Chapter 1057: Say it again?

At the entrance of the Southcloud Sacred Hall in the capital of the Fire Illumination Kingdom, Marquis Qu Ming and several other disciples had long been waiting.

Since the battlefield had been completely sealed off, the initial attack had not caused any significant disturbance. However, after the assailants fled, the residual shockwaves of the battle alarmed most of the city’s elite warriors.

“Senior Brother Xueying,” the disciples greeted respectfully.

Marquis Qu Ming, however, gazed at Dongbo Xueying with concern.

“I’m fine,” Dongbo Xueying said briefly before stepping into the Southcloud Sacred Hall. Watching his retreating figure, Marquis Qu Ming and the others dared not press further—they could sense the dark mood of this peerless genius, ‘Yingshan Xueying.’

Inside the meditation chamber, Dongbo Xueying sat alone in silence.

Though the five attackers had been shocked by their failure to kill Yingshan Xueying, marveling at his resilience, Dongbo Xueying himself felt nothing but frustration. From start to finish, he had been on the defensive, unable to unleash even a single strike of ‘Shattering the Firmament’ or ‘Piercing the Void’ due to the altered flow of time.

“With my strength, I was trapped within the Domain of Time and couldn’t break free,” Dongbo Xueying mused in astonishment. Normally, even a tenth-level Chaos Realm expert in the Time Path wouldn’t be so overwhelmingly powerful. “His Highness Chifeng… a core disciple of the Chishi Clan, one of the two great families of the Ancient Nations?”

Dongbo Xueying had recognized the dazzling red-haired youth instantly—the flame mark between his brows was unmistakable.

Core disciples of the Chishi Clan, with sufficiently concentrated bloodline, could awaken an unparalleled innate talent. When paired with corresponding supreme techniques, their combat prowess became truly terrifying. Those who failed to awaken such talents were not considered core members.

The reason for such extraordinary innate abilities lay in the fact that the Chishi Clan’s patriarch was the only one among the Five Ancestors of the Ancient Nations to achieve invincibility through body refinement.

“Bai Zhan the Demon God? Yu Chen the Wanderer?”

Dongbo Xueying had genuinely felt the breath of death.

Each assault had drained nearly a tenth of his vitality. Another ten or twelve strikes, and he would have perished! The two warriors skilled in water and fire might have seemed the weakest, but their combined forces—opposing yet complementary—had weakened his Southcloud Sacred Body. Like a weapon tempered by fire and water, his body became brittle, more susceptible to shattering under heavy blows.

Though the dual forces of water and fire didn’t directly deplete his vitality, they weakened his body, amplifying the effectiveness of Bai Zhan the Demon God and Yu Chen the Wanderer’s attacks.

Every strike had made him “smell” death, forcing him to desperately “dissipate” into the void, diverting as much force as possible into nothingness. If he could achieve the ultimate state of dissipation—merging completely with the essence of the void—such attacks would no longer harm him.

“Only a sliver away from merging with the void’s essence?”

Dongbo Xueying pondered deeply.

—

His master, the Southcloud Monarch, acted swiftly. By the very next day after the ambush, a group of elite warriors stormed the Heavenly Sword Dao Hall.

His Highness Chifeng, Yu Chen the Wanderer, and their allies had anticipated retaliation and thus remained hidden within the Heavenly Sword Dao Hall. Had it not been for orders from their backing factions to assist the Heavenly Sword Dao, they would have long since fled.

“What was the outcome?” Dongbo Xueying emerged from seclusion to inquire.

“The battle was fierce, shaking the entire capital. The imperial family and the fiends of the Black Devil Abyss watched from afar. After the fight, most of the Heavenly Sword Dao Hall was destroyed,” Marquis Qu Ming reported hastily.

Dongbo Xueying was stunned.

Since the Heavenly Sword Dao had expanded into the Fire Illumination Kingdom, the defensive formations of their sacred hall in the capital were undoubtedly formidable, likely on par with the Southcloud Sacred Hall. Even a tenth-level Chaos Realm expert would struggle to breach them. Yet the hall had been reduced to ruins—proof that the formations had been shattered.

“Master dispatched truly formidable warriors to destroy even the formations,” Dongbo Xueying mused. He understood that, knowing the strength of the Heavenly Sword Dao’s forces, the Southcloud Monarch would only send warriors stronger than the five attackers—lest they suffer humiliation.

Though hidden factions possessed immense power, the Southcloud Monarch also commanded his own covert forces and could even “borrow” troops. However, these were not official disciples of the Southcloud Sacred Sect and could not openly reveal their identities. Warriors employing other techniques to defeat the Heavenly Sword Dao could not prove the superiority of the Southcloud Sacred Sect’s methods. Thus, this remained a battle of shadows.

On the surface, disciples like Thunder King Mo Chao, Gong Liang Yi, and Yingshan Xueying were still needed.

—

After briefly learning of the battle’s outcome, Dongbo Xueying resumed his seclusion.

Though his understanding of the void’s essence deepened, and he was but a hair’s breadth away from achieving the ultimate state of dissipation, that final step was no easier than a Chaos Realm expert ascending to become a Cosmic God. Try as he might, Dongbo Xueying could not cross that threshold. Such a feat was simply too difficult at the Chaos Realm. Fortunately, he had witnessed the scales of General Megu—without that, achieving this step would have been pure fantasy.

After all, in the Heart Realm Continent, only two supreme techniques allowed a Chaos Realm expert to achieve the ultimate dissipation state.

One belonged to the Ancient Nations.

The other, to the Summerflame Ancient Nation.

No other ancient nations, not even those with masters of the void like the Southcloud Monarch, had ever created such a technique.

—

While progress in dissipation stalled, Dongbo Xueying made steady advancements in the *Five-Phase Sealing Art*.

After all, he only needed to reach the minor mastery stage.

Merely three months after the ambush—a fleeting span—he succeeded.

“True Form.”

Gazing at the void before him, Dongbo Xueying gently waved his hand. Countless black mist sphere particles, the essence of the void, shifted and flowed at his command. Layer upon layer of “black cloth” formed, with some particles rolling into spheres, others into massive cubes.

“Finally, I’ve reached this stage,” Dongbo Xueying smiled. The black mist spheres were infinitesimal, nearly untouchable. Even his Southcloud Sacred Body’s ‘Shattering the Firmament’ could barely shatter a few particles. To manipulate them freely required mastery over the void’s mysteries—this was the ‘True Form’ minor mastery, equivalent to the ninth level of the Chaos Realm.

Without external aids, this was the pinnacle of the Chaos Realm.

“Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!”

With a thought, five radiant lights manifested in the air above, each representing a different manipulation of the void. One was a crushing black chaos, another flickered in and out of existence, a third surged like turbulent tides, a fourth transformed like mist and silk, and the last was a hazy glow.

“The *Five-Phase Sealing Art*!” Dongbo Xueying’s eyes gleamed with joy. “Had I mastered this earlier, that Domain of Time would have been nothing!”

The stronger the force, the greater the disruption to the Domain of Time.

The *Five-Phase Sealing Art*—

The most domineering and supreme void technique of the Southcloud Sacred Sect. With the ‘Five-Phase Orb’ in hand, one could simultaneously unleash five tenth-level techniques, interwoven and mutually reinforcing to form the *Five-Phase Sealing Art*. Its power was unimaginable, utterly overwhelming.

“Master,” Dongbo Xueying immediately sent a message to the Southcloud Monarch.

“Xueying, what is it?” the Southcloud Monarch responded.

“I’ve mastered the *Five-Phase Sealing Art*,” Dongbo Xueying declared.

“What? Say that again?”