The moon above the Lower Realms bled crimson.
Not from any celestial phenomenon, but because Li Xuan willed it so.
Within the Heaven Auction House, now expanded into a massive inter-realm nexus, a black monolith had been erected. Carved with runes no scholar could decipher, it pulsed with karmic resonance. Every beat of that pulse reached into the soul of all who dared bid or trade within these grounds.
At its apex stood Li Xuan—silent, composed, and untouchable.
The black monolith was not a decoration. It was a siphon.
Every transaction, every oath, every drop of spiritual blood spilled in the bidding halls flowed into it. And from the monolith, a small fraction of that karmic force traveled invisibly to the very core of Li Xuan's soul.
He no longer needed to negotiate. His will was law.
Even the mighty auction house, once a tool, had now become a divine altar for his rise.
Beyond the Auction House, the Seven Generals continued their duties.
General Qian—the Shadow Flame Commander—led brutal campaigns to enforce Li Xuan's dominance across sect-ridden worlds. Using fear and karma-linked contracts, she brought entire holy sects to their knees. Her actions had earned her the title Demon Queen of Silence, feared even by saints.
General Wu of the Blade Gate monitored traitors, personally executing over 2,000 elites who dared hide their spoils or break auction laws.
Yet despite their loyalty and competence, they no longer truly served Li Xuan.
They served a shadow.
Because the true Li Xuan had begun to detach from the world.
The Voidheart Enlightenment Sutra consumed him.
Its cultivation had begun to erode his identity.
He no longer remembered faces—only karmic threads.
He didn't see people—only cause, effect, and value.
And as the millions of lower and supporting realms stabilized under his rule, he began preparing for something greater…
Ascendancy.
Not just a breakthrough to a higher cultivation stage.
But a Karmic Sovereign Ritual.
Inside the Thousand Thread Vault—a hidden chamber beneath the Auction House—Li Xuan stood before an ethereal pool.
The pool shimmered with soul fragments.
These were not the weak. These were the minds of peerless geniuses, crushed in auctions and battlefield schemes over the last three years. He had not destroyed them fully. He had preserved their sparks of insight, their emotional echoes, and now intended to burn them as fuel for his next karmic leap.
But the pain of absorbing them was immeasurable.
The first soul fragment touched him.
A girl's scream filled his ears.
"Don't take it! That's all I have left! It's my mother's memory—!"
Li Xuan's hands did not stop.
The second fragment.
A young genius's pride, broken by betrayal, still clinging to his final sword comprehension.
The third.
A cultivator who had given up immortality to save his sect, only to be auctioned by that same sect for a divine pill.
Li Xuan devoured them all.
Their truths became his threads. Their pain became his enlightenment.
And with each memory burned into his soul, his karmic field darkened—twisting beyond the mortal cycle.
Suddenly, an echo thundered across all realm layers.
A Karmic Bell had been struck.
Even the forbidden realms stirred.
Old monsters opened one eye.
They recognized the sound.
"Someone is attempting Sovereign Ascendancy in the Lower Realms?!"
But unlike the ascensions of the past—where celestial light would descend, trials would unfold, and immortals would witness—the sky remained dead.
Li Xuan's karmic ritual did not need divine permission.
He was not seeking approval.
He was replacing the system.
Back in the Vault, threads of blood wept from Li Xuan's eyes as he stood beneath a swirling vortex of karma and mind-force.
"Void does not feel."
He spoke, voice cracking with a dozen overlapping tones.
"Void does not bind."
He raised both hands, countless soul fragments turning to ash in his grasp.
"Void... devours all."
Suddenly, his entire body combusted with invisible flame—Void Karma—and disappeared for a moment from all perception.
Not even his generals could sense him.
Not even fate could read him.
He had become unseen by destiny.
And then, in the blackness between moments, Li Xuan appeared in a forgotten corner of the Lower Realms—the Ashen Spiral Graveyard, where the corpses of ancient realm builders slept beneath petrified suns.
He walked alone among titanic skeletons the size of continents.
Why?
Because here lay something older than all heavens.
A gate.
Made not of stone or spirit, but bound karma.
The Gate of Eternal Causality.
No one knew who built it. No one had ever passed through it.
Until now.
Li Xuan stood before it. His breath fogged.
Behind him, millions of souls wept. Karma screamed.
He raised his hand—and inserted a sliver of his own soul, still burning with forbidden comprehension.
The gate creaked open.
A whisper seeped through the void:
"You have no fate. Come."
Li Xuan smiled faintly—for the first time in years.
And stepped through.
End of Chapter