Back on Earth, I am the only cultivator.

After looking at the last mural, Wu Fan gently exhaled a breath of stale air.

Just then, a cold wind swept through the hall.

A faint glow suddenly appeared on the skeleton in the corner, which was in the posture of holding a pen.

The fireflies slowly intertwined in the void, eventually transforming into an old man with a tattered Taoist robe and an aged, ethereal face.

His empty eyes were fixed on Wu Fan.

"Ten thousand years... In the end, someone still managed to get in..."

The old man's voice was hoarse, carrying a lingering resentment from ages past.

Wu Fan remained calm, his hands behind his back, and said indifferently:

"You are Dao Yi, the founder of the Xuan Tian Sect?"

The old man's illusory soul trembled slightly. When he sensed the pure and unadulterated magical power emanating from Wu Fan, which was at the ninth level of the Golden Core stage, black light began to flash wildly in his previously empty eye sockets.

"The ninth level of the Golden Core stage is complete?!"

Dao Yi's remnant soul stared intently at Wu Fan, his expression gradually shifting from shock to madness:

"This is impossible! This world is dead!"

"The spiritual energy was drained by them ten thousand years ago!"

"Who exactly are you?"

"Have you returned from the depths of the stars, those who abandoned us?!"

"They didn't come back."

Wu Fan looked at him calmly, the hem of his robe fluttering in the cold wind outside the hall.

"I am not one of their children either."

"I am just a passerby on my way home."

"Passing by? Going home? Hahahaha... Going home!"

Dao Yi's remnant soul suddenly threw his head back and laughed, his laughter filled with resentment and malice:

"On this dead star, where is there any home left?!"

"This place has long been abandoned by the gods!"

"They were thrown away like trash by those high and mighty 'immortals'!"

"Young friend, since you have obtained the Xuan Tian Yin Yang Pendant, it means that you have also received guidance from my lineage."

He pointed to the white bones on the floor of the main hall and roared:

"Look! These are all disciples of my Xuantian Sect!"

"They begged me to spare their lives back then, but what happened afterward?"

"For a single low-grade spirit stone, a disciple would stab his master in the back!"

"For a single bottle of life-extending elixir, Daoist partners would skin and tear each other apart!"

"This is the degenerate age they left us!"

"This is the golden age that the immortals boast about!"

Wu Fan sighed and said softly:

"Things will turn into their opposites when they reach an extreme."

"Excessive exploitation of the mother planet's essence inevitably leads to the depletion of its spiritual energy."

"But those powerful beings drained the earth's veins before leaving, indeed leaving no way out for those who remained."

"A way out? They didn't even leave us a path!"

Dao Yi's illusory hands trembled violently as they pointed to the bronze ark on the wall:

"They took all the inheritance! All the immortal fruits! They even took a cub of a divine beast!"

"But they leave us, the unskilled and powerless immortals, here to die!"

"I refuse to accept this! I'm not reconciled!"

"If you were unwilling to accept this, you founded the Xuantian Sect to survive the end of the Dharma era, so why did you have to kill everyone with your own hands in the end?"

Wu Fan asked, his voice calm.

Dao Yi's laughter abruptly stopped, his shoulders slumped limply, and his soul appeared even dimmer.

"Because if I don't kill them, they will turn themselves into monsters in the face of resource scarcity."

Look at all these bones scattered on the ground.

Finally, they even suspected me of hoarding the elixir that could help me break through to the Nascent Soul stage, and they wanted to skin me alive, tear me apart, and steal my soul!

"Humanity cannot withstand the test in the face of despair."

Wu Fan said calmly.

"Yes, human nature cannot withstand the test."

Dao Yi murmured something, his ethereal eyes fixed on Wu Fan:

"Young friend, now that you've come this far, tell me, ten thousand years from now, will all mortals in this world have already become extinct?"

"What does the outside world look like now?"

"The mortals outside did not die; instead, they multiplied to billions."

Wu Fan looked at him calmly and said:

"They created 'steel birds' that can fly and move freely without using spiritual power, allowing ordinary people to live a peaceful and worry-free life."

"Although immortality is gone, it's much better than the chaos of the past."

"Billions of people? They can survive without spiritual power?!"

Dao Yi stood frozen in place, a bitter smile, both absurd and relieved, on his face:

"So, we cultivators are the real burden on this planet?"

"They're actually doing better now that we're gone?"

"But it hasn't always been like this."

Wu Fan pointed to the thick fog outside the window and said, slowly and deliberately:

"I feel that the earth's spirit is reviving."

"The era of cultivating immortality will return soon."

"Revival? The spiritual energy is actually reviving?!"

Dao Yi's soul trembled violently, a hint of fear flashing in his eyes:

"No! No! If the spiritual energy recovers... those people deep in the starry sky, if they sense it, they will return!"

"They will return and drain this planet dry once more!"

"Young friend! You must stop them! We absolutely cannot let them come back! We cannot let the tragedy of that year repeat itself!"

"Stop them?"

Wu Fan gave a disdainful sneer, his eyes flashing with the divine light of an Immortal Emperor accumulated over ten thousand years of cultivation:

"If they don't come back, then they're being smart."

"What if they really dare to cross the star system and once again treat this planet as a harvest garden!"

Before the words were finished, a terrifying pressure belonging to the ninth level of the Golden Core stage, yet carrying the essence of an unparalleled Immortal Emperor, erupted in the hall!

At this moment, the surrounding void seemed unable to withstand this power, and fine cracks began to appear.

The entire sturdy Xuantian Palace trembled violently under such power fluctuations, and countless piles of white bones instantly turned into dust under this pressure.

"I, the Emperor, will ensure they never return! I will use their immortal blood to appease the wronged souls who have perished over the past ten thousand years!"

Wu Fan's voice resounded like a great bell in the hall, deafeningly loud.

Dao Yi stared blankly at the black-clad youth in the void.

The domineering aura that transcended the rules of heaven and earth made him feel like a tiny speck of dust in front of this young man.

"You! You are no ordinary Golden Core cultivator."

Dao Yi murmured.

He seemed to understand something, and a relaxed smile appeared on his face, the one he hadn't shown in millennia.

"Thank heavens haven't forsaken my home planet! Hahahaha! What a 'no return' scenario!"

"Since that's the case, it's time for my remnant soul to dissipate!"

Dao Yi's illusory body began to transform into countless points of light, dissipating in mid-air.

In its final moments before its soul dissipated, this remnant soul, which had been trapped within the Kunlun Dragon Vein for ten thousand years, bowed deeply to Wu Fan with utmost solemnity and respect:

"Xuantian Sect Dao Yi thanks you, Senior!"

"May you, senior, vanquish the false immortals in the void and protect our mother planet's prosperity!"

The cold, clear voice slowly faded away in the hall, like a wisp of resentful snow from ten thousand years ago finally finding its home.

Silence returned to the main hall.

Only on that one stone wall, the words "Why did you abandon us?", dried up like black ink, remain, silently recounting that long-forgotten era.