Chapter 1032: Shattering Core, Nurturing Infant

The sky directly above the grand open-air summit of the fourth outer island no longer resembled the natural heavens of the mortal plane. The ambient atmospheric pressure had drastically plummeted, entirely replaced by an overwhelming, suffocating blanket of highly condensed, volatile spiritual density. Massive, heavy clouds of pitch-black and deep purple violently converged, completely blotting out the afternoon sun. The thick cloud cover actively ground against itself, generating terrifying, localized spatial frictions that caused the air to physically warp and shriek.

Yue Lingshan stood near the absolute edge of the towering stone summit, her pristine white robes woven from Thousand-Year Spirit-Silk violently snapping in the chaotic, aggressive wind currents. Her beautiful, virtuous face was deathly pale, coated in a thick sheen of cold sweat. She did not look up at the apocalyptic storm gathering directly overhead. Her complete, undivided attention remained forcefully anchored upon the thirty-six massive, deep-sea coral array flags she had aggressively embedded into the jagged bedrock perimeter.

She held a glowing, highly complex central formation plate carved from pure Zenith-Lotus jade, continuously weaving intricate, high-speed hand-seals to manually stabilize the erratic energy flow.

"The pressure is actively attempting to crush the spatial boundary, Husband!" Yue Lingshan called out, her delicate voice amplified by a highly focused, wind-attribute sound-carrying technique to pierce through the deafening, continuous roar of the colliding clouds overhead. "I am diverting the maximum output of the Fourth Grade Spiritual Vein directly into the Void-Shrouding Sanctuary Formation! If the visual or acoustic shockwaves of a Nascent Soul breakthrough leak past this perimeter, the surveillance formations of the Myriad Ocean Palace across the sea domain will immediately register the exact coordinate!"

"Hold the perimeter flawlessly, Lingshan," Wang Jian commanded, his voice a low, heavy vibration that easily carried over the howling winds, projecting absolute, unwavering authority. "Do not allow a single sliver of heavenly light or a single echo of the thunder to breach the spatial phase. Maintain the illusion of empty ocean to the outside world."

Yue Lingshan nodded deeply, her heart swelling with profound admiration and unconditional love for her incredibly capable husband. She bit her lower lip, forcefully drawing upon the absolute limits of her Core Formation Qi to reinforce the localized spatial tear, utterly, completely oblivious to the dark, deeply depraved reality currently unfolding merely forty paces behind her back.

Wang Jian stood perfectly still within the deep, creeping shadows of a massive, jagged outcropping of black basalt that entirely blocked Yue Lingshan’s line of sight. He had erected a specialized, highly condensed localized barrier of pitch-black Stellar Demonic Qi, creating an absolute vacuum that completely absorbed all light and sound within a ten-foot radius.

Within this pocket of absolute darkness, Wang Jian was not observing the sky.

He was leaning his broad, heavily muscled back against the cold stone, his trousers unfastened and pushed down around his thighs. The grueling, intense physical exertion of the underground forging process had left his highly conditioned body buzzing with a heavy, primal accumulation of aggressive Yang Qi that demanded immediate, continuous release to maintain his internal meridian equilibrium.

Lin Wanyue, the aristocratic former wife of the City Lord, was entirely on her knees upon the jagged, unforgiving stone floor before him. She wore a completely ruined, soaked purple silk dress that clung aggressively to her massive, heavy breasts and wide, child-bearing hips. Her flawless, mature face was flushed a deep, vibrant crimson as she eagerly, desperately took the entire, thick length of his massive manhood deep into her throat. She whimpered softly around his heavy flesh, her tongue swirling hungrily, eagerly serving the man who had completely shattered her dignified life, knowing his virtuous wife stood just paces away.

To his right, Shangguan Wan’er, the supreme head of the Golden-Scale Auction House branch, pressed her lush, incredibly soft body entirely against his side. She wore a sleek, form-fitting black gown that she had aggressively torn open down the center, entirely exposing her heavy, perfectly round breasts to the freezing sea wind. She actively pressed her soft, yielding flesh against Wang Jian’s calloused right hand, letting out breathless, degraded gasps as his long fingers roughly pinched and twisted her stiff, sensitive nipples.

To his left, Hua Yimei, the mature Sect Leader of the Fragrance Melody Sect, was crouched low, her deep crimson dress hiked up around her waist to completely expose her thick, lush thighs. She was aggressively licking and kissing the heavy, corded muscles of Wang Jian’s lower abdomen, her hot breath trailing down toward the base of his shaft, entirely eager to replace Lin Wanyue the moment he commanded it.

The absolute, undeniable contrast between their highly respected public positions, their profound beauty, and their secret, filthy reality as his personal, underground slaves fueled his Heavenly Yang Divine Physique, completely stabilizing his internal core temperature.

"Deeper, Wanyue," Wang Jian commanded in a dark, heavy whisper that vibrated directly against her eardrums. He reached down, tangling his large left hand into her elegant, aristocratic hair, forcefully holding her head in place.

Before Lin Wanyue could fully comply, the heavy stone doors leading to the subterranean tunnels built into the center of the summit violently ground open.

The three women instantly froze, pulling away from his body, their eyes wide with residual lust and sudden, instinctual terror as the ambient temperature on the summit spiked drastically.

Mu Lianhua stepped out into the howling storm.

The former Sect Mistress wore a simple, unadorned robe of dark green silk, completely dry and immaculate. She radiated an aura that was completely, utterly terrifying. The ambient Fire-attribute Qi in the chaotic air actively bent away from her, subjugated entirely by the overwhelming, concentrated density of her presence. A visible, golden-azure halo of highly compressed spiritual light illuminated her beautiful, mature face, physically pushing the heavy sea wind away from her body.

Wang Jian casually adjusted his robes, completely ignoring the three panting, disheveled women shivering at his feet. He stepped out of the shadow barrier, his boots crunching loudly against the stone as he walked toward the center of the summit.

Resting at the absolute center of the peak was a massive, perfectly circular platform carved entirely from a single, unbroken block of thousand-year spirit-jade. The translucent stone pulsed with a faint, heavy white light, directly connected to the deepest root of the Fourth Grade Spiritual Vein buried far beneath the island.

Mu Lianhua did not look at Yue Lingshan. She did not look at Wang Jian. Her eyes were fixed entirely upon the terrifying, purple-black vortex aggressively spiraling directly overhead.

She walked slowly, deliberately toward the spirit-jade platform. Her bare feet touched the smooth, freezing surface of the jade. She stepped into the absolute center of the platform and slowly bent her knees, the dark green silk of her robes bunching around her wide, heavy hips as she settled deeply into the lotus position. She placed her hands palm-up upon her knees, aligning her spine perfectly straight.

"The tribulation lock is established," Wang Jian stated, stopping ten paces away from the edge of the jade platform. "The heavens have registered the density of your core. You must begin now."

Mu Lianhua raised her right hand, her delicate fingers adorned with a spatial ring that pulsed with dim silver light. A localized spatial ripple manifested in the heavy air. Two distinct, heavily sealed jade vials materialized directly into her palm.

She forcefully popped the cork off the first vial.

A wave of absolute, terrifying cold erupted from the opening, instantly frosting the air around her wrist. She tilted the vial back, tossing the single, glowing blue pill directly into her mouth.

It was the Profound Frost Marrow Pill, concocted from ten-thousand-year glacial herbs.

The moment the pill slid down her throat, Mu Lianhua’s body violently seized. The dark green silk of her robes immediately crusted over with a thick layer of jagged white frost. The heavy, massive proportions of her breasts heaved upward as a sharp, agonizing gasp tore from her lips. The pill did not dissolve gently; it aggressively detonated within her digestive tract, unleashing a torrential, raging river of absolute zero Yin-attribute Qi directly into her central meridian channel.

The freezing energy forcefully, brutally expanded her spiritual sea, stretching the highly fortified walls of her Dantian far beyond their natural, physical limits, creating the necessary spatial volume required to house a Nascent Soul. The pain of her internal organs flash-freezing caused her jaw to lock tightly, the veins in her neck bulging prominently against her pale skin.

She did not hesitate. Before the Yin energy could completely solidify her blood, she popped the cork off the second vial.

She swallowed the Stellar Yang Core-Forging Elixir.

A massive, violent explosion of white-hot, searing thermal heat detonated precisely where the freezing river of Yin Qi originated. The extreme, highly volatile metals looted from the Golden-Tide Consortium ignited within her stomach. The profound, aggressive Yang fire violently crashed head-on into the absolute zero Yin frost.

The resulting internal thermal shockwave was catastrophic.

Mu Lianhua threw her head back, a localized sonic boom erupting from her chest as the two opposing forces violently collided within her heavily reinforced Dantian. The dark green silk of her robes instantly soaked completely through with thick, heavy sweat, turning the fabric entirely translucent, openly displaying the hard, straining peaks of her nipples and the heavy, lush curves of her mature body.

"Begin the reverse rotation!" Wang Jian commanded, his starlit eyes actively tracking the violently shifting spiritual signatures radiating from her physical vessel.

Mu Lianhua gritted her teeth, biting down so hard a thin stream of crimson blood leaked from the corner of her lips. She forcefully, aggressively seized control of the chaotic, warring energies flooding her spiritual sea. She gathered every single ounce of her immense willpower and drove her conscious mind directly into the center of her Dantian, latching onto her massive, highly compressed Golden Core.

Normally, a Golden Core spun in a perfect, clockwise rotation, naturally harmonizing with the rotational laws of the physical universe to generate and distribute Qi.

Mu Lianhua forcefully grabbed the core with her spiritual sense and aggressively, brutally wrenched it in the exact opposite direction.

She forced her massive, compressed Golden Core to spin violently in reverse.

"AGGGGHHHHH!" Mu Lianhua screamed, the sound tearing through the howling wind, completely devoid of any remaining dignity or restraint.

The physical pain was entirely beyond mortal comprehension. It felt as though an enormous, serrated iron blade was violently grinding directly against the foundational anchor of her very soul. The massive, heavy spiritual density of her core violently resisted the reverse rotation, generating extreme, localized spatial friction within her Dantian that actively began to tear her internal muscle fibers apart.

She drew heavily upon the thousand-year spirit-jade platform beneath her. The platform pulsed blindingly white, aggressively siphoning a massive, uninterrupted torrent of pure, unadulterated earth-qi from the Fourth Grade Spiritual Vein below, funneling it directly upward through the base of her spine to forcefully stabilize her physical vessel against the catastrophic internal damage.

The Golden Core spun faster and faster in reverse. The highly compressed spiritual energy within the sphere began to violently destabilize.

CRACK.

A sharp, deafening sound, akin to a massive glacier fracturing under immense physical weight, echoed loudly across the open summit.

Wang Jian’s eyes narrowed.

Visible, jagged hairline fractures began to aggressively spread across the solid surface of Mu Lianhua’s internal Golden Core. Brilliant, blinding rays of golden-azure light violently shot out from the cracks, piercing directly through the physical flesh of her stomach and heavily illuminating the dark green silk of her soaked robes.

"Shatter it!" Wang Jian roared.

Mu Lianhua surged the absolute, final reserves of her life essence into the reverse rotation.

The Golden Core reached maximum structural failure.

BOOOOOOM!

The core violently, catastrophically shattered into ten thousand microscopic fragments.

A massive, physical shockwave of raw, unbridled spiritual pressure blasted outward from her body. The heavy impact slammed into the solid stone of the summit, physically cratering the thousand-year spirit-jade platform beneath her and sending massive, jagged chunks of the precious stone flying into the air. The heavy wind currents were instantly pushed back, creating a localized, absolute vacuum around her trembling body.

The physical world instantly vanished from Mu Lianhua’s perception.

She did not see the gathering storm clouds. She did not feel the cold stone beneath her knees. The deafening roar of the wind was entirely replaced by a heavy, suffocating silence.

She had plunged entirely into the deepest, darkest depths of her own spiritual sea.

The Heart Demon Trial had descended.

Mu Lianhua found herself standing completely alone in the center of the grand courtyard of the Crimson Pill Sect. The sky above was a sickening, bruised red. The magnificent, towering alchemy pavilions were violently engulfed in massive, roaring pillars of demonic black fire. The air was thick, suffocatingly heavy with the choking stench of burning flesh, copper blood, and completely ruined medicinal herbs.

"No," Mu Lianhua whispered, her mature voice trembling with sudden, profound terror. "This is an illusion. The core is shattered. I must focus."

"An illusion, Sect Mistress?" a cold, mocking voice echoed from the heavy smoke.

A figure stepped out from the burning ruins. It was Fu Yan, the traitorous elder who had engineered the absolute destruction of her life. He wore his immaculate, pristine white robes, his face twisted into a mask of pure, sadistic triumph. He casually held the severed, bloody head of her most loyal disciple in his right hand.

"You failed them, Lianhua," Fu Yan sneered, tossing the severed head casually onto the blood-soaked cobblestones at her feet. "Your pride, your arrogance, your blind obsession with alchemy... you led this entire sect into a slaughterhouse. You are completely, utterly worthless."

Mu Lianhua took a step back, her breath catching in her throat as a wave of paralyzing, suffocating guilt slammed directly into her chest. The heavy, immense weight of her past failures threatened to entirely crush her fragile, newly forming consciousness.

The scenery violently shifted.

She was no longer standing in her ruined sect. She was forcefully thrown down onto the cold, hard stone floor of the subterranean cells beneath the Grand Cauldron Arena. The air was stale, reeking of urine and dried blood.

She looked down at her body. She was completely stripped of her dignified green silk robes. She wore nothing but heavy, thick iron chains completely binding her wrists and ankles. Her massive, heavy breasts were painfully exposed to the freezing, damp air, covered in dirt and dark bruises.

The heavy iron door of the cell violently ground open.

Fu Yan stepped into the cell, holding a long, glowing iron branding iron that radiated an agonizing, searing heat. Behind him stood a dozen leering, heavily scarred rogue cultivators, their eyes completely filled with dark, highly aggressive lust as they stared hungrily at her exposed, voluptuous body.

"You are no longer a Sect Mistress," Fu Yan declared, stepping forward and pressing the searing hot iron directly against the soft flesh of her heavy thigh.

The agonizing pain felt entirely, completely real. Mu Lianhua screamed, her body violently arching off the cold stone floor, the heavy iron chains rattling loudly against the walls.

"You are nothing but a broken tool," Fu Yan whispered directly into her ear, his hot breath smelling of rotting meat. "A slave to be used, discarded, and forgotten. You do not possess the strength to govern the heavens. Your soul is completely, utterly fractured."

The leering rogue cultivators stepped forward, their rough, filthy hands reaching out to aggressively grab her heavy breasts, to force her thick thighs apart.

Despair, absolute, unyielding despair, flooded Mu Lianhua’s spiritual sea. The heavy, suffocating weight of the psychological torture completely paralyzed her will to fight. She closed her eyes, entirely ready to surrender, ready to let the darkness completely consume her fractured mind.

Deep within the center of her Dantian, the chaotic, swirling sea of broken Golden Core fragments, which were slowly attempting to coalesce into the fragile, glowing shape of a nascent infant, suddenly began to violently vibrate. The spiritual structure of the infant heavily destabilized, the edges of the form beginning to aggressively scatter and dissolve back into raw energy.

If the infant completely scattered, her physical body on the summit would violently detonate.

Suddenly, a massive, blinding flash of pure, unadulterated jade radiance violently pierced directly through the pitch-black darkness of the subterranean cell illusion.

Resting heavily against the soft, sweaty cleavage of her physical body on the spirit-jade platform, the snow-white Mind-Clearing Zenith-Lotus Talisman aggressively flared to life.

The ancient, highly refined soul-anchoring runes carved into the translucent jade activated instantly. The talisman did not emit physical heat or kinetic force; it projected a massive, overwhelmingly powerful soul frequency that vibrated at the exact, flawless harmonic resonance of a pure, untainted consciousness.

The jade frequency violently slammed into Mu Lianhua’s spiritual sea.

The moment the calming, stabilizing radiance washed over her fractured mind, the agonizing pain of the branding iron instantly vanished. The heavy, suffocating weight of the despair was forcefully, aggressively burned away by the purifying light.

Mu Lianhua’s eyes snapped open. The terror was completely gone, replaced by a cold, absolute, and terrifying clarity.

She looked up at the illusion of Fu Yan, who was now shielding his eyes against the blinding jade radiance.

"You are nothing but a lingering phantom," Mu Lianhua stated, her voice echoing with a heavy, dual-layered resonance that completely shattered the acoustic boundaries of the illusionary cell. "I have already paid my debts in blood. I have forged a new path. I am not a victim. I am the sovereign of my own ascension."

She did not physically attack the illusion. She simply asserted her absolute, unyielding Dao Heart.

The sheer, overwhelming density of her finalized willpower, heavily anchored and amplified by the Mind-Clearing Zenith-Lotus Talisman, generated a massive spiritual shockwave that completely obliterated the Grand Cauldron Arena illusion. Fu Yan, the rogue cultivators, and the heavy iron chains dissolved into harmless grey ash.

Her consciousness aggressively snapped back into the center of her Dantian.

The chaotic, swirling sea of broken Golden Core fragments instantly obeyed her absolute command. The scattered energy forcefully slammed together, heavily compacting and molding itself under the immense pressure of her stabilized mind.

The fragments successfully coalesced. A tiny, flawless, glowing golden infant, bearing the exact physical likeness of a miniature Mu Lianhua, formed perfectly within the center of her Dantian. The infant opened its tiny eyes, radiating a terrifying, vast expanse of spiritual power.

The Nascent Soul was born.

Mu Lianhua’s physical eyes snapped open on the ruined spirit-jade platform.

The sky above the fourth outer island completely tore apart.

The heavens had registered the birth of the Nascent Soul. The universal laws violently reacted to the existence of a mortal entity attempting to heavily manipulate the deep foundational rules of reality. The Six-Nine Heavenly Thunder Tribulation descended.

The entire sky turned pitch black, save for the terrifying, aggressive web of thick, pulsating purple lightning actively weaving through the heavy clouds.

BOOOOOOM!

The first wave of the tribulation struck. Nine massive, thick bolts of highly condensed purple celestial lightning aggressively dropped from the clouds, completely twisting together to form a singular, heavy pillar of pure kinetic destruction aimed directly at the center of Mu Lianhua’s head.

Mu Lianhua did not attempt to dodge. She aggressively slapped her right palm heavily against the ruined jade platform.

"Myriad Beast Fire Cauldron!" Mu Lianhua roared.

The massive, heavy bronze cauldron violently erupted from her spatial ring, expanding to a height of thirty feet in the air directly above her. She forcefully channeled the newly formed, incredibly dense energy of her Nascent Soul directly into the artifact.

"Azure Sky Heart Phoenix Flame! Devour!"

A massive, roaring ocean of pure, blinding blue fire violently erupted from the mouth of the heavy bronze cauldron. The thermal heat dispersion of the flame was instantly multiplied tenfold by her new cultivation base, completely superheating the heavy air and turning the falling rain into instantly vaporized steam.

The massive pillar of purple celestial lightning violently crashed head-on into the ocean of blue fire.

The physical impact generated a catastrophic, localized acoustic shockwave that violently shattered the eardrums of any mortal creature within fifty miles. The heavy kinetic weight of the lightning forcefully pushed against the thermal expansion of the fire, the two opposing energies fiercely grinding against each other in a terrifying display of elemental annihilation.

"Divert the acoustic displacement!" Yue Lingshan screamed from the perimeter, her heavy coral array flags violently shaking under the immense atmospheric pressure.

She rapidly shifted her hand-seals, aggressively manipulating the spatial phase of the Void-Shrouding Sanctuary Formation. The massive, invisible dome of spatial energy forcefully captured the deafening roar of the thunder and the blinding flash of the elemental collision, actively bending the physical waves downward, violently funneling the entire sensory output directly into the deep-sea trenches far below the island.

The surface of the ocean surrounding the island violently boiled, massive, localized geysers of superheated water erupting hundreds of feet into the air as the deep-sea bedrock aggressively absorbed the redirected shockwaves.

Wang Jian stood perfectly still at the edge of the platform, entirely unmoved by the apocalyptic display. His dark, starlit eyes coldly analyzed the structural integrity of Mu Lianhua’s defensive flame. Behind him, entirely hidden within the shadow barrier, Shangguan Wan’er remained firmly on her knees, her heavy breasts bouncing aggressively as she eagerly continued to service his length, his large right hand casually buried in her dark hair to dictate the rhythm.

The second wave of the tribulation descended instantly.

Eighteen massive bolts of highly condensed purple lightning aggressively merged into three distinct, heavy spears of celestial wrath. They completely bypassed the massive bronze cauldron, utilizing localized spatial skipping to appear directly above Mu Lianhua’s physical body.

Mu Lianhua raised both hands, her heavy breasts heaving with exertion. She forcefully generated a massive, multi-layered defensive barrier of pure, crystallized Azure Sky-Heart Flame.

The three heavy lightning spears violently slammed into the fire barrier.

The kinetic weight of the strike was astronomical. The heavy crystalline structure of the fire barrier actively groaned and fractured under the immense physical pressure. The sheer concussive force forcefully pushed Mu Lianhua down against the ruined jade platform. The delicate skin of her forearms violently cracked open, thick streams of crimson blood flowing freely down her wrists as her heavily reinforced muscle fibers tore under the strain.

She held the line, aggressively pushing the absolute limits of her newly formed Nascent Soul to maintain the thermal barrier, eventually violently dispersing the heavily fractured lightning spears into chaotic, harmless sparks of ambient energy.

The heavy, purple-black clouds directly overhead violently began to swirl, forming a massive, terrifyingly deep vortex of absolute destruction.

The third and final wave was fully prepared.

The vortex did not unleash multiple bolts. It forcefully expelled a singular, colossal pillar of pure, highly condensed azure celestial thunder. The pillar was easily twenty feet thick, radiating a physical kinetic density that actively caused the spatial fabric of the mortal plane to heavily fracture and tear as it descended.

The sheer physical weight of the incoming azure lightning completely overwhelmed Mu Lianhua’s perception. Her newly formed Nascent Soul violently trembled within her Dantian, instinctively recognizing that her physical vessel and her remaining spiritual reserves were entirely insufficient to heavily block this absolute level of localized annihilation.

Before she could even raise her bloodied hands to attempt a final, desperate defense, a tall, heavily muscled figure violently blurred into the direct trajectory of the falling lightning.

Wang Jian stepped directly into the absolute center of the platform.

He casually released his grip on Shangguan Wan’er’s hair, leaving her panting heavily in the shadows, and aggressively drew his primary defensive artifact from his spatial ring.

The massive, pitch-black Nine-Heavens Iron Severing Bastion materialized in his grasp. The seven-foot-tall, heavy shield, entirely forged from Star-Core Iron and Nine-Folded Profound Iron, aggressively slammed heavily into the ruined jade platform.

Wang Jian planted his left foot firmly behind the heavy metal, completely dropping his shoulder and violently bracing his entire, massively reinforced physical frame against the handle. He aggressively channeled the absolute entirety of his volatile Stellar Demonic Qi into the highly complex, lightning-diverting runic matrices etched across the broad surface of the shield.

"Ground it!" Wang Jian roared, his voice completely dominating the howling storm.

The colossal pillar of azure celestial thunder violently crashed directly into the heavy surface of the Nine-Heavens Iron Severing Bastion.

CLAAAAAANG!

The physical impact was entirely deafening. The massive, heavy shield violently shuddered, the pitch-black metal instantly glowing a terrifying, blinding cherry-red from the sheer thermal friction. Wang Jian’s heavy boots were violently driven three feet deep into the solid, thousand-year spirit-jade platform by the overwhelming kinetic weight of the heavens. The heavy muscles of his broad back and thick arms bulged to impossible, terrifying proportions as he entirely anchored the physical strike.

The complex runic matrices aggressively activated.

The heavy spatial metal forcefully captured sixty percent of the highly condensed azure lightning. The runes aggressively funneled the chaotic, localized kinetic energy directly down the heavy surface of the shield, violently dispersing the celestial force directly into the jagged bedrock of the island beneath them. The entire landmass violently shuddered, massive fissures tearing across the stone surface as the deep-earth layers heavily absorbed the catastrophic impact.

The remaining forty percent of the azure celestial thunder forcefully bypassed the heavy shield, descending in a heavily fractured, highly purified wave of pure celestial baptism.

The purified energy washed completely over Mu Lianhua.

The celestial energy did not physically harm her. It aggressively penetrated directly through her skin, forcefully purging any remaining mortal dross from her internal meridians. The energy heavily washed over her newly formed Nascent Soul, completely solidifying the fragile spiritual structure and permanently anchoring the infant into the deep foundational laws of the physical universe.

The heavy, purple-black clouds directly overhead violently began to disperse. The heavy, localized spatial frictions aggressively smoothed out, allowing the natural afternoon sun to completely pierce through the fading storm.

The absolute, heavy silence returned to the grand open-air summit.

Yue Lingshan collapsed heavily to her knees at the perimeter, her chest heaving violently, entirely exhausted but sporting a brilliant, profound smile of absolute relief. The Void-Shrouding Sanctuary Formation had completely held the spatial lock.

Wang Jian slowly stood up, pulling his heavy boots free from the cratered jade platform. He casually stored the heavily smoking Nine-Heavens Iron Severing Bastion back into his spatial ring. He completely ignored the severe, agonizing burn marks heavily scorching his muscular forearms.

He looked down at the center of the ruined platform.

Mu Lianhua slowly opened her eyes.

A terrifying, vast expanse of absolute, overwhelming spiritual power violently erupted from her body, completely flattening the ambient air currents for miles. She did not radiate the heavy, aggressive heat of a Core Formation expert; she projected the profound, deep, oceanic density of the Nascent Soul Realm.

She slowly stood up, her bloodied green silk robes fluttering gently in the returning sea breeze. She looked directly at Wang Jian, her beautiful, mature face devoid of all former fear or subjugation, replaced entirely by absolute, unquestioning devotion.

The Fragrance Melody Sect now officially possessed a Nascent Soul Grandmaster. The geopolitical balance of the entire sea domain had just completely, irrevocably shifted.