The communication jade slip lay amidst the crushed rocks and blood of Xue Ming, pulsing with an arrogant, sickly-sweet azure light. It vibrated with a rhythm that made Lu Chen's hollowed Dantian ache.
It was a resonance he knew intimately. It was the hum of his own stolen Innate Spirit Root.
From the fractured jade, a voice echoed into the silent canyon—a voice perfectly modulated to sound righteous, yet laced with an undercurrent of venomous greed. "This spatial coordinate... Xue Ming's life jade just shattered. But more importantly, my Heaven-Blessed Root stirs. Who is there? Who dares hold an aura that resonates with the Azure Cloud Sect's Chosen?"
Lu Chen stood over Xue Ming's headless corpse. The young master of the Iron Blood Hall had been a Golden Core cultivator, blessed by the Heavens, destined to find ancient ruins and conquer sects. Now, he was just meat and bone.
Lu Chen slowly raised his boot and brought it down on the glowing jade slip.
Crack.
The voice was severed, but Lu Chen knew the truth. The beacon had been lit. Fang Tianyou was already on his way, riding the winds of his stolen providence.
Flight was the logical choice. But logic dictated by the weak was a shackle Lu Chen had long since broken. If he ran now, unstable from the sheer volume of Xue Ming's unrefined Qi Yun and tracked by his own stolen talent, Fang Tianyou would hunt him down like a dog.
"He wants to hunt me?" Lu Chen murmured, wiping a streak of Xue Ming's blood from his cheek. His eyes, dark and endless like the Abyss of Despair, flicked upward toward the narrow strip of sky visible from the canyon floor. "Let him find a monster."
Lu Chen sat cross-legged amidst the carnage. He raised his left hand, summoning the Luck-Binding Mirror. The ancient bronze artifact materialized, its surface swirling with a pitch-black void.
"Extract."
The command was a whisper, but it echoed with the weight of absolute law.
Xue Ming's corpse violently shuddered. A torrent of blinding, viscous golden light erupted from the severed neck and the shattered remnants of his Golden Core. This was no ordinary providence. This was the destiny of a Golden Core genius, a man meant to rule a province, condensed into raw, unadulterated 'Heavenly Opportunity'.
The golden river slammed into the Luck-Binding Mirror, filtering through the artifact's abyssal depths before pouring directly into Lu Chen's meridians.
Pain, sharp and euphoric, exploded within him. His Mid Foundation Establishment cultivation base instantly surged.
The spiritual energy in the Great Azure Realm was dwindling, trapped in the Age of Fading Providence. Because of this, cultivators relied on pills, natural treasures, and sheer time to build their Foundations—the nine pillars of spiritual essence that supported a Golden Core. Normal geniuses condensed six pillars. 'Chosen Ones' like Fang Tianyou condensed eight.
Nine pillars—the 'Perfect Foundation'—was considered a myth, a violation of the world's finite resources. The Heavens simply did not possess enough ambient providence to allow a mortal to forge nine perfect pillars.
But Lu Chen wasn't asking the Heavens for permission. He was stealing from its favored son.
Boom!
The seventh pillar materialized in Lu Chen's Dantian, entirely pitch-black, formed of Void Sword Intent.
Boom!
The eighth pillar slammed into existence, cracking the stone beneath him, sending spiderwebs of destructive energy up the canyon walls.
He pushed harder, drawing every last drop of Xue Ming's golden destiny. The void inside him screamed for more. Lu Chen's skin began to crack, shedding mortal impurities as his Void Root aggressively cannibalized the stolen luck.
As the framework for the ninth pillar began to take shape, the world reacted.
The sky above the canyon, previously a clear, fading blue, violently darkened. Clouds the color of bruised flesh and ash rolled in with unnatural speed, swirling into a massive vortex. The air grew impossibly heavy, smelling of ozone and burning ozone.
In the Fallen Moon Palace, miles away, Ye Xiyue stood on her balcony, her 'Heart of the Sword' trembling so violently she dropped her teacup. She looked toward the distant horizon, seeing a knot in the world's destiny.
"The Will of Heaven is furious..." she whispered, her serene face losing its color. "Someone is trying to break the laws of nature."
Back in the canyon, the oppressive pressure forced Lu Chen's eyes open. He looked up at the swirling vortex of tribulation clouds. This wasn't the natural tribulation he had experienced before. This was Heavenly Annihilation Lightning. The Great Azure Realm had detected a parasite—a Sovereign of the Void draining the finite luck of the world to build a forbidden Perfect Foundation.
CRACK!
A pillar of crimson lightning, thick as an ancient redwood, tore down from the Heavens. It didn't aim to test him; it aimed to erase him from existence.
The sheer heat of the descending strike instantly vaporized the moisture in the canyon, turning the rock walls to glass.
Lu Chen did not draw his sword. He didn't even stand up.
He simply turned the face of the Luck-Binding Mirror upward.
"The Heavens are blind," Lu Chen sneered, his voice cutting through the deafening roar of the thunder. "You think you are delivering a punishment? To me, this is just another delivery of Providence."
The crimson lightning struck the mirror.
There was no explosion. No shattering of the earth.
The moment the Annihilation Lightning touched the bronze surface, the Mirror hummed with an ancient, predatory delight. The absolute rule of the Luck-Binding Mirror defied the Will of Heaven: All energy sent by Heaven is Providence. Even its wrath.
The violent, destructive force of the lightning was instantly suppressed, ground down by the void within the mirror, and converted into pure, searing white Qi Yun.
Lu Chen gasped as the purified Heavenly Wrath flooded his body. It was ten times more potent than Xue Ming's Golden Core.
Crack! Crack! Crack!
The framework of the ninth pillar in his Dantian instantly solidified. But the energy didn't stop. The white-hot providence poured into all nine pillars, fusing them together into a flawless, seamless altar of the Void.
Perfect Foundation Establishment!
The tribulation clouds roared in fury, realizing their attack had been completely absorbed. The vortex spun faster, preparing a second, deadlier strike. But before the Heavens could drop another bolt of annihilation, the canyon was bathed in an overbearing, artificial azure light.
Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh!
Twelve massive flying swords broke through the outer edges of the tribulation clouds, hovering over the rim of the canyon. Standing on them were the elite Enforcers of the Azure Cloud Sect, clad in robes of white and blue.
But they were merely the vanguard.
Descending slowly through the center of the formation, walking on empty air as if the world itself were eager to hold his weight, was a young man in immaculate golden-trimmed robes. His eyes were like twin stars, and an eight-pillar foundation aura radiated from him, bending the natural spiritual energy around him in submission.
Fang Tianyou.
The 'Heaven-Blessed Son'.
Fang Tianyou looked down into the canyon, his gaze bypassing the tribulation clouds to lock onto the lone figure sitting amidst the glassed rock and Xue Ming's remains.
Lu Chen slowly stood up. The ninth pillar in his Dantian rotated quietly, masking his true strength. His Void Sword Intent retracted beneath his skin, making him look like an ordinary, perhaps slightly talented, mortal.
Fang Tianyou's eyes narrowed, a flicker of confusion crossing his perfectly sculpted face. "The resonance came from here. Yet, all I see is a rat hiding in the dirt. You wear the face of a stranger, but my Innate Spirit Root throbs with a strange familiarity."
Fang Tianyou raised a hand, his Sword Intent manifesting as a colossal, ethereal blade of azure light that threatened to split the canyon entirely.
"I don't know how you managed to trigger a Heavenly Tribulation, rat," Fang Tianyou said, his voice echoing with absolute authority. "But I am the Chosen of this era. Any secrets you possess, any providence you have stumbled upon... belongs to me. Kneel, and I will grant you a whole corpse."
Lu Chen looked up at the man who had ripped the talent from his body, the man who had thrown him into the Abyss.
Through the Luck-Binding Mirror, Lu Chen didn't see a Chosen One. He saw a bloated, golden piñata of stolen providence, so heavy with Heavenly Opportunities that the air around Fang Tianyou practically bled luck.
A chilling, abyssal smile spread across Lu Chen's face.
"Belongs to you?" Lu Chen said, his voice low, yet carrying perfectly up to the sky. He placed a hand on the hilt of his rusted iron sword. "Come down here and take it, thief."
The tribulation clouds rumbled overhead, trapped between the world's desire to kill Lu Chen, and Lu Chen's desire to kill its Chosen Son.