At the same time, a saber only visible to cultivators fell down from the sky with a rumble! The starry glint of the Big Dipper’s seven stars had converged into a simple longblade. There was no adornment whatsoever. It was simple, yet rough.

However, the killing aura congealed on this longblade… caused all vegetation around the volcanic lake to wither and die in an instant. It was an aura that brought all living things to servitude. 

The course of these events wasn’t slow, but rather completed in the blink of an eye. The blade carried a brilliant heavenly might. Under its slash, the plants on the ground shriveled wherever it approached. Afterwards, like a drop of blackness piercing the water surface, it swiftly extended over the entire Old Black Mountain from the beginning of the volcanic lake’s surroundings!

With one blade, all things rebelled in life and death. The blade didn’t appear to be fast, but in the last second it emerged, it was ruthlessly hacking down on the thousand-meter protective shield in the next!

Swoosh!

 Xu Yangyi tightly shut his eyes, leaving merely a sliver open.

A heavenly god seemed to have descended at this very moment! Great winds and spiritual pressure caused his spiritual sense to feel as if it was dissipating!

BANG!

 The surface of the heart-shaking, protective shield melted like snow. It didn’t even obstruct the blade by a hair, utterly shattered! 

CRASH!

 Difficult to calculate in tonnage, the lakewater fell into the volcanic lake again and brought forth a torrential rain that filled the sky!

“This is a battle of cultivators!” Xu Yangyi sucked in deeply, using his fastest speed to fall back to a crack in the mountain wall. Each movement in the outside world affected his heart.

With one turn of a hand, clouds were born and rains summoned. Mountains collapsed and oceans seethed! So long as a cultivator followed the Dao with heart and soul, who wouldn’t be in great admiration because of this scenery?

Swoosh!

 In the following second, a furious roar shook the heavens, but the falling lakewater carried with it an even greater amount of noxious blood!

Xu Yangyi clenched his teeth and went at full speed, shooting a glance outside. The sky was the same as always. Nothing appeared to have occurred, but the mist over the lake had completely dispersed, the pond brimming with bloody-redness!

A body, so enormously terrifying, was lying in the pool. It resembled a crocodile, and its lower and upper jaws were of equal length. The inside of its mouth was teeming with sharp teeth that were a few meters long. It didn’t have four limbs, but instead four fin-like appendages. Its entire body was covered with bluish-black scales, and it had a fish-like tail. Merely...

Its head wasn’t on its body! Rather… the head and body were rendered into two separate pieces! The large eyes in its skull bulged wide, unclosed even in death and containing grievances. As this strange creature slowly sunk into the water, it caused the lake to brim with blood.

No one could speak. Xu Yangyi tightly clenched his fists, stifling the shock in his heart. The breathing of God Ming and the three old men was rushed, their faces flushed red.

The moment the hare reared its head, the falcon swooped down for the hunt! In the blink of an eye... Daomaster Jadewave’s unexpected corpse was in the lake! 

“This is…” After several minutes, Xu Yangyi regained his bearings and said with a heavy voice, “A Mosasaurus?”

[1]

A creature extinct since the Cretaceous period of the Mesozoic era! An absolute overlord in the water!

“A Mosasaurus?!” From his position, God Ming simply dared not believe his eyes. “Jadewave… its true form… was actually a Mosasaurus?! The Mosasaurus that’s been extinct for several million years? A thousand years ago, this lost species still truly existed?”

This

 was a true, strange species of prehistoric times! Yet such a lost, ancient species had been slain by the fall of the heavens’ seven-star blade! A millennium Dao foundation, a dynasty’s complete destruction!

No one present could speak. The distance was unknown and the location was a mystery, but separated by myriad mountains and vast waters, this strike had been delivered… Someone had beheaded this thousand-year-old Mosasaurus, just like that!

Even Daomaster Jadewave’s resistance had become a move worthy of ridicule. It couldn’t even say a word as it had been beheaded under that blade! The event had lasted no longer than a twinkling!

What kind of divine ability was this?! What was its realm?

At this moment, Xu Yangyi simply didn’t think over it, and rushed towards the volcanic lake with full power, layered with both Life Sacrification and Flying Star! 

But at almost the same time, God Ming’s gaze flickered. In the next second, his speed increased explosively, and he charged towards the volcanic lake, like a streaking meteor!

The two of them had instantly raised their speeds to the max! At the same time, the only thing in their eyes was each other. The fierce battle intent harbored in their gazes wasn’t concealed at all!

In front of them was an entire demon body that had reached the Core Formation. The skin, flesh, blood, special parts, and so on were all treasures! However, the most important was the demon core! This was the demon core of a Core Formation demon that had just died! The origin crystal of a lost, ancient species! This… was its second life!

When this demon core was equipped, the worry of qi exhaustion would cease to be. The result could be well imagined if both sides were lanterns burning down to their final embers, and one side activated the infinite energy mechanism that was the Core Formation demon core. How would this battle method even be combated?

To have such an item… even late Foundation Establishment to the limit of the Great Circle would be provoked to some consideration! But granted that it couldn’t be absorbed, the core could still be detonated. The explosion of a Core Formation origin crystal was explanatory in its terror!

None would permit it and none could allow it! In a flash, the atmosphere arrived at a burning-white intensity!

“SCRAM!!!!” God Ming shouted angrily, his white head moving freely of the wind! It swiftly extended over a hundred meters, reminiscent to how a spider spat out silk. Eyes bloodshot, he stormed forward and brought with him a strong gale!

In the wake of his furious howl, his twenty-plus puppets that had been rendered immobile by the deceased Daomaster Jadewave rattled again with a crack. In several seconds, as if pulled on by a thread, they arced towards Xu Yangyi like lightning! 

“Mongrel!” God Ming was on the edge of his toes; what arcane effort did this lowly cur cultivate? His speed was actually THIS fast?!

With the layered combo of Life Sacrification and Flying Star, Xu Yangyi’s speed wasn’t one bit slower than God Ming’s! The target was likewise evident—the heart within Jadewave’s body, the location of the demon core!

Whoever had killed Jadewave, or why they had slain the demon was currently unimportant. What was important was this great opportunity; no one was willing to relinquish it!

The one to seize this thousand-year-old demon core first… would be the person who was able to take the initiative to snatch it! That person’s opponent… was doomed to die here! 

God Ming and Xu Yangyi came to a simultaneous halt. Their gazes shifted away from their surroundings for the first time, looking all around vigilantly.

Crack… Crack…

 A sound just like breaking glass could be faintly heard from all around. At the beginning, it was still rather gentle, but in less than a minute it immediately resonated through the entire area!

Crack crack crack crack…

 The space between heaven and earth seemed to become this sound.

Xu Yangyi inhaled deeply. Immediately, he went into a half-crouch, like a stalking cheetah waiting to pounce with every fiber of its strength. He realized that this… was the seal that Daomaster Jadewave had set up beforehand, so outsiders couldn’t see!

Following Daomaster Jadewave’s demise, this seal was on the verge of turning into scattered ash in the wind. In other words, everything here would be seen very clearly by everyone!

And yet… what of it?! Displaying power and might before the masses? With the corpse of a Core Formation Greater Demon ahead and the origin crystal before him… to act fearfully here about the slightest thing, caught between hesitation and indecision… was not his style!

If all of you are going to watch, then look! I’ll let all of you ordinary people see the other side of this world! Today, I, Xu Yangyi, am the leading actor!

All of a sudden, Jadewave’s corpse flared with countless rays of white qi. The amount was vast like mountains and seas, and nebulous like fog and mist. Wafting in the wind, all of this qi flew to the sky! It seemed to be a dirge between heaven and earth!

Xu Yangyi penetrated through the fluttering qi that filled the sky. His gaze unblinking, he looked across at God Ming, whose lips were tightly shut and also half-crouched on the ground. God Ming’s several hundred meters of hair frenzied like a silver serpent. 

God Ming was also glaring daggers at him. Neither side was willing to yield an inch, at polar ends with each other! 

Crack crack crack… BANG!

 Now, the seal collapsed with a rumble! As for the qi that filled the sky, it shockingly formed a giant spirit flower that was no less than several hundred meters in the air!

Boooom!

 In the next second, all that was visible in the world was light. This was because the qi explosion... had given birth to spiritual light that veiled the horizon! Breadth after breadth, harmonious and magnificent, the light stunned one’s heart. A full several hundred meters in size, it erupted at the summit of Old Black Mountain!

But at this instant, countless eyes suddenly opened in China! They looked incredulously towards the direction of the Four Great Joint Pools! In a villa, there was an approximately ten-year-old youth who wearing a suit and leisurely sampling wine. A roughly sixteen-year-old young girl was massaging his temples.

He seemed young, but his expression and eyes appeared to have weathered many countless moons. These features were like old, lonely wells, serene and without ripple. Sudden, his hand shivered, and his goblet rolled onto the floor and spun. The red liquid in the cup spilled over him!

“A Red Spider Lily blooms… A Core Formation cultivator has fallen?!” In the next second, he was already on the balcony outside the room, looking towards the direction of the Four Great Joint Pools, in disbelief!

“A Core Formation cultivator has met their end?” Meanwhile, on a mountain that had stood for numerous years in Guifang Province, there was a coffin that had hung here for several hundred years. As the giant spirit flower completely exploded at the Four Great Joint Pools, a cracking noise rang out from the suspended coffin, and a pale, corpse-like hand lifted the cover. Dazed, an emaciated, old man dressed in the garment of a Qing dynasty official sat up in shock and looked towards the direction of the Four Great Joint Pools.

[2]

“Heaven Eye!” At the same time, at the bottom of the river where Shanghai’s Sootharkener Palace was, a several-meter-wide maelstrom took shape from water. A one-meter-sized eye astonishingly appeared and looked towards the direction of the Four Great Joint Pools.

Normal people wouldn’t be able to sense it, but those who were at late Foundation Establishment and above all could! That in the sky… like a wave, wave after wave of raging, frantic qi fluctuations were spreading! It was like the stormy battering of waves on the shore, scouring China’s lands!

They could also see… that in the direction of the Four Great Joint Pools, white qi converged into an alabaster flower. Right now, the unfolding petals seemed to remind everyone that there was a Core Formation master who had passed on into immortality!

“This… is Senior Jadewave?” a woman standing on a balcony stuttered in shock.

“As expected, he stepped into the Core Formation realm… but he’s actually died now?” In Xichuan Province, there was a beautiful girl wearing an evening gown, her hand holding a goblet trembling incessantly.

[3]

“He was the oldest-living one at Core Formation! Who was able to cause his demise?” 

“Core Formation falls, and the Red Spider Lily blooms… This hasn’t been witnessed in China for over two hundred years!”

At the same time in a villa, following a dragon-like roar, the entire building thunderingly collapsed. A resplendent stream of light surged into the sky, like electricity! In the villa, not one person dared to drivel. Scores of people had all taken a knee on the floor, and said loudly in chorus, “Respectful partings, Ancestor Floatingcloud!”

The throne room doors of China’s Forbidden Palace suddenly separated. A vermilion phoenix issued a clear and shining cry, illuminating half of Beijing’s seat of government! Afterwards, it faded away at the horizon’s extreme.

[4]

“Respectful partings, Ancestor Hiddenscent!” Two women, dressed in the style of ancient palace maids, kneeled on the ground and said, their foreheads touching the ground.

The Dao Masters were on the move! The demise of a millennium-old Core Formation demon; its hidden secrets… even Core Formation cultivators would be incomparably tempted!

Before all else though… they couldn’t allow someone else to seize this treasure first whatsoever! Otherwise… even a Core Formation master wouldn’t be able to shoulder the detonation of a thousand-year-old demon core!

1. I almost mistranslated this. Fun fact: Mosasaurus in Chinese is literally Azure Dragon. If you want a better visualization of a mosasaurus, look up the one from the movie “Jurassic World”. Not gonna lie, the thought of a cultivating dinosaur made me laugh.

2. 懸棺 - hanging/suspended coffin. Copy paste this word and look at images. This is what I believe the situation of the coffin might actually be, versus hanging in midair.

3. You may have noticed that I have been continually calling Jadewave “it”. Author calls Jadewave “it”, but actually refers to Jadewave with the masculine “him” in some narration. This is the first time in speech that Jadewave is actually referred to as a he by another character.

4. In the story, nearly every mention of Beijing is actually more along the lines of “Beijing seat of government”, which is referring to the central governing building in Beijing, but it's a mouthful to say that. I figure just shortening it most of the time is along the lines of saying “Back at Washington/Paris/Berlin” and is implicit in meaning. This time, the scene is actually in the governing seat building.

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