The armored carriage waited in the center of the cavern. In the harnesses, the two copper-scaled beasts stamped their hooves against the cold stone.
Mò Zhōng climbed onto the driver's seat. The old shopkeeper — now nothing more than a butler carrying the black seed of Karma in his abdomen — gripped the thick leather reins and lowered his head.
The cabin doors opened. Yù Qíng entered first, followed by Yù Méi. Mò Yán entered last. The white-haired girl still carried in her body the memory of the brutal kiss and her acceptance. She sat beside Yù Méi, keeping her gaze lowered. The feeling of belonging to that family was still strange and warm at the same time.
The iron lock clicked shut with a dry snap, sealing the three women in the dim light.
Zhì Yuǎn walked to the Throne Ruins. The dead jade matrix rested in the center of the hall.
He did not form any hand seals. He simply placed his right palm against the cold stone and released the dense energy he had absorbed from the South.
The inscriptions drank the surge all at once.
The ground trembled. The concentric rings of the matrix spun with the sound of stone grinding against stone. Dust fell from the ceiling. The jade lit up and a massive pillar of silver light shot upward. The beam pierced through the mountain rock and tore open the sky.
A rift opened in the void.
Zhì Yuǎn removed his hand from the stone and returned to the carriage. He climbed onto the rear veranda and leaned his shoulder against the wood.
"Follow the tear," he ordered.
Mò Zhōng snapped the reins. The beasts pulled the weight forward and the carriage leapt straight into the silver light, plunging into darkness.
The rift closed behind them, leaving the mountain's underground in silence.
------
The dimensional rift spat out the carriage.
The iron wheels struck the dark earth and silver roots with a dry thud. The two copper-scaled beasts snorted, their hooves scraping against the ground as they steadied the weight of the new environment.
On the driver's seat, the air pressure descended upon Mò Zhōng like a crushing weight. The old man's shoulders gave way for a fraction of a second, but his Weaving of the Tides (Second Transcendent Stage) quickly adapted to the new atmosphere. He clenched his jaw, endured the impact, and stabilized the beasts.
Inside the cabin, Yù Qíng and Yù Méi barely felt the difference in Qi density. Their breathing did not change.
Mò Yán, however, collapsed.
The white-haired girl dropped to her knees on the wooden floor. The density of the Qi crushed her organs and bones from the inside. Her ribs cracked, squeezed from the outside by a force that a Sixth Stage Mortal body simply could not withstand. She pressed her forehead against the planks, her scarlet eyes wide and her nails digging into the floor as she silently suffocated.
Zhì Yuǎn did not waste time.
He extended his hand and placed his palm directly on the back of the girl's neck. Without forming any seals, he expanded his own presence and projected his aura around her.
The weight of the world collided against Zhì Yuǎn's domain and vanished instantly.
Mò Yán drew in a desperate, gasping breath. She arched her back, her chest rising and falling rapidly. Her sweaty face rested against her husband's leg, her entire body trembling with relief at no longer having her bones liquefied by the Qi density.
Zhì Yuǎn kept his hand on her nape, maintaining the protective bubble.
But the world outside felt that weight.
Above the metallic steel trees, the sky darkened without warning.
In the blink of an eye, black and purple clouds began gathering at terrifying speed, swirling in a spiral directly above the carriage. Purple lightning flickered between the clouds, charged with murderous intent that made the very air tremble.
The lower plane had sensed their presence — an anomaly far too large to be ignored.
Thunder rolled low, like the distant roar of a primordial beast. The tribulation clouds continued to condense, growing denser with every passing second, as if the heavens themselves were preparing to descend and eradicate the existence that dared step into their domain without permission.
Before the first thunderclap, a pressure filled with ancient and merciless will descended upon Zhì Yuǎn.
The heavens had sensed his presence and were moving to correct it.
"Take care of her," Zhì Yuǎn said, then vanished from the cabin.
He reappeared high in the sky, floating in front of the swirling vortex of purple clouds that spun with growing fury. Purple lightning flickered between the clouds, ready to descend.
His mind worked quickly.
The energy of this plane was not vastly superior to the previous one. But the Laws that wove the air were of an entirely different magnitude. The place they came from was merely an isolated fragment — a stagnant pool of incomplete rules. This was the real ocean — vast, dense, and extremely complex. And he was an anomaly far too large floating on its surface.
Without time to think further, he pulled back.
Zhì Yuǎn withdrew his presence. He drew his aura, his weight, and his dimensional density back into the void of his own Dantian, sealing everything inside himself. He did not hide his strength — he erased his existence from the world.
Even if an immortal passed by him at that moment and saw him with their own eyes, if they tried to probe him with divine sense, they would find nothing. Not a trace of Qi. Not an echo of any Law.
The sky froze.
The wind stopped. The purple clouds, which a second earlier had been boiling with murderous intent, hesitated. The thunder that had been about to descend… did not come. The storm had lost its target. The heavens could no longer sense the presence that had provoked their wrath.
Zhì Yuǎn understood in that moment.
He could bend the Laws of this plane. But he could not display his active presence beneath this ceiling. As long as he remained hidden, the heavens would not see him.
He descended back to the carriage in the blink of an eye.
Without saying a word, he placed his palm against the wood. Space tore open and swallowed the entirety of it.
The rift spat the carriage out thousands of kilometers away, atop a hill of dry earth.
From the veranda, Zhì Yuǎn looked back. Far on the horizon, the purple cloud was still boiling, heavy and dark. Even thousands of kilometers away, the tribulation clouds remained dense and threatening, as if the heavens had not yet given up on finding what had disappeared.
Then, a flash tore through the sky.
It was not an ordinary lightning bolt. A pillar of purple light descended in a straight line and struck exactly where the carriage had been in the Silver Steel Forest. The earth, the trees, and the air were erased in an instant of pure annihilation.
The roar of the lightning had not even arrived when the heavy door of the armored cabin burst open with violent force.
Yù Qíng stepped out onto the carriage's veranda while Yù Méi protected Mò Yán. The woman in navy blue stepped onto the wood with short, uneven breaths. Her pale face still carried the shock of the pressure that had descended upon them. The priestess's usual calm and arrogant posture had completely vanished.
She looked at her husband's back.
"What was that, my heaven?" Yù Qíng asked, her voice thin and tense.
Zhì Yuǎn did not answer. He simply vanished.
The man reappeared thousands of kilometers away, floating high in the dark sky. He looked down, staring at the exact point in the Silver Steel Forest where the pillar of light had fallen.
There was no longer any forest. No metallic trees, roots, or black soil.
The lightning had not caused a fire or a messy explosion. The lower world had simply erased that piece of land. A gigantic crater, dozens of kilometers in diameter, had opened on the surface. The bottom of the hole was a completely flat sheet of rock. The edges of the crater were not irregular — they were straight, smooth walls cut hundreds of meters deep, as if a colossal blade had removed a perfect cylinder from the planet's crust.
Zhì Yuǎn assessed the level of destruction and had to conclude that fighting it head-on was impossible.
He looked away from the crater. His family was waiting in the carriage, anxious. He teleported back into the cabin, disappearing from the sky.
The cold wind returned to blow across the empty hole.
Minutes later, the air above the crater began to hiss once more.
Dozens of points appeared on the horizon. They cut across the night sky at high speed, coming from different directions. The figures slowed down in the air and descended, landing directly in the center of the flat, excavated earth.
The silence was heavy. No one moved. The cold wind blew across the flat ground, carrying the scent of scorched earth and ozone.