Bei Chen Zi slowly raised his head, his gaze heavy.

’The Empress has gone mad...’

Gazing in the direction of Jade Capital, he muttered to himself, his hand unconsciously tightening around the hilt of his sword. He didn’t know whether he regretted not stopping the Empress when he’d gone to the city, or if her actions had simply far surpassed his expectations.

For a moment, he stood stunned in the great hall, watching the churning, blood-colored sea of clouds before him.

The Divine Weapon in his hand sang, vibrating with a hum of its own accord as if in harmony with the heavens.

At some unknown point, the white clouds floating in the sky had taken on a bloody hue.

-----------------

As time passed, the Earth Veins churned like great serpents, and a ceaseless humming tremor ran through the lands of the Great Zhou. The Earth Dragon Flipped Over: the ground cracked open, and strange wisps of energy began to rise from the fissures.

Above the Observatory in Jade Capital City, the condensed blood-red cloud suddenly tore open, forming nine fissures. Guo Lang knew this was his last chance.

He bit the tip of his tongue and spat out his Life Essence Blood. The Sword Qi of his Taiyi Splitting Light Sword instantly transformed into a thousand-foot-long streak of azure light that shot straight for the Observatory. As the azure light flowed, it seemed to spread across the ground, like an azure river crashing down the tower of the Observatory and into the earth.

The entire world seemed to change in an instant.

"Heaven and Earth reverse, Yang Nine-Hundred-Six, open!"

On the Observatory, Guo Lang let out a sudden muffled groan, nearly losing his grip on the Taiyi Splitting Light Sword.

The Jade Veins he had cultivated were twitching violently beneath his skin—a sign that his meridians were overloaded.

Sixteen blood-colored trigrams materialized on the surface of the blood pool. Each trigram corresponded to the fate of the people from one of the Sixteen States of the Great Zhou being sacrificed.

The Great Zhou was comprised of the Six Paths and Seventy-Nine States, each with varying populations. The slaughter of the people in sixteen of these states, with chaos rampant in the others, amounted to a blood sacrifice of over thirty-six million lives—a truly staggering number. 𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖

"Supervisor! The Blood Jar in the Dui Position is cracking!"

The deputy’s cry was trembling.

Guo Lang glanced at the northwest corner. A bronze jar, carved with yazi patterns, was seeping blood. Its body was covered in a spiderweb of cracks.

That was a Soul Suppressing Jar forged from Northern Desert Profound Iron. Yet right now, it couldn’t contain the resentful energy from the heart’s blood of millions, collected from several states.

Though the Heaven and Earth Primordial Spirit had vanished, the hearts of men could be gathered to attain great Magical Power in this End of the Dharma age.

Guo Lang bit his tongue and spat out Essence Blood. The blade of the Divine Weapon instantly flared with three feet of azure light.

The twelve Coiling Dragon Pillars at the base of the Observatory began to tremble, and the Profound Iron Chains wrapped around them strained inch by inch.

These chains, forged from South Sea Cold Iron, were currently wrestling with the Dragon Qi within the Earth Veins, emitting a grating sound of twisting metal that set one’s teeth on edge.

"By celestial decree, Primordial Spirit, arise!!"

As Guo Lang raised the Divine Weapon Taiyi Splitting Light Sword, a phantom of the Primordial Spirit began to appear in the center of the blood cloud. Specks of light, clearly visible to the naked eye, suddenly materialized in the sky.

Seeing this, the Empress’s expression suddenly grew excited. She spread her arms, drew a speck of Spiritual Light into her body, and a look of pure bliss instantly appeared on her face.

As if she had consumed a Spiritual Elixir Pill, the Empress’s wrinkled, chicken-like skin and crane-white hair began to smooth out, her white hair turning back to black.

At that very moment, a dragon’s roar suddenly echoed from deep within the Earth Veins.

Guo Lang shuddered violently, blood seeping from all seven of his orifices. He could feel the nine Dragon Veins suppressed beneath Jade Capital City struggling frantically.

The Bronze Blood Jars exploded one after another, and cracks appeared in the Innate Eight Trigrams Diagram formed from the blood plasma in the air.

-----------------

Far away in Jian Nan Dao, within Zixiao Palace on Qingwei Mountain in Yu Huan State, Daoist Master Xuan Xiao’s eyes snapped open. The Nine Heavens Thunder Sound Sword, which hung before the hall, slid three inches from its scabbard on its own, the violet lightning coiling around its blade illuminating his grave face.

The foremost expert of Jian Nan Dao wore a grim expression. He could clearly feel the tremors in the Earth Veins coming from Jade Capital, thousands of miles away.

’To trade tens of millions of lives for a sliver of Celestial Secret...’

The veins on the hand he used to grip his sword hilt bulged, but in the end, he did not unleash the Sword Qi that could have sundered the blood cloud.

Beneath his purplish-bronze skin, mercury blood surged like a great river through silver marrow—this was the sign of having achieved Great Success in the Mercury Blood Silver Marrow technique. Wisps of violet lightning even coiled around his fingertips.

"Master, should we activate the Mountain Guardian Sword Array?"

His eldest disciple asked, looking at the Sword Testing Stone in the great hall, which had begun to crack.

Daoist Master Xuan Xiao was silent for a long moment before finally shaking his head. "Relay my orders to the disciples of the Thirty-Six Peaks: seal the mountain gates. No one is to take a single step off the mountain. Violators will be treated as traitors to the sect!"

-----------------

In Yanbei Dao, in the northern reaches of Youzhou, within The Eight-Hundred-Mile Desolate River Ice-Plains connected to Ninggu Tower, a Sword Tomb formed of thousand-year-old profound ice, three hundred feet deep at the bottom of a cold pool in a mountain hollow, suddenly trembled.

Dugu Jiu, sleeping within an Ice Coffin, snapped his eyes open. The Sword Qi flowing in his pupils cut a spiderweb of cracks into the coffin. This Supreme Grandmaster, known as the "Celestial Sword" two hundred years ago, now had azure Sword Qi seeping from every pore of his body, shattering the Ice Soul Cold Marrow that had preserved his lifespan inch by inch.

CRACK!

The instant the Ice Coffin exploded, the entire Cold Pool boiled as if it were a cauldron.

The moment Dugu Jiu broke out of the ice, the remains of Sword Artifacts that had settled at the bottom of the pool for a century all trembled in unison. The fragments of broken blades coalesced into nine vortexes of Sword Qi in the water, swirling like roving dragons.

Stirred by the roiling Sword Qi, his grayish-white hair turned black strand by strand, and his wrinkled face regained its luster at a speed visible to the naked eye.

’A blood fiend pierces the heavens... A sign of heaven and earth weeping blood! A blood sacrifice for the Primordial Spirit...’

Dugu Jiu’s face showed a trace of annoyance. He had put himself into a deep slumber using a tortoise-breathing technique, striving to survive until the Heaven and Earth Primordial Spirit rose again. But now, he had been awakened by this artificially created Primordial Spirit Breath.

’To fall back into slumber again...’

Dugu Jiu’s expression turned somewhat cold and severe.

He formed a sword with his fingers and swiped it through the pool’s water. The azure light that burst from his fingertips split the thousand-foot-wide Cold Pool in two, and a single streak of it flew over the horizon, vanishing in an instant.

This ultimate expert of the Sword Dao, who had walked unparalleled through the Martial Arts world with his "Nine Breath Sword Qi," used some unknown technique to see a reflection of the blood sacrifice in Jade Capital City on the stone wall at the bottom of the pool.

BOOM!

The seven Sword Peaks surrounding the Cold Pool collapsed simultaneously.

Dugu Jiu stepped on the falling rubble and soared into the sky. Each step he took in the void solidified into a three-foot-tall Sword Seal.

By the time he leaped out from the pool’s surface, his tattered green robes had been mended by his Sword Qi.

Standing in mid-air, Dugu Jiu formed a sword with his fingers and made a cutting motion toward the southeast. A sharp whistle, like the tearing of silk, instantly echoed through the forest.

"Two hundred years of slumber, and still I couldn’t escape a man-made disaster. You old bull-nosed Daoist, you really made an accurate prediction!"

Dugu Jiu stroked the hiltless Ancient Sword at his waist, and the bronze rust on its Sword Scabbard flaked off with a soft rustle.

When his thumb pushed the Sword Guard open half an inch, all the accumulated snow within five li suddenly floated into the air, each snowflake refracting a cold, grim sword light.

Dugu Jiu tapped his toes on the surface of the Cold Pool, and his entire body transformed into a streak of azure light that pierced the clouds.

The sea of clouds parted wherever he passed, tearing a long sword scar across the dome of the sky.

The profound True Qi of a Ninth Realm Grandmaster surged through his flesh and blood. Every step he took on the air sent out a circular shockwave, causing a woodcutter ten li away to mistake it for an early spring thunderclap.

As he passed over Longxi Dao, Dugu Jiu suddenly pressed his hand to his sword hilt.

In the valley below, the marching Blood Banner Guards of the Incense and Candle Sect suddenly found their weapons vibrating uncontrollably in their hands.

Three thousand steel sabers flew from their grasp simultaneously, soaring into the sky and forming a Sword Wheel behind Dugu Jiu. Their cold gleam made the setting sun look like blood.

"I shall borrow your blades."

The sound wave, laced with Sword Qi, pressed down, and three hundred warhorses whinnied in terror and fell to their knees in unison.