Yuan Tong was the silverback gorilla that’d fought by Lu Yun’s side at the last Sovereign Rankings; he was a disciple of the academy now.

His strength had leapt forward after setting foot on the path of immortality from the void realm, and he was now a peak peerless immortal. After comprehending the dao immortal realm, he only needed to enter the cosmos to pluck his cosmic dao fruit to break through once again.

This Prince Lu Fuyao of the Qingfu Nation, however, was a bonafide dao immortal. A star rested within his body, constantly releasing vast and magnificent energy. He’d almost formed a world with just a casual wave alone.

The dao immortal realm now wasn’t what it’d once been. After Lu Yun and Qing Yu’s joint repairs, it’d been reborn with some changes to it.

It’d once possessed three realms—aether, arcane, and origin dao immortal. With the destruction of the Dao Tree, those dao fruits no longer existed. The path of ascension now was to enter space, locate the star most compatible with the immortal, and refine it into a dao fruit. One would continue to rise through the cultivation realms if they continued to refine this dao fruit. There was no need to enter the cosmos a second time.

The dao immortal realm had been repartitioned into four levels—High Immortal of the Great Firmament, Golden Immortal of Grand Unity, Arcane Immortal of Nine Heavens, and Supreme Immortal of Original Order!

These four were stronger than the previous three realms and melded perfectly with the void realm. The internal world within void-ascended immortals was an impeccable match with the cosmic dao fruits, and the two would come together as an almost tangible world.

High Immortal of the Great Firmament was a realm almost on par with the previous peak arcane void-ascended dao immortal. Lu Fuyao was a peak high immortal, placing him a single step below a Golden Immortal of Grand Unity. How could an insignificant peerless immortal like Yuan Tong put up any fight against him?

The silverback gorilla crumbled into dust at almost the same time with his metal club.

“Senior brother!!” Monster spirit disciples of the Dao Academy wailed when they saw Yuan Tong die. “You will die for killing my senior brother!”

These monster spirit disciples hailed from Levitating Island to begin with and were on an excursion back home to search for great tombs and treasures hidden within the North Sea. Such was the mission of tempering and trial that the Dao Academy had given them.

They’d only just set foot on the floating island when they heard uncouth jeering and insults in the perimeter outside. Hot-headed Yuan Tong quickly lost his temper and charged back out.

No one had imagined that he’d die after one quick move.

Grief and rage gripped the other academy disciples, but they’d also clearly assessed the enemy’s strength. Prince Lu Fuyao wasn’t the strongest of the group, but even he’d snuffed out Yuan Tong with a single finger.

“Heh, heh. Now aren’t those two who dare call themselves monster spirit ancestors the strong and silent type… In that case, this prince will kill a few more!” Lu Fuyao smirked to see no response from Levitating Island. He stretched out his finger again and pointed at the dozen remaining academy disciples.

They were both academy disciples and subjects of Levitating Island. However, there was no reaction forthcoming from the monster spirit sacred land, as if it didn’t care about its own dying on the front doorstep.

Boom!

Nearby seawater suddenly exploded and formed an enormous giant of water in the air. It punched out and scattered Lu Fuyao’s point, then froze as a man with white hair dressed in white robes walked out. He glared frostily at the Qingfu party and flared his aura—he was a Golden Immortal of Grand Unity!

“Senior Wellspring!” The academy disciples turned to him like a drowning man floundering for a log of wood. “They killed Senior Yuan Tong!”

Wellspring was one of the fiends originally from the Skandha Range. He’d once protected Lu Yun in the North Sea and had joined the Dao Academy to be one of the guardians of demonic dao. Born of connate water energy, he would’ve had a chance to become a connate demon god in the era before the immortal dao. But upon the immortal dao’s establishment, no further connate demon gods were born in the world.

That didn’t diminish his strength in the least. Though he was in the second level of the new dao immortal realm, he was one of the greatest among his peers.

“How dare you kill an academy disciple for no reason?! No matter who you are, you will die for this transgression!” roared Wellspring, blasting piercingly cold air from his figure and freezing a layer of frost over the nearby waters and Levitating Island behind him.

“Academy disciple? Is that supposed to be worth anything?” No regret appeared in Lu Fuyao’s face when he heard that the silverback gorilla had been a member of the Dao Academy. In fact, his expression twisted with momentarily satiated bloodlust. “Killing one is the same as killing them all… Go!”

He stepped back as his three guards—also Golden Immortals of Grand Unity—leered and swooped down on Wellspring.

They were monster spirits, the purest of their race who’d once created an unparalleled nation only for their kind. Primal savagery marked their moves; they had no intention of meeting Wellspring one-on-one in a fair fight.

“All of you, stick close to me.” Wellspring didn’t panic to see the enemy come at him from three different directions. He grasped at empty air, forming a trident of frost from the layers of ice beneath him and beckoning it into his hands.

CRACKLE!

The frozen sea broke apart into a million icy shards. The trident directed them into a tornado of frost that churned toward the three Golden Immortals of Grand Unity.

“Three feral animals dare show their claws in front of me?! Die!!” Wellspring was a great demon who’d once turned the North Sea court upside down! Though there was a bounty on his head, he’d lived through life as carefree as could be.

Now that he’d joined the Dao Academy and practiced its cultivation methods, his strength was head and shoulders above his former capabilities. In his eyes, though these three monster spirits were very strong, they were just wild strays. He wouldn’t be afraid of ten of them mobbing him at once, to say nothing of three.

Rumble—

Wellspring crashed into the three monsters and the dreadful tornado swept through half of the North Sea with stunning killing intent.

“What, what is this? He’s on the same level as us, so why is his combat art so strong??” Color drained out of the three monster spirits’ faces the moment they collided with Wellspring. They were absolutely certain that if this had been a one-on-one fight, they’d already be dead.

It was the combat art! Theirs were too crude in comparison!

While there was nothing the three could do about Wellspring’s combat art, he ripped through everything they sent at him in the blink of an eye.

Whoosh!

The tornado of frost brutally scoured the void and sent the three immortals flying. Walking over sheets of ice, Wellspring bore down on Lu Fuyao.

“It was you who killed Yuan Tong earlier, wasn’t it?” His eyes now crystals of ice, two gusts of arctic air blasted out from Wellspring’s eyes.

“Kill him!” Lu Fuyao roared and sent an Arcane Immortal of Nine Heavens by his side into action.