"Senior, for some reason, I suddenly feel a terrifying gap between us," Mo Lingtian noted to the Chief Commander.
"Go and test it yourself. This is the true power of a cultivator's foundation, self-enlightenment," the Chief Commander answered, looking up at the Dao Elder levitating in the atmosphere.
"Senior, allow me to experience your new spear intent," Mo Lingtian yelled, dashing swiftly into the sky toward Ping An.
"Now the tree answers. Falling Leaf Spear: First Leaf," the Dao Elder whispered, slowly lowering his head.
Behind him, the air shivered. Thousands of spear projections unfolded from nothing, but they were no longer the colorless, humming blades he had commanded before. The shifting energy still moved through them, only now it moved like sap. Pale green bled into silver, silver into a deep cosmic blue, and faint constellations drifted along their edges like the veins of a leaf held up to the light.
Each spear tilted, drifted, and turned slowly on the wind, as gently as autumn leaves surrendering to a branch. The blind Dao Elder stood with no arms and no eyes, and absolutely nothing about his aura suggested a fight.
That gentleness was the trap.
Then, a single leaf slowly descended into the space between the incapacitated Dao Elder and the fast-approaching Mo Lingtian.
Ping An did not need his eyes. Through the enlightened spear intent, he felt every strike as a limb he no longer possessed, ten thousand hands reaching where his physical own could not.
"And the spear forgets the hand," the Dao Elder said.
In the very next second, all ten thousand spears plunged forward at Mo Lingtian simultaneously. He immediately froze, the uniformity of the intent locked down his evasion routes. Unable to dodge, he unconsciously initiated the Coiling Sword Art, using all forty-three of his golden needles to carve a path out of the descending assault.
"Rise!" Mo Lingtian commanded.
Almost immediately, all forty three needles dashed forward towards the centre of the falling blanket of attacking spears as they spun around with an intense speed, creating a tunnel-like cylindrical space around Mo Lingtian for defense and using their sharp tips and powerful striking force for attack.
But because the falling spears didn't attack randomly but in extreme uniformity, their striking force was more than quintupled shattering, Mo Lingtian's coiling sword art in the first touch. That impact of the clash sent Mo Lingtian and his needles plummeting downward.
He quickly forcibly righted his posture mid-fall, retracting the scattered needles back into his sleeves. Using his thumb to wipe away the blood trickling from the corner of his lips, he glanced sideways at the Chief Commander, who was watching with a cold, knowing smile.
Mo Lingtian looked back up. The spear array hadn't stopped. It continued to fall in the exact same uniform, terrifying manner, bridging the gap between him and Ping An with a blanket of ten thousand lethal strikes.
"Dao You, should I continue?" Ping An's voice echoed calmly from behind the descending spear intents.
"None of my combat skills can even dent this spear formation, let alone reach him. The only things I possess that can defeat this are the gravity law and my Death Domain both of which are far beyond the realm of the Dao Stage," Mo Lingtian analyzed as the spears closed in.
"Without these things, I wouldn't last one move in a fair fight against a true powerhouse in the Dao Realm. The Chief Commander was right. I have to focus on a unified cultivation method," he concluded, heaving a deep sigh of concession.
"I concede," Mo Lingtian suddenly said, waving his right hand just as the closest spears were inches from his throat.
"Seize!" the Dao Elder shouted, immediately spreading his Qi across the descending array to recall them.
But for some reason, some of the spear intents breached Ping An's control, charging violently towards Mo Lingtian.
In that split second, Mo Lingtian's eyes darkened. He swiftly stretched out his hand, enacting the basic gravitational law.
Instantly, the entire one-hundred-meter radius was engulfed in a crushing gravitational pressure. The rogue spear intents and the ones that had stayed shuddered violently before instantly disintegrating into glowing dust under the ungodly weight of the downward force.
The Dao Elder immediately adjusted his body, swiftly dropping to one knee while still levitating in the sky. If he had not deliberately angled himself to let the gravity bounce off his aura, his crippled body would have been crushed to pulp alongside the spear intents.
"Now you finally understand the importance of mastery," the Chief Commander said softly, allowing the spiritual rhythm in her voice to dispel Lingtian's gravitational pressure completely.
"I am terribly sorry for what just happened. If you had not responded quickly, you would have..." Ping An said, hastily drifting down toward Mo Lingtian and the Chief Commander.
"There is no need to apologize. I was a bit too overconfident earlier," Mo Lingtian replied evenly, gently tapping Ping An on the shoulder.
"I will be forever grateful for this opportunity you have given me. From now on, anything you require of me as long as it is within my power I will not hesitate to execute it," the Dao Elder swore, bowing slightly as he formally saluted Mo Lingtian.
"I will take your word for it then. In the coming events, you will be playing a very crucial role," Mo Lingtian said, his eyes narrowing slightly as he tapped the elder's shoulder once more.
"Understood," the Dao Elder replied. Although he did not know what grand scheme Mo Lingtian was currently weaving, he knew the life-changing legacy he had just received certainly had a price to pay.
"Apart from the three major factions, the Eclipsed Sun Sect, and the Lunar Region, I read about a now-slumbering force that once almost washed the entire Wilderness to ruins," Mo Lingtian said, seamlessly shifting the topic as they stood on the shores of his inner sea.
"Ah... I almost forgot about those horrifying times," Ping An murmured, heaving a deep, reminiscing sigh.
"What exactly happened?" Mo Lingtian asked, his curiosity peaking at the dark expression settling over the Dao Elder's face.
"It is a history you likely do not know. My sect, although a mere shadow of its former self, still guards records dating back more than seventy thousand years. The Wilderness, this barren place we live in was not always separated. It was once a core part of the mainland," Ping An revealed.
"What?" Mo Lingtian asked in genuine shock. Even the Chief Commander stepped slightly closer, her interest piqued.
"Yes. According to the ancient records, this land was once an integral region of the Demon Continent. At its peak, this very soil contributed to more than six percent of the entire demon continent's cultivation resources," Ping An explained.
"If this place was that prosperous, it must have given birth to several strong cultivators. How did it get reduced to this desolate state? Even the mainland actively rejects people from the Wilderness now," Mo Lingtian questioned.
"Several monstrous powerhouses indeed arose from this soil. That immense wealth and talent formed the foundation of the famous Era of a Thousand Sects," Ping An replied.
"But none of them were prepared for the calamity that fell from heaven... the Heavenly Beast, Huang Tianshou," Ping An said, a heavy silence slowly settling among them.
"Huang Tianshou?" Mo Lingtian repeated, the name rolling heavily off his tongue.
"Yes. That was what the survivors called it, yet absolutely no one knew its true origin. Back then, the only lead they had was that they all beheld it as it fell from the sky, crashing into the Wilderness like a blazing, catastrophic asteroid," Ping An continued.
"You keep saying 'it'. Was it not a cultivator?" the Chief Commander suddenly interjected.
"No. It was a beast. And the moment it crashed into the Wilderness, a terrifying phenomenon occurred. All the feral beasts residing in the innermost parts of the region suddenly gained sentience and massive spikes in cultivation. With their inherently indestructible physical bodies, ferocious natures, and innate abilities amplified, they became an apocalyptic terror to the cultivators of that era," Ping An answered.
"Surely, the beasts back then must have had some sort of leaders to actively organize and mark a territory as their own, why didn't they resist this Huang Tianshou?" Mo Lingtian noted, carefully comparing the Dao Elder's history with the restricted texts he had read in the Eclipsed Sun Sect's library.
"They did. According to the records, the Beast Zone was initially ruled by three Beast Kings: Shou Huang, Shou Zun, and the most powerful among them, Hu Canghai. These three were immensely powerful anomalies, with Hu Canghai reported to have reached the perfect stage of a Sage of Cultivation Intent. Out of millions of mutated beasts, they were the only three to step onto the path of cultivation," Ping An answered.
"Yet they never actively attacked the cultivators," Mo Lingtian cut in, stroking his chin in deep, calculating thought.