Lu Chen fled the Azure Cloud Sect's inner perimeter, his boots barely skimming the jagged, blood-colored rocks of the Whispering Canyon. Behind him, the towering peaks of the sect were shrouded in an unnatural, suffocating silence. The air around him was dead, stripped entirely of its ambient spiritual energy. Inside his dantian, the power of a Peak Foundation Establishment cultivator roared like a caged, primordial dragon. He had drained the Spirit Spring completely dry. Every last drop of the mountain's century-old ley line essence had been devoured by the Luck-Binding Mirror, forcibly expanding his meridians and solidifying his stolen providence.
He felt invincible, a god walking among mortals. But victory in the Age of Fading Providence always came with a terrifying cost.
Deep within the center of his chest, a phantom agony suddenly throbbed. It was a visceral, tearing tug that bypassed flesh and bone, striking directly at his soul. The stolen Innate Spirit Root. Fang Tianyou had failed his breakthrough because the ley line was starved, and in his enraged desperation, the connection between the stolen root and its original master had violently flared to life. Fang was tracking the resonance.
Lu Chen's eyes narrowed, his breath frosting in the suddenly cold air. He needed to leave the canyon, loop back into the sprawling metropolis of Cloud Edge City, and lose his spiritual signature among the millions of mortals.
Before he could take another step, the temperature in the canyon plummeted to an absolute zero.
The shadows cast by the craggy rocks elongated, freezing into jagged shards of black ice. The midday mist above seemed to fracture, bending unnaturally as a figure stepped out from a distortion in space.
Ye Xiyue.
She stood blocking the narrowest pass of the canyon. The Saintess of the Fallen Moon Palace wore a dress of pristine white, her flawless features illuminated by a pale, ethereal glow that rivaled the moon itself. Yet, there was no warmth in her eyes. Her slender hand rested casually on the jade hilt of her spirit sword. Around her, the world seemed to hold its breath, bending to the sheer perfection of her cultivation.
"You run fast for an Outer Sect promotee," Ye Xiyue's voice echoed, sharp and melodious, cutting through the canyon's dead silence.
Lu Chen immediately dropped his posture, adopting the panicked, slightly clumsy demeanor of 'Chen Lu'. He stumbled backward, his hand fumbling for his standard-issue Azure Cloud sword. "Senior Sister Ye! You startled me. The canyon is strictly forbidden during the day, I was just trying to find an herb for Elder Mo's—"
"Stop."
The single word carried a heavy, suffocating weight. It wasn't directed at his physical body, but at his mind. The legendary 'Heart of the Sword' technique. Lu Chen felt the Luck-Binding Mirror in his dantian vibrate defensively, projecting a shroud of dark energy as her aura tried to probe his fate.
"Drop the act, Lu Chen," she said, her voice dropping to a glacial whisper. "Or should I call you the Sovereign of the Void?"
Lu Chen froze. The clumsy panic vanished from his face instantly, replaced by a cold, calculating stillness. He didn't confirm or deny the name. He simply stood up straight, his presence shifting from a bumbling disciple to an apex predator. The Void Sword Intent bled into the air around him, a pitch-black energy that silently erased the frost she had conjured.
"You play the fool flawlessly," Ye Xiyue continued, taking a slow, deliberate step forward. "You fooled Inspector Zhao. You fooled Lin Mengyao. You even fooled Fang Tianyou in the tournament arena by transferring your misfortune. But you cannot fool the Heart of the Sword. I saw what you did at the Spirit Spring. I felt the ley line die."
"And what exactly did I do, Senior Sister?" Lu Chen asked, his voice entirely devoid of emotion, a stark contrast to the raging power in his veins.
"You didn't absorb the energy. You consumed its destiny," Ye Xiyue replied, her knuckles whitening on her hilt. "Normal cultivation leaves a trace. A footprint in the natural order. When a cultivator takes from the world, they eventually return it upon death. But you? Where you walk, providence disappears entirely. You are creating a 'Luck Hole' in the Eastern Province. A wound in the Heavens that cannot heal."
Lu Chen's eyes flicked to the air above her head. Through the unseen lens of the Luck-Binding Mirror, Ye Xiyue's Qi Yun was a blinding pillar of sapphire and silver, a towering monument of destiny. She was heavily favored by the Heavens. Killing her would yield unimaginable fortune, but the backlash from the world—the Heavenly Retribution—would be catastrophic. She was not a minor genius he could easily swallow.
"If you intend to execute me for crimes against the Heavens, Senior Sister, you should have brought the Inner Sect Elders," Lu Chen said, his hand casually resting on his hilt, ready to draw the blood-iron sword he had stolen from Zhao Feng.
"If I wanted you dead, I would not be standing here isolating our presence from the Azure Cloud Sect," Ye Xiyue countered. She didn't draw her blade, but her aura grew infinitely denser, forming a dome of starlight over the canyon. "I am here to warn you. You are not who you say you are, and your reckless gluttony has triggered alarms far beyond this dying, corrupt sect."
Lu Chen raised an eyebrow, genuinely intrigued. "The Imperial Bureau of Heaven."
"They know," Ye Xiyue confirmed, her eyes reflecting a complex mix of fear and morbid fascination. "The massive evaporation of providence in the Spirit Spring was the final catalyst. The Golden Astrolabes in the Imperial Capital are spinning backward. They are no longer sending mere Inspectors like Zhao. The Bureau has dispatched a Gold-Robed Enforcer. They know someone—or something—is aggressively hoarding the province's finite luck."
"And you came to tell me this out of the goodness of your heart?" Lu Chen scoffed, a dark amusement coloring his tone. "A Saintess of the Fallen Moon Palace, aiding an abomination?"
"I came because the Great Azure Realm is dying, and Fang Tianyou is a parasite hastening its death," she said, her voice laced with a rare, potent venom. "The Azure Cloud Sect believes him to be the prophesied Heaven-Blessed Son. But my Heart of the Sword sees the truth. His golden aura is built on rotting corpses, stolen talent, and forbidden blood magic. He is a fraud. The Heavens are blind, and they have crowned a thief."
She locked eyes with Lu Chen, stepping within striking distance. "But you... you are a Void. Ancient texts from the Great Celestial Sunder speak of your kind. You hold no luck of your own, yet you swallow the destiny of others. You are not a savior, Lu Chen. You are a cataclysm. I am warning you because if the Imperial Bureau finds you, they will use your Void to permanently mend the Heavens by sacrificing the entire Eastern Province."
"Let them try," Lu Chen whispered, his Void Sword Intent swirling around his boots like black smoke. "I was thrown into the Abyss. The Heavens abandoned me. If I must devour the entire Great Azure Realm to take back what is mine, I will do so without hesitation."
Before Ye Xiyue could respond to his terrifying declaration, a violent, tearing spasm ripped through Lu Chen's chest.
He stumbled, coughing a speck of black blood as the phantom pain exploded into an unbearable agony. The Luck-Binding Mirror spun wildly in his dantian, emitting a high-pitched, ethereal shriek that only he could hear.
He's here.
The ambient spiritual pressure in the canyon didn't just rise; it crushed downward like a falling mountain. The sky above the starlight dome, previously a clear midday blue, ignited with an oppressive, sickly golden light. The very air grew heavy, thick with a nauseatingly sweet scent of concentrated providence.
Ye Xiyue looked up, her expression tightening into a mask of pure ice. "He found you. The ley line's collapse triggered a provincial lockdown..."
"No," Lu Chen gritted his teeth, wiping the blood from his chin. He stared at the golden sky, his eyes piercing through the physical realm to see the screaming, tortured souls woven into the descending providence. "It's the resonance. I interrupted his ascension. My stolen Innate Spirit Root is crying out for its true master."
"Whoever dares steal the fortune of my Azure Cloud Sect..." A voice boomed from the heavens, vibrating with an arrogant, absolute authority that made the jagged stone walls of the canyon splinter and crack. "...step into the light and face your judgment!"
Golden swords rained from the sky like a divine judgment, violently striking Ye Xiyue's spatial barrier. For a moment, the starlight held, but the sheer weight of the stolen providence backing the attack was too much. The dome shattered into a million pieces of spiritual glass. The canyon walls exploded inward, burying the surrounding paths in hundreds of tons of rubble and sealing off any avenue of escape.
From the swirling dust and blinding golden light, a detachment of thirty elite Azure Cloud Enforcers descended, completely sealing off the sky. Each one was at least at the middle stages of Foundation Establishment, their swords drawn and humming with lethal intent.
And at their center, descending slowly like a deity gracing the mortal realm, was Fang Tianyou.
He wore robes of pure gold and white, a massive halo of stolen providence radiating behind him. His eyes, burning with a furious, entitled rage, swept the shattered canyon. The moment his gaze landed on Lu Chen, the golden halo flickered violently.
For a fraction of a second, confusion crossed Fang Tianyou's flawlessly sculpted features, followed immediately by a visceral, instinctual hatred that twisted his face into a demonic sneer. Beneath his ribs, the stolen Innate Spirit Root pulsed furiously, violently reacting to the true owner standing just fifty paces away.
Fang Tianyou drew his legendary Heaven's Mandate Sword, the blade erupting with a blinding, righteous light. He pointed the glowing tip directly at Lu Chen's chest.
"I don't know how a crippled rat like you survived the Abyss of Despair, Lu Chen," Fang Tianyou sneered, his voice dropping to a lethal, carrying whisper that echoed across the dead canyon. "But I assure you, whatever miserable life you managed to scrape together in the dark... ends today. I will carve the truth out of your spine."
Lu Chen stood entirely still. The burning pain in his chest faded, suppressed by an absolute, freezing calm. The Void Sword Intent leaked completely from his pores, turning the swirling dust around him into absolute nothingness.
He looked at the man who had ruined his life, the man parading around with his talent, his destiny, and his future.
Lu Chen smiled. It was a smile completely devoid of light, a smile that made even the elite Enforcers involuntarily take a step back.
"Come take it, Fang Tianyou."