The Kan Gang’s investigation and purge of all those with ulterior motives was handled by the Punishment Hall, with the Shadow Pavilion assisting.
Bao Gu handed everything related to screening and resettling people over to Wang Ding. This kind of logistical grind was exactly what Wang Ding excelled at, not her. For Bao Gu, the most important thing right now was the defense of Shadow City—the grand defensive formation.
She had told Si Ruo that if the Ba dared to come, she dared to annihilate it here—but that was for the future, not now.
All those cordoned-off areas had only been a “long-term layout” Kan Gang buried when they first started building Shadow City. Neither Bao Gu nor Kan Gang had expected those places to be used so soon, or to suddenly become this important. All the formations there had been built by Kan Gang’s former formation masters; in Bao Gu’s eyes, they were riddled with flaws and nowhere near her expectations or standards. Never mind stopping the Ba—she suspected they wouldn’t even stop a half-decent formation expert.
Rebuilding the formations was urgent beyond delay.
Bao Gu personally took charge of the reconstruction. She took a portion of the Five Elements Immortal Stones she’d obtained from the Archaic Wilderness Mountains—the very stones used to build an Ascension Platform—and used them as the core materials of the new array.
Those Five Elements Immortal Stones had stood as the foundation of the Ascension Platform for countless ages. Every ascendant had stepped on them to enter the Upper Realm; every ascendant’s tribulation lightning had crashed down upon them. Over those endless years, they’d been tempered by an uncountable number of ascension tribulations, condensed with immense heavenly tribulation power, branded with innumerable strands of Grand Dao power—some of the most primal, most powerful forces between heaven and earth. That refining by ascension lightning had long since turned them into peerless treasures filled with Dao might.
Bao Gu dared to say that even if Si Ruo used that immortal sword of hers—refined from a true dragon’s spine and sealing a true dragon’s soul—to hack at a Five Elements Immortal Stone, the thing that would shatter would absolutely be Si Ruo’s Dragon Soul Sword, not the stone.
Ascending to the Upper Realm was far, far away. Even with Five Elements Immortal Stones, they could not build an Ascension Platform now; meanwhile, the Ba calamity and human calamities were already at the doorstep.
Every piece of Five Elements Immortal Stone used in the formation was laid by Bao Gu’s own hand. She let no one else touch them. To prevent a repeat of the Archaic Wilderness Mountains incident—breaking the formation to steal sacred artifacts—Bao Gu strictly ordered and indexed all thirty-three thousand three hundred and thirty-three stones.
Want to tear down the formation and remove the stones? Sure. Go ahead and dismantle them one by one from the array’s core in the *single* correct sequence. Get even one piece wrong, and face the annihilating backlash of the grand array composed of those thirty-three thousand three hundred and thirty-three Five Elements Immortal Stones.
As for the array core itself—she slammed the Xuantian Book Repository down onto it as a town-stabilizing anchor. Want to touch the array core? No problem. Get the Xuantian Book Repository to recognize you as its master first.
Everyone only saw Bao Gu busying about mysteriously every day. They knew she was setting up formations, but no one knew what materials she was using or what kind of array she was building. No matter who asked, she refused to answer.
Three days passed in a flash.
The deadline stated in the Cleaver Decree—the time when Shadow City would be sealed off from the world—was about to arrive. Wang Ding decisively ordered the domain gate sealed. Once he’d done it, he contacted Bao Gu with a sound-transmission jade slip.
“Order Master, the domain gate has been sealed!”
Bao Gu asked, “How’s the situation?”
Wang Ding replied, “Too many people came in. So far we’ve only screened a bit over two million—doesn’t even count as a fraction.” He said, head aching, “Basically the entire cultivation world has flooded in.”
Bao Gu grunted and said, “It’s fine. Take your time with the screening, proceed according to the original plan. Are all preparations ready?”
Wang Ding reported, “Everything is in place. Order Master, there are too many people. If we keep them all packed into one region and anything goes wrong, I fear even Kan Gang and Yue Kingdom together won’t be able to handle it. If we can’t suppress them, the consequences will be disastrous. This subordinate believes it’s better to disperse them.”
Bao Gu said crisply, “Proceed according to the original plan.”
Then she cut off contact and went back to burying formations.
Suddenly, she felt a violent bombardment erupt from the region where the cultivators were gathered. The spatial isolation array Kan Gang had placed around that area shattered in an instant!
Three days was more than enough time for any formation experts who’d slipped in with the crowd to probe the array layout in that region.
Bao Gu crossed the formations at top speed and rushed to the cultivator gathering zone.
Standing in midair, wind whipping her robes, Bao Gu saw that the clustered cultivators completely covered that green grassland.
The moment she appeared, she felt countless gazes lock onto her, and heard someone shouting:
“Order Master of Kan, long time no see! I trust you’ve been well?”
The region wasn’t huge, but it wasn’t small either—almost a thousand kilometers across. Bao Gu’s divine sense range was weak; whoever was shouting was outside it, so she couldn’t even see who it was. She lifted her eyes and saw three main “clumps” of people.
Two clumps were facing each other in a standoff. The third stayed far away from them, but there were so many in that group that even keeping their distance, they filled almost all the surrounding open space.
The two opposing sides were both lined up as proper battle formations. One side had far more people: dozens of banners, countless uniforms, cultivators from all sorts of forces woven into a square formation stretching for dozens of kilometers.
The other side had far fewer—barely more than a tenth of the enemy’s number—but they stood under the Kan Gang banner, all wearing Kan Gang colors.
Bao Gu stepped onto a teleportation platform and arrived in front of Kan Gang’s army. Behind her were Kan Gang’s two hundred thousand troops. In front… the enemy army stretched far beyond the reach of her divine sense; even with her naked eye, she couldn’t see the end of it.
In front of the opposing formation stood a row of Void Tearing stage cultivators, forty-seven in total, lined up shoulder to shoulder. At their head stood a Void Tearing great-perfection cultivator. He had a head of white hair, a more-than-foot-long white beard, and wore a flowing dark robe; his bearing was that of an otherworldly immortal. A small Ziwei star constellation was embroidered at his collar, proclaiming his identity.
Ziwei Sect’s master. The head of the number one major power in the cultivation world.
The Ziwei Saint Sovereign.
He smiled kindly at Bao Gu, looking more like an elder visiting a junior than a man leading an army of over two million to war.
Bao Gu’s gaze swept coldly across that line of Void Tearing cultivators and finally settled on the Ziwei Saint Sovereign.
“What guidance do you have?” she asked.
The Ziwei Saint Sovereign said, “The Order Master is a straightforward person, so this old one will speak plainly.”
Bao Gu nodded.
The Ziwei Saint Sovereign said, “The cultivation world is in turmoil, its struggles unending. On top of that, the Ba disaster ravages the world—living beings are slaughtered, rivers and mountains destroyed. If the Ba calamity is allowed to rampage unchecked, the common people will perish, and so will the cultivation world. This is a moment of life and death. Would the Order Master agree?”
Bao Gu nodded.
The Ziwei Saint Sovereign continued, “Cultivators should take the protection of all living beings as their duty. Would the Order Master agree with that as well?”
Bao Gu nodded again.
The Ziwei Saint Sovereign said, “With the Ba calamity at our throats and the world’s survival at stake, the cultivation world must set aside old grudges and feuds. For the sake of all living beings and the continued existence of the cultivation world, we must stand together against the Ba. Would the Order Master agree?”
Bao Gu stared at him coldly.
“Why don’t you look behind you, Ziwei Saint Sovereign? Over two million troops pressing down on Kan Gang’s headquarters—doesn’t look to me like you came to jointly resist the Ba for the sake of the common people. Looks more like you came to slaughter Kan Gang’s main sect.”
The Ziwei Saint Sovereign said, “The Order Master is mistaken. This is the coalition army gathered by the cultivation world to fight the Ba. We are here to demonstrate to you the united strength and resolve of the cultivation world’s various forces in resisting the Ba. This old one sincerely requests that the Order Master lead Kan Gang to join the cultivation world’s coalition army against the Ba. Only if the cultivation world unites as one and stands firm as a fortress can we possibly seize a sliver of life from this world-ending calamity. Hiding in one corner, sealing the city and shunning the world—this is no long-term plan.”
“The cultivation world cannot continue its mutual slaughter. If revenge always begets revenge, when will the cycle end? Once again, this old one earnestly begs the Order Master to think of all living beings under heaven, lay down past grudges, and join hands in alliance with the cultivation world to resist the Ba.”
So righteous. One line of “if revenge always begets revenge, when will it end?” and suddenly everything that happened before is wiped clean. As if it were Kan Gang, as if it were *her*, the Kan Gang Order Master, who’d instigated all the strife and bloodshed in the cultivation world. If she wanted to demand who’d stabbed them in the back, who’d forced Cangdu City to uproot itself and flee—that would mean she was ignoring the greater good of all living beings, being petty, and insisting on continuing the internal slaughter.
Bao Gu let out a cold laugh.
“In that case, Ziwei Saint Sovereign, how exactly do you propose we join hands to resist the Ba?”
The Ziwei Saint Sovereign said, “Resisting the Ba is not something that can be accomplished in a day or two. The war will be unimaginably difficult. The entire cultivation world knows the Order Master has the means and ability to fight the Ba. Outside Cangdu City, your master’s stunning strike made all of us bow in admiration.”
“This old one would ask the Order Master to take Shadow City as the main camp against the Ba, and invite your honored master to act. United with the cultivators, we will attack the Ba and strangle the calamity in its cradle, so that no more innocents and living beings will suffer.”
Take Shadow City as the coalition’s anti-Ba base camp—that was nothing short of trying to steal her nest and sit in her seat. And they still wanted her holy aunt to go charge at the front to slay the Ba?
Tsk. That abacus clattered loud.
Bao Gu said, “I invited my master to Cangdu City to fight the Ba. Who knew that as soon as my master arrived, she was ambushed by people harboring malicious intent, gravely wounded, and now her whereabouts are unknown—her life or death uncertain.”
“As for resisting the Ba, I think Mingyue Sect should stand at the forefront as an example for the cultivation world. Was it not Mingyue Sect who, unafraid of the Ba, sent warships and deathsworn to the Archaic Wilderness Mountains, tossed down a domain gate, and lured the Ba to attack Cangdu City? Such boldness truly makes me admire you.”
“Ziwei Saint Sovereign, why not ask the brilliant, farsighted Mingyue Sect Master at your side to lead the cultivation world to the Archaic Wilderness Mountains to fight the Ba? He knows the way. Having him take action will be far more efficient than seeking out my master, whose life and death are unknown.”
The Mingyue Sect Master’s face turned dark.
“Nonsense, slander,” he snapped. “Order Master of Kan, with the Ba calamity upon us, you maliciously smear people’s names—do you intend to stir up internal strife yet again? Are you going to abandon the lives of all living beings under heaven?”
Bao Gu sneered.
“All living beings under heaven? Have you ever had them in your eyes? You preach benevolence and morality and speak such righteous words—but have you ever protected the common people? Have you ever cared if they lived or died?”
“If Kan Gang stands with you lot, *that* would be abandoning the lives of all living beings under heaven. We, Kan Gang, and my Xuantian Sect will naturally protect the common people and wipe out the Ba calamity!”
“I, Bao Gu, swear here in blood: until the Ba calamity is destroyed and the common people know peace again, neither I, Bao Gu, nor my Kan Gang, nor my Xuantian Sect will ascend to the Upper Realm!”
“Before that, I, Bao Gu, my Kan Gang, and my Xuantian Sect will sweep clean the cultivation world for the sake of all living beings, for the human race, and for the cultivation world itself. First, we’ll deal with the *human* disaster!”
As she spoke, a sword aura as if it could cleave the heavens burst from her. Wrapped in multicolored radiance, the Xuantian Sword appeared in her hand, its sword qi surging.
She shouted:
“Purge the cultivation world and return a clear and open sky to it!
Kill!”
As Bao Gu’s order rang out, the two hundred thousand Kan Gang troops behind her roared in unison:
“Kill—!”
War chariots and warships rumbled forward, and every weapon in their hands swung to point straight ahead.
A Void Tearing cultivator on the opposite side snorted.
“Ridiculous! How can ants shake a great tree? A mere two hundred thousand, daring to stand against our two million seven hundred thousand strong army!”
The Ziwei Saint Sovereign’s voice boomed across the battlefield.
“Bao Gu, you ignore the Ba calamity and start a war, trampling on the morality of the common people—heaven will not tolerate you!”
He then roared:
“Capture Bao Gu alive!
Quell the Ba calamity!
Kill!”
More than two million troops surged forward at his command, charging toward the Kan Gang army.
The sheer numerical difference made their momentum soar to the sky.
The loose cultivators scattered around the battlefield went pale at the sight of this hopeless disparity. Some hot-blooded ones shouted for nearby rogue cultivators to join Kan Gang and fight side by side. Many looked incensed and itched to rush forward, but they all knew with their meager strength they’d be nothing but cannon fodder, dying without worth. A battle at this level wasn’t one they had any right to meddle in.
The only thing they could do was run—flee the battlefield as fast as possible to avoid being caught up and killed.
At the very instant the rogues began to flee and the coalition army of over two million started moving, Bao Gu raised the Xuantian Sword, pointing its tip toward the heavens.
A terrifying power burst from the sword, enough to make hearts instinctively quail.
A violent energy wave rippled across the sky. Then, at the edge of heaven, a vast army suddenly manifested—ranks tight, killing intent dense, their presence like a blade pressing down on the world.
A voice full of majesty and wrath resounded:
“Sons of Yue Kingdom, do you still remember the destruction of Cangdu City?
Do you still remember the annihilation of Yue Kingdom?
Use the weapons in your hands to exact blood for blood!
Blood for blood—kill!”
Over six hundred thousand soldiers of Yue Kingdom charged in from the flank, crashing into the cultivation world’s coalition army!
Kan Gang fought for the justice of all living beings.
Yue Kingdom fought for a nation’s hatred and family vengeance.
Their nation, their capital, their very home had been destroyed by this cultivation world coalition. Their hatred, their blood-debt—could only be repaid in blood.
Kill—
That was the roar in the heart of every Yue Kingdom soldier.
Warships, chariots, and troops of Yue Kingdom blotted out the sky as they slammed into the coalition’s flank.
On the opposite side of the coalition army, yet another Kan Gang army appeared. This newly recruited force might not have had neat, uniform equipment, and their cultivation levels were all over the place—but every one of them understood that they could only win this battle, not lose. If they lost, they’d lose their foothold, be cast out as rogues by the great powers, and die miserably in the Ba calamity.
Beside that Kan Gang army marched one hundred thousand Xuantian Sect disciples, all clad in lustrous robes and equipped with full sets of magic treasures.
The enemy Void Tearing cultivators moved at once, all charging directly toward Bao Gu. Her existence was the reason they’d united and come in full force. Her threat level was exactly why they refused to give her even a breath to catch her footing.
Kan Gang plus Yue Kingdom together still didn’t have even half their numbers, yet Bao Gu had dared to launch the war without hesitation. That meant she was absolutely confident.
What was the basis of Bao Gu’s confidence?
This was Kan Gang’s territory, Bao Gu’s home ground—and her methods with formations were terrifying enough to make anyone’s scalp crawl.
The Void Tearing attacks were upon her in an instant.
Bao Gu’s figure vanished without warning from where she’d stood.
A colossal column of lightning ten-zhang thick slammed down from the heavens like a pillar connecting sky and earth, utterly without warning. The blinding white radiance stabbed at everyone’s eyes—they couldn’t even open them.
Thunder roared and rolled—one crash after another, each louder than the last. That gigantic lightning column poured from the sky like a torrential downpour, crashing down across the battlefield.
The army of over two million was drowned in a sea of lightning. Whole swaths of people were blasted into tribulation ash before they even had time to scream.
Their tight formation shattered in an instant—casualties littered the ground, the battle lines completely collapsed.
Within the web of lightning, it was impossible to see where to run. Many who barely dodged one strike, stumbling out of the lightning’s edge, were immediately struck down by another bolt.
The heavenly thunder had come with no warning and disappeared just as strangely—no sound, no trace.
In only a few breaths, it was gone without a shadow.
The coalition army, however, had taken devastating losses and was utterly broken.
Battle cries erupted from all sides. The rogue cultivators who had been scattered around, seeing this scene, surged forward.
The Yue Kingdom army, Kan Gang forces, Xuantian Sect disciples, rogue cultivators, and every force that had chosen to stand with Kan Gang all charged into the shattered ranks of the coalition army—those two-plus million who’d been mauled by that sudden sea of lightning.
At that moment, it was no longer two hundred thousand versus two million seven hundred thousand.
It was tens of millions of cultivators slaughtering a broken army of just over two million.
The Void Tearing cultivators who’d lunged at Bao Gu had narrowly escaped the thunder’s culling, only to be immediately entangled by the Void Tearing experts of the forces aligned with Kan Gang.
Assassins of Soul Chasing Pavilion slipped through the chaos like ghosts, harvesting lives.
Qu Yirou, curved blade in hand, went straight for the Ziwei Saint Sovereign. She had just slipped to his side and slashed when a bombardment from several Void Tearing cultivators—led by a Void Tearing great-perfection elder with a staff—suddenly smashed into the Ziwei Saint Sovereign, blasting him clear away.
Qu Yirou’s strike cut only empty air.
“Stop stealing my kill!” she yelled furiously.
She prepared to pounce again—but the poor Ziwei Saint Sovereign had already been swallowed up by a ring of cultivators at his own realm.
Their blows twisted the very void; the shockwaves were so intense that a close-combat fighter like Qu Yirou couldn’t even get close. She could only watch helplessly.
The master of the number one sect in the cultivation world—imagine the prestige that would come from taking his head. Of course, Qu Yirou wasn’t the only one with that idea. The Ziwei Saint Sovereign was receiving “special attention” from every Void Tearing cultivator on Kan Gang’s side—they all wanted his head.
The battle between Void Tearing experts was so fierce that they punched through the spatial boundary itself, tearing open a hole about two meters across.
One cultivator was blown back through that gap in space and then struck again by another Void Tearing’s palm, sent crashing into a monolithic boulder—its whole body sheathed in Five Elements spiritual light, covered in dense runes, radiating a deep, ancient aura.
The instant that Void Tearing cultivator slammed into the stone, an overwhelming, indescribable force chopped down from the void. The man didn’t even have time to grunt before he disintegrated into dust—not even bone fragments were left.
That aura stunned everyone present. All heads turned toward the giant stone.
Some cultivator shouted, “What the hell is that?!”
Before anyone could see clearly, the torn spatial boundary stitched itself back together, hiding everything once more in the void.
The coalition cultivators, sensing catastrophe, tried to flee—only to discover the gap they’d blown in the restrictions had been sealed by an even more terrifying power.
When they tried to rip open the void again, what greeted them was a deadly grinding force that left them in despair. The power’s aura seemed to come from primordial antiquity, releasing a suffocating, soul-deep dread. Facing it was like facing the might of the Dao itself. In front of that power, they were as insignificant as motes of dust.
“Surrender, I surrender…” coalition cultivators screamed as they found every escape path cut off.
No one accepted their surrender.
The slaughter went on.
With such an absolute gap in power, the “battle” was over in less than two hours.
On the grassland—its turf long since stomped to bare earth—corpses lay everywhere. The air between heaven and earth stank of blood.
The aftermath was a mess.
Cultivators still roamed the field looking for survivors; anyone found alive was promptly finished off. Others—everywhere—were pawing through broken corpses and mangled limbs, picking up storage rings, weapons, and treasures abandoned on the battlefield.
Every allied force that had come to support Kan Gang began reorganizing their people and counting casualties.
Wang Ding found himself surrounded by powerhouses from all those allied factions, bombarding him with questions about the thing hanging in the void, sealing this entire region of space.
What *was* that thing?
The aura it released was more terrifying than a sacred artifact—at least an immortal treasure. A Void Tearing cultivator had touched it and was snuffed out in an instant, turned into smoke.
How would Wang Ding know? He was just as lost.
To deal with the coalition, he’d invited many tightly connected forces to slip in among the rogue cultivators and strike at the crucial moment. Yet now, at least half the people who’d jumped out to help were ones he’d never invited.
The Order Master’s “close the gates and beat the dogs; whoever comes, we accept” approach had drawn in people from every conceivable direction.
Inviting gods was easy. Sending them away was hard.
Now that the thing in the void had shown itself, getting all these people to leave smoothly was going to be even harder.
