Primordial Era: A brick knocks Hongyun unconscious, and he seizes the throne at the start.

On the night of the new moon, the yin energy surges like a tide.

At the foot of the Western Vulture Peak, the Eight Treasures Merit Pool Courtyard was bathed in Buddhist light, with chanting filling the air. Thousands of disciples of the Jie Sect, who had been converted, sat cross-legged on lotus platforms, the golden swastika mark between their eyebrows shimmering, their bodies surrounded by Buddhist light, as they were being forcibly cleansed of their spiritual foundation and transformed into Buddha-nature.

Suddenly, a muffled rumble came from the depths of the earth! Dozens of thick, pitch-black earth-evil energies burst forth from the ground around the courtyard without warning, shooting straight into the sky! In an instant, the Buddha's light was defiled, the chanting was disturbed, and dense evil energy, resentment, and filth spread out, fiercely clashing with the pure Buddha's light of the Merit Pool, hissing and conjuring countless hideous ghostly shadows and twisted demonic forms!

"What kind of demon dares to disturb the sacred Buddhist grounds?!" Several Vajra and Arhat monks flew out from the courtyard, filled with shock and anger, each wielding their weapons in an attempt to suppress the evil aura.

But the eruptions of the Earthly Fiends continued unabated, and even more strangely, they were mixed with wisps of extremely pure, foul blood-sea aura! This aura was like a living thing, specifically designed to erode the Buddha's light and pollute the magical treasures, causing the Vajra Arhats to scramble and panic.

Amidst the chaos, in the core area of ​​the villa, among the converted members of the Jie Sect, several figures suddenly trembled slightly. They seemed to hear a faint, yet soul-piercing, tortoise-shell-like chirping in their ears. Immediately afterward, a familiar and warm Shangqing Daoist aura swept over their hearts like a gentle breeze, quietly awakening a trace of their Jie Sect origins, which had been suppressed by the Buddha's light and were almost dormant!

"This feeling... is it the master's aura?" A middle-aged Taoist priest, formerly an outer disciple of the Jie Sect, trembled violently, a glimmer of clarity flashing in his bewildered eyes. He subconsciously reached into his robes—where, unbeknownst to him, a warm jade talisman had appeared. The talisman was slightly warm, conveying the message: "Leave this place immediately, travel three hundred li to the northeast, there is a way to survive!"

He wasn't the only one! Among the crowd, more than a dozen disciples of the Jie Sect with higher cultivation levels and shorter periods of conversion received similar guidance! Some sensed the Daoist charm of the Xuan Turtle Shell of the Holy Mother of the Tortoise Spirit, while others had their memories of Biyou Palace triggered by the Illusion Talisman of the Holy Mother of Wudang. Some even directly heard Lu Chen's brief telepathic transmission into their souls using a secret method!

Hesitation, struggle, longing for freedom, resentment towards the forced conversion by Buddhism... all sorts of emotions erupted in their hearts! Taking advantage of the chaotic gaps when the evil aura was pervasive and the Buddhist guards were restrained, these dozen or so people exchanged glances, gritted their teeth, and followed the instructions to quietly break away from the crowd, transforming into faint streaks of light and speeding towards the northeast!

Not long after they left, a crack suddenly appeared in the space above the courtyard, and a fierce wind from Beiju Luzhou, filled with a savage and ferocious aura, swept in! The wind faintly carried the roars of ancient ferocious beasts, mixed with a nauseating stench of decay and blood!

"The ferocious beast of the Northern Sea?!" The Buddhist monks were terrified, thinking that a great demon from the Northern Continent had attacked. They quickly divided their forces to defend against it, and had no time to attend to anything else.

The dozen or so streaks of light successfully disappeared three hundred miles away. Suddenly, the ground before them cracked open, revealing a dark passage exuding the aura of reincarnation. Beside the passage, Zhen Yuanzi held a phantom image of the Earth Book, concealing the secrets of heaven. Inside the passage, the auras of the Turtle Spirit Mother and the Wudang Mother faintly emanated.

"Enter the passage quickly, head to the underworld!" Zhen Yuanzi urged telepathically.

Without hesitation, more than a dozen people plunged in. The passage closed instantly, vanishing without a trace, as if it had never existed.

The entire process took only a few dozen breaths. As the Buddhist monks frantically dispersed the earthly evil spirits and repelled the fierce winds (actually fabricated by Lu Chen and Zhen Yuanzi), restoring order to the courtyard, they were horrified to discover—nineteen people were missing!

"Someone escaped in the chaos! Chase after them!" The guard, Luohan, was furious.

But where was there any trace? The secrets of heaven were disrupted by the Book of Earth, and the traces were erased by the Reincarnation Path, leaving not even a trace of life. What's more troublesome is that the nineteen who escaped happened to be the most powerful, the most rebellious, and the most familiar "troublemakers" among this group of converts! Their disappearance immediately caused subtle commotion and suspicion among the remaining converts.

When the news reached the main hall of Mount Ling, Jieyin and Zhunti's faces darkened.

"The eruption of earthly fiends, the aura of a sea of ​​blood, the gale of the Northern Netherworld... all erupting at the same time? It's too much of a coincidence!" A cold glint flashed in Zhunti's eyes. "Someone must have orchestrated this!"

"Lu Chen? Zhen Yuanzi? Or Pingxin from the Underworld?" Jieyin calculated with his fingers, but found the heavenly secrets chaotic and uncertain. "This matter must not be publicized, lest it shake the resolve of other converts. Secretly increase manpower and keep a close watch. Also... thoroughly investigate the internal situation to see if there are any accomplices!"

The first attempt at recruiting was a complete success. Lu Chen and his team rescued nineteen former members of the Jie Sect, all of whom were promising and expected to recover. More importantly, this operation was like prying open a crack in the tightly knit system of the Western Sect, proving the possibility of "resistance" and "escape." Its subsequent impact far outweighs the number of people rescued.

Having tasted success, Lu Chen and Zhen Yuanzi repeated the same method several times in the following months. Sometimes they would summon the Yin energy of the underworld, sometimes they would fake attacks by ferocious beasts, and sometimes they would even secretly incite internal conflicts among those they were converting to create chaos. Each time, they managed to rescue anywhere from a dozen to several dozen people amidst the chaos.

Although the Western Sect later strengthened its defenses and even invited a Bodhisattva to oversee things, Lu Chen and his group became even more secretive and varied in their methods, never greedy and knowing when to stop. In several separate operations, they managed to poach nearly two hundred former members of the Jie Sect right under the Western Sect's nose! These individuals were secretly sent to the underworld, where Gui Ling and Wu Dang were responsible for comforting and healing them, gradually helping them to remove the Buddhist influence and restore the Jie Sect's foundation.

The Western Sect suffered a silent loss, furious but helpless. They dared not openly search the Underworld (Empress Pingxin was not someone to be trifled with), nor could they determine who was responsible (Lu Chen and Zhen Yuanzi were too well disguised), and they were even more afraid that the matter would escalate and unsettle the other converts. They could only swallow their anger and secretly vent their rage on the "suspected" individuals.

Lu Chen, deep within the underworld, watched the two hundred former members of the Jie Sect gradually regain their vitality and express their gratitude to him, and smiled with satisfaction. With a little training, this group could become a loyal, reliable, and formidable fighting force, and would be an important pawn in the future to counterbalance the Western Sect and even infiltrate the Heavenly Court.

As time passed, after the Investiture of the Gods, the prehistoric world entered a relatively stable "digestion period".

Under the rule of Haotian, the Heavenly Court gradually began to function. Although some of the old gods of the Jie Sect outwardly complied while inwardly resisting, and the Western Sect infiltrated and expanded from the outside, it managed to maintain a semblance of order. Most of the immortals of the Chan Sect returned to their Daoist temples to cultivate in seclusion and enjoy the benefits of the favorable fortune. The Western Sect was busy digesting the results of their salvation efforts and expanding their faith. The human race, meanwhile, entered a period of peace and prosperity, recuperating and rebuilding.

During this period, aside from occasionally "taking care" of the Western Church's "talent pool," Lu Chen focused his main energy on three things:

First, he focused all his efforts on refining and comprehending the thirty-six Sea-Stabilizing Divine Pearls. Once this treasure was complete, its mysteries were boundless, containing the principles of the evolution of the heavens and the birth and death of the world, which would greatly benefit his advancement in the Great Dao of Power and the Chaos Brick. He even had a vague feeling that if he could completely control this treasure, he might be able to glimpse a trace of the creation mystery of "chaos transforming into the heavens," which would be of great help to his future attainment of the Dao through power.

Secondly, he consolidated his resources and influence. Using the Underworld as a secret base, with the rescued former members of the Jie Sect as the core, and absorbing some reliable rogue immortals (such as the best among the reincarnations of the former Fire-Burning Sect), he initially established a secret organization called "Dark Star" that only obeyed his orders. The organization had a clear division of labor: intelligence, infiltration, operations, and research and development (weapon crafting, formations, and elixirs). Although it was still small in scale, its structure was lean and efficient, and its potential was enormous.

Third, he closely monitored the movements of all parties, especially the next moves of Haotian and the Western Sect. He knew that the calm was merely a facade; the Investiture of the Gods had ended, and a new game had just begun. The conflict between the Heavenly Court and the Western Sect, the internal rifts within the Xuanmen sect, and his own existence as a "variable" meant that the prehistoric world was destined to be anything but truly peaceful.

On this day, Lu Chen was deducing the changes of the Sea-Stabilizing Pearl in the secret palace of the underworld when he suddenly received a message from Zhen Yuanzi:

"Young friend, come to Wuzhuang Temple immediately! Fellow Daoist Hongyun's reincarnation is making a move! Also... the Earth Book senses that a rare treasure seems to have appeared deep within Beiju Luzhou, stirring up chaotic energy, which may be related to your path of cultivation!"

A glint flashed in Lu Chen's eyes.

Is Senior Hongyun finally going to make a comeback? The Chaos Treasure of Beiju Luzhou?

He immediately ended his cultivation and used the brick-遁 (a type of teleportation technique) to head straight for Wuzhuang Temple.

New opportunities and turmoil have quietly arrived. And he, the sixth brother lurking in the shadows, will once again make his move, injecting new variables into this seemingly static world order!