Chapter 111: The Power of Heavenly Death?

Outside the chaotic main hall of the sect, fresh blood stained the thousand-year-old bricks and the indifferent sky. The statue before the hall stood proudly as ever, its hand gripping a long sword, glaring into the distance as if no one in the world were worthy of its gaze. Even amidst this turmoil, the statue remained unscathed, untouched by a single drop of gore.

Whenever anyone attempted to approach the statue, disciples of the Tianyuan Sect would rush forward to cut them down without hesitation. They would abandon their gravely wounded friends or ignore their own severe injuries, driven only by the need to protect the statue. A young man in green, carrying a long sword on his back, burned his meager cultivation—scarcely at the Qi Refining stage—to charge at the enemy, though he stood no chance.

An old man in orange, though severely wounded, let out a thunderous roar, ignoring the arm that bled profusely. His eyes, wide as copper bells, seemed to spew flames of rage; his hands, like palms capable of overturning the heavens, loomed over the battlefield. He, too, had begun to burn his very life force. The leader in gray recoiled, then desperately steadied himself, manipulating the spectral image of a long saber in the air. The old man in orange offered a scornful smile and tapped a finger; the spectral saber shattered instantly.

The leader in gray gripped his curved blade and fled, hoping to evade this supreme strike. He prayed only to outlast the brief window during which the old man burned his life force, after which the old man would collapse on his own. The plan was sound in theory, but in practice, it was a fantasy. The old man’s cultivation was already higher than his, and by burning his life force, he had reached a temporary peak. His power now approached the Heart-Transforming stage, and his speed had increased accordingly. The leader in gray could not escape; he had no chance to. In the blink of an eye, the old man was upon him.

A finger jabbed out, aimed directly at the center of the leader’s brow. Had it landed, the leader in gray would have perished on the spot. A chilling silence descended; the world seemed to hold its breath, waiting for that finger to strike. The disciples of the Tianyuan Sect waited, the rogue cultivators waited, and even the purple mist in the sky waited, anticipating a scene that would shock many for the rest of their lives.

Suddenly, a portion of the purple mist swirled into a vortex above the leader in gray. The old man in orange stopped in mid-air—not because he willed it, but because he was forced to.

He seemed to realize something. Ignoring the trembling, cowardly leader before him, he looked up and roared, "The Tianyuan Sect will surely fall by your hand!"

Following this, the old man’s entire body turned crimson, as if about to shatter, radiating heat like molten lava. The leader in gray nearly screamed, but fear rendered him mute. His raspy voice barely managed to articulate the plea: "Self-destruction... Save me... Master Purple-Clad, save me!"

The purple mist churned, sweeping up the leader in gray and dashing away. The leader watched the late-stage Nascent Soul cultivator who was on the verge of self-destruction. The power of such an explosion could level a mountain, a force that would rattle even those at the Heart-Transforming stage. The purple mist paused for a split second in the air, then the old man detonated. The shockwave stripped the glazed tiles from the main hall, shattered the high protective walls of Red Shirt Peak, and obliterated birds that could not escape, leaving them vanished as if they had never existed.

Though rescued, the leader in gray was wounded by the aftershock. Weakened, he pointed furiously at the purple mist and scolded, "Daoist Purple-Clad, why did you hesitate to save me?"

The mist parted, and a man in purple stepped out. He looked coldly at the deathly silence of the hall and gave a detached smile. "If I hadn't saved you, you would have died with your disciples and grand-disciples."

The leader in gray was left speechless by this retort. It was true; had the man in purple not whisked him away, he would have been reduced to ashes like the birds. Yet, the man in purple had not truly intended to save him; at the moment of the detonation, the mist had hesitated, deliberately slowing the leader's escape. That single moment of delay was enough to inflict fatal wounds. Though he appeared stable, few knew that his death was imminent. Those few included the man in purple, for this was all part of his meticulous design.

With an expressionless face, the man in purple said, "If you do not leave now, you will be killed by the surviving disciples."

The leader in gray laughed in his rage. "Daoist Purple-Clad, you are indeed cunning. It seems today's outcome was no accident." With that, he flicked his sleeve and departed. Had anyone seen his face, they would have seen his muscles twitching and fresh blood spraying from his lips.

The man in purple let out a cold snort. "You have slaughtered so many of my Tianyuan Sect's disciples—do you really think you will leave here alive?"

...

The self-destruction at the front hall had no effect on the backyard, where the seven-colored light continued to rotate. This place was like another world, devoid of explosions or blood. Time seemed to have stopped, or perhaps everything had died and fallen into a deep slumber.

The sky began to darken. As Su Fan shifted his hand seals, the entire world dimmed. The old man in red looked confused, sensing something he could not quite grasp. Wuming watched the sky in terror, witnessing the world descending into night, feeling the scent of death. It was true death, not merely the aura of death that accompanies a corpse or a dying creature. It was absolute death—the death of all things, a hollow silence.

Tears streamed down the old man in red’s face—tears of primal fear, the fear of death itself. A night of absolute darkness descended, covering the entire Tianyuan Prefecture, as if all light had been drained away. Even the bustling city of Luoxian went dark; it was unclear whether an oil lamp had been extinguished by a playful neighbor or if the authorities had forbidden the common folk from lighting their homes. The world was pitch black; even creatures that naturally emitted light grew inexplicably dim.

Such power, akin to the might of the heavens, could not be resisted by human hands, and so, people trembled.

Deep in the bamboo forest of Old Wine Street, the Drunken Immortal, who had been drinking and singing, let out a soft exclamation of surprise and then began to laugh. "He has actually grasped the power of life and death. This child is truly no mere mortal."

He set down his wine cup. A glimmer of light emerged from somewhere in the bamboo forest, and gradually, things returned to normal. Suddenly, the Drunken Immortal’s brow furrowed in doubt. "Only the power of death? No, that is... that is the primordial power of death? How can this be? This is the power possessed by immortals."

The Drunken Immortal fell into deep thought, perhaps contemplating the magnitude of this power, or reflecting on the immortal abilities he knew. The old man in red, though not a heaven-sent genius, was a cunning veteran. He knew that all of this was Su Fan’s doing; to kill Su Fan was to bring it all to an end.