Yun Feng walked through the shadows of the dark world, rarely engaging in direct combat with a powerful opponent. His way was to strike from the shadows with ruthless and brutal methods, swiftly eliminating adversaries. But now, all that was useless.
His feet had been severed, and his face contorted in agony. Even a being that had ignited divine fire would struggle to endure such unbearable torment.
“You should be dead! Why do you still possess such strength?” Yun Feng’s eyes burned with crimson fury, unwilling to perish at the hands of one he had believed long deceased.
Ghost Elder remained calm, unimpressed by the assassin before him. With a cold stare, he raised his broken sword, its edge pulsing with black radiance.
“You, old ghost, were slain by my Heavenly Kingdom in the past. I shall erase you now as well.” Yun Feng snarled. With sharp fingers, he traced glyphs into the air. Each stroke solidified into radiant lines of scripture, glowing fiercely.
He retrieved a small altar, three feet tall, crimson with blood, inscribed with ancient sigils. Chanting a mantra, he seemed to summon something. In an instant, the sky darkened, howls echoed across the heavens, and crimson lightning split the firmament.
“Die!” Yun Feng screamed, igniting his own heart-blood to activate a forbidden ritual. Shadows coalesced into countless spectral forms, roaring with rage. Their howls gathered into a single, horrifying mass, condensing into a crimson god-demon that charged toward the Ghost Elder.
Shi Hao shuddered. The oppressive, blood-drenched energy destabilized his spirit.
“These are the souls harvested from the blood ritual of your Heavenly Kingdom?” Ghost Elder’s eyes flared with killing intent.
“Alas, the ritual conducted in Hong Domain only captured fragments of the souls. Most were lost. This altar was bestowed upon us by my Heavenly forebears,” Yun Feng replied.
With a whirl of crimson winds, the blood god-demon grew even larger, wielding a crimson war spear that pierced toward the Ghost Elder with a shriek.
“Clang!”
The Ghost Elder cleaved the spear in two with a single swipe. Another strike severed the demon at the waist, scattering its blood essence into the void.
“Divine demon, infinite and endless! Kill!” Yun Feng roared, maddened. Knowing escape was impossible, he staked everything on destroying the Ghost Elder’s lingering will.
His chest bled as he burned his life essence, fueling the altar and summoning specters—form after form of god-demons.
In moments, the Ghost Elder stood surrounded. Demons howled around him, countless warrior spirits turned into blood fiends, unending and omnipresent.
“Perish, old ghost!” Yun Feng screamed.
Unmoved, the Ghost Elder raised his broken sword, now not just exuding blade essence, but an entire realm forged by its will—an invincible domain.
“Boom!”
The countless illusions, every divine demon, was erased in one sweeping strike. Blood lightning, dark clouds—everything vanished. Light returned to the heavens.
“Blood the world! Heavenly gods appear!” Yun Feng bellowed, his body withering as he burned his very vitality to empower the altar.
The Ghost Elder stepped forward and thrust his blade. The scarlet altar cracked, then shattered into dust.
Yun Feng froze. Such a mighty artifact, destroyed like mere pottery, its remains crumbling under the weight of disbelief.
He flared his silver wings, conjured a tempest, and fled—but in vain. A flash of black light erupted, and his silver wings tore away. Blood poured as he fell, his form grotesque as a vengeful spirit.
“Why are you this strong?” he cried, unwilling to die at the hands of one long dead, calling his fate absurd, tragic.
“I perished pierced through my crown by a divine blade. My deepest lingering will mimicked your Heavenly Kingdom’s sword art, sealing my broken soul. Only upon touching your Heavenly methods did I awaken.”
Ghost Elder spoke, sadness in his voice. He had awaited an old companion, not merely a young initiate ignited in divine fire. This was to be his final appearance.
Shi Hao understood. That rusted sword piercing Ghost Elder’s skull had been born from his final thought, and now it melted, awakening fully. Had he been alive, his might would have been immeasurable.
“Damned fate!” Yun Feng howled, clenching his fists.
“Zhi!”
Ghost Elder spoke no more. With one final slash, the assassin’s head flew, then shattered into mist—utterly extinguished.
So simply had this divine being, ignited in celestial fire, met his end before him.
Reverence filled Shi Hao. Truly, this was a peerless master among martial titans.
Silence reigned. Only two remained in the void—master and pupil. Shi Hao’s mind churned. The battle he expected had ended swiftly, far differently than imagined.
“I shall vanish now, never to return,” Ghost Elder said, his silver hair flowing, expression serene, though tinged with regret.
“Senior…” Shi Hao struggled for words, then relayed the miraculous sprouting of the Gourd Divine Vine.
“The finest news I’ve heard. It is like a child to me.” The Elder’s gaze warmed with memory, joy, and sorrow.
“Will you go see it?” Shi Hao asked.
“No. It is reborn, unburdened by my past. I will not stain its new life with old ghosts.” Ghost Elder declined.
Silence fell once more, the wind whispering through empty space.
“At last,” he murmured after a long pause, turning to Shi Hao. “You are of rare talent. Will you take my place and return to the Heavens’ Mending Sect?”
Once an outcast, this was his unresolved sorrow.
Shi Hao hesitated. Though he revered the Elder, he could not accept—he and the Heavens’ Mending Sect had too many scores yet unsettled.
“Indeed. You are you, and I am I. Even I, in my youth, felt only guilt before my teacher, longing to return and see his smile,” the Elder sighed.
What had truly transpired back then? Shi Hao gazed at him, questions swirling.
“I became an outcast for a woman of the Heavenly Kingdom, only to be betrayed and slain in this lower world by her and her allies. She, though peerless, yet lives…”
Shi Hao was stunned. The tale was simple, but its path must have twisted through betrayal and sorrow.
“My teacher has surely passed. Returning to the Heavens’ Mending Sect holds no purpose. That woman lives… I seek finality, but our paths will never cross again.” The Elder gazed skyward.
He came from the Higher Realms, his life claimed in the The Desolate Domain.
“This, then, is my tale.”
His form began to fade, his presence thinning.
“Senior!” Shi Hao called.
“Though the Ancient Holy Academy holds the Mending Art, I sense your discord with them. I shall not pass it on,” the Elder said.
“This sword I give to you. Bonded with the essence of dragon beak and phoenix horn.”
The black, broken blade flew into Shi Hao’s hand. He knew it well, held together by translucent resin. But now—he learned the truth, that it was mended with divine Ointment of phoenix beak and dragon horn—an artifact beyond value.
“Ghost Elder, one day I shall take this blade to the Heavenly Kingdom in the Higher Realms and finish what you started.”
“The Higher Realms… perhaps they’ve forgotten me. But some still remember my name.” His eyes flickered with life before fading forever.
Shi Hao grieved. A mighty being, now gone—only legend remained.
Yet, in Ghost Elder’s final words, a tale of past glory hinted at an unfathomable legacy, still whispered in forgotten corners of the Higher Realms.
“Fate is cruel to such a genius, fated to fall before his prime.”
A sudden voice broke the silence. From the distance, a figure stepped upon the void, approaching steadily, with a colossal black sun behind him shaped like a dark sunflower.
Shi Hao tensed—yet another divine being had arrived.
“Yun Feng, so pitiful, ending like this, slain by a lingering thought. Surely, his spirit departs unrested.”
“You watched, and did not aid?” Shi Hao asked.
“I came late, only witnessing the final moment. Had I been closer, I too may have perished,” the figure mused, amused. “Yun Feng, cold-hearted—one day he may have turned on his own. Better that he falls now.”
“Five of the Seven Gods are dead. Do you not fear?”
“If only one or two rule the Eight Realms, better to divide the treasures. Perhaps I, too, may ascend to the Unrivaled Sovereign.”
This time, unlike before, the Higher Realm’s masters had defied Heavenly Will, binding the Seven Gods indefinitely in the lower realms—thousands, perhaps ten-thousands of years.
Previously, only brief incursions were possible during rare, fleeting moments when the celestial laws wavered.
If the Seven Gods live, centuries may be spent shaping the world.
Black roots erupted from the void, seeking to bind Shi Hao.
“You killed my Garden of the Enchanted Sunflower disciple. My master commands I kill you myself. Now, I fulfill my vow.” The man stood atop the black sunflower, gazing down at Shi Hao.
Shi Hao dodged the roots, quietly swallowing a small Nirvana Pill.
The black-robed man smirked, extending a hand that summoned a tide of black mist—an enormous demonic hand descending from beyond realms, vast as the sky.
Shi Hao sidestepped, evading the strike.
In the void, sprouts of black sunflowers erupted, covering the heavens, entombing him.
Shi Hao erupted in radiance, his form exuding overwhelming life force. He broke into the Venerable Realm without hesitation, surging with might.
“You bring me seeds, do you not?” Shi Hao mocked, every pore blazing with energy.
No elixir was fully absorbed—Shi Hao used the moment of ascension to convert the excess into divine essence, charging the black-robed assailant.
He transformed into a humanoid Kunpeng, burning the elixir in one surge toward the heavens.
“A spark dares challenge the moon? Foolishness.” The Garden of the Enchanted Sunflower man smirked, whipping his robe to create a tempest, then reaching out with a massive hand to crush the Kunpeng.
“Boom!”
Shi Hao activated his Indestructible Golden Body, divine fire blazing around him. The immense might shattered the man’s robe, leaving his hand drenched in blood.
Stunned, the Garden of the Enchanted Sunflower warrior could scarcely believe his opponent now bore the aura of divinity.
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