At the Yao Guang Holy Land's source region, chaos reigned.
Jiang Yi sat motionless upon his Suanni, a statue of cold iron amidst the storm. Fifteen great banners stood arrayed behind him, and the aura of the Second Level Immortal Platform erupted from his body—vast, deep, and crushing.
With a flick of his wrist, a blood-red banner wrapped itself around its pole, transforming into a vicious spear. He moved, a blur of gleaming armor and crimson light, and plunged into the panicked Yao Guang cultivators.
Screams tore through the air. The crimson spear was a blur of overwhelming divine power. A dozen cultivators were torn apart before they could even raise a defense, their blood and essence siphoned into the weapon, making it glow even more ferociously.
"Jiang Yi! You hail from an ancient lineage! You know the might of a Holy Land! How dare you?!" A Yao Guang elder materialized, his face a mask of fury and fear.
Jiang Yi's answer was a cold sneer. "Since when have I ever feared your Yao Guang Holy Land?" His Suanni roared, shattering the air as it charged. The crimson spear left a trail of void-piercing black holes in its wake.
The elder's expression twisted. He summoned a massive, ancient seal, hurling it to meet the spear.
Crack!
The seal shattered like cheap pottery, offering no more resistance than a dried leaf. The elder's eyes widened in disbelief before instinct took over. He turned to flee.
It was futile. With a soft, wet thud, the crimson spear pierced his chest from behind, pinning him in mid-air like a gruesome insect specimen.
"Arrogant fool." Jiang Yi gave the spear a slight tremor.
Bang.
The elder's body disintegrated into a mist of blood and bone.
"INSOLENCE!"
The roar was filled with rage and blazing light. Zhang Chong shot forward, his body erupting with the pure, holy radiance of the Yao Guang Holy Land's signature technique—the Holy Light Art. He became a miniature sun, charging the bandit lord.
Jiang Yi's sneer didn't falter. "If Li Daoqing himself were wielding that, I might step aside. You? You are not him."
His spear trembled again. A tidal wave of crimson light, dense with slaughter and refined power, met the blazing holy sun.
The holy light guttered and died upon contact, snuffed out like a candle in a hurricane.
Bang!
Zhang Chong was blasted backwards, a grisly wound gouged across his chest. As a half-step Great Power, the gap between him and a true Great Power was a chasm he could not cross.
Sizzle! Sizzle!
Two more streaks of holy light shot across the battlefield—the other Yao Guang Supreme Elders had joined the fray. Their Holy Light Art lanced out like rivers of molten silver, scouring the landscape and vaporizing lesser bandits who strayed too close.
"Numbers mean nothing." Jiang Yi's voice was calm amidst the cataclysm. The banners behind him unfurled fully, their surfaces like paintings of carnage that blotted out the sky. The void itself groaned and collapsed under their pressure. Even the concentrated Holy Light Art of two elders was forced back, their forms battered and bleeding.
With a wave of Jiang Yi's hands, the fourteen other banners chimed in unison. Blood-red light waves rippled out, Dao patterns dancing within them, weaving a colossal, encapsulating barrier of crimson energy. Zhang Chong and the two Supreme Elders were trapped inside.
Within the barrier, it was a world of blood. The banners trembled, unleashing endless torrents of sword energy that could flay the soul. The three Yao Guang powerhouses fought desperately, their holy lights flashing, but they were like three small boats in a raging, bloody sea.
"Jiang Yi! At your level, ordinary Source is meaningless! What purpose does this slaughter serve?!" one elder roared, deflecting a sword beam with a costly burst of primordial holy light.
"The Primordial Holy Light Art. A fine defensive technique," Jiang Yi acknowledged, almost conversationally. His hands, however, continued their slow, deliberate movements through the air—each motion tracing the trajectory of a profound and brutal Dao.
"Why reason with him? Do you expect him to leave out of courtesy?" Zhang Chong snarled, shattering an incoming sword light with a furious punch. "His kind only understands force!"
"Hah! The temper of Rising Sun Island's little elder. Just like that old fool Xun Zhan," Jiang Yi laughed, but his killing intent did not diminish. He released the spear-banner he held.
Now, all fifteen banners moved as one, their movements mirroring Jiang Yi's slow, terrifying hand seals. The crimson ocean within the barrier churned violently, waves crashing with the force to shatter mountains. The very sky seemed to solidify, an immense, invisible pressure fixing the three Yao Guang experts in place, making each movement a Herculean effort.
Zhang Chong's face went deathly pale. He recognized those movements, that overwhelming, demonic force exerting control over all weapons within its domain.
"The Eight Gods' Brute Force! You've mastered the Hengyu Scripture's forbidden art!"
"You have some knowledge," Jiang Yi sneered was the last thing they saw before his hands clenched into fists.
The blood-red space imploded.
An ocean of terrifying divine power, concentrated and unleashed, crashed down.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
All three half-step Great Powers were blasted away like ragdolls, blood arcing through the air, their auras desperately dimmed.
Silence, save for the flapping of the fifteen blood-red banners.
Every surviving Yao Guang cultivator watched in utter horror. Three half-step Great Powers, beings who could dominate a region, had been defeated—utterly and singly—by one of the Thirteen Great Bandits.
The message was clear, and it would send tremors through every Holy Land and ancient family in the Northern Region: the rules had changed. The bandits were no longer just a nuisance. They were a catastrophic threat.