The Dao Tree was too terrifying. Fragments of the Builder Tree had regrown for a second life, but they’d been controlled by a terrible resentment. After absorbing the strength of the heavenly vein, it’d grown for another hundred million years and now drew off the immortal dao.

The Dao Tree was the singular most terrifying thing in the world at the moment, even more dreadful than Leize of the great wilderness!

The immortal dao residing in Mount Xuanhuan barreled out of the mountain and assimilated into Lu Yun’s replica, becoming one with Xing Chen. The body of the world swiftly blended with the immortal dao, becoming a body of the immortal dao.

Lu Yun could tell from this sight that his replica wouldn't belong to him anymore after this battle. The time had finally come to give it up.

All of Mount Xuanhuang trembled ferociously as rays of bronze radiance erupted from the bronze core of the mountain, forming a true world of its own. It encompassed the mountain and was a world of the immortal dao, a place where the strength of the immortal dao could be unleashed in its fullest glory.

Gray flames shot into the clouds from the branches of the Dao Tree and set the akasha souls afire. That instantly restored their original strength and reverted them to barely perceptible shadows. They swiftly gathered in the void, forming the figure of an enormous akasha ghost. Bleak howls and desolate wails echoed through the air while a myriad of ghostly faces took shape in the sky, dyeing the world of immortal dao with an eerie and sinister air.

Beings in other parts of the world of immortals looked to Mount Xuanhuang, horror prickling at their hearts. It wasn’t until this moment that they finally understood why Lu Yun and Qing Yu had had to seal away the Dao Tree.

Instead of being the sacred tree of their cultivation, it was a demonic one!

……

Ling Weiyang’s soul force had long been returned to Ashu’s body—he stood in the middle of the Dao Academy at the moment, silently watching everything taking place upon the sacred mountain. Though he’d regained his sense of self, he had yet to recover his old strength.

“So he’s the Flame Emperor… the karma between me and the legendary emperor manifests now, but its cause lies in the past,” he murmured to himself.

Holy Kings Atrophy, Antiquity, Desolation, and Violetshade walked out of the underworld together, descending upon Dusk Province in a mighty formation and surrounding the world of immortal dao that Mount Xuanhuang had created.

Up in the void, a sword cauldron, sword bell, and… a sword-shaped pagoda slowly drifted down, likewise protecting this world.

The Sugato Sword had returned to its roots of being a sword pagoda, and so Lu Yun returned it to the Green Firmament. He’d made use of it for the past twenty decades to return to his prime, and he now finally understood where the three Firmaments came from.

When he’d deployed the Dragonspike Litany upon Kunlun Mountain, he’d preserved a trace of fortune for the connate demon gods. These three Firmaments were the last of the celestial court legacy.

Some of the demon gods had grasped the chance he left for them and successfully wrestled their fates free of disaster from the Death Spike. However, they’d still fallen to the cataclysm at the end of the era, and the Firmaments were their legacies.

The sword pagoda, bell, and cauldron were derived from the three treasures of the primitive great dao, and they likely had the Yellow Emperor to thank for being related to swords. The three prodigious weapons arrayed themselves in an enormous triangle and surrounded Mount Xuanhuang.

Of course, even the four holy kings of the underworld didn’t have the right to be involved in this fight. What they could do was to protect the sacred mountain and ensure that the Dao Tree wouldn’t destroy the world that the mountain had created.

……

“So you didn’t die, but purposefully let the three founders of immortal dao cut you down!” Color drained from Lu Yun’s face to see ghostly faces melt together within the void. This all seemed like a dream. The enormous akasha ghost in the sky was the one that’d been in Pangu’s tomb!

On his way back to his time, Lu Yun had seen the three founders of the immortal dao cut it down with his own eyes. When he saw it bubble up from the Dao Tree, he immediately realized what the akasha ghost had been plotting.

It was so strong that it’d dared to latch on to even the great god Pangu’s body. How would Hongjun’s three disciples—the three founders—have the strength to exterminate it? Instead, it’d used their hand to integrate into the immortal dao.

As strong as the Dao Tree was with the fragments of the Builder Tree and Kunlun’s heavenly vein, it couldn’t become a parasite of the immortal dao. However, the akasha ghost had used the founders to exit the stage and create a backdoor into the newly-established immortal dao to facilitate its entry.

The Dao Tree had sunk teeth into the immortal dao because of this akasha ghost and successfully replaced the dao immortal realm. It continuously fed off the immortal dao and even dictated the lives of those beneath it.

The immortal dao was a perfect great dao that shouldered this realm, but the living beings under it had never broken through the three purities realm to reach empyrean realm, much less chaos realm. All of that could be attributed to the Dao Tree.

With the akasha ghost overlaid on the tree, their combined strength shook Mount Xuanhuang and tore ugly cracks through the bronze landmass.

“Creator realm?” Lu Yun looked warily at the ghost and tree combination.

His ten Yama Kings had returned to hell. Though they rivaled the old Great Emperor of the Eastern Peak since they controlled the path of reincarnation, they were too weak since they were mere peak peerless immortals. They wouldn’t be of any help if they stayed, other than to be negligible cannon fodder.

Pure white curtains of light cascaded from the heavenly palace over Qing Yu’s head, protecting its mistress. A scroll as if a white cloud bank revolved outside the shifting radiance—the Scroll of Shepherding Immortals. Fuxi had drawn it with the core essence of God and depicted the core essence of divine spirits on it.

This treasure had the ability to counter akasha ghosts, but the one before them was too strong since it was nearly a creator. If it’d been Fuxi or Leize wielding the scroll, it would be able to firmly suppress the akasha ghost.

But in Qing Yu’s hands, she could barely manage to defend herself. Unfortunately, she couldn’t leave. Once Lu Yun destroyed the Dao Tree, she would have to immediately re-sculpt the dao immortal realm.