The beast-hide figure felt a wave of confusion. He remembered clearly that he had slipped into the cultivation zone of Yun Zhenzi’s cave dwelling. But now?
He looked in all directions.
Vast. Boundless.
His first thought was that he must have stumbled into some illusion array. But almost at once, he rejected that notion. Even the mightiest illusion array is, in the end, just an illusion—good enough to fool an ordinary Jade Immortal’s senses, perhaps, but not his own. Everything around him felt too real: the ebb and flow of space-time was unmistakable.
That meant this wasn’t an illusion. It was real space-time.
“A subdimensional world—‘Microcosmic World.’ It must have been created by a top-tier Jade Immortal,” the beast-hide figure finally realized.
A Jade Immortal who has spent long ages comprehending the mysteries of space-time can unconsciously shape his surroundings into something akin to a spatial labyrinth—often called a “Microcosmic World.”
However…
In the beast-hide figure’s understanding, even the personal disciples of the Dao Ancestor—who have cultivated here for countless years—produce realms spanning at most a few thousand or tens of thousands of miles, nothing anywhere near the grandeur unfolding around him. That was why he hadn’t immediately guessed it was a subdimensional space. The difference in scope was simply too great.
“What manner of being could create a Microcosmic World on such a colossal scale?” he wondered, heart pounding. While there’s no strict rule that the extent of one’s subdimensional space is an exact measure of that Jade Immortal’s insight into space-time, in general, the vaster and more complex it is, the more profound the master’s comprehension.
Which Jade Immortal could this “heaven and earth” belong to? The beast-hide figure dreaded the thought.
Rumble…
Before he could do anything, waves rippled across space-time, and he was like a lone boat in the midst of an ocean, instantly dragged to the depths.
“Another one?”
At the center of the cultivation zone, Lin Yuan opened his eyes. The late intruder’s pile of treasures and spoils floated before him.
Ever since he’d revealed himself to be a top-tier alchemy master ten years ago, mysterious Jade Immortals had sneaked into his dwelling from time to time—each hoping for a quick kill on this wealthy, elite refiner. They wanted a single stroke to plunder immeasurable riches.
But alas.
They typically couldn’t even withstand the unintentional time-space labyrinth that Lin Yuan’s cultivation produced, perishing without so much as laying eyes on him. This had unexpectedly proven a steady windfall of loot for Lin Yuan.
Anyone capable of breaching the city’s defensive arrays must be a fearsomely strong Jade Immortal—far more powerful, at least on paper, than Yun Zhenzi had once been—and thus would have extraordinary wealth. In some cases, a single haul could match what Lin Yuan might earn from selling large numbers of pills.
“This is more efficient than refining pills,” Lin Yuan thought, though he recognized that alchemy income was more stable in the long term. These shadowy interlopers might keep showing up now, one after another, but as time passed and he remained perfectly fine—while all those who attempted to intrude vanished—others would eventually notice.
Even if word never spread, the unchanging outcome would imply that Lin Yuan had some hidden trump card. Very few Jade Immortals are fools; they would see that so many had gone in and not come out, while Lin Yuan stayed unscathed. That would dissuade the rest.
“All right, let’s take a look at the spoils.”
Lin Yuan devoted a small portion of his attention to checking over what the beast-hide figure had carried.
In Feixian Palace…
The Palace Master felt a subtle disturbance and glanced toward the A-grade dwelling area—specifically, toward Lin Yuan’s cave.
“Another Jade Immortal has snuck into Master Yun Zhenzi’s place?” He was already used to it by now.
Feixian Palace, being such a pivotal institution, maintains absolute control over all arrays in the dwelling zone. Furthermore, given his cooperative ties with Lin Yuan, the Palace Master had especially fine-tuned the monitoring of the formation near Lin Yuan’s abode. Many of those so-called stealthy interlopers, certain they were undetected, had in fact been flagged ahead of time by the Palace Master.
When the first unknown Jade Immortal infiltrated Lin Yuan’s cave, the Palace Master was alarmed—instantly sealing the time-space around the area and personally rushing to the entrance to check on Yun Zhenzi’s safety. But he found Lin Yuan alive and well, calmly emerging to say there’d been no intrusion at all.
At first, the Palace Master feared Lin Yuan had been coerced somehow, but after multiple checks—once even escorting him outside the dwelling zone—he realized everything was normal. There must have been a glitch in the detection arrays, he thought.
But then a second time… a third time…
He repeatedly panicked, expecting the worst. Yet each time, Lin Yuan was perfectly fine, having encountered no danger whatsoever. Eventually, the Palace Master realized something else was going on.
“Seems Master Yun Zhenzi isn’t simple at all,” murmured the Vice-Palace Master beside him. Had it been just once or twice, it might have been a fluke.
But after so many instances, even he could guess the truth. Since the arrays clearly weren’t malfunctioning, that meant enemies truly had entered—yet Lin Yuan was always unharmed. If there was no trace of any intruder escaping either, the only conclusion was that they were all perishing somewhere inside.
From the first infiltration to now, whenever the arrays sensed a breach, they never logged a departure.
“All those Jade Immortals snuck in and never returned, while Master Yun Zhenzi is just fine,” the Palace Master pondered.
“It seems his depths truly exceed our reckoning.”
Typically, if two top-tier Jade Immortals clashed, you’d expect at least some massive residual commotion. Yet there had never been so much as a ripple inside that dwelling. The intruders simply vanished. It was disconcerting, to say the least, and the Palace Master had difficulty reconciling such a lethal scenario with the normally gentle and genial Lin Yuan.
“So what do we do?” asked the Vice-Palace Master in a hushed tone.
“What do we do?” The Palace Master shot him a look.
“Master Yun Zhenzi is an honored guest of Cangwu Immortal City.”
Regardless of how unfathomable Lin Yuan’s abilities might be, so far he’d done nothing to harm Cangwu Immortal City. As for those Jade Immortals who perished there, they were trespassers. If the city had known of their intrusion, it would have hunted them anyway.
Hence, the Palace Master had no intention of interfering or even investigating too deeply. Each Jade Immortal has their secrets. Trying to pry them out would only set oneself against that Jade Immortal, and the Palace Master had no desire to become Lin Yuan’s enemy.
Inside the dwelling…
Having mostly sorted through his latest acquisitions, Lin Yuan nodded with satisfaction.
“Altogether, it’s about seven or eight hundred million top-grade Immortal Crystals’ worth.”
A typical Jade Immortal might have a net worth on the order of a million top-grade crystals; tens of millions was already a staggering amount of wealth. Indeed, most Jade Immortals pour resources directly into their bodies and souls, plus the odd treasure or Immortal weapon. Accumulating seven or eight hundred million in pure wealth definitely qualified as rich.
“Hmm?”
Lin Yuan’s gaze slid back over the trove and settled on a dagger—black as night, its power fully contained. He hadn’t sensed any energy fluctuations from it at all.
To ensure swift, total kills on these intruders, Lin Yuan usually crushed them in an instant, then used the memory-pollution tactics he’d gleaned from fiends to obliterate their resurrection methods, so they couldn’t be reborn somewhere else and talk.
In the five or six centuries he’d spent quietly dealing with fiends, Lin Yuan had learned much about how to deploy that memory pollution. If any Jade Immortal was immune, it might be someone like Yun Zhenzi, who employed powerful barriers of cause and effect.
But that would likely take tens of thousands of years to restore them anyway, by which time Lin Yuan would have long since left this world and returned to the main universe.
“This dagger…”
Glancing at the beast-hide figure’s memories during the kill, Lin Yuan knew it was seized at great risk from the Beihan Immortal City Lord’s offspring—supposedly so sharp it could slice anything. Possessing it made the beast-hide figure believe his strength had skyrocketed. Yet in this infiltration of Lin Yuan’s domain, he never even got to raise the weapon before being wiped out by the boundless pressure of space-time.
“Sharp, is it?”
Lin Yuan took the dagger in hand and lightly drew it across his left forearm.
A wound opened and quickly healed.
“It is indeed sharp,” Lin Yuan mused in mild amazement. Though this Yang Primordial Spirit’s flesh wasn’t as resilient as his real body’s, it still surpassed that of a typical Jade Immortal. His internal world was huge, ceaselessly generating the power of worlds, nourishing his body and soul beyond what any ordinary treasure could manage.
Even so, the dagger cut through his skin like it was nothing.
“A rank-twelve weapon?” he wondered, examining the black blade again. Yet something about it made him unsure. Even a standard rank-twelve weapon, when utterly unpowered, typically couldn’t so casually lacerate his flesh. At Lin Yuan’s level, “rank-twelve weapon” depends heavily on the user. In the hands of a true “strongest one,” it could rend anything. But for an ordinary Jade Immortal, it was hardly so extraordinary.
“Interesting,” Lin Yuan murmured, devoting a portion of his consciousness to studying the dagger. If properly harnessed, its unbelievable sharpness might prove a useful trump card.
Time flowed on.
A hundred years vanished in a flash.
“Time-Space… seventh level?”
Lin Yuan frowned thoughtfully. In that century of relentless comprehension, aided by multiple pieces of Immortal Source, he felt he was incredibly close to that seventh layer of time-space fusion—just one step away.
Meanwhile, his other foundational fused rules had also seen dramatic improvement. One pillar rule after another had risen to the peak of the sixth level.
“No need to rush. I’ll take my time,” he told himself, easing off his unending focus on time-space.
“Yet over this past century…”
He glanced upward, recalling all that had unfolded in a hundred years. Though he spent most of his time in secluded cultivation, he still occasionally paid attention to major happenings in the Immortal Realm.
And in the century gone by, the Thirty-Three Immortal Domains had been fraught with turmoil. Masses of fiends kept pouring in from the Abyss of Demons, slaughtering immortals everywhere. The Immortal-Demon War had already been raging for decades.
Compared to previous wars, this one was overwhelmingly more brutal. Typically, Immortal Cities are bastions—no matter how many fiends surge forth, they seldom break through. Yet in mere decades, three Immortal Cities had fallen, their inhabitants devoured.
“And the Dao Ancestor of the Immortal Way hasn’t stepped in?”
Lin Yuan knitted his brow, gazing at that irregular fissure in the sky. By now, with his heightened sense of time-space, he could feel the Dao Ancestor’s immense aura surging behind that tear.
“Is he deep in seclusion?” Lin Yuan wondered. It seemed odd. One would think that, given how critical the Immortal Dao’s billions of followers were, the Dao Ancestor wouldn’t leave them to face total annihilation unless he was completely unable to intervene.
“Anyway, that has nothing to do with me.”
After a moment’s thought, he summoned Yun Zhenzi and said, “I’ll be in seclusion for a while. Unless there’s some earth-shattering crisis, don’t disturb me.”
Lin Yuan could sense he was right on the verge of the seventh level of time-space fusion. In the days ahead, all his energy would be poured into crossing that threshold, with the stockpiled Immortal Source used continuously. Even the elaboration of his Eleventh-Rank Martial Path would be set aside for now. He wouldn’t pay attention to external matters unless they directly affected him.
“Yes, Master,” Yun Zhenzi answered, bowing low.
Cangwu Immortal City—
In the grand hall at its core, every elite figure—every major power in the city—was gathered. The atmosphere was somber, one top-tier Jade Immortal after another sitting in silence.
“All right, there’s no reason to despair,” the City Lord said slowly.
“So a large number of fiends are converging on Cangwu Immortal City. It’s not like we can’t hold them off.”
They had only just received intelligence that fully seventy percent of all fiends in the Xuantian Immortal Domain seemed to be steadily grouping, heading toward the region where Cangwu Immortal City stood. That was bad news indeed, suggesting that these fiends might have chosen Cangwu Immortal City as their next target. If so, the city was in for the hardest fight it had ever faced.
In a typical Immortal-Demon War, the city’s higher-ups wouldn’t be so grim. But in this conflict, only a few decades had passed, and already three Immortal Cities had fallen to the fiends. Would Cangwu Immortal City be the fourth?
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