Chapter 256: Ruling the World (25)

Half a month passed in the blink of an eye.

Over this short half-month, a shocking secret quietly swept through the Demonic Path Alliance, sending massive shockwaves through countless cultivators. People rushed to spread the news, debating it endlessly.

No one had expected that Grand Ancestor Jiuyou, who presided over the Demonic Path Alliance as a top-tier Deity Transformation expert of the Demonic Path, had completely shed and reformed his cultivation foundation. What he now practiced was the pure, supreme-yang Great Dao of the Righteous Path.

This revelation completely overturned the understanding of every cultivator.

A Nascent Soul Dao foundation and a thousand years of bitter cultivation—every inch of it was condensed from their lifeblood. It was the bedrock of a cultivator's existence, the very root of their Dao. Looking back through the eons, there had never been a Nascent Soul Late Stage Grand Cultivator who dared to discard a lifetime of cultivation, scatter a thousand years of accumulation, cast themselves down to the mortal dust, and rebuild their Great Dao from scratch with a mortal body.

To possess such peerless courage and heaven-defying willpower to break down the old before building anew—across the tens of thousands of years of this world's history, Jiuyou was the sole figure to ever do so. Neither ancient sages nor contemporary mighty figures could match him, and even thousands or tens of thousands of years into the future, there might never be another.

Countless Demonic Path cultivators were struck with awe. With such a legendary temperament and a resolute Dao heart, Jiuyou's name was destined to be passed down through the eons, forever praised by generations of cultivators to come.

Amidst their awe, everyone also felt a sense of reassurance.

By rebuilding his foundation with Righteous Path methods, Jiuyou's temperament had transformed. He was no longer the bloodthirsty, murderous, and ruthless figure recorded in the Ancient Records. This was the fundamental reason why the world had recently noticed his drastic shift in personality. Profound cultivation arts subtly steeped and reshaped the Dao heart. As the Dao changed, so did the heart.

Fortunately, Jiuyou's foundation remained within the Demonic Path Alliance. After returning, he had taken control of the overall situation, deterred all opposition, and revitalized the might of the Demonic Path. He had never shown the slightest inclination to favor the Righteous Path.

This development was a tremendous blessing for both the Demonic Path Alliance and the entire Heavenly Abyss Sea. People secretly rejoiced that the one watching over this sea region was no longer the infamous, bloodthirsty demonic sovereign who had slaughtered in all directions centuries ago.

However, the peace in the Heavenly Abyss Sea was ultimately just an illusion.

Within just half a month, dark currents surged and hidden killing intent brewed. The Heaven and Earth Alliance and the Demonic Path Alliance each lost a Nascent Soul Grand Cultivator to a brutal assassination in the shadows.

The two silent murders once again sent shockwaves through the circle of Nascent Soul cultivators in the Heavenly Abyss Sea. The killer's movements were unpredictable and their strikes ruthless and decisive. They specifically targeted lone Nascent Soul cultivators, ending them with a single fatal blow without the slightest hesitation. After the deed was done, they vanished without a trace, leaving behind not a single wisp of aura or clue. No matter who investigated, they couldn't find a single thread to follow.

The successive fall of two Nascent Soul experts undoubtedly dealt a heavy blow to the cultivation landscape of the Heavenly Abyss Sea.

For a time, the entire sea region was plunged into panic. Every Nascent Soul cultivator feared for their life. Those who went out to gain experience or travel the sea did so in groups, not daring to brave the dangers alone. Even more cultivators simply went into hiding, entering seclusion within their sect's mystic realms and barring their doors to avoid the unknown threat.

No one knew the killer's true identity, much less their real motive for hunting Nascent Soul experts and slaughtering high-level cultivators. The entire sea region was shrouded in an invisible haze of panic.

At the same time, Jiuyou hadn't been idle either.

For the past half-month, he had remained in seclusion, repeatedly probing the remnant split soul of Fang Buxin in his hands. He had originally intended to rely on his heaven-reaching Deity Transformation abilities to trace the split soul's aura to its source and pinpoint where the man's true body was hiding.

But after multiple attempts, he ultimately found nothing.

The karmic ties to this wisp of Fang Buxin's split soul had long been completely severed by someone. There was not a shred of aura linking it to the main soul, nor the slightest soul resonance. It was like duckweed without roots—isolated from the world, completely dead-ending any path to trace its origins.

Fortunately, Jiuyou wielded the Heaven and Earth Ring. The power of this Heaven-grade Spiritual Treasure was transcendent. Relying on its unique probing abilities, he finally caught a hint of something unusual deep within the remnant split soul.

Lingering within the split soul was a wisp of a highly peculiar, chaotic, and muddy aura.

This aura was ethereal and erratic, its truth and falsehood difficult to distinguish. It was an utter mess, mixed with countless inexplicable and bizarre traits that completely defied the conventional laws of cultivation in this world.

Even as a Deity Transformation cultivator possessing the power to control heaven and earth and turn the world upside down, Jiuyou found himself entirely unable to comprehend or mobilize this bizarre aura.

Only by borrowing the Heaven and Earth Ring's profound might was Jiuyou barely able to imprison that wisp of strange aura, slowly peeling it away and extracting it from Fang Buxin's ruined split soul.

The aura was faint, ethereal, and unstable. The moment it broke free from the split soul's restraints, it instantly scattered into the void, melting away without a trace in the blink of an eye. It was fundamentally impossible to contain or track.

Staring at his empty palm, Jiuyou furrowed his brow, pondering inwardly.

'What exactly was that? Could it be the karmic luck rumored in the world?'

Having cultivated for a thousand years, he considered himself widely experienced, yet he had never been able to reach a conclusion regarding such an ethereal concept. The concept of karmic luck existed only in legends; no one had ever seen through its true origins. But if it truly was karmic luck, why was it so chaotic, muddy, and entirely erratic?

Countless questions swirled in his mind, remaining completely unanswered.

Time flowed on. In the blink of an eye, another two years passed.

During this time, Hongce had visited again, bringing news of fellow Daoists from various regions. The two Deity Transformation experts, Yuan Huang and Myriad Manifestations, had already arrived within their borders. A fellow Daoist of the Righteous Path had also settled into the Lingchuan region and would set off for the Heavenly Abyss Sea within a few days. Once all six of them gathered, they would enter Tianyuan Mountain together to confront the Blood Demon threat that had lain dormant for eons.

In addition, Jiuyou had personally gone to the entrance of the Mount Tianyuan Mystic Realm to assess the situation.

Having survived the ancient Blood Demon calamity, the Three Alliances harbored a deep dread for this place. They had long since stationed heavy forces to guard it layer by layer, maintaining day and night patrols without rest. Vast, interlocking warding formations had been laid down to strictly prevent a repeat of the disaster. No one dared to slack off in the slightest.

According to the mystic realm's cycle, Tianyuan Mountain opened automatically once every five hundred years. Three to four centuries had already passed since the last opening, leaving just over a hundred years until the next scheduled cycle.

However, the Blood Demon chaos had heavily damaged this world, leaving the spatial barriers of the Mount Tianyuan Mystic Realm damaged and frail—nowhere near as stable as they had been a millennium ago. Given the current spatial integrity, a Peak Nascent Soul Stage cultivator exerting their full strength would have a chance to tear open a rift in the barrier and forcefully break into the mystic realm ahead of schedule.

Aside from that, the internal layout of the mystic realm had also undergone drastic changes, entirely different from what was written in the Ancient Records.

According to the accounts of the cultivators who had entered the Tianyuan Mountain realm during its last opening:

Many of the fatal restrictions from the past had inexplicably dissolved or broken down on their own, drastically reducing the danger. Now, when cultivators stepped into the first layer of the mystic realm, they only faced swarms of low-level Blood Demons occupying the area, which were of no real threat. Furthermore, with the old shackles gone, cultivators no longer needed to waste time waiting at the foot of the mountain. They could use the ancient Teleportation Array left behind to travel straight to the second layer of the mystic realm.

But the danger had never truly dissipated; it had merely changed its form.

The four originally independent pathways on the second layer had entirely collapsed and merged into one. Once the paths combined, vicious and baleful energies from all directions intertwined, and vast numbers of high-level demonic creatures nested within. Layer upon layer of threats meant the danger had exponentially multiplied. Compared to the days when the four paths were separate, the peril was now several times more terrifying.

As for the topmost layer of Tianyuan Mountain, no one had set foot there to this day. It remained the greatest mystery of the entire mystic realm.

No one knew what the scenery at the summit looked like. They didn't know if the Heavenly Abyss Sacred Tree that had stood for eons was still standing, or if the Longevity Divine Fruit had condensed once more. Much less had anyone uncovered the world-shaking mysteries hidden within that deeply concealed mystic realm inside Tianyuan Mountain—a place that had never yet revealed itself to the world.

Tianyuan Mountain had already undergone a massive transformation. The unknown lurked at every turn, and hidden variables lay in wait everywhere.