The final grains of sand whispered through the grand hourglass, marking the end of Phase 1.
A low chime reverberated across the arena, the sound heavy and final, like the closing of a tomb lid.
Xuan Yue and Xuan Li (Mei Xue) had descended the dais and now stood at the edge of the competitor's ring, their silver robes catching the dying flickers of cauldron light. Their eyes-sharp as tempered blades-fixed upon the unremarkable youth in the corner. Conviction had settled over them like frost on winter steel. Mediocre. Ordinary. A fleeting curiosity now revealed as nothing more than a trick of the light.
Wu Ming felt their gaze.
Slowly, deliberately, he lifted his own eyes.
It was not a glare. It was not anger, nor defiance, nor even acknowledgment.
It was the void.
Absolute. Primordial. The indifferent stare of a Supreme God who had already erased them from the ledger of existence.
In that single, unhurried meeting of eyes, the world around Xuan Li (Mei Xue) fractured.
Her heart stuttered-once, twice-like a drum struck by lightning and then silenced.
A bone-chilling dread uncoiled from the depths of her soul, wrapping icy tendrils around her meridians until every pulse of Qi felt labored, foreign. The air in her lungs turned to lead. She did not understand the sensation, could not name it, yet it flooded her with an overwhelming, suffocating grief: the irrevocable sense that her earlier gossip, her casual doubt, had just severed an invisible thread connecting her to something far older than the heavens themselves.
A primordial titan whose shadow she had unknowingly brushed. Her previous confidence in the Sovereign Pavilion's supremacy crumbled like ash in a storm. Her knees threatened to buckle. Cold sweat bloomed along her spine, tracing a path of terror she had never known.
What... what is he? The thought shattered inside her mind, leaving only silence and the echo of something vast looking back.
Xuan Yue beside her stiffened, her own spiritual pressure flickering for the briefest instant. She masked it instantly, but the void in Wu Ming's gaze had already imprinted itself upon her soul like a brand from the abyss.
Wu Ming looked away first-not out of weakness, but because they no longer warranted the expenditure of his attention.
Ants who believed they could judge the mountain, his inner voice murmured, cold and regal as the primordial dark between stars. Now they taste the first fracture in their reality. Good. The Grand Integration requires such tiny breaks.
Phase 1 had officially concluded.
Yin Tian and Zhang Yun staggered forward from their stations, faces slick with sweat, robes clinging to their bodies like wet shrouds. Their cauldrons still smoked from the brute-force Qi they had poured into their final attempts. By the narrowest margin, their pills had formed-crude, misshapen things that barely glowed with low-grade light. They passed. Barely.
Zhang Yun wiped his brow with a grimy sleeve and let out a sharp, mocking laugh that cut across the arena. "Hah! Look at that! The Wu Clan trash actually managed to shit out a pill. Barely. Did you see the color? Like a diseased liver!"
Yin Tian stood beside him in complete silence.
His expression remained cold, almost indifferent, eyes half-lidded as though the entire scene barely warranted his attention. No laughter. No sneer. No wasted words. Letting emotion rise here would have been beneath him; it would have disturbed the precise equilibrium he cultivated like a blade kept forever sheathed. He merely glanced once at Wu Ming's cauldron-the dull, fractured pill resting inside-then looked away, offering nothing more than the faintest tilt of his head. A quiet acknowledgment that the youth had survived the round. Nothing else.
Wu Ming did not react.
Not a flicker of expression. Not a twitch of muscle. His breathing remained perfectly even, as though the words were no more than the buzzing of mayflies against the hide of an ancient dragon. To him, their voices-whether loud or restrained-were wind. Their arrogance was dust. Their entire existence registered as nothing more than transient patterns in the endless unity.
Han Xiaofeng, standing a short distance away, observed the entire exchange with narrowed eyes. His suspicion-already a living thing coiled in his chest-tightened further. The youth's calm was unnatural. Eerily so. While others sweated and panted from the spiritual pressure, Wu Ming's chest rose and fell with the serene rhythm of deep meditation. No strain. No tremor. As if the crushing weight of the arena was merely a gentle breeze across his skin.
Impossible, Han Xiaofeng thought, the word laced with the cold sweat now tracing his own neck once more. Even I feel the pressure grinding my meridians. Yet he sits there... untouched. What kind of foundation hides behind that indifferent mask?
The psychological fracture in Han Xiaofeng deepened. His worldview-built on talent, effort, and measurable hierarchy-creaked like glass under invisible pressure.
Then Elder Chun stepped forward.
(The rest of the chapter continues exactly as previously written: Elder Chun's announcement, the manifestation of the Five Poisons, the lethal shift in spiritual pressure, the panic among the sword cultivators and warriors, and Wu Ming's internal monologue as he looks down at the poisons.)
The chime of the second phase faded into the stone, but its echo lingered like a death knell.
Elder Chun's sleeve swept outward once more. The five jade boxes, already unsealed, released their prisoners fully.
Miasma descended.
It was not air any longer. It was a living venom. The arena's atmosphere thickened into something viscous and malevolent, tasting of rusted copper and wet ash on every tongue. Spiritual pressure, once a testing mountain, now sharpened into corrosive blades that scraped along meridians and peeled at the soul. Weaker cultivators clutched their throats, eyes bulging. The first wet coughs erupted-harsh, guttural-followed by arcs of black blood that splattered across the polished floor like spilled ink.
Then the cauldrons began to die.
A violent crack split the air as the first Spirit-Grade vessel exploded in a shower of molten shards and toxic vapor. The alchemist beside it screamed once, a raw animal sound, before collapsing, skin blistering where the backlash touched him. Another detonation followed, then another. The judges on the high dais watched with the cold indifference of statues. No one moved to intervene. This was no longer a competition of skill. It was attrition. Survival. The weak would be culled by the very poisons they sought to master.
Screams rose and died in the thickening haze. The metallic tang clawed deeper into lungs. The stench of rotting flesh from the Nether-Rot Root mingled with the acrid smoke of failing flames and the faint, whispering wails of the Soul-Blighting Vine. Every breath burned. Every heartbeat felt like swallowing shards of glass.
Across the arena, Zhang Yun's station had become a battlefield.
His heavy, aggressive Qi hammered against the poisons in his cauldron like a war hammer striking an unstable bomb. The herbs inside trembled violently-Nether-Rot Root thrashing, Weeping Fire Lotus weeping molten tears that hissed against the vessel walls. Zhang Yun's face was a mask of panic, sweat carving rivers down his cheeks. "No-no, hold, damn you!" he snarled, pouring more brute force into the flames. The cauldron rattled ominously, black smoke billowing upward in thick, choking plumes.
Beside him, Yin Tian remained utterly silent.
His expression was cold stone, eyes half-lidded, lips pressed into a thin line. Only the faint trickle of blood at the corner of his mouth betrayed the toll. He had bitten down hard enough to split flesh, using the sharp pain as an anchor. A dark, suppressed cultivation art-something ancient and ruthless-coiled around his meridians like iron chains, forcibly caging the rampaging toxins. He was surviving. Barely. Walking the edge of a blade so fine it drew blood with every heartbeat. No words. No emotion. Only the stoic will of a man who refused to let chaos claim him.
Higher on the platform, Han Xiaofeng's azure flame burned white-hot at its absolute limit.
The genius disciple's hands moved in intricate, beautiful seals, weaving the conflicting poisons apart thread by thread. Sweat poured down his face in sheets, soaking his robes. This was no longer mid-grade refinement. The Five Poison Extraction hovered at the threshold of Earth-grade difficulty, demanding harmony so precise that even a single misplaced breath could trigger annihilation. His azure light flickered dangerously. The Soul-Blighting Vine's ghostly whispers clawed at his concentration, threatening to unravel the delicate balance he fought to maintain.
This... this is monstrous, he thought, the words laced with the first true fracture of doubt. His worldview-built on flawless talent and measured effort-groaned under the weight of the miasma pressing upon him.
And then there was Wu Ming.
Outwardly, his cauldron was a spectacle of impending doom.
Thick, foul black smoke poured from the vessel in heavy waves, the surface rattling as though something inside fought to tear free. The flames beneath it guttered low and sickly, orange turning to diseased yellow. To every eye in the arena, the youth from the declining Wu Clan looked on the verge of catastrophic failure-another corpse-to-be in the lethal attrition.
I am at peace.
The thought rolled through his consciousness like a god's sigh across an endless void. Outwardly the picture of desperation; inwardly, the Chaos Body feasted.
To mortal cultivators, the miasma was lethal poison-corrosive laws that shredded meridians and poisoned the soul. To the Origin, to the primordial vessel that housed the Unity of All Things, there was no poison. Only unrefined chaotic Qi. Every breath he drew through his pores was deliberate, greedy. The toxic vapors from the arena-Nether-Rot's grave-soil bitterness, Weeping Fire Lotus's molten tears, the whispering void of the Voidshade Orchid-slipped into his skin like silk. His meridians opened wide, invisible to all, and the Chaos Body crushed the conflicting essences instantly.
Friction became harmony. Imbalance became fuel.
At the molecular level, strands of demonic-tinged poison met holy-leaning Wood essence and were devoured, realigned, purified into pure primordial Origin Qi. The thin spiritual energy of this fractured world had always been a bottleneck-100 times slower than
his true potential. Now the lethal environment itself became the forge. Each inhalation tempered his body further, bypassing the bottleneck in secret, silent increments. The World of Will hummed faintly at the edge of perception, ready to dilate time the moment true refinement demanded centuries within heartbeats.
They scream and bleed for survival, he mused, the internal voice cold, regal, utterly detached. I inhale their apocalypse and grow stronger. All things are one-even poison returns to the whole.
The black smoke from his cauldron thickened deliberately, a perfect veil. Another calculated rattle. A flicker of sickly flame. The facade held.
Xuan Li (Mei Xue) could not tear her eyes away from that smoking cauldron.
She stood frozen at the edge of the competitor's ring, silver robes trembling faintly in the toxic wind. The memory of Wu Ming's gaze-the absolute void that had erased her from existence in a single heartbeat-still clawed at her soul. Yet now, watching the youth's vessel belch foul smoke like a dying man's last breath, her mind scrambled desperately for reassurance.
It was an illusion, she told herself, the thought frantic, almost pleading. Just a trick of the light, the pressure playing on my nerves. He is failing like the rest. Ordinary. Mediocre. Nothing more.
Her heart refused to believe the lie. It stuttered again, cold sweat tracing her spine once more, the suffocating dread from earlier returning like an old wound reopening.
The miasma pressed heavier. Explosions continued to bloom across the arena like dark flowers of death. The test of extraction had become a crucible of survival.
And still Wu Ming's cauldron rattled on, black smoke rising, hiding the feast beneath.
The miasma thickened into a living shroud, pressing down with the weight of forgotten graves and burning skies. Explosions continued to bloom like dark lotuses across the arena-each crack a punctuation mark in the symphony of attrition. Shards of shattered cauldrons sang through the toxic air, embedding in stone and flesh alike. The judges remained statues on their dais, eyes flat, as though the screams were merely wind rustling through ancient pines. This was the hidden truth of every true trial in this fractured world: survival was the only merit that mattered. Skill without endurance was ash.
Zhang Yun's panic had become a living thing.
His aggressive Qi hammered harder, veins bulging along his neck, face twisted in a snarl that bordered on madness. The poisons inside his cauldron writhed in open rebellion-Nether-Rot Root thrashing like dying serpents, Weeping Fire Lotus weeping rivers of molten fire that ate at the vessel's runes. "Hold-damn you, hold!" he roared, voice cracking. A fresh gout of black blood sprayed from his lips as the backlash clawed into his meridians. He was no longer refining. He was wrestling a storm with bare hands, and the storm was winning.
Yin Tian, only inches away, offered no words of comfort.
He stood like a blade half-buried in snow-cold, silent, unyielding. Blood still trickled from the corner of his bitten lip, yet his hands moved with mechanical precision, feeding the dark suppressed art deeper into his core. The toxins raged against their iron cage, but he refused to let emotion fracture his focus. No panic. No curses. Only the quiet, grinding perseverance of a man who had long ago accepted that every path worth walking was paved with silent suffering. His breathing remained measured, each inhale a deliberate act of will. In the chaos of the arena, Yin Tian was a single point of frozen stillness amid the apocalypse.
Higher on the platform, Han Xiaofeng's azure flame had turned almost translucent with strain.
The genius disciple's intricate hand seals blurred faster, weaving the five poisons into fragile harmony thread by agonizing thread. Sweat carved clean lines through the grime on his face. His meridians screamed. The Soul-Blighting Vine's ghostly whispers clawed at the edges of his mind, promising oblivion if his focus slipped even once. This extraction was no longer a test of talent-it was a crucible that exposed every hidden fracture in one's foundation. Even for the prized first disciple of Grandmaster Huangfu Yan, it hovered at the absolute limit of Earth-grade difficulty.
How many times have I stood at this edge before? Han Xiaofeng wondered, the thought carrying the first true tremor of philosophical doubt. And how many more regressions of effort will it take before the edge finally cuts me in two? The question echoed like a prophecy half-remembered, layering the immediate pain with something deeper, something cosmic. His worldview-once a shining fortress of measurable progress-now felt like a mask slipping in the toxic wind.
And through it all, Wu Ming sat unmoved.
Outwardly, his cauldron continued its convincing theater of doom. Thick black smoke poured in heavy, oily waves, the vessel rattling violently as though the poisons inside fought to tear free and consume him. The sickly orange flame guttered lower, nearly dying. To every eye that still possessed the strength to look, the youth from the Wu Clan was one heartbeat away from joining the growing pile of broken bodies and shattered vessels.
Inside, however, the Chaos Body reveled in absolute sovereignty.
I inhale the end of their world, his consciousness murmured, the voice vast and regal, drifting through the endless dark like a god observing the birth and death of stars. They bleed and break to merely survive the imbalance. I devour the imbalance and become more.
The lethal miasma-every particle of Nether-Rot bitterness, every molten tear of Weeping Fire Lotus, every whispering void from the Voidshade Orchid-slipped greedily through his open pores. At the molecular level, chaotic laws collided and were crushed.
Demonic-tinged poison met primordial Wood essence and surrendered, realigned, purified into pure Origin Qi that flooded his meridians like liquid starlight. The thin spiritual energy of this lesser realm had always been a 100-fold bottleneck. Now the very poison designed to kill became the hammer that tempered and bypassed it. Each breath strengthened the Chaos Body in secret increments, forging what centuries of normal cultivation could never achieve.
Within the World of Will, time had already dilated. While a single grain of sand fell in the arena's hourglass, subjective hours passed in his mental domain. He walked simulated lifetimes there-refining the poisons again and again, testing every possible friction between the five conflicting laws until harmony was not forced but remembered. The incomplete Return to Origin hummed faintly at the edge of his awareness, a distant promise and a warning both: one day the veil of this lesser world would tear, and the true cost of his regression would reveal itself in ways even he had not yet foreseen.
All things are one, he reflected, the thought carrying the quiet weight of ancient stars collapsing into singularity. Even the poisons they fear are merely fragments waiting to return to the whole. These ants grind themselves against the wheel of fate, believing each rotation brings them closer to immortality. I simply step off the wheel... and watch it turn.
The philosophical detachment was absolute. No triumph. No glee. Only the serene observation of a Supreme who had already lived and died through countless cycles-much like the regressors of distant tales who clawed through endless deaths only to find that true power lay not in victory, but in the unshakable will to continue.
A particularly violent explosion rocked the arena as another cauldron detonated near the front row. The alchemist inside screamed once before the toxic backlash silenced him forever. The metallic tang of blood and scorched flesh thickened the air further.
Xuan Yue stood rigid beside her junior sister, silver robes fluttering in the corrosive wind. Her sharp eyes flicked repeatedly toward Wu Ming's smoking vessel, the memory of that void-gaze still burning like a brand upon her soul. She said nothing, but the subtle tremor in her spiritual pressure betrayed the fracture widening inside her.
Xuan Li (Mei Xue), however, could not look away.
Her heart hammered against her ribs like a caged bird desperate for escape. The black smoke billowing from Wu Ming's cauldron should have been proof-irrefutable proof-that her earlier terror had been nothing more than a trick of the lethal pressure. He is failing, she repeated silently, the mantra frantic, almost pleading. Ordinary. Mediocre. Just another ant about to be crushed like the rest.
Yet her soul refused the lie. The dread from that single meeting of eyes lingered, deeper now, layered with the subtle mystery of a man who sat untouched amid apocalypse. It whispered of hidden pathways and masked sequences, of a power that operated on rules the Sovereign Pavilion had never catalogued. The thought unsettled her more than the miasma clawing at her lungs.
Elder Chun's gaze swept the arena once, lingering for the briefest moment on the unremarkable corner where Wu Ming's cauldron rattled on. A faint crease touched the old man's brow-something almost like recognition-before it smoothed away into professional indifference. A hidden chess piece had just brushed against his perception, but the game was still too early for him to name it.
The extraction continued.
Cauldrons shattered. Cultivators fell. The arena had become a crucible of living attrition, where only the truly unyielding-or the truly transcendent-would emerge intact.
And still Wu Ming inhaled the poison of their despair, turning it into the quiet fuel of his ascent.
The Rising Star remained veiled.
But the veil had begun, ever so slightly, to thin.
Cauldrons shattered. Cultivators fell. The arena had become a crucible of living attrition, where only the truly unyielding-or the truly transcendent-would emerge intact.
And still Wu Ming inhaled the poison of their despair, turning it into the quiet fuel of his ascent.
The Rising Star remained veiled.
But the veil had begun, ever so slightly, to thin.
A fresh wave of miasma rolled across the stone floor like invisible smoke from a funeral pyre. The Nether-Rot Root's purple mist had thickened into a low-hanging fog that clung to ankles and crawled upward, seeking any exposed skin. One unfortunate outer-sect disciple three stations away let out a choked gasp as the mist reached his calves. His legs buckled instantly; black veins spider-webbed across his skin before he could even scream. He collapsed forward, forehead striking the edge of his own cauldron with a sickening crack. No one moved to help him. The judges simply noted the failure on their jade slips, faces impassive as carved stone.
Nearby, Zhang Yun's cauldron gave a violent lurch.
The vessel trembled on its stand like a living thing in its death throes. Inside, the Weeping Fire Lotus had finally rebelled completely molten tears splashing against the inner walls and eating straight through one rune after another. Zhang Yun's face was a mask of raw terror now, eyes bloodshot, teeth clenched so hard a thin line of blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. "Not like this... not like this!" he snarled, pouring every last scrap of his aggressive Qi into the flames in a desperate, brute-force attempt to stabilize. The cauldron groaned louder, the sound rising into a high-pitched whine that set teeth on edge. One more heartbeat and it would detonate, taking him and half the nearby stations with it.
Yin Tian, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with him, did not even glance sideways.
His own cauldron remained eerily steady on the surface, but the cost was carved into every line of his body. The blood from his bitten lip had dripped down his chin and stained the collar of his robe. His hands moved with mechanical slowness, feeding the dark suppressed art deeper into his core, chaining the five poisons like wild beasts behind iron bars. No words left his lips. No panic. Only the cold, grinding will of a man who had long accepted that survival was paid for in silence and blood. Inside his mind, a single detached thought turned slowly: If this is the price of the path, then I will pay it without complaint. Emotion is a luxury the weak can afford.
A few stations over, Han Xiaofeng's azure flame flickered dangerously low.
The genius disciple's intricate hand seals had grown fractionally slower, each motion now carrying the visible weight of exhaustion. Sweat poured down his temples in steady streams, mixing with the toxic mist and stinging his eyes. The Soul-Blighting Vine's ghostly whispers had grown louder in his ears, promising oblivion if his focus slipped even for a fraction of a second. He could feel the poisons inside his cauldron teetering on the edge of harmony one wrong breath and the Thunderheart Mushroom's lightning would arc wildly, shattering everything.
How many times have I stood at this precipice before? The thought drifted through his mind like a memory from a life already lived and lost. How many regressions of effort will it take before the edge finally cuts me in two? The philosophical weight of the question settled heavier than the miasma itself, cracking the shining fortress of his worldview just a little more. Even the #1 genius of Grandmaster Huangfu Yan now tasted the faint, bitter edge of true uncertainty.
Xuan Yue's silver robes fluttered as another gust of corrosive wind swept past. She kept her expression cold and regal, yet her fingers tightened imperceptibly at her sides. The Sovereign Pavilion sister could sense the subtle shifts in spiritual pressure around the arena the way certain competitors' Qi signatures were flickering out one by one like dying candles. Her gaze kept drifting back to Wu Ming's station despite herself. The black smoke still poured thickly from his cauldron, yet something about the way it moved felt... wrong. Too deliberate. Too controlled.
Beside her, Xuan Li (Mei Xue) was visibly struggling to maintain composure. Her earlier mantra He is failing. Ordinary. Mediocre. had begun to fracture under the relentless pressure of the miasma. Every time she looked at the youth's seemingly doomed station, her heart gave another painful stutter. The memory of that void gaze from Phase 1 still burned behind her eyes like an afterimage. It was just the pressure, she told herself again, the thought growing more desperate with each repetition. Just an illusion caused by the lethal atmosphere. Nothing more. Yet her soul refused to accept the lie. A faint, suffocating dread kept coiling tighter in her chest, as though some primordial instinct was screaming that the real danger in this arena was not the five poisons - but the one who sat among them completely untouched.
Wu Ming's cauldron continued its perfect theater of impending disaster.
Thick, oily black smoke billowed upward in heavy waves, the vessel rattling violently on its stand. To every eye still capable of watching, the youth appeared to be fighting a losing battle - flames guttering low, sickly orange turning to diseased yellow, the entire setup moments from catastrophic failure. A minor competitor two stations away actually let out a weak, bitter laugh at the sight. "Even the Wu Clan trash is about to join the pile," he muttered hoarsely before another coughing fit doubled him over.
But inside, the Chaos Body feasted in absolute serenity.
I inhale the end of their world, Wu Ming's consciousness murmured, the voice vast, regal, and utterly detached, drifting through the endless dark like a god observing the slow collapse of stars. They bleed and break merely to survive the imbalance. I devour the imbalance and become more.
Every particle of the lethal miasma - the grave-soil bitterness of Nether-Rot, the molten tears of Weeping Fire Lotus, the whispering void of Voidshade Orchid - slipped greedily through his open pores. At the molecular level, chaotic laws collided and surrendered instantly. Demonic-tinged poison met primordial Wood essence and was crushed, realigned, purified into pure Origin Qi that flooded his meridians like liquid starlight. The thin spiritual energy of this fractured realm had always been a 100-fold bottleneck. Now the very poison designed to kill became the hammer that tempered and bypassed it in secret, silent increments.
Within the World of Will, time had already begun to dilate. While a single grain of sand fell in the arena's hourglass, subjective minutes stretched into hours of perfect simulation - testing every possible friction between the five conflicting laws until harmony was not forced but remembered. The incomplete Return to Origin hummed faintly at the edge of his awareness, a distant promise and a warning both.
The extraction pressed onward, each second heavier than the last.
A cauldron three stations to Wu Ming's left gave a final, violent shudder - then detonated in a shower of molten shards and toxic vapor. The blast wave rolled across the arena, hot and stinging, forcing several competitors to stagger. One shard whistled past Wu Ming's ear, missing him by the width of a hair. He did not flinch. Not even a twitch of muscle. The black smoke from his own cauldron simply swallowed the disturbance, hiding the quiet feast beneath.
The Rising Star remained veiled.