Waves shimmered and sparkled across the jade sea. The pure bright moon hung overhead in the sky, and it now began to slowly rotate, its radiance flowing down like water, raining upon Yan Ruyu.
“Ah—” Quite a few demon clan cultivators nearby screamed and were obliterated on the spot. Even the scattered gentle radiance spilling from the luminous disc was beyond what they could endure.
The bright moon rising over the sea — a sight rarely seen in the world. Even powerful spiritual treasures could not withstand it, and none could contend against it. In the ongoing melee, demon clan members fell from high in the sky one by one. Any who were touched by the moonlight perished without exception.
Yan Ruyu faced the assault head-on, bathed in the most dazzling brilliance of the moon. Naturally, she bore the full brunt of the most powerful attack. Snowy white radiance like thin mist enveloped and covered her entirely.
“Clang!”
Yan Ruyu was ethereal as an immortal. Behind her, a phenomenon manifested — sea and sky blended into one color. The sky was like a sapphire, and the waves below were like a clear mirror. From within that sea, golden lotuses grew one after another, their leaves dotted with tiny drops of dew, brimming with vitality, brilliant and breathtaking.
A breeze drifted by, stirring ripples across the jade sea, and golden lotuses bloomed petal by petal. The dense, surging life force made one feel as though one had arrived at the primordial moment of creation — when heaven and earth first took form — and there was even a faint, misty breath of chaos.
All around, many powerful Ji Family members had not yet regained their senses before this dense surge of life force transformed them into the most fundamental spiritual energy. They perished in utter bewilderment.
Sea and sky blended into one color. Golden lotuses blazed with brilliance, as though heaven and earth were being created anew, giving birth to form from formlessness.
“Clang! Clang! Clang!”
All the clear brilliance raining down from the silver moon was caught and received by the golden lotuses, producing wave after wave of metallic ringing. Ten thousand rays of rosy light, a thousand strands of auspicious colors — a stunning expanse of splendor. Yan Ruyu stood like an immortal maiden rooted in the jade pond.
Planting golden lotuses in the sea of bitterness and the bright moon rising over the sea stood as equals — both were wheel-sea phenomena of ancient great ones, and few in the current age could cultivate either.
Ji Haoyue’s expression changed. He stepped through the void, pressing forward swiftly, his bearing as graceful and nimble as a wild goose in flight. The bright moon in the sky descended, bearing down to suppress Yan Ruyu.
If the scattered brilliance of the moonlight alone could destroy powerful demon clan members, one could only imagine the terrifying force carried by the whole moon descending together.
Yan Ruyu’s figure was pale and hazy, her beauty transcendent and refined. The golden lotuses behind her swayed, full of life and vitality. Golden blossoms of wondrous beauty bloomed in the breeze, releasing a refreshing fragrance that permeated the soul. Golden lotus petals surged skyward — crystalline and glittering — and in a single moment, they submerged the descending bright moon entirely.
The two figures present moved as though immortals descended from the heavens, their robes and sleeves drifting gracefully, ethereal and unrestrained. Their confrontation unfolded without turbulence, and the scene as they clashed was like a painting, like poetry — yet those watching from outside did not see it that way at all.
Everyone was retreating at full speed. Though the battlefield of their decisive clash appeared tranquil — like a breeze brushing across a hillside — the surrounding area had already erupted into near-savage chaos.
The flowing, hazy moonlight on one side, and the golden radiance overflowing from the lotus petals on the other, swept outward in every direction like a tide. Nothing could withstand them. Many people didn’t even have time to scream before they were reduced to ash, leaving nothing behind.
A terrifying clash indeed!
Such was the unique, tremendous power of wheel-sea phenomena. No ordinary cultivator could withstand the edge of their assault!
Ji Haoyue’s twin eyes blazed with purple light, as though he possessed some demonic quality. Behind him, the jade sea surged to the heavens, and he had brought out his true power. The bright moon circled around his body, and an even more terrifying divine strength was gathering.
Yan Ruyu stood apart from the mortal world. Her jade-clear body was reflected and framed amid the golden lotuses, making her more ethereal than before. Tremendous life force spread and pervaded all around. Lotus flowers broke through the water one after another, stretching toward the blue sky like ancient trees.
In that moment, across this range of mountains — surging seas, the moon tumbling through blue sky, and golden lotuses cracking open the firmament — it was breathtaking beyond description, and the faint sound of immortal music could be heard drifting through the air.
Everyone fled in every direction. A small number of powerful demon clan members finally seized the opportunity to break through the encirclement and escape. Shortly after, at the center of the battlefield, the bright moon shattered and the golden lotuses withered. The seas ran rampant — a scene of terrifying devastation.
“Rumble, rumble, rumble!”
No matter how fast people retreated, they could not outpace the brilliant beams of light. Many were pierced through, and in that blazing radiance of rosy light, they perished there forever — blood drenching the air, bodies falling one by one.
At the center of the battlefield, when all finally settled, the corner of Ji Haoyue’s purple robes was torn, while a single strand of Yan Ruyu’s black hair drifted down. The two stood facing each other on the spot.
“Your Highness, go — there is no need to buy time for us any longer!” Three elderly women cried out anxiously from far away. They offered up their own spiritual treasures and placed themselves in front of Yan Ruyu, trying to get her to retreat.
The Ji Family, meanwhile, had five old men in the distant sky offering up their own weapons to reinforce Ji Haoyue’s side. They guarded over the divine body within their clan like a priceless treasure — they would not permit even the slightest mishap.
“All of you, go!” Yan Ruyu commanded the three elderly women to put away their spiritual treasures and leave.
“Clang!”
Above Ji Haoyue’s head, an ancient mirror rose and fell, flowing with strands of primordial chaotic light. It shuddered gently, and even from a great distance, it obliterated those three powerful demon clan members. All three were shaken apart by the chaos into fine powder and dissipated as bloody mist into heaven and earth.
The ancient mirror’s power was overwhelming!
Yan Ruyu could not stop it in time. Divine radiance radiated from her jade body in all directions. In her palm, a streak of light blazed — like a severed section of rainbow, too piercingly bright to look upon clearly — and it struck forward.
“Pfft! Pfft! Pfft!”
The Ji Family members who had come forward to reinforce Ji Haoyue, though enveloped by the primordial chaotic breath flowing from the ancient mirror, still could not escape their end. All were pierced through and died on the spot.
In the distance, three supremely transcendent elders of the Ji Family — their hair and beards all white, with the bearing of immortals — stood silently in the high sky. One of them said: “The demon emperor’s sacred weapon truly lives up to its name.”
The Ji Family’s heritage stretched far back across the ages, and that ancient mirror was profoundly mysterious — the weapon of the first-generation clan head, passed down since before the ancient era, possessed of inconceivable power.
The sacred weapon in Yan Ruyu’s hand likewise had an extraordinary origin: it was the weapon of a demon clan great emperor. Its terrifying and fearsome nature required no doubt whatsoever.
Across the entire expanse of the Eastern Desolation, setting aside ultimate treasures like the Desolate Pagoda — which had existed as long as the world itself — the ancient mirror and the demon emperor’s sacred weapon were absolutely the most supreme sacred objects.
At the outset, neither had dared to rashly deploy their ancient weapons, each harboring wariness of the other. What consequences might arise from two sacred weapons clashing directly was difficult to predict.
That bronze mirror was of incomparable antiquity, engraved with mysterious and unfathomable patterns. It gave one the feeling of the natural order of the Dao — woven together into the principles of “Dao” and “reason,” giving birth to chaos — and as it rose and fell, it caused one’s heart to tremble.
Now, the ancient mirror and Ji Haoyue’s bright moon slowly merged into one. The two hovered aloft together, trembling softly, and the primordial breath of the Tai Chu instantly spread outward in all directions.
It rapidly expanded — ancient in character, magnificent in bearing — and bore down to suppress!
Yan Ruyu stood like an immortal on the clouds, surrounded and enclosed by a celestial palace of golden lotus flowers, and the demon emperor’s sacred weapon still could not be seen clearly. In that moment, her hair flew around her, and the eyes like water suddenly shot out two blazing streaks of divine brilliance. Every golden lotus behind her soared into the high sky at once, merging with the demon emperor’s sacred weapon and charging toward the ancient mirror together.
There was no terrifying surge of energy, no earth-shaking sound. All of it was as calm as water, as though a wisp of cloud drifted lightly past, sending points of primordial chaotic light rippling outward.
As though nothing had happened at all.
It was only much later that the two figures at the center of the battlefield shook continuously, retreating again and again. The ancient mirror flew back and sank into the surging sea. The golden lotuses withered and fell into the jade waters together with the demon emperor’s sacred weapon.
Without a sound, the mountains all around suddenly turned to flying ash — dissolving like snowflakes melting away, vanishing in the blink of an eye.
This terrifying sight stunned everyone present. A deep chill rose in every heart. Had any of them not retreated to a safe distance, there would have been no survivors.
Yan Ruyu saw that the stone coffin and Ye Fan were no longer on the field — they had broken through the encirclement. She felt little joy at this. With a quiet sigh, her face filled with helplessness, for she had been unable to rescue the others. She had done only what she could.
Setting aside Ji Haoyue — that unfathomably deep divine body — what worried her most were the three supremely transcendent elders hovering high in the sky. Those three had guarded Ji Haoyue from beginning to end, closely watching every development on the battlefield, and they exerted a powerful sense of pressure upon her.
Yan Ruyu’s immortal beauty was without flaw, her eyes clear as water. She swept her gaze over the demon clan cultivators who had been surrounded and trapped, and her red lips parted softly. “I am sorry.”
“Your Highness, there is no need to fight and die for us any further — go, quickly!” Every one of the powerful demon clan members roared in unison. The scene carried a certain tragic grandeur. They knew that today, there was no escaping death.
In that moment, everyone surged outward in all directions, cutting down Ji Family cultivators in a desperate, frenzied counterattack — attempting to carve a path of blood for Yan Ruyu.
Yan Ruyu swept her gaze across every one of them and said nothing. She transformed into a streak of rainbow light that surged toward the heavens and began to break through the encirclement.
But Ji Haoyue and the three supremely transcendent elders had already locked onto her long before. They followed like shadows, and had absolutely no intention of letting her go.
“Kill—”
It was a bloody massacre. Demon clan cultivators fell from the sky in an unbroken stream — nearly all of them fought to the death.
Yan Ruyu moved with the speed of the wind and lightning, a long rainbow splitting the sky, yet she could never shake off Ji Haoyue behind her. As for those three elders — all guardians of Ji Haoyue — they followed close behind. Though they would not strike for now, their incomparable aura of power cast an immense pressure over everything.
By now, Ye Fan was already several hundred li away, sheltered by a few elderly women and safely out of the encirclement and beyond danger. His heart could not settle — the bright moon rising over the sea, the golden lotuses planted in the sea of bitterness, manifesting one after the other — both carried a power beyond what gods or ghosts could fathom.
Now there was only one thought in his heart: he had to grow stronger, and he had to cultivate the ancient sacred body to completion.
As for the ancient mirror and the demon emperor’s sacred weapon, they too had left no small impression on him. According to the elderly women, those two had only drawn upon a mere tenth of the sacred weapons’ power, yet the force unleashed was already this vast and terrifying — it was impossible not to be shaken.
“I truly find it strange — why do you protect a young man of the human race, and even in breaking through the encirclement, why did none of you leave him behind?” A clear, melodious voice carried over — like great and small pearls falling upon a jade plate — coming from just ahead, where a young woman of seventeen or eighteen stood with several old men, blocking their path.
The young woman wore purple robes and carried an air of nobility beyond words. Yet when she smiled, it was an entirely different manner of charm — her eyes bright and vivid, glancing around with lively grace, a small dimple on her left cheek that made her appear wonderfully captivating and mischievous.
The elderly women of the demon clan furrowed their brows. Ji Haoyue wore purple robes, and this young woman likewise wore flowing purple — it was easy to draw a connection.
The young woman in purple was exceptionally beautiful. Her eyes were large, her lashes long, with a spirit about her that made her seem very lively and playful — giving one a sense of vivid, sparkling life.
“Capture that young man for me. I want to see what is so special about him.” The young woman in purple giggled, the dimple on her left cheek appearing again, and her large eyes curved into crescent shapes.