Kael was about to step away.But before his feet could move, something struck him from within.Not pain, not a physical blow, but a sudden upheaval that exploded inside his dantian, like a flood arriving without warning and filling every corner of his spiritual sea all at once.Kael's eyes went wide. Inside his dantian, the silver energy that had been flowing full ever since the three soul fragments merged was spinning in a way different from usual. Faster, hotter, less contained, like something that had been compressed for far too long and had just discovered that the wall holding it back was no longer strong enough."Am I... breaking through?"Before that thought finished forming, silver light erupted from his entire body.Not flowing, not radiating gradually, but erupting like water exploding from a cracked vessel, filling the air around him with light that had no clear boundary between itself and the sky above.Kael had no other choice. He sat cross-legged right where he stood, in

Among the slowly drifting clouds at an altitude the world below could never reach, a mountain range stretched across the sky.Not an ordinary mountain range. These were floating islands connected by stone bridges and suspended pathways hanging in the air, forming a territory no smaller than entire kingdoms below the heavens. Their peaks pierced through the cloud layer beneath them so that from above they looked like islands floating on a white ocean. Small rivers flowed from cliff to cliff, throwing themselves into chasms with no visible bottom. The forests blanketing their slopes were a deep green that never changed with the seasons, nourished by spiritual energy that had soaked into the soil for hundreds of thousands of years.The border between the Sky-Piercing Sacred Dragon Sect and the Heaven-Splitting Celestial Sword Sect lay at the point where that mountain range reached the height of its beauty, in a wide valley flanked by two cliffs that each rose like walls holding up the sk

Right after those final words, the sound of massive wings came from the sky.The Demon Eagle descended calmly, pitch black and enormous, landing to Kael's left in a way that didn't require much space but produced enough air pressure to push several people in the front rows back half a step.From its back, Xiao Peng stepped down and took position directly to Kael's right, his black robes moving in the wind the Demon Eagle had brought with it.No explanation was needed. Black robes, a Demon Eagle, those had long been recognized as the mark of the Demon Sect by anyone who had ever dealt with them in the Upper World.This person really was the Grand Leader of the Demon Sect. And the one standing beside him was a Demon Sect member.Everything he had just said was no empty claim.The crowd went silent in a way different from a few seconds before, not the silence of shock but the silence of people who couldn't find a single word worth saying in a situation like this.What did he just say?Th

Chen Wuji waited until Kael's hand lifted from his chest before he spoke. "Who are you, really?" Kael sat down on the rock beside him. "The short version is, I'm Mo Tianjue. Grand Leader of the Demon Sect, fifteen hundred years ago." He spoke in the same tone he used when explaining something to someone who genuinely deserved to know. "I was killed by the two people I trusted most. Before that death, I used a technique that allowed me to reincarnate. At first I didn't remember who I was, not until you gave me that black stone." He paused for a moment. "You should know that stone was a fragment of my memories and power that had been shattered." Chen Wuji looked at him in silence for a few seconds. Then he laughed quietly, a short laugh from someone who had just found the answer to a question that had been confusing him without him realizing it. "So that's it." He shook his head slightly. "Now I understand why you were too strong and too talented to make any sense. You're actually

A few seconds passed before Evelyne finally moved.Not because she hesitated, but because there was something too large inside her chest that needed a second or two to find its shape before her feet knew what to do.She ran.Kael felt someone approaching from his left, a peak Immortal Realm cultivator moving with the speed of someone who was no longer thinking about elegance or composure.He turned. And for a moment, his eyes that should have had no reason to widen went wide anyway.Evelyne?She didn't go back to Earth? She chose to wait for me here? And on top of that, peak Immortal Realm?!Before he had time to put together the right words for this moment, Evelyne was already in front of him, and the embrace arrived before everything else.Kael didn't step back. His arms wrapped around her in return, and something inside his chest that had been frozen for a long time melted all at once."You're finally back." Evelyne's voice came from somewhere near his shoulder, quiet, but the way