With the revival of spiritual energy, I cultivated the Great Emperor's Technique on Blue Star.

With a single sentence, he pierced through the darkness hidden deep within Zhou Xuanji's heart, tearing open the filthy secrets.

The entire Zhou family ancestral land fell into a deathly silence in an instant, as if all things in heaven and earth had stopped. The mountain wind suddenly ceased, the grass and trees froze, and the flowing clouds hung stagnant in the sky.

The courtyard, which had just been filled with glimmers of spiritual light, was now completely swallowed up by a putrid and bloody aura.

Zhou Xuanji's hunched body trembled slightly. His aged face, marked with the deep lines of time and resembling a candle flickering in the wind, revealed all the pretense of gentleness, indifference, and detachment from worldly affairs. Like an ancient, weathered monument, it cracked inch by inch and completely crumbled away.

In public, he was the patriarch who single-handedly founded the Zhou family of Jiangcheng, a fourth-level cultivator who was old and dying with his eyes closed.

Behind the scenes, he was a human parasite who sacrificed his clan, devoured living beings, colluded with alien races from beyond the realm, and lurked in darkness for decades.

For decades, he was firmly locked at the peak of the fourth tier, his Great Dao withered, his lifespan burned out, and his path forward was cut off. Ordinary martial artists would only be able to sit and return to dust at this point, but he was greedy for life and afraid of death, so he insisted on going against the heavens and embarking on the most insidious and inhumane path to death.

Using the blood and flesh of his entire clan as fuel and the essence of countless living beings as medicine, he forcibly clung to his last vestige of life. He also secretly colluded with Xue Luo, borrowing the alien laws of the Blood Soul Clan from beyond the realm, attempting to break the shackles of martial arts and take the final step towards the fifth rank.

Such secrets are hidden in the darkness of the underworld and buried in the dust of time. Even Li Cang, a powerful figure who governs a region, and Wang Jianjun, who holds the highest authority in the Jiangcheng Martial Arts Department, have never been able to glimpse them.

But today, this teenager in front of him has revealed the secret and exposed his lifelong dark schemes.

"Young friend's keen insight truly puts this old man to shame."

Zhou Xuanji slowly raised his head, his hoarse, aged voice twisted, devoid of any humility, only filled with chilling coldness and madness. His turbid eyes blazed with crimson, unleashing a torrent of resentment, violence, and bitterness that had been building up for half a lifetime.

Rumble!

The next instant, the immense power of the peak fourth-order origin exploded!

The martial arts foundation dormant within him was completely unleashed, like an ancient ferocious beast awakening, sweeping across the entire world.

The bluestone on the ground crumbled layer by layer, and fine cracks spread throughout the ancestral land. Countless resentful souls buried underground broke through the soil and swirled around him, turning into a sky full of blood-red mist.

His declining blood and qi suddenly surged, his depleted foundation of cultivation was briefly revived, and beneath his frail, aged body lay a martial arts behemoth that had been lying dormant for a long time, ready to devour anyone it could find!

"I have spent half my life in hiding my talents and concealing my abilities from the world, deceiving the martial arts department's countless investigations and the eyes of everyone in the world... I never imagined that I would be defeated by a mere child!"

Zhou Xuanji roared to the sky, his voice shaking the mountains and forests, filled with chilling killing intent.

Seeing this, Li Cang's eyes turned cold, like ancient jade, and his immense pressure as a peak fifth-order cultivator instantly descended. The azure martial arts principles intertwined, transforming into an invisible heavenly prison, firmly sealing off all directions and blocking all of Zhou Xuanji's escape routes.

As a powerful figure who safeguards the Great Xia Dynasty, it is his duty to control the rise and fall of martial arts in his region, suppress traitors and rebels, and eliminate evil among the human race.

He sacrificed his own kind, betrayed humanity, colluded with alien races from beyond the realm, and stirred up chaos in Jiangcheng—his crimes are too numerous to list. With his unparalleled power at the peak of the fifth rank, he could crush this fiend and cleanse this filth with a single finger.

Just as Li Cang was about to move and his Dao power was about to collapse, a highly refined, calm and composed divine soul transmission quietly descended into the depths of his sea of ​​consciousness.

"Mr. Li, please wait a moment."

"This junior wishes to use this person to test his own Dao fruition and verify his own Dao. I humbly request Elder Li to give this junior a chance and support him."

It was Lin Yan's voice, calm and undisturbed, yet carrying a certainty beyond his years, and a fearless and confident composure.

Li Cang's movements suddenly froze as he looked at the young man standing beside him in the lingering wind, his eyes gleaming with a sudden surge of inspiration, his heart stirred slightly.

He knew that the path Lin Yan cultivated was clearly beyond the martial arts system of this world, not belonging to the current methods of spiritual energy revival, but ethereal and mysterious beyond compare.

Since his birth, he has repeatedly defeated enemies of higher ranks, his combat prowess surpassing all his peers, yet the world has never been able to fathom the limits of his Dao. Ordinary martial artists of the same rank, and even veteran high-level cultivators, have been unable to force out his true strength.

Putting aside other methods, the fact that he still cannot fully decipher the Devouring Heaven Array Pattern is enough to make him stand out among all the extraordinary beings on Earth!

What made him hesitate was that Zhou Xuanji in front of him was not an ordinary martial arts practitioner who relied on brute force.

He is a descendant of the ancient Heavenly Mystery Pavilion's remaining lineage, skilled in deducing the Great Dao, adept at discerning qi, calculating flaws, and reversing variables. His methods are unpredictable and bizarre, making him hardly a suitable whetstone.

"Very well, just do your best."

After a moment of contemplation, Li Cang suppressed his murderous intent, withdrew his overwhelming fifth-order power, leaving only an invisible Dao principle to seal off the four directions, preventing escape and self-destruction. He stood indifferently to the side, silently watching the battle.

"Be careful, and take it easy."

With a single telepathic message, the confrontation was tacitly approved.

Wang Jianjun, standing to the side, was tense, his breath caught in his throat, his eyes fixed on the two people facing off, his heart filled with indescribable shock.

One is a veteran fourth-tier peak expert who has accumulated nearly half a century of experience and is hidden deep in Jiangcheng. He holds a lost ancient secret and is ruthless, patient, and unparalleled in his scheming.

One is an unparalleled prodigy who appears out of nowhere, a young genius with an unknown and supreme inheritance, who repeatedly kills enemies beyond his level and breaks countless understandings of martial arts.

"Hahaha, ridiculous! Absolutely ridiculous!"

Zhou Xuanji seemed to sense that Li Cang had stopped, and immediately grasped the situation. His eyes flashed with even more mockery and killing intent. "With a national-level expert in front of you, you, a mere junior, are choosing to act recklessly on your own, instead of using your powerful backer?"

"I have cultivated the Great Dao of Heavenly Secrets for fifty years, calculated the fortunes of mountains and rivers, observed the rise and fall of martial arts, and reversed the course of life-or-death battles! Among those of the same level, no one can hide a weakness from me!"

"No matter how exceptional your talent, your foundation is ultimately shallow. Your current martial arts roots are still weak, yet you dare to fight me alone?!"

His voice echoed through the mountains and forests, carrying with it extreme arrogance and madness.

As soon as he finished speaking, Zhou Xuanji formed hand seals, instantly creating a series of strange and profound hand gestures.

Unlike the bold and powerful style with surging spiritual energy, there was no explosive energy or violent tsunami around him, only wisps of silver-white patterns slowly rising.

Like countless stars suspended in the void, crisscrossing and evolving into a vast spectacle, enveloping the entire battlefield.

This is the core lineage of the ancient Heavenly Mystery Pavilion – the Heavenly Mystery Evolution.

He does not cultivate physical strength or build up a powerful foundation; instead, he cultivates the energy of destiny and uses the universe as a chessboard to calculate all martial arts under heaven.

Every skill, martial art, and supernatural power in the world has its flaws, its patterns, and its quantifiable aspects.

Under this celestial canopy, the enemy's spiritual energy flow, physical weaknesses, flaws in their Daoist aura, and opportunities for attack and retreat are all exposed and precisely captured through meticulous analysis.

"Youngster, I will show you what the ancient true path truly is!"

Zhou Xuanji's eyes were sharp as star blades, his mind completely absorbed in deducing the Great Dao, and his aura merged with the stars in the sky.

In his perception, everything in the world has its predetermined fate, and every martial art has its flaws.

He was confident that with just a moment's calculation, he could thoroughly investigate Lin Yan's Dao root, capture all his weaknesses, break through his Dao in one strike, crush this peerless genius, break the blockade, and escape to safety!

But just as a wisp of divine insight probed Lin Yan's body, attempting to trace his origins, examine his foundation, and calculate his fate—

boom!

The endless chaos suddenly exploded!

Zhou Xuanji's sea of ​​consciousness felt like it was about to explode!

All the star patterns he had cultivated throughout his life, and the thousands upon thousands of divination lights, dimmed and lost their luster at this moment!

The originally clear and traceable Qi of heaven and earth, the trajectory of the Dao, and the veins of destiny have completely turned into a vast expanse of gray and white, a void and chaos, without beginning or end, without root or source.

The deduction has collapsed, and all the secrets of heaven have been revealed!

This was a forbidden sight he had never encountered in his decades of cultivation!

Since Zhou Xuanji obtained the ancient heavenly secrets, he has calculated the heavens, the earth, people, and himself, and there has never been a day that he could not understand, see clearly, or see through!

But the boy before them seemed to transcend the dimensions of this world, jump out of the ancient history of martial arts where spiritual energy was reviving, and was neither within the laws of nature nor within the Five Elements!

"Why...why did this happen?!"

Zhou Xuanji was greatly shaken, his Dao heart trembled violently, and his solid foundation of Heavenly Secrets Dao was on the verge of collapse. An unprecedented fear rose from the depths of his soul.

He gritted his teeth, risking burning his own blood energy, and forcibly activated the Heavenly Mystery Star Pattern to peer into the truth deep within that chaos.

The next second, a vast and ancient scene suddenly appeared in his field of vision for observing celestial secrets.

A hazy, chaotic mist surged and billowed, traversing the long river of time, separating the past from the future.

At the end of chaos, there is not heaven and earth, sun and moon, nor mountains and rivers, but towering figures standing at the end of countless ages!

They carry the stars and seas of the heavens on their backs, stand on the ancient earth, their eyes are indifferent as they look down upon the nine heavens and ten earths, their figures span the universe and the eight wastelands, their invincible power pervades the years, and their supreme authority suppresses the past and present!

That's the Emperor's Shadow!

One after another, blurry yet terrifyingly powerful divine figures floated in the depths of the chaotic Dao source, indifferently watching the mortal world!

Just one glance was enough to make Zhou Xuanji's eyes widen in horror, and tears of blood streamed down his face. The Star Chessboard nearly shattered completely, revealing irreversible cracks!

At this moment, he finally realized with horror—

What he deduced was not the foundation of a martial arts youth at all!

It is a forbidden path that does not belong to the present world, does not exist in the ancient history of Earth, and spans countless ages and heavens!

Peeking into the secrets of heaven, I touched upon an age-old taboo!

Mortals who glimpse the path of the emperor are like fireflies trying to shake the heavens, only to seek their own demise!

"A taboo... This is an eternal taboo... It's the supreme Emperor!"

Zhou Xuanji felt ice-cold all over, his body trembling slightly. His fighting spirit and killing intent completely collapsed, and the fear in that instant swallowed up all his violence and madness.

He spent half his life scheming, half his life going against the grain, and half his life betraying his country to fight for his life. He thought he could break free from the shackles of humanity and could be considered a powerful figure. But in front of this supreme and timeless emperor, he was as insignificant as a speck of dust and an ant. It was both laughable and pathetic.

In that fatal moment when his heavenly secrets collapsed, his Dao heart was thrown into chaos, and his mind was in a daze.

Lin Yan made his move, not letting this excellent opportunity to attack slip by.

With a slight thought, his sea of ​​suffering churned, his life spring gushed forth, and a massive amount of life essence rose from his body, causing the supreme secret technique that had been dormant within him to suddenly begin operating.

The secret of the word "before"!

Om-!

The originally formless and intangible primordial mysterious power swept across the entire area, materializing into a dazzling golden celestial blade. The blade's light was like water, pouring towards Zhou Xuanji's head, intending to annihilate his soul.

Golden light descended, like imperial glory descending to the mortal world. It did not bring the violent roar of mountains and rivers collapsing, but was instead surrounded by a primordial spirit fluctuation that suppressed all affairs and locked down the path ahead.

In an instant, Zhou Xuanji, who had already suffered a severe injury for prying into Lin Yan's secrets, immediately felt an unprecedented pain. It was an injury from the depths of his soul. He coughed up mouthfuls of blood, his spirit was weak and listless, his body became more and more hunched, and he exuded an undeniable aura of decay.

His eyes were streaked with blood and tears, and the Heavenly Secrets he had painstakingly cultivated over half a lifetime were now riddled with cracks. The supreme divine figure that had just glimpsed in the depths of chaos had already left a forbidden mark on his sea of ​​consciousness, and his Dao heart was on the verge of collapse. He had spent half his life wielding the power of Heavenly Secrets to deduce the fate of mountains and rivers, the rise and fall of martial arts, and the fortunes of battles. He believed that there was no law in the human world that could not be calculated and no path that could not be broken.

Only now did he realize with horror that the primordial spirit of the boy before him had transcended the constraints of fate and was outside the realm of mathematics. No matter how much he exhausted his source to deduce, he still could not see the way forward, could not calculate the flaws, and could not see the slightest trace of the trajectory.

"Impossible! All martial arts under heaven have their predetermined rules, and all techniques in the world have flaws! What kind of terrifying inheritance do you possess?!"

Zhou Xuanji didn't know what those supreme emperor figures represented, or even their realms; he simply blurted out the word "emperor" without thinking.

The panic in his heart crushed all his arrogance and violence. He was unwilling to die, and even more unwilling to lose so absurdly, without even a proper exchange of blows. He could be said to have been completely restrained by Lin Yan.

In his desperate situation, Zhou Xuanji exerted all his strength, burning the last wisp of his divine soul essence, deliberately shattering the countless broken star patterns, and using all his resources to evolve a vast and rotating Heavenly Mystery Dao Disc.

The Dao Disc floated above his head, its myriad mathematical patterns flowing and encompassing the ultimate principles of heaven and earth. It was the ultimate killing technique used by the Tianji lineage in their life-or-death struggles, and also the reason why Zhou Xuanji's lifespan was so short.

Each time he used this secret technique, he had to consume his life essence and damage his Dao foundation, so that this old monster who rose to prominence in the early stage of spiritual energy recovery was always stuck at the peak of the fourth rank and could not make any further progress.

Starlight fell, the Dao Disc hummed, and clusters of dazzling divine light, like the Milky Way in the heavens, flooded the sky and the earth. It was extremely brilliant, yet contained deadly killing intent. Each strand was enough to crush a third-level cultivator and severely injure a fourth-level cultivator.

Seeing this, Lin Yan also became extremely solemn, exerting all his strength to activate the "Former" Secret Technique, while secretly activating the Devouring Heaven Array Pattern to protect himself.

He wanted to use Zhou Xuanji to hone his skills, but there was no need for him to risk his own life.

Clang!

A clear Daoist chant resounded through the mountains and forests. The golden primordial spirit celestial blade crashed down, colliding with the starlight in the sky and creating a deafening explosion. Ripples spread through the void as it slammed into the sealing field set up by Li Cang.

While he wouldn't take such an attack seriously, it depended on who it was. It was hard to imagine that the one currently battling a peak fourth-tier martial artist was actually a third-tier prodigy!