Chapter 1574: The Dao Son of Many Years Ago, Now the Sect

The heavens and earth fell silent at once.

The Heavenly Ghost Divine Lord's hair and beard whipped wildly, his eyes bulging with rage, vowing that after his rebirth, he would wash the heavens and earth in blood to quench his heart's hatred.

Yet at this moment, a chill arose within him.

Clang!

A clear, resonant sword hum.

From within the brilliant, radiant sun stepped a youth in green robes, his face youthful, sixteen years old, drawing his longsword from his waist and walking step by step toward them.

"Void Refinement… Void Refinement…"

"You are Void Refinement!"

The Heavenly Ghost Divine Lord cried out in shock.

Why does this Void Refinement youth carry such suffocating pressure!

It was as if facing the Supreme, facing the Sovereign!

As if even if he wished to execute you, you must cry out "Thank Your Majesty's Great Grace," with not the slightest thought of resistance, forced to bow your head, bare your neck—otherwise it would be rebellion, a violation of hierarchy and respect.

"Heavenly Ghost,"

"I, the Divine Lord,"

"grant you one sword."

Jiang Ding passed through ten thousand li of space, step by step arriving before the Heavenly Ghost Divine Lord, and said calmly: "If you survive this sword, or if your Soul Mark still remains, then you are talented—you may live as a criminal in the Immortal Sect's prison, and earn reduced sentences through meritorious service."

The Immortal Sect has always embraced all under heaven, especially enemies without blood feuds with its citizens.

Clang!

One sword slashed forth—the sun rose in the east, gathering boundless light from the entire realm, all converging into a single blade, descending upon the Heavenly Ghost Divine Lord, suppressing all, destroying all.

Behind the sun,

the youth in green robes did not glance at his enemy again, turning back toward Dayang Dayang Tianchi.

"No!"

"This cannot be!"

Behind him, the Heavenly Ghost Divine Lord's face twisted in utter terror.

He dared not entertain even a single thought of resistance—he burned his essence-blood, his soul, everything—he instantly shattered into hundreds of millions of ghostly shadows, each vividly lifelike, each a perfect replica of his true form, fleeing wildly through the web of cosmic rules toward every corner of the universe.

His Dun Fa was unfathomably mysterious, the supreme escape technique of the Heavenly Ghost Divine Sect ten thousand years ago, known as the Heavenly Ghost Divine Causality Dun Fa—if mastered, one could go anywhere under heaven.

In history, during the ancient Divine Realm sect wars, the Heavenly Ghost Divine Sect's Dao-Union Divine Lords repeatedly escaped death and preserved their sect through this Dun Fa, becoming famed throughout Ming Zhen Gao Jie.

Now, in the terror of life and death, the Heavenly Ghost Divine Lord burned everything, unleashing this Dun Fa in full.

Even his soul trembled—a terrible instinct screamed in frantic alarm, urging him to sever his soul from his physical form and return to the Dao as a Shen Hun Lao Yin, the only possible path to survival.

The Heavenly Ghost Divine Lord hesitated not—he acted with absolute decisiveness.

This was no doubt

a Dao-Union Divine Lord who had risen from weakness, weathered countless storms of blood, and made the most correct choice in an instant.

Yet when the sun set, all was illusion.

The sun rose, the sun set—the light of destruction turned every ghostly shadow to ash.

No matter whether the shadows hid deep within space, within the rules, or within layers of the rule-web, all were identical—utterly annihilated by that terrifying force of destruction.

The so-called Causality Dun Fa, the so-called Spatial Rule Dun Fa—all lost their divine marvel beneath the sun's radiance.

Shhh!

The brilliant sun finally revealed its true form—a flying sword, its blade piercing straight into the Heavenly Ghost Divine Lord's skull, instantly grinding out his soul, magic power, and life force.

This terrifying sword strike carried the rules of causality, annihilation, and destruction—once it struck, beneath the quasi-Heavenly stage, there was no difference between true body, clone, or soul fragment.

All living beings closely tied to the Heavenly Ghost Divine Lord would die simultaneously—no escape technique could save them; they could only accept their inevitable fate.

The death of soul and physical form was not the end.

The Taiqing Flying Sword rose from the ashes, transforming into the rule of the sun, merging into the Dao's rule-web, traveling within it, using the path of the recently deceased Dao-Union cultivator's soul returning to the Dao to navigate through.

Soon, she found without much difficulty a dark rule-node—and upon it, a spirit in utter horror.

"Spare me!"

"Spare me…"

The Dao-Union Divine Lord, lord of an entire realm, pleaded in terror.

Shhh!

The Taiqing Flying Sword pierced through the dark rule-node, shattering all, crushing this cluster of dark rules, annihilating the rule imprint left by the Dao-Union Divine Lord within the Dao.

Then, calmly returning.

She departed from the Dao, affectionately brushing against her master's cheek, then vanished.

The Heavenly Ghost Divine Lord was utterly dead!

The Ninth Front's many Void Refinement cultivators swiftly recorded every detail they had witnessed; many trembled, afraid to raise their heads, fearing they would be called upon to answer.

Fortunately, this did not happen.

"Destroying a Dao-Union cultivator's Dao imprint is precisely this—it is one of the more difficult aspects of quasi-Heavenly stage arrays. I have turned this case into teaching material; when you return, study it carefully…"

Jiang Ding did not trouble them, instructing.

"Yes!"

"Teacher!"

The many Immortal Sect Void Refinement cultivators exhaled in relief.

……

The Immortal Sect's Solar Fleet passed through one realm after another, spreading light across countless worlds, cleansing one ancient Divine Worm after another, further securing…

To preserve the Immortal Gate's dominion over the Ancient God Domain.

This process lasted for several hundred years.

In the end, the Great Sun Sword Lord's Great Sun Heavenly Pool came to rest beside the Taiyi Qingmu Domain.

The Eight Great Immortal Sects pledged loyalty to the Immortal Gate at the cost of their inheritances, each holding a special district within a domain, named after their respective sects.

On this day, the Great Sun Sword Lord finally arrived on his inspection tour at the Qingmuxian Sect's territory.

According to the Immortal Gate's system, the Eight Great Immortal Sects' domains were scattered in all directions, separated by extreme distances, forbidden from gathering without permission, on pain of being charged with treason.

In the calculations of the Immortal Gate's central array-spirit computer, nine peak Void Refinement Dao Sons working together possessed the power of peak Merging Dao, and once they advanced to Merging Dao, their combined strength would inevitably reach that of a quasi-Heavenly Being — and a particularly powerful one at that.

This was the risk.

What the Immortal Gate gained in return was the inheritances of the Eight Great Immortal Sects, along with their industrial chains.

The eight different immortal-path industrial systems were highly complementary to the Immortal Gate's grand industrial system; in the forging of the Immortal Gate's many warships and high-grade materials, the steps performed by the Eight Great Immortal Sects' cultivators were extremely important.

The pinnacle creation of this cooperation was the Great Sun Immortal Spirit Gold.

Benefiting from the Eight Great Immortal Sects' loyalty, the Immortal Gate could now synthesize small quantities of Great Sun Immortal Spirit Gold — a material that was one of the most important alloys in the engines of the Dead Star warships, and one that might in the future be promoted to an eighth-grade material.

"Lower Sect cultivator, Ji Liuyue."

"Paying respects to the Great Sun Councillor; we are deeply honored to welcome the Great Sun Councillor's arrival at our sect."

Qingmuxian Sect Dao Son Ji Liuyue — no, now the Qingmuxian Sect's Supreme Elder, a peak Void Refinement cultivator — led many of the sect's powerful experts out a million kilometers beyond the domain to greet him.

She was of extraordinary bearing, slender as a willow in the wind, and spoke in a soft, gentle voice.

As the years flowed by, the world had changed beyond recognition.

The Dao Son of many years ago was now the sect's ancestor.