Starting as the heir of a marquis's mansion, I gained access to a summoning system.

Tie Zhongtang asked in a deep voice, "What about the King of the East Sea? Where is he?"

Pang Ban did not answer, but merely glanced sideways at a certain direction deep in the East China Sea.

A moment later, a golden ship emerged from the thick fog.

The bow of the ship was carved with a dragon head, and all the water-patterned runes on the hull glowed with a dark purple light, exactly the same as the aura emanating from the two demon celestial beings from before. Standing at the bow was a man with white beard and hair, wearing a black robe with gold patterns, his face gentle yet fervent—it was the King of the East Sea.

He stood at the bow of the ship, facing Pang Ban across the sea, which was hundreds of feet away.

The seawater between the two was still churning, and the dark purple sky was reflected on the surface of the sea, turning the entire area into an eerie dark color.

"Pang Ban"

The King of the East Sea spoke, his voice unusually calm, "You just crippled two of my vanguards. Although those two were borrowed from the Southern Frontier, they are still considered my kin."

Pang Ban looked at him and suddenly said:

"The aura emanating from you is the same as theirs. Was it already planted a hundred years ago when you were researching the restrictions of Penglai?"

The King of the East Sea fell silent for a moment. Pang Ban's ability to pinpoint the time span of "a hundred years" so precisely was clearly deduced from the depth of demonic energy permeating his aura. This man's sensitivity to the energy of heaven and earth had reached a chilling level.

"A hundred years ago," the King of the East Sea finally spoke, "I ventured deep into the outer layer of the underwater seal to study the restrictions on Penglai, and was corrupted by the demonic energy leaking from the passage. At first, I didn't even realize it, but by the time I did..."

"It's too late."

"It's too late."

The King of the East Sea repeated those four words, a barely perceptible hint of self-mockery in his tone, but it was quickly swept away by his fervor. "But there are advantages to being late."

I saw the world beyond the Southern Frontier, a world larger, older, and more powerful than the Eastern Continent. In the Eastern Continent, the initial stage of the Celestial Realm is the limit, but in the Southern Frontier—beings at the mid-stage, late-stage, and even higher levels of the Celestial Realm are not uncommon. Pang Ban, you are trapped in this corner of the Eastern Continent; you will never know how vast the true world is.”

Pang Ban did not refute him, but calmly said, "So you need to open the passage and lure them over."

"It's not just about opening up channels."

The King of the East Sea took a step forward, and the golden ship slowly advanced a hundred feet toward Ten Thousand Snake Island. "I want to destroy the Underworld first, starting from the East Sea, and make the coastline of the East Continent the first bridgehead of the Black Tide army. Your Underworld occupies most of Ten Thousand Snake Island, Giant Whale Island, and the Seventy-Two Islands. You are too much of a hindrance."

As he spoke, a large number of warriors clad in dark purple armor surged out from the golden ship behind him, each exuding an aura of intertwined demonic and malevolent energy.

The warriors were no longer entirely humanoid—some had arms that had transformed into long blades, some had bone spurs growing on their backs, and some had eyes that burned with emerald flames. The island forces in the East China Sea that had originally submitted to the East China Sea King's Palace had now all revealed their demonic forms.

There were over a thousand of them, and even the weakest among them was at the mid-stage of the Grandmaster level.

Pang Ban glanced at the demonized army, then looked at the King of the East Sea: "You just said that in the Southern Frontier, beings at the mid-stage, late-stage, and even higher levels of the Celestial Realm are quite common?"

"good."

"Then you should know," Pang Ban raised his hand, condensing an extremely dark golden aura between his five fingers. The aura was so pure that even light would be distorted when it passed through it. "Although I am at the initial stage of the Celestial Realm, I am not an ordinary one."

He took a step forward.

The entire surface of the East China Sea seemed to freeze beneath his feet.

The waves ceased their churning, water droplets hovered in the air, and all the moving ships froze in place, as if put on pause. Song Que's sword intent was instantly suppressed within his body, Tie Zhongtang's blood-red flag froze in mid-air, and the indestructible golden light on Jue Wushen's left fist suddenly dimmed.

"Planting a demon in your Dao heart." Pang Ban enunciated each word clearly, "I will use the entire East Sea as my target for planting this demon, including the aura emanating from all of you, the flow of spiritual energy between heaven and earth, and even the fluctuations of the seawater itself—"

He suddenly clenched his outstretched fingers into a fist.

"They are all people I can leverage."

A massive wave suddenly surged across the sea, covering a radius of hundreds of miles. However, the wave did not crash against any particular ship; instead, it converged, overlapped, and compressed from all directions toward the golden ship.

Thousands upon thousands of walls of water crashed down on the East Sea King's demonized fleet at the same moment, slamming the dark purple-armored warriors and the ships into the sea.

The King of the East Sea's expression finally changed.

He stretched out a dark purple barrier with both palms to withstand the impact of the giant wave, but the barrier only lasted for three breaths before cracks appeared. Outside the water wall, Pang Ban's figure appeared less than ten feet in front of him, his purple robes fluttering in the wind, his gaze indifferent.

"You just said you wanted to destroy the underworld?"

Pang Ban raised his hand, palm down, and gently pressed down.

The entire golden ship began to crack from the middle. The King of the East Sea roared and urged all his cultivation to fight back. The dark purple evil energy in his palm condensed into a giant blade and stabbed at Pang Ban's chest—but the giant blade broke, disintegrated and vanished into nothingness inch by inch when it was three feet away from Pang Ban.

Pang Ban landed a palm strike on the shoulder of the King of the East Sea.

The body of the East Sea King began to shatter from his shoulders, and dark purple demonic energy leaked wildly from his body, like a punctured balloon.

He opened his mouth as if to say something, but only dark purple liquid came out of his throat.

His figure was compressed from the imposing majesty of a half-step Celestial under Pang Ban's palm back to that of an ordinary old man, then continued to shrink and become ethereal, finally turning into a handful of fine, dark purple ash, which drifted away with the sea breeze.

The golden ship exploded into countless fragments and sank into the sea.

The demonized army of over a thousand men lost its leader at the same moment the East Sea King vanished. The demonic energy within them went out of control and backfired, turning most of the warriors into pus and blood that fell into the sea. Only a few with deeper cultivation managed to survive, but they were also stunned by the remaining power of the giant spots on the sea surface and floated on the surface like dead objects.

Pang Ban stopped.

The waters of the entire East China Sea resumed their flow, the waves surged again, and ships bobbed and swayed on the crests. Time, which had been paused, seemed to be gently set back on track, and everyone seemed to awaken abruptly from a long dream.

On Ten Thousand Snake Island, Song Que finally relaxed his hand on the knife.

He discovered that the sweat on his palms had soaked the handle of the knife.

He wasn't unfamiliar with powerful figures, but Pang Ban's method of turning the entire East Sea into his own domain was no longer a simple matter of realm—it was something more fundamental, like a direct alteration of the rules of heaven and earth.

Uncharacteristically, Jue Wushen chimed in, "He's not without principles; he just makes us unable to see them. How much of his strength did he hold back when he attacked just now?"

Song Que and Tie Zhongtang both fell silent.

No one could answer this question. Pang Ban never revealed his true full strength from beginning to end—he dealt with those two demons at the initial stage of the Celestial Realm with ease, and he effortlessly destroyed the King of the East Sea. Just how many more tricks did he have up his sleeve?

Tie Zhongtang said in a low voice, "The waters of the underworld... are too deep."

Song Que nodded, his gaze falling on Pang Ban's retreating figure. The purple-robed figure was walking back to Ten Thousand Snake Island, his pace unhurried, as if he had merely brushed away a speck of foam from the sea.

The news of the destruction of the King of the East Sea spread throughout the seventy-two islands of the East Sea before nightfall that day, reached major ports along the coastline the next day, and arrived in the capital, the western frontier, and the northern border within three days.

The message consisted of only one sentence—

"Pang Ban, the Eastern Ghost Emperor, the leader of the Five Ghost Emperors of the Underworld, made a move and killed the King of the East Sea with one palm. He single-handedly fought against two demons at the initial stage of the Celestial Realm. One was forced back to his original form and fled to another world, while the other fled in panic. The King of the East Sea's demonization was exposed, and the Underworld officially took over the entire East Sea region."

The entire Tianxuan Continent trembled once again.

The theft of the halberd from the imperial tomb, the suppression of the rebellion in the southern border, and the slaying of the demon in the eastern sea—three events erupted in succession within half a month, and behind each event, the same name vaguely appeared: the Underworld and the Azure Dragon Society.

But what concerns all parties even more is the passage that has been opened.

Behind the Penglai Stone Gate in the East Sea lies the other half of the Tianxuan Continent that was shattered.

That southern continent, ruled by the demon race, possesses a higher level of martial arts heritage and far more powerful enemies than the Eastern Continent. The two pioneers at the initial stage of the Celestial Realm were merely an appetizer; behind them lay the "Black Stone General" and the "Black Tide Army."

Meanwhile, the Eastern Ghost Emperor of the Underworld instructed the Black Stone General to "present his official letter first" through the passage.

These words were like a knife hanging over the heads of everyone who could see that passage.

Some people began to prepare to flee to the inland, some began to reassess the strength of the underworld, and others—such as Liao Chen of Wanfo Temple, the Blood Shadow Elder of the Heavenly Demon Sect, and the Demon God Lü who disappeared in the imperial tomb—began to re-examine all the chess games they had laid out over the past hundred years.

The sky over Dongzhou has changed.

At this moment, Dongfang Weiwo was sitting in the empty "Royal Palace" of Chidu in the Southern Frontier, with a cup of tea that had gone cold in front of him.

The Red-Robed Dharma King was imprisoned in the adjacent stone chamber, awaiting interrogation. Guan Qi and Li Chenzhou had already led the main force of the Azure Dragon Society out of the southern border, leaving only the men of the Three Moons Hall's Carefree Marquis to guard the Eighth Prefecture.

He held in his hand a secret letter that had just flown in from the East Sea—written by Pang Ban himself, containing only six lines that briefly described the passage, the demon race, and the death of the King of the East Sea.

But the last line reads: "The origins of those two demons at the initial stage have been investigated. The 'Southern Frontier' they mentioned matches the 'continent shattered after the ancient war' described in ancient texts. The Eastern Continent is just one of the fragments; the other fragments contain other worlds."

He lit the letter over the candle flame and watched the ashes fall into the inkstone.

"Southern Frontier...the other half of the continent that was shattered, now ruled by the Demon Race."

He muttered to himself, "The Nine Transformations of Heavenly Secrets, the Pestle of Ten Thousand Calamities, and the Mysterious Armor that Demon God Lu confiscated a hundred years ago might be related to this."

He stood up and walked to the window. The twilight in the southern borderlands was tinged with a dim red by the firelight on the distant walls of Chidu City, and all that could be seen was scorched earth and ruins.

The White Lotus Sect, a pawn nurtured by Wanfo Temple for a century, ultimately did not escape the chessboard, but its downfall tore open a rift leading to a wider and more dangerous world.

The jade pendant his father had given him was warm to the touch.

"The East Sea Passage is open, and the Demon Clan will come sooner or later." Dongfang Weiwo gazed at the twilight outside the window. "Before that, everyone on the chessboard of the Eastern Continent must make their moves again."

He turned and walked out of the room, his footsteps echoing in the empty stone corridor.

"Send a message to the Two Dragon Heads and the Eastern Ghost Emperor. Within seven days, I want to see all the information they possess regarding the ancient war."

The guards bowed and withdrew from behind the pillars, their footsteps disappearing into the depths of the night.

Outside the window, the stars in southern Xinjiang are lighting up one by one, twinkling like the lights in the northern capital and on the East China Sea.

Each of them was uneasy.