"Elders, Senior Brother Tianyi was only joking just now," Zhu Yangyi blurted out, voice trembling as he tried to patch the disaster. "The Taiyi Sect opened the space-time gate, of course we'll allow the three sword sects free passage in and out of the Five Elements Realm."
Not a single person believed him.
Elder Sword-Mad turned directly to Fang Han.
"Friend Fang Han, if you would—please send us out. I truly fear someone will try to silence us."
"Indeed," Elder Sky-Split Fei Tian said. "The Five Elements Realm may be rich with beasts and demons, but you need to live long enough to harvest anything."
Danxia snorted sharply.
"Threatening us is the one thing I cannot abide. Taiyi may be powerful, but to intimidate the three sword sects like this? It's unbecoming of the righteous path. When I return, I will report everything to the sect master. Your Taiyi leadership will be giving us an explanation."
After what had just transpired, Fang Han suddenly looked like the gentle hero, while Taiyi's disciples seemed venomous and cruel.
After all—who would you prefer?
The one giving you pills, or the one threatening to kill you?
"Very well, Elders," Fang Han said warmly. "Let's leave the Five Elements Realm for now. We can return later."
His heart was practically singing.
With a flick of his wrist, he activated the newly gained talisman. The air screamed—wuuuuuuu—and a space-time gate opened once more.
He slipped inside first.
The three sword sects' elders and disciples—still linked in their sword-dragon formations—darted in after him and vanished from the Five Elements Realm entirely.
"Should we…" Wang Tianyi lunged forward, hand slicing in a killing gesture.
"It's too late."
Zhu Yangyi shook his head bitterly, as though chewing a mouthful of gall. "Our Taiyi Sect has suffered a complete humiliation. I don't even know how we'll face the Supreme Leader after this. And the three sword sects have now been pulled toward Fang Han. How will we implement our plan to unify the Immortal Dao at the Grand Gathering in three years?"
"Hmph. Taiyi will unify the Immortal Dao sooner or later," Zhou Chuyi snapped, venting his boiling frustration. At this point every Taiyi disciple harbored resentment so intense it could ignite inner demons if they didn't vent it.
"Silence!"
Zhu Yangyi and Wang Tianyi roared in unison.
The entire Taiyi group fell quiet.
The six Earth Immortals—Kanli, Changchun, Kunyuan, Fushou, Luming, and Dafang—were in complete disarray. They had come to avenge their fallen juniors, but how could they have predicted Fang Han's growth? He had obliterated two Golden Core elites in an instant. He possessed bottomless wealth, storm-calling influence, and in a single move had bought the loyalty of three major sects.
In cultivation, they could no longer compare with him.
In strategy, they hadn't even entered the same league.
"This person's strength is monstrous, and his methods even more terrifying… How can we possibly contend with him in the future?"
The six elders trembled. Even if they schemed from every angle, they felt they would still be outplayed, destroyed, swallowed whole.
They had once hoped to use underhanded plots against Fang Han.
Now they prayed he wouldn't use underhanded plots against them.
"Hmph! What's there to fear?" Wang Tianyi barked, though his voice shook. "Yes, I'll admit his schemes are vile and cunning, but in the face of the greater tides of the world, he is still insignificant. I will report everything to the sect elders. Until the Supreme Leader sends new orders, we continue training—hunt the monsters of the Five Elements Realm, slay them, capture them, strengthen ourselves!"
With a wave, he sent a talisman flying. It shot like lightning into Taiyi's own massive space-time gate and vanished.
Meanwhile, Fang Han's tunnel had faded completely, disappearing into the depths of the cosmos.
"Today's harvest… is beyond imagination."
Fang Han drifted through the pitch-black wormhole, his body jostled and twisted, but he remained calm. He'd traveled through dimensional folds before.
He was elated.
He had won over three sword sects.
He had killed two Golden Core disciples of Taiyi—yet now that the sword sects were on his side, the consequences were greatly reduced.
He'd cultivated the Five Emperors Demon Arts, forged the terrifying life-bound talisman, killed Song Weiyi and Zhao Xuanyi, gained two Golden Cores, acquired several powerful treasures…
The profits were endless.
"In ten years, I'll defeat Hua Tiandu. With absolute certainty. As long as I reach the Golden Core stage and refine the Nine-Ghost Souls."
For the first time, Fang Han felt something he had never felt before—an unshakable certainty of victory.
His current lifebound talisman was already terrifying.
What would it become once he formed a Golden Core?
His future blazed bright before him.
In the endless star-sea of the universe, a folded black line streaked through space, crossing distances so vast that entire galaxies lay between points of passage. With each instant, it traversed hundreds, thousands of stars.
It sped toward the center of the cosmos, where the colossal Xuanhuang World floated like a boundless, egg-shaped mass—vaster than any star, layered with space upon space, hiding infinite worlds within.
Nebulae wrapped around it like veils, each nebula holding hundreds of billions of stars, each star filled with living beings.
The universe was immeasurable, filled with countless species, countless cultivators, countless legends unfolding every moment.
And the black line cutting through folded space—
that was Fang Han's talisman-formed tunnel.
The Five Elements Realm was located on an ancient star unimaginably distant from Xuanhuang World. Flying by normal means was impossible; only space fractures could allow teleportation.
As the black line neared Xuanhuang World—
Suddenly.
A gigantic hand appeared in the void.
A hand so massive it dwarfed imagination—its palm could cover an entire star, dim its light, extinguish its radiance. It thrust out from behind a colossal star and swung straight toward the black line Fang Han was riding.
Its power rippled outward—
several smaller stars shattered into dust.
This was no technique of the Divine Ability Realm.
No power of the first levels of the Longevity Realm.
This was the strike of an unfathomable, ancient, overwhelming existence.
If that hand caught the tunnel—
Fang Han, and every sword sect elder within it, would die instantly.
Heaven and earth could not save them.
Not even Feng Baiyu, the sect master of the Yuhua Sect, could withstand such a thing.
A hand capable of crushing stars belonged to a domain far beyond human comprehension.
Inside the tunnel, Fang Han sensed nothing—but suddenly his heart grew cold. A shadow crept over his spirit, a suffocating terror filling his consciousness.
"What is this? What's happening?"
He couldn't see outside, but the space around him began to shake—twisting, pulsing, trembling like a world-ending quake.
Outside, the massive hand closed in—
And then—
BOOM.
From the opposite side of another star, a second hand burst forth.
This one was covered in earth-yellow scales—ancient, primal, monstrous.
It lunged at the first.
The collision shook the heavens.
The first hand recoiled slightly, then clenched into a fist and muttered a chant. It struck again—
and dozens of stars exploded into drifting meteor dust.
"Om-Ma-Ni-Pad-Me-Hum!"
The scaled hand responded instantly—five fingers flickering. In less than a fraction of an instant, it formed millions of mudras, unleashing the six-syllable mantra.
The two star-sized hands collided like colliding galaxies—
then both dissolved, vanishing as though they had never existed.
The cosmic sea fell silent.
Back on the ancient star of the Five Elements Realm, at its deepest core—
An old daoist in earth-yellow robes opened his eyes.
Five radiant halos encircled his head, each containing unfathomable mantras and mysteries. These were not mere lights, but the source of countless beasts—the five elemental roots.
Clearly, this was the ancient Demon Sovereign who had been aiding Fang Han from the shadows.
"So, someone dares meddle with my chess piece?"
His voice echoed like stone grinding through time.
"To reach for my seal… they must pay a price. And if my sealing talisman is shaken any further, the day of my escape draws near…"
The earth-yellow scaled hand that saved Fang Han…
was his.
But the other hand—
the hand that sought Fang Han's life—
its origin remained terrifyingly unknown.