Amidst the cataclysm that rent the heavens and shattered the earth, Wang Lin remained kneeling, as if the very destruction unfolding before him was but a fleeting distraction. The thunderous roars echoed ceaselessly, yet failed to pierce his grief. At long last, he lifted his gaze, tears still clinging to his face, but his eyes now blazed with an unnerving clarity.

“This is the Realm of Seven Hues…” he whispered, his voice a low, resonant tremor. “You forced me to remember the pain of ages past. For this transgression, you shall pay the ultimate price!” Though his words were soft, each syllable crackled with a boundless killing intent, a promise of vengeance that shook the very foundations of reality.

As his pronouncement echoed, the surrounding world convulsed with renewed fury. The sky tore asunder, its azure splendor replaced by the oppressive, kaleidoscopic hues of the Seven-Colored Heaven. The earth trembled and crumbled, collapsing into a wasteland of ash and ruin, a desolate monument to the Realm of Seven Hues’ demise.

Before Wang Lin, the white-haired elder stood, his chest stained crimson with his own lifeblood. More blood trickled from the corners of his mouth, his eyes vacant, consumed by disbelief and terror. In truth, as he had woven his arcane arts, a glimpse of the Celestial Jewel within Wang Lin’s memories had shattered his power, snuffing out his vitality. The shock reverberated through him like a million thunderbolts, filling him with an unfathomable dread.

And then, as his magic unravelled, he had witnessed the genesis of Wang Lin’s Extreme Essence. He coughed forth blood, his body weakening. He was lost. This duel had become a clash between art and essence, between magic and the Celestial Jewel – a battle he was predestined to lose.

The moment Wang Lin’s vengeful words cut through the chaos, he sprang forward, a lightning bolt unleashed. His fingers, sharpened into a sword-like point, struck the elder’s brow with blinding speed. A single, fatal thrust.

The elder’s body shuddered violently, his skull shattering. Yet Wang Lin did not relent. He struck again, and again, six times in quick succession!

The resounding blows echoed across the ravaged landscape. The elder’s arms disintegrated into a shower of blood and bone, his legs collapsed, and in the blink of an eye, his body exploded in a crimson mist.

From within the crimson cloud, the elder’s spirit shrieked, encircled by a desperate, flickering halo of seven colors as it fled into the distance.

Driven by a relentless fury, Wang Lin gave chase. With each stride, he slashed out with his right hand. Each strike caused the fleeing halo of colors to tremble violently, and the desperate cries of the spirit within grew fainter.

He hadn’t felt such a consuming rage, such a burning need for vengeance in centuries. Anyone who dared to dredge up the memories of his past had earned his wrath, and was destined to face the most dire of consequences.

As Wang Lin pursued, the elder’s spirit, encased in its protective aura, darted towards a distant mountain peak, the heart of the Realm of Seven Hues. Desperation echoed in his mind.

“Venerable One, save me!! Venerable One, save me!!”

“Cease your flight!” Wang Lin roared, his eyes ablaze with madness. With a flick of his wrist, he halted the elder’s desperate escape, the halo of colors momentarily stilled. In that fleeting instant, Wang Lin plunged forward, his fingers piercing the rainbow aura, directly striking the white-haired elder’s spirit.

With a thunderous boom, the elder’s spirit was nearly obliterated. Yet, he was a formidable late-stage Shattered Nirvana cultivator, and despite the grievous wound, he did not perish. Instead, he writhed in agony, fleeing with renewed, desperate haste.

Wang Lin raised his head and howled to the heavens, his left eye erupting in blue flames. Upon it, the forbidden rune trembled and appeared, but with a mighty push, the flames shattered the celestial seal!

The seal broken, Wang Lin’s form was engulfed in a sea of fire. He thrust his hand forward, and the inferno surged towards the elder’s spirit, ensnaring it in its fiery embrace.

Another scream rent the air as the halo of seven colors surrounding the elder withered. Speed was of no consequence. The distance between them was dwindling!

Suddenly, the brand of lightning within Wang Lin’s right eye pulsed. This too had a celestial seal, but it held for a moment before breaking. A surge of pure, untamed lightning erupted in a dazzling, chaotic torrent. The heavens roared, and at Wang Lin’s command, the lightning crashed towards the elder’s spirit!

The heavens broke under this power, as the three colors left on the elder’s protection broke, leaving him vulnerable to the flames and the thunder! “No!! Venerable one, save me!!” The elder cried, in the final moments of fear!

He got to the peak of the mountain, but too late! Wang Lin’s final burst of speed engulfed the elder’s soul in blue flames!

From afar, the elder’s spirit could no longer be seen, only blue flames. The heavens converged every bit of lightning, directly into the flames that trapped the elder’s soul!

Then, the flames came together with one big strike!

This had all taken only a few seconds, it was too fast to believe!

That was when the flames came to one singular point! And with the thunder surrounding it, the two circles of doom had merged into one! With that merge, the heavens shook!

A piercing scream was the last sound to be heard, as a blue pillar of flame soared up, piercing the sky. In that pillar, the lightning moved freely, to make a lightning pillar of doom!
Within the Seven-Colored Realm, Chen Tianjun’s ears rang with a deafening cacophony, a thunderous roar that shook his very being. His frame trembled, his soul quaked, and a chilling dread, intertwined with awe, permeated his every fiber, refusing to dissipate. He stood, dumbstruck, gazing towards a distant horizon where a pillar of celestial lightning and infernal fire pierced the heavens, his mouth as dry as parchment, his face drained of all color.

“To shatter a Nirvanic Ascension cultivator so utterly… surely, his name shall echo through the Cloud Sea Starfield, a legend etched in starlight. To witness his prowess at such a moment, I, Chen Tianjun, am truly honored!”

Farther off, a wizened crone in azure robes stood, her face devoid of blood, her gaze fixed upon the towering pyre. In her eyes, a profound and chilling fear took root. With her own cultivation, she had sensed the unfolding battle with horrifying clarity. She knew, with chilling certainty, that against either of those combatants, she would have faced utter annihilation.

Her heart hammered in her chest, a cold sweat breaking out across her brow as the realization of her past actions crashed down upon her. To have even contemplated animosity against such a being… A mortal’s fragile grasp on life was never more apparent.

“I must hasten to forge a bond with this warrior, to mend the rift of our past encounter. To make an enemy of such power would be to banish myself from the Cloud Sea Starfield forever! Thankfully, the clash was not deep, no true enmity took root…” The crone drew a deep, shuddering breath, her resolution hardening like tempered steel.

Even further distant, Yun Hunzi wore a mask of bitter dismay. He, too, had felt the tremors of the celestial battle, and his heart now writhed in a tumult of emotions, laced with a growing terror. This dread, it seemed, would consume him, a wildfire burning through his very soul.

“He… how could he possess such might?!” Yun Hunzi wrestled with disbelief, a chilling fear now a constant companion. Since his arrival in this valley, he had endured a reign of fear, each day fraught with peril. He had cursed Wang Lin’s name, vowing to tear him apart, limb from limb.

But now, having sensed the raw power unleashed in that clash, he could not reconcile the man he knew with this avatar of destruction. After a protracted silence, Yun Hunzi’s lips twisted into a ghastly smile, his eyes blazing with a desperate, fevered light.

“He will never let me live. Yet, his battle with the Nirvanic Ascension master must have left him grievously wounded. Perhaps, I am not without hope! If he were to recover his strength, I would surely perish within this Seven-Colored Realm. But if I were to strike now, while he is weak, a desperate gamble, perhaps I could prevail!”

“To slay this man, the treasures of the Seven-Colored Realm would be mine!” A sudden and desperate ambition seized Yun Hunzi’s heart. Before entering this realm, he had possessed the confidence to defeat Wang Lin, but now, even facing a wounded foe, a terror gripped him, akin to a mortal man attempting to slay a god.

This change spoke volumes of the subconscious fear that Wang Lin now inspired. With a fierce, grinding of his teeth, Yun Hunzi lurched forward, driven by a mix of terror and a desperate, maddening hope.

The pillar of incandescent fire and lightning subsided, slowly yielding to the silent aftermath. Within its heart, the soul of the white-haired master faded into oblivion, his existence utterly erased. To his dying breath, he had cried out for his ‘Honored One,’ but the silent heavens offered only cold indifference.

Gazing towards the distant peak, Wang Lin paused, lost in contemplation. As the final echoes of the celestial battle faded, a chorus of mournful cries drifted from the mountain’s summit, a symphony of despair.

The tortured wails echoed of a dying defiance, a last, desperate roar against the inevitable. Yet, in the end, even such defiance could not escape the cold embrace of fate.

Dimly, Wang Lin sensed the War Mark within him stirring, pulsating with an undeniable excitement. It seemed, upon that mountain, lay something that resonated deeply within his very soul. After a long moment, Wang Lin broke the stillness, his footsteps echoing in the eerie silence.

His pace was slow, deliberate, as he began to ascend the peak, until finally, he stood before the gaping maw of a dark cave, its entrance perched at the highest point of the Seven-Colored Realm. From this vantage, the entire realm stretched before him, bathed in the eerie, iridescent light.

From the depths of the cave, the agonizing cries became deafening, as if countless souls writhed in unbearable torment within.

Across the vast expanse of the Starry Sky, within the Ancient Star Domain, within a grand, echoing hall adrift amongst the celestial spheres, the flickering candles cast dancing shadows. Within, an ancient, withered hand slowly retracted.

“The crucible is heated… but this fire is not yet ready for Soul-Sewing… for it has not yet fully boiled the essence of the soul…” A timeworn voice echoed from beyond the flickering candlelight.

“The death of a falsified Sealing Realm being… are you not curious as to the cause of his demise?” A cold, imperious voice cut through the stillness.

“Why should I ponder… after the Soul-Sewing is complete, I shall know all. This way, it becomes… more interesting. Uncertainty is the most exquisite flavor in this mortal coil… and patient waiting, the most timeless sensation in all creation. So, let the flames… dance.”