The aqueduct's stale air grew dense, suffocating under the weight of an invisible, towering malice. Above Cloud Edge City, the Heavens were actively hunting. The pitch-black clouds of a Heavenly Tribulation—an anomaly in the golden era of the Azure Cloud Sect—roiled furiously, searching for the glitch in the world's natural order.
Lu Chen sat cross-legged on a slick, moss-covered stone platform jutting out over the rushing, filth-ridden waters. His disguise as 'Chen Lu' had dissolved the moment he fled from the Saintess Ye Xiyue, his facial features shifting back to the sharp, cold angles of his true face. His chest heaved, his breathing ragged but controlled. The pressure of the impending tribulation was attempting to crush his soul, but Lu Chen only felt a familiar, icy rage.
He flipped his palm upward. With a subtle hum, the Three-Century Sword Heart Grass materialized from his spatial ring. It was a terrifyingly beautiful flora, its three distinct leaves resembling forged silver. It pulsed with a resonant, metallic hum that made the ambient moisture in the aqueduct split into microscopic, razor-sharp droplets.
Beside it, the Luck-Binding Mirror floated silently. The ancient, obsidian-like disk was devoid of any reflection, instead housing a swirling vortex of absolute nothingness. Hovering just above the mirror's surface was a sphere of brilliant, blinding gold—the 'Heavenly Opportunity' he had violently harvested from the corpse of the arrogant Azure Cloud disciple, Ma Bo.
"Providence is a finite resource in the Great Azure Realm," Lu Chen whispered, his raspy voice echoing off the damp brickwork. He stared at the golden mist of stolen Qi Yun. "The Heavens blindly gifted this treasure to an arrogant fool. Now, the Void claims it as its own."
He didn't bother attempting to brew an elixir. In the hostile depths beneath the city, he lacked both a crucible and the luxury of time. Without an ounce of hesitation, Lu Chen threw the raw, unrefined Sword Heart Grass into his mouth and bit down.
It was like chewing on a handful of jagged glass and razor blades. Blood instantly flooded his palate, hot, thick, and metallic. He swallowed forcefully, sending a violent torrent of unrestrained sword essence tearing down his throat.
His body went rigid. His veins bulged against his pale skin, glowing a luminescent, angry silver. The raw essence of the three-century-old herb was ravaging his internal organs, an untamed beast rampaging within a fragile mortal shell. This was the fatal risk of consuming heavenly treasures without a stabilizing pill—death by a thousand internal lacerations.
"Mirror!" Lu Chen mentally roared, his fingernails digging into his palms until black blood dripped onto the wet stone.
The Luck-Binding Mirror spun violently in the air. The golden sphere of Ma Bo's stolen luck shattered into countless golden threads, plunging directly into Lu Chen's chest. It flooded his tearing meridians with pure, unadulterated destiny.
In the Age of Fading Providence, luck was the ultimate law, the universal solvent. As the golden mist of Qi Yun met the raging silver sword essence, the violent energy instantly became docile. Recognizing the unquestionable 'mandate' of the providence, the rampaging energy was forced to obey.
The refined essence, guided by the golden luck, poured directly into his Dantian. At its center sat his newly formed Void Root—a pathetic, shadowy imitation of an Innate Spirit Root, currently limited to a fragile 'Mortal' rank. As the heavy essence and golden luck cascaded into the void, the root awoke. It began to devour the energy with a ravenous, predatory hunger.
It thrummed, expanding outward and shedding its wispy, unstable nature. The shadows solidified into something dense, heavy, and profound. Lu Chen could feel the structural limits of his own body breaking. The rank of his Spirit Root was violently climbing, shattering the invisible ceiling the Heavenly Dao placed upon ordinary men.
Crack!
A phantom sound echoed within his soul.
Spirit Rank.
The moment his Void Root stabilized at the Spirit rank, its suction force increased tenfold. The ambient World Essence in the dark aqueducts, mixed with the residual spiritual energy of the sprawling city above, rushed toward him, forming a visible, roaring vortex of grey mist.
Inside his Dantian, the swirling gaseous Qi began to compress under immense pressure. It was no longer a cloud; it was being forged into a single, heavy droplet of pitch-black liquid. The first drop of Foundation Qi. More followed, raining down into the endless void of his Dantian, quickly forming a dark, tranquil, and terrifyingly deep lake.
Foundation Establishment Stage!
Lu Chen opened his eyes. A profound, consuming darkness swirled within his irises before fading back into cold human eyes. He raised his hands, clenching his fists. The terrifying density of his new power thrummed in his blood.
"My talent... it truly has no ceiling," Lu Chen breathed, a dark, chilling smile curling his lips. The realization was more intoxicating than the power itself. Cultivators were bound by their birthright. A Mortal root capped one at Foundation Establishment. A Spirit root at Golden Core. But Lu Chen's Void Root was an empty vessel. It devoured destiny itself.
"If Fang Tianyou stole my Heaven-rank root to become a 'Chosen One', then I will devour the luck of every 'Chosen One' on this continent until my Void Root surpasses the Heavens themselves."
A deafening, earth-shattering boom severed his thoughts.
The tribulation had finally locked onto him. The heavy stone ceiling of the aqueduct began to glow a violent, unnatural purple-black. The Heavenly Dao of the Great Azure Realm, crippled and paranoid since the Great Celestial Sunder, recognized an existence that defied its finite distribution of luck. It sought to erase the parasite immediately.
A bolt of pitch-black lightning, utterly devoid of sound but radiating absolute annihilation, blasted straight down. It melted through fifty feet of solid bedrock, cobblestone streets, and iron piping in a fraction of a second. It was a pillar of pure erasure, aiming to turn Lu Chen into atomic dust.
Lu Chen didn't dodge. He stood up, his black robes fluttering violently in the immense downward pressure of the Heavens. He didn't summon a physical blade. He simply raised his right hand, pointing his index and middle fingers directly at the descending wrath.
"Void Sword Intent."
The black lake of liquid Qi in his Dantian surged. A sword aura, entirely invisible and completely devoid of light or spiritual pressure, shot upward.
When the black lightning of the Heavenly Tribulation met Lu Chen's Void Sword Intent, there was no catastrophic explosion. No shockwave to shatter the city. Instead, the very fabric of space simply folded inward. The Void ate the lightning, silently digesting the Heavenly wrath as if it were mere nourishment. The terrifying pillar of destruction stopped mere inches from Lu Chen's outstretched fingers, rapidly dissolving into nothingness.
The Heavenly Dao's eye blinked out, its singular strike exhausted and consumed.
But the physical damage to Cloud Edge City was already done. The fifty-foot ceiling above Lu Chen had been completely vaporized, leaving a perfectly smooth, cylindrical crater wide open to the night sky.
The pale, silver moonlight of the Eastern Province flooded into the foul-smelling sewer, illuminating Lu Chen's tall, solitary figure. He lowered his hand, his breathing steady, his newly formed Foundation Establishment aura perfectly concealed beneath the absolute zero of his Void Root.
He slowly looked up through the massive hole.
Floating in the night sky at the rim of the massive crater, silhouetted against the bright moon, was a massive golden war chariot adorned with the swirling cloud motifs of the Azure Cloud Sect. Dozens of elite Enforcers on flying swords encircled the perimeter, their divine senses sweeping the dust.
But Lu Chen's eyes locked onto the figure standing at the prow of the chariot.
His handsome, aristocratic face was illuminated by a sickeningly brilliant, towering aura of purple-gold providence—a providence that rightfully belonged to Lu Chen.
Fang Tianyou.
Fang Tianyou stared down into the shadowed abyss of the crater, his eyes narrowing with a mix of suspicion and arrogant curiosity. His voice drifted down, echoing with unearned divine authority.
"A black tribulation and a survivor hiding in the filth of this city..." Fang Tianyou commanded, waving a lazy hand toward the enforcers. "Capture the rat. Break his limbs, but keep him alive. Whatever heavenly secret he holds, it now belongs to me."