“So you have the gall to use my tower, hmm?”

Upon the Jin ancestor’s bleak howl, a voice more sinister than any devilish whisper echoed throughout the entire paradise. An endless wave of sword intent followed, enveloping the entirety of Mauve Peace Paradise in sharp keenness.

Lu Yun had refined the inheritance tower with a celestial emperor’s strength, using the Sugato Sword’s will fused with the power of heaven and earth. The tower’s detonation released all of that stored will, freeing it to rampage throughout the microcosm.

The paradise dissolved into chaos. Weaker cultivators were killed outright, while stronger immortals were grievously injured. Mauve Peace Paradise was utterly devastated; ranked sixth in Xiankan, it was instantaneously half torn to pieces by the steel tempest within!

“Down with you!” Despite the tower’s violent end, the Jin ancestor wasn’t dead. Covered in blood, he roared like a wounded beast and unleashed the power of an arcane dao immortal to quell the raging sword-storm.

Pff.

Blood streamed from his mouth as he wavered, then nearly fell. The arcane dao fruit inside of him, the fruit that he had risked his life to pluck, had cracked open!

Twenty thousand Jin core disciples inside the inheritance tower were largely dead. The other Jin scions who’d moved into Mauve Peace Paradise weren’t much better off, either. Their bodies littered the ground with blood and gore. Even the Jin ancestor had suffered a dreadful blow from the terrifying sword intent; the crack on his dao fruit meant that half his cultivation was crippled.

“Lu… Yun! I will pursue you to the ends of the world if it’s the last thing I do!” the Jin ancestor roared to the sky, his hatred for Lu Yun utterly implacable.

The Feng, Qing Clans, and other greats in Xiankan simultaneously colored when they sensed the disturbance.

“Thank heavens the Jins tried the tower before we did. Otherwise….” Many were secretly counting their lucky stars. As a mere vassal of the Feng Clan, the Jin Clan had occupied Mauve Peace Paradise solely due to their patron’s aid.

It was an open secret that the paradise held Lu Yun’s inheritance tower. The structure’s purpose as the foundation of a sacred land of cultivation meant that it was of paramount importance.

Nevertheless, the great clans and the Nephrite imperial court had agreed to give the Jin Clan a century of time with it. The reason for this, of course, was to make use of them as guinea pigs.

As expected, scarcely six months passed before the tower had exploded on the spot. Both the violence and the Jin ancestor’s roar struck deep fear into others’ hearts. Another piece of news made it into the capital around the same time: the Jin Clan’s Jin Shikong had fled from the Blood Sea coast with his tail between his legs.

After being gone for more than a year, Lu Yun had returned, charging out of the Blood Sea with his signature fortress ship. More shockingly, Jin Shikong accused him of having died and becoming a demon!

However, not many took the last part seriously. The Blood Sea had appeared nine months ago, and the fact that the sea monsters couldn’t climb ashore hadn’t gone unnoticed. The moment they left their crimson home, they disintegrated into fine dust.

Information about Lu Yun’s itinerary flew into Xiankan on swift wings, keeping the court and the great clans continuously up to date. News that he’d emerged out of the Blood Sea with a connate-grade treasure spread far and wide.

No one bothered pursuing him on his journey, though, and Life Province’s transportation formation didn’t matter either. A perfect trap awaited him in Dusk Province, ready to be sprung as soon as he arrived. Nevertheless, the latest reports had driven Emperor Zhao Shenguang into raucous fury.

“Bastard! He took away the weapon of war? And the earth vein too?! Does he intend to rebel?! Our orders are thus: for the crimes of moving Our treasure and betraying the court, Lu Yun is to be killed on sight!

“Arrest the Lu and Chen Clans immediately, every last one! Lock them up in the imperial prison!” A weapon of war was of supreme importance to any imperial court. Indeed, it was nearly as important to Nephrite Major as the Path of Ingress. Zhao Shenguang had more than enough reason to be upset.

“Hmm? And who are you?” The young emperor blinked suddenly. A girl in men’s clothes had appeared in front of him without notice. She wore a simple blue tunic and no makeup whatsoever, but her face was mesmerizing in its own right.

“The real Zhao Shenguang has gone to the Endless Desert with Chen Xiao and Qing Buyi,” the girl asserted. “I should be the one asking you that question. Who are you?”

……

Everything was very quiet on Lu Yun’s route home. No one stood in his way, even as he reached Life Province’s transportation formation.

Rumble!

The formation worked hard to move the twelve fortress ships to Dusk Province’s Sword Pavilion. Once they’d arrived, Lu Yun and company didn’t even have time to disembark before they were enveloped by a noisomely murderous aura.

An ambush had been set up here for the moment the ships sailed out of their destination formation. More than ten thousand killing formations crashed down from the sky to greet their arrival, wholly engulfing the contingent.

Boom!

The eleven ships behind Lu Yun’s were destroyed on the spot, the pressure from ten thousand formations proving too much for the flimsy vessels to bear. Thankfully, the immortals and cultivators who’d sailed on them before were all inside Lu Yun’s ship.

Each ship had carried ten thousand, but Lu Yun’s flagship had plenty of extradimensional space for them to inhabit. It could hold the extra eleven thousand without feeling stuffy.

“Your craven appetites go too far, Lu Yun. For all the treasonous acts you’ve committed thus far, you must pay with your life!” came a frigid voice from afar: a Feng immortal.

Once upon a time, the younger brother of the Feng Patriarch, Feng Wujiang, had served as the warden of this place. During his tenure, he’d made countless arrangements to fortify this position against outside interference.

Lu Yun had been in too much of a hurry to deal with them last time, which had allowed the Feng Clan the freedom to make direct use of them with the Yue Clan in a joint deathtrap.

Pressure from ten thousand formations descending made the high-quality fortress ship creak in distress. The immortals and cultivators from the other ships blanched in fear; the weight of the formations alone enough to crush them!

Under the direction of the Nephrite court, the Feng Clan was able to bring its full strength to bear in their newest attempt on Lu Yun’s life. That they hadn’t struck in Life Province was purely out of worry for Wayfarer and Qing Ruyan’s potential intercession.

“Die!” cried a Feng immortal.

Boom!

The simultaneous activation of ten thousand formations tore the earth and sky asunder. This time, even Wu Tulong and Zi Chen were appalled.

Rather than return to their respective clans, they’d come to Dusk Province with Lu Yun because of the Dao Flower. It’d required collaboration between all four of them. Since some sort of calamity was guaranteed at the moment of its full bloom in the outside world, they needed Lu Yun’s protection. Regardless, Dusk Province was clearly an ideal place for the flower, and the ten thousand formations waiting here were an unpleasant and unwanted surprise.

“Deploy the formation!” Lu Yun called out.

Behind him, Feinie made a flurry of hand seals. The Formation Orb blazed with potent brilliance, summoning forth a bloody, fiendish shadow. The Great Formation of Heavenly Fiends!