Swoosh… 

At almost the same time, a pair of eyes opened in awe.

“What happened to me?” Moonless stared at his hands, lost in thought. He seemed to experience a great dream, even his mind hazy and indistinct.

“Where is this place?” He took a step forward and looked all around in doubt. Over a dozen tall stone buddhas stood in his vicinity, and each one held a person in their palm. However, everyone else was sleeping and only he had awakened.

He did a quick scan, but surprisingly discovered that one person was missing!

Xu Yangyi had vanished!

Regardless, he wasn’t permitted more time to his thoughts. In the next second, he violently clutched at his head. Numerous thoughts rushed into his brain, as if… someone was taking another’s thoughts and life, and stuffing them into his mind.

But at the same time… his realm unexpectedly fell with great speed! In less than ten minutes, he had become initial-stage Foundation Establishment! Furthermore, his cultivation was continuing to decline!

“ARGH!!!” He was no longer able to contain himself, rearing his head back and screaming. His mind seemed to be torn apart, and agonizing pain, such pain that originated from the depths of his soul, forced him let out a blood-curdling screech.

“Fang…” His gaze was somewhat red, and he stiffly went through the different memories in his mind. “Fang… Fang Cheng? Who… Who is this?”

He couldn’t see, but at this moment, an incredibly sacred rune was slowly brightening where his heart was.

“Something… is calling me?” He pressed down on his skull that was threatening to crack open, and stared down. “Down there… underneath… something’s just opened…”

Meanwhile, in deep space, everything was nearly warping. There only existed a thick iron chain floating within. The entire space was like a kaleidoscope laid flat, ceaselessly whirling.

And in this endless space… a massive figure was forging ahead at lightning speed! Its form resembled a tadpole’s, giant mouths covered its entire body, and it had hundreds of red eyes!

Plumes of black mist curled around its body, and creaking sounds occasionally rang out. The mist hit its skin like lightning, and the sound of metal echoed uninterruptedly. Rippling breadths of blue light were reflected.

“Huh?!” All of a sudden, the tadpole’s countless eyes stared fixedly above. “Someone’s arrived… It’s Wolfbane… He can actually enter the second level?”

“I… have to speed up… The Dream Walker… cannot fall into anyone else’s hands!”

“It can only be mine… This Throne… All of it belongs to me, Horseplague! Because… we, ourselves, are one body in the same!”

[1]

In kind, in another identical space, yet it was vertical, a three-eyed spirit ape-puppet was plummeting down.

Its speed was fast. Due to high-speed friction, endless fire was generated, and along with these flames… rays of golden light were released from the puppet’s entire body! Oddly though, the single golden hair on its head began to gradually petrify in the wake of this golden light.

“I really didn’t expect it…” the Realm Spirit’s voice was rueful, “Only a carrier medium can take me in… I only needed him to bring me… I didn’t expect that he would actually obtain Enihilus’s recognition…”

“The second door’s been open… How many years has it been? No one can enter the second level… even I don't know what's there… Where is the Dream Walker’s body…? This time, two Foundation Establishment cultivators surprisingly made it in…”

“No!” The puppet’s eyes saucered wide, and it said doubtfully, “I still feel… another Foundation Establishment… His mass… is around 200 meters in size?”

“Am I mistaken? He’s actually in the second level, too? How did he get in? This is impossible, who else knows the way to enter the second level besides me? Fellow Daoist Wolfbane gained Enihilus’s approval… so what about him?! How did he get in?! Who is he?!”

After ages, the puppet took a deep breath as if it was human and closed it eyes. “There’s something else… something ominous… something very old… that somehow managed to get mixed in…”

…...

Swoosh. 

With a following haze, Xu Yangyi appeared in nothingness. Even though his protective qi cover promptly activated, he took in everything in front of him vigilantly.

This space was warping… 

A black hole appeared to be in the middle. From his position, he could see a vast number of stone fragments slowly drifting around. Although they moved slowly, their course was unswerving, and they migrated towards the center in a curve.

Blackness. Deep darkness. However, there was nothing.

In the endless dark, an infinitely long and coarse chain was fluttering through space. It had no beginning and no end, as if it had no origin or conclusion, like it was established in this space for eternity.

However, he didn’t see this limitless chain. Instead, he cast his senses, and a flash of ecstasy quickly bubbled up on his face!

The Clearcloud Realm’s rules… had been broken!!!

“Now’s the time…” He didn’t hesitate for a second, and closed his eyes shut. A sensation he hadn’t felt for a long time, the feeling of the body and qi uniting as one, spontaneously arose.

Swoosh! 

At the top of his head, a pillar of golden light surged up, as if it was bridge linking heaven and man. All of his long-silent spiritual force came to a loud boil!

Swoosh… Swoosh… 

Azure qi swelled in his meridians, qi that he had restrained for ten years. The lid had been opened, and the billowing feeling caused him to feel some apprehension.

At once, his spiritual sense dove into his qi sea. In the past, his spiritual sense was shaped like a misty human, but only now did it coalesce into a human-shaped figure of sparkling golden light.

In the instant his spiritual sense gathered, he felt a few different things.

The spiritual force within him was suddenly empty. Afterwards, his entire qi sea began to surge. In front of him, a transparent but incredibly simple-feeling barrier formed!

“This… is the Foundation Establishment bodily limiter.” Xu Yangyi gazed at the barrier facing him. After Qi Condensation, the Foundation Establishment limiter became harder and harder to break through. Using his eyes, he could see that the wall lacked any fanciness. Once he used his spiritual sense to observe it, though, he immediately discovered there were runes scrawled over it!

It was a wall of invisible runes!

“Then I’ll just have to see if the Foundation Establishment limiter can stop me!”

As Rocjourney came, he saw that Xu Yangyi was sitting cross-legged in the void, and that the demon slayer’s body was glimmering with vast azure light.

“This… is a breakthrough?” Rocjourney fell into a sudden daze. Previously, he’d felt that Xu Yangyi wasn’t too far from middle Foundation Establishment, but he’d never expected that the other would actually break through here.

But in the next moment, fury rushed out from his stomach in a breath. He stomped forward a couple steps with rounded eyes, but came to a stop.

“He actually dares break through?! He actually dares break through here?! Who gave him the courage? Is breaking through the bodily limiter so easy?! Advancing a minor boundary now… If this idiot takes more than a day… How could I keep him company here for a day!”

“It takes me a full five days to advance! Even if his talents are greater, it’ll still take that long! Unless he can break the limiter in one attack! A day… Each second is extremely precious right now!!! He might want to die, but I don’t!”

His anger had come so intensely, to the extent that his eyes were somewhat reddened. With life and death in the balance, Xu Yangyi had actually still chosen to break through! Regardless, it would be good if Xu Yangyi could swiftly break through. It would be another fraction of a card against the terrible monster that was coming, but… while Qi Condensation could break the bodily limiter very quickly, Foundation Establishment… He practically wanted to grab Xu Yangyi by the throat and shake him awake!

Nonetheless, he didn’t dare.

The power of Xu Yangyi’s move before was absolute. Disturbing Xu Yangyi as he broke through was equal to seeding mortal hatred. He could only glare daggers at the other with red eyes. His knuckles cracked as he clenched his fists.

“You better pray you can break through in a day… or else…” he gnashed his teeth and said, “Even if there’s mortal hatred between us, I’ll definitely block you! You don’t consider the time or place… If the Dream Walker wakes up, I’ll rip you to shreds even if I have to risk my several centuries of cultivation, you idiot! I’ll use your skull to offer sacrifices to my banner!!!”

However, before his voice even fell, a sharp crack suddenly came from Xu Yangyi’s body. It was like glass had been crushed.

In the next moment, spiritual light exploded out from his body like a tsunami, quickly sprinkling through the neighboring air!

Whish!

 Rocjourney looked over straightaway, and his eyes snapped wide open. He quickly changed from a seated posture to a standing position, looking at Xu Yangyi in disbelief.

“ONE hit to break the limiter!!!” After three seconds of silence, Rocjourney’s voice, so intense that it warbled somewhat, instantly resounded through space!

“He broke the middle-stage Foundation Establishment limiter in one hit?!” He looked on in amazement at the glass shard-like motes of spiritual light that erupted all around Xu Yangyi. At this moment, within the vast dark space, a rain of spiritual light appeared to sprinkle in front of Xu Yangyi, shining upon Rocjourney’s wide eyes and ajar mouth.

His head seemed to become a machine, stiffly looking at the floating dots of light in the vicinity. Tentatively, he extended his hand. “This… How is this possible… How is this possible?!?!”

A day?

No… 

Only a minute!

The dots of spiritual lights that his fingertips touched quickly dissipated in his hand. At the same time, a powerful spiritual pressure far stronger than before rumbled out of Xu Yangyi’s body!

Rocjourney foolishly looked at the figure seated in the air. Without the slightest omen, admiration, jealousy, disbelief, ecstasy, and various complex feelings rushed up to his heart with a bang. In the shroud of spiritual light dots that spread several dozen meters through the air, he didn’t know what to say.

Inside, Xu Yangyi also looked at the shattered limiter with a little shock. His surprise wasn’t that he had broken the limiter in one strike, since that was how he always acted, all the way back initial Qi Condensation. Although the Foundation Establishment bodily limiter was difficult, perhaps the reason was because he practiced A Thousand Li Invincible. Still, he hadn’t reached the stage that could block him yet, and even bring him to use a pill for limiter breaking.

His surprise stemmed from the fact that after he broke the limiter… all the qi in his qi sea wildly spun and turned into a giant azure funnel!

The funnel reached for the sky and touched the earth. Winds and clouds were stirred, and like a man in the wilderness, he saw a cyclone holding up the heavens!

This azure cyclone gradually ascended. Followingly, all the mist above his head began to slowly revolve, as if something was gathering in the middle.

Little by little, the originally white mist turned azure in color until a ripple and an azure man-sized water drop emerged in the central cloud cave. The droplet swayed in the air for a few seconds and then dripped into his body in the wake of a sweet-sounding jingle. 

Swish… 

Without warning, an expanse of gentle azure light brightened from down below. Even the misty qi all around trembled, and afterwards… it surprisingly began to slowly liquefy!

1. “Horseplague”, the way this is presented makes me think it is a Daoist title.

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