In the hidden chamber of the Lin, as eyes fluttered open, a sigh, soft as the whisper of the wind, echoed from the shrouded summit of the Ancient Dao Mountain, home of the ancient clan.

“Four hundred years… still,” the mist-veiled figure murmured.

Across the Celestial Continent, the lament of the Seventy-Two Spirits had faded after their desperate plea to the heavens, leaving a fragile peace. Yet, the Grand Empyrean Jiu Di, the sole guardian of this knowledge, felt a gnawing unease. Even in meditation, his gaze would lift, drawn to the heavens, reverence and longing etched upon his face.

His life’s desire was to ascend to the fabled realm beyond, a step he could never quite grasp. “The Ancient Dao Grand Empyrean, mightiest of the Celestial Gang, he must have walked that path! When will I…?” Silence fell over Jiu Di, his expression a tapestry of emotions as he sighed.

Upon the Emperor’s Mountain, Hai Zi, clad in white, stood at the peak. The mountain winds danced around her, swirling her garments, while a look of hesitant bewilderment veiled her face.

In her recent divinations, she had sensed a familiarity, a connection she dared not speak of to Jiu Di. Even she, herself, questioned if this sensation was merely a trick of the mind.

On the ancient lands of the Gu clan, outside the ancestral city of the First Ancient bloodline, Grand Empyrean Song Tian stood on the Primordial Mountain. His face was pale, his gaze fixed on the distant horizon, lost in contemplation.

“Master…?” A hesitant voice called from behind. It was Huang Man.

“Silence!” Song Tian snapped, without turning. He wanted no interruptions, only time to ponder the recent upheaval in the thirty-six commanderies of the Gu, and whether it was connected to Wang Lin’s seclusion.

Though logic dictated no connection, a sliver of doubt lingered. Should there be a link, he, Song Tian, would need to alter his plans.

“Enough, I will see for myself!” After a moment of contemplation, Song Tian’s eyes flashed with resolve. Raising his right hand, he pointed to the void. Instantly, a thunderous boom reverberated, the very energies of the cosmos swirling, causing the skies to darken. A colossal rift tore open in the heavens.

A monstrous head, entirely azure in hue, emerged from the fissure. Twin horns adorned its brow. It was an ancient demon! Swirls of black miasma enveloped the creature, and a guttural roar escaped its jaws as its massive claws gripped the edges of the rent, tearing it further open. The ancient demon pulled its gargantuan form through, its body stretching thousands of feet into the sky. It bellowed again, then kneeled before Song Tian.

Gazing upon the behemoth, Song Tian’s eyes glittered. With a flick of his left hand, a strand of verdant hair burst forth from his brow, shooting towards the demon’s forehead and vanishing within.

Song Tian settled into a meditative pose, his eyes closed. The ancient demon, however, lifted its head, its eyes blazing with an otherworldly light. A grim expression hardened its features. With a swift movement, it retreated into the rift, seizing the edges of the tear and sealing it shut.

As the ancient demon vanished, in the region of Luo Mian, Wang Lin released a deep breath, his eyes resolute. He focused on the energy coursing through him, and frowned after a long silence.

He couldn’t quite define his current cultivation. He had surpassed the Great Perfection of the Void Tribulant, yet he wasn’t a Grand Empyrean. Indeed, he felt as if the so-called Grand Empyrean realm was a half-step behind his own.

That half-step, though seemingly small, was a chasm difficult to traverse.

“The half-step towards the Transcendent realm, then…” Wang Lin massaged his temples and glanced at the soul of the Immortal Emperor, which he had been searing for over a century with his spiritual flame. The fist-sized cluster of cursed ash within had been resistant to his powers.

Now, with a flicker of his eyes, Wang Lin raised his right hand and seized the Immortal Emperor’s soul. The soul flew towards him, landing in his palm. As his hand closed, Wang Lin’s spiritual flames receded, leaving only the Immortal Emperor’s soul, eyes closed, trapped within.

Gazing at the soul, Wang Lin felt an odd sensation. He sensed that he could dispel the curse within the Immortal Emperor with little effort.

This was partially because the curse had already been weakened and diluted by Jiu Di and the others, as well as the century long refining by Wang Lin. But even with this, Wang Lin had previously needed to burn the soul for another century before the curse could be dispersed.

With a peculiar look in his eyes, Wang Lin extended his left index finger, piercing the Immortal Emperor’s soul and touching the swirling ashen mass.

“Disperse,” Wang Lin spoke softly.

At that single word, the hidden chamber twisted around him. Seemingly countless ethereal threads materialized, dancing in the air and converging on Wang Lin’s left index finger, then surging into the ashen mass within the Immortal Emperor’s soul.

The ashen mass shuddered, disintegrating at a visible pace, until it vanished entirely.

So easily had he dispelled the remnant of the Ancient Immortal’s curse. Bright light flashed within Wang Lin’s eyes. The Immortal Emperor’s soul, free of the curse, shuddered, as if about to open its eyes.

Wang Lin did not move. He watched as the soul of the Immortal Emperor Lian Daozhen opened its eyes, revealing a fleeting moment of confusion before hardening into venomous hatred.

“Wang Lin!!” A thread of spiritual consciousness surged into Wang Lin’s mind. Yet, to Wang Lin, this whisper of thought was insignificant.

Seeing that Wang Lin was unfazed, the Immortal Emperor Lian Daozhen paused. In that instant, Wang Lin clenched his right hand around the soul.

A surge of overwhelming power erupted within, and with a final *crack*, the soul of the Immortal Emperor Lian Daozhen died. His soul dissolved into a mist, on the verge of disappearing. But Wang Lin’s eyes flashed, and his left hand reached into the void. A colossal head materialized in the world beyond the secret room.

It was the head of the Ancient Immortal, a golden light expanding outwards, stirring the heavens and diffusing the scent of immortality throughout the area.
“Soul as tether, blend!” Wang Lin intoned, his voice a low rumble that echoed through the hallowed chamber. With a flick of his silken sleeve, the spectral mists, essence of the fallen Celestial Emperor Lian Daozhen, coalesced into seven shimmering strands. They pierced the veil of the hidden sanctuary, soaring towards the colossal skull of the Celestial Ancestor that loomed in the heavens.

Seven tendrils of ethereal vapor, drawn to the skull’s seven vacant orifices!

Wang Lin surged to his feet, a figure renewed, and for the first time in a century, stepped forth from the secluded chamber, into the open expanse beneath the skull. He raised his hands, a sweeping gesture towards the celestial dome.

Behind the gargantuan head, a sun of immense proportion materialized. Its essence was one of Yin and Yang, black and white intertwined, a mere outline devoid of the substance possessed by a true Grand Empyrean’s sun.

“My past cultivation lacked the strength for this endeavor,” Wang Lin muttered, “but now, I am capable. With Lian Daozhen’s soul as the catalyst, I shall dissolve the Celestial Ancestor’s skull, forging it within my own Grand Empyrean Sun. Thus, my sun shall be made whole!” His eyes flashed with determination as his fingers danced, weaving arcane signs. Emerald light cascaded upon the Ancestor’s skull, and as the seven soul-strands penetrated its hollow sockets, the skull trembled.

The sky above grew murky, a palpable pressure descended, encompassing the realms below. Even from afar, its weight was distinctly felt.

As Wang Lin tirelessly wove his spells, the skull vibrated with increasing intensity. Fissures, fine as spider silk, began to form, eventually enveloping the entire bone structure, yet it neither shattered nor melted.

Silent and resolute, Wang Lin abruptly opened his mouth and exhaled a breath of verdant flame. The ethereal fire consumed the skull, and at long last, the ancient relic began to liquefy.

In that instant of dissolution, Wang Lin’s black and white Grand Empyrean Sun engulfed the skull, unleashing a blinding surge of light, hungrily absorbing the essence.

However, the melting progressed with agonizing slowness, and as time stretched on, seemed to falter entirely.

“He who walked across the eighth bridge of the Heavens, the Celestial Ancestor… even his skull, so long deceased, proves such a formidable object to refine…” Wang Lin murmured. He had pondered the identity of the being powerful enough to slay such an entity, yet found no answers.

“Still, it is but a head.” Wang Lin’s right hand clenched in the void, and the clouded heavens shuddered. Countless invisible strands manifested, imperceptible to all but those who had attained the realm of Grand Empyrean, and even then, only faintly sensed. To manipulate them, however, was an art only those who had taken that fateful step, walked the first bridge towards the Heavens, could master as Wang Lin now did.

“No wonder the legends speak of the Ancient Way Grand Empyrean slaying others of his kind, and of the deaths of many Grand Empyreans at his hand, millennia ago…”

This power to control the very laws of creation made the slaying of even a Grand Empyrean, a feat of relative ease! “The Celestial Ancestor traversed the eighth bridge; his skull, integrated into my Grand Empyrean Sun, will become a weapon of unimaginable potency, a tool unlike any other!”

Just then, the tranquility was shattered. A thunderous roar echoed from the heavens, a league distant. A colossal rift tore through the sky, spewing forth plumes of dark energy, and from the void emerged the head of a mighty Ancient Demon, followed by its towering body.

But as the demon fully materialized, a flicker of confusion crossed its features. Within the demon’s core resided the remnants of Song Tian’s divine sense, which vaguely sensed the strange phenomenon unfolding here. Suddenly, its expression twisted in alarm. It saw Wang Lin, oblivious to its presence, clenching the air with his right hand, as if grasping countless unseen threads. With a mighty pull, he hurled them towards the Celestial Ancestor’s skull, then bit his tongue, spewing a torrent of blood which mingled with the invisible strands, falling upon the skull.

In that fateful instant, the skull roared, succumbing to rapid liquefaction, devoured by Wang Lin’s Grand Empyrean Sun. As the Yin and Yang energy solidified, a third color emerged, a vibrant, radiant gold!

“Control over the rules of Heaven and Earth! This… this…” the demon shrieked in disbelief.