Pure Fox prided herself on her cleverness and cunning, yet in front of Fang Han, every scheme she conceived was stripped bare before it even formed. He pierced straight through her thoughts—each one dissected and laid open without mercy.
She couldn't defeat him in combat—fine, that she could accept.
But even her tricks, her deception, her fox-born talent for manipulation… were completely useless. That humiliation made her furious; her eyes darted restlessly as she scrambled to think of some way—any way—to regain her freedom.
"That treasure beneath Demon-Sealing Ridge was monstrous… What kind of pen was that? If I told the Fox Sovereign, gathered the demon cultivator elites… maybe we could seize that artifact! I'd earn unimaginable merit—maybe even become the Fox Clan's next saintess! But… how do I trick this Fang Han into letting me go…?"
"Stop dreaming," Fang Han said lazily—yet with a pressure that made her heart seize. "If you could deceive me, you could deceive the whole world. Behave yourself, and you won't suffer. But you did remind me of something—looks like I need to visit the Da Xuan Empire first. I'll secure a Nirvana Pill before anything else."
As always, he spoke as if he could read her mind word by word.
Within the Yuhua Sect, he was already a figure who stirred wind and rain. Subduing a newly initiated supernatural-realm fox demon wasn't worth mentioning.
Still—he would not underestimate her. A fox was a fox.
He could kill her and be done with it, but Fang Han wasn't someone who slaughtered without reason. The only people he killed were tyrants, threats, or those who challenged him in fair combat. A little fox demon didn't qualify.
"Nirvana Pills are far more precious than Nine-Aperture Golden Cores, Yin-Yang Longevity Pills, or Thunder Bone Relics," Yan suddenly said. "Possibly even more valuable than the Great Brahma Bright Ship. They're not exactly something you can just buy at auction. And right now you're basically broke."
To trade treasures in the Da Xuan Empire, one needed mountains of pills. But Fang Han had already given away almost all his Nascent Soul Pills—one million each to the elders of the three sword sects, and another million to Fang Qingxue.
He had almost nothing left.
And the World Tree's immortal qi generated each day was being poured into the Kunpeng egg, leaving little chance to condense more Nascent Soul Pills.
"That's no problem," Fang Han replied. "Xingyun still has over a million Nascent Soul Pills stored in the Sun-Moon Five-Star Bracelet. Worst case, I stop nourishing the Kunpeng egg for a few days and convert everything into pills. More importantly—who says I'm penniless? Those six Godlords I killed—everything they owned is mine now. Their treasure collections alone are a fortune. And look at this."
With a wave of his hand, three crystalline cards appeared—glimmering like talismanic jade.
They came in red, green, and blue. The red card bore two characters: Heaven Dao. The green: Six Paths.
The blue: Nine Cauldrons.
These were the storage crystal cards of the three greatest merchant guilds in the world—Heaven Dao Pavilion, Six Paths Alliance, and Nine Cauldrons Hall.
Killing those six Godlords had yielded many spoils, but none more valuable than these three crystal cards. Each shimmered with the same sigil—one that clearly read one hundred million.
Each card contained credit worth one hundred million pills.
Three cards. Three guilds. Three hundred million pills.
An entire war chest.
No wonder those six Godlords stirred trouble everywhere—they had the funds to do it.
With that realization, heat surged in Fang Han's chest.
He suddenly felt like hunting down a few more small Godlord factions…
"Oh? Didn't expect these little treasures."
Even Yan sounded excited.
"Three hundred million pills! Now that can buy things worth talking about. Let's go!"
Fang Han flew swiftly, altering his appearance midair using the Mirage Sea Technique. He had become a mortal enemy of the Taiyi Sect—arriving in the Da Xuan Empire uncovered would be suicide.
He wouldn't visit Star Cloud Gate yet either. He needed Xingyun to reach Heaven-Man Realm, and he himself needed to form a Golden Core. Then he would visit Star Cloud Gate and claim rightful authority—securing the joint enforcement pact would become far easier.
Right now, although he could kill Golden Core experts, he wasn't yet acknowledged as the strongest below the Longevity Realm. Entering Star Cloud Gate prematurely would only invite jealousy and challenges.
But once he formed his Golden Core—and refined the Nine Ghosts Primordial Spirit—everything would change.
Even Hua Tiandu would no longer be untouchable.
Racing across nations, rivers, mountains, plains, and forests for a day and night, Fang Han finally returned to the dazzling lands of the Da Xuan Empire. Towering structures—palaces and fortresses—rose in endless chains, stretching for tens of thousands of miles.
This time, he didn't head toward Taibai City.
He flew straight for the empire's beating heart—
Xuanhuang City.
The greatest city under heaven.
Taibai City, though prosperous, was but a single jewel among countless others. It couldn't compare at all.
Xuanhuang City was legendary—a celestial palace descended to earth. Every treasure in the world could be found here. Every secret could be heard here. Every delicacy between heaven and earth could be tasted here. Even ordinary mortals had a chance to be chosen by cultivators here—initiated into the path of immortality.
It was the center of the entire Xuanhuang Great World.
Normally, locating a single city among the empire's vast territory would be nearly impossible, but the Allworld Compendium included a precise map. With Fang Han's cultivation, navigating was trivial.
As he flew, marveling at the empire's power, the horizon suddenly erupted with golden mountains—stretching upward like dragon spines.
They weren't mountains at all.
They were citadels—each towering thousands of feet high—joined by city walls like coiling golden dragons. Cultivators of all kinds streaked through the air, entering and exiting without pause.
From afar, the sight was divine—like the heavenly court itself descending to earth.
"The Da Xuan Empire… this is no longer a mortal nation," Fang Han murmured. "At this rate, it will eventually become a heavenly empire—ruling over all cultivators."
He drifted silently down into Xuanhuang City.
It was even more enormous than he'd imagined. The streets were paved with polished golden stone, spotless. Magnificent palaces, pavilions, and towers filled the city—the splendor of a hundred mortal empires gathered into one divine metropolis.
Even someone like Fang Han felt overwhelmed by the scale.
But calling upon the Five-Emperor Demon Divinity, he sensed the flows of the five elements—where power gathered, where it waned. After a long moment of silent analysis, he raised a hand and trapped a passing cultivator in a streak of crystal light.
"What—!"
It was a young disciple in the body-refinement stage, flying only through the aid of a robe—yet the robe was a mid-grade artifact, marking him as a disciple of a powerful sect. He looked irritated at first, but upon sensing Fang Han's cultivation, his face paled and he swallowed the anger instantly.
At minimum, this man was Heaven-Man Realm.
To offend such a figure was courting death.
"Senior… why have you stopped me?"
"I have a question. Does Xuanhuang City currently host any auction featuring Nirvana Pills?"
"Oh—that." The disciple sighed in relief. "Nine Cauldrons Hall is holding a grand auction in three days. Nirvana Pills will be among the items offered. Senior can visit—it's fifteen hundred li east of here."
"Good. My thanks."
Fang Han vanished without trace.
Flying eastward, he soon found nine massive palace structures shaped like colossal cauldrons—each forged of metal, radiating overwhelming metal-element essence toward the heavens. Streams of cultivators flowed in and out. Fang Han even spotted Golden Core experts among the crowd—more than a few—and stronger presences lurking deeper within.
"Nine Cauldrons Hall… one of the three great merchant guilds. They claim the auction is in three days, but I want to take a look now—see how it compares to Heaven Dao Pavilion."
He descended before the entrance and walked in.
No one greeted him.
With a suppressed aura of a mere Heaven-Man expert, he was nothing special here. Only Golden Core elites were approached by attendants with reverence. Everyone else—Heaven-Man and below—were normal customers.
In Taibai City's Heaven Dao Pavilion, he had been treated as a VIP.
Here, he was just a face in the crowd.
He couldn't help but smile wryly. Taibai City and Xuanhuang City truly weren't comparable.
Inside the great hall, he realized the space had been massively expanded by expert spatial arts—creating a vast world of shelves laden with treasures, artifacts, pills, and marvels. Cultivators wandered everywhere.
Then—
Fang Han sensed an intense cluster of powerful auras.
He turned—and froze.
In the depths of the hall stood a group of Taiyi Sect elites.
Wang Tianyi. Zhu Yang. A dozen Golden Core experts.
All surrounding one man in azure robes.
Hua Tiandu.