Chapter 4
Pressure That Commands All Under Heaven
Thump
A deep, heavy sound echoed throughout the pitch-black cave.
Thump
The sound grew more frequent, beginning to form a rhythm.
Thump
Like the heartbeat of the world. When it started beating again, the atmosphere in the cave began to change.
Thump
Energy from the earth was slowly drawn in and gathered at the center of the room. There sat something that looked like a large cauldron with its lid tightly closed.
Power from nature gathered together until it could be seen with the naked eye. The more time passed, the more the density of energy within this room multiplied. The humidity and dirty air were replaced by something purer spreading throughout the room.
Thump
Thump
Thump
The sound like a heartbeat gradually increased its rhythm. From once every few minutes, it slowly became ten times, a hundred times within one minute.
Like it was a human heartbeat.
Boom!
As if to signal this was the final time, when the outside time moved to exactly noon, the mighty heartbeat sound coming from inside the cauldron stopped. Energy from the surrounding world was sucked inside the cauldron like rushing water, before some glowing light shone so brightly it could faintly pierce through the cauldron and spread outward.
Boom!
Everything around became silent. The world's energy that had flowed together slowly dispersed back to normal. Everything in this room became normal just as it had been before.
"...How many days did I spend refining this elixir?"
A clear voice laced with coldness and authority came from inside the giant cauldron, before a dimensional rift appeared on the side and sucked the entire cauldron in without a trace.
What appeared in its place was the slender figure of a young woman with long black hair flowing down to her mid-back. Her beautiful face was as cold as a snow princess, but her confused manner as she looked around had an overflowing charm. She looked around in surprise, before realizing that right now her body was completely naked!
Bai Fanxian remembered that before she started refining that "pill," she had still been properly dressed. Besides this, the dusty condition of her workshop made her extremely surprised.
As if no one had entered here for a very long time.
After putting on new clothes that appeared from a dimensional space like magic, Bai Fanxian walked around surveying the area. Besides dust, everything in the room still looked the same. The many pills she had refined, including the valuable materials, were still in good condition. But some had already become priceless materials.
"...I remember this field had thousand-year ginseng, didn't it?"
Before her was a small area filled with dozens of ten-thousand-year ginseng plants growing there. It was an area she had specially created to let all kinds of herbs grow as if in the wild without needing care. What was strange was that she remembered the ginseng she planted here was just thousand-year ginseng, wasn't it?
Bai Fanxian continued walking. Even the special wine she had stored gave off a sweet fragrance from being aged for a very long time.
She walked around until she stopped at the door. When she placed her hand down, the mechanism still responded normally. Nothing was damaged. When her power was sent in like a key, the mechanism started working and made this dark room fill with light once again.
It used her qi as a power source. Only her companion could make such inventions.
She sent out power again. This time it acted as a key. The ancient mechanism slowly moved before opening the door that had been closed for so long once more.
"Hui'er, I'm out."
Hui'er was the name of her close servant girl. Every time Bai Fanxian came out of her workshop, the first thing she usually saw was Hui'er's cute face filled with great joy.
But right now there was only emptiness ahead.
Not just Hui'er—there wasn't even a single living thing here. It was just a pitch-black cave. Bai Fanxian frowned. Her Heaven Sense exploded from her body in all directions. But she herself was surprised to find something abnormal.
"...My Heaven Sense expanded?"
Heaven Sense was something cultivators at Martial Master level and above could perceive. It was like radar with oneself as the center point. It would let the user sense many things around them. Except normally, Martial Master level would only have Heaven Sense of about 2-3 meters.
Grandmaster level could sense things within 20 meters.
Previously, Bai Fanxian's Heaven Sense was one kilometer around her. The closer, the more accurate. Plus she could identify qi currents in what she sensed. But now the Heaven Sense she released was completely different.
Because it was much wider than before!
She still didn't know its limit. Bai Fanxian could already sense that about one kilometer above her head, many people were gathering.
"Ordinary people... Qi Gathering level... lots of Martial Artists... a few Martial Masters, and... three Grandmasters?"
Besides this, she could also sense that two of those Grandmasters were fighting each other, and the remaining person was watching around them.
"Are the outer disciples sparring?"
What she said was genuine confusion. Because in her Goddess Alchemy Palace, Grandmaster level could only be outer disciples who weren't very important.
"...Where'd everyone go?"
Once confirmed, Bai Fanxian's figure disappeared from where she stood, before appearing over a hundred meters above in the sky from a faint dimensional rift, revealing Bai Fanxian's beautiful figure.
She stared down at the two tiny Grandmasters sparring below. No one realized at all that she was standing here.
"...What's this?"
Bai Fanxian sensed that not far from her, something was floating. And it didn't look like a living thing at all. Because it just floated motionlessly without moving. At the point that seemed to be its eye, it was staring down at the arena below.
Grab!
Bai Fanxian caught the military surveillance drone that was patrolling and recording the battle below with one hand. She flipped it over and examined it with interest. But when she found it didn't respond except for a whirring sound from the propeller, she lost interest.
She intended to put it back where it was. But when she wasn't careful, she accidentally crushed the military drone made of special materials until it was mangled in her hand!
"Chief! Drone number 3's image just disappeared!"
"Drone number 3's signal's gone!"
"What's going on?"
The young man in military uniform asked, not understanding. Right now they were in a tent set up at a point slightly away from the arena. Because this battle involved the military, he had to be careful not to let damage occur, watch over safety, and also record the battle well.
And their drone number 3 that was recording the battle from above had been damaged for unknown reasons.
"Did it crash into something?"
"I'm recovering the last image it captured!" One soldier working on the computer was rushing to work hard. But when he could recover its final image, he was so shocked he couldn't believe it.
"Ch...Chief, look at this!"
"What? Why're you so shocked?"
But when he leaned down to look at the image on the computer screen, he himself was equally dumbstruck as his subordinate.
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.
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Meanwhile, Bai Fanxian frowned deeply. She looked at the drone wreckage in her hand with a strange expression, before throwing it into a dimensional rift that appeared beside her.
This was why they couldn't track its signal anymore.
It had gone to another dimension!
"My power's acting strange?"
Bai Fanxian looked at her hands in surprise. From her Heaven Sense to this uncontrollable physical strength—what happened to her body?
"...Hmm?"
To test something, the qi in her body suddenly exploded around her to test. She didn't know that just by releasing her qi lightly, the rain clouds and storm that had been forming for a long time were blown away together instantly!
Not only that, the crowd below also felt tremendous pressure until even Martial Master level like Clan Leader Tang and Song were pressed down flat on the ground.
As for cultivators at Martial Artist level and below, they all fainted the instant they felt that pressure!
This made over 80% of the group below faint simultaneously.
As for the two Grandmasters who had been fighting, Zheng Renyi and Ma Fufeng, they also couldn't stand either. Both their legs felt like they weren't obeying commands. They bent down until it looked like they were kneeling.
Both were shocked speechless. When they turned to see each other's startled eyes, they were assured it wasn't the other's doing and breathed a sigh of relief.
Because if it really was the other's doing, there was no need to waste time on this pointless sparring. Because the power level they sensed was truly on a different level!
Thud!
In the middle of the arena, besides Ma Fufeng, another middle-aged man's figure appeared. He was in full military dress uniform. When he arrived, he knelt and clasped his hands that were trembling helplessly while staring up at the sky above.
"G... Great one, please show yourself!"
The point his eyes were staring up at was where Bai Fanxian was standing. When Ma Fufeng and Zheng Renyi regained their senses, they quickly looked in the same direction. This made them see that several hundred meters up in the sky, a figure was standing.
When the rain clouds were blown away, the clear sky appeared instead. So it wasn't difficult for Grandmaster-level cultivators like them to see.
When they realized this pressure came from a human like themselves, both swallowed dryly. Because just the pressure from this unknown being's qi made them have to kneel in submission. Without needing any attacks even once.
Bai Fanxian, once confirmed, stopped releasing qi from her body. This made the people below feel as if a heavy mountain had been lifted off them. They could move again. The people below didn't know at all that Bai Fanxian didn't care about them in the slightest. She murmured to herself softly before her figure disappeared from that sky.
"...It worked, didn't it?"
Those were her last words before leaving.
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"Wha... what just happened?"
Tang Tianjie and Song Weinan slowly got up from a state where their whole bodies had nearly sunk into the ground. Both looked around in disbelief. Almost everyone had fainted, leaving only a few people. And those few were all familiar famous faces.
But the condition of those still conscious was pitiful.
"...Grandpa, what was that?"
Strangely, Song Ruixi hadn't fainted like the others. When that pressure fell down, she could maintain consciousness, even if her condition looked as bad as everyone else's.
"...Grandpa doesn't know either."
Song Weinan denied with confusion. But when he looked toward the middle of the arena, he had to be surprised. Because besides the two combatants, Eastern King Ma Fufeng and Sword Master Zheng Renyi, there also appeared the figure of a middle-aged man in full military uniform kneeling.
"The... the Marshal?"
Song Weinan's words made his close friend Tang Tianjie quickly turn to look. And once confirmed, he asked his close friend in surprise.
"So the Marshal came to watch this battle too?"
"I don't know either... Looks like it."
"...But what really happened?"