightly, summoning an illusion of the devouring seed and his scabbard. Their appearance sent the old ghost into a bout of agitation instantly. It was as if Wang Baole had just summoned his greatest enemies!

That’s interesting! Wang Baole thought. He had just become more confident about his chances. He seized the opportunity and bit hard into the old ghost’s soul.