...

"Boom!"

A massive white light flashed across the sky, and countless Cultivators instinctively closed their eyes.

Lu Qing focused his mind, stabilizing that singular thread of consciousness.

The battle to the southeast was peerlessly powerful, but he paid more attention to the destiny that had already ascended to the heights of the sky.

No, it could even be said that it was no longer pure destiny; a supreme aura flowed within it. At first, it was just a sliver, then a wisp, and finally, a full surge of supreme aura appeared.

Lu Qing remained perfectly still.

This aura had only just been born.

Yet, he sensed a touch of familiarity from it.

He had seen it before, or rather, he had sensed it.

It was the aura he had sensed from that broken sword—the sliver of aura that the broken sword had proudly claimed belonged to an Immortal's sword.

"Destiny."

"Unify as one."

A voice rang out from an unknown source.

First, a white light blotted out the sun and covered the sky.

Immediately after.

The sky truly turned dark.

What did it feel like for the world to fall into complete darkness?

Lu Qing could not see a single thing with his eyes.

It was as if everything in the world had been turned into nothingness, leaving him alone in this realm of dark void.

He could see nothing and sense nothing.

In the direction Lu Qing was gazing.

Rumble—

Endless power was sweeping through the Nine Heavens.

A glow like that of a bright moon suddenly lit up in his heart.

The moon was soft, but at this moment, it acted like a bright light dispelling the darkness in his heart. This was the Heart Light. As the ancient saying goes, 'A single pearl hidden in the heart can illuminate ten thousand mountains and rivers.' Whether it be the light of Buddha or the Dao Heart Light, they all shared the same source.

Lu Qing'saw' the situation outside.

He did not see human figures or faces.

But he saw those divine and Immortal lights.

It was exactly the same as that day: a vast Buddhist Kingdom, a Green Sword suspended in the air, the Four Directions Heavenly Seasons appearing together, the Long River and the Blood Sea, the Sea Moon and the White Lotus...

Various divine lights and Immortal Qi phenomena appeared.

The world shook, mountains and rivers roared, and the aura of time permeated the air...

And on the other side of that boundless darkness, there was only darkness.

That darkness was the void of all things, the end point where everything was annihilated.

It was Emptiness.

"People of open space, do not bring about your own ruin."

A figure within the light and shadow phenomena spoke calmly.

The dark void of open space.

"We only take one bushel of destiny."

A voice emerged, its ancient and majestic aura standing in equal opposition.

Five breaths of time passed.

The battle continued.

No answer was the best answer.

Lu Qing was keeping track of the time in his heart.

Because the hexagram reading in his mind was slowly fading into illusory fragments.

The final ninth breath had not yet arrived.

The darkness suddenly vanished.

Only a lingering rumble remained high in the sky of the Nine Heavens, refusing to dissipate.

At the same time.

An eerie thread of destiny seemed to fall from the sky during the exchange.

It also seemed to be consciously searching for its owner.

However.

An incredibly massive and powerful hand reached out from a corner of the clouds and grasped this small thread of destiny.

A figure chuckled softly, "This Planet Yinghuo is actually not bad."

This was merely a small interlude.

After daylight returned.

That massive clump of destiny and tribulation had already unified as one.

Even though Lu Qing was not directly involved.

He could sense dozens of gazes from the heavens falling upon it.

The observation and scrutiny lasted only a split second, a difference of two or three breaths.

"So that's how it is."

Only those five words reached his ears.

A divine light transformed into a sleeve, and with a gentle wave, that clump of destiny—which originally held a sliver of supreme aura—quickly began to show signs of decline.

With that wave of divine light.

The destiny suddenly scattered, turning into a sky full of flowing colors that merged into the Nine Heavens World. That unified aura returned to the world and was fed back into it; the mountains and rivers danced with light, and the spiritual essence climbed to even higher levels.

Lu Qing's heart stirred slightly.

After the destiny departed, all the gazes dispersed.

Lu Qing saw the three hexagram readings finally vanish.

In the South Heaven Continent, relative to Lu Qing's current position, the commotion to the southeast also came to an end.

At the same time, although there was a slight sequence to the three hexagram readings, they had all been fulfilled and verified today.

"Once I select a Neutral Divination, it doesn't change. However, after this extreme calamity hex appeared, these calamity hexes have also shown some deviations due to certain influences in the world."

Lu Qing compared them with the hexagram reading results, "But in terms of timing, there was actually no deviation; they all occurred when the destiny was at its peak."

Lu Qing heard the rumbling sounds appearing in the world.

Surges of Lightning Tribulation appeared, lingering within the world.

The sea of lightning rolled, as if the wrath of the Heavens was about to descend.

Beneath the sea of lightning, cold bolts of lightning slashed through all the impurities in the world, striking down in various places.

"Ah—"

Some Cultivators fled, while others perished.

To the southeast, the sea of lightning surged tremendously.

"Today, I sacrifice this Dharma Body to the heavens."

However, two Dharma Bodies stood still. Their voices appeared one after the other as they simply bowed slightly toward the east. Then, as the world watched, they returned to the Nine Heavens along with that thread of destiny.

The commotion this time was too great.

After truly seeing the hexagram readings come to pass, Lu Qing also felt a chill of awe in his heart.

After all, given the situations these hexagram readings corresponded to, a single thought of power could bring about endless storms.

"The ones who acted were Dharma Bodies?" The thought had not yet faded.

He looked toward the southeast, "Sacrificing to the heavens."

He pondered this phrase. He didn't know who the two parties involved were, but this was the first time Lu Qing had seen such a method.

"Was it to reduce Karma? Or were there other constraints?"

It was impossible to know. Without standing at that height, one could not understand the principles of cultivation involved.

He looked up at the high sky; those phenomena had long since disappeared.

"The Yinghuo destiny descended. If I had been at Sun Moon Peak then, I likely wouldn't have been able to hide the aura on my body. This heavenly star destiny is strange, eerie, and very powerful. If the Planet Yinghuo had chosen me, that hand might not have necessarily chosen to grab that thread of destiny."

It was fortunate that Lu Qing was not there.

This was a dojo, and although that clump of Yinghuo destiny had a bit of a spiritual appearance, it also feared the presence of those powerful auras.

Especially since this was the Dao Seeking dojo.

Such a discrepancy caused the situation to change; that clump of Yinghuo destiny was spinning in circles just as the battle above concluded and the dust was about to settle.

Those beings were likely able to pull their gazes away.

Thus, they happened to see the clump of Yinghuo destiny.

After all these commotions completely settled.

Lu Qing looked toward the sky.

The dust seemed to have been washed clean; the sky was incredibly blue, and after a short while, spiritual birds even flew across the high altitude.

These spiritual birds, which were most sensitive to danger, dared to fly over after only an incense stick of time.

Lu Qing also realized that those terrifying auras in the world and the aftershocks of the battle had completely vanished within a few breaths.

The destroyed terrain and mountains, and the disturbed space, were restored as if time had flowed backward.

Not a single trace of the aura was revealed again.

As long as the earth veins were not destroyed, everything else was likely inconsequential to such beings. Looking at the scene before him, it was as if the battle from an incense stick ago had never existed, and the world was as peaceful as yesterday.

But Lu Qing knew that these were all illusions.

He looked up into the high sky.

No faces appeared in his mind.

Only the voices he had heard and the phenomena he had seen.

But even so, he remembered a name.

"Empty Land."

No thoughts arose in his heart.

Curiosity, resentment—no such emotions existed.

Lu Qing calmly took it to heart and then calmly recorded the word 'Empty' in his notebook.

Having resolved the unknown matter left by the hexagram reading, Lu Qing found that the Calamity Qi and the tribulation itself had disappeared.

The tribulation clouds that had shrouded the world dissipated like smoke.

Originally, Lu Qing's cultivation over these past ten years had basically been about sensing the world.

But after the tribulation dissipated, he realized that his insights had deepened significantly.

The world was as it was yesterday, yet time never returns.

"Destiny—this destiny has returned to how it was before."

Lu Qing recalled the action of that divine light he saw in the final breath.

"The divine light returned all of that destiny to the Nine Heavens."

"So that's how it is."

What did that mean?

Did they see the path ahead, or did they see that this destiny might be related to that head beneath the Eight Desolations?

However, Lu Qing knew that for those unknown dark Cultivators, this destiny might have been crucial to certain schemes.

But for those dozens of gazes in the high sky to have unified their thoughts and returned this unified supreme fortune to the Nine Heavens Great World, there might truly be some aspects that Lu Qing currently could not see.

He felt the spiritual essence around him become active once again.

"The spiritual essence has become much denser."

This was a good thing.

With the tribulation gone and the destiny grown even stronger, the world seemed to have been cleansed. Cultivating in such a world was different from the previous environment.

...