The silence that followed Zhì Yuǎn's declaration weighed like lead in the Main Hall of the Celestial Mirror. The continent's destiny had been sealed with the coldness of someone tracing a route on a paper map.
Nestled comfortably in her husband's lap, her pale legs loosely wrapped around his hip, Yù Qíng smiled. The eldest slid the tips of her cold fingers through Zhì Yuǎn's black hair, settling her face against the curve of his neck with lethal, affectionate laziness. She turned her black eyes to the white‑haired diplomat.
"So, what potential victims do we have to fertilize our garden, snow flower?" Yù Qíng inquired, her melodious, velvety voice brushing against the god's jaw.
Mò Yán's scarlet irises had already devoured and organized the jade tablets and ancient maps of the continent for their service.
"The deepest roots divide into three fronts, Sister Qíng," the white‑haired young woman reported, the blush of excitement and utility warming her neck. "We have the two remaining Hegemonies that share the center of the continent with this place. In the adjacent territories, sheltered in valleys and mountains rich in Qi, operate five Great Orthodox Sects. And, isolated in the most hostile extremes, there are three great sects that make up the Path of Perversity."
Yù Méi, who had been furiously chewing a spiritual apple while swinging her leg on the windowsill, spun around abruptly. The youngest's almond eyes gleamed in pure living gold.
"Orthodox are boring. They spit moral rules and cry when their own spines break," the Brutal Blade grumbled, cracking her knuckles with a dry sound.
Yù Qíng let out a low, crystalline laugh against Zhì Yuǎn's skin.
"Path of Perversity…" the blue goddess repeated, savoring the syllables with poetic scorn. "What an adorable title. They dress in shadows and devour one another, believing that brutality makes them terrifying before the world. I would love to see the pomp of these wretches up close."
The darkness in Zhì Yuǎn's eyes receded slightly, absorbing his wife's whim with a warm glow. Where the ants gathered made no difference to his universe; they would all turn to ashes the same way.
"Where do they hide, Yán?" the god's deep voice demanded the coordinate.
"The oldest of them rules the Dead Echo Valley, hundreds of thousands of kilometers east of here," Mò Yán answered. "An abyss plunged into perpetual darkness, lined with lethal Yin Qi. It is the domain of the Bloody Blade Sect."
Zhì Yuǎn rested his large hand on Yù Qíng's soft thigh, rising from the cracked throne.
"An extreme environment forces the flesh to adapt to survive," he observed, his Wisdom dissecting the biology of his future test subjects before even seeing them. "Their foundations will be thicker than the stagnant old men of this mountain. The path is traced."
Zhì Yuǎn raised two fingers of his free hand and tore the space before him. The silver rift opened with the sound of fabric being violently ripped, revealing the currents of the cosmic void.
"Let's go," the husband ordered.
And the entire family walked into the abyss, leaving the ruins of the Celestial Mirror to the dust.
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Hundreds of thousands of kilometers away, the Dead Echo Valley exuded the pure essence of putrefaction and instinct.
The Bloody Blade Sect was carved directly into the rock of a colossal canyon, lined with dark moss and illuminated by torches of greenish flames that fed on the dense, toxic Yin Qi of the environment.
In the center of the main arena, the smell of rust and fresh blood was suffocating.
The violent collision between two mortal cultivators at the 8th Stage — the Opening of the Dantian — was turning the central stone into a slaughterhouse. One of the men, his left arm severed and spurting blood, roared like a cornered beast, ejecting all his Qi into his broadsword and launching himself in a suicidal attack. His opponent absorbed the blow with his own shoulder, the blade sinking into his clavicle, and took advantage of the proximity to sink both his bare, Qi‑bathed hands directly into his rival's eyes.
The blind man's scream echoed through the valley as the winner twisted his wrists and crushed the victim's skull, hurling the mutilated corpse into the damp dust.
In the grandstands carved into the black rock, hundreds of sect disciples roared in pure ecstasy. Bestial shouts, curses, bets being collected, and a deafening thirst for carnage made the very rock tremble. Survival of the fittest was celebrated with hot blood spilled in the arena.
Seated on a rustic stone throne carved with beast bones above the pit, the Sect Master, Lóu Jiàn, raised his right hand.
The aura of the 4th Pillar Saint exploded from his body like a granite storm. The crushing martial intention swept the arena deliberately, suffocating the disciples' roars and forcing everyone to hunch their shoulders in pure physical terror. In the Valley, power was the heavy crown that demanded absolute reverence and submission every second.
Sepulchral silence dominated the canyon instantly. Lóu Jiàn, his severe face marked by scars, threw a heavy leather pouch of Medium‑Grade Spirit Stones at the feet of the panting winner.
"Your foundation survived. His core succumbed," Lóu Jiàn's rough, raspy voice echoed through the canyon, pragmatic. "Take the silver. Stitch your shoulder."
The winner took the pouch with trembling hands and bowed his head until it touched the ground in absolute respect, dragging himself out of the arena. The loser's corpse remained in the mud.
Lóu Jiàn leaned back on the throne, the gravity of his 4th Pillar still weighing on the air around him.
The mechanics of the Dead Echo Valley operated under a brutal simplicity. The "Path of Perversity" was the title coined by the Great Hegemonies of the Center, who covered their own greed with white silks and speeches of peace to extort mortals behind the scenes. In that canyon, the Law of Survival ruled as the only sacred scripture. Desiring another man's scroll meant killing him and taking the spoils. Having a weak neck meant becoming fertilizer for the mountain's roots.
The Sect Master had ruled that slaughterhouse for millennia, sustained by an inescapable truth: the wolf devours the lamb driven by hunger, while the orthodox sects pretend not to eat meat until the Dao tightens their throats. At the Bloody Blade, the teeth were always exposed.
Lóu Jiàn raised his face to announce the next blood match, ready to forge more survivors in the fire of despair.
The word died in his throat.
The atmosphere at the bottom of the canyon, saturated by the 4th Pillar Saint's Qi, was suddenly annihilated. The greenish flame torches around the arena went out in unison, suffocated by the sudden obliteration of oxygen.
The invisible, cosmic, infinitely superior weight of a rising Universe collapsed upon the Dead Echo Valley all at once.
CRACK.
The sound of thousands of knees violently colliding with the black rock echoed in a nauseating symphony. The hundreds of bloodthirsty disciples watching the fights were hurled face‑first against the stone grandstands. The pressure was so great that the canyon's very architecture began to crack, dust falling from the ceiling in gray cascades.
Lóu Jiàn did not fall to his knees immediately.
The 4th Pillar Saint's Crystal Soul in the Sect Master's chest howled in resistance. The survival instinct, forged in millennia of carnage, ignited like a volcano. Lóu Jiàn planted his boots on the ground, the veins in his neck bursting, his aura fighting hysterically to keep his own spine erect against the gravity that was reducing him to dust.
He looked at the dark sky of the canyon. The fabric of reality had been torn.
A silver rift with chaotic black edges opened in the void, suspended thirty meters above the blood arena.
The blood‑stained leader, who had preached the undeniable truth that the strong would always devour the weak for his entire life, felt his own bones give way. The absolute confirmation of the law of the food chain had just arrived, wearing a charcoal‑gray tunic.
Zhì Yuǎn stepped onto the thin air of the canyon. The black silk cloak fluttered, swallowing the little light remaining in the valley. The god's serene, unfathomable black gaze descended upon the rock slaughterhouse with the absolute apathy of someone stepping on dry leaves.
Behind him, the four goddesses who anchored his existence glided out of the rift.
Yù Qíng immediately anchored herself beside his shoulder, the Lotus of the Void keeping her in ethereal perfection. Yù Méi landed heavily just behind, the air cracking around the golden warrior. The Brutal Blade looked at the pool of fresh blood in the arena and at the thousands of assassins crushed in the stands, her full lips curving into an euphoric smile; she smelled her own amusement park.
Mò Yán descended with strict politeness, the silver‑gray tunic straining under her rigid breathing, her scarlet irises assessing the inhospitable environment with the discipline of one organizing a new altar. Beside the diplomat, Bái Wǎn, the Goddess of Serenity, floated in her pearlescent dress, her mantle of blue hair dragging through the air, bringing an absurd, terrifying calm to that valley of death.
Lóu Jiàn's 4th Pillar Saint aura finally shattered. The Sect Master's knees collided with the stone, and he vomited a pool of blood.
Yù Qíng watched the thousands of cruel disciples who now vomited bile trying to breathe. The blue priestess tilted her pale face against her husband's arm, her red lips drawing an intoxicating smile in the darkness.
"The Path of Perversity…" Yù Qíng's velvety voice descended upon the surrendered assassins like an irreparable sentence, echoing softly off the stones. "A garden that cultivates its own rot and prides itself on its thorns. Fascinating. But the weeds have grown too much, and my husband's universe is very hungry. Let's find out how long your ferocity lasts before it turns into fertilizer for our roots."
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