’All I can do now is try to save myself.’
’But...’
’In a fallen nest, how can any egg remain intact?’
’A Foundation Establishment entity is something I can’t possibly fight. I can’t even get close to it, much less stop it.’
’If I want to save myself now, I’m afraid the only way is to climb the Heaven-Scaling Ladder.’
「Dayuan Prefecture, Inner Hall of the Examination Department.」
The once-calm surface of the Ancient Bronze Mirror now trembled violently. Illusory black cracks streaked across its face.
An aura brimming with madness, desperation, and violence pierced through layers of void barriers, causing the temperature in the great hall to plummet.
SCREEE—!
Even with the Array filtering out most of it, the piercing cry still stirred ripples of Spiritual Qi throughout the hall.
Hee Wenyan slammed her teacup down. The purple light in her once-calm eyes flared as she stared intently at the Ancient Mirror representing the Cyan Nether Realm.
Her slender, elegant fingers flew through a series of hand seals as she tried to stabilize the Array’s monitoring function.
"This year’s examinees have terrible luck, running into *this* one’s reawakening."
Hee Wenyan’s elegant brows furrowed, her tone laced with gravity.
In her vision, a massive tear had been ripped open in the western sky of the Cyan Nether Realm.
The Sky-Suppressing Kite was going berserk, using its Divine Body—comparable to that of a Foundation Establishment Great Cultivator—to repeatedly ram the fragile edge of the world.
To those Qi Cultivation Stage examinees, a Foundation Establishment Stage True God was an insurmountable mountain—both a divine miracle and a cataclysmic disaster.
Although in the eyes of a Purple Mansion Master like Hee Wenyan, she could annihilate the Divine Soul of such a Divine Spirit with a single hand if it were in the mortal world, right now... her reach fell short.
"Lord Shen, this vile beast is trying to break out of the realm. Its obsession is already destabilizing the Secret Realm."
Hee Wenyan said gravely, "If I were to forcibly descend with my Purple Mansion Divine Thought to suppress it now, this porcelain bowl of a Secret Realm fragment would instantly shatter into a million pieces."
"When that happens, the ten thousand examinees inside, along with all their opportunities, will be ground to dust by the currents of the Void."
They couldn’t be saved. And she mustn’t be the one to try.
Shen Xuance also rose to his feet. He watched the crumbling Earth Vein Qi Mechanism Map, his expression flickering with uncertainty.
"Fortunately... we’ve already lit over a dozen Divine Fire Nodes."
Hee Wenyan took a deep breath. She threw her hands open, and two beams of deep blue light shot from her palms into the core of the Array.
"There are enough Divine Dao Nodes to serve as an anchor. Lord Shen, lend me your strength! We have to pull the Secret Realm out of the Void and into the mortal world of Great Zhou before that mad bird shatters it!"
It was the only path to survival.
Once the Secret Realm returned to the mortal world, it would be suppressed by the destiny of the Great Zhou Kingdom and the complete Celestial Dao. The rampaging Ancient God would be instantly stripped of its authority by the laws of this world, and the currents of the Void would be blocked by Great Zhou’s world barrier.
"However..." Hee Wenyan sighed. "The Secret Realm has already begun to partially collapse. As we forcibly drag it back, the habitable space will rapidly shrink toward those Divine Fire Nodes."
"Those examinees who are too far from the nodes, or too slow... I’m afraid they won’t live to see the moment the Secret Realm returns."
The compression of space, the onslaught of the Void’s currents—it would be a brutal battle for survival.
Hearing this, Shen Xuance, who had been standing stiffly to the side, felt his tense shoulders relax slightly.
He sat back down in his armchair, his voice tinged with relieved reassurance. "As long as the core of the Secret Realm can be refined, as long as we can secure a Spirit Realm Seal, the loss of these examinees will be within the Court’s acceptable limits."
"The Cultivator who lit the Hongyuan Altar did nothing wrong. This can only be attributed to the Divine Spirit’s obsession, something beyond human control. Even if blame is assigned later, it won’t fall on us here in Dayuan Prefecture... Good, good."
As a veteran of officialdom, Shen Xuance’s first reaction was to consider the assignment of blame.
As long as the Divine Spirit’s rampage wasn’t caused by the Examination Hall’s negligence, then no matter how many examinees died, it was merely a necessary price on the path of the Heaven-Scaling Ladder.
"You’re certainly taking this well, Lord Shen."
Hee Wenyan snorted coldly, offering no comment.
Complex astrolabes began to manifest in rings around her. The Spiritual Qi in the hall surged like a tide, flooding madly toward the Array.
"Rise!"
Following Hee Wenyan’s sharp cry, a colossal, illusory Array erupted into view above the Celestial Observatory’s government office in Dayuan Prefecture. It spanned across space and time to latch firmly onto the Cyan Netherworld fragment, which teetered on the brink of collapse.
Deep within the Secret Realm, Chu Bai suddenly looked up.
He saw that on the distant horizon, the inky cyan mist was vanishing in large swathes, replaced by a bottomless, black Void.
’The Earth Vein is contracting...’
’I need to find a safe place, quickly.’
’Good thing my reserve of Spirit Grass is now sufficient. After I refine it all, I’ll probably reach Perfection directly. This is much faster than it would have been in the outside world.’

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