An entire province was annihilated, sinking into the earth, lifeless and desolate.
A skeletal hand of monstrous proportions stretched across the sky, continuing its advance—a scene of utter despair. Countless stars dotted the heavens, appearing minuscule before the hand, insignificant as dust, trembling and falling in its wake.
An overwhelming aura surged forth, leaving only death in its path.
**Boom!**
The skeletal hand descended upon a second great province, emerging from the heavens, crushing the very fabric of the world. A supreme, unstoppable force surged forth, splitting the earth as countless lives were instantly reduced to bloody mist.
The sight was terrifying, sending shivers through the souls of all living beings. None could resist.
Even those in distant provinces trembled in fear, as if the apocalypse had arrived. The scent of annihilation permeated the air.
Cultivators, especially the most powerful among them, turned pale. Though separated by countless mountain ranges and endless distances, they could still sense the impending doom.
This was the end of an era—the ultimate calamity!
“Why has this come to pass?” some cultivators wailed, their despair unbearable. There was no escape.
Even those who ascended sacrificial altars, capable of traversing millions of miles in an instant, could not evade destruction.
For the skeletal hand, veined with blood, swept across the land, covering half a province in its wake. Mountains crumbled, seas evaporated—nothing could withstand its might.
“Who can save us?” Even the mightiest cultivators cried out in despair. This was no longer a disaster they could oppose—it was a force of nature beyond mortal resistance.
As for ordinary people, they had no choice but to await death.
Children screamed, cried, and clung to their parents.
A little girl, trembling, buried herself in her mother’s embrace, tears streaming down her face—only to vanish into bloody mist alongside her family in the next instant.
This was a catastrophe, a tragedy of unimaginable scale—a scene of utter devastation.
**Boom!**
Anlan’s skeletal palm traversed the void, crossing five great provinces in an instant. The slaughter it wrought was beyond comprehension—countless lives extinguished in mere moments.
Wherever the hand passed, nothing remained. All life was obliterated, reduced to nothingness.
Only upon reaching the ninth province did the hand finally restrain its power, its aura of an Immortal King gradually receding, no longer rampaging but settling into eerie stillness.
The skeletal hand remained colossal, but its destructive energy was now contained, its fluctuations tightly controlled.
Indeed, as it passed the tenth province, though the earth cracked and rivers collapsed, many lives survived.
The hand slowed further, its once-violent energy now subdued.
Anlan was restraining his power—perhaps out of caution, or perhaps fear of destroying something crucial.
Eventually, the skeletal palm loomed in the sky, blotting out the sun and moon. Though it still exuded overwhelming might, it no longer wrought destruction. Even the mountains and rivers ceased their violent trembling.
The Immortal King had chosen to suppress his own power, no longer allowing his mere presence to annihilate all in its path.
Such was the might of a supreme being—his mere aura could overturn the heavens and bring stars crashing down.
At last, he approached a certain province.
All of this had happened in an instant, with no delay.
For an Immortal King, crossing endless distances, leaping across realms, was no great feat—it could be done in the blink of an eye.
Yet, beyond the Imperial Pass, the shattered Celestial Abyss seethed with boiling laws, relentlessly eroding Anlan’s true form. He had to act swiftly and retreat without delay.
Even an Immortal King could not afford to linger—or face dire consequences.
**The Province of Sin**—a vast, desolate land, sparsely populated.
Here, dozens of exiled clans dwelled, branded with sin, scorned and despised by others, forbidden from leaving.
Among them, clans like the Stone Clan and the Fire Clan were particularly infamous.
In a bygone era, these people had been known as the “Sin-Blooded Lineage”—a cursed race!
Their plight was dire. The Stone Clan, for instance, had been nearly wiped out. Their ancestral lands in the Province of Sin lay in ruins, their people scattered.
Only their descendants in the Lower Realms remained, ensuring their bloodline endured. Otherwise, their extinction would have been an irreparable tragedy.
Yet none could have foreseen that Anlan’s skeletal hand would descend upon the Province of Sin.
What did he seek? No one knew.
**”The Province of Sin…”**
A thunderous voice echoed across the heavens, shaking mountains and rivers, causing the earth to tremble and rivers to shift course.
Anlan’s divine will was terrifying—a single utterance resonated with the world itself.
An Immortal King, peerless through the ages, was no mere title. His might was absolute.
**”The era of kings has long faded. What I seek… may lie with their descendants.”**
The “era of kings” he spoke of was a time of ancient glory.
But over countless eons, those clans had fallen into decline. The Stone Clan, the Vermilion Bird Fire Clan—all had become the Sin-Blooded, exiled to this forsaken land.
Anlan had come for them. He suspected something lay buried beneath this land.
**”Only by finding it can I uncover the true prize.”**
Clearly, what he sought here was not the ultimate treasure—only a clue.
After all, the foreign realm had waged war for eons, searching in vain. They knew only that it lay somewhere in the Nine Heavens. How could it be so easily found now?
Even when they had conquered this realm in the past, they had failed to uncover it.
Only now, after countless years, had they found a lead—starting with the Province of Sin.
**Boom!**
The skeletal hand descended once more, expanding until it dwarfed the entire Province of Sin. Slowly, it reached down, grasping toward the land.
**”What is happening? What is that?”**
Across the land, in every settlement, all living beings looked up in terror, their bodies trembling uncontrollably.
Screams and cries filled the air as the skeletal hand blotted out the sky, its approach a nightmare made real.
None could resist. The sheer pressure forced them to their knees.
Yet, as the hand neared, its killing intent faded, replaced by an eerie calm.
Only then did the people regain their senses—though many still collapsed, trembling in worship.
**Boom!**
Even without malice, the sight was horrifying.
The skeletal hand seized the entire Province of Sin, lifting it from the earth, tearing it free from the Three Thousand Provinces, and carrying it into the heavens.
Light radiated from the hand, enveloping the vast, desolate land as it ascended into the sky.
**Boom!**
Then, without pause, the hand withdrew, vanishing through the void like a fleeting dream, retreating toward the desolate borderlands near the Imperial Pass.
The speed was staggering—the entire event unfolding in an instant.
**Whoosh!**
Mid-flight, the skeletal hand accelerated. Time was running out. The red sea of order from the Celestial Abyss boiled violently, threatening to melt the hand away.
Even an Immortal King struggled under such pressure.
All of this happened in the span of a single breath—from the hand’s descent upon the Three Thousand Provinces to its return to the Imperial Pass.
**”What was that?”**
Within the Imperial Pass, cultivators of all clans stared in shock. Had the skeletal hand breached their defenses just to seize a single stretch of land?
**”This is bad! Has he found what he sought?”** Elders within the pass paled.
The veteran Supremes agreed—the foreign realm’s invasion of the Nine Heavens had always been about uncovering ancient secrets.
Had Anlan succeeded?
**”Unlikely. Even when they conquered our world in the past, they found nothing. They wouldn’t discover it so easily now.”**
Yet the people shuddered. The power of an Immortal King was too terrifying—to breach the Imperial Pass and abduct an entire province in an instant.
What kind of horror was this?
**”Which province was that?”**
**”The Province of Sin—home of the Sin-Blooded.”** Someone recognized it immediately.
Anlan did not linger. He retreated through the breach in the Imperial Pass, avoiding further conflict.
On the stolen land, countless beings screamed, desperate to escape—but none could break free.
Anlan had not destroyed them. Instead, he had taken the entire province intact, its inhabitants still alive.
His actions stunned everyone.
As he withdrew beyond the pass, Shi Hao—still locked in bloody combat—suddenly turned.
Though his power was waning, his senses remained sharp. He recognized the stolen land at once.
**”The Province of Sin!”**
His eyes burned red. With a furious roar, his hair whipping wildly, he charged forward with reckless abandon.
Two other mighty warriors—one wielding a cauldron, the other a nine-storied pagoda—fought alongside him, battling desperately.
**”Anlan! Face me!”** Shi Hao’s roar shook the borderlands, echoing through the Imperial Pass and beyond.
His hair wild, his brows furrowed, his eyes bloodshot—he attacked without regard for his own life.
**Boom!**
He took a direct hit from Yu Tuo and five ancestral decrees, coughing blood as he was sent flying.
Yet even as he tumbled through the air, he summoned his sword, unleashing a devastating slash aimed at the skeletal hand’s wrist.
**”Clang!”**
A deafening impact. Sparks flew as the blade carved a deep gash into the bone, causing the hand to shudder violently.
**Boom!**
The stolen land trembled. Though not destroyed, earthquakes tore through it, mountains collapsing as fragments broke free from the skeletal grip.
A corner of the Province of Sin—its mountains and rivers—had been shaken loose by Shi Hao’s strike.
**”Leave it behind!”** Shi Hao roared, slashing again.
At the same time, the warrior with the cauldron attacked Yu Tuo, while the one with the pagoda countered the ancestral decrees.
But Shi Hao was weakening. His earlier strength was fading fast.
Yet he fought on, his sword flashing, its light splitting the heavens.
**Clang! Clang! Clang!**
Sparks flew. Finally, the wrist bone cracked—nearly severed.
Anlan, of course, retaliated. But the boiling red sea of order assailed him, suppressing his power.
**Boom!**
With a burst of bloody light, Anlan’s arm—though cracked—began to heal. The bones fused back together as he clutched the Province of Sin, retreating swiftly toward the foreign realm.
Shi Hao’s sword blazed with radiant light, its aura piercing the heavens, shaking the stars from the sky. Every slash aimed at Anlan’s arm.
**Boom!**
The skeletal hand trembled, its cracks widening—yet it held firm. Only fragments of earth and stone broke free.
Then, Shi Hao saw it—a flash of crimson.
A grove of fiery mulberry trees, their petals falling like blood, drifting in the wind.
For a moment, he thought he saw a young girl standing beneath the trees, gazing at him from an impossible distance.
**”Ahhh! Anlan! You will not take them!”**
Shi Hao went berserk. His sword erupted with blinding light, its energy shaking the ages, its edge slicing through the firmament.
**Clang!**
Anlan’s spear, shield, Yu Tuo’s weapon, and the ancestral decrees all combined to block the strike.
**Boom!**
The skeletal hand, clutching the stolen province, vanished into the crimson sea of order, retreating into the foreign realm.
**”Ahhh!”**
Shi Hao howled at the heavens, giving chase—but it was futile.
The power of the drop of blood within him was fading fast. He could not cross the sea of order.
**”Come back!”**
He reached out, grasping at nothing.
Above, fiery petals drifted down, one after another, bright and translucent.
The mulberry trees withered, their blossoms scattering.
A rain of crimson flowers, carried away by the wind.
Tai Sui Yellow Amulet Paper FuLu Taoist Love Talisman Traditional Chinese Spiritual Charm Attracting Love Protecting Marriage