Chapter 263: Fighting for Survival
"It actually..." Yaoguang held the Dao Artifact that had evolved from the Void-Splitting Disk. With a casual gesture, he drew it in, and the massive disk rapidly contracted, shrinking from a diameter of ten thousand meters down to the size of his palm in moments.
"It really is a spirit treasure built entirely by stacking top-tier materials..." His expression turned complicated.
He had originally intended for this supreme spirit treasure to evolve into a Dao Artifact capable of threatening Heavenly Venerable Jiang, who had formed an Azure Golden Core. Yet instead...
The nature of its materials had made it unsuitable for killing. Rather than becoming a weapon, it had transformed into a Dao Artifact designed for traversing the void, something even cultivators below the Void-Piercing Realm could use.
With such properties, calling it the Void-Splitting Disk was no longer appropriate. It should have been called the Void Disk.
More importantly, this Dao Artifact wasn't only useful to open wormholes for void traversal, but also contained its own internal space.
Though not vast, it still reached half the scale of the artifact’s full form. A diameter of five kilometers.
"Even if it’s not a combat-oriented Dao Artifact, with its ability to traverse the void... At the very least, it can allow me to take those around me... even the core members of the Nine Cauldrons Sect, and leave the Great Cangwu World." As he spoke, something strange flickered across his face.
What they were planning now could not be called leaving. It was fleeing.
Before Heavenly Venerable Jiang had even arrived, the mere authority he commanded because of his Azure Golden Core had already forced them into a hasty retreat.
Such an outcome was humiliating. But as Li Qingshan had said, as long as the foundation remained, there would always be a future.
With that thought, Yaoguang split off a strand of psychic thought and said directly, "There’s no need to scatter everyone into smaller groups. I have a way to distort the void and traverse it to leave the Great Cangwu World. Contact the core members and see how many are willing to leave with us."
After a brief pause, he sighed. "The Nine Cauldrons Sect is thriving right now. Asking them to abandon their homeland isn’t a decision everyone can make. Don’t force it. Since we all originate from the Artifact Sect lineage, Heavenly Venerable Jiang may not necessarily wipe them out completely."
While Li Qingshan had been arranging personnel, he suddenly received this message and froze.
"Distort the void?!" The next moment, uncontrollable joy surged into his eyes. "The same kind of void distortion used by Void-Piercing Realm experts? Void traversal?!"
"Yes." Yaoguang nodded slightly.
"Alright," Li Qingshan answered firmly.
He looked at Yaoguang. "The Nine Cauldrons Sect has reached its current state largely because of you, Yaoguang. I believe no one will truly forget that. Besides, the Nine Cauldrons Sect is the Nine Cauldrons Sect, and the Artifact Sect is the Artifact Sect. They are fundamentally different. Once Heavenly Venerable Jiang arrives, the only outcome for the Nine Cauldrons Sect will be dissolution, reverting back to the old Artifact Sect model..."
"At least they’ll survive," Yaoguang replied calmly. "Heavenly Venerable Jiang is extraordinarily talented. If the Nine Cauldrons Sect becomes the Artifact Sect again, the others may not suffer too much."
"It’s different. At least for core members like us, it’s completely different. And I believe Heavenly Venerable Jiang’s talent may be great, but yours is no less—" Li Qingshan said.
Li Qingshan quickly corrected himself. "No! In my view, your talent surpasses his. The only reason your Fission Realm at forty years old appears inferior to his Azure Golden Core at over ninety is that you’ve been constrained by your environment. If you had gone to the North Sea Star and cultivated in that resource-rich environment, I believe you would have already formed a Radiant Sun Golden Core by now. And within another decade or so, even reaching the Azure Golden Core wouldn’t be out of reach!"
"You flatter me," Yaoguang replied.
If he had truly been given unlimited resources, with his current comprehension, even the Void-Piercing Realm might have been within reach.
But who knew what the North Sea Star was actually like, or what level its resources truly were? If resources were abundant but far harder to obtain, then reaching the Azure Golden Core Realm might still take him decades.
"I’ll inform the others," Yaoguang said.
"Alright. I’ll convene a meeting and prepare the supplies needed for evacuation before the other factions can react," Li Qingshan replied.
The two exchanged a few more words before acting swiftly.
However, before they could spread the message to everyone, a blazing radiance suddenly erupted in the heavens above, originating from the palace where Li Hanqiu resided. It shone like a second sun, flooding the sky with light and heat across tens of millions of kilometers.
At the very center of that light, a terrifying devouring force emerged.
That force twisted the void itself. The fluctuations it emitted far surpassed those from Yaoguang’s newly evolved Dao Artifact, instantly alarming every Golden Core cultivator above the nine heavens.
Even Yaoguang, who was within the star, was no exception.
"It’s Perfected Master Li’s palace!" Yaoguang exclaimed.
Without hesitation, he abandoned directing Lin Xia, Leng Jun, Su Yaoyu, and Su Yaoxue and soared into outer space, ascending above the nine heavens.
Beyond the world, Li Hanqiu’s palace had completely vanished. In its place stood a colossal fireball over five hundred thousand kilometers in diameter.
The energy radiating from it was enough to make any observer’s mind tremble.
By the time Yaoguang arrived, the Radiant Sun Golden Core experts of the major top sects had already gathered.
But every one of them wore grim expressions.
Many stared at the massive fireball with fury in their eyes.
"Has Li Hanqiu gone mad?! He’s fully releasing his Golden Core, trying to collapse it into a black hole?!"
"The success rate for a Radiant Sun Golden Core collapsing into a black hole is less than one percent! And if he fails, the explosion of his Golden Core will wreak catastrophic damage on the entire Great Cangwu World! Is he trying to drag the whole world down with him?!"
"Nine Cauldrons Sect, what exactly are you trying to do!?"
The Golden Core cultivators erupted in anger.
Some, upon seeing Yaoguang arrive, even directed harsh accusations at him.
This time, however, Yaoguang showed no restraint and snapped back coldly, "Are you blind? Can’t you see that Perfected Master Li is attempting to break through to the Void-Piercing Realm!?"
"You—" The cultivator was about to retort, but someone beside him pulled him back.
"Can’t you see what’s happening? Heavenly Venerable Jiang has already arrived. He knows what happened in the Yaoguang World and is likely heading straight for the Great Cangwu World. Once he arrives, the Nine Cauldrons Sect will face certain destruction. In such a situation, Li Hanqiu has no choice but to stake everything on that less than one percent chance to break through to the Void-Piercing Realm. If he succeeds, even Heavenly Venerable Jiang will be forced to treat him with caution, and the sect may still have a sliver of hope. If he fails... then whether Heavenly Venerable Jiang comes or not makes no difference."
The speaker’s tone turned complicated. "Li Hanqiu has indeed gone mad, but without this, neither he nor the Nine Cauldrons Sect would survive."
Another Golden Core cultivator added, "Let’s wait. Wait to see if a miracle happens to Li Hanqiu... and wait for Heavenly Venerable Jiang’s true body to arrive."
The surrounding Golden Core cultivators nodded.
Although they very much wanted to seize Yaoguang and the Nine Cauldrons Sect immediately, they clearly understood one thing.
Li Hanqiu was already risking his life to break through to the Void-Piercing Realm. If they attacked Yaoguang now, even if they won, they would inevitably pay in blood, perhaps even their lives.
Before Heavenly Venerable Jiang had even arrived or offered them any promises, throwing their lives away like this would have been utterly foolish.
If they wanted to risk their lives in service, they at least needed to do so in a way that would be seen by those in power.
The Void-Piercing Realm... Yaoguang stood outside Li Hanqiu’s palace, his thoughts racing.
He searched for any possible way to help Li Hanqiu survive this tribulation.
After a moment, something came to him. The Dao Artifact! The Void Disk in his possession!
If Li Hanqiu could receive the support of this Dao Artifact, then even if it did not greatly increase his chances of breaking through to the Void-Piercing Realm, it would at least raise them by a few percent.
But if he handed over this newly refined Dao Artifact to Li Hanqiu, then, should Heavenly Venerable Jiang arrive at this very moment, he would completely lose any chance of escaping the Great Cangwu World.
At that instant, Yaoguang’s heart wavered. Yet after only a brief struggle, he made his decision.
He did not know when Heavenly Venerable Jiang would arrive, nor what kind of destruction he would bring once he arrived.
But he knew one thing. If he did not give the Void Disk to Li Hanqiu now, then this Radiant Sun Golden Core expert who had protected the Nine Cauldrons Sect for a hundred years would surely die.
Compared to what had not yet happened, grasping the present mattered more.
With that thought, Yaoguang directly threw the Void Disk in his hand, sending it into Li Hanqiu’s transformed Golden Core, which had already expanded to a terrifying, star-like sphere over five hundred thousand kilometers in diameter.
As the Void Disk entered, the Golden Core trembled violently. Soon after, the devouring force emanating from within grew even more ferocious and immense, and the distortion of space intensified to the point of affecting all of the Great Cangwu World.
***
Time passed. Three days, five days, ten days...
Li Hanqiu’s breakthrough continued without pause.
The terrifying devouring force grew stronger and stronger, and the spatial distortion became increasingly pronounced.
This change gradually made the expressions of the Golden Core cultivators, who had once been furious and eager to grind Li Hanqiu to dust, shift to astonishment.
According to the records of the major immortal sects, the signs now appearing on Li Hanqiu were strikingly similar to those of a successful breakthrough.
This left them utterly incredulous.
A probability of less than one percent, and Li Hanqiu has actually succeeded?! How is that possible?!
Just as the Golden Core cultivators wavered in shock, feeling that Li Hanqiu’s condition was becoming more and more like a true Void-Piercing Realm breakthrough, at the outer reaches of the Great Cangwu World, a vast wave of void fluctuations spread outward. This fluctuation was even more refined and profound than the spatial distortion surrounding Li Hanqiu.
It was as if the calm starry sky had suddenly warped and collapsed, sending ripples outward...
Before those ripples could fully spread, the distorted space abruptly returned to calm. But within that restored void, two figures had appeared.
One was a tall man clad in a purple robe, with silver hair and the appearance of someone in his thirties. At the center of his brow was an azure crystal.
The other stood half a step behind him, an old man whose mere aura distorted the surrounding space.
Stationed at the outer reaches of the Great Cangwu World, constantly observing for disturbances, Lin Deng, Feng Ao, Luo Fu, and Ye Lisha quickly detected the anomaly and saw the two figures appear in the starry space.
The moment they saw the tall man in purple, having already received his portrait from Susan and the others, the four Dharma Form experts were instantly shaken. Each of them inhaled sharply.
"Heavenly Venerable Jiang!"
"He’s here."
"He didn’t use a Starry Sky Vessel, nor did he recalibrate the Star Gate... He directly arrived by forcibly distorting space and traversing it?!"
As the four Dharma Form experts urgently notified the Golden Core cultivators of their respective factions to come and receive them, their gazes could not help but shift toward Li Hanqiu, whose breakthrough to the Void-Piercing Realm was nearing completion.
Even though they could not bring themselves to believe that Li Hanqiu had truly succeeded in overcoming that less-than-one-percent chance, the reality stood before them.
And now Heavenly Venerable Jiang had arrived. As for the one beside him...
"Hmm?! That Void-Piercing Realm expert accompanying Heavenly Venerable Jiang... That’s Wan Liugui!"
"The only Void-Piercing Realm expert of the Artifact Sect... That makes sense. Heavenly Venerable Jiang returned to the Great Cangwu World to honor his ancestors and rebuild the Artifact Sect. Bringing a Void-Piercing Realm protector is reasonable. But if I remember correctly, Wan Liugui... is Li Hanqiu’s master, and their relationship is extremely close!"
"Li Hanqiu risked everything and is about to succeed in breaking through to the Void-Piercing Realm... and the one escorting Heavenly Venerable Jiang is his own master! This..."
"Oh no! I feel like something huge is about to happen!"
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