2026-09-18 03:03:34The grand plaza of the Vermilion Sect was bathed in blinding, high-altitude sunlight. Today was the Grand Sect Tournament, the one day of the year where outer disciples fought for a coveted promotion to the inner peaks. Thousands of spectators lined the towering marble stands, their cheers echoing across the mountain. On the highest gold-leafed dais sat the sect’s elite, including Elder Zhao, who watched the martial displays with his usual detached, icy composure.
In the center of the primary arena ring, Zhou Bihan’s older brother, Zhou Lifeng, stood proudly in the shimmering blue silk of a prominent Inner Disciple. At his feet lay the battered, bloody form of an outer disciple who had dared challenge his clan's prestige. "The hierarchy of the Vermilion Sect is absolute," Zhou Lifeng proclaimed, his voice amplified by spiritual energy as he wiped his pristine blade. "Trash belongs in the dirt. Those without bloodlines or wealth are merely fuel for the flame." Sitting near the front row of the stands, a heavily bandaged Zhou Bihan cheered wildly, a malicious grin plastered across his face. "Is there no one else?" the governing Deacon Meng called out from the announcer's podium, preparing to close the ledger. "If there are no further challengers, then—" BOOM. The heavy, reinforced timber gates of the grand plaza didn't just open—they flew off their iron hinges, shattering into a thousand jagged splinters against the marble floor. The sudden explosion silenced the roaring crowd instantly. Through the settling dust and smoke, a lone figure stepped into the arena. The entire coliseum gasped. It was Lu Chen. He looked like a demon that had crawled straight out of the underworld. His gray robes were reduced to blood-stained, shredded rags that hung loosely off his broad shoulders. His bare chest was crisscrossed with fresh, angry scars that were actively smoking with a dark, vaporous energy. His long black hair whipped wildly in the mountain wind, but his pitch-black eyes were fixed directly on the high dais. In his right hand, he casually dragged the severed, heavily armored arm of the Tier-2 Demonic Ape. With a careless flick of his wrist, he tossed the massive, withered limb onto the center stage. It slid across the marble, stopping right at Deacon Meng’s feet. "Lu Chen reports back from the Ghost Weeping Valley," his voice rang out. It was no longer a hoarse whisper. It carried a terrifying, layered resonance that caused the glass ornaments in the VIP boxes to instantly shatter. "The mission is complete." Deacon Meng dropped his spiritual brush, his eyes nearly popping out of his skull. "Impossible... you survived? And that's... a Tier-2 beast?!" Up on the high dais, Elder Zhao’s silver beard twitched. The dry clay foundation he had dismissed a week ago was gone. Standing before him was a mountain of tempered steel. Zhou Lifeng’s eyes narrowed into slits as he stepped forward, his inner disciple pride deeply insulted by the interruption. "So, the beggar didn't die in the ditch. You think killing a mindless beast makes you worthy of standing on this marble? You are still just a peasant in rags." "Your brother told me the exact same thing," Lu Chen said, his voice flat as he walked step by step onto the fighting ring. "I broke his sword, and I broke his will. Let's see if the inner peak taught you any better." "Die, arrogant trash!" Zhou Lifeng roared. He didn't hold back. Recognizing the hidden danger radiating from Lu Chen, Lifeng channeled his full cultivation base—the Ninth Layer of Flesh Tempering. His sword erupted in a raging torrent of purified blue Qi, forming a five-foot-wide crescent blade of energy that sliced through the very air, aiming to cleave Lu Chen in half. Lu Chen didn't dodge. He didn't draw a weapon. He didn't even raise his arms defensively. Vrrr—! Deep within his belly, the expanded, peak-tier jagged vortex erupted. The razor-sharp cyclone of spiritual shards spun at a blinding speed, channeling a terrifying, dense aura of crackling crimson force all around his body. The blue crescent blade struck Lu Chen's chest dead-on. CRACK! The audience leaned forward, expecting a shower of gore. Instead, they watched in absolute horror as Zhou Lifeng's massive energy attack shattered upon contact with Lu Chen's skin—like cheap glass striking an anvil. The jagged vortex Qi didn't just block the attack; it literally ground the incoming spiritual energy into nothingness. "My turn," Lu Chen whispered. In a fraction of a second, Lu Chen closed the distance. He moved like a flash of red lightning. Before Zhou Lifeng could even chamber a defensive stance, Lu Chen’s bare hand shot forward, clamping around the inner disciple's throat like a vice. He lifted the arrogant young master entirely off the ground with one hand. "Let go of him!" Elder Zhao roared from the high dais, finally losing his composure. The senior elder stood up, his massive, oppressive Core Formation aura bursting outward, flattening the weaker disciples in the stands. "Lu Chen! Harm an Inner Disciple, and I will personally execute you for treason!" Lu Chen slowly turned his head to look up at Elder Zhao. Facing the crushing weight of a senior elder's aura, Lu Chen didn't bend a single millimeter. His wide, reinforced meridians pulsed with unyielding power. "You call it treason, Elder," Lu Chen shouted back, his voice echoing over the entire silent coliseum. "I call it a clearance sale." Lu Chen unleashed The Devouring Maw directly into Zhou Lifeng. "AAAAAAAGH!" Lifeng’s eyes rolled back as a violent torrent of his purified blue Qi was forcefully ripped from his body, flowing visibly down Lu Chen's arm and straight into the jagged vortex. Lifeng thrashed, but within three seconds, his skin turned pale, his muscles withered, and his core completely collapsed. Lu Chen violently threw the emptied, unconscious body of the inner disciple across the arena floor, where it slid like a sack of broken bones. The silence in the grand plaza was total, suffocating, and absolute. A lowborn beggar had just completely crippled an elite inner disciple with his bare hands in front of the entire sect hierarchy. Lu Chen wiped a drop of stray blood from his cheek. He stood alone at the center of the ruined arena, surrounded by the shattered remnants of the sect's pride. He looked up at the high dais, his piercing black eyes locking onto a trembling Elder Zhao. He raised a single, blood-stained fist toward the heavens. "The heavens didn't give me this life. A beggar took it from the dirt," Lu Chen proclaimed, his jagged vortex humming fiercely inside him, ready to take on the world. "You thought you could break me. But you only taught me how to shatter your world." The era of the Vermilion Sect's unquestioned rule was over. The era of the Shattered Vortex had just begun.
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Chapter 47 Forged in Fire and Void
The central chamber of the Star-Ship Foundry descended into a chaotic symphony of violence and creation. Colossal steam-powered gantry cranes whined under the weight of massive, four-inch-thick hull plates forged from dark Void-Iron—a rare, density-defying metal that could withstand the crushing gravity of the higher planes. Thousands of multi-limbed Iron-Weaver blacksmiths swarmed the split-open chassis of the Iron Sovereign, their heavy hammers raining a continuous shower of blinding orange sparks onto the deck.Lu Chen sat cross-legged at the absolute center of the exposed hull, directly above the ship's pulsing star-core. He had discarded his torn burlap cloak. His bare, marble-dense chest was a network of glowing, pitch-black cosmic veins that directly mirrored the newly installed copper conduits of the warship."The ship’s skeletal framework cannot handle the sheer kinetic feedback of the Primordial Dreadnought Schema [1.1]!" Forge-Master Vulcan roared from the elevated gantr
Chapter 46 The Star-Ship Foundry
The Iron Sovereign tore through the glowing stellar highways of the Star-Strand conduit like a comet forged of rusted iron and raw malice [1.1]. Powered by the stolen Star-Core Propulsion Unit [1.1], the flagship’s auxiliary copper lines hummed at a violent, bone-rattling frequency, illuminating the dark vacuum with a brilliant, translucent silver radiance [1.1].Up on the primary command bridge, Lin Xue frantically managed the hexagonal emerald crystal communication device she had looted from Officer Jaro [1.1]. A dense grid of translucent green data slips projected into the air before her, mapping out the local celestial sector."Lu Chen! The destruction of the skull-fortress has triggered a total lockdown across the Northern Star-Strand!" she shouted, her voice thick with static as she filtered the cosmic radiation. "The Ascendant Council of the True Void has deployed an entire sector patrol fleet. Seven silver-hulled dreadnoughts are already locking onto our warp-trail. If we s
Chapter 45 The Skull of the True Void
The high-pitched, mental shriek of the starlight alarm vibrated directly through the vacuum of the Star-Strand, echoing like glass shattering inside the skulls of every living entity within five miles.On the deck of the listing Iron Sovereign, Lin Xue pressed her palms hard against her temples, a trickle of dark blood seeping past her fingertips as her wind-affinity Qi buckled under the weight of the incoming psychic wave. "Lu Chen! The fortress cannons are tracking us!" she screamed into her fading air bubble. "They’re drawing power directly from the Star-Strand’s main river-conduit!"Across the void, the three-mile-wide skull of the ancient cosmic beast began to violently shift. The massive golden arrays embedded within its hollow eye-sockets whirred, the light turning from a passive gold into a blinding, hyper-concentrated white heat. The surrounding cosmic skiffs immediately pulled back, their silver hulls flashing as they cleared the firing lines.Lu Chen did not retreat to
Chapter 44 The Star-Strand Toll
The sensation of planar ascension did not feel like riding a gentle cloud; it felt as if a colossal iron hammer was continuously pounding Lu Chen’s physical vessel into a thin sheet of gold foil.The colorless pillar of light from the Planar Nexus Gate shot through the atmospheric boundaries of his mortal world, dragging the Iron Sovereign upward into the deep, freezing void of the Greater Heavenly Domain. The ship’s iron hull violently buckled, its thick plates groaning and emitting high-pitched shriek-like sounds as the atmospheric pressure completely vanished, replaced by a harsh, suffocating vacuum.CRACK.The mechanical Helmsman’s Core on the primary bridge instantly imploded, unable to handle the alien, highly concentrated ambient Qi of the higher planes. The flagship gave a heavy, lifeless lurch, its massive iron propellers grinding to a complete halt as it drifted into the orbital ring of a colossal, glowing cosmic river-conduit known as the Star-Strand.Lin Xue lay flat
Chapter 43 The Horizon of the Void
The shattered fragments of the Prismatic Throne lay scattered across the black jade floor plates like frozen starlight, completely drained of the solar fire that had kept the continent enslaved for generations [1.1]. The grand imperial vault, once the absolute center of the world's wealth, was now a silent, shadow-drenched tomb. The only light remaining in the entire Sovereign Holy Land was the violent, crackling golden-crimson lightning leaking from Lu Chen’s skin [1.1].Lin Xue stepped through the dust of the ruined gold-leafed archway, her wind-affinity Qi swirling in slow, heavy currents around her boots [1.1]. She didn't look at the piles of gray ash that had once been the Seven Sun-Kings [1.1]. Her green eyes were fixed entirely on the youth standing at the edge of the empty throne platform."The high kingdoms are completely silent, Lu Chen," she said, her voice carrying a deep, layered exhaustion that echoed off the broken black pillars. "The communication lines are dead, th
Chapter 42 The Vault of the False Heavens
The central capital of the Sovereign Holy Land did not resemble a mortal city anymore. Deprived of the grand refinery’s strategic ether, the massive jade palaces and ivory towers that once floated high above the clouds had lost their anti-gravity fields [1.1]. They had plummeted out of the sky, crashing into the lower plazas in a cataclysmic rain of shattered emerald masonry and white marble dust [1.1].The Iron Sovereign glided through the dark, cloud-chrouded ruins of the upper tiers, its heavy hull navigating a landscape of absolute devastation.Up on the primary command deck, Lin Xue stood by the shattered brass console. The Grand Sect Alignment Registry pulsed weakly in her hand, its blue ink fading fast [1.1]. She looked at the colossal golden mountain at the center of the ruins—the Imperial Zenith Palace—which had miraculously remained anchored to the bedrock by hundreds of massive gray bone chains."The high kings are dead or fleeing, Lu Chen," Lin Xue said, her voice shak
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