The Profound Sky Continent is one of the three great continents of this world.
It houses seven main nations, among which the Divine Phoenix Empire stands out as the largest and most powerful. However, above these seven nations exist the so-called Four Great Sacred Grounds. Each of them is more powerful than any nation individually, and together, they are the true rulers of the continent.
Although the power of the Sacred Grounds is relatively balanced among themselves, all of them overwhelmingly surpass even the Divine Phoenix Empire. Their stated objective is to protect the Profound Sky Continent and prevent invasions from foreign forces. These great sects dedicate themselves to cultivating the profound way and, in principle, avoid interfering in each other's affairs or in the internal disputes of the mortal nations.
The Four Great Sacred Grounds are known as: the Mighty Heavenly Sword Region, the Sun Moon Divine Hall, the Supreme Ocean Palace, and the Absolute Monarch Sanctuary.
The Supreme Ocean Palace is located approximately one thousand five hundred kilometers south of the southern extremity of the Profound Sky Continent, above the Southern Ocean, which is the origin of its name. Among the so-called Four Sacred Grounds, all recognized as guardians of the Profound Sky Continent for tens of thousands of years, only the Supreme Ocean Palace has, in fact, maintained its guardian mission in a continuous and absolute manner.
The reason for this uninterrupted permanence over the ocean is directly linked to the so-called Moon Slaughter Devil Nest. Despite the extreme location, the constant oceanic disasters, and the countless daily difficulties, the Supreme Ocean Palace has never moved to solid land throughout its millennial existence. The sole reason for this has always been the need to watch over and contain the nest.
The Moon Slaughter Devil Nest appeared more than ten thousand years ago, when seven ancestors of the Supreme Ocean Palace were exploring the Southern Ocean. During the expedition, they encountered a vast maritime region completely tinted black, filled with countless corpses of oceanic beasts equally blackened. In the center of this deadly region, they discovered an island equally covered by that somber coloration.
The island released an extremely dense yin energy, being the source of the death throughout that vast maritime region. Upon investigating the island, the ancestors located an enormous cave, from which this dark yin energy originated. The deeper they advanced, the more intense the energy became, to the point of drastically suppressing the profound strength of the explorers. In the deepest points of the cave, they found a terrifying profound beast of darkness.
This beast called itself the Moon Slaughter Devil Sovereign. It was an entity that hated light and demonstrated particular repulsion toward moonlight. Very little was known about its true origin. Its apparent strength was at the initial stage of the Tyrant Profound Realm. Although the seven ancestors were all experts in the late stage of the Sovereign Profound Realm, inside the cave their strength was suppressed to the Emperor Profound Realm, making them unable to resist the Moon Slaughter Devil Sovereign. As a result, only one of the seven managed to escape; the other six lost their lives inside the nest.
After the escape of the sole survivor, the Moon Slaughter Devil Sovereign did not pursue him, as it feared both daylight and the shine of the moon. It was presumed that it would never leave its nest. However, the dark yin energy released from that place was infinite. During the retreat, the survivor personally heard the creature's roar, which announced that the day it emerged would be the day the entire world would be submerged in darkness.
Fearing that the yin energy would spread until it reached the Profound Sky Continent, the surviving ancestor gathered all the experts of the Ocean Palace. Without hesitation, they sacrificed more than a dozen of the sect's most powerful profound artifacts, along with an enormous quantity of Purple Veined Divine Crystals, to build a gigantic isolation barrier. This barrier completely sealed the Moon Slaughter Devil Nest, blocking the continuous leakage of the dark yin energy.
Since maintaining the barrier requires a monstrous consumption of energy, at least a dozen Monarchs must inject profound energy every three years to sustain it. For this reason, the ancestor decided to move the entire sect over the Southern Ocean and officially rename it the Supreme Ocean Palace, establishing its eternal function as guardian of that seal.
Although there was a "flaw" in the barrier.
Access to the Moon Slaughter Devil Nest can only occur once every five hundred years. The place was discovered about one thousand three hundred years ago and, since then, remains exactly where it was found. The existence of this limitation indicates that the barrier sealing it was left deliberately, allowing controlled entries at regular intervals.
The ancestor of the Supreme Ocean Palace supposed that the dark yin energy originated directly from the body of the Moon Slaughter Devil Sovereign itself. According to this supposition, no matter how powerful a profound beast might be, it would inevitably reach the end of its life. When that occurred, the dark energy of the nest would naturally dissipate, ending the guardian mission. At that moment, the Supreme Ocean Palace could finally leave the Southern Ocean.
To confirm with precision whether the Moon Slaughter Devil Sovereign was alive or dead, the ancestor deliberately left a small gap in the barrier, programmed to open only every five hundred years. To prevent massive leakage of the yin energy, the opening time was rigidly limited to just one hundred breaths. Every interval of five hundred years, the Supreme Ocean Palace sent disciples of lower aptitude to enter the nest and verify the creature's condition. Since six thousand five hundred years ago, all the disciples sent have returned alive, confirming that the Moon Slaughter Devil Sovereign is already dead.
Despite this, the Supreme Ocean Palace continued to maintain constant vigilance over the place. This revealed an even more alarming reality: even with the death of the Moon Slaughter Devil Sovereign, the dark yin energy continued to spread. Thus, it was concluded that this energy, in fact, did not originate from the creature, but from an unknown source even deeper and more terrifying.
If the Moon Slaughter Devil Sovereign had left the nest while still alive, it would be nothing more than a Tyrant Profound Beast, dangerous but far from being the true threat. The true terror has always been the infinite source of the dark yin energy. For this reason, the Supreme Ocean Palace had no choice but to continue guarding the region and reinforcing the barrier every three years, maintaining this uninterrupted vigilance for ten thousand years.
In the several thousand years that followed the definitive confirmation of the Moon Slaughter Devil Sovereign's death, the Supreme Ocean Palace continued to send people to the nest every five hundred years, as a preventive measure against possible incidents. At first, only disciples of inferior aptitude performed the entry. However, after repeated confirmations, this pattern changed; Elders and even the Sovereign of the Seas began to participate in the expeditions.
Even so, the dark yin energy inside the nest remained dense and overwhelming. Even being practitioners of extraordinary strength, none of them could remain inside for more than a few dozen breaths before being forced to retreat immediately and reseal the barrier.
At that moment, the Supreme Ocean Palace was receiving an unexpected visitor, though they did not know it....
Within their territory, the sky stretched like a vast light-blue ocean, clear, without a single imperfection. The sunlight fell in soft, golden waves, like warm fingers caressing every grain of sand and every fold of the sea. The breeze was light, fresh, carrying the salty perfume of the ocean and the distant sound of birds flying in slow, tranquil circles, as if nothing on that horizon could disturb them.
The sun high above made the ocean sparkle in shades of silver and sapphire. Sometimes, when the light hit at a specific angle, greenish glimmers appeared, almost ethereal, reminiscent of the interior of a pearl.
Ren Zu emerged from the spatial rift calmly.
The air around him quieted instantly, as if space itself bowed in reverence, sealing the tear behind him without leaving traces.
He floated calmly above the vast and infinite ocean, near the clouds that dragged lazily across the sky, tinged with a deep blue speckled by touches of ethereal white.
The salty wind of the Southern Ocean blew against his face, carrying the damp smell of salt and the distant echo of waves breaking against invisible reefs. His black hair danced lightly, and his white robes rippled like veils of mist, immaculate and untouched by the air's humidity.
Below him, the sea stretched like an infinite carpet of dark sapphire.
Ren Zu tilted his head slightly, his black eyes sweeping the horizon with lazy, unhurried curiosity.
There was a dark blue light oscillating endlessly about five kilometers in front of him.
There was a small island that was almost perfectly round, and on top of this island there was a dome-shaped barrier that covered it completely. The dark blue radiation was coming from the barrier that covered the small island. The ocean around the small island had sunk so low that it formed trenches around it. It was almost as if the ocean water was being pushed by an unimaginable power.
"Finally, I've arrived at my main destination!..." Ren Zu murmured with a slight smile beneath his white mask that covered the lower half of his face. He looked at the various disciples who were on guard on the island and pondered: "From what I remember of the original story, this place is located in the ocean and is more than one thousand five hundred kilometers away from the mainland. Normally, no one approaches this place because there are always disciples from the Supreme Ocean Palace keeping watch. Even if someone manages to enter by accident, the Sovereign of the Seas will be alerted immediately as soon as the person comes into contact with the barrier...."
Shaking his head negatively, he said calmly: "Well, I'm going to teleport directly inside anyway. I could have done that before, but I wanted to check something..."
His black eyes settled on the profound barrier that enveloped the island. It was much better to analyze that type of profound formation from the outside than from the inside. Among those who truly understood what it meant to create a profound formation, there was an absolute consensus: entering blindly, without minimally understanding its structure, was pure idiocy.
And although he had no fear at all—after all, in this world, only a certain red-haired girl would be capable of injuring him, since everything else was nothing but trash—he was still, by nature, someone cautious and meticulous in his plans. This would become evident when he meticulously architected every step to conquer the woman he desired and obtain the Golden Crow Legacy, even though he already possessed the Vermilion Bird Legacy.
Something that, theoretically, was impossible, considering how absurdly arrogant the Golden Crow was....
But he also didn't need much time to analyze the profound formation that enveloped the place. Technically, all types of barriers, whether for isolation or protection, fell within the domain of formations. As a master in that field, he quickly identified the barrier's structure, the way it had been assembled, and all the details involved in its construction.
A single glance was enough.
Even without possessing absolute mastery over the Spatial Laws, he could open a breach in the barrier without being detected. If he wanted, he could dismantle the entire isolation barrier or even improve it with the same ease. It was enough to desire it.
However, he had no intention whatsoever of interfering with the barrier.
His focus was on what would come next: killing the Moon Slaughter Devil Sovereign, obtaining one of the three fragments of the "World-Defying Heaven Manual," the "Evil Infant's Wheel of Myriad Tribulations," and, obviously, the "Devil Origin Orb." As for the latter, he would still need to make the Moon Slaughter Devil Sovereign launch it against him in the hope of injuring or killing him. For that, he would have to go easy at first, instigating the creature's despair until it resorted to its last resource, something that was not difficult.
Furthermore, he could not reveal even a trace of his dark profound energy, otherwise, the Moon Slaughter Devil Sovereign might suspect that he was a practitioner who cultivated diabolic energy, something he wished to avoid out of pure precaution. He did not have absolute certainty whether someone who cultivated dark profound energy would be able to assimilate the "Devil Origin Orb" or not.... Yun Che managed to do so only after receiving the Darkness Seed from the Evil God, but that was completely outside the Moon Slaughter Devil Sovereign's plans in the original story, since he launched his "Devil Origin Orb" as a last resort to make Yun Che suffer and kill him....
Basically, the "Darkness Laws" factor could become a problem and prevent him from obtaining the "Devil Origin Orb." Perhaps, if the Moon Slaughter Devil Sovereign had realized that Yun Che was capable of cultivating diabolic energy, he would never have launched the Orb at him... In any case, he needed to maintain extreme caution.
Fortunately, that posed no difficulty. His cultivation method possessed a passive skill capable of completely concealing his profound aura level and any characteristic related to his cultivation. Even in direct combat, no one would be able to perceive anything.
And even without that skill, he could still resort to the Spatial Laws to conceal his profound aura. The technique he had created and used to hide in the lake where the Little Demon Empress was bathing also had that effect. Although its main purpose was to completely conceal his existence, to the point of becoming impossible to be perceived by any being, it equally suppressed his profound aura in a perfect manner.
In any case, after taking one more look at the disciples, he immediately disappeared like a ghost, successfully entering the Moon Slaughter Devil Nest!
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