Chapter 267: Chapter 267: Where the Hell Did You Come From?

’This Secret Realm entrance must have been created by Ou Ye Zi, the founding Ancestral Master of Divine Weapon Ridge. A shame none of his successors ever reached his heights. The method to open the Divine Weapon Secret Realm was lost as early as the second generation...’

"Just as I thought... it’s a one-time use..."

Xu Yunfan stopped lingering and began to survey the area. This continued until three months later, when a sudden anomaly erupted in the south.

Xu Yunfan, who was in the middle of his cultivation, snapped his eyes open. The Three Jiao Sword Force inside him began to vibrate on its own.

He rushed out of the cave. The Spiritual Qi in the southern sky was surging like a tidal wave. Amidst a deafening roar, the mountains cracked open to form a canyon. A soft, clear light seeped out from deep within the earth, gradually forming a swirling, vortex-like passage.

"The exit to the Secret Realm!"

Xu Yunfan’s pupils constricted.

The aura of that clear light was identical to the one in the White Jade Palace. It was clearly born from the same source of power.

Xu Yunfan hesitated for a moment, but his gaze quickly hardened. His pupils reflected the anomaly in the distant sky. The very instant the clear light had ascended, the clouds at the Secret Realm’s edge began to disintegrate at a visible rate, shattering into countless crystalline fragments that vanished into the void.

The fragments refracted distorted light and shadows, faintly revealing the silhouettes of the mountains and rivers of the outside world. More alarmingly, a faint tremor ran through the ground beneath his feet. Wisps of grayish-white mist seeped from the crevices in the rock, and wherever it passed, plants and trees withered and petrified in an instant.

’The Secret Realm is collapsing...’

Xu Yunfan’s heart jolted. He stared at the rift that formed the Secret Realm’s entrance. ’I don’t know what method they used to force it open,’ he thought, ’but it’s causing this entire Little Heaven and Earth Secret Realm to start falling apart.’

Amidst the roar of the shattering sky, the Evil Flood Dragon coiled on the remnants of Chixia Mountain let out a heart-rending shriek.

Its scales, once like cast Profound Iron, were now shattered. The wound on its back, where the Cyan Bamboo Sword had pierced it, gushed with purplish-black venomous blood, corroding a wide swathe of the rocky ground into a honeycomb of holes.

The beast’s head was twisted in a ferocious snarl, its left horn snapped off at the base.

As the Secret Realm’s tremors intensified, its massive body, hundreds of feet long, thrashed wildly against the mountainside. Each struggle made the Earth Veins tremble, and as the Earth Qi rose, the beast actually managed to stabilize the teetering Secret Realm.

Without a moment’s hesitation, Xu Yunfan leaped toward the south. Rocks shattered along his path, and several lurking Demon Fiends were stirred from their lairs, but they dared not approach, suppressed by the clear light’s aura.

Just as he was about to enter the passage, the ground behind him suddenly caved in. An Eight-armed Demon Ape the size of a mountain burst from the earth, its eight arms each wielding a weapon made of bone. The Demon Qi roiling off it was at the absolute peak of the Bone Marrow Cleansing Realm!

...

Xu Yunfan’s gaze sharpened. The Red Fire Dragon-Swallowing Mace in his palm trembled, and the dark golden dragon patterns on its shaft instantly flared with a blinding, blood-red light.

Triple Jiao Sword Qi erupted from deep within his Triple Jiao Meridians, spiraling up his arm and condensing at the tip of the mace into a three-foot-long, purplish-gold blade of energy. The Golden Marrow within him churned, unleashing an astonishing Qi Force.

The mace struck like a dragon, its fiery red light tearing through the air like a falling star.

The Demon Ape crossed its eight arms to block, but its bone weapons crumbled to dust the instant they made contact.

The purplish-gold blade of energy was unstoppable. It pierced through the Demon Ape’s chest before exploding violently.

BOOM!

Amidst a sky-filling mist of blood, half of the Demon Ape’s body disintegrated. Its four remaining limbs twisted and snapped like dry branches.

Xu Yunfan used the recoil to launch himself backward through the air. The edge of his Dragon Scale Armor scraped against the clear light of the portal, showering brilliant sparks.

In his last glimpse, he saw that aside from the small patch of land stabilized by the Evil Flood Dragon, a spiderweb of cracks was rapidly spreading across the Secret Realm, with his previous position at its center.

A viscous darkness seeped from the cracks. Wherever it passed, mountains crumbled and Spirit Veins withered. It was as if the Little Heaven and Earth was being devoured whole by some unseen entity.

The moment the portal closed, a mirror-like fragment of the sky grazed the tips of Xu Yunfan’s hair as it fell. The last image reflected in it was of countless Demon Fiends on the crumbling land dissolving into a blood mist as they surged madly toward the White Jade Palace at the center...

Xu Yunfan’s pupils constricted slightly.

’There’s a great secret in the White Jade Palace!’

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, what just came out of there?!"

A crisp voice sounded from beside Xu Yunfan.

Xu Yunfan’s vision was suddenly flooded with light, and the dazzling sun made him instinctively narrow his eyes.

He felt the soft texture of Five-Colored Sacrificial Soil beneath his feet, and the air was filled with the scent of Purple Sandalwood Spirit Wood, a fragrance unique to Daoist temples.

He snapped his head up and found himself looking into a pair of wide, almond-shaped eyes.

They belonged to a young woman in Daoist robes, about seventeen or eighteen years old. She was holding a Bronze Sacrificial Object engraved with constellations. Seeing Xu Yunfan’s murderous aura, she was so startled that she stumbled back three steps.

"Y-You... how did you come out of the Profound Celestial Mirror?"

The young woman’s voice trembled, and the sacrificial object in her hand fell onto the altar with a CLANG.

The Qingwei Mountain Jade Token hanging from her waist swayed with her movement. The name "Lin Qingxuan," carved in ancient seal script, glinted with a cyan light in the sun.

Xu Yunfan’s pupils quivered. ’A Jade Token from Qingwei Mountain.’

’This is Jian Nan Dao... Yu Huan State... the Qingwei Mountain Daoist Sect.’

Xu Yunfan slowly straightened up, his expression extremely wary as he scanned his surroundings. A thought stirred in his mind.

He recalled how his master, Zhan Yan, had once drunkenly boasted about the Taoist Sect’s Luotian Grand Sacrifice.

’This must be the Five Luminaries Altar on Celestial Peak of Qingwei Mountain,’ he realized. ’The legendary site the Taoist Sect uses to commune with Immortal Gods.’

"I’ve crossed three states..."

"Qing Xuan!"

A sharp cry echoed from within the sea of clouds. The voice had barely faded before a figure arrived.

Xu Yunfan’s vision blurred for an instant. A light breeze swept across the Five Luminaries Altar, and a figure descended as gracefully as a drifting cloud.

The newcomer had the white hair of an old man but the face of a youth. He wore a plain white Daoist robe, utterly spotless. A Cyan Jade Trigrams token hung from his waist, and as his sleeves fluttered, a faint starlight seemed to flow around him.

The most startling thing was his aura. Though he stood right before them, he seemed to have merged with the entirety of Qingwei Mountain. His every breath stirred the sea of clouds like the tide.

Xu Yunfan’s pupils shrank to pinpricks.

’A Nine Realms Qi Cultivation Supreme Grandmaster!’

When he got a clear look at the man’s face, recognition dawned on Xu Yunfan.

’Bi Sheng of the Taoist Sect!’

’The same Bi Sheng who had accepted Li Haomiao and Fang Mushan, but had turned him away at the gates.’

"Qing Xuan, did you manage to seal the Secret Realm completely?!" 𝐟𝕣𝕖𝐞𝐰𝕖𝚋𝐧𝗼𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝗰𝐨𝐦

Bi Sheng’s expression was a mixture of excitement and agitation. The Taoist Sect knew far more about the situation within the Little Heaven and Earth Secret Realm; they had been preparing ever since the Heaven and Earth Primordial Spirit first began to stir from the Earth Vein.

Lin Qingxuan shook her head and pointed at Xu Yunfan.

"I think the Secret Realm shattered, but someone came out."

When Bi Sheng’s gaze fell on Xu Yunfan’s face, his deep eyes suddenly faltered.

"You..."

The old Daoist’s right hand, which had been forming a hand seal within his sleeve, froze. Innate Qi crackled at his fingertips in a fine web of electricity.

He suddenly took three steps closer, his nostrils flaring slightly as if catching a scent. His silver eyebrows gradually furrowed like mountain peaks.

"From the Eight Hundred Li Barrenlands... Xu..."

His voice was laced with utter uncertainty.

"Xu Yunfan."

Xu Yunfan finished the name for him.

Bi Sheng’s brow furrowed deeply. With his level of power and cultivation, how could he fail to see that Xu Yunfan’s Martial Arts Realm had already reached Bone Marrow Cleansing? And he wasn’t a novice in the realm, either. Just by standing before Xu Yunfan, Bi Sheng could hear the resonant chime of gold and jade from within the young man’s body.