What was the Cleaver Gang best known for? Not the Qingzhou Grand Formation, but the Cleaver Gang Inn—the very inn from which the Cleaver Gang had risen. Yet Earth Dragon Fortress had actually listed the Cleaver Gang Inn on the trading exchange for auction! Earth Dragon Fortress was the Cleaver Gang’s purse. Now that purse had emptied the Gang’s herb gardens, spirit-fruit orchards, demon-beast enclosures, and everything else, and put all the auction houses, restaurants, and assorted shops it operated up for auction. It had even put the Cleaver Gang’s share of the Ascension Platform on the auction block.
Building the Ascension Platform had cost the Cleaver Gang an enormous amount. All the Five-Element Immortal Stones had been supplied by Bao Gu, while the formation arrays, materials, and manpower involved were impossible to estimate.
Everyone knew that the Ascension Platform had originally been controlled by the Cleaver Gang, Yue Kingdom, Soul Chasing Pavillion, and the former Xuantian Sect, later reorganized as Xuantian Sect. Now the Cleaver Gang had split a single construction blueprint for the Ascension Platform into ten portions and put them up for sale. Any faction or individual holding one of those fragments would gain control over the rights to the Ascension Platform.
The Ascension Platform! The entire cultivation world was going mad!
More outrageous still, was the Cleaver Gang trying to strip the cultivation world bare of its cultivation resources?
Some factions were already making their own wishful calculations. Wasn’t the Cleaver Gang about to break up? Wasn’t Bao Gu about to ascend? If no one bought the Cleaver Gang’s properties within their territories, wouldn’t those properties become ownerless once the Cleaver Gang left, and thus fall into their hands?
However, as soon as the Cleaver Gang Inns went under the hammer, the moneyed Yue Kingdom began bidding like mad, clearly intent on taking over every single one.
The Cleaver Gang gave all the inns in the several states around its headquarters to Xuantian Sect. As for the inns elsewhere, they were divided into lots and sold region by region according to the faction controlling each area.
For example, all the Cleaver Gang Inns within Yue Kingdom were grouped into one lot with a set reserve price. The inns within Heavenly Dao Sect territory were grouped into another lot, with the price determined by their number and size.
The inns within Yue Kingdom went up for auction first. Yue Kingdom swept them all up in one go, and no one competed with it. The inns within Heavenly Dao Sect territory went up second, and Yue Kingdom took those as well.
What did that amount to?
It meant that Yue Kingdom had taken over all of the Cleaver Gang’s informants and intelligence channels within Heavenly Dao Sect, all based around the Cleaver Gang Inns!
Together with the teleportation formations inside the inns and the hidden teleportation gates, Yue Kingdom could attack Heavenly Dao Sect whenever it wished, wherever it wished. Could Heavenly Dao Sect, merely because of this threat, tear down the Cleaver Gang Inns within its territory and launch a direct faction war against Yue Kingdom?
It did not even have an Earth Immortal. Did it still dare to strut around?
When the inns within the territory of the next faction went up for auction, that faction bid an astronomical price in order to wrest them from the wealthy Yue Kingdom, a price so high that it nearly made them spit blood. As the bidding continued, all the factions began to suspect that Yue Kingdom had been hired by the Cleaver Gang as a shill bidder to inflate the prices.
The various factions cursed Yue Kingdom viciously behind closed doors.
Soul Chasing Pavillion, meanwhile, remained completely untroubled. It was the only major force in the cultivation world without any publicly acknowledged territory. What chance did the network of Cleaver Gang Inns have of infiltrating Soul Chasing Pavillion?
If anything, the reverse was more likely.
Disbanding the Cleaver Gang’s various halls and dismissing their people was a tremendous expense, but compared with the proceeds from selling off the Cleaver Gang’s assets, it was nothing. As the Cleaver Gang’s liquidation auction continued, vast quantities of cultivation resources poured into its hands.
Then another piece of news came from the Cleaver Gang.
The Cleaver Gang gave the Qingzhou Grand Formation and the several states where Xuantian Sect was located to Xuantian Sect.
Yu Jianming quickly followed with another announcement: none of the cities within Xuantian Sect’s territory would station troops or collect any taxes.
The meaning was clear: these states now belonged to Xuantian Sect. No one was to come and seize them. But Xuantian Sect would still follow the path of poor rogue cultivators.
Xuantian Sect had the Qingzhou Grand Formation, the Ascension Platform, and several True Immortals who had already ascended to the upper realm. No one dared to target it anymore. The depths of Xuantian Sect were unfathomable, especially when it came to Bao Gu.
She had already “risen from the dead” twice. If one day Bao Gu heard in the upper realm that Xuantian Sect had been attacked, no one would find it strange if she tore through the realm barrier and descended from the upper realm.
Attack Xuantian Sect? That was simply begging for a beating.
Even if someone became an immortal, there was no telling whether, upon arriving in the upper realm and stepping out through the immortal gate, they would be dealt with by Yu Mi, Bao Gu, and the others who had already ascended.
Besides, everyone was busy using cultivation resources to “buy” pieces of the Cleaver Gang and divide its power among themselves.
Order Envoy Manor
Bao Nianhui asked Bao Gu, “Master, even if they have the Ascension Platform blueprint and can ascend through the Ascension Platform, once they reach the upper realm, they won’t be able to use the teleportation gates. They’ll either be trapped where they arrive or become lost in spatial turbulence. This… sounds like we’re setting them up.”
“Stepping onto the Ascension Platform allows the Heavenly Dao to sense you. For someone like Senior Nanshan, whose cultivation and combat strength are sufficient and who has great confidence in surviving the Ascension Tribulation, the only thing missing is that final step. The moment he stands on the platform, the Heavenly Dao settles its account with him, and the Ascension Tribulation descends.
“As long as he survives, he will at least become an Earth Immortal. If he is fortunate enough to truly become a True Immortal, he need not ascend through the platform. He can instead pass through the immortal gate that the Heavenly Dao tears open above his head. With a little luck, he will arrive directly at a safe place in the upper realm.”
Bao Nianhui asked, “What if he’s unlucky?”
“Bad luck comes in many forms. The immortal gates torn open by the Heavenly Dao are unstable. Some remain open longer, some for less time, and their destinations are not fixed. But they all share one thing: they open in places where the spatial realm walls are thin and unstable.
“Anyone who is too weak may die on the way or be torn apart by the force of spatial annihilation. With worse luck, the passage may close while they are only halfway through.”
Bao Gu paused, then continued softly, “But when I saw your senior brothers last time, didn’t I give each of them a storage pouch? Each of them has a map of the Immortal Realm. With those maps, they shouldn’t be able to lose their way. However, I embedded a hidden restriction in the maps. It will only reveal itself after they reach the upper realm and come into contact with immortal qi.”
In other words, they had no chance of copying those maps and circulating them in this realm.
Bao Nianhui discovered that her Master’s methods were truly devious. She left herself an escape route at every turn, while planting pits and traps everywhere else.
The temptation of ascending to the upper realm was immense, but not everyone was willing to sell their lives and swear allegiance unto death. Still, many cultivators felt that their aptitude for cultivation was limited. With the Cleaver Gang taking away so many cultivation resources, obtaining resources in this world would only become more difficult in the future. Many rogue cultivators were willing to go to the upper realm, where cultivation was easier and they would be under the Order Lord’s protection.
After so many years in the Cleaver Gang, many members of its Inner Hall had developed a genuine sense of belonging to the Gang. Seeing how Bao Gu treated people generously and never shortchanged anyone who risked their life for her, many were also willing to follow her.
Once the final numbers were settled, as many as a million Inner Hall members of the Cleaver Gang were willing to follow Bao Gu.
The number startled even Bao Gu. Her original estimate had been only three to five hundred thousand, including the people who had drifted through the void with her back then.
Of the three hundred thousand people from that time, fewer than one hundred thousand remained after all these years. Some had failed their tribulations, some had died of old age, and others had perished in battles or on the battlefield.
Bao Gu had never expected that after more than a thousand years of development, the Cleaver Gang’s Inner Hall would have trained more than five hundred thousand sword cultivators and ghost cultivators. Adding the people who had once drifted through the void with her, along with the Cleaver Gang’s elite members who had rendered outstanding service and were willing to swear blood oaths, there were actually a million people in total.
Yu Jianming chose to remain behind. He had the Immortal Cauldron Qingying had forged for him, the complete cultivation method Bao Gu had passed on, every text in the Xuantian library, and control of the Ascension Platform. He had no pressure whatsoever when it came to ascending to the upper realm.
After Bao Gu and the others left, he would have to remain behind to guard Xuantian Sect. Only after Xuantian Sect found someone suitable to shoulder its future would he ascend.
Not long afterward, Si Ruo and Qu Yirou hurried to the Order Envoy Manor to find Bao Gu.
Yue Kingdom and Soul Chasing Pavillion were both cultivation powers with legacies spanning tens of thousands of years. Their foundations were extraordinarily deep, and both sects had ancient monsters who had lived for more than ten thousand years, been sealed away, and long since withdrawn from the world.
When news reached them that they could “smuggle” themselves into the upper realm with Bao Gu, those old monsters went mad and forced Si Ruo and Qu Yirou to find a way to secretly take them along.
Although the two women were both leaders of great powers, when they faced those senior ancestors—whether a Retired Emperor, a Retired Emperor’s Retired Emperor, an Empress Dowager several generations removed, a Xuan Martial Aunt, a Xuan-Xuan-Xuan Grandmaster, or a sect master or Yue Emperor from some bygone generation—they did not dare make even a peep.
If they dared make a sound, those old monsters would pull out the imperial records and sect genealogies and scold them until not a patch of skin remained unbruised. Under the overwhelming pressure of their ancestors, the two women fled in utter panic to the Order Envoy Manor to find Bao Gu.
Their thinking was simple. Those old monsters might dare lecture them, but would they dare throw their weight around before Bao Gu, a True Immortal? If Bao Gu personally refused, what could they possibly say?
Bao Gu looked over Si Ruo and Qu Yirou and said, “These are all great heroes and outstanding figures of their eras. Some were former Yue Emperors or pavilion masters. The least among them was a prince or an elder.
“Even if they are old, near the end of their lifespans, and have been sealed away for a long time, their experience and methods are still there. Leaving them here to wait for death—don’t you think that would be a waste?
“If they go to the upper realm and are bathed in immortal qi, perhaps they can break through and extend their lives. Once their vitality returns, with their experience, methods, and abilities, are you really afraid they won’t be able to carve out a place for themselves?
“Once they establish a foothold in the upper realm, the Yue Kingdom and Soul Chasing Pavillion disciples who ascend later will have somewhere to turn. Even if they eventually die of old age in the upper realm, at least they will have seen it with their own eyes. That should leave them with fewer regrets.”
Si Ruo asked in a daze, “You’re willing to agree?”
“Why wouldn’t I? We’ll sign an alliance pact and swear not to betray or harm one another. Once we’re up there, we’ll have each other’s backs. I’ve already brought more than a million Cleaver Gang members with me. Surely I can take a few more of yours.
“As long as you can guarantee that they won’t stab me in the back or set me up, I’ll take as many as you want.”
Si Ruo and Qu Yirou stood up excitedly and bowed deeply to Bao Gu. They had just opened their mouths when Bao Gu rose and stopped them.
“Enough. Spare me the formalities. After more than a thousand years of friendship, as friends who have shared life and death and staunch allies who have always watched each other’s backs, isn’t this small favor worth doing for you?”
Si Ruo and Qu Yirou nodded vigorously, swallowing their words of gratitude.
Si Ruo thought for a moment before asking, “When are you setting out?”
“Once the Cleaver Gang’s affairs are mostly settled. It should take about a month or so. Whatever arrangements you need to make, do them as quickly as possible.”
Si Ruo knew that Bao Gu never fought a battle without confidence, but the scale of this operation still left her somewhat worried.
“Bao Gu, you’re secretly taking so many people to the upper realm. Are you really sure nothing will go wrong?”
Bao Gu understood her concern.
“I once piloted a Daluo Scarlet Gold ship carrying three hundred thousand people back through the realm barrier from the Ascension Platform. Have you ever seen me suffer for it?
“Besides, I’ll put everyone into an oversized storage bag and carry them to the upper realm. This oversized storage bag is a divine artifact. Crossing between realms is child’s play for it.”
Si Ruo finally felt reassured. She and Qu Yirou bid Bao Gu farewell and left together.
Duobao Spirit Monkey, which had been gone for a long time, finally returned. The moment it came back, it wrapped its arms around Bao Gu’s neck and began chittering frantically, its eyes brimming with tears and its whole body looking utterly miserable.
Bao Gu thought Duobao Spirit Monkey had missed her and was about to offer it a few words of comfort when it leaped onto her arm, trying to burrow into the oversized storage bag.
She placed Duobao Spirit Monkey inside the oversized storage bag. The moment it entered, it charged straight toward Monkey Ridge in the Xuantian Mountains and used a supreme divine ability to uproot the entire ridge and place it inside the cosmos within its belly.
Bao Gu’s lips fell open in shock.
Have eight hundred years apart made you bold enough to rob even me now?
Then she remembered that Monkey Ridge had belonged to Duobao Spirit Monkey in the first place.
After moving Monkey Ridge, Duobao Spirit Monkey hesitated briefly. It then moved a Primordial Spirit Fruit Tree and a Nascent Soul Fruit Tree from the cosmos within its belly into the medicinal garden in the Xuantian Mountains. Satisfied, it patted its belly and gestured for Bao Gu to let it out.
Bao Gu released Duobao Spirit Monkey and asked, “What are you doing?”
Duobao Spirit Monkey scratched its head.
“I was afraid you’d take my Monkey Ridge and disappear for several hundred years again. The Princess is ascending, and if you take my Monkey Ridge and vanish again, I won’t have anywhere to cellar my wine.”
Bao Gu stared at it in a daze.
“So you didn’t refrain from ascending with Martial Mother and the others because you were waiting for me. You were waiting to reclaim your Monkey Ridge?”
Duobao Spirit Monkey blinked its dark eyes, chittered, and nodded.
It had actually nodded!
Bao Gu was completely speechless. But then she thought of how she had taken its Monkey Ridge with her and slept for hundreds of years, leaving it unable to brew its beloved monkey wine. She really was in the wrong.
She rubbed Duobao Spirit Monkey’s head.
“Fine. Keep your own things with you. It’ll be convenient when you need them.”
Duobao Spirit Monkey chittered again and nodded vigorously, as if saying, Exactly.
Faced with such a blunt and guileless Duobao Spirit Monkey, Bao Gu could only laugh helplessly and rub its head.
“I assume you’ve heard that we’re going to ascend to the upper realm?”
Duobao Spirit Monkey chittered again. Then it sat on Bao Gu’s shoulder, its dark eyes shifting uncertainly before it turned its head and glanced at her.
Bao Gu knew that Duobao Spirit Monkey had many enemies in the upper realm.
“Don’t worry. I’ll protect you.”
Duobao Spirit Monkey chittered once more and nodded with all its strength.
Bao Gu could feel the weight on her shoulders growing heavier.
The information she had about the upper realm dated back tens of thousands of years. No one could say what the Battle King Clan was like now. She was only a True Immortal. No matter how strong her combat power was, in the upper realm, where immortals were everywhere, she would be little better than a martial-arts expert who had only just stepped into cultivation in this world.
The Xuantian Sword, the oversized storage bag, Duobao Spirit Monkey, the cultivation resources on her, and her million-strong army were both her capital and the source of danger that would make others covet her.
Furthermore, in the upper realm, Duobao Spirit Monkey, Martial Mother, and the others all had countless enemies, while whether the Battle King Clan could be trusted remained uncertain.
She could only take things one step at a time. When she had first entered the cultivation world at Yun Ling Mountain, hadn’t she struggled just as much and still managed to survive?
Three months later, everything the Cleaver Gang had needed to sell or disband had been dealt with. Yu Jianming was left to handle the remaining loose ends.
Yu Mi decided to undergo the Ascension Tribulation. She would face it outside Shadow City. Yu Mi had spent a long time preparing for it, gathering treasures capable of withstanding lightning and plenty of pills to replenish her strength and preserve her life.
Before Yu Mi began her tribulation, Bao Gu’s preparations were already complete.
Si Ruo brought one hundred thousand people and a vast amount of cultivation resources from Yue Kingdom into Bao Gu’s oversized storage bag.
Qu Yirou and Jade Shura brought three thousand people from Soul Chasing Pavillion into Bao Gu’s oversized storage bag.
The Cleaver Gang’s one million two hundred thousand members, along with incalculable cultivation resources, entered Bao Gu’s oversized storage bag.
Nanshan Yijian, the weakened Jun Ye, Xuantian Sect’s Hua Sheng, Feng Menglong, Lu Lei, and the others moved five thousand people into the oversized storage bag.
After Yu Jianming took Feng Yi and the several thousand Xuantian Sect disciples who had originally followed him back under his command, those five thousand people entered the oversized storage bag and joined Feng Menglong’s group.
Bao Gu placed everyone and everything she intended to take with her into the storage bag. Then she piloted the flagship forged from Daluo Scarlet Gold to a position outside Shadow City and waited for Yu Mi to undergo her tribulation.
Seeing that Bao Gu’s preparations were complete, Yu Mi sat cross-legged in the air and released all the aura she had suppressed for so long.
Everyone in the cultivation world knew that Yu Mi could undergo the Ascension Tribulation at any time, but no one had seen her fight for several hundred years.
When people thought of Yu Mi, they first thought of her connection to Cleaver Order Lord Bao Gu. Their image of Yu Mi herself was limited to the nickname “Fire Tyrannosaur”—a cultivator with extremely high solo combat power, but still far inferior to Bao Gu, the Cleaver Order Lord who could annihilate an entire faction at the drop of a hat.
Everyone had seen the imposing manner of Bao Gu’s Ascension Tribulation, when she had dared to clash head-on with the heavenly tribulation. They had assumed that Yu Mi’s tribulation would be nothing more than a light breeze and drizzle.
But when Yu Mi released her entire aura, a razor-sharp edge, a bleak killing intent, and a scorching heat suddenly exploded across the sky above her with a thunderous boom.
Bao Gu had fused with the Xuantian Sword, but most of her methods consisted of divine abilities related to the Dao and laws, with the sword serving as an auxiliary weapon.
Yu Mi, on the other hand, was like a true king’s weapon—sharp, upright, domineering, and blazing. She radiated the most unyielding yang, along with a resolute will that seemed to declare:
“With my strength alone and a three-foot sword in my hand, I dare challenge Heaven!”
Her aura shot straight into the skies.
Thunderclouds gathered, and the winds and clouds churned.
Shadow City, which had been beneath a clear sky, suddenly darkened as though night had fallen.
A violent wind rose, and torrential rain came pouring down in an instant.
Yu Mi held the Nanming Lihuo Sword and pointed it toward the heavens. Her eyes, blazing with boundless battle intent, remained calm as they fixed on the thunderclouds overhead.
The Nanming Lihuo manifested outside her body like a Vermilion Bird spreading its wings, slowly beating them in the storm. The scorching flames distorted the air itself. The downpour was evaporated by the heat of the Lihuo long before it could reach Yu Mi.
A gigantic bolt of lightning, resembling a massive dragon, tore through the black clouds covering the sky and crashed down toward Yu Mi with earth-shaking force.
Yu Mi stamped her foot in midair, and a phoenix’s long cry rang through the heavens. Sword in hand and wrapped in flames, she shot toward the lightning like a burning Vermilion Bird.
Her sharp sword qi split the heavens. The overwhelming power caused the sky to burn crimson, dyeing the black thunderclouds a deep purplish gold.
Yu Mi’s sword pierced into the descending bolt of lightning. Like a fearless fire phoenix, she charged straight into the tribulation lightning and soared toward the Ninth Heaven, as though she intended to break through the shackles of this world and reach the place where she belonged.
Or perhaps she meant to trample the thunderclouds beneath her feet and spread her wings to soar freely through the highest heavens.
If Bao Gu gave people the impression of vast, weighty depths, like an unfathomable sea, then Yu Mi gave people the impression of freedom—utterly unconstrained and unbound.
Bao Gu stood on the flagship and watched Yu Mi soar recklessly through the heavenly lightning. Yu Mi’s figure was reflected in her pupils, as though two flames were burning in her eyes.
Bao Gu watched without blinking, her heart filled with shock.
She had always known that Yu Mi was unrestrained by nature, that she loved freedom and could never sit still. After emerging from the Immortal Burial Ground, Yu Mi had seemed calm and tenacious because she had been suppressing her aura with all her strength.
But at this moment, Bao Gu saw Yu Mi soar.
Even beneath a tribulation filled with unimaginable danger, even while facing the Ascension Tribulation, nothing could obstruct that dazzling figure with its outspread wings.
All this time, Bao Gu had remained at home, waiting for Yu Mi to return after tiring herself out from flying. Whenever Yu Mi went out adventuring, Bao Gu could only learn about it through the fragmentary reports that reached her.
Only now did she truly feel that Yu Mi belonged to the sky. When she broke free of her restraints, she was so dazzling and so soul-stirring.
The flames, the figure, the fearless joy of roaming through heaven and earth without restraint—all of it left Bao Gu entranced.
The heavenly lightning fell upon Yu Mi, yet she did not seem to be enduring a beating. She seemed to be dancing with the thunder.
One bolt after another descended.
That imposing momentum, those blossoms of blood, that pursuit of freedom after breaking through every restraint—all of it made the heavenly tribulation appear so powerless before Yu Mi that Bao Gu, who should have been worrying about every possible mishap, even began to treat the descending lightning as nothing more than a backdrop.
Only when a beam of light from beyond the realm tore through the dark clouds and scattered ten thousand rays of golden radiance did Bao Gu come back to herself.
Vast streams of life essence and immortal qi poured toward Yu Mi. When Yu Mi flew toward the immortal gate beneath that light from beyond the realm, Bao Gu finally regained her senses and piloted the flagship after her.
When Yu Mi’s figure entered the dispersing thunderclouds and arrived before the immortal gate, she suddenly stopped.
She turned around and saw the flagship rushing toward her. A boarding bridge extended from the ship and appeared beneath her feet.
She stepped onto it and instantly arrived on the flagship.
The moment she set foot aboard, the flagship activated its realm-breaking power and forcibly rammed open the spatial rift that was gradually closing. With a thunderous boom, it plunged inside.
As the flagship forced the spatial rift open until it was large enough for the ship to pass through, the people in Shadow City watching Yu Mi’s tribulation and Bao Gu’s ascension gasped in shock.
At last, they understood why Bao Gu had built realm-breaking portals, and why even a True Immortal ascending to the upper realm still needed to pilot a flagship equipped with realm-breaking power.
At the moment the flagship broke through the realm barrier, they saw thick, heavy destruction rolling like a solid substance. In the middle of that destruction was only a narrow passage torn open by the power of the Heavenly Dao.
The passage was so long that its end could not be seen. It was so long that they felt even traveling faster than light would not allow anyone to cross it in the brief time the immortal gate remained open.
The only way to do it was through teleportation—realm-breaking teleportation.
Such terrifying destructive power. Even a hundred-zhang Daluo Scarlet Gold ship probably could not withstand it.
When the flagship plunged inside, the powerful defensive force it unleashed made everyone present feel that it was strong enough to tear apart the Ascension Tribulation Yu Mi had just endured.
Who in this realm could build a second realm-breaking giant ship like the Cleaver Gang’s flagship?
The Cleaver Gang had disbanded. Bao Gu had left. Under the eyes of countless people, she piloted the Daluo Scarlet Gold flagship into the immortal gate and into the endless darkness leading toward the upper realm.
Yet the aura radiating from the Cleaver Gang’s flagship, the spatial realm-wall force from beyond the realm, and the upper-realm aura filtering through the immortal gate pressed down on everyone’s hearts like ten thousand mountains.
The greatest power beneath the heavens had disbanded and left with such absolute determination.
The Ascension Platform, which had taken nearly a thousand years to build, was sold without the slightest hesitation or reluctance.
All that remained for this realm was a receding figure.
Only yesterday, the people of this realm had still felt the tremendous threat Bao Gu posed to every faction. They had cursed her for dissolving the Cleaver Gang and stirring up chaos through the auctions.
But at this moment, they discovered that this existence, now a True Immortal, had already reached a height they no longer even had the right to look up to.
They also realized how difficult it was to leave this realm.
Among all the True Immortals who ascended through the immortal gate, how many possessed the strength to cross that endless passage through their own power alone, without relying on external assistance?
If they needed outside help, how powerful would the immortal treasure have to be to withstand such force?
Did this realm possess such a treasure?
No.
Without the Cleaver Gang taking the lead, in a cultivation world where the various factions fought endlessly, where they had bombarded even the Immortal Burial Ground for the sake of a sacred artifact and dared to release even a Drought Demon, who knew when they would be able to finish building a realm-breaking portal?
From the moment Bao Gu activated the flagship and charged toward the immortal gate, she no longer cared what happened to the cultivation world behind her. She no longer cared whether anyone in this realm would ever be able to ascend if they failed to build a realm-breaking portal.
She had left them many opportunities to ascend. She had not severed their path to immortality. But if they cut off that path themselves, no one could help them.
All she needed to know was that the cauldron Qingying had forged for Yu Jianming would allow Yu Jianming to lead another group of people to the upper realm.
For now, the only thing she needed to worry about was the road ahead.
Yu Mi stood on the flagship and watched it chase a strand of immortal light that was racing faster than light into the depths of darkness ahead, moving at a speed beyond anything she could describe.
She had thought that beyond the cultivation world lay the void and the myriad heavens and ten realms.
Only now did she realize that beyond the cultivation world lay destruction.
That terrifying destructive force pressed against the Daluo Scarlet Gold flagship, forged from Daluo Scarlet Gold and equipped with realm-breaking power, causing it to emit cracking sounds.
The formations enveloping the ship were enduring unimaginable pressure. The heat produced by the defensive formations was so intense that the Daluo Scarlet Gold of the outer hull began to melt. As the ship raced forward, the molten metal was flung behind it, only to be ground away and annihilated by the overwhelming force.
The destructive aura outside the flagship was so shocking that it chilled Yu Mi’s heart. The strand of immortal light, meanwhile, was so dazzling that it resembled a guiding beacon in the darkness.
As those two sensations collided, Yu Mi suddenly felt light shining in from outside the flagship. The blinding radiance made her instinctively raise a hand to shield her eyes.
Immediately afterward, she heard a tremendous roar and a thunderous crash. Then the force of inertia flung her away.
Almost instinctively, she turned and caught Bao Gu, who had also been thrown through the air. Her back slammed heavily into the Daluo Scarlet Gold hull, and she let out a muffled groan of pain.
Even while shielding Bao Gu, one thought surfaced in her mind:
“Even after becoming an immortal, I still get thrown around this badly! Have we reached the upper realm?”
The flagship was moving too fast.
Bao Gu had only just felt the ship emerge from the realm-wall passage and seen a vast brightness ahead when a great sea suddenly appeared in front of them. The flagship plunged headfirst into it and smashed into the seabed.
Lying in Yu Mi’s arms, Bao Gu thought to herself:
“Wasn’t this supposed to be ‘ascending’ to the upper realm? We actually crashed into it.”
She then discovered that the flagship, having crossed the realm barrier while operating far beyond its normal limits, had suffered a catastrophic impact. The defensive formation had collapsed, and the cracks spread across the entire ship continued to widen. In some places, seawater was already beginning to pour inside.
Along with the seawater came an incredibly fresh and soothing aura that made Bao Gu’s entire body jolt.
The feeling was like finally stepping out into sunlight and a warm spring breeze after being cooped up underground until her entire body had grown moldy.
