The silence that settled over the Southern Mist District was not the peaceful quiet of a calm afternoon. It was a suffocating, unnatural void—the absolute stillness of a graveyard preserved in liquid ice.
Where fifty iron-hulled war-barges of the Blood-Blade Sect had once hovered, blotting out the sun, only thin blue ribbons of spatial mist drifted aimlessly through the frigid sky. Three thousand crazed disciples, ten colossal vessels, and millions of flesh-eating Crimson-Louse Beetles had vanished. They had not fallen to the earth; they had not burned or bled. They had simply been unmade, their physical existence atomized into fine sapphire frost-powder that now scattered over the withered iron-bamboo groves five miles below.
In the center of the shattered sky, the ten thousand elite Crimson-Sun Imperial Knights remained frozen in place. The volcanic bronze scales of their armor, usually radiating intense, blistering heat, were now coated in a thin layer of rime. Beneath them, their double-headed fire-beasts—creatures born from molten fissures—sat on their hind legs in mid-air, their snouts pressed tightly against their scaly forelegs. They whimpered like beaten hounds, steam no longer issuing from their nostrils, utterly paralyzed by the lingering aura of absolute zero.
Not a single soldier dared to draw a sword. Not a single archer dared to pull a bowstring. The mere thought of channeling spiritual Qi felt like inviting liquid ice directly into their meridians.
Li-Wen did not spare them a second glance.
His dark traveler's coat rustled softly in the chilly breeze as he held Xiao-Yue's small, warm hand in his own. Beside him, the little girl hummed a quiet, wordless tune, her pink lotus lantern emitting a soft, soothing glow that cut through the remaining chill around them. Across Li-Wen's back, the massive, dark-wrapped heavy blade was silent once more, its abyssal steel sealed beneath the thick layers of ancient cloth. Yet, the atmosphere around his solitary form warped subtly with every step he took, leaving behind glowing blue snowflake footprints that hovered in the void, refusing to fade.
"Brother Li-Wen," Xiao-Yue whispered softly, looking up with her wide, luminous eyes as they walked toward the distant, towering spires of the Central Imperial Capital's inner ring. "The big hot sun in the sky isn't burning anymore."
"It was never a real sun, Xiao-Yue," Li-Wen replied, his voice calm, flat, and steady, echoing with a quiet depth that carried across the vast expanse of the sky. "It was just a hollow fire. When the wind blows, hollow fire dies."
With those words, Li-Wen stepped forward onto the empty air, taking another unhurried stride. With each step, he crossed several hundred yards of space effortlessly, his figure shrinking into the northern horizon as he made his way toward the heart of the empire.
It was only after his shadow completely vanished past the mountain ridge that the intense, binding pressure over the Southern Mist District finally snapped.
GASP—!
Simultaneously, ten thousand Imperial Knights gasped for air, collapsing forward onto the saddles of their trembling fire-beasts. Cold sweat, frozen into tiny beads of ice, poured down their pale faces. Many of the veteran warriors dropped their spears, their hands shaking so violently that they could no longer hold their weapons.
"He... he left..." an officer stammered, his lips turned blue from the lingering chill. "The Northern Sovereign... he didn't even bother to wipe us out..."
"We were not even worth a second swing of his blade," another knight muttered, his eyes filled with absolute hollow despair. "Ten thousand men... four Stage-5 Peak Sovereigns... crushed in three seconds..."
Five miles to the south, beneath a shattered, frozen floating island, the earth suddenly erupted.
CRASH!
A streak of battered, bloody silver light shot out from the deep crater, violently coughing up mouthfuls of golden blood mixed with blue ice crystals.
Marshal Zhao Dragon-Crest hit the frozen soil, rolling several times before using the shattered shaft of his dragon-headed war spear to prop himself up. His magnificent silver-and-crimson plate armor was completely ruined; the heavy metal was cracked like dry porcelain, filled with crawling spiderwebs of frost that constantly tried to seep into his vital organs.
"Cough! AARGH!"
Marshal Zhao spat out another glob of frozen blood, his iron jaw trembling. The majestic aura of an imperial grand commander was entirely gone, replaced by the ragged, desperate breathing of a dying man. He looked at his ruined spear—a Stage-5 Peak spiritual artifact that had pierced through dozens of enemy kingdoms—now reduced to a brittle stick of useless metal.
"A single horizontal sweep..." Zhao Dragon-Crest gasped, his eyes wide with an emotion he had not felt in over eighty years: pure, unadulterated terror. "He didn't use a grand array... he didn't channel his full core... He merely unsheathed three inches of his blade!"
A few hundred yards away, among the crushed remnants of a stone altar, another figure groaned in agony.
Elder Yan Wise-Sky lay flat on his back. His pristine white scholar robes were stained with dark, foul blood. His right arm was completely frozen solid, turning into a black, dead branch that shattered into dust as he tried to move it. Surrounding him were the charred, icy cinders of his fifty ancient scholar scrolls—artifacts that had taken him three centuries to collect and refine.
"My... my meridians..." Wise-Sky shrieked in a thin, raspy voice, tears of blood leaking from his hollow eyes. "My Stage-5 cultivation base... shattered! Broken! The frost... it didn't just cut my body... it froze my spiritual origin!"
Marshal Zhao dragged his broken body toward the fallen strategist, his boots crunching on the frozen grass. He looked down at Wise-Sky with a mixture of pity and severe coldness.
"Save your breath, Wise-Sky," Zhao Dragon-Crest said, his voice hoarse. "If you channel your Qi now, the residual frost in your chest will reach your heart, and you will turn into ice dust just like Patriarch Yan."
"Patriarch Yan... is gone?" Wise-Sky choked out, his body violently shivering. "The Stage-5 Peak Patriarch of the Crimson-Sun Clan... erased?"
"Not a trace left," Zhao Dragon-Crest replied grimly, looking toward the sky where Patriarch Yan Crimson-Heaven had stood moments ago. "The Crimson-Sun Clan's top battle strength has been cut by half in a single afternoon. Sect Master Blood-Gouger is dead, his war-barges destroyed. And we... we are merely the survivors he didn't care enough to kill."
Wise-Sky let out a hysterical, pathetic laugh, his voice sounding like dry leaves blowing through a graveyard. "We called him a rat... We thought our Ten-Thousand-Man Array was an iron cage... Ha... Haha! We didn't build a cage for him... We built our own scaffold!"
"Shut up and get up!" Zhao Dragon-Crest roared, grabbing Wise-Sky by his collar and hauling him to his feet. "We must return to the Inner Imperial City immediately! The Emperor... the Prime Ancestor... they must be warned! That man is not just a Stage-5 Spatial Sovereign... His domain touches upon the absolute realm! If the Imperial Court tries to face him with ordinary numbers, the Central Capital will become a city of corpses!"
While the battlefield of the Southern Mist District lay in absolute ruin, the news of the encounter was already spreading like a tidal wave through the vast, sprawling metropolis of the Central Imperial Capital.
The Central Capital was a colossal ancient city built upon seven massive dragon veins, housing over fifty million residents, hundreds of noble clans, and dozens of powerful martial sects. At its heart stood the Inner Imperial Palace—a floating fortress of golden towers, high defensive walls, and ancient defensive arrays that had stood undefeated for ten thousand years.
Until today, the citizens and nobles had viewed the encirclement of the Southern Mist District as a minor pest-control operation. The grand announcement by the Crimson-Sun Clan and the Blood-Blade Sect had promised the public that the arrogant outsider who dared insult the Imperial Guard would be publicly executed before sundown.
In the high-end tea houses and grand auction halls of the Central District, young noble masters and sect elders had been drinking refined spiritual wine, casually placing bets on how many minutes the nameless wanderer would survive against four Stage-5 Peak Sovereigns.
"I say ten minutes!" a young master clad in expensive silk had declared hours earlier, holding up his jade fan. "With Chief Strategist Wise-Sky's spatial lock, the man can't even run! Patriarch Yan's Sun-God form alone could melt an entire mountain range!"
"Ten minutes? You overestimate that hillbilly from the north!" another elder had laughed. "Sect Master Blood-Gouger's Crimson-Louse Swarm will strip his bones clean before Patriarch Yan even draws his sword!"
However, as the hours passed, the oppressive, boiling heat that had hung over the city suddenly vanished.
Instead, a unnatural, bone-chilling cold swept through the streets of the Central Capital. The grand defensive formations carved into the city walls flickered erratically, their core fire-stones turning pale and cold. Water fountains across the grand plazas froze into solid blocks of blue ice in the middle of summer.
Then came the sound.
It was not a boom of thunder, but the frantic, panicked beat of the Imperial Emergency War-Drums!
DONG! DONG! DONG! DONG!
Nine heavy, resounding strikes echoed from the highest tower of the Imperial Guard Directorate—a signal reserved only for national catastrophes, imperial invasions, or the death of an Imperial Sovereign!
The bustling streets fell instantly silent. Merchants dropped their wares, noble masters froze with their wine cups halfway to their lips, and powerful clan elders rushed out onto their balconies, looking toward the southern sky in sheer astonishment.
Through the sky, a single, battered silver light streaked toward the Golden Dragon Palace, trailing behind it a cloud of bloody mist.
"Is that... Marshal Zhao Dragon-Crest?!" a high-ranking clan elder gasped, recognizing the distinct aura of the Imperial Guard Directorate. "Why is his armor shattered?! Where is the vanguard army?!"
Before anyone could comprehend what was happening, messengers on swift avian beasts began racing through the streets, their voices cracking with sheer terror as they delivered the horrifying intelligence to every major clan council:
"Emergency Report! The Southern Mist Siege Array has been completely annihilated!"
"Patriarch Yan Crimson-Heaven... ERASED!"
"Sect Master Blood-Gouger... ERASED!"
"Ten Blood-Blade War-Barges destroyed in a single step! Three thousand disciples wiped out!"
"The spatial lock was cut like silk! The Northern Sovereign is marching toward the Inner Imperial Palace on foot!"
The news exploded like a celestial thunderbolt across the entire capital!
In the grand estate of the Crimson-Sun Clan, loud screams of panic broke out immediately. Elders rushed through the halls, packing precious spiritual stones and ancient scrolls, frantically trying to activate their underground escape portals. The death of Patriarch Yan meant their clan's pillar had collapsed; without a Stage-5 Peak Sovereign to protect them, their rival clans would devour them within days!
In the dark, cavernous headquarters of the Blood-Blade Sect, hundreds of red-robed disciples dropped their weapons, abandoning the sect grounds in sheer terror. Their Sect Master was dead, their primary war fleet had turned to ice dust, and the rumor of a man who could erase thousands with a single step made their ruthless blood-cult look like helpless children.
The entire Central Capital was plunged into absolute chaos. Panic gripped the hearts of millions. The arrogant, untouchable pride of the empire's greatest city was shattered in a single hour, replaced by a dark, looming shadow that approached step by step from the south.
Deep within the innermost ring of the Central Imperial Palace, situated upon the highest floating peak known as the Heaven-Gazing Platform, sat the true core of the empire's power.
Here, the air was dense with pure spiritual energy, flowing from the golden dragon veins beneath the earth. Surrounding the grand court were twelve massive stone pillars, each carved with ancient, glowing runes that had been dormant for centuries.
At the center of the court stood the Emperor of the Central Capital, Emperor Yan Dragon-Emperor, wearing magnificent golden-dragon robes. But despite his lofty title, his face was pale, and his hands, hidden within his long sleeves, were clenched so tightly that his nails bit into his palms.
Surrounding him were the top leaders of the empire: six grand ministers, four surviving Stage-5 High-Grade Generals, and the heads of the three ancient royal protector clans.
At the center of the hall, kneeling on the cold marble floor, was Marshal Zhao Dragon-Crest. His ruined armor had been stripped away, revealing his bloodied, frost-bitten chest. Beside him, Elder Wise-Sky lay trembling on a stretcher, his breathing faint and shallow.
"Repeat what you just said, Marshal Zhao," Emperor Yan's voice echoed through the vast hall, heavy, grim, and laced with suppressed panic. "You are telling this court that four Stage-5 Peak Sovereigns, an array of ten thousand elite troops, and fifty war-barges... were defeated by one man?"
"Not defeated, Your Imperial Majesty," Zhao Dragon-Crest said, raising his blood-stained face, his eyes hollow. "We were not defeated. We were ignored. He did not execute a grand war formation. He did not sacrifice his core energy. He merely stepped forward, froze ten war-barges into dust, and then drew three inches of his heavy blade."
"Three inches..." one of the royal grand ministers gasped, his face turning as white as paper. "Three inches of a blade killed Patriarch Yan and Sect Master Blood-Gouger simultaneously?!"
"The sword light... it was not an ordinary element," Zhao Dragon-Crest continued, a shudder running through his heavy frame. "It erased space itself. The moment his blade moved, the world turned black and white. The heat, the sun arrays, the blood domains... everything was frozen instantly. If he had willed it, none of the ten thousand soldiers would have survived to run away."
"Absurd! Monstrous!" a senior general shouted, stepping forward with his fist clenched. "He is just a solitary cultivator from the desolate Northern Frost Lands! How could a single wanderer possess power that rivals an ancient supreme sect?! Could he... could he have reached that realm?!"
The moment the general mentioned "that realm," the entire court fell into a dead, terrified silence.
Stage-6—Spatial Domain Sovereign!
In the entire history of the Southern Continent, a Stage-6 Sovereign was an existence of pure legend—a being who had moved beyond ordinary spiritual Qi and begun to comprehend the fundamental laws of space, world creation, and absolute domain. A single Stage-6 Sovereign could wipe an entire kingdom off the map with a wave of their hand!
"No... that is impossible," Emperor Yan said, shaking his head frantically, though his voice lacked conviction. "The continental boundary has been sealed for three thousand years! The spiritual Qi of this world cannot support the birth of a new Stage-6 Sovereign! He must be using a supreme, ancient relic from the northern wilderness!"
"Whether it is a relic or his own cultivation, the result is the same," a cold, ancient voice suddenly echoed from the deepest recesses of the palace vault.
RUMBLE—!
The entire floating peak trembled violently!
The twelve stone pillars surrounding the Heaven-Gazing Platform burst into radiant, golden flames! The heavy doors of the deep underground ancestral chamber slowly swung open, unleashing a suffocating wave of golden solar aura that instantly melted the lingering frost in the air!
The court officials and generals immediately dropped to their knees, bowing their heads toward the opening vault in profound reverence!
"We welcome the Supreme Ancestor!" Emperor Yan shouted, bowing deeply toward the darkness.
Out of the golden light stepped an old man. He appeared small and frail, dressed in simple, ancient red hemp robes. His hair was long and silver, touching the floor, but his eyes... his eyes were like two miniature, boiling suns, radiating an pressure that made the surrounding space bend and crack!
Imperial Prime Ancestor—Yan Sun-God!
The true ultimate foundation of the Central Imperial Empire! A terrifying old monster who had closed himself in death-seclusion three hundred years ago to break through the final bottleneck of Stage-5 Peak!
The Prime Ancestor stepped out into the hall, his golden eyes sweeping coldly over the shattered form of Zhao Dragon-Crest and the dying Wise-Sky.
"Useless fools," the Prime Ancestor spoke, his voice sounding like two tectonic plates grinding together. "To let a single northern wanderer push my empire to the brink of panic... You have disgraced the bloodline of the Crimson Dragon."
"Prime Ancestor, forgive us!" Emperor Yan said, stepping forward hurriedly. "The enemy is unprecedentedly fierce! He carries the orphan of the Fire-Lotus Clan, and his target is clearly our Imperial Dragon-Vein Chamber! What should we do?!"
The Prime Ancestor slowly looked toward the southern horizon, his burning eyes piercing through miles of distance, locking onto the solitary, dark-coated figure currently walking calmly through the outer streets of the capital.
"His frost is indeed rare... It carries the aura of the Abyssal Northern Runes," the Prime Ancestor murmured, a dark, greedy light flickering in his sun-like eyes. "If he were a true Stage-6 Sovereign, he would have collapsed the capital's spatial coordinates from fifty miles away. He did not. That means his power comes with heavy limitations, or his blade holds an ancient secret."
The Prime Ancestor raised his withered hand, striking his wooden walking stick against the marble floor!
BOOM!
A golden wave of spatial force swept across the entire palace complex!
"Activate the Nineteen-Level Sun-Bound Grand Array!" the Prime Ancestor commanded, his voice echoing across the entire imperial territory. "Unseal the nine Dragon-Guarding Artifacts! Recall all Stage-5 elders from the three guardian sects! Set the battlefield at the Golden Dragon Gate!"
"As you command, Supreme Ancestor!" the generals roared in unison, their lost morale instantly restored by the presence of their ultimate power.
"Let him come," the Prime Ancestor sneered, his body slowly hovering into the air as burning golden dragon phantoms revolved around him. "If he wants the Fire-Lotus secret, he must step over my corpse. Today, either his northern frost quenches my imperial sun, or his blood and his heavy blade become the stepping stones for my ascension to Stage-6!"
Meanwhile, three miles away from the main gate of the Inner Imperial City.
The bustling, grand avenue of the capital's central district was completely deserted. Doors were bolted shut, windows were tightly locked, and millions of eyes peered nervously through small slits in the wooden shutters.
On the wide, stone-paved street, only two figures walked side by side.
Li-Wen walked with long, steady strides. His dark traveler's coat flapped gently in the quiet wind, the small, ancient blue rune on his chest pulsing with a faint, rhythm like a steady heartbeat.
Beside him, Xiao-Yue held her pink lotus lantern in one hand and held Li-Wen's fingers with the other. She looked around at the towering, ornate buildings with curious, untroubled eyes, completely oblivious to the fact that ten thousand imperial arrays were currently locking onto her small body.
"Brother Li-Wen," Xiao-Yue said softly, pointing her tiny finger toward the massive, golden palace floating in the distant clouds. "The air up there smells like old, burning wood."
Li-Wen paused slightly, looking up at the towering golden gates of the Inner Palace, where hundreds of golden arrays were lighting up the sky, painting the clouds in violent hues of crimson and gold.
"That is the smell of a decaying empire, Xiao-Yue," Li-Wen said softly, his voice devoid of anger, hatred, or excitement. It was the calm, absolute voice of a man who was simply fulfilling a destiny carved in ice.
He reached behind his back, his fingers gently touching the dark cloth of his heavy blade.
"Stay close to me," Li-Wen murmured, stepping forward once more onto the golden stone avenue. "We are going to pick up the rest of your family's lotus roots."
See you in next chapter.....