Aside from Master Xuantan, who stood frozen in place, everyone else—including Lu Fu and Pan Heng—was experiencing something they had never felt before.
It was a rude awakening.
The pressure didn’t come from a single direction but surged from all sides at once. It felt as if the very world were slowly closing in, intent on crushing everything within its grasp.
The air grew as heavy as lead, and every breath required several times more effort than usual.
The knees of some of the weaker soldiers began to buckle involuntarily, and veins slowly bulged on their foreheads.
Not only that, but just like Master Xuantan, they could clearly see the mysterious phantom of an old man.
The phantom stood between heaven and earth, towering into the clouds. It was shrouded in a faint purple glow, like a gaze projected from the depths of the river of time by an ancient deity.
His features were indistinct, the patterns on his robes unclear. All they could perceive was an irresistible sense of majesty.
It was not the condescending gaze of a superior, but the fundamental order that exists between heaven and earth.
And Lu Fu, who had been Lu Yun’s confidant for many years, naturally recognized the silhouette at a single glance.
His pupils shrank abruptly, and his lips trembled slightly. A rare look of almost stupefied shock appeared on his face, which was usually as stoic as stone.
Then, Lu Fu unconsciously muttered a few words: "This... is... the Master?"
Master Xuantan’s eyes looked ready to burst from their sockets. Her old face, already webbed with wrinkles and as withered as tree bark, twisted into an even more hideous and terrifying mask.
In an instant, the air around Master Xuantan suddenly vibrated. One after another, white lotuses formed from Divine Will and True Qi burst forth from her body, blooming sequentially in the void.
They spun slowly around Master Xuantan, growing more and more numerous, denser and denser, until in the blink of an eye, they had converged into an ocean of white lotuses.
"A thousand lotuses bloom to shield my frail form!" Master Xuantan shrieked, violently thrusting her hands forward.
Countless white lotuses, like a blizzard swept up by a gale, bombarded the streak of purple glow in the air, blotting out the sky.
However, this terrifying power, enough to dominate any expert of the same Realm, dissipated the instant it touched the purple glow.
Seeing this, Master Xuantan’s pupils abruptly shrank to the size of pinpricks.
Fear spread wildly within her—a terror that surged from the very marrow of her bones.
Then, under the gaze of Master Xuantan’s eyes, which were widened to their absolute limit, the magnificent phantom of the old man moved.
A colossal hand, large enough to blot out the sky, slowly pressed down.
Its movement wasn’t fast; one could even call it slow. But this slowness was a kind of inescapable fate. It was like the rising and setting of the sun or the changing of the seasons—you know it’s coming, but there is nowhere to hide, nowhere to run.
This was no mere attack on the spiritual world like before; this was a tangible power of heaven and earth, capable of causing violent tremors in the real world.
A visible shockwave, with Master Xuantan at its epicenter, raged wildly in all directions.
Bluestone slabs were torn from the ground as cracks spread outward like a spiderweb. The howling wind was filled with shattered rock and dirt. In an instant, a rolling cloud of dust blotted out the sun, shrouding the entire backyard in a dim, yellow chaos.
The surrounding soldiers, along with Lu Fu and Pan Heng, were all swept aside by the violent shockwave.
"AAAAAHHH!" From the center of the swirling dust, Master Xuantan’s aged and piercing screams echoed continuously.
The dust lingered for a long time. The screams gradually grew fainter until they disappeared completely.
Everyone climbed to their feet, covered in dirt and grime, and stared with complicated expressions at the patch of empty land.
"Thank you, Master, for saving our lives..." Lu Fu murmured once more.
Within the purple glow, that wisp of Lu Yun’s Divine Thought floated silently in mid-air. It gazed at the spot where Master Xuantan had completely vanished, then glanced thoughtfully into the distance.
Just because the others couldn’t see it didn’t mean Lu Yun couldn’t perceive the changes in the world.
The very instant the old woman was annihilated, an extremely faint wisp of an aura shot out from where she had dissipated. It hugged the ground as it sped away, disappearing into the distance in the blink of an eye.
In plain terms, she hadn’t been killed completely. Someone had died in her place—a literal substitute for death.
Lu Yun’s Divine Thought wavered slightly. ’Before she died, that old woman maintained some kind of secret connection with a place very, very far away.’
’That connection was like an invisible thread. One end was tied deep within her soul, while the other probably led to the main lair of the Lifeless Lotus Sect.’
’A pity that vile Warlock got away.’ A flicker of regret passed through Lu Yun’s mind. ’I’m only a Half-step Manifest Saint True Monarch, not a true Manifest Saint True Monarch.’
’This strike may have seemed devastating enough to shatter worlds, but it actually exhausted all the power stored within the staff.’
’That was the Half-step Divine Thought Golden Core Power I’d sealed in the Wisteria Spirit Staff. Make no mistake, Half-Step Divine Thought Golden Core Power is not the same as true Divine Thought Golden Core Power.’
’That small distinction makes a world of difference. A true Divine Thought Golden Core is perfectly condensed and flawless. A single strike from it annihilates body and soul, and no Substitute Death Technique or Yin Soul Puppet can escape being wiped out along with the target.’
’But half-step is still just half-step. It lacks that final push, and that creates an insurmountable chasm.’
At this thought, Lu Yun’s Divine Thought wavered slightly, tinged with a hint of melancholy.
’Heroes in this world are countless. Martial Artists are like a forest, Warlocks like the clouds. And among them all, it is the Warlocks who truly stand out, their methods endless and ever-changing.’

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