A shower of swords streaked across the sky, drawing silvery trails like ephemeral comets. The ten lords led the pack, heading toward the light at top speed. Undercurrents flowed and ebbed in the Sovereign World.

……

“Why aren’t you going for that big opportunity over there?!” Blood trickled down the corner of the little girl’s mouth and she couldn’t hide her anxiety. The pillar of light just now had released a tremendous amount of power and an enormous aftershock. Frankly, their relative proximity to it had hurt them quite seriously.

Lu Yun was the only one unhurt. Though he was in the life core realm, his strength surpassed his cultivation. For the current him, there was little difference between the core and void realms. Similarly, he saw no significant distinction between internal energy and mystical force.

His state of being had surpassed the Sovereign Ranking’s shackles. Though his body was formed by a Life Glyph, he’d been one of the first to become cognizant of that and determine which was the real him. The Life Glyph had then become an aid to help him fully understand the few realms he’d so easily skipped before.

“If I leave now, passersby will kill both of you for sure,” said Lu Yun. He pointed at a few nearby corpses for proof. They belonged to the would-be ambushers he had killed just now.

“But…” The girl nearly passed out again from overexertion.

“Focus on getting better and don’t worry about the other stuff.” Lu Yun reassured her with a wave of his hand.

The little girl sat down obediently. A few pills later, she began patching herself up. She’d stood guard over him for thirteen days; he wasn’t just going to leave her here.

I wonder if Qing Han will be there… Lu Yun murmured, gazing at the light in the distance.

……

“I didn’t mean to do this!” The Silvermoon Wolfking wanted to cry. She stared at the thing before her, back in the form of a silver-haired girl—albeit stunned and confused.

An ivory longsword floated serenely in midair, the source of the blinding pillar of light. Previously, Qing Han and the Wolfking had been in a vibrant oasis filled with life. After the ivory sword appeared, everything was consumed by the immortal light—the membrane of the microcosm they were in was broken, allowing the darkness outside to flood in.

Panic was written all over the Wolfking’s face. The only thing she’d done was kill a skeleton that had wandered in. She didn’t expect such a huge commotion to come of it!

“Don’t blame yourself, this is all because of me.” Qing Han stood up, her eyes fixated upon the ivory longsword. “I cannot take this sword.”

……

Outside, they were already surrounded by a dense throng of cultivators. Ten imposing figures hovered at the highest point in the air, coldly looking down at everything below. They couldn’t see Qing Han or the Silvermoon Wolfking, of course.

The two of them were deep inside a tomb. The tomb was cracked, and the minor world they were in was ruined, but not fully destroyed.

“There are still eighty thousand cultivators here. Too many.” One of the ten suddenly declared. “What think you, gentlemen?”

“Kill.” Another followed coolly. “Kill anyone who isn’t one of ours.”

“Well said!” The rest nodded in consensus. The ten lords didn’t need to dirty their own hands. As soon as the decision was made, their underlings began cleaning out the rest of the cultivators.

“Oh no! Everybody, run for it!” Their marked prey paled and scattered.

“Please, Monster Lord! I am willing to serve!” A monster spirit cultivator shouted loudly.

“Too late.” The Monster Lord wasn’t in humanoid form. As a monster, its leonine body burned in the air like a golden sun.

Boom!

An innumerable amount of attacks slammed into the monster cultivator, reducing him to dust. Many cultivators felt their hearts freeze.

“Run!” A great slaughter began amidst startled shrieks and screams.

The ten lords’ followers were more than enough to eliminate the fleeing cultivators with trivial ease. The lords themselves were as strong as the world allowed them to be. Though their subordinates became stronger by eliminating others left and right, their lords were unsurpassable.

……

The Sovereign World’s proceedings were broadcast to all of Destiny City through the Ranking.

“It looks like the top ten are already settled. Surely, it must be the ten lords!”

“The Five Youth Sovereigns are history. The ten lords are the future of our world!”

“Those so-called ‘Youth Sovereigns’ were just a flash in the pan. They didn’t last long, after all.” Many important immortals sighed as they watched.

The ten lords all came from exceptionally strong factions in the immortal world. They had incomparable backing and patronage, enough to make any potential retribution from their slaughter inside the Sovereign World a joke.

Notably, neither Wu Tulong, Mo Qitian, nor Zi Chen were among the ten lords!

They were contestants in the Sovereign Ranking, but had made no name for themselves whatsoever beyond that. It was an incredibly stark contrast to their proud performance three years prior. Indeed, they’d been forced to join a human lord’s side just to survive. Rather inconceivable, considering their participation in the restoration of the Dao Flower.

“It’s too bad about the young Wolfking. If that human hadn’t enslaved her, there’d be one more.” Many monster spirits lamented their brethren genius’s fate. If not for Qing Yu, the Wolfking would no doubt have risen to the top as another lord. But her inexperience in cultivation held her back. At the Dao Flower’s bloom, she had only just reached nascent spirit.

“Hold on, where is the Wolfking, anyway? Where is that Qing Yu?” Someone voiced their bewilderment. The images from the ranking didn’t show them to be anywhere, but their names remained upon the ranking proper. They were still in the second round!

“Look, the Sovereign World is shrinking!” another yelped in surprise.

Indeed, the Sovereign World’s boundaries were contracting. The borderlands and burial mounds gradually sank into infinite darkness as the Path of Ingress that had led them there broke off its connection.

The shrinking world forced many cultivators out of hiding, necessitating that they take on the ten lords’ subordinates. The result was decimatingly bloody. None could escape the destiny of being eliminated, although they did take quite a few enemies with them.

As time went on, the number of cultivators in the Sovereign World dwindled. Some very strong cultivators were forced to step forward in opposition to the ten lords.

However, the lords themselves didn’t budge an inch. They waited with bated breath and eager anticipation for the tomb’s ancient heritage to finally appear. The widening crack on the tomb released increasing amounts of glittering light. Through the radiance, they could see an ivory sword—and two figures beside it.