After the Great Dao Died

At this moment, through Lin Suri’s eyes.

A procession of carriages and horses slowly wound its way through Cuojin Mountain.

The caravan was massive.

At the forefront rode a cavalry troop of about a hundred men. Mounted on towering steeds, clad in silver armor, and wielding long lances, they emanated a dense, chilling blood qi as they advanced along the winding mountain path.

Behind the cavalry rolled several ornate, canopied carriages. Their gold-lacquered bodies and the beaded tassels draped from their roofs gleamed in the twilight.

Following the carriages marched several hundred infantrymen bearing flags and ceremonial regalia. The sprawling procession packed the mountain road from edge to edge.

The caravan slowly crested the mountain ridge, heading straight toward Yuanjiang Prefecture.

Chen Lingxi’s heart stirred.

Such an extravagant procession. This is no ordinary official.

The thought had barely crossed his mind when disaster struck.From the cloud-wreathed peak of Cuojin Mountain, a figure stepped into the empty air.

The figure moved with blinding speed. Plummeting as if dropped straight from the clouds, he trailed a long afterimage through the gathering dusk.

He wore robes of deepest black, a long saber slung at his waist.

The blade remained sheathed, yet its chilling killing intent leaped across miles of empty air, sending a cold shiver through Chen Lingxi’s heart.

The man touched down on the path ahead of the convoy, planted squarely in the cavalry’s way.

A ripple of commotion passed through the vanguard. The lead commander raised his long lance, opening his mouth to demand the stranger’s purpose—

But the man in black had already drawn his saber!

The saber’s flash was blindingly bright.

So bright that, for an instant, Chen Lingxi’s entire world washed out in stark white!

It was like a cascade of silver silk crashing down from the highest heavens, sweeping across the sky and cleaving the twilight in two.

The very air tore apart in the saber’s wake, unleashing a piercing shriek. It wasn’t a single noise, but a cascading, overlapping howl that sounded like thousands of men screaming in unison.

The leading dozen riders—both men and mounts—were instantly pulverized by the sweeping light.

Blood and flesh exploded outward. Silver armor shattered, and the long lances snapped into splintered lengths, clattering uselessly against the stone.

How can his blood qi be this overwhelmingly tyrannical?

Chen Lingxi stared in shock.

Only then did the rest of the cavalry react. Some men reined their steeds backward in a panic, while others thrust their lances and charged. The formation instantly disintegrated into chaos.

But the swordsman was already moving.

He weaved through the throng like a phantom. With every step he took, his saber lashed out.

His strikes weren’t complex. In fact, they were brutally simple—a slash, a chop, an upward sweep, a horizontal drag.

Yet every single blow carried the terrifying, catastrophic force to topple city walls.

Silver armor parted like wet paper, and iron lances snapped like dead twigs. The cavalrymen were swallowed by the flashing blade before they could even scream.

In the span of just a few breaths, the hundred-strong cavalry troop was all but annihilated.

Panicked cries erupted from the canopied carriages.

”Assassins!”

”Protect His Highness! Protect His Highness!”

”Quick, call the royal consecrates!”

Protect His Highness.

Chen Lingxi’s heart seized at the words.

Just what sort of imperial royalty was sitting inside that carriage?

He had no time to ponder.

The swordsman had already butchered his way through the cavalry and was lunging straight for the main ornate carriage.

Just then...

A streak of iridescent light pierced the distant horizon!

It arrived with staggering speed, crossing hundreds of miles in a flash. Plunging from the clouds like a solid rainbow, it appeared above Cuojin Mountain in an instant.

Within that iridescent streak was a human figure.

Their features were entirely obscured by the blinding light, leaving only the vague silhouette of a flowing dress and a token hanging at their waist.

Interwoven within that iridescent glow was a streak of pure, true light.

Unlike the rainbow aura, this true light was a pure, searing white. It blazed as brilliantly as the noonday sun, so radiant it hurt the eyes to look upon.

Separating from the iridescent aura, the white light coalesced into a sharp blade and slashed straight at the swordsman.

The man sneered.

”So the imperial palace really is infested with otherworldly demons?”

He flipped his saber and brought it crashing down against the descending ray of true light.

”Boom—”

The instant the two forces collided, a blinding sphere of light detonated on the mountain pass.

A massive shockwave swept outward, uprooting the trees on either side of the road and sending crushed stone ripping through the air like shrapnel.

The searing white light shuddered under the saber’s force, but it didn’t shatter. Instead, it flared even brighter—as if infuriated—and surged forward to entangle the swordsman.

The swordsman unleashed a flurry of strikes. Every blow collided with the true light, sparking chain explosions that lit up the mountain.

The road was obliterated. Rubble blanketed the ground, splintered trees lay scattered, and the charred earth smoked.

Several breaths later, the swordsman suddenly sheathed his blade and darted dozens of feet backward.

He shot a glance at the iridescent figure in the sky, then at the ornate carriage, and let out a cold snort.

”I will take your life another day.”

With that, he turned to leave.

At that exact moment, the curtain of the main carriage was thrown open.

A young man stepped out.

He appeared to be twenty-one or two, possessing a handsome, jade-like complexion. He wore a bright yellow brocade robe bound by a white jade belt, and a purple-gold crown rested atop his head.

His face was deathly pale, a thin trickle of blood staining his lips. Clearly, the shockwave from the swordsman’s initial strike had already injured him.

Yet his eyes were exceptionally composed. There was not a shred of panic in his gaze.

In his hand, he held a Treasure Bottle.

The bottle was barely the size of a palm, forged from a translucent, lustrous white material that shimmered with an inner, flowing light.

The youth raised the Treasure Bottle high above his head and lightly tossed it.

The bottle left his hand and hovered in midair, its mouth tilting downward.

And then—

A torrential stream of purple treasure aura erupted from the bottle!

The purple aura was so dense it was nearly physical. Like a majestic purple waterfall cascading from the heavens, it dyed half the sky in brilliant hues of violet and gold.

Lightning sparked and crackled deep within the churning violet mist.

The swordsman froze in his tracks.

Turning back, he stared at the descending purple aura, his brows knitting together.

The purple treasure aura was already sweeping toward him.

The aura was unfathomably sharp. As it swept through the air, it shredded the space around it, leaving behind a sprawling web of fissures that made the void look like a shattered mirror.

The swordsman brought up his blade to block.

His saber met the purple aura, but this time, the result was entirely different.

The aura didn’t shatter. Instead, acting like a living entity, it coiled tightly around the man’s blade.

His expression shifted. He furiously slashed several times in succession, landing every blow against the purple aura. But his frantic strikes only caused the aura to ripple; they couldn’t sever it.

The purple aura pulled tighter. Surging from all directions, it converged and trapped the swordsman in the center.

With a low roar, the man channeled his power, causing his long saber to erupt with blinding silver light.

He slashed outward, pouring every last ounce of his strength into the blow.

When the silver edge met the purple aura, a cataclysmic boom echoed through the valley, loud enough to shatter the heavens.

The purple aura was finally ripped open.

The entire purple aura snapped in half, shattering into countless fragments that rained down across the wilderness.

Some fragments were the size of a fist; others were as small as grains of rice. They glimmered with a ghostly violet light in the dusk, drifting down toward the earth like a storm of purple fireflies.

The youth’s face instantly went ashen. He coughed up a violent spray of blood, swayed on his feet, and collapsed backward.

His attendants hurriedly caught him as panicked cries erupted around them.

The swordsman didn’t linger. Melting into a streak of black shadow, he vanished into the dusk in an instant.

Cuojin Mountain fell silent, leaving only a massacre of corpses, shattered carriages, scorched earth, and the fading glow of purple fragments scattered across the hillside.

Chen Lingxi stared in stunned disbelief.

That purple treasure aura... it was too powerful.

Powerful enough to pin down a man who could slaughter a hundred cavalrymen with a single stroke. Powerful enough that the swordsman had to burn every drop of his strength just to barely break free.

And that Treasure Bottle... that youth... that purple aura...

A faint suspicion took root in his mind.

He must be an incredibly important figure.

He muttered under his breath.

The swordsman had struck without warning and vanished just as fast.

But it was his parting words that lingered in Chen Lingxi’s mind: ”The imperial palace really is infested with otherworldly demons.”

Otherworldly demons.

What other world?

And what demons?

Then there was the iridescent figure, the blinding true light they wielded, the swordsman himself...

Chen Lingxi felt his mind spinning, struggling to process it all.

Suddenly, Lin Suri’s gaze snapped back. The vision of Cuojin Mountain vanished, replaced by the familiar exterior of the East Hall in the South Courtyard!

The golden radiance in Lin Suri’s left eye had completely faded. The wisps of green smoke—the remnant of the burning wooden eye—had seamlessly merged with his pupil.

He stood with his hands clasped behind his back, gazing in the direction of Cuojin Mountain. The corners of his mouth tilted upward.

It was a faint smile, yet it carried an unmistakable, barely contained thrill of excitement!

”A supreme opportunity!” he murmured.

He paced around the room. His steps were brisk and energized, completely stripping away the solemn, brooding veneer he usually wore as the eldest young master of the Marquis’s estate.

Stepping up to his desk, he picked up a bronze Incense Burner.

It was an Incense Burner Chen Lingxi had seen countless times before, forged of bronze and cast with a raised, ghastly face. A single stick of incense rested at an angle inside it.

But this time, he didn’t light the incense.

Cradling the Incense Burner in his hands, he closed his eyes in deep concentration. The spiritual qi in his dantian began to cycle, flowing steadily through his palms and pouring straight into the bronze vessel.

The moment the spiritual qi entered the Incense Burner, Chen Lingxi witnessed something impossible.

The injected qi didn’t dissipate. Instead, it writhed and shifted inside the Incense Burner. It clumped into dense spheres, stretched into razor-thin threads, and folded over itself like sheets of silk.

It constantly broke apart and rearranged, gradually taking on intricate shapes.

Thirteen distinct shapes, to be exact.

These constructs were exceedingly complex. Some resembled twisting serpents or coiled vines; others looked like intersecting bolts of lightning or overlapping mountain peaks.

Just like...

[Talismanic Seals].

Chen Lingxi suddenly remembered the three Talismanic Seals Lin Suri had drawn in the air beside Yuanjiang that night—one gold, one silver, and one black.

These thirteen hovering shapes shared the exact same fundamental structure as those three seals, only they were vastly more complex and exquisitely crafted.

Chen Lingxi stared unblinkingly, burning the precise pathways of the circulating spiritual qi into his memory.

The qi-constructed Talismanic Seals slowly rotated within the vessel, creating a bizarre resonance with the bronze walls of the Incense Burner.

The Incense Burner began to vibrate, letting out a faint hum.

Then, the stick of unlit incense began to melt.

Starting from the very tip, it crumbled into ash speck by speck, as if an invisible hand were slowly grinding it away.

The ash drifted down to the bottom of the Incense Burner, mingling with the ethereal Talismanic Seals and the circulating spiritual qi. Slowly, the mixture liquefied into a thick, dark gold slurry.

The heavy liquid swirled at the bottom of the Incense Burner, flowing like liquid mercury.

Suddenly, Lin Suri bit down hard on the tip of his tongue and spat a mouthful of blood straight into the Incense Burner.

The dark gold slurry absorbed the fresh blood in an instant. The mixture began to boil, popping with tiny bubbles.

Smoke wafted upward from the vessel.

The mist pooled in the air just above the Incense Burner, refusing to dissipate.

Lin Suri flared his spiritual qi once more, forcing the floating mist to slowly contract and sink back into the Incense Burner.

Cradling the Incense Burner, he rose to his feet.

”A supreme opportunity!”

His eyes shone with a brilliant light as he repeated the words.

He threw open the doors of the East Hall and strode toward the estate’s exit.

Chen Lingxi’s consciousness pursued his silhouette, passing through the winding corridors, through the side gates, and stepping onto the long street outside the estate.

And then—

The Vision Wander shattered.

Lin Suri had walked beyond the range of the Divine Chamber.