The sky above Cloud Peak was no longer a sky. It was a shattered mirror of reality, bleeding raw chaotic energy as the Ancient Sword Tomb collapsed inward. Amidst the swirling vortex of destruction, Lu Chen floated like a dark god. Arcs of pitch-black lightning—the residual fury of the Extermination Decree—danced across his skin, eagerly devoured by the newly formed Void Core spinning within his dantian.
He had done it. He had plundered the very envy of the Heavens to forge a core that should not exist.
Beneath him, Sect Master Fang hovered, his Nascent Soul aura flaring like an azure sun. The older man's eyes were bloodshot, his elegant robes torn by the ambient spatial winds. His son's providence was shattered, his sect's legendary tomb was crumbling, and the culprit was a mere Inner Disciple bathed in forbidden tribulation.
"Chen Lu!" Sect Master Fang's roar shattered the sound barrier, sending shockwaves that leveled the remaining pavilions on Cloud Peak. "You have severed the destiny of the Azure Cloud! I will grind your soul into the Abyss!"
Fang thrust his palm upward. The world's spiritual energy forcibly condensed, forming a colossal azure hand a thousand feet wide. It blotted out the remaining light, carrying the crushing weight of a Nascent Soul cultivator's unbridled wrath.
Lu Chen did not flinch. He gripped the hilt of the Severing Edge, his stolen Sovereign sword. His Void Core pulsed, radiating a suffocating emptiness. Let him come, Lu Chen thought, calculating the trajectory. If I detonate the second wave of the tribulation right as his attack connects, I can use the backlash to tear open a spatial portal.
But the Heavens, it seemed, had other plans.
Before Fang's azure palm could reach Lu Chen, a blinding, oppressive golden light pierced the black tribulation clouds. A colossal astrolabe, engraved with the constellations of the Nine Provinces, materialized above the sect.
"Halt!"
A voice, amplified by profound spiritual power, resonated through the bones of every cultivator present. From the center of the golden astrolabe descended Inspector Yan, his gold-embroidered robes billowing. Behind him, twelve elite Enforcers of the Imperial Bureau of Heaven moved in perfect synchronization, their auras linking to form an impenetrable wall of law.
Inspector Yan's gaze bypassed Sect Master Fang entirely, locking onto Lu Chen. The Inspector's Heavenly Fate Compass was spinning violently, cracking under the strain of reading Lu Chen's aura.
"The Extermination Decree... The complete absence of personal providence..." Yan's voice trembled, a mixture of terror and fanaticism. "The prophecy is true. The Sovereign of the Void has manifested!"
Sect Master Fang's attack faltered, the azure hand dissipating into mist. "Inspector Yan! This demon destroyed my sect's foundation! Stand aside and let me execute him!"
"Silence, Fang!" Yan snapped, his gaze never leaving Lu Chen. "Your petty sect grievances are meaningless. This heretic threatens the providence of the entire Great Azure Realm. By decree of the Imperial Bureau, this region is now under absolute lockdown!"
Yan raised a hand. "Deploy the Heaven-Sealing Net! No one enters. No one leaves. Even a mosquito must be stripped of its destiny!"
At his command, the twelve Enforcers threw out heavy, golden cylinders. The artifacts exploded into eight towering pillars of light that slammed into the edges of the Azure Cloud mountain range. Instantly, golden threads of concentrated Qi Yun shot out from the pillars, weaving together to form a suffocating, inescapable dome over the entire region.
Lu Chen activated his Destiny Sight. Through the Luck-Binding Mirror's power, his vision shifted. He saw the golden threads not just as light, but as pure, extracted luck. The Bureau was burning the accumulated providence of millions of mortals to seal the space. It was a cage of absolute cosmic law. The spatial fissures left by the collapsing tomb were forcibly stitched shut. The air grew dense, feeling like liquid mercury in Lu Chen's lungs.
He was trapped. Behind him, the Heaven-Sealing Net. Below him, an enraged Nascent Soul expert. Above him, the Imperial Bureau and the looming second strike of the Black Heavenly Tribulation.
Checkmate? Lu Chen's lips curled into a cold sneer. Hardly.
Thunder boomed. The second bolt of the Extermination Decree fell—a thick, jagged pillar of absolute annihilation.
Instead of absorbing it, Lu Chen channeled the entirety of his Void Core's power into the Severing Edge. He swung the legendary blade upward, batting the black lightning like a physical object. He redirected the world-ending bolt directly into the golden canopy of the Heaven-Sealing Net.
The collision was apocalyptic.
Black and gold energy exploded, sending a shockwave that flattened the surrounding peaks. Three of the Gold-Robed Enforcers coughed up blood, their arrays wavering. Yet, the golden net held. It rippled violently, shedding sparks of pure luck, but the absolute law of the Imperial Bureau refused to break.
"Foolish!" Inspector Yan sneered, wiping a trickle of blood from his own chin. "The Heaven-Sealing Net is powered by the Imperial Dragon Vein! A mere nascent Void Sovereign cannot break it. Surrender your stolen luck, heretic, and we may grant your soul a swift dissolution!"
Lu Chen's breathing grew ragged. His Void Core ached, hollowed out by the sheer force of redirecting the tribulation. He needed to consolidate his cultivation, not fight a war of attrition against the continent's superpower.
Down below, amidst the chaos of fleeing Azure Cloud disciples, a single figure stood perfectly still.
Ye Xiyue.
The Saintess of the Fallen Moon Palace watched the sky, her white robes untouched by the dust and debris. Her silver hair cascaded down her back, and her eyes—usually pools of placid indifference—were entirely focused on Lu Chen.
Inside her chest, her Heart of the Sword beat in a rhythmic, agonizing cadence. It resonated with the natural order of the world, and right now, the world was screaming in pain. The Imperial Bureau's forced lockdown was a tyrannical violation of the Heavens' natural flow. And Lu Chen... Lu Chen was the abyss that could swallow it all.
He is a monster, she thought, her grip tightening on the hilt of her slender blade, Lunar Frost. He steals the destiny of others to pave his own path. He is the antithesis of everything the Fallen Moon Palace stands for.
Yet, as she looked at Inspector Yan's arrogant sneer, she felt a profound disgust. The Bureau hoarded the world's luck, condemning generations to the Age of Fading Providence, all under the guise of 'righteousness'. If the Bureau captured the Sovereign of the Void, they would weaponize him. The Nine Provinces would never recover.
Besides, she rationalized, a faint, imperceptible smirk touching her lips, I want to see how high this thief can fly before he burns.
Ye Xiyue drew *Lunar Frost. The blade was so thin it was nearly transparent, radiating a cold, ethereal moonlight.
"Fallen Moon Secret Art..." she whispered, her voice carrying only to the wind. "Severing the Mundane."
She didn't aim at Inspector Yan. She didn't aim at Sect Master Fang. She aimed at the space directly behind Lu Chen, right where the Heaven-Sealing Net intersected with a spatial scar left by the destroyed Sword Tomb.
To the naked eye, she merely swung her sword at empty air. But to Lu Chen, whose *Destiny Sight* was still active, it was a masterpiece of martial perfection.
A crescent wave of absolute, unadulterated Sword Intent sailed upward. It didn't carry overwhelming destructive power; instead, it carried the ultimate truth of *severing*. It slipped past Sect Master Fang's aura, bypassed the Enforcers' senses, and struck the exact, microscopic node where the golden threads of the Bureau's net were knotted over the spatial rift.
Snip.
The sound was soft, like a silk thread breaking.
The impenetrable Heaven-Sealing Net shuddered. Right behind Lu Chen, a silver fissure, no wider than a doorway, tore open in the golden dome. Beyond it lay the chaotic, swirling void of displaced space.
Inspector Yan's eyes bulged. "What?! The array node! Who dares?!"
Lu Chen's gaze snapped downward, instantly locking onto Ye Xiyue. She had already sheathed her sword, her expression entirely neutral as she blended into the retreating crowd of disciples.
Suddenly, her voice echoed directly in his mind, crisp and chillingly clear.
"Go. You owe me a life, Chen Lu—or whoever you truly are. Do not die before I come to collect my debt."
Lu Chen didn't waste a microsecond. The silver fissure was already beginning to close as the golden net healed itself.
"Fang! Yan!" Lu Chen laughed, his voice laced with the terrifying resonance of the Void. "Keep the remaining luck of this mountain warm for me. I'll be back for it!"
He threw himself backward into the silver rift.
"Stop him!" Inspector Yan roared, diving forward with his astrolabe.
Sect Master Fang ignored the Inspector, launching himself toward the rift with a primal scream. "Die!"
But the Heavens intervened. The third bolt of the Black Tribulation—massive, blinding, and absolute—crashed down. Since Lu Chen was slipping out of the realm's immediate spatial frequency, the Extermination Decree locked onto the next highest source of energy interfering with the target: Sect Master Fang and the golden array.
The black lightning engulfed the Nascent Soul cultivator and the Imperial Enforcers in a catastrophic explosion of dark energy.
As the blinding light consumed the peak, the silver fissure snapped shut. Lu Chen was gone.
***
Space tore open like a bleeding wound over a canopy of suffocating crimson.
Lu Chen was violently violently spat out of the void. He plummeted through thick, jagged branches that looked like petrified veins, crashing into the damp, rotting earth below.
He rolled to a stop, violently coughing up a mouthful of black blood. The spatial transition had been brutal, and his newly formed Void Core was spinning erratically, threatening to crack his dantian open.
Gasping for air, he forced himself into a lotus position. He channeled the *Void Sword Intent*, forcing his raging Qi into submission. Slowly, the dark core stabilized, humming with a terrifying, heavy silence. He had survived. He had successfully broken through to the Golden Core realm, achieving the impossible Void Core, and escaped both a Nascent Soul powerhouse and the Imperial Bureau.
He opened his eyes, taking in his surroundings. The trees here were massive, their bark a deep, weeping red. The spiritual energy in the air was thick, feral, and deeply toxic.
"The Bloodwood Expanse," Lu Chen muttered, recognizing the geography. He had been thrown thousands of miles away from the Azure Cloud Sect, landing in the treacherous borderlands known as the Myriad Beast Barrens.
It was a lawless zone, untouched by the Imperial Bureau, making it the perfect place to hide and consolidate his strength.
He reached into his robes and pulled out the Luck-Binding Mirror. The surface was hot to the touch. He wanted to check his own status and see if any lingering karmic threads from Fang Tianyou or the Bureau had followed him.
He wiped the glass.
Lu Chen froze.
Usually, the mirror displayed the golden streams of providence in the environment, or the dull grey of misfortune. Right now, the entire surface of the mirror was drowning in a blinding, crimson light. It was a thread of Qi Yun so massive, so ancient, and so violently blood-red that it dwarfed even the combined luck of the Azure Cloud Sect.
And the reflection showed that this crimson sun wasn't in the distance.
It was standing directly behind him.
"Well, well," a raspy, echoing voice chuckled from the shadows of the blood-red trees, carrying a pressure that made the air itself scream. "The Heavens cast out a tasty little morsel right into my garden. Tell me, little thief... how do you taste?"