Upon recognizing Zhong Ming among the attackers, the group of alliance elders erupted in pure, unadulterated fury. No wonder their repeated, costly purges against these heretics had failed to achieve substantial results. Despite occasional, seemingly hard fought victories, they could never fully eradicate the root of the corruption.
Now it was painfully clear: this traitor had been leaking their every move from within, allowing their enemies to prepare in advance or simply melt away. To further deceive the alliance and maintain his cover, he had even carefully arranged minor, inconsequential "victories" for them during each operation. Though these actions allowed him to accumulate impressive-looking battle merits, true annihilation of the enemy remained perpetually out of reach.
"The Zhong Family!!!" The representatives from the other four great families seethed, their eyes burning with a cold, vengeful rage. Many of their own clansmen had died at these heretics' hands, losses they now saw as a direct result of Zhong Ming's betrayal.
But no matter how furious they were, they could only watch helplessly from a distance. This battlefield was utterly beyond their participation. A Dao Comprehension level conflict was not something ordinary Divine Transformation cultivators could even think of interfering with; to step into that storm was to invite instant obliteration.
"Is this all you have got?"
Compared to the seething Divine Transformation experts, Su Min remained utterly calm, a placid lake amidst a hurricane. With her hands clasped casually behind her back, she observed the trio's desperate, flailing resistance with an air of detached indifference.
Countless golden palms continued to descend from the colossal Buddha behind her, each one infused with the combined, harmonized power of the Four Heavenly Treasures. Their destructive potential was undeniable, shredding the very space around their targets.
While Su Min appeared completely relaxed on the surface, she was internally methodical, carefully tightening the spiritual pressure on the three, pushing them toward absolute desperation but not enough to break them outright. She wanted them cornered, panicked, desperate enough to lead her directly to their final, hidden altar.
"Run!!!"
In perfect, terrified sync, the trio exchanged a single, frantic glance and sacrificed their last three Nascent Soul cultivators from the canisters. The great sword glowed with a violent, bloody light and transformed into a single, concentrated streak, hurtling toward Su Min with lethal, pinpoint intent.
"Hmph."
Su Min sneered as plates of dark, abyssal black armor instantly enveloped her body, clicking into place with a sound like shifting tectonic plates.
"Black Tortoise Aegis!!!"
She met the Heaven rank high grade sword head on, catching its tip barehanded in a shower of sparks and screaming energy. The impact was still colossal, sending her flying backward like a shot from a cannon. She slammed into the ground, the force carving a crater hundreds of meters deep into the earth and sending plumes of dust and debris soaring into the sky. The three did not hesitate for a single second. They turned and fled at their maximum speed without even glancing back to confirm the hit.
"Cough, cough..."
Su Min spat out a mouthful of blood, yanked the now quiescent sword from where it had lodged against her armored waist, and immediately swallowed a seventh grade recovery pill. Taking the weapon's full force strike head on had been a calculated risk, but the internal wound was a small price to pay for the prize.
"Finally got this sword. No way I am letting them keep it. Little Cauldron, seal it away." Expressionless, she tossed the struggling weapon into her Medicine King's Cauldron. She had prepared for the worst case scenario, a direct confrontation with the fallen one. Though undesirable, securing this treasure was non negotiable.
For now, she could not wield it. The sword bore a powerful Mahayana level imprint that only a cultivator of that stage could safely erase. But her cauldron's unique internal space could sever its connection to its original owner. While an Imperial artifact might have had the power to escape such containment, a mere Heaven rank treasure, however high grade, stood no chance.
"Hah..."
After steadying her breathing, Su Min felt her wound mostly knit together, though a full recovery would still take a little time. It would not stop her from finishing the job, however.
"Let us see where you are hiding..." Releasing her divine sense, she scanned the surroundings. Though unable to envelop the entire planet, her pre planted soul marks on the trio quickly located their fleeing signatures. In a flash of movement, she gave chase.
Meanwhile, the battered and spiritually depleted trio tumbled out of a spatial tear and onto a dark, ancient sacrificial altar hidden deep within a mountain.
"Wake our master immediately! A Dao Comprehension expert is beyond anything we can handle!"
"Thank the heavens we kept spatial jump reserves for this, if those other Divine Transformation cultivators had pursued us..." Zhong Ming cursed bitterly, his body aching from the backlash of their escape. Su Min's overwhelming power left them feeling only two things:
Despair!!!
Terror!!!
They had encountered Dao Comprehension beings before, like the previous Filth Beast, but that creature paled in comparison. That beast could be slain at a great cost, but Su Min rendered them utterly helpless, like children before an adult.
Having lost their sect's heritage treasure, only one option remained, awakening their master. A Mahayana expert evading the heavenly laws demanded horrific sacrifices, not just cultivation regression, but a state of extreme, painful confinement.
Though a premature awakening would further weaken their master, desperation left them no choice. If all three of them died here, allowing that woman to remain and grow stronger... even their master would face grave danger upon awakening. Who knew what level she would reach in a few more centuries?
The Unity stage?
The thought brought true despair. The trio shuddered at the possibility.
"We must sacrifice all the blood Kirin eggs prepared for our master's recovery. We have to activate the grand formation now to protect his awakening!"
"Agreed."
A massive, complex formation began to glow at their feet, its dark energy nearly enveloping the entire altar. But then, a figure streaked in like lightning, accompanied by a crisp, commanding voice that cut through the rising power:
"Time—halt!!!"
Everything froze. Though their minds remained conscious, their bodies locked in place, trapped in a single moment. The expanding formation slowed to an imperceptible crawl as the figure darted to the altar's center, snatched a single, pulsating black and white egg from its pedestal, and vanished back into the shadows.
"!!!"
As time abruptly resumed its flow, only an empty pedestal sat within the active formation. Pure horror dawned on their faces.
"Law of Time?"
"Correct. That woman controls time itself. Were it not for our master's formation naturally resisting external laws, and her likely unfamiliarity with its specific schematics, we would already be dead." Being Divine Transformation experts, they immediately understood the terrifying implication.
"No matter. Proceed. This altar connects to all our bases. Though we lost the Kirin royal egg, the others can compensate." Zhong Ming gritted his teeth, then paled further as he checked the spiritual connection to their other caches.
"All the eggs were swapped! That woman!!!" They nearly went mad with rage. She could have taken them openly with her power, yet she chose this infuriating stealth. But the ritual had already begun. As a chilling, deeply furious energy began to rise from the altar and envelop them, all present trembled. Without the prepared Kirin flesh, their own bodies and souls would become the substitute sacrifices.
~
"Done."
Examining the last Kirin egg now safe in her possession, Su Min exhaled in quiet relief. Entering that Mahayana grade formation recklessly for a direct fight was unwise. Snatching the eggs out from under their noses was sufficient.
"Heh, without these eggs and forced into a premature awakening... let us see how you manage now. But..." She frowned, looking up at the sky. It was now covered by an enormous, shimmering blood red barrier; she was trapped on the planet.
"No escape..." Sighing, she massaged her temples. Though her primary mission had succeeded, she was well and truly stuck. This was undoubtedly the Fallen's handiwork from his prime. The current her could not break a formation of this caliber laid by a true Mahayana expert.
"The sky barrier connects directly to that altar formation. It is a one time use ultra defensive array, completely isolating everything inside from the outside." Neither she nor anyone else could now enter or exit. Only the Fallen's own emergence could break it.
"Senior, are you Miss Lin's master?" An elder approached cautiously with Lin Yao in tow. He was the alliance's strongest available expert, nearing late stage Divine Transformation. Despite his high status, he showed Su Min the utmost respect, while also grimacing up at the ominous sky barrier. Their satellite links had already severed.
Humanity had already lost the seas to the impurity beasts; now they had lost the skies. It was another devastating blow.
"Yes." There was no point in hiding it now. Her earlier avoidance had prevented leaks that would have compromised her mission. Having collected all the Kirin eggs, she had thoroughly sabotaged the Fallen's ideal revival.
"Come. I will explain everything." Noticing Lin Yao hovering with a mix of worry and hesitation, Su Min remained terse. This was not the time for chit chat. Soon, the alliance leaders were packed into a grand hall, with a minimum Nascent Soul cultivation required to enter. Though Su Min possessed the power to destroy this world if she wished, she instead shared critical intelligence about their true enemy.
Soon, the hall was in an uproar.
"An ancient battlefield... a Mahayana and Unity stage graveyard..."
"Fallen Ones..."
"So that is why we could never eradicate them... And now a Mahayana Fallen One awakens?"
"A former Mahayana..." The revelations sparked fear and disbelief. The ancient battlefield alone, a place where even Su Min and Tian Hao had to tread carefully, had previously devastated their best exploration teams.
But a Mahayana level Fallen One? The concept pure terror.
"Whether to publicize this information is your decision. I will handle the main fight. That bastard has blocked my exit, after all." Su Min could not care less about their internal politics or public relations. She had done her part in weakening the enemy; the rest was not her concern. Departing the chaotic meeting, she ascended a solitary peak to meditate and produced the obsidian egg, the royal Black Kirin, which had been the Fallen's primary energy source. Now it was stolen.
"Stop pretending," Su Min said coolly, her fingers brushing the faint, living warmth of the shell. "You are not completely dormant. You have been aware since the moment you led me to the other eggs."
This Kirin egg was fundamentally unlike the others. It was not yet fully formed, no, but it was developed just enough to harbor conscious thought. It was more like balut than a simple embryo, a creature suspended perfectly between instinct and consciousness, on the very edge of awakening.
"One question: Where is the Central Wutu Divine Earth?" She sent the thought directly into the nascent mind within the egg.
The egg conveyed a stream of information directly back to her mind. Her expression darkened instantly.
"..."
The message was brief: the Central Wutu Divine Earth resided in the Kirin ancestral realm's secret plane. Only this mature Black Kirin, the royal heir, could safely summon it, at which point their entire clan would formally present it to her as her reward.
But the key condition was "wait until maturity." Su Min's eye twitched in frustration. With the Kirin clan's famously slow growth rate, this would not be happening anytime soon. She was looking at a wait of centuries, if not millennia.