The sun hung high in the heavens, impartially showering its light and heat upon the mortal realm, upon young and old, rich and poor, alike. Great love is like unto heartless detachment.

A young deer waded through the stream, as a swift bird darted amongst the trees.

At first, only a crimson speck of light could be seen on the horizon, but in the blink of an eye, it rapidly approached.

Its fiery tail became a blazing line, as if a celestial being were wielding a brush, cleaving the sky asunder.

The thousands of miles of mountains and rivers of the Zhuang Kingdom were almost consumed by this fiery streak, when suddenly, a beam of black light surged skyward, barring the path ahead.

A chilling connection was forged between heaven and earth, and elemental energy surged. From the southeast, northwest, and all directions, a wave of ultimate evil abruptly arose and coalesced!

A corner of the sky, in the northeastern reaches of the Zhuang Kingdom, was engulfed by black clouds.

The bright day turned suddenly dark.

A muffled groan echoed in the air, “Nine Fiend Obscuration!”

The crimson speck wrestled with the fiendish clouds for only a moment before plummeting from the sky.

It fell faster and faster, growing ever larger, until at last…

It howled like a falling star!

…

The outskirts of Maplewood City were sparsely populated. Only a small, dilapidated Daoist temple stood forlornly in the wilderness, long abandoned.

“Boom!”

The fiery point crashed to earth, gouging out an enormous crater. But the impact seemed restrained by some unknown power, and the aftershocks did not spread. As the billowing smoke and dust cleared, a man in flame-red robes was revealed.

This man possessed sword-like eyebrows and strikingly handsome features. His scarlet flame-robes were ornate and ancient, radiating noble bearing. Only his disheveled hair and the rents in his robe betrayed his distressed state.

“To think that I, Zuo Guanglie, would die in such a godforsaken place…” The flame-robed man’s gaze swept across the surroundings, and with a sense of bewilderment, he asked, “What is this place called?”

Yet again, the day had turned abruptly dark, and again, a star had fallen. The few beggar children dwelling in the broken-down temple were already out of their minds with fear, prostrating themselves before the temple gate. Hearing the question, one of them spoke, his voice trembling, “Imm… Immortal Master, this is the outskirts of Maplewood City. This temple… we… we don’t know its name.”

The flame-robed man’s fingers twitched slightly, on the verge of obliterating the beggar children.

This was the Age of Great Strife, with kingdoms locked in perpetual warfare. But in recent years, no battle had approached the intensity of the Great Qin-Chu War. The two sides had committed nearly ten thousand cultivators. The valley plains at the war’s center were utterly barren, and the earth had sunk a hundred miles.

As a key figure of the losing side, especially since he had single-handedly breached Hangu Pass, nearly turning the tide of battle, he could scarcely complain about being hunted across the heavens and the earth.

However, these beggars were also Zhuang Kingdom beggars. The Zhuang Kingdom had dared to secretly aid the violent Qin, allowing them to set up an ambush within its borders… these people deserved to die.

But he abruptly clenched his fist, extinguishing the sparks that had flickered from his fingertips.

“Zuo Guanglie, Zuo Guanglie, is this your magnanimity? To vent your anger on these pitiful people who are not even worthy of notice?”

Zuo Guanglie muttered to himself, then sighed, “Leave. Go now.”

He turned away with his hands clasped behind his back, his gaze already fixed on the ink-black sky. The powerful figures lurking in the shadows, drawing ever nearer like a pack of wolves, were the ones Zuo Guanglie should kill!

The beggars were granted amnesty, and they scrambled to their feet and fled. Only the beggar who had spoken first hesitated for a moment, glancing back towards the crumbling temple. But his companions dragged him away with a rough shove, “Do you want to die?”

The beggars ran for their lives, and perhaps they had never run so hard for their own sakes.

Zuo Guanglie did not shift his gaze, but his brow furrowed slightly. “Not taking your companion with you?”

Nothing could remain hidden within the range of his divine sense.

The wooden statues of the gods had long disappeared from the temple; perhaps the beggars had burned them for firewood. But under the offering table lay a beggar child with only the faintest spark of life remaining, motionless, likely counting down the days until his demise — this was the reason for the first beggar’s hesitation.

The mysterious Immortal’s words could not be ignored, and so they swarmed back towards the temple.

They strained with all their might, breathless.

But to the eyes that had taken notice of this place, they were no more resilient than ants, nor any faster than snails.

They were simply… too slow.

*Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh!*

The dense, piercing cries that suddenly came from the horizon…

They were countless semi-transparent water arrows, gathered by some unseen force, converging upon Zuo Guanglie like a swarm of locusts.

Water element energy raged wildly throughout the area.

The semi-transparent rain of arrows formed an enormous funnel shape, blotting out half the sky!

This was a widely known and devastating spell of the Great Qin army, the Myriad Current Arrow Rain.

“They’ve come!”

Zuo Guanglie raised his head to gaze at the sky. The fierce winds whipped at his flame robes and long hair, and he lifted his right hand high. The wide sleeve of his scarlet robe slipped down, revealing an arm carved from jade.

It was fair and powerful.

A red sphere of light was born in the palm of his hand, and in the next instant, it radiated blinding brilliance in all directions.

It was as if Zuo Guanglie, single-handedly, had raised a sun!

This was a unique Daoist art he had created, and with it, at the age of fifteen, he had become renowned at the Yellow River Gathering.

Burning Sun!

Countless semi-transparent water arrows refracted the sunlight falling from the heavens, transforming it into a kaleidoscope of colors, only to be instantly dyed a deep crimson.

It was an incomparably savage, incomparably blazing fire-red.

With Zuo Guanglie’s right hand as its center, the sky within a hundred feet was enveloped in red, and the Myriad Current Arrow Rain vanished into nothing.

This scene was so magnificent that it was difficult for anyone to notice the faint ink traces at the edges of the painting.

Before the Burning Sun could fully spread, countless arrows had already slipped past, hurtling down to earth. The group of fleeing beggars fell one after another. Their bodies were riddled with countless holes.

They did not even have a chance to cry out before they died.

Life was so fragile.

“Indiscriminate killing… is this also part of your Dao?” Zuo Guanglie’s lips curled into a mocking smile, though it was unclear whom he was addressing. But the eyes, as brilliant as stars, gradually grew cold.

“Anyone who holds back when killing Zuo Guanglie is an utter fool.”

A cultivator wearing frost-patterned black robes descended from the sky.

He had a gaunt face and pale skin.

His narrow eyes were fixed intently on Zuo Guanglie. “Mere ants, even they occupy your thoughts?”

As he spoke,

A line of black-robed cultivators who had descended with him sealed off the four directions, manipulating their Daoist seals. Eighteen semi-transparent water snakes abruptly took shape, hissing and darting through the air, lunging towards Zuo Guanglie.

Their actions were astonishingly coordinated. From their appearance to their attack, not a moment was wasted.

These low-level spells, the Binding of the Water Serpent, were exceptionally fierce and ruthless under their masterful manipulation.

Zuo Guanglie’s expression did not change. With a pull of both hands, a blade of flame materialized in his grasp.

“Gongyang Bai!”

He casually brandished the fiery blade, leaping and spinning through the air, severing all the encroaching water snakes in half.

“Since you’ve even brought the Nine Fiend Obscuration Array, why waste our lives with these pointless Daoist arts!”

“Pointless? Do you still think…” Gongyang Bai spread his hands before him, then suddenly raised them upward with a forceful thrust, “Is this your game!?”

The severed bodies of the water snakes did not simply dissipate. Instead, they leaped back to life in the next instant, regrowing heads on their severed tails, and tails on their severed heads.

One became two, two became four…

This was a new variation of the Binding of the Water Serpent, and it could be said that it had given new life to this art, granting it a broader range of applications.

It had become the Labyrinth of Water Serpents.

*Hiss… hiss… hiss…*

The sounds were shrill and grating.

A dense mass of grotesque water snakes surrounded Zuo Guanglie, leaving not a single gap within sight.

But the chaotic hissing of the snakes could not drown out his clear, unwavering voice.

“Ying Wu dared to use the Nine Fiend Obscuration Array; I ought to die. But this broken-down temple doesn’t even have a name… How could this nameless place be worthy of burying me, Zuo Guanglie!?”

Flames suddenly erupted from Zuo Guanglie’s body.

They burned fiercely, raging and dancing.

The fire ignited everything it touched, spreading from a single point into a line, instantly engulfing everything.

At the age of seventeen, he had used this Art of Wildfire to incinerate thousands of demonic shadows, shaking the desolate borderlands!

The entire Labyrinth of Water Serpents was set ablaze, and countless water snakes struggled and hissed in the flames, transforming into vapor.

Amidst the swirling, screaming steam, Zuo Guanglie shot into the sky, his long hair flying wildly, his aura ferocious.

At that moment, a hawk’s cry suddenly shattered the air!

A giant black hawk swooped down from the heights, facing Zuo Guanglie directly. Its wings beat furiously.

Hundreds of iron feathers, carrying a multitude of bladed techniques, descended with a whistling roar. Each blade carried a different style, some fierce, some sinister, yet all were fused into one.

The blades descended like a torrential rain, hacking Zuo Guanglie back into the serpent’s lair.

This was the Mo Clan’s mechanical beast, the Bladed Feather Hawk.

On the hawk’s back, a barefoot man with a mask covering his face and a bronze chest strapped to his back stood against the wind, silent. Or rather, his words were already within the blades.

Supported by the Nine Fiend Obscuration Array, the myriad snakes grew wildly, constantly regenerating. The Art of Wildfire lost its endurance, slowly being extinguished.

Prolonged defense inevitably led to failure. Snakes continuously carved wounds into Zuo Guanglie’s body, drawing forth sprays of blood. Zuo Guanglie would only grunt, wielding his fiery blade to parry the snakes attacking his vital points.

The myriad snakes gnawed at his flesh, and the dark energy scoured his soul.

Such pain was beyond what ordinary people could endure.

But Zuo Guanglie formed a hand seal with one hand and wielded his blade with the other, showing no signs of hesitation.

His forehead was already bulging with veins!

Gongyang Bai clasped his hands together before him, and his long hair moved without wind. “Zuo Guanglie, surrender now, and you can still have a complete corpse sent back to your homeland!”

The temperature plummeted, and a layer of white frost condensed on his brow. The entire Labyrinth of Water Serpents froze into an icy sculpture.

This was the Gongyang family’s secret technique, known as the Glacial Dungeon.

Anyone trapped within this dungeon would exhale frost in one breath, their blood would freeze in two, and their flesh would stiffen in three.

The water snakes froze into ice snakes, and Zuo Guanglie was also covered in white frost.

Gongyang Bai silently watched all this. In the next moment, his blood would freeze.

But!

He suddenly heard the sound of a river raging, a torrent of fierce, tumultuous energy. It was Zuo Guanglie’s blood surging within him!

How could the great rivers and seas be frozen by winter’s frost!

The process of that violent blood surge seemed to explode with an ancient sound, a mix of pain and fervor —

“Boil! Blood! Burn! Soul!”

His flame robes burned, his long hair burned, his brows and eyes burned, his flesh and blood burned, and his soul… burned!

Body and will, life and soul, everything was burning.

Whether water serpent or glacial ice, all instantly shattered. Surrounded by the vaporous mist, Zuo Guanglie was bathed in fire.

He looked down at his hands, wreathed in raging flames, as if sensing the power of this forbidden imperial art.

Then, he abruptly looked up at the Bladed Feather Hawk in the sky!

At the moment their eyes met, the masked man decisively plummeted from the sky.

That precious Bladed Feather Hawk… was instantly reduced to ashes!

Zuo Guanglie twisted his hands together, and blossoms of flame bloomed in the air, instantly spreading into a sea of fire.

The raging flames scorched the heavens and the earth.

Even the fiendish clouds gathered high in the sky by the Nine Fiend Obscuration Array seemed to have become fuel for the fire!

This Art of Burning City Flames could be said to be Zuo Guanglie’s most brilliant creation. At the age of nineteen, he had used it to conquer a city in a single battle!

Flowers of flame, of ultimate beauty, and of ultimate power.

As he fell, the masked man spread his hands wide, each finger connected to a semi-transparent silk thread. The other ends of the threads reached into the bronze chest, and he yanked them out!

Puppet Flying Ravens!

His ten fingers danced like a weaver’s shuttle, and a dense swarm of puppet crows flew out of the bronze chest, charging toward the flame blossoms. Each puppet raven could extinguish a blossom of flame, but the flame blossoms seemed endless, while the puppet ravens were limited.

Ignoring the backlash from the shattering of the Glacial Dungeon, Gongyang Bai pressed his index finger against his chin and abruptly opened his mouth! A cloud of white mist poured forth, extinguishing the flame blossoms wherever it reached.

This was the Gongyang Clan’s secret bloodline art, Exhaling Frost.

The eighteen black-robed cultivators he had brought with him manipulated their hand seals accordingly.

The white mist that the flame blossoms and frost clashed against gathered in the sky, forming clouds.

Suddenly, a torrential downpour, whistling and tearing through the air, descended.

The eighteen cultivators combined their arts, forming this Barrage of Raindrops!

Flame blossoms, frost, and rain briefly coexisted in the sky, creating a scene of magnificent splendor.

Within this spectacle, the handsome man in flame-red robes suddenly roared toward the heavens: “Power of Utmost Flame, Burn the Sky, Boil the Sea, Blazing Ancestor Zhurong, Enter my being!”

Within his body, a spark of fire, distinct from all others, abruptly swelled.

That one expansion extinguished sound and color at once!

Gongyang Bai’s expression suddenly changed. “Where did he get the Zhurong Seed! How is it possible that he’s activating Zhurong’s True Body?”

“This is Zuo Guanglie…” The masked man sprouted a pair of mechanical iron wings from his back, hovering beside Gongyang Bai. His voice was heavy with dread. “The one who almost single-handedly broke through Hangu Pass!”

In the infinitely swelling fire Dao power, flames erupted from Zuo Guanglie’s seven orifices.

“Come! Mo Jingyu!”

“Gongyang Bai!”

With a casual wave of his hand, fiery dragons tore through the sky, forcing Gongyang Bai and the others to retreat.

“What noble families! What clans! What geniuses! Do you dare call yourselves that before me?!”

He seemed to have been driven mad by the Zhurong Seed, losing his reason, his emotions surging.

“The shame of family and the hatred of the nation, all the rivers and seas cannot wash them away!”

The River Valley battle had been lost, and he seemed to hear the cries of anguish from ten thousand families in the Chu Kingdom.

It was as if he saw his father, who had died in battle when he was fourteen, in the flames… as if he were saying something to him.

Saying… what?

Zuo Guanglie laughed, laughing until tears flowed down his face. But the tears were instantly scorched dry.

“My great head is here, who can sever it?!”

Behind him, the vague image of a majestic, supreme deity wielding a fiery dragon appeared.

He had finally burned away everything, merging into the fire.

“The only one who can kill my body is myself, and the only one who can ignite my soul is Zhurong!”

In his blazing red eyes, all emotion had finally been extinguished.

Only the coldest killing intent fell upon those who had surrounded him.

“Die!”

Mo Jingyu reached behind him, trying to fling open the bronze chest on his back, using his last means of survival. But his hand trembled uncontrollably, unable to muster even the slightest strength.

In his divine sense, there was no wilderness, no broken temple, not even a single person. There was only fire, only boundless waves of flame. The savage flames almost warped space itself, almost incinerated his thoughts as well.

Before such power, what difference was there between him and the beggars who had died earlier?

…

In the sky, a cold ray of light came from the west.

Just catching a glimpse of the scene, Gongyang Bai felt as if his eyes had been cut!

There was no time to investigate, for in the instant he saw it, that cold light had already appeared before Zuo Guanglie, slicing past him!

Zuo Guanglie’s roar came to an abrupt halt.

“Noisy.”

A young man in white robes suddenly appeared.

He had a face of utmost coldness, standing with his body turned away from the world.

He slowly sheathed his sword, his voice as calm as still water.

Zuo Guanglie’s head abruptly fell, rolling twice on the ground. But due to the activation of Boiling Blood Burning Soul, not a drop of blood could be sprayed.

Only then did the piercing, thunderous roar fill the air!

It was the sound of the white-robed man’s sword coming from the west, cleaving the sky!

…

Gongyang Bai and Mo Jingyu exchanged a glance, each seeing immense horror in the other’s eyes.

“Li Yi, I am under the orders of His Highness Ying Wu…”

But Gongyang Bai stopped speaking as soon as he said that, and he immediately picked up Zuo Guanglie’s head and turned to flee.

Because the white-robed man had already turned his gaze towards him.

His hair, his eyebrows, his eyes, even the corners of his lips, possessed a sword-like sharpness. But his gaze was so calm as to be almost gentle.

Yet within that gentleness was a chilling apathy that made one tremble.

Whether it was a genius inherited from the ancient Mo Clan or the descendant of a renowned family with countless heirs,

No one dared to ask why. No one dared to say another word.

…

Zuo Guanglie had died, but the Zhurong Fire Seed within him had not dissipated. It was still slowly expanding.

This power was fundamentally beyond the control of the spent Zuo Guanglie. He was merely a catalyst, a medium, using his genius and resolution to allow the great power of Zhurong’s True Body to be unleashed in this world for a brief moment.

The white-robed man produced a black token, watching silently.

The black token remained silent for a long time, before a domineering voice finally resounded — “Quits.”

As soon as the words were spoken, the token, made of extraordinary materials, seemed unable to bear the voice. It instantly shattered into countless black fragments, slipping through Li Yi’s fingers, falling with a rustling sound.

Only when all the Daoists had left, and the token in his hand had shattered, did Li Yi slightly tilt his head, looking at the expanding Zhurong Fire Seed.

He stretched out a slender, pale hand, his five fingers forming a pocket shape.

Only at this moment, when no one could possibly notice, did he reveal a trace of childlike innocence amidst his usual gentleness and apathy.

He softly called out, “Boom!”

The moment his five fingers opened was exactly when the Zhurong Seed exploded.

An invisible force restrained the explosion, preventing it from spreading, only blasting Zuo Guanglie’s corpse into countless pieces.

Crimson flame blossoms bloomed freely in the small space, shining brilliantly for a moment, encompassing all splendor in a single area.

This ultimate beauty was for him alone to enjoy.

Li Yi’s lips slightly curved upwards, but the smile vanished in an instant.

The fireworks were over.

He did not look at what was left of Zuo Guanglie’s corpse. Without the slightest bit of lingering sentiment, he soared away on a beam of sword light, vanishing in an instant.

…

From beginning to end, in this battle that had occurred outside the nameless, broken temple, no one had cast even a single glance inside.

To the powerful cultivators, the small Zhuang Kingdom was barely worthy of notice. To the three thousand miles of the Zhuang Kingdom, Maplewood City was as insignificant as a speck of dust. And even to the small Maplewood City itself, this dilapidated temple in the wilderness had long been forgotten.

But this ruined Daoist temple was not entirely empty.

There was a dying beggar child, teetering on the brink of death.

He had already prepared himself to die and was waiting for it. But he had not died yet, and he had “heard” this magnificent battle from beginning to end.

When the battle ended, everything fell silent.

He was either lucky, but the word “lucky” seemed so incongruous with him. His tattered clothes, his emaciated, sickly face, even his barely audible breathing, all defined misfortune.

But he was still alive, after all.

He thought about it, then struggled to roll over, falling out from under the offering table.

He gritted his teeth, using all his strength to stand up, staggering unsteadily.

He had stood up, after all.

From the front of the offering table to the outside of the temple, there were a total of one hundred and thirty-seven steps.

From the temple gate to Zuo Guanglie’s corpse, there were a total of three hundred and twenty-four steps.

The beggar silently counted the steps he took, constantly telling himself that he was almost there.

Almost there.

Every muscle in his body protested, trembled.

No one knew where he found the strength to keep moving forward.

His amazing perseverance had no audience.

Now he stood before Zuo Guanglie’s corpse, his arduous journey finally at its end — if that pile of minced meat could even be called a corpse.

Slowly, slowly, he squatted down. Squatting was too strenuous, so he simply sat down.

He was truly very sick. From amidst the grime that made it difficult to discern his features, one could still see a sickly pallor.

Even his hands were trembling.

Trembling as he groped through that pile of minced meat, groping.

Minced meat, minced meat, bone fragments, fragments of some broken metal, minced meat, finger bones, an unrecognizable half-piece of wooden bone…

A bottle!

Turning over a pile of flesh that could not be identified, he discovered this half of a jade bottle!

The mouth of the bottle had been completely blasted away, leaving only half the body of the bottle.

The beggar suppressed his heavy breathing, bringing the jade bottle close to his face.

He carefully removed a piece of minced meat that was plugging the neck of the bottle, looking down at the bottom of the bottle.

He saw the only thing left in the bottle, a small, round, jet-black pill. His breathing stopped.

He recognized it. It was the Opening Meridian Pill, the one he had yearned for day and night, the one he had obtained and then lost!