I'll make you the furnace and the cauldron, so you can refine Yin and Yang and prove the Great

Yinquan Sect.

The back mountain is a forbidden area.

A streak of light landed before the icy pool. The Yinquan Sect Master dismissed his attendants and stood alone by the pool, gazing at the dark, eternally frozen water. He took a deep breath, straightened his clothes, and knelt in worship.

"This unworthy descendant kowtows to our ancestor."

The cold pool was silent.

The water was as black as solidified ink, so dark that even sunlight couldn't sink into it.

The Yinquan Sect Master knelt for the entire duration of an incense stick's burning. The bluestone beneath his knees was soaked with dew, and a chill crept up his bones. He remained motionless, his head bowed, the white hair at his temples trembling gently in the wind.

After an incense stick had burned out, he slowly stood up, formed a hand seal, and slowly poured a powerful Dao-harmonizing spiritual energy into the bottom of the pool.

The water in the pool began to swirl.

It spun faster and faster, deeper and deeper, until a huge whirlpool appeared in the center of the dark water. Deep within the whirlpool, a pair of eyes slowly opened.

The moment those eyes opened, the temperature on the entire back mountain plummeted, and the ancient trees by the pool were instantly covered in frost. A heavy, decaying aura, as if something had slumbered for thousands of years, filled the air, as if something deep underground had awakened.

"...How many years has it been?"

An ancient voice, seemingly emanating from the earth, echoed across the surface of the pool.

"How long have I been asleep?"

"Reporting to the Ancestor, it has been a full thousand years." The Yinquan Sect Master bowed. "This disciple has been unfilial, disturbing the Ancestor's peaceful cultivation."

"A thousand years..."

The pool water suddenly burst open, and a gaunt figure slowly rose from the bottom. The figure was draped in a rotten black cloak, with white hair and beard, and a face like withered wood. Only a pair of eyes shone with a terrifying light, like two eerie will-o'-the-wisps deep in the icy pool.

Yinquan Laozu.

The founder of the Yinquan Sect, a peerless demon who established this foundation thousands of years ago. In those days, children in the Central Continent would stop crying at the mere mention of the name "Yinquan," and the predecessor of the Immortal Alliance, one of the seven great sects of that time, would turn pale at the mere mention of his name.

Throughout his life, he triumphed over everyone in the world, but he never triumphed over the will of Heaven.

He was stuck at the peak of the Void Refinement stage for three thousand years, unable to cross the threshold of the Dao Integration stage. In those three thousand years, he watched helplessly as one newcomer after another caught up with him, only to die before his eyes—of those at the peak of the Void Refinement stage who died before this threshold, he personally buried seventeen of them.

A thousand years ago, as his life was nearing its end, he used a secret technique to seal himself at the bottom of the sect's icy pool, prolonging his life with tortoise-like breathing, and slept for a millennium. The sect passed down the story through generations—the ancestor didn't die, he just slept. But over the past thousand years, how many people have come to accept this as a way to comfort themselves?

Even the sect leader of Lianyinquan was sweating bullets before he made the request.

If the patriarch truly passed away in his sleep, then this pool of cold water today marks the moment when the Yinquan Sect's last fig leaf is torn away.

"Speak," said the Old Ancestor of Yinquan, hovering above the pool, looking down at him. "What is it that is worth waking this old man?"

The Yinquan Sect Master dared not be negligent and recounted the events of the past few years in detail—the rise of the Immortal Alliance, which swallowed up various sects and whose military might pointed directly at the Southern Frontier; the Hehuan Sect and the Yinquan Sect formed an alliance to resist the enemy, but suffered repeated defeats; the Hehuan Sect Master hid in the Myriad Spirits Secret Realm and was attempting to break through to the Dao Integration Realm…

"Ancestor," he bowed finally, his voice filled with barely suppressed excitement, "I have awakened you today because of an immense opportunity."

"The Immortal Alliance has just welcomed a new Dao Integration Realm expert."

"Over at the Hehuan Sect, someone is attempting to break through to the Dao Integration Realm again."

"Ancestor, you should know what this means—the Heavenly Dao has been repeatedly shaken! For thousands of years, why has the path to Dao Integration been so difficult? The difficulty lies in the fact that the laws of the Heavenly Dao are ethereal and intangible, invisible and untouchable. But now, some are breaking through, some are attempting to break through, the Heavenly Secrets are violently stirred, and the laws have never been so clear!"

"The chances of succeeding in the Dao Integration stage now are ten times greater than usual!"

"This disciple humbly begs the Ancestor—to take this gamble!"

After listening quietly, the Yin Quan Ancestor's eerie, ghostly eyes slowly turned towards the horizon.

He remained silent for a long time, then suddenly smiled.

"interesting."

"I slept for a thousand years. A thousand years is enough for the world to forget me completely." His voice was calm, yet it carried an arrogance that could freeze one's bones. "Among the younger generation of Central Continent today, I wonder if any still remember my name? Does anyone still know what the name of the heavens of Central Continent was back then?"

"Good riddance."

"The more completely they forget, the greater the shock I will give them when I return."

He raised his withered hand and slowly clenched it. A fine black crack appeared in the space in his palm.

"Three thousand years. I have sat before this threshold for a full three thousand years."

"The threshold hasn't changed, and neither have I." He stepped out of the icy pool, the water beneath his feet freezing solid. "What has changed is the world."

"Now that the sky has opened a crack—"

With a flick of his sleeves, his decaying cloak billowed without wind, and an aura that had been dormant for eight thousand years surged into the sky like a bursting river, tearing a huge hole in the clouds over the entire back mountain in that instant.

"Then I shall give it a try."

-

Western Regions, Blood Fiend Sect.

At the bottom of the blood pool, another figure slowly opened its eyes.

Blood Fiend Ancestor, Blood Thousand Layers.

Decades ago, he was the most fearsome figure in the entire Western Regions—a half-step Dao Integration expert. He once single-handedly withstood three moves from a Dao Integration expert without dying. The title "half-step Dao Integration" was practically tailor-made for him.

But it was after that battle that he went into seclusion to attempt to reach the Dao Integration Realm, but he failed.

He fell from the half-step into the Dao Integration stage back to the peak of the Void Refinement stage.

This decline lasted for several decades.

Over the past few decades, the Blood Fiend Sect has remained secluded, its territory gradually eroded by neighboring sects. He sat beneath the Blood Pool, listening to the sect's decline day by day, motionless. Those sect leaders who once knelt before him in submission had, one after another, switched allegiance. The Blood Fiend Sect's gates shrank further and further; most of its disciples left, and those who remained either had nowhere to go or clung to a vague, unrealistic hope.

until today.

The blood pool surged, and Xue Qianchong rose from the bottom of the pool, his body radiating blood energy like a dragon.

The disciples of the Blood Fiend Sect were alarmed, and streaks of light rushed towards the back mountain, but they all knelt down a hundred feet away from the blood pool, none daring to take another step closer—they sensed that the ancestor who had been submerged at the bottom of the pool for decades had returned.

"The secrets of heaven... are now clear."

Xue Qianzhong raised his head. His beard and hair stood on end, and his eyes turned completely blood red.

"I remember that defeat fifty years ago clearly. I also see clearly what's behind that threshold."

"It's not that I can't get through it."

"It is the will of Heaven that did not open the door for me."

Five years ago, he poured all the power of his sect into gathering blood energy from all directions to attempt to break through to the Dao Integration stage. On that day, he broke through the crack in the door and saw the light behind it—then the backlash of the Heavenly Dao struck, forcibly pushing him back from the half-step Dao Integration stage to the peak of the Void Refinement stage. Of the thirty-six elders in the sect who protected him, twenty-one died.

The Blood Fiend Sect never recovered after that grand ceremony.

"Now—" He clenched his fist tightly, and the blood pool exploded with a deafening roar. The soaring crimson light dyed half the western sky red. "The door is open!"

"Two old geezers ramming the door together—even the eyes of Heaven can't keep up—this is the opportunity I've been waiting for for hundreds of years!"

"This time, no one will be able to stop me from going out!"