Upon the Celestial Steppe, Xu Decai streaked across the heavens like a vengeful comet, his trajectory aimed towards the tainted wastes beyond. His face was a mask of bitter resentment. The battle with Wang Lin had cost him his Celestial Mandate, a wound that festered deep within his soul. This Mandate, inextricably linked to his very being, had been devoured, leaving him grievously harmed.

Now, his spiritual essence lay withered and weakened, a state from which he would not swiftly recover.

“Wang Lin,” he hissed, the name a venomous curse upon his lips, “this time, there is no escape! With two Void Tribulation elders on your heels, I shall see how far you flee! And Elder Zhang has promised me, upon your capture, I shall be granted the privilege of your torment for days unending. I shall ensure your fate is one of eternal suffering, a fate where you beg for death yet find no release!”

His hatred for Wang Lin was a festering wound, born from the theft of his Mandate. The deeper the ache of loss, the more profound his loathing grew.

As he flew, his senses suddenly sharpened. He whirled about, facing the distant horizon. In that fleeting instant, he had felt a ripple in the void, a tremor that spoke of presence.

Focusing his gaze, he saw Wang Lin materialize from the emptiness itself, altering his course in a desperate attempt to escape. Xu Decai witnessed the man’s fleeting expression of alarm as he realized he had been seen. Wang Lin’s speed surged, his feet leaving trails of shimmering displacement, clearly employing some arcane method to vanish from this realm.

“Wang Lin! He was not ahead, but here all along!” Xu Decai roared, momentarily stunned. Seeing the man’s rapid departure, the ease with which he could seemingly slip between worlds, Xu Decai wasted no time. He surged forward, a furious tide in pursuit.

“You stray from the beaten path only to stumble into my sight, Wang Lin. This is your misfortune, your doom!” Xu Decai sneered, hurtling across the steppe, closing the distance with terrifying speed. His every fiber was focused upon Wang Lin, his spiritual senses scouring the surrounding landscape for any sign of trickery. Finding none, he relaxed, assured of his impending victory.

But as he crossed the span of a thousand paces, his form flickered, then vanished as if swallowed by an invisible rift in the fabric of reality.

In the instant of his disappearance, Wang Lin flickered into view, swiftly approaching the very spot where Xu Decai had been. Then, he too vanished. Only amongst the coarse grasses remained a single, unremarkable space stone, hidden by the tenacious growth and obscured by the ever-present mud.

Xu Decai was gone.

At the edge of the Celestial Steppe, the lone female cultivator of Early Void Tribulation stage, who had been seated in meditative vigil, controlling the enchanted compass, felt her blood run cold. Her eyes widened as she stared at the compass before her, a primal fear seizing her very being.

The light that represented Xu Decai had winked out, extinguished as if it had never been.

“This…this cannot be!” The woman’s face turned ashen, disbelief etched upon her features. Without hesitation, she relayed the dire news in a coded message to the three Void Tribulation cultivators then roaming the Celestial Steppe.

Elder Zhang and Elder Zhao of the Greenplume Continent, their faces twisted with frustration, flew like twin bolts of emerald lightning. They had been chasing the phantom signal of the misleading compass, only to realize they had been thoroughly deceived. A bitter rage choked them, with no vent in sight.

Their flight was abruptly halted as the coded message reached them.

“Xu Decai, who was following behind, has vanished!” Elder Zhang exclaimed, his face a mask of furious disbelief.

“It is Wang Lin, undoubtedly! He has shed his skin like a viper, luring us with that compass while he lay in wait within the steppes, plotting Xu Decai’s demise!” Elder Zhao snarled, his eyes blazing with murderous intent.

As these two grasped the extent of the betrayal, dawn broke upon the Celestial Steppe, its light spreading across the land. Yet the rain continued its relentless downpour, unabated and ever growing.

From the rain-soaked earth rose a tendril of mist, black as the abyss. In moments, it surged upwards, an all-consuming tide that blotted out the sky and enveloped the entire Celestial Steppe.

The two Elders, Zhang and Zhao, whirled about, sensing the gathering dread. A palpable pressure emanated from the encroaching mist, a silent promise of violence to come.

The lone female cultivator, still some distance away, also halted her flight, her face a canvas of growing horror. The coded message, with its grim tidings of Xu Decai’s fate, had reached her even as she watched the encroaching darkness.

At the same instant, the ground beneath her exhaled streams of black fog. This quickly spread up and out till it has engulfed the entire heaven and earth. A chorus of terrifying howls now came from the fog.

Within the swirling darkness, the cultivators of the Earth Palace, led by the cunning Lu Wenran, launched their second assault!

The three Void Tribulation cultivators, all tried to escape the fog. However, Lu Wenran’s sinister voice echoed within.

“My friends, why the sudden departure?” As the words faded, the Earth Palace cultivators emerged from the darkness, joining battle. The lone female cultivator, who had been sitting and manipulating the compass, suddenly opened her eyes. Without any hesitation, she quickly waved her sleeves, leading thousands of Greenplume Continent cultivators, turning into thousands of streams of light and quickly fleeing forward.

As the second battle on the Celestial Steppe unfolded, within the mud and grasses a common stone that drew no notice contained countless different dimensions. At this very moment, within one of these dimensions, a battle of Void Tribulation was about to unfold.

Xu Decai had fallen into the space stone and into a space set by Wang Lin. In the instant of his arrival, Xu Decai knew he had fallen into the other party’s trap.

However, his cultivation was profound. He did not show a moment of panic but looked around at his surroundings. What he saw was a blue sky with a golden sun. But the earth was full of the aura of death. In the distance was a flaming volcano. In another direction was an ocean of thunder and lightning.

In the blue heavens, rolling dark clouds dropped black snowflakes. No one knew how long these snowflakes had fallen. Layer after layer of snow covered the land.

“Wang Lin, show yourself! Why are you hiding in this place?” Xu Decai shouted, his voice booming across the dimension.
The instant his pronouncements echoed, Wang Lin’s form shimmered through a wave of distortion, materializing thousands of fathoms before Xu Decai. His white hair, unbound, danced around him, and he was clad in newly donned white robes, his gaze a glacial chill fixed upon his foe.

“Your arts are swift, I grant you that,” Wang Lin stated, his eyes gleaming. “But here, let us discover which of us truly commands speed!”

“Causality…”

The word itself sent tremors through the very fabric of space. A sword materialized, gleaming with ethereal light, embodying the essence of Wang Lin’s mastery over cause and effect.

Almost simultaneously, Xu Decai, without a moment’s hesitation, wove intricate hand seals. Millions of sigils erupted, coalescing into a crimson mist, from which keening wails echoed – the tormented cries of countless vengeful spirits. These apparitions, hundreds upon thousands, surged forward, a terrifying tide aimed directly at Wang Lin.

Xu Decai retreated, his left hand rising to form another seal. With a flick of his wrist, nearly seven million more sigils exploded into being, shaking the heavens. A spear of shimmering light coalesced, instantly twisting, contorting into a colossal serpent, its forked tongue flickering, its roar a chilling symphony of rage as it lunged forward.

Again, Xu Decai took three steps backward, both hands rising in preparation for his next conjuration. His speed was renowned, yet, for the first time, he found himself outpaced by Wang Lin.

As the second of Xu Decai’s arts was unleashed, the sword born of Wang Lin’s Essence of Life and Death howled into existence. And as the third began to form, the blade forged from Wang Lin’s Essence of Truth and Illusion materialized an instant before its time!

That single, fleeting instant was paramount.

The Sword of Causality struck the advancing phantoms with blinding speed, its power severing the very threads of their existence. Ethereal screams tore through the air as the vengeful spirits dissolved into nothingness.

At the same moment, the Sword of Life and Death hurtled forward, striking the serpent conjured by Xu Decai’s power.

The serpent emitted a dying roar as it shattered, the Sword of Life and Death shattering with it in a concordant blaze.

Yet the blade that embodied Truth and Illusion blazed onward with unimaginable speed. Xu Decai had not yet completed his third conjuration!

The sword flashed, hurtling toward Xu Decai’s chest. His face contorted in alarm as he desperately retreated, throwing the nascent art before him as a shield. Truth and Illusion clashed against the incomplete spell.

A deafening roar echoed as the illusory blade shattered. Xu Decai staggered, his face ashen, his right hand rising to weave another seal.

But Wang Lin would grant him no such respite. He had fought to disrupt the flow of his foe’s power, to set this deadly stage. He would not fail to seize the opportunity to uncover the secret of Xu Decai’s unnatural speed.

As Xu Decai staggered back, Wang Lin’s face twisted into a mask of savage determination. He raised his right hand, pointing forward.

“Essence of Fire!”

At his command, the distant Flaming Mountain erupted, instantly teleporting to envelop Xu Decai in a cage of burning earth. Within its fiery heart, Wang Lin’s Essence Body materialized, creating an attack of devastating potency.

“Essence of Thunder!” Wang Lin roared, relentlessly pressing his advantage. The fiery cage surrounding Xu Decai shifted again, teleporting to the heart of a tempestuous Thunder Sea, plunging into its roiling depths.

The heavens cracked with thunderous blows as the lightning lashed the fiery prison. Fire and lightning collided in a cataclysmic dance.

“Essence of Water!” With a flick of his sleeve, Wang Lin bit his tongue, spitting forth a mouthful of blood. This realm possessed no water, it was incomplete. But Wang Lin used his own lifeblood to conjure the Essence, transforming the crimson spittle into a crimson mist that streamed toward the thunderous, fiery maelstrom. As it descended, the fire collapsed inward, and the Thunder Sea erupted with renewed ferocity.

The merging of the three Essences birthed a wave of annihilation. In that instant, the three vanished swords of False Essences reformed, hurtling toward Xu Decai once more.