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

Dongfang Weiwo slammed his palm into the center of the crack in the palace door, and dark golden light surged from his palm, instantly merging with the same source of power emanating from the crack.

The ancient patterns on the bronze gate lit up for a moment—but the gate did not open.

The gray-robed man's three drops of essence blood were currently suspended in the jade bottle, resonating with Dongfang Weiwo's bloodline across the entire wall of the hall.

The three drops of blood trembled violently in the bottle, like trapped fledglings desperately pounding against their cage.

The man in gray pressed down on the bottle opening, and a layer of black light emanated from the black lotus mark on his palm, enveloping the jade bottle and forcibly suppressing the restlessness of the three drops of essence blood.

But Dongfang Wei already knew that the key to the palace gate was on himself—those three drops of blood were just the fuse, the real lock was the key imprint inside his body.

"Madman."

Dongfang Weiwo withdrew his palm and turned around, his gaze sweeping across the entire battlefield. Yan Kuangtu was forcibly breaking through the death barrier of the Undying Armor Guards, each punch sending dozens of bronze armored soldiers flying backward, but the armored soldiers behind him immediately filled the gaps, the formation flowing like living water.

Emperor Taiyuan sat atop the bone lizard, his greyish-white eyes fixed intently on the battle.

Meanwhile, on the flank, a golden torrent was surging down from the ridge of the sand dunes—three thousand chariots, each followed by ten armored warriors of light, forming a massive sun-wheel formation of thirty thousand men. At the center of the formation was a man wearing a golden and white robe, his face shrouded in a hazy halo of sunlight, holding a six-sided golden wheel.

King Jingguang. Leader of the Bright Heaven Palace. Late-stage Celestial Being. He can use the Sun Wheel Formation of 30,000 people to artificially boost his combat power to above the initial stage of Creation.

He remained on the outer edge of the battle lines and did not immediately join the fight.

His gaze passed over the immortal guards of Emperor Taiyuan, over the confrontation between Dongfang Weiwo and the gray-clad man before the stone hall, and finally settled on the bronze hall door that was about to open. That gaze was calm yet greedy, like a hunter seeing its prey about to be caught.

Three forces surrounded the Divine Demon Sub-Hall: Emperor Taiyuan's Undying Guards pressed in from the north, Dharma King Jingguang's Light Array blocked it from the south, and the gray-clad man and the Wanmo Cult members lurked in the shadows along the side of the hall.

The gray-white death aura of 200,000 Undying Armor Guards collided with the golden sunlight of 30,000 Bright Armor Guards above the palace gates. The spiritual pressure piled up layer by layer, tearing the clouds above the entire desert into fragments, revealing a deep night sky.

Dongfang Weiwo stood at the center where the three forces converged, with the tightly closed bronze palace gates behind him and two hundred thousand armored guards and thirty thousand golden lights in front of him.

The wind and sand, carrying scorching spiritual energy, lashed against his cheeks. The array patterns on his right arm flickered in the night wind—the fourth bone fragment pulsed within the hall, each heartbeat resonating with the key seal in his dantian.

Emperor Taiyuan spoke first. He bowed slightly as he rose from the back of the bone lizard, his purple-gold heavy armor shimmering with grayish-white deathly patterns, his voice deep and resonant like muffled thunder:

"You brat from Dongzhou? You've come here alone to die?"

Dongfang Weiwo looked at him without answering. His attention was focused on the depths of his Qi Sea—the key seal was spinning, each rotation further crushing and absorbing the power contained in the three relics of Wanjie Valley and the bone fragment of the Taichu Divine Sect.

The barrier between heaven and man within his body was already riddled with cracks, and it was only one final blow away from completely shattering it. But he couldn't afford to be distracted by breaking through the barrier now; he needed to open that door first.

The voice of the Dharma King Jingguang came from the side, peaceful and righteous:

"Emperor Taiyuan, you guarded the secondary hall for half a month awaiting its birth, and now that its birth is imminent, you can't even open the door. The young dragon head of Tianxuan Palace has the key mark on his body; you can stop him, but can you stop the resonance of the entire hall?"

Emperor Taiyuan narrowed his gray eyes. Of course he could see it—the patterns on the palace gate were now flashing in sync with the light patterns on Dongfang Weiwo's right arm, each flash in the same rhythm, like a heartbeat and pulse.

"Then kill him first."

Emperor Taiyuan raised his hand, and 200,000 Undying Armor Guards simultaneously raised their shields and stepped forward, pushing the gray-white barrier of death energy forward by ten feet.

Yan Kuangtu had already breached the outer layer of the barrier, retreating to Dongfang Weiwo's side covered in blood. He exhaled a puff of white breath and grinned:

"Young master, these tin cans are hard to smash, but if you give me another half an incense stick, I can smash the face of the one riding the lizard."

"Need not."

Dongfang Weiwo pressed down on his shoulder, pulling him behind her, and said calmly, "I'll open the door."

He took a step forward, raising his right arm high. The array patterns spread from his arm to his palm, and dark golden light wove a complete array seal in his palm—the key seal in his dantian spun wildly at this moment, exploding with dazzling light at the same time as the cracked pattern on the palace gate.

The colossal bronze gate emitted a deafening roar.

The entire secondary hall rose from the sea of ​​sand, and the yellow sand on the bronze surface cascaded down like a waterfall, revealing the full appearance of the hall—it was a cone-shaped bronze tower, its body engraved with patterns that perfectly matched the array diagram on Dongfang Weiwo's back. At the top of the tower, a huge dark gold ring was slowly rotating, and with each rotation, a spiritual vein from within a hundred miles would flow into the tower.

The seal on the palace gate was released on its own. The three drops of essence blood in the jade bottle in the gray-robed man's palm emitted a sharp buzzing sound at the same time—the black light membrane shattered, the essence blood broke out of the bottle, and turned into three dark golden meteors that swept across the entire battlefield, accurately flying back to Dongfang Weiwo's palm, merging into his skin and disappearing.

The man in gray's expression changed drastically, and he retreated rapidly.

The palace doors swung open. The fourth remnant of a god or demon floated out from the depths of the tower—it was a complete section of dark purple spine, each vertebra engraved with intricate runes, its entire body shimmering with dark golden light, like a sleeping dragon finally opening one eye.

Emperor Taiyuan's eyes flashed with ferocity, and the bronze chariot soared from the back of the bone lizard, enveloped in a monstrous gray-white death aura, hurtling straight towards the palace:

"Leave the bones!"

At the same instant, the six-sided golden wheel in the hand of Dharma King Jingguang flew out and transformed into a hundred-zhang-long sun wheel that pressed down from the sky. Its golden light was as bright as the sun falling, enveloping the entire hundred-zhang-long area around Dongfang Weiwo in the light of the sun wheel.

The gray-clad man's figure suddenly twisted in the void—the black lotus mark flashed, and a dagger-shaped black stream of energy pierced out from behind Dongfang Weiwo, aiming straight for his back.

Three creation-level attacks landed simultaneously.

Dongfang Weiwo stood motionless in front of the palace gate.

Inside the hall behind him, the light from the fourth bone fragment had merged with the array on his back, and a dark golden pillar of light shot into the sky, making his figure appear like a phantom returning from ancient times.

But it was two other figures that truly blocked those three attacks.

Guan Yutian's innate qi burst forth from the residual light of the teleportation star array, and the hundred-zhang golden bell fell down, crashing head-on into Emperor Taiyuan's bronze chariot—the resounding clang of metal against metal caused the sand surface within a hundred zhang radius to cave in, and the bronze chariot overturned three times before crashing into the sand dune. Emperor Taiyuan staggered out of the chariot, a grayish-white liquid spilling from the corner of his mouth.

Xiong Ba unleashed his Three Returning Origin Qi simultaneously.

The three streams of energy converged in the air and transformed into a palm strike called "Return to Origin Break," which struck the golden sun-shaped light of the Pure Light Dharma King. The aftershock of that palm strike caused the front row of the 30,000-strong Bright Armor Formation to retreat in unison. The golden sun-shaped light shattered into countless fragments like glass. The Pure Light Dharma King let out a muffled groan and his body retreated a hundred feet, half of the golden patterns on his robe dimming.

The two stood on either side of each other in the afterglow of the star array.

Guan Yutian stood with his hands behind his back, his innate protective energy like a bell; Xiong Ba clasped his hands together, three streams of energy swirling around his body like dragons.

Guan Yutian looked at the overturned chariot of Emperor Taiyuan, his voice like an ancient bell:

"We've been deploying our defenses on the western front for half a month, just waiting for you to show your face. The Crimson Abyss Desert isn't enough for you; why did you have to come here to die?"

Xiong Ba was even more decisive, glancing calmly in the direction where the Pure Light Dharma King had retreated.

"If Tianxuan Prefecture expands westward, and your Bright Armored Formation does not withdraw to the western border within three days, I will personally go to your headquarters to demand an explanation."

Emperor Taiyuan rose from the sand, several cracks appearing on his purple-gold heavy armor.

He looked at Guan Yutian and Xiong Ba, and the fighting spirit in his gray eyes was finally replaced by something calmer—the initial stage of creation.

Two people at the initial stage of the Creation Realm, plus Yan Kuangtu, that madman who was rubbing his fists, three people at the Creation Realm confronted him and the Pure Light Dharma King at the same time.

Meanwhile, Dongfang Weiwo himself was standing at the entrance of the hall, his hand already grasping the dark purple spine.

An eerie stillness descended upon the entire desert. The 200,000 Undying Armored Guards halted their advance, and the 30,000 Radiant Armored Formation also remained stationary on the flanks.

In the center of the three battlefields, only the dark golden pillar of light at the palace gate continued to rise, echoing the stars in the night sky.

Yan Kuangtu remained motionless.

He stood three steps behind Dongfang Weiwo, his gaze fixed on a certain spot in the void—the gray-clad man's thrust had been deflected by Xiong Ba's Guiyuan Po, and he was hiding in the void rift, trying to retreat.

This was the moment Yan Kuangtu had been waiting for. He vanished from his spot in a flash, and the next instant he reappeared, his right hand already gripping the gray-clad man's nape—so fast it was as if he hadn't moved at all.

"I let you get away last time."

Yan Kuangtu yanked the gray-clad man out of the void like a chicken, his fingers tightening. The gray-clad man let out a muffled thud, the black lotus mark on his palm flashing wildly but unable to break free from the grip of the initial stage of the Creation Realm. "Are you going to run away now?"

Dongfang Weiwo held the dark purple spine in his hand, his gaze sweeping over Emperor Taiyuan, Dharma King Jingguang, and the gray-robed man in turn.

His dantian was churning—the power of the fourth bone fragment was flowing into the key seal along his right arm, and the barrier of the Nine Heavens of Heaven and Man emitted a crisp cracking sound, like an eggshell being cracked open from the inside.

The threshold of the initial stage of creation shattered beneath his feet, and his aura rose at a visible speed. The sand on the sand surface swirled around him into a towering sand pillar, and dark golden light swirled within the sand pillar like dragons and snakes.

After half a cup of tea, the sandstorm subsided.

Dongfang Weiwo stood atop the sand dune, the array patterns on his right arm spreading to half of his face. His aura as a nascent Creation Realm cultivator was like a drawn sword, tearing apart all the spiritual pressure within a hundred miles.

The dark purple spine behind him had completely merged into his back—the fourth bone fragment had entered his body, and his spine was now emitting a faint purple light, which could be vaguely seen through his robes.

He opened his eyes, his gaze falling on Emperor Taiyuan. Emperor Taiyuan instinctively took a half-step back.

"I took the fourth one."

Dongfang Weiwo spoke, his voice not loud, but clearly audible throughout the entire desert, "Where is the fifth piece? If you know, tell me now, and the desert is still yours. If you don't—"

He paused, glancing at the shattered bronze chariot wreckage beneath Guan Yutian's feet.

Emperor Taiyuan remained silent for a long time.

He stared at the purple light emanating from Dongfang Weiwo's back, at the aura of the newly promoted Initial Creation Realm cultivator pressing towards him like a sharp blade, at the three Initial Creation Realm cultivators standing silently and dangerously before him, and finally exhaled a breath of turbid air, his voice hoarse:

"The Crimson Abyss. Deep within the Crimson Abyss volcano in the Northern Desert lies the last piece of bone. The Lord of the Fire Abyss has guarded it for thirty thousand years. Records in the ancestral texts of my Taiyuan Dynasty state that it was the first bone to be separated—the left leg bone of the Giant Shadow, the strongest piece."

A dark golden flame flashed in Dongfang Weiwo's eyes. Left leg bone. The first piece. The strongest piece.