A cataclysmic boom echoed across the entirety of the Azure Sea, as Yun Kong, his face etched with grave concern, wove an intricate dance with his hands, forming mystical seals. At his command, the towering waves, once thirty thousand fathoms high, surged inward, compressing themselves into a swirling vortex a mere ten thousand fathoms in scale.

A flush of pallor crept onto Yun Kong’s face, the strain of such a feat weighing heavily upon him. As the sea coalesced, he raised his right hand, and a jade vial shimmered into existence. He crushed it, releasing a single drop of golden liquid.

Immediately, an ethereal aura, thick enough to almost solidify, suffused the air. Yun Kong inhaled deeply, then with a pointed finger, guided the droplet toward the swirling ocean around him.

“The Azure Sea is born of a celestial elixir, a secret known to many. Some have sought to refine the elixir within, but all have failed, lacking the essential catalyst!” Yun Kong murmured, a flicker of a smile playing on his lips. “This golden essence is that key,” he declared, revealing that it was a rare and precious substance sought by the Green Devil Isle for countless ages.

“This is an inseparable part of the elixir that birthed this sea. Only with this can the Azure Sea truly be formed. Otherwise, ten thousand fathoms is the limit!” He explained, the futility of others apparent, “Many have been forced to stop at this point, the sea dissolving, absorbing the waters of the Heavenly Pool, only to reform later.”

“But I, Yun Kong, will not fail! I have prepared meticulously for this moment!” He announced his ambition, “I shall personally condense the elixir, shattering the barrier of the Heavenly Bull. This feat will echo throughout the Immortal Firmament!” With a triumphant laugh, Yun Kong wove more seals. The sea surrounding him, now infused with the golden essence, began to churn violently, as if on the verge of boiling.

The vortex shrunk rapidly, breaking the ten thousand fathom barrier, plummeting to five thousand, then three, then a mere thousand!

“The smaller the condensation, the greater the elixir’s power! One thousand fathoms is not enough!” Yun Kong closed his eyes, a surge of overwhelming sword intent erupted from his being, engulfing the thousand-fathom vortex. He had fully merged his spirit with the Azure Sea, holding nothing back, completely immersed in the process.

Amidst the resounding booms, under the gaze of tens of thousands of onlookers, the thousand-fathom sea continued its relentless contraction, becoming eight hundred, then five, then three hundred!

And still, it continued, hurtling towards a mere hundred fathoms, the swirling sea becoming a blur, within which the nascent form of a half-formed elixir began to appear. This was the most critical stage, a moment where any disruption could shatter the process, with potentially catastrophic results.

This was why the Green Devil Isle had cleansed the Azure Sea, ensuring every possible precaution was taken before Yun Kong began his condensation. Unbeknownst to them, however, due to the restrictive nature of the formations, the presence of Wang Lin had gone undetected.

The formations, now under Wang Lin’s control, concealed his aura, rendering him invisible within its boundaries.

Success seemed imminent, but at that precise moment, in a patch of desiccated seaweed miles away, a dormant power exploded. It was Wang Lin, and with a determined stride, he took a single step forward.

He vanished in an instant, reappearing outside Yun Kong’s near-hundred-fathom sea.

Though his arrival was sudden, countless divine senses immediately converged on him. A handful of the tens of thousands of onlookers in the sky had noticed him, their faces contorted in shock, turning into streaks of light heading directly for Wang Lin.

But Wang Lin was faster. Appearing within a hundred fathoms of Yun Kong, he didn’t hesitate. His right hand snapped up, and a blood-red sword materialized, striking down upon the hundred-fathom sea!

“Stop!” Howls of fury and desperation echoed through the air, attempting to intimidate Wang Lin, to halt his actions. But Wang Lin’s will was not so easily swayed.

Yun Kong, his mind completely absorbed within the sea, could barely react. Wang Lin’s appearance was a sudden, calculated attack that perfectly exploited the critical moment.

Yet, Yun Kong was not one of the four great prodigies for nothing. As Wang Lin’s sword descended, he snapped his eyes open. Seeing Wang Lin, he didn’t even have time to register his shock. Instead, he bit the tip of his tongue, spitting out a mouthful of blood. At the same time, he frantically withdrew his spirit from the sea.

His blood transformed into a blade of crimson light, colliding head-on with Wang Lin’s blood-red sword. A thunderous explosion erupted, and blood trickled from Wang Lin’s lips as his sword recoiled.

Yun Kong’s face was ashen, as the sword formed of his blood shattered.

“It’s you!” Yun Kong snarled, his spirit withdrawing at a frantic pace. He was about to pull himself free from the sea. If he could just buy himself a few breaths, the streaks of light hurtling from the sky would arrive, and Wang Lin would be trapped.

But Wang Lin had waited for this moment. He planned everything meticulously, even accounting for the arrival of the cultivators in the sky!

With the formations under his control, Wang Lin prevented the others from merging with the formation, hindering their instantaneous arrival. They were forced to rely on flight, yet the Azure Sea’s formations shifted abruptly, transforming from a gate that could only be entered to a gate that could only be exited!

The formations plunged downward, precisely in front of the approaching cultivators. With a resounding crash, the cultivators were halted, forced to retreat. Their momentum, however, caused the formations to show signs of imminent collapse.

But Wang Lin didn’t intend to trap them, only to buy time. This delay would be enough!
As the Cloud-Sky god-sense was about to fully withdraw, Wang Lin reversed his blood-sword, and behind him materialized the true form of his Fire Essence. This fiery avatar seized the inverted blade and, with a surge of power, unleashed another cleaving strike!

With this second cut, a sea of fire erupted, its speed and timing perfectly orchestrated, a seamless continuation of Wang Lin’s earlier, broken assault. Though the first strike had failed, this second held the true venom of his intent!

The fiery blade screamed forth, and with a primal roar of fury that tore from Cloud-Sky’s very soul, it slammed into the hundred-foot vortex of seawater, piercing it clean through. The whirling water shuddered, ceasing its ceaseless spin.

From within the wounded vortex, a wave of annihilation emanated, a force capable of countless destructions, potent enough to obliterate all living things!

A fragment of Cloud-Sky’s divine sense still lingered within the seawater. As the hundred-foot vortex ruptured, he was instantly and grievously wounded, spitting forth blood. He retreated in a desperate, uncontrolled flight, abandoning all thought of Wang Lin and the water’s remains. Though he arrived as an avatar, the death of this fragment, the collapse of its sword-intent, would inflict a wound upon his true self that would be agonizingly slow to heal.

At that very moment, the hundreds of cultivators descending from the heavens, along with their tens of thousands of soldiers, felt their hearts seized in a vise. A wave of all-consuming destruction enveloped the world, ignoring the protective enchantments, spreading in every direction.

“The Immortal Pill is detonating!” A chorus of terrified cries ripped through the ranks. The thousands of warriors, driven to madness, scattered in a desperate, disorganized rout. They sought to meld with the formation and teleport away, but Wang Lin controlled the array, and none could escape.

Wang Lin whirled, and without hesitation, took a single stride toward the Sky-Ox Continent. Ripples shimmered as his form began to fade, on the cusp of vanishing.

But then, the ruptured hundred-foot vortex unleashed a cataclysmic roar that echoed across the Sky-Ox and Green-Fiend Continents. Under the force of the sound, countless cultivators vomited blood, their ears ringing with the echoes of the coming doom.

Cloud-Sky stumbled, a look of utter despair clouding his face.

“I will never forgive you!” he bellowed, as the hundred-foot vortex exploded, distorting the sky and shaking the earth. An unimaginable force of destruction surged outwards in every direction.

The Immortal Pill had detonated prematurely!

It was meant to explode near the Sky-Ox Continent, shattering its protective barriers and destabilizing the land, causing widespread collapse and untold devastation.

But now, the Immortal Pill detonated in the very heart of the pill-sea. The consequences would be shared not only by Sky-Ox, but also by Green-Fiend!

Cloud-Sky was too close. Despite his frantic attempts to flee, the wave of destruction engulfed him. His mighty sword-intent, once so formidable, was rendered utterly helpless against the annihilation. His defenses crumbled.

Wang Lin, already fading into the fabric of the world, felt the surge of destruction slam against his back, a ravenous maw seeking to devour all life. He vanished a breath before it could claim him.

The land itself cracked and heaved. In the wake of the destruction, the very earth disintegrated, revealing a void beneath, a starless abyss.

The cataclysmic force roared onwards, and in an instant, consumed the pill-sea. Then, with earth-shattering impact, it slammed into the landmasses of both Sky-Ox and Green-Fiend!

*BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!*

The entire Sky-Ox Continent shuddered. A sound like the shattering of glass echoed through the heavens as the protective barrier surrounding the Sky-Ox continent shattered. At the same moment, on Green-Fiend, the same disaster unfolded. The earth split, and mountains crumbled!

On Sky-Ox, a colossal phantom of a mighty Ox materialized, and bellowed silently in the direction of Green-Fiend.

In response, above Green-Fiend, an enormous, emerald scorpion, vast enough to encompass the entire continent, emerged, and unleashed a silent, piercing screech, a challenge to the ethereal Ox!