Admission into the venue of the Alliance Summit commenced at the third quarter of the Hour of the Rabbit.
The white stone plaza at the base of the gorge between the East and West Peaks had by now been expanded to ten times its original size.
Tasked with setting up the venue, the Heavenly Secrets Pavilion had deployed seventy-two Spatial-Anchoring Stakes overnight, folding and stretching the gorge's space through formations, forcefully expanding a plaza that previously could barely moor three flying barges into an open expanse capable of accommodating tens of thousands of cultivators.
Along the seams of the folded space, the flow of spiritual energy shimmered with faint prismatic hues beneath the morning sun, running in rhythmic intervals like countless invisible stitches sewn between heaven and earth.
Standing upon the cliff terrace high above the gorge, Yin Luo looked down at the various factions filing into the grounds below.
Jerry stood two paces behind her, his wand concealed beneath his grey robe, wearing the deferential expression befitting a mid-stage Foundation Establishment attendant.
Yet his gaze never rested for a second, sweeping from the east side of the plaza to the west, logging the positions, headcount, and formation deployments of every entering sect.
Of the twenty-eight peach-wood wands dismantled the previous night, they had only found seven; the remaining twenty-one were still hidden in some corner of the venue.
Two watches remained on the countdown.
The first to enter was the leader of the Righteous sects, the Taixu Sword Sect.
The entry of the Taixu Sword Sect was brutally straightforward. Three thousand sword cultivators rode their flying swords, surging forth from the eastern dawn. Three thousand streaks of sword-light formed the colossal characters for "Taixu" across the sky. Reaching the airspace above the gorge, all three thousand swords pivoted in unison, tips pointing downward, hovering in mid-air as an immaculate sword array. Then, three thousand sword cultivators leaped simultaneously from their blades, landing squarely within the Taixu Sword Sect's seating on the eastern side of the plaza. The three thousand swords retracted automatically, sheathing themselves at their masters' backs, without a single blade erring, without a single landing stance out of sync.
"Three thousand swords sheathed at once without even a stray clatter," Jerry murmured behind Yin Luo. "How many years did they practice that drill?"
"Two thousand years," Yin Luo yawned. "The Taixu Sword Sect is most famous for this ostentatious display. Every summit, they must fly through their sword formation first. Their Sect Master has a famous motto: half a sword cultivator's dignity lies in his blade, the other half in his marching drill."
"And the other half?"
"Your math is terrible. Half plus half is already the whole thing."
"I mean their Sect Master surely has other mottos."
"He does: 'A late sword cultivator is unworthy of drawing his blade.' So they are always the first to arrive."
The second contingent to enter was the Buddhist sect, the Great Thunder Sound Temple.
The Great Thunder Sound Temple had neither flying swords nor soaring streaks of light.
They walked. Eight hundred bald monks filed in two columns, descending step by step along the mountain path of the West Peak. Each monk cradled prayer beads, chanting the exact same sutra. Eight hundred voices blended into a low, rumbling hum, wrapped in the genuine profound intent of Buddhist chanting; wherever the sound waves washed, hostility and bloodlust were suppressed a notch. Leading them was the abbot of the Great Thunder Sound Temple, an ancient monk so fat his neck was practically nonexistent. With every step he took, a golden lotus blossomed beneath his foot upon the white stone floor, dissolving the moment his foot lifted. Eight hundred lotuses paved a golden path from the mountain road all the way to the Buddhist seating on the western plaza.
"That fat monk blooms flowers just by walking," Jerry clicked his tongue.
"Step-by-step lotus blooming. One of the pinnacle divine arts of the Buddhist sect. Rumor has it that at its absolute peak, every step can plant a genuine lotus in the void that doubles as a magical artifact." Yin Luo leaned against the cliff terrace railing. "Though that old monk has killed plenty of people, so nowadays he can only manifest projected illusions that dissolve upon stepping away. In his youth, he could plant solid ones—one stomp would sprout a golden lotus heavy enough to crush a man to death."
"A lotus that crushes people to death."
"Buddhist compassion. Crushing you to death is merely delivering your soul to salvation."
The third entering contingent silenced every cultivator on the plaza in an instant.
The Heavenly Secrets Pavilion.
The Heavenly Secrets Pavilion sent neither flying swords nor monks.
They sent an entire mountain.
A complete, floating mountain peak drifted slowly from the eastern horizon. Its sheer scale blotted out half the sky, adorned with pavilions, mist-shrouded grottos, and thundering waterfalls cascading from its slopes, vaporizing into fine mist in mid-air to refract a rainbow spanning the entire gorge under the sunlight. The mountain halted above the gorge, suspended three hundred zhang above the earth. From its base descended a celestial staircase forged of condensed spiritual energy, stretching directly down to the Heavenly Secrets Pavilion's seating on the north side of the plaza.
The cultivators of the Heavenly Secrets Pavilion descended along the staircase. Leading them was the Pavilion Master himself, a middle-aged man robed in astrological star charts; with every stride he took, the mountain hovering behind him shifted half an inch, maintaining its position squarely above his head.
"...Did they haul their entire sect mountain over here?" Jerry's jaw nearly dropped.
"That isn't their real mountain. It's the sacred artifact of the Heavenly Secrets Pavilion—an Earth-Shrinking projection coupled with spatial folding. It looks real, but it's only one ten-thousandth the scale of the original sect grounds." Yin Luo's tone was deadpan, as if explaining something utterly mundane. "The Heavenly Secrets Pavilion excels at spatial manipulation and deduction. Every conference, they haul out their mountain to put on airs. At the last summit, they brought an entire ocean—a sea suspended in the sky, with whales swimming through it."
"Whales. Whales in the sky."
"Yes. Then a Void-Soaring Whale plummeted from the sky, crushing half the rogue cultivators' pavilions. The Heavenly Secrets Pavilion had to pay three hundred thousand spirit stones in damages. So this time they switched to a mountain. Mountains don't fall."
"What if the mountain falls?"
"Then paying three hundred thousand spirit stones won't settle it."
The remaining Six Righteous Sects filed in one after another: the Qingxu Palace, the Myriad Phenomena Gate, and the Nine Heavens Pavilion. When the Qingxu Palace entered, Yin Luo leaned out from the cliff terrace for a look. Liu Qingluo walked in the middle of their ranks, paler than usual, yet her spine was ramrod straight, every step measured with precision.
"The one who broke through to peak Golden Core last night looks pretty energetic today," Jerry said, looking at Liu Qingluo's back.
"Peak Golden Core cultivators recover physical stamina quickly," Yin Luo withdrew her gaze. "Her Dao heart, on the other hand, will likely take decades to mend. If it mends at all. The techniques of the Qingxu Palace emphasize a mind as still as water; the pond in her heart has been stirred into a mud pit by you."
"She was the one trying to detonate herself. I saved her life."
"Your method of saving her was quite extraordinary."
"An extraordinary life saved is still a life saved."
Once the Six Righteous Sects concluded their entrance, the Demonic path began filing in.
The Demonic path lacked the pomp of the Righteous sects. As the premier sect of the Demonic path, the Myriad Demons Palace entered in brutally simple fashion. A beam of blood-red sword-light streaked in from the direction of the Blood Sea; the moment it landed on the south side of the plaza, it resolved into a regiment of two thousand. This host lacked the disciplined ranks of the Taixu Sword Sect and the solemn chants of the Great Thunder Sound Temple. Two thousand demonic cultivators wore mismatched combat gear—some hauling colossal artifacts, some leading ferocious beasts, some bound in heavy chains. The entire host looked as though it had just marched off a slaughterhouse battlefield, reeking of unwashed blood.
Yin Luo watched her sect's ranks, the corner of her mouth curling slightly.
"See that? That is the Demonic path. No marching drills, no chanting, no hauling mountains. Show up, sit down, and let anyone dare pick a fight."
"Why does everyone in your sect look more feral than the last?"
"Because the docile ones are all dead. The Demonic path respects only raw power; the weak don't survive past Foundation Establishment." Yin Luo pointed toward a hulking brute at the vanguard leading a three-headed hound. "Look at him—Guardian Elder of the Myriad Demons Palace, codenamed Blood Slaughter. That three-headed hound of his has eaten more cultivators than the people you've seen in your lifetime."
"Another 'more than the people I've seen.' Are all your sect's artifacts and pets measured against 'more than Jerry has seen in his lifetime' as a standard benchmark?"
"Mmh. It's a very convenient unit of measurement. You've seen far too few people."
After the major demonic sects took their seats, the venue was largely filled. Yet just as everyone believed the procession had concluded, an anomalous light appeared along the eastern horizon of the gorge.
That light was neither sword-gleam, nor a spiritual beam, nor any common flight spell in the cultivation world. It was an eerie blue, metallic radiance—the silhouette of a colossal vessel crafted from some cold-sheened alloy, bristling with countless slender, spinning energy tendrils extending from its flanks.
Every cultivator across the venue looked up.
"What is that?"
For the first time, Yin Luo's expression shifted. Her languid slouch against the railing straightened into alert tension.
"...That is not from our world."
Jerry also stared at the vessel. As it drew nearer, details emerged. Etched upon the prow was an unfamiliar glyph—neither cultivator script nor wizarding rune, but a geometric emblem he had never seen before.
The voice of the Heavenly Secrets Pavilion Master resonated from the northern seats, booming across the entire plaza via acoustic arrays.
"Fellow Daoists, remain calm. This is the Xuanhuang Sect from the Qingming Realm. They are an honored guest sect invited by the Alliance to attend the summit."
Commotion rippled through the gathering.
"The Qingming Realm? A cultivation sect from another world?"
"I've heard of the Xuanhuang Sect. Rumor has it their cultivation system differs from ours—they combine mechanical arts with artifact refinement, forging artifacts and flying vessels that behave like living organisms."
"So the Alliance didn't just invite sects from our world."
On the terrace, Yin Luo explained to Jerry in an undertone.
"The war your wizarding world waged is not a war against just our world. It is a war against the entire cultivation realm cluster."
"There is more than one cultivation world. Our realm is called the 'Xuantian Realm,' one of the larger ones in the cluster. Beyond the Xuantian Realm, there are the Qingming Realm, the Taiyin Realm, the Jiuyou Abyss, and a dozen minor realms I cannot name. These worlds are linked by conduits known as 'Boundary Rivers'; normally, each realm cultivates independently without interference. But your wizarding world's invasion destabilized the Boundary River, threatening the entire cluster. That is why this Alliance Summit invited sects from other realms to deliberate countermeasures."
"Meaning that if the bombs detonate today, the dead won't just be cultivators of the Xuantian Realm, but delegates from other worlds as well."
"Exactly."
The Xuanhuang Sect vessel halted overhead. A hatch opened beneath the hull, extending an eerie-blue energy gangway down to the guest seating. The cultivators of the Xuanhuang Sect disembarked, their attire starkly contrasting with Xuantian cultivators. They wore no Daoist robes, but form-fitting combat suits embedded with countless minute mechanical components, energy conduits pulsing across the fabric, each carrying a metallic circular apparatus upon their back. Leading them was a female cultivator donning a half-metal mask; her right arm was a precision-forged steel prosthetic, microscopic runes spinning at each knuckle joint.
Following the Xuanhuang Sect, three other sects from foreign realms arrived in succession.
The Lunar Radiance Hall of the Taiyin Realm arrived consisting entirely of female cultivators, each riding a crescent-moon artifact. As their procession drifted in, the sunlight above dimmed beneath their lunar Qi, as though moonlit night had fallen abruptly in broad daylight.
The Soul Devouring Sect of the Jiuyou Abyss comprised cultivators cloaked in black spectral miasma; rather than descending gangways or flying swords, they burrowed directly from beneath the ground, each emergence flaring with sickly green ghost-fire.
The final guest sect arrived from a realm whose name even the Heavenly Secrets Pavilion Master stumbled over when introducing. Translated into Xuantian tongue, it was roughly "Glazed Heavens." Only three cultivators arrived from the Glazed Heavens, yet upon their entry, the ambient spiritual energy across the entire venue experienced a momentary distortion. Their auras differed from the cultivators of Xuantian, Qingming, Taiyin, and Jiuyou—older, denser, and far more elusive. As the trio entered, even the three thousand sword cultivators of the Taixu Sword Sect subconsciously gripped their hilts.
Yin Luo watched from the terrace, falling silent for a long moment.
"...The stakes and scale of this summit are far higher than I imagined."
"How high?"
"If the bombs detonate today, the resulting war won't just be between the wizarding world and this realm cluster." Yin Luo's fingers tightened on the railing. "The people in your world have no idea what fire they're playing with. They think they're lighting a fuse to spark a war, but in truth, they're lighting a powder keg capable of blowing through multiple worlds."
Jerry looked down at the dense masses packing the venue.
The Six Righteous Sects, the Demonic factions, and the guest delegations from foreign realms—tens of thousands of cultivators now gathered within this gorge plaza stretched vast by spatial folding.
In the center of the venue atop the circular elevated dais, the colossal seal of the Six Sect Alliance gleamed golden in the morning light.
The seats ringed around the dais were filled to capacity by sect rank, from innermost Nascent Soul Elders to outermost rogue disciples, not a single soul suspecting that beneath their feet lay twenty-one undiscovered peach-wood wands rigged to chained self-detonation arrays.
"Two watches," Jerry murmured. "I must find the remaining twenty-one before the conference officially commences."
"The summit begins in a quarter of an hour. Once it starts and everyone is seated, snooping around will be instantly detected." Yin Luo pulled her gaze back, fixing it on Jerry. "What now?"
Slipping his wand from his inner robe with the tip hidden in his sleeve, Jerry released a faint diagnostic pulse toward the venue. The pulse expanded, combing every corner of the plaza for the distinct explosive magical frequency of the peach-wood wands.
The pulse returned twenty-one distinct feedback coordinates.
Jerry's expression shifted.
"I found all twenty-one locations. But..."
"But what?"
"They aren't at the perimeter anymore. Someone rearranged the remaining twenty-one wands after we dismantled the others last night. Right now, all twenty-one are concentrated directly beneath that central dais."
Yin Luo followed his gaze toward the circular dais bearing the Alliance seal in the center of the plaza.
Upon the dais, delegates from various sects and realms were taking their seats: the Sect Master of Taixu Sword Sect, the Abbot of Great Thunder Sound Temple, the Pavilion Master of Heavenly Secrets Pavilion, the Palace Master of Qingxu Palace, the masked female cultivator of Xuanhuang Sect, the Hall Master of Lunar Radiance Hall, the Patriarch of the Soul Devouring Sect, and the three enigmatic cultivators from the Glazed Heavens. The supreme existences of the cultivation realm cluster were now seated squarely atop a dais packed with twenty-one self-detonating wands.
"...They moved the bombs right under the asses of every single titan," Yin Luo's voice carried a tension she hadn't even noticed herself.
"The summit begins in a quarter of an hour, when all these titans will be seated," Jerry slid his wand back into his sleeve. "The timed detonation must be set for the intermission. At that moment, the heads of the entire realm cluster will be sitting right there."
Yin Luo turned, looking down upon the dais filled with supreme figures, then back at the boy standing beside her who barely reached her shoulder.
"Jerry."
"Yeah."
"You have two choices right now. One is to take me and leave immediately, flying as far as possible, acting as if we know nothing when the bombs go off."
"And the other?"
"The other is that within a quarter of an hour, right before tens of thousands of cultivators and the apex powerhouses of multiple worlds, you slip beneath that dais and defuse twenty-one chained self-detonating wands without being detected by a single soul."
Jerry looked at the dais, falling silent for two seconds.
Then he nudged the wand in his sleeve upward, straightened the hem of his grey robe, and took his first step toward the central dais.
"Guess which one I pick."
As Jerry took that step, Yin Luo reached out to seize his shoulder.
Her fingertips fell short of his shoulder by a mere three inches.
Jerry's figure vanished from the terrace. Not by spiritual flight, not by an escape art, but by wizarding Apparition. His body compressed in mid-air and, in the very next instant, materialized directly onto the steps of the central dais.
Yin Luo's fingers clamped on empty air.
"...That reckless brat."
On the central dais, every seated delegate snapped their heads up. A youth clad in the grey robes of a mid Foundation Establishment attendant materializing out of thin air on the steps of the dais was alarming enough on its own. A Nascent Soul teleportation required tearing space, leaving conspicuous spiritual fluctuations and spatial rifts. Yet this boy appeared without warning—no light, no spatial rupture—standing there as though carved from the void itself.
The Sect Master of the Taixu Sword Sect rested his hand upon his sword hilt.
"What junior dares trespass upon the Alliance dais?"
Jerry did not answer. Standing upon the steps, he smoothed his robe's hem and reached up to tear the camouflage membrane from his face. The moment it peeled away, the grey ward suppressing his magical aura shattered alongside it. Grey-black magic surged from his body—an energy frequency entirely alien to any cultivator on the grounds. Disconnected from meridians, foreign to the Five Elements, pure and unadulterated as if transplanted directly from another universe.
The Pavilion Master of the Heavenly Secrets Pavilion was the first to pale.
"A wizard."
"Yes," Jerry finally spoke. His voice was not loud, yet acoustic arrays carried it across the entire plaza: "I am a wizard."
The venue detonated into an uproar. Tens of thousands of cultivators leaped to their feet in unison; countless streams of spiritual energy coalesced, countless artifacts manifested from storage pouches, and the ambient spiritual pressure of the gorge multiplied tenfold in a heartbeat.
Surrounded by tens of thousands of murderous gazes, Jerry stood on the dais without a flicker of emotion. Raising his right hand, his wand slid from his sleeve into his palm. He lifted it high, leveling the tip straight at the floating mountain of the Heavenly Secrets Pavilion to the north.
Watching from the terrace, Yin Luo's heart skipped a beat.
"Jerry! Don't—"
Too late.
An infinitesimal pinpoint of light ignited at the tip of Jerry's wand. It blazed incandescent white, its heat so blistering that the surrounding air warped. This was a variant of Fiendfyre, fused with an energy compression charm of his own devising, condensing flames meant to incinerate an entire forest down to the size of a needlepoint.
"Demonic Sun."
The pinpoint detached from the wand, rocketing toward the Heavenly Secrets Pavilion's mountain. Mid-flight, the needlepoint expanded—swelling from a dot to a fist, from a fist to a millstone, from a millstone to the size of a hill. At peak expansion, the fireball matched the volume of the floating mountain itself, its searing heat spiking the gorge's temperature by dozens of degrees, forcing the front rows of cultivators into hasty retreat.
Panic gripped the Heavenly Secrets Pavilion.
"Shield the mountain! Defend the gate!"
The Pavilion Master and a dozen Elders unleashed their artifacts simultaneously, weaving seven layers of defensive barriers before the peak. Seven stacked formations formed a fortress capable of repelling full-power strikes from late Nascent Soul experts.
The blinding white fireball slammed into the first barrier.
The first layer vaporized upon impact. The second held for half a second. The third, for 0.3 seconds. The fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh layers shattered like paper before the fireball's unstoppable advance. Decelerating not in the slightest, it smashed squarely into the floating mountain.
The mountain detonated.
The spatial projection of the mountain gate—adorned with pavilions, waterfalls, and rainbows—did not last a single second against the heat of the Demonic Sun. The mountain disintegrated from the point of impact; pavilions turned to ash, waterfalls flash-steamed, and rainbows vanished. Layers sheared away from the outside in until the entire peak exploded into fine motes of spiritual light, drifting down under the sun like a golden snowfall.
The Pavilion Master stared dumbfounded as his mountain was reduced to nothingness before his eyes. His expression shifted from shock to bewilderment, and from bewilderment to blank incomprehension.
"My mountain... The mountain I just brought over..."
Deathly silence enveloped the plaza.
Tens of thousands of cultivators stared at the five-foot boy upon the dais. Watching him hold his wand, watching the golden flakes drifting from the obliterated peak to the north, no one dared move.
Jerry lowered his wand. Standing upon the dais, he swept his gaze across the faces of the titans before him: the Taixu Sword Sect Master, the Abbot of Great Thunder Sound Temple, the Pavilion Master of Heavenly Secrets Pavilion, the Palace Master of Qingxu Palace, the masked female cultivator of Xuanhuang Sect, the Hall Master of Lunar Radiance Hall, the Patriarch of the Soul Devouring Sect, and the three enigmatic cultivators from the Glazed Heavens.
"That strike earlier was a greeting," Jerry said. "Now, down to business."
He showed no intention of fleeing. Standing in the dead center of the dais with his wand dangling casually in his hand, his posture was relaxed, as if strolling through his own drawing room.
"You gathered here to discuss how to conquer the wizarding world. Let me save you some time." Jerry pointed to the north where ash and light still drifted down. "What you just witnessed was a mid-tier spell cast by an average adult wizard in our world. I am seventeen, not yet of age. The version I just unleashed holds barely sixty percent of an adult wizard's output."
A chorus of choked gasps swept through the gathering.
"I assessed your cultivation levels. The highest among you are at the Great Perfection of Nascent Soul." Jerry looked across the Taixu Sect Master and the Buddhist Abbot. "Nascent Soul Great Perfection, was it? My strike just now vaporized seven layers of Heavenly Secrets Pavilion mountain-guarding arrays. How many strikes can your Great Perfection endure?"
The Sect Master of the Taixu Sword Sect flushed crimson, drawing his Natal Flying Sword.
"Insolence!"
"I am not insolent. I am stating facts." Jerry watched the unsheathed blade without dodging. "If you want to test it, be my guest. I'll stand right here; strike with all you have. If you can leave a scratch on me, I will concede my arrogance."
The sword-light of the Taixu Sect Master surged exponentially. Three thousand sword cultivators drew their blades simultaneously, three thousand sword beams converging into a heaven-cleaving sword-light centered upon their Sect Master's blade. This was the pinnacle formation of the Taixu Sword Sect—Ten Thousand Swords Return to the Origin—channeling the sword-intent of three thousand disciples into a single strike potent enough to cleave mountain ranges.
The colossal blade of light cleaved down toward Jerry upon the dais.
Jerry stood motionless. The microsecond before the sword-light struck home, he traced a circle in the air with his wand.
A Shield Charm (Protego).
But no ordinary Shield Charm. He overlaid three layers of reflection runes and an energy absorption matrix atop it. This combo was something he had devised in his fifth year at Hogwarts for his Defense Against the Dark Arts practical exam, which had rebounded the examiner's hex verbatim, striking the examiner square in the chest before he could react.
The heaven-splitting sword-light crashed into the shield.
Under the impact, the shield rippled with grey-black waves. A portion of the sword energy was swallowed by the absorption array, while the remainder was rebounded intact by the reflection runes. The combined sword-intent of three thousand disciples, fused with the Natal Sword of their Sect Master, was hurled back toward its point of origin.
Caught completely off guard, the Taixu Sect Master was blasted backward by his own strike. Backlash from three thousand fused intents forced disciples to cough blood and collapse to the ground, three thousand flying swords losing control and clattering down in chaotic disarray.
Jerry lowered his arm, dispelling the shield. Not a single scratch marred his skin.
"Reflected," he said flatly. "The combined might of your three thousand swords couldn't overpower a single shield of mine."
The silence across the plaza deepened to suffocating proportions.
Yin Luo gripped the terrace railing until her knuckles turned white. She knew Jerry was formidable—she had seen his power over those three days in the Myriad Demons Palace—but she never imagined he was this terrifying. Catching the Taixu Sword Sect's ultimate formation with a single shield and reflecting it back... this wasn't just a contest of strength; this was a dimensional suppression.
Yet she also understood his purpose.
Jerry was establishing the supremacy of the wizarding world, telling these cultivators in the most brutal, direct fashion: You cannot win.
"I will repeat myself," Jerry's amplified voice echoed throughout the valley. "Holding this summit to plan war against the wizarding world is futile. Your strongest Nascent Soul Great Perfection cannot even defeat an underage wizard like me. There are countless wizards far stronger than I back home. Pull any ordinary adult wizard from our world, and their output is twice mine. Our high-tier wizards can slaughter an entire sect of yours single-handedly."
The Abbot of the Great Thunder Sound Temple rose. The neckless, stout old monk pressed his palms together, his compassionate expression unchanged.
"Young benefactor. Since you possess such overwhelming might, why bother demonstrating your prowess here? You could simply strike us down."
"A fair question," Jerry looked at the monk. "Because I do not wish to fight."
Commotion stirred again.
"I do not want this war. I have made friends in your world." Jerry glanced toward the cliff terrace for a fraction of a second before pulling his eyes back. "I came here so you would recognize reality and make a rational choice."
"What choice?"
"Surrender," Jerry stated. "If you cannot even defeat me, surrender early. If you surrender, I can advocate for favorable terms from the wizarding world: preserving your sects, allowing you to continue cultivating, leaving the Boundary River intact. Your worlds will continue to exist."
"And if we do not surrender?" The Taixu Sect Master struggled to his feet, clutching his chest, coughing blood.
"If you do not surrender, then we fight," Jerry's voice remained steady. "However, I tell you now: those sent by the wizarding world are not merely warmongers. There are extremists seeking to obliterate your entire realm cluster and the Boundary River along with it. Those factions are far more radical than I. They have already planted twenty-one chained self-detonating wands beneath this venue, directly beneath this dais you sit upon."
Every single titan seated upon the dais looked down at their feet in unison.
"In roughly..." Jerry checked the timekeeping array overhead, "...three quarters of an hour, all twenty-one wands will detonate simultaneously. The blast is enough to vaporize everyone on this dais and sever the Boundary River connecting our realms. When that happens, the dead won't just be Xuantian cultivators, but delegates from Qingming, Taiyin, Jiuyou, and Glazed Heavens. The entire cultivation cluster will be plunged into catastrophic war and chaos."
The masked female cultivator of the Xuanhuang Sect rose. Her mechanical prosthetic clenched at her side, runes spinning rapidly across the knuckles.
"If you knew about the bombs, why didn't you dismantle them in secret instead of standing here lecturing us?"
"Because I cannot dismantle them alone. Twenty-one chained self-detonating wands must be neutralized simultaneously. If even one is triggered, the rest chain-react. I need people to coordinate with me, striking from twenty-one different coordinates at the exact same second." Jerry looked around the venue. "So I stand here today seeking your cooperation."
"Cooperation?" The Taixu Sect Master gritted his teeth. "You blew up the Heavenly Secrets Pavilion's mountain, threw me through the air, and now you preach cooperation?"
"That was establishing authority," Jerry said matter-of-factly. "Without establishing dominance, none of you would listen. Cultivators are all like this—unwilling to talk until you show your fangs. If I had walked up politely saying, 'Hello everyone, I'm a wizard, let's defuse bombs together,' would any of you have believed me?"
Silence fell over the plaza.
Indeed, not a soul would have believed it.
On the terrace, Yin Luo couldn't help but chuckle. The boy had read everyone's temperament like an open book. Knowing cultivators respect only overwhelming force, he opened with raw violence—shattering a mountain gate, deflecting the sword sect master—crushing their pride into the dirt before unhurriedly delivering his true terms.
Recovering from the loss of his mountain, the Pavilion Master stared hard at Jerry.
"How do you prove these bombs are real?"
Jerry raised his wand, aimed at the stone platform, and released a diagnostic pulse. The pulse sank into the masonry; before the eyes of all, twenty-one crimson points of light materialized across the surface, each marking a buried peach-wood wand. The beacons formed an intricate chained matrix, connected by glowing red threads of volatile energy, mapping a detonation web spanning the entire base of the dais.
Sharp intakes of breath hissed across the plaza.
Jerry lowered his wand.
"Now," he looked upon the grim titans of the realm cluster, "you have three quarters of an hour to decide whether to cooperate with me in defusing these bombs, or sit there continuing your pointless summit until you all blow up together."
He paused, a smirk tugging at his lips.
"Oh, by the way. A friendly reminder: sitting still is the stupidest choice. Because right now, your asses are planted directly above the highest concentration of explosives."
Every single titan on the dais sprang straight up from their seats in unison.