57: Chapter 57 Clouds Disperse

Yun Ming looked up.

His neck had tilted back to its limit, but he couldn't look away from the depths of the sky for even a moment. Red light surged like a waterfall from all directions into the crimson embryo that blotted out the sun. The silhouette beneath the membrane became clearer and clearer—

Then, those eyes opened.

Not slowly.

But abruptly.

Like the first crack at the dawn of the world, like the abyss finally hearing the footsteps of a fall.

Yun Ming met those eyes.

Only for an instant.

He couldn't even see their color or shape—whether they were compassionate or indifferent. He only knew he had been seen.

Seen by that figure with a still-blurry face inside the embryo suspended in the sky, across ten thousand feet of the Void Realm.

Like a person leaning down and spotting an ant crawling on a blade of grass.

Like the wind passing by, unintentionally kicking up a handful of dust.

Yun Ming lowered his head.

He saw his own hands dissipating.

Starting from the fingertips.

Like old paper left for years, the edges turned yellow and then crumbled inch by inch. No burning, no scorch marks, just gently and quietly turning into fine, light ash, rustling down through his fingers.

"Motherfucker, what kind of monst..."

The night wind blew through the alley entrance, through his dissipating body, through the Void Realm that was once a pair of hands, a pair of feet, and a frame eager to return home—

Blowing him away.

Nothing was left.

Above the sky, that crimson embryo was still pulsating.

With every pulse, countless red lights rose from all over Great Qian, like a hundred rivers returning to the sea, flowing into that transparent membrane. The figure beneath the membrane had become increasingly clear—limbs complete, facial features beginning to form, curled in a posture like an infant yet to leave the womb, yet exuding an ineffable, heart-palpitating ancientness.

Just then.

A thin crack split open in the Void Realm.

True Lord Luoxia stepped out of the crack, his green robes fluttering in the wind, standing beside the sun-blotting embryo.

He didn't speak.

He didn't even glance at the embryo.

He just raised his hand.

Fingers spread, palm facing the sky—it was the most common opening stance of the Sunset Glow Sect, one that every entry-level Disciple had practiced thousands of times.

In the next instant, ten thousand rays of rosy light burst forth.

Great sound is silent, great form is shapeless.

Rosy light poured from his palm, covering the sky and earth, yet light as nothing. It washed over the sky, over the giant embryo, and over the countless red threads converging from all directions—

Like boiling water on snow, like raging fire melting ice.

The red threads snapped inch by inch.

Those invisible chains, drawn from the flesh and Divine Soul of thousands of demonic Cultivators, with practitioners of the Wanling Guixu Scroll as nodes, enveloping the entire Great Qian, were as fragile as spider silk before the rosy light.

The broken threads turned into wisps of black smoke, and before they could dissipate, they were swept away by the rosy light.

The embryo's pulsation suddenly slowed.

That pulsation, which had shaken heaven and earth like a drum, making the hearts of billions of commoners tremble with every beat—

Slowed.

Eased.

As if something had gripped its throat.

Across Great Qian.

Countless commoners kneeling and begging for mercy looked up, gazing at the ten thousand rays of rosy light spreading across the sky, and at the green-robed figure in the center of the light.

Some were covered in tears, some stood up tremblingly, and some gripped the hands of those beside them so hard their nails sank into the flesh, yet they felt no pain.

"It's an Immortal..."

"It's an Immortal from the Sunset Glow Sect!"

"We're saved... we're saved..."

The crying gradually stopped.

Despair began to loosen its grip.

But just then—

A piercing laugh tore through the sky.

The laugh was sharp and arrogant, carrying an indescribable eeriness, like nails scratching dry skin or a rusty blade scraping bone. It came from the Void Realm at the other end of the sky, penetrating the rosy light and the slowing pulsation of the embryo, drilling into everyone's eardrums.

The smiles of the Great Qian people froze on their faces.

True Lord Luoxia slowly turned around.

From the tear in the Void Realm, a figure flew out laughing wildly.

It was a youth.

With delicate features and dressed in fine clothing, a jade pendant carved with the insignia of the Heavenly Demon Hall hung at his waist. He stood at the other end of the sky, facing True Lord Luoxia from a distance, his smile so distorted it didn't look human.

If Yin Mei were here, she would be too shocked to speak.

The Young Lord of the Heavenly Demon Hall.

The Young Lord who had disappeared in Wan Province a year ago, whom the Heavenly Demon Hall had searched for months with all their might, only for it to end in nothing.

Now, he stood above the sky, looking down at all living beings with hollow eyes.

But he was no longer himself.

Beneath those fine clothes, there was no heartbeat.

Within that distorted smile, there was no life.

He was a corpse puppet.

A corpse puppet refined, controlled, and deployed to Great Qian as a chess piece. He had been lurking here, silently watching everything,

like a wedge driven into a chessboard, silent and still, all for this moment.

"Luoxia..."

The youth spoke, but the voice was as old as a grave, raspy and sinister, like something rotten crawling out from the depths of a tomb.

"You finally made your move."

As soon as he finished speaking, the youth's body began to melt.

No, not melt.

Reorganize.

The young frame collapsed from the inside out, the skin cracking inch by inch. What was revealed underneath was not flesh and blood, but something dry, withered, and not belonging to the living. The face twisted and deformed, features melting away, bones reshaping, and the fine clothes turned to ash—

In an instant.

Above the sky, the youth was gone.

In his place was an old man.

Thin as a skeleton, hair as white as snow, standing there like a piece of withered wood forgotten on the wasteland for a thousand years. Only a pair of eyes, deep in their sunken sockets, shimmered with an eerie light, revealing an ancientness and sinister nature that one dared not look at directly.

The Hall Master of the Heavenly Demon Hall.

The Old Ancestor of the Heavenly Demon Hall.

The instigator of the disaster shrouding Great Qian.

He slight raised his chin, looking at True Lord Luoxia opposite him, then glanced at the slowly pulsating embryo, his dry lips curling into a faint, almost satiated smile.

Almost there.

Just a little more.

This embryo, fueled by thousands of demonic Cultivators and refined using the entire Great Qian as a cauldron, was only one last step away from forming. When that time came, he only needed to swallow it—

Success in one stroke.

His cultivation would surge to an unimaginable level. Nascent Soul Great Perfection? That was just the starting point. He would shatter the threshold that had trapped the world's Cultivators for thousands of years and step into that Realm that existed only in legends—

Soul Transformation.

To live as long as heaven and earth, to shine as bright as the sun and moon.

The withered old man narrowed his eyes slightly, the smile lines at the corners of his lips deepening.

True Lord Luoxia stood at the other end of the sky, watching him quietly.

No words, no movement.

But True Lord Luoxia knew what this old demon was thinking.

Stalling for time.

Waiting for the embryo to form.

Waiting to swallow that pill refined from all living beings.

True Lord Luoxia lowered his eyes, his gaze sweeping over the devastated land below the sky, over those commoners who had just kindled hope and were now falling into panic.

He was also waiting.

Fuxia had already gone to Great Qi to find the Qingxuan Sect.

Danxia had already set off for the Southern Border to seek the Danding Sect.

If the Nascent Soul Old Ancestors of those two sects were willing to help, three against one, it was uncertain who would die.

He only needed to hold him off.

Hold off this old demon until reinforcements arrived.

True Lord Luoxia looked up, meeting the eyes of the skeletal old man.

Above the sky, the rosy light had not dissipated, still silently cleansing those lingering red threads.

Below the sky, billions of commoners held their breath and looked up.

No one spoke.

No one dared to move.

Only that giant embryo was slowly pulsating in the depths of the sky—

Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

Slower and slower.

But it never stopped.

The two Nascent Soul figures faced each other from afar.

The great battle was on the verge of breaking out.