Liu Wuxie retrieved several porcelain bottles from the altar, each one filled with Divine Nine Cauldron Pills. He consumed one himself and handed another to Qiao Bian without hesitation.
Qiao Bian didn’t hesitate. He swallowed the pill the moment it touched his palm. Almost instantly, agony contorted his face as violent energy exploded within him.
"ARGH!" Qiao Bian roared as a blast of power burst from his core. In an instant, his cultivation surged from the first to the second level of the Heaven Profound Realm.
Liu Wuxie had refused to give him the pill while Qiao Bian remained in the Earth Profound Realm. From experience, he knew a body at that level couldn’t endure the pill’s terrifying energy. Only someone who stepped into the Heaven Profound Realm could endure its effects.
The cultivators nearby stared in stunned silence. They knew that on the True Martial Continent, breaking through to the second-level Heaven Profound Realm required a miraculous encounter.
Less than a hundred cultivators ever reached the Heaven Profound Realm, and fewer than five broke into the second. Most cultivators remained at the first level, which marked the peak of the continent’s power. Only the academy heads, who could form a connection to the Astral Domain, managed to surpass those limits.
The Dragon Emperor Academy disciples who once tried to dissuade Qiao Bian now wore bitter smiles of regret. Regret flooded their faces. If they had chosen to stand beside Qiao Bian to defend the altar, they might also have earned a pill—and a chance at the Heaven Profound Realm.
Qiao Bian kept raising his cultivation. It began pushing toward the third level.
His rapid ascent left even Elder Madman visibly shocked. No one could fathom how the heaven-defying pill Liu Wuxie gave him enabled such a leap.
Elder Madman knew better than anyone that cultivators usually needed five thousand years of accumulation to enter the Heaven Profound Realm. Qiao Bian bypassed ten thousand years of hardship with a single pill.
"Master, take this one!" Liu Wuxie said, offering another pill to Elder Madman after confirming that Qiao Bian was stable.
All around, cultivators swallowed hard. They had seen the power of the pill firsthand, and Qiao Bian was living proof.
Ji Yuzhen's face darkened. If Elder Madman regained his strength, he would become their worst nightmare.
Qiao Bian continued his breakthrough, guarded by disciples from the Dragon Emperor Academy. His radiating energy alone prevented other Heaven Profound Realm cultivators from approaching.
"Ji Yuzhen, let's strike before he recovers!" Bai Wensheng roared, his eyes burning with greed. He had seen that Liu Wuxie still held several bottles. If one pill could let Qiao Bian break through two levels, taking them all could push Bai Wensheng to the high levels of the Heaven Profound Realm. Then, not even the two academies could restrain him, and boundless power and wealth would be his.
"Liu Wuxie, get out of here quickly!" Elder Madman urged after swallowing the pill.
"No need. Leave the rest to me," Liu Wuxie replied calmly, advancing toward Bai Wensheng and Ji Yuzhen with the Heretic Blade in hand.
Outside the ice dome shielding Ye Hongyi, a swarm of cultivators hurled attacks in desperation, trying to break through. However, the ice absorbed the laws of the Heaven Profound Realm and resisted every strike.
Several cultivators from the Heaven Profound Realm launched powerful dao techniques against the dome. Still, none could pierce it.
"Bai Wensheng, Ji Yuzhen—you deserve to die!" Liu Wuxie roared and flashed before them in a streak of light.
Although he hadn't reached the Heaven Profound Realm, he had survived tribulation and refined multiple Heaven Profound Realm laws. His strength now defied simple measurement.
Ji Yuzhen and Bai Wensheng had no choice but to fight.
Liu Wuxie unleashed a blade ray that blanketed the sky. Countless cultivators fled, afraid to remain nearby. The aftershock of a battle between Heaven Profound Realm experts could tear them apart.
He had poured the power of fifty star nodes and over three hundred acupoints into the attack. This was the true might of the Origin Blade, a single strike containing all his power.
His unleashed blade aura shook the heavenly coffin violently. Mountains collapsed, and the pressure shattered the illusory landscape. The sky turned a murky gray, and only then did everyone realize the illusion had always covered the heavenly coffin’s internal space.
Bai Wensheng felt the pressure slam down on him like a mountain. Death would've been preferable. He couldn't believe someone from the Earth Profound Realm could suppress a Heaven Profound Realm expert like him.
Ji Yuzhen, meanwhile, endured better with his second-level cultivation. He slashed his sword in a precise arc, forming a trigrams pattern that deflected Liu Wuxie’s blade aura.
He had started cultivating at the age of three and reached the peak of the Earth Profound Realm before turning twenty. Only Liu Wuxie could match his brilliance.
"Liu Wuxie, you've gone too far!" Bai Wensheng roared. He shattered Liu Wuxie’s suppression, ripped the air open with his sword, and fled without hesitation.
He knew Liu Wuxie had already surpassed the strength of ordinary Heaven Profound Realm cultivators. Staying would only mean death.
Worse, Elder Madman was rapidly recovering, and his aura surged. He had reached the fourth level, and Qiao Bian had already advanced to the third.
"You won’t escape alive!" Liu Wuxie growled and gave chase. He refused to let them escape—they would threaten him in the future if he let them live.
Especially Ji Yuzhen. If he genuinely was the reincarnation of an immortal, killing him would become nearly impossible.
"Spatial Dao Art! Great Dragon Aspect Art! Frost Dao Art! Curse Dao Art! Death Dao Art!" Liu Wuxie roared, hurling every dao technique at once in a terrifying flurry of power. His killing intent was unmistakable.
"Blessing Dao Art!" Ji Yuzhen chanted rapidly, dissolving both the Curse and Death Dao Arts.
Liu Wuxie narrowed his eyes. He hadn't expected Ji Yuzhen to master the legendary Blessing Dao Art.
But Bai Wensheng wasn't as lucky. The Death Dao Art devoured his lifespan and weakened him drastically. Before he could recover, the Frost Dao Art froze him solid.
"Die!" Liu Wuxie roared as his blade pierced straight through Bai Wensheng's chest.
Without delay, he summoned the Sky Devouring Divine Cauldron and extracted the laws from Bai Wensheng’s corpse. He would use these laws to boost his odds in future breakthroughs.
With Bai Wensheng slain, Liu Wuxie turned toward Ji Yuzhen.
"Liu Wuxie, I'll remember this!" Ji Yuzhen activated a secret technique, causing his body to blur and fade.
"The Divine Summoning Art," Liu Wuxie muttered, narrowing his eyes.
That technique originated from the Celestial Realm, inaccessible to ordinary mortals. But how had Ji Yuzhen mastered it?
Ji Yuzhen held secrets—perhaps he truly was the reincarnation of an immortal, as the rumors claimed.
Within seconds, Ji Yuzhen disappeared completely. Only Liu Wuxie understood the method he used to escape the heavenly coffin.
The Divine Summoning Art relied on leaving a strand of natal soul energy at a remote location. At a critical moment, it summoned the practitioner’s entire body back to that point, regardless of distance. Though similar to the Soul Summoning Art, this method was far more extreme. The cost was heavy, inflicting severe damage on the body. Cultivators resorted to it only as a last option and struggled to master it.
The Soul Summoning Art summoned only the soul. The Divine Summoning Art, however, could summon the body, but it was challenging to master.
With Bai Wensheng dead and Ji Yuzhen fled, the remaining Heaven Profound Realm cultivators panicked and scattered. None dared face Liu Wuxie and scattered in fear.
Meanwhile, Qiao Bian's cultivation stabilized at the third-level Heaven Profound Realm. Elder Madman's strength had also settled, rising to the fourth level.
As the intruders fled, the fighting finally came to a halt across the battlefield. The surrounding cultivators pushed back and cleared a vast space around the altar.
All eyes turned to Liu Wuxie. To them, he was a living mountain of treasure. Though he had yet to reach the Heaven Profound Realm, he now stood at the pinnacle of the True Martial Continent.
Suddenly, a thunderous rumble echoed from the altar's core. The ice cracked apart, and a red-robed figure slowly rose into the sky.
Ye Hongyi had completed the inheritance. In her right hand, she lifted the miniature heavenly coffin—the same one that once sat atop the altar. It carried the Origin Emperor’s legacy, not his corpse.
"Everyone, leave," Ye Hongyi commanded. Her voice held no emotion.
A slender crack split open across the miniature coffin. A blinding beam of light pierced the heavens as spiritual energy from the outer world surged through the opening.
Now that she had refined the coffin, she controlled the space of the heavenly coffin and everything within it.
The cultivators retreated through the crack one by one. But Liu Wuxie remained where he stood. Ye Hongyi still hadn’t revealed who plotted against his grandfather.
"Brother Liu, we'll wait for you outside," Qiao Bian said.
"Okay," Liu Wuxie nodded.
"Until we meet again!" Qiao Bian cupped his fists respectfully to Elder Madman and Ye Hongyi.
Ye Hongyi nodded in return, silently thanking him for defending the altar.
"Master, please bring them out first," Liu Wuxie said.
Elder Madman cast a glance at Ye Hongyi before guiding Hei Kui, Xu Lingxue, and the others toward the exit.
"Big Sister Ye, will we meet again?" one of the young women asked gently.
Ye Hongyi hovered in midair, letting her red robes billow around her. Her overwhelming aura dwarfed even Elder Madman’s. At that moment, she resembled a deity.
"Let fate decide," she said softly. Only destiny would decide whether they met again.