At the same time, a curved blade that only a cultivator could see fell down from the sky with a rumble! The seven stars of the Big Dipper, their starry edges had converged into a simple long blade. There existed no adornment whatsoever. It was simple yet rough.

However, the killing aura congealed on the body of this long blade… caused all vegetation in the volcanic lake to wither and die in an instant, an air that brought all living things to servitude.

It wasn’t slow but rather completed in the blink of an eye. The blade carried a brilliant heavenly might. Under this blade chop, the plants on the ground shriveled in the wake of each place it neared. Afterwards, like a drop of blackness piercing the water surface, it swiftly extended over the entire Old Black Mountain from the beginning of the volcanic lake’s surroundings!

A blade, the opposition of all things in life or death. The blade appeared not to be fast, but in the last second it emerged, it had already ruthlessly slashed towards the thousand-meter protective shield in the next second!

Swoosh! Xu Yangyi tightly shut his eyes, leaving merely a sliver.

It was like a heavenly god had descended at this very moment! Enormous winds and spiritual pressure caused his spiritual sense to seemingly scatter!

BANG! The surface of the heart-shaking protective shield melted like ice and snow. It didn’t even obstruct the blade by a hair, utterly shattered! CRASH! Difficult to reckon in tonnage, the lakewater fell into the volcanic lake once again, bringing forth a torrential rain that filled the sky!

“This is a battle of cultivators!” Xu Yangyi sucked in deeply, using his fastest speed to fall back to a crack in the mountain wall. Each movement in the outside world affected his heart.

With one turn of a hand, clouds were born and rains summoned. Mountains collapsed and oceans seethed! So long as a cultivator followed the Dao with heart and soul, who wouldn’t be in great admiration because of this scene?

Swoosh! In the wake of a furious roar that shook the heavens in the next second, the falling lakewater carried with it an even greater amount of noxious blood!

Xu Yangyi clenched his teeth, employing full speed and glancing towards the outside. The sky was the same as always. It appeared as if nothing had occurred, however, the mists over the lake had completely dispersed, the pond brimming with bloody redness!

A body, so enormously terrifying, reclined in the pool. It was like a crocodile, its lower and upper jaws were of equal length. The inside of its mouth was teeming with sharp teeth that were a few meters long. It didn’t possess four limbs; its four limbs were four fin-like appendages. Its entire body was covered with bluish-black scales. A fish-like tail. Merely...

Its head wasn’t on its body! Rather… the head and body were rendered into two separate parts! The large eyes of its skull bulged wide, unclosed even in death and bearing grievances. It caused the lake to brim with blood as it slowly fell down.

No one could speak. Xu Yangyi tightly clenched his fists, stifling the shock of his heart. The breathing of God Ming and the three old men was rushed, their faces flushed red.

The moment the hare had reared its head, the falcon had swooped down for the hunt! In the blink of an eye... Daomaster Jadewave’s unexpected corpse was in the lake!

“This is…” After several minutes, Xu Yangyi settled his mind and said heavily, “a Mosasaurus?” [1]

A creature extinct since the Cretaceous period of the Mesozoic era! An absolute overlord in the water!

“A Mosasaurus?!” At the other side, God Ming simply dared not believe his eyes. “Jadewave… Its true form… was actually a Mosasaurus?! The Mosasaurus that’s been extinct for several million years? A thousand years ago, this lost species still truly existed?”

This was a true strange species of ancient times! Yet such a lost ancient species had been slain by the falling of the heavens’ seven-star blade! A thousand-year Dao foundation, a dynasty’s complete destruction!

There was no one present that could speak. The distance was unknown and the location was a mystery, but separated by myriad mountains and vast waters, this delivered blow… Someone had beheaded this millennium-old Mosasaurus like so!

Even Daomaster Jadewave’s resistance had become a move worthy of ridicule. The demon couldn’t even say a word as it had been beheaded under that blade! The event had lasted no longer than a twinkling!

What kind of divine ability was this?! What was its realm?

At this moment, Xu Yangyi simply didn’t ponder it and rushed towards the volcanic lake with full power, layered with both Life Sacrification and Flying Star! At nearly the same time, God Ming’s gaze continuously flickered. In the next second, his speed increased explosively, charging towards the volcanic lake like a streaking meteor!

In an instant, the two of them had raised their speeds to the pinnacle! At the same time, there was only the sight of the other in each of their eyes, bearing a fierce battle intent not concealed in the slightest!

An entire demon form that had reached the Core Formation level, the skin, flesh, blood, special parts, and so on were all treasures! However, the most important was the demon core! This was the demon core of a Core Formation demon that had just died! The origin crystal of a lost ancient species! This… was its second life!

When this demon core was carried on the body, the worry of qi exhaustion would cease to be. It could be well imagined that if both sides were lanterns burning down to their final flames and one side activated the infinite energy mechanism that was the Core Formation demon core, how would this battle method even be combated?

To possess such an item… even late-stage Foundation Establishment to the limit of the Great Circle would be provoked to some consideration! Granted that it couldn’t be absorbed, the demon core could still be detonated. The explosion of a Core Formation demon core was explanatory in its terror!

None would permit it and none could allow it! In an instant, the atmosphere arrived at a burning-white intensity!

“SCRAM!!!!” God Ming issued a furious snarl, his white head of hair moving freely of the wind! In an instant, it extended over a hundred meters like a spider spitting out silk. His eyes bloodshot, he swiftly shot forth and brought with him a strong gale!

In the wake of his angered howl, his twenty-plus puppets that had been rendered immobile by the deceased Daomaster Jadewave rattled again with a crack. In several seconds, seemingly pulled on by a thread, they arced towards Xu Yangyi like electricity!

“Mongrel!” God Ming was on the edge of his toes; what arcane effort did this lowly cur cultivate? His speed was actually THIS fast?!

With the layered combo of Life Sacrification and Flying Star, Xu Yangyi’s speed wasn’t a bit slower in comparison to God Ming’s! The target was likewise evident—the heart within Jadewave’s body, the location of the demon core!

Whoever had killed Jadewave or why they had beheaded the demon was currently unimportant. What was important was this great opportunity; no one was willing to relinquish it!

Whoever seized this thousand-year-old demon core first… was the person who was able to take the initiative to snatch it! That person’s opponent… was doomed to die here! The two of them came to a simultaneous halt. Their gazes shifted away from their surroundings for the first time, looking all around vigilantly.

Crack… Crack… A sound just like breaking glass could be faintly heard from each direction. At the beginning, it was still rather gentle, but in less than a minute, it immediately resonated through the entire expanse!

Crack crack crack crack… The space between heaven and earth seemed to become this sound.

Xu Yangyi inhaled deeply. Immediately, he assumed a half-crouching stance, like a stalking cheetah waiting to pounce with full power. He realized that this… was the seal that Daomaster Jadewave had set up beforehand, so outsiders couldn’t see!

Following Daomaster Jadewave’s demise, this seal was on the verge of turning into scattered ash in the wind. In other words, everything here would be seen with crystal clarity by everyone!

And yet… what of it?! Displaying power and might before the masses? With the corpse of a Core Formation Greater Demon ahead and the origin crystal before him… to act fearfully here about the slightest thing, caught between hesitation and indecision… was not his style!

If all of you are going to watch, then observe! I’ll let all of you ordinary people see the other side of this world! Today, I, Xu Yangyi, am the leading actor!

At this moment, Jadewave’s corpse suddenly emitted countless rays of white qi. The quantity was vast like mountains and seas, nebulous like fog and mist. Wafting in the wind, all of this qi flew towards the sky! It seemed to be a dirge between heaven and earth!

Xu Yangyi penetrated through the fluttering qi that filled the sky. His gaze unblinking, he looked across at God Ming whose lips were tightly shut, likewise half-crouched on the ground, and his several-hundred-meter-long hair frenzied like a silver serpent.

The other was also glaring daggers at him. Neither side was willing to yield an inch, opposed to each other at polar ends!

Crack crack crack… BANG! Now, the seal collapsed with a rumble! As for the qi that filled the heavens, it shockingly formed a tremendous qi flower that was no less than several hundred meters in the sky!

Boooom! In the next second, all that was visible in the world was light. This was because the qi explosion... had given birth to spiritual light that veiled the horizons! There were layers upon layers, harmonious and magnificent, stunning the people’s hearts. A full several hundred meters in size, it erupted at the summit of Old Black Mountain!

At this instant, an unknown number of eyes suddenly opened in China! They looked incredulously towards the direction of the Four Great Joint Pools! In a villa, there was an approximately ten-year-old youth who wearing a suit and leisurely sampling wine. A roughly sixteen-year-old young girl was in the middle of massaging his temples.

He seemed young, but his expression and eyes appeared to have weathered many countless moons, as if they were an old, secluded well, serene and without ripple. Without warning, his hand shivered, and his goblet rolled onto the floor and spun. The red liquid within spilled over his entire body!

“A Red Spider Lily blooms… A Core Formation cultivator has fallen?!” In the next second, he had already appeared on the balcony outside the room, looking incredulously towards the direction of the Four Great Joint Pools!

“A Core Formation cultivator has met their end?” At the same time, on a mountain that had underwent an untold number of years in Guifang Province, there was coffin that had hung suspended here for several hundred years. As the tremendous qi flower completely exploded at the Four Great Joint Pools, a cracking noise rang out from the suspended coffin, and a pale hand like that of a corpse lifted the cover. Dazed, an emaciated old man donned in the clothes of a Qing dynasty official sat up in shock and looked towards the direction of the Four Great Joint Pools. [2]

“Heaven Eye!” Meanwhile, at the river bottom of Shanghai’s Sootharkener Palace in a several-meter wide maelstrom formed from river water, a meter-sized eye shockingly appeared and looked towards the direction of the Four Great Joint Pools.

Normal people wouldn’t be able to sense it, but late-stage Foundation Establishment cultivators and above all could! That in the sky… like a wave, there were layer after layer of raging, frantic qi fluctuations! It was like the stormy battering of waves on the shore, scouring China’s lands!

They could also see… in the direction of the Four Great Joint Pools, white qi converge into an alabaster flower. Right now, the unfolding petals seemed to remind everyone that there was a Core Formation master who had passed on into immortality!

“This… is Senior Jadewave?” A woman standing on a balcony said tremblingly in shock.

“As expected, he stepped into the Core Formation realm… but he’s actually died now?” In Xichuan Province, there was a beautiful girl wearing an evening gown, her hand holding a goblet trembling incessantly. [3]

“He was the oldest-living one at Core Formation! Who was able to cause his demise?”

“Core Formation falls, and the Red Spider Lily blooms… This hasn’t been witnessed in China for over two hundred years!”

At the same time in a villa, following a draconic roar, the entire building thunderingly collapsed. A resplendent streaming brilliance charged straight into the sky like electricity! In the villa, not one person dared to drivel. Tens of people were all half-kneeling on the floor and said loudly, “Respectful partings, Ancestor Floatingcloud!”

The throne room doors of China’s Forbidden Palace suddenly separated. A vermilion phoenix issued a clear and shining cry, illuminating half of Beijing’s seat of government! Afterwards, it faded away at the horizon’s extreme. [4]

“Respectful partings, Ancestor Hiddenscent!” Two women in the style of ancient palace maids kneeled on the ground and said in unison, their foreheads touching the ground.

The Core Formation masters were on the move! The demise of a millennium-old Core Formation demon; its hidden secrets… even Core Formation cultivators would be incomparably tempted!

Before all else though… they couldn’t allow another to seize it first by any means! Otherwise… even a Core Formation master wouldn’t be able to shoulder the detonation of a thousand-year-old demon core!

1. I almost mistranslated this. Fun fact: Mosasaurus in Chinese is literally Azure Dragon. If you want a better visualization of a mosasaurus, look up the one from the movie “Jurassic World”. Not gonna lie, the thought of a cultivating dinosaur made me laugh.

2. 懸棺 - hanging/suspended coffin. Copy paste this word and look at images. This is what I believe the situation of the coffin might actually be, versus hanging in midair.

3. You may have noticed that I have been continually calling Jadewave “it”. Author calls Jadewave “it”, but actually refers to Jadewave with the masculine “him” in some narration. This is the first time in speech that Jadewave is actually referred to as a he by another character.

4. In the story, nearly every mention of Beijing is actually more along the lines of “Beijing seat of government”, which is referring to the central governing building in Beijing, but it's a mouthful to say that it. I figure just shortening it most of the time is along the lines of saying “Back at Washington/Paris/Berlin” and is implicit in meaning. This time, the scene is actually in the governing seat building.