Bereft of nurturing, and with no time to contemplate it, he sought not the slow cultivation, but the explosive force of the Void Gates. He craved the soaring ascension that followed the power of a Great Adept!

Now, with a mere thought, he could absorb the Gate’s energies and become a Void-Nirvana cultivator of the third step, mid-stage. Yet, such a meager advancement he would spurn, for it would grant him only two essences.

Then, with a touch, a roar of fury echoed from the collapsing Void Gate, a vortex of star-stuff. It spun with impossible speed, and from its heart, a third Void Gate materialized!

But no sooner had it appeared than a fourth gate burst forth behind it!

And beyond the fourth, a fifth gate shimmered into existence!

Three Void Gates hung in the heavens, a spectacle to instill terror. The surrounding ten thousand cultivators were paralyzed, gripped by a primal fear.

“Three Void Gates!” a voice cried.

“What… what is he doing? Assaulting the Void Gates, a trial that even the Third Step Great Adepts struggle to face… he…”

“Even the Five Primordial Sovereigns of the Outer Realm have never achieved this… God Sealer… God Sealer…” another voice quaked.

But Wang Lin, calm amidst the storm, watched the endless Void Gates and took a step forward. A comet streaking through the heavens, he flew toward them under the gazes of thousands.

“Karma…” With outstretched hand, he reached the third Void Gate. His palm settled upon its ancient surface.

“Fate…” His voice resonated, carrying the weight of destiny.

“Chance…”

The Karma Seal, born from seventy years of dream-walking, the fifth arcane art of his life.

As the final syllable echoed, his palm pressed fully against the third Void Gate. With eyes blazing, his fingers curled inward, sinking into the very fabric of the Gate. He grasped, not stone or wood, but the essence of karma itself.

With a mighty roar, he yanked his fist back, dragging with it a twisted phantom of the Gate.

A thunderous crack echoed as fissures spider-webbed across the Gate’s surface, erupting into countless fragments.

The Third Void Gate shattered!

As the remnants dissipated, Wang Lin’s laughter filled the cosmos. The power of karma swirled around him, and his aura swelled, catapulting him from mid-stage Void-Nirvana to the late stage!

Never before, in the annals of cultivation, had a Third Step Adept shattered a Void Gate and soared to such heights.

Without hesitation, he moved through the dissipating fragments of the third gate and planted both hands upon the fourth.

“The Seal of Life and Death!”

From his left hand, a surge of white energy swept into the Gate, claiming half of its essence. Simultaneously, a storm of black energy erupted from his right, twisting and colliding with the white, causing the Gate to shudder violently.

As the words of his seal echoed, Wang Lin’s expression remained calm, his eyes shining with an ancient arrogance. He wrenched his hands apart with a thunderous growl.

“Open!”

His hands pulsed with the forces of creation and destruction, and with a final surge, the fourth Void Gate crumbled, and the Fourth Void Gate shattered!

His aura exploded once more. From late-stage Void-Nirvana, he reached the pinnacle, the very cusp of Void-Nirvana mastery!

Upon his brow, a faint fissure began to appear, a darkness that hinted at another realm.

This was the mark of the Voidspirit, a realm of incense, where their souls grew and they became worshipped as gods!

Wang Lin, however, had conquered the gates through his own strength, without incense. The fissure was not a realm of incense, but a potential within himself. Even without incense, he could force others to worship him, though his cultivation was yet too weak to do so.

With a mighty laugh, he swept aside the remnants of the broken gates and faced the Fifth Void Gate! This gate, more solid than any before, stood like a true barrier in the heavens. Wang Lin did not raise his hands, but instead, met it with a gaze of unparalleled intensity. Then, he closed his eyes.

With his eyes shut, the world faded into illusion. Only his will and heart remained true.

Then, Wang Lin snapped his eyes open, and in that instant, illusion became reality. This was the power of the Essence of Truth and Illusion, the Way he had found!

The Fifth Void Gate stood firm, but Wang Lin closed his eyes again, raised his hand, and brushed it forward. A simple gesture, like sweeping away dust, yet to the tens of thousands of cultivators, to Zhou Jin, to the cyan-robed man, to the False God Sovereign, to Situ Nan and Nan Yunzi…The fifth Empyrean Gate twisted violently, dissolving like dust motes in a sunbeam at Wang Lin’s dismissive wave. It crumbled into nothingness before him, another barrier fallen.

Five Empyrean Gates he had shattered, each a victory resonating within him. With the dissolution of the fifth, a nascent fissure at his brow fully manifested, a gateway brimming with boundless arcane force. It threatened to consume even the starry expanse itself.

From Wang Lin’s form erupted an aura of formidable power, a nascent manifestation of the Empyrean Soul realm. Had he been content, he could have absorbed the residual energies of the gates and ascended. Yet Wang Lin yearned for more. Five ancestral forces were but a prelude. He still possessed the gift of Qing Shui – a sixth!

The nascent Slaughter Origin, newly awakened within him, would be the key to unlocking the sixth Empyrean Gate.

The sight of it all – the causal demolition, the mortal rending of space, the illusory gesture – paralyzed the surrounding cultivators. A wave of terror rippled through their ranks.

A scream shattered the silence, and a panicked retreat began. One by one, the Outer Realm cultivators turned and fled, driven by an all-consuming fear. Wang Lin’s casual destruction of the gates defied their understanding, filling them with unspeakable dread.

The first gate, brought down by a tempest of thunder, was understandable. The second, consumed by infernal flames, was acceptable. But the third, fourth, and fifth – shattered with a mere gesture, a press of the hand, a wave of the arm – shattered their understanding of reality. The final gate, vanishing after a mere blink, defied all comprehension.

Even the green-robed man, a cultivator of the Empyrean Mystery realm, retreated in haste. Though advanced in his cultivation, he was but an initiate. Wang Lin’s swift annihilation of the three gates unveiled a truth he could no longer ignore.

“Cause and effect, life and death, truth and illusion!” he muttered, his voice laced with fear. “He has grasped the ethereal origins! This one… this one is untouchable!”

Origins could be tangible, like fire and lightning, or ephemeral, like cause and effect. To comprehend such intangible forces was a feat of immense difficulty.

“The sixth Origin: Slaughter,” Wang Lin intoned, his voice calm, yet filled with a chilling promise of death. As his words echoed, crimson snowflakes materialized from the void, blanketing the starfield in a chilling, silent snowfall.

And then, the sixth Empyrean Gate materialized.

Unlike the others, this gate was formed of bone, a macabre archway built from skulls. It appeared not as a gate, but as the maw of a colossal skull, its presence emanating a terrifying power. Ripples of energy spread through the starfield, aging those they touched.

Nearly ten thousand cultivators perished in the wake of the gate’s arrival, their bodies crumbling into dust, their lives extinguished without a sound.

“The Gate of Myriad Bones!” Of all those present, only Nan Yunzi and Voidgod Celestial recognized it. Even the green-robed man had never seen or heard of such a thing.

“This… this gate… this bone gate… could it be the legendary Gate of Myriad Bones?” Voidgod Celestial’s face was ashen, his eyes wide with terror.

“The Immortal Consort once said that the Gate of Myriad Bones was a sign from her homeland,” Nan Yunzi whispered, his voice trembling. “In her realm, it was exceedingly rare, but those who drew it forth were destined for greatness, provided they did not meet an early demise.”

“The previous Sealed Paragon spoke of it,” Nan Yunzi continued, his voice barely audible. “He declared that those who could summon this gate in the Third Step were destined for an unimaginable future. He said that such a bone gate was not of the Domain, but a sign of heaven from his homeland!”