Primordial Era: A man at the mouth of the Guanjiang River marries the Third Holy Mother.

The Taoist Ran Deng gritted his teeth, and the veins on his forehead throbbed twice.

Mahasthamaprapta Bodhisattva stood to his right, the Buddha's light on the golden lotus platform having mostly subsided. The great Bodhisattva's expression remained unchanged, but the fingers holding the wisdom jewel tightened slightly.

"Amitabha." Mahasthamaprapta Bodhisattva murmured a Buddhist chant, his voice steady, "Benefactor Chen, this humble monk is merely passing through this place to practice—"

Don't give me that.

Chen Changsheng shut him down with a single sentence.

"Passing by to cultivate? You just happened to be passing by and came to the outskirts of the Fire Cloud Cave to inscribe the Western Sect's seals and restrictions? Mahasthamaprapta, do you think I'm blind?"

The corner of Mahasthamaprapta Bodhisattva's mouth twitched.

The Six-Eared Macaque jumped down from the top of the iron rod, squatted on Chen Changsheng's shoulder, and grinned at the Bodhisattva Mahasthamaprapta: "Bald donkey, I heard everything you went through on your way from Mount Sumeru, including which road you took and how many turns you made. You call that just passing by? Tell me if your skin is thick enough."

The Bodhisattva Mahasthamaprapta finally couldn't hold back any longer; his lips moved, but he couldn't utter a word.

The Taoist Ran Deng gritted his teeth and took a step forward.

"Chen Changsheng, the matter of the Fire Cloud Cave is an inevitable trend of Heaven's will; your efforts alone are insufficient—"

"Light the lamp."

Chen Changsheng interrupted him, his tone as indifferent as if he were talking about the weather.

"I don't want to hear your nonsense. I'll give you three breaths. Take your men and get out of here."

He is the vice leader of the Chan Sect, with a cultivation level of mid-stage Quasi-Saint. When did he ever get told to get lost in front of so many people?

But he dared not move.

The God-Slaying Spear was in the hands of the man opposite him. The dark spear was surging with the murderous aura of the Demon Ancestor, and just one glance at it made his Dao heart waver.

The Taoist Ran Deng closed his eyes, his breath swirled three times in his chest, and finally he swallowed it down.

"withdraw."

He squeezed out a single word through gritted teeth.

Upon hearing this word, the Old Man of the South Pole felt as if he had been granted a pardon and turned to leave.

Mahasthamaprapta Bodhisattva stopped pretending and slowly rose into the air on a golden lotus platform. With a flash of light from the wisdom jewel, he fled towards Mount Sumeru.

The Taoist Ran Deng took one last look at Chen Changsheng, his eyes filled with intense hatred and resentment, but he didn't say a word. With a flick of his sleeve, he carried the World-Destroying Glazed Flame Banner and vanished into the end of the void as a streak of light.

Three breaths.

All three of them ran away.

Yuan Hong stood behind Chen Changsheng, watching the three disappearing streaks of light, and grinned: "Master, are we just going to let them go like that? What a pity. I've wanted to twist that old man Ran Deng's head off and use it as a football for a long time."

Chen Changsheng shook his head.

"Don't worry, they can't escape."

After saying that, he turned his gaze downwards.

On the spatial barrier surrounding Fire Cloud Cave, the dense array of sealing restrictions were still in operation, emitting a dim magical light. Although the three of them, Ran Deng and his companions, had retreated, the formations they had set up had not disappeared and were still severing the connection between Fire Cloud Cave and the outside world.

The Emperor's Decree was slightly warm in Chen Changsheng's arms.

Fuxi's voice still echoed in his mind—"Come quickly... or else..."

Chen Changsheng put away the God-Slaying Spear and flipped his right hand in the air.

A divine bell, radiating dazzling golden light, slowly rose from above his head.

Donghuang Zhong.

"The formation set up by Ran Deng and his gang can be dealt with by simply smashing it with this."

Chen Changsheng's lips twitched, and his Primordial Chaos Power poured into the Eastern Emperor Bell.

With the bell facing downwards, the myriad demon totems and the celestial constellations light up simultaneously, and golden time-space divine patterns surge like a tide on the bell's surface.

He raised his hand and pressed down.

The Eastern Emperor Bell, imbued with the imperial might to suppress all ages, crashed down upon the sealing array surrounding the Fire Cloud Cave.

when--

The bell tolled, and the void within a radius of ten thousand miles trembled.

Golden time-space runes poured down from the bell's mouth, transforming into a sky-covering golden light curtain that heavily pressed down on the sealing array surrounding the Fire Cloud Cave.

How powerful was that strike?

Chen Changsheng knew it in his heart.

At Chentang Pass, he used the Eastern Emperor Bell to withstand the full force of the Pangu Banner's attack, suppressing the self-destruction of the Dao Fruit of the Primordial Heavenly Venerable's incarnation and freezing the laws of time and space.

The full power of a supreme innate treasure.

Let alone a formation set up by a mid-stage Quasi-Saint like Ran Deng, even a restriction set up by a peak Quasi-Saint would be shattered into dust after this one bell.

The moment the golden light screen rolled onto the great formation, Chen Changsheng was already preparing to end his cultivation.

Then he froze.

It's not broken.

A hazy gray halo appeared on the surface of the sealing array. When the golden spacetime divine runes of the Eastern Emperor Bell struck that halo, they bounced back as if they had hit an invisible wall.

It's not about weakening, it's not about offsetting.

It bounced back.

The Eastern Emperor Bell emitted a deep, muffled hum, its body trembled violently twice, and then flew back to Chen Changsheng's head on its own.

The blockade formation remained completely still.

There wasn't even a single crack.

Chen Changsheng stared at the hazy halo in front of him, countless thoughts flashing through his mind in an instant, but in the end, they condensed into three words.

What the hell?

He wasn't unfamiliar with tough opponents. He had fought incarnations of saints, carried the Pangu Banner, and shattered the Dao Fruits of two incarnations of saints with the God-Slaying Spear.

But even the full force of the Eastern Emperor Bell couldn't break through a sealing array?

This is not reasonable.

Burning Lamp is a mid-stage Quasi-Saint. Antarctic Immortal is not even a Quasi-Saint, at most a peak Great Luo Golden Immortal. Great Strength Bodhisattva's cultivation is higher, but he is only between the early and mid-stage Quasi-Saint.

Even if the formation set up by these three people together used the top-grade materials and the most ingenious formation theory, it would absolutely not be able to withstand the direct bombardment of a supreme innate treasure.

unless--

This formation wasn't set up by the three of them at all.

Or rather, not entirely.

Chen Changsheng's pupils suddenly contracted.

He recalled what the Six-Eared Macaque had said before: "There is a very faint magical fluctuation seeping into the spatial barrier surrounding the Fire Cloud Cave. That magical power is neither the style of the Chan Sect nor the method of the Western Sect, but rather seems to be a very ancient sealing technique."

Ancient sealing techniques.

Ran Deng and his group simply added a new layer of restrictions on top of this ancient seal.

The one who truly sealed off the Fire Cloud Cave was not Dipankara Bodhisattva, nor Mahasthamaprapta Bodhisattva, but an entity whose origins were unknown and who acted much earlier.

Chen Changsheng took a deep breath and clenched his fists.

He turned to look at the six-eared macaque beside him.

The six-eared macaque's two ears stood straight up, and the playful smile on its face had completely disappeared, replaced by an unusually serious expression.

"Master, something's wrong."

The Six-Eared Macaque squatted on the iron rod, his eyes fixed on the gray halo, his voice low: "When the Eastern Emperor Bell slammed down just now, I used my all-hearing ears to listen to the sounds inside the formation. All the restrictive runes that Ran Deng and the others set up shattered completely under the impact of the Eastern Emperor Bell."