Heavenly Wheel Ascension

Zhi Xuan ignored the complaints. Within the sea of his consciousness, he summoned an authority far older and darker. The second gate behind his back—the Ghost Path—trembled violently. The gate, adorned with carvings of starving wraiths, slowly creaked open, emitting a sound capable of tearing through the consciousness of anyone who heard it.

"You wish to harvest my soul?" Zhi Xuan whispered, his voice now sounding dual, as if thousands of hoarse voices were speaking alongside him. "Give me... The Eternal Star!"

The moment those words were uttered, a pitch-black spiral vortex appeared in front of Zhi Xuan’s palm. The vortex did not emit energy; instead, it sucked in everything in its surroundings—the air, the light, and even the silver threads that were binding the area.

WUUUUUUZZZ!

The silver net belonging to the assassins began to be pulled toward the black vortex. The assassins holding the ends of the threads jerked, their eyes widening as they felt their own essence being forcibly sucked out of their meridians. From the Ghost Path, spirits crawled out and merged with the dark vortex, giving it a terrifying density.

Ruo Xianxue, sitting cross-legged on a branch of the Devil Tree of Life, opened her eyes to reveal the dual pupils of the Sun and Moon. She looked up at the orange and nebular sky of Zhi Xuan’s sea of consciousness.

"This brat... releasing that technique with the support of his Domain?" Ruo Xianxue murmured. She simply sighed and closed her eyes again. "Is he desperate? That will flatten this forest and... never mind."

The black spiral vortex swelled, pulsing like a giant heart made of nothingness. The moonlight above the Thousand-Blade Bamboo Forest seemed to be sucked dry, leaving absolute darkness decorated only by the eerie purple glow of Zhi Xuan’s pupils.

"Everything begins from nothingness," Zhi Xuan muttered, raising his hand. "To doubt Reincarnation is a question that remains unanswered in my journey."

The assassins' formation seemed to bow, pressured from within, causing cracks to appear. The core of the formation—the formation plate held by one of the assassins—began to vibrate violently and fracture.

"Ow, ow! Daoist Zhang! Do you want to bury us all here?!" Duan Niu shrieked, clutching his sacred wooden bowl tightly as he felt the crushing pull of the black vortex. "This is no longer a Weaver technique; this is a natural disaster!"

Zhi Xuan did not budge. His raised hand seemed to hold the destiny of every living creature in the forest. "Thirteen breaths have passed, Senior Duan," he said flatly.

"Be gone," he waved his hand gently, and the black vortex spun slowly before shooting toward the assassins. "Eternal Star: Everything Returns to Origin."

The black vortex glided with a terrifying elegance, sweeping across the ground soundlessly, yet every inch of space it passed vanished into absolute darkness. The once-sturdy Thousand-Blade Bamboo Forest bent; the black bamboo stalks that had stood for centuries crumbled into dust before they could even emit a snapping sound.

"Bluffing!" the lead assassin roared. He and dozens of others moved in a practiced motion. "Gu Fengyan, accept your death!"

Dozens of assassins simultaneously shot beams of light into the sky. From the intersection of these beams, a giant dark-red bow appeared. The lead assassin shot upward, hooking his arm behind the giant bow as three massive arrows formed.

The giant bow vibrated, emitting a resonance of death capable of collapsing the earth. The three arrows, formed from blood and souls, let out the wailing cries of thousands of spirits sacrificed to the Eternal Killing Temple. The air around the bow turned crimson, burning with forced karmic fire.

As the black vortex approached, two of the Eternal Killing Temple assassins moved their fingers; they sacrificed themselves to catch the black vortex and reappear in the distant sky. In an instant, a massive explosion occurred in the heavens during the displacement of the black vortex.

BLARRR!

The explosion on the horizon produced no light, but rather a momentary gaping black hole that swallowed clouds and air before being forced shut by the laws of nature. The two practitioners who sacrificed themselves vanished without leaving a speck of dust, serving as offerings to clear the path for the lead assassin’s ultimate strike.

"Ugh—" Zhi Xuan hissed, a trail of blood flowing from the corner of his lip. He wiped it away coldly. "Displacing my technique? A well-calculated plan indeed."

The lead assassin laughed hoarsely, a sound like bones grinding against each other. "Gu Fengyan, did you think we hadn't studied your techniques? Every step you take, every destruction you bring, has been recorded in our Ark of Death!"

"For the Temple! For Eternity!"

SRIIIIING!

The three giant arrows shot out simultaneously, piercing the sky with a speed beyond mortal comprehension. One aimed for Zhi Xuan’s forehead, one for his Divine Wheel, and the last targeted his divine organs. The presence of the arrows caused the laws of space around Zhi Xuan to freeze, locking his existence so he could not escape into dimensional rifts.

Zhi Xuan stood tall, his hair fluttering wildly. He withdrew his Domain and looked up. "I hate people who point their weapons at me."

"You may have locked my location," Zhi Xuan’s voice echoed as he suddenly faded into a shadow. "But can you catch a shadow that requires no light to exist?"

Zhi Xuan’s shadow seemed to melt into the ground, merging with the deepening darkness caused by the destruction of the black bamboo. The three giant arrows slammed into the spot where he had stood moments ago with a thud that shook the earth.

BUMMM! BUMMM! BUMMM!

The ground exploded violently, creating three massive craters that still held the blackish-red fire of the Eternal Killing Temple’s curse. Yet, no body was crushed; no soul was plucked. Amidst the billowing smoke and glowing dust, a shadow crawled beneath the feet of the assassins at an irrational speed.

"Where is he?!" the lead assassin screamed, his wild eyes searching in every direction from high in the sky.

"Behind you, poor old friend," a voice whispered, right at the leader's nape.

Zhi Xuan’s five fingers pierced the lead assassin’s back, but it wasn't the physical body he targeted. The seal he created immediately manifested threads that wrapped around the leader's Divine Spirit, locking his Divine Wheel before he could self-destruct.

"You... how is it possible..." the lead assassin choked on blood, his body beginning to wither at a terrifying speed.

"I told you, you are merely fertilizer," Zhi Xuan said flatly. He looked down toward the pavilion hole leading to the underground chamber. "Senior Jian Dao, your banquet has begun!"

Zhi Xuan slammed his hand downward, throwing the paralyzed yet still-living body of the leader to the ground. Simultaneously, he activated the Ancient Heaven trigram seal he had placed earlier. A circular formation formed immediately, suppressing the assassins' formation that had previously held sway.

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Instantly, the lines of the Ancient Heaven formation glowed with an archaic copper-red color, crawling over the ground like thirsty blood vessels. The sealing formation of the Eternal Killing Temple, which had been dominant, began to creak and shatter—not from physical impact, but because its essence was being forcibly plundered by a higher authority.

Zhi Xuan stood in the air, his hands still forming a mudra. "Every drop of cultivation you gathered through killing will be returned tonight to revive the Sword God you imprisoned."

In the depths of the underground cave, Jian Dao felt a tremendous explosion of energy. His pale body began to flush, his veins bulging as the essence of the high-level practitioners from the Eternal Killing Temple above ground flowed heavily into his meridians.

Zhi Xuan smiled coldly. He turned toward the dozens of other hunters and merged back into a shadow. "You speak of death, unaware that the night is staring back at you."

Seeing the body of their leader thrown like trash, no grief showed on those cold faces; only a cruel calculation to finish the mission remained.

Simultaneously, the remaining dozens of assassins formed a tight circle. They no longer dispersed but pressed their backs together, creating a fast-spinning energy wall like a giant disc made of energy blades. Every time Zhi Xuan’s shadow crept near, bursts of sword light from the formation struck the ground, trying to force the shadow back into a solid physical form.

"A beautiful movement," Zhi Xuan murmured, his voice coming from every corner of the mist. "However, even a fish will catch the hook if it isn't careful."

Zhi Xuan reappeared in the air, ten paces from their formation. He walked calmly upon the void. Hundreds of energy blades shot from the assassins' formation, tearing through the air with a whistling sound that pained the ears. Yet, Zhi Xuan did not dodge. He lunged forward, his body spinning with the elegance of a dancer of death. Amidst the rain of energy blades, he moved like a thread slipping through the eye of a needle—thin, untouched, and lethal.

Zhi Xuan arrived in front of the nearest assassin. The assassin responded instantly, swinging a silver dagger to cut Zhi Xuan’s arm. However, Zhi Xuan merely shifted his shoulder slightly, and instead of counter-attacking, he simply flicked his fingertip against the assassin’s wrist.

Only a light touch, as subtle as dew falling on a leaf. "One," Zhi Xuan whispered.

Instantly, the assassin’s eyes bugged out. He felt no pain, only a horrific emptiness. The black lotus seal on Zhi Xuan’s palm pulsed once, and in an instant, the energy within the assassin’s Divine Wheel was sucked dry, pulled through his meridians toward the ground and directly into the cauldron beneath the pavilion. The assassin’s body shriveled instantly, his skin sticking to his bones before he collapsed into dust.

"Demon! DIE!" a comrade beside him roared, trying to slash Zhi Xuan’s head with a chain-hook.

Zhi Xuan ducked, his other hand sliding out to press against the attacker's chest. "Two."

The horrific scene repeated itself. The divine essence of the second assassin exploded into the underground formation channels. Zhi Xuan moved like a ghost through the crowd; every touch—whether on a forehead, a shoulder, or even the edge of an enemy’s robe—was an inevitable death.

Duan Niu, watching from a distance while holding his sacred bowl, could only swallow repeatedly. "Ow, ow... this Daoist Zhang truly gives them no room to breathe."

Zhi Xuan darted back, this time landing in the midst of the remaining, panicked assassins. Their unity was shattered; fear—an emotion they were supposed to have discarded—now crept back into their hearts as they watched their comrades vanish into dust in mere seconds.

"Don't come closer!" one assassin screamed, trying to detonate his Divine Wheel for a self-destruction.

Zhi Xuan was faster. He pressed his palm directly onto the top of the assassin's head before the explosion could occur. "Want to blow yourself up? Naive."

Zhi Xuan twisted his wrist, and the black lotus seal in his palm spun. Instead of exploding, the energy gathered in the assassin's Divine Wheel was caught in a vortex Zhi Xuan created, forced to spin backward and sucked into the ground through his feet.

The man froze, his mouth wide open in a silent scream, before his body crumbled into pieces like a sand statue hit by a storm. Zhi Xuan let out a small breath, snorted coldly, and touched his own forehead. When he released his finger, a horrific sword intent spread across the entire region, instantly mincing the dozens of remaining assassins.

A rain of flesh fragments and essence minced by Zhi Xuan’s sword intent fell like red snow, covering the ruins of the pavilion. The atmosphere, previously noisy with the roar of energy and screams of death, suddenly fell deathly silent, leaving only the sound of the wind carrying a stinging scent of blood.

Zhi Xuan stood in the center of the crater, his brown robes unstained by a single drop of blood. He moved his finger, and the formation on the ground immediately glowed. The clusters of essence from the dozens of high-level practitioners just minced did not fade into the sky but were sucked greedily into the Ancient Heaven formation carved into the earth.

SRAKK! Zhi Xuan froze for a moment. His left arm remained motionless for a second before detaching from his shoulder. Blood gushed out as a spear from the sky pierced the ground—a strike he had failed to catch in his brief lapse of focus after the Eternal Killing Temple assassins were annihilated.

Zhi Xuan did not groan in pain. He merely looked at his left arm lying on the blackened earth with an ice-cold gaze. He shifted his sight toward the spear embedded in the ground—a silver spear whose blade was decorated with carvings of a dragon devouring the sun, radiating a pure aura that stood in sharp contrast to the foul aura of the previous assassins.

"Finally making a move," Zhi Xuan hissed, his voice hoarse but stable. "Thousand Lotus Valley, Black Bamboo Sect. Coming yourselves to deliver your lives."

He touched his stump with his right hand, and instantly, energy threads from the Devil Tree of Life within his sea of consciousness crawled out, wrapping the wound to stop the bleeding from his left shoulder.

From behind the parting clouds, a middle-aged man in golden robes decorated with bamboo patterns floated down, followed by Envoy Yao, who was still spinning his silver lotus. Du Tianzong, the Sect Leader of the Black Bamboo Sect, landed with a thud that shook the foundations of the earth. His red eyes stared at Zhi Xuan’s arm on the ground, then turned to the piles of ash that were once the Eternal Killing Temple assassins.

"Devil Gu... you truly are a shameless monster," Du Tianzong growled, his hands trembling as he held back overflowing rage. "Slaughtering those reapers in such a lowly manner... you even used their bodies as fertilizer for the traitor underground!"

Zhi Xuan slowly raised his head. Though his arm was gone, the aura around him grew denser, pressing the air until it felt as heavy as molten metal. "Lowly?" Zhi Xuan asked in a piercing, flat tone. "Wasn't it your sect that taught me that life and death are merely matters of nutrition for a stronger Dao?"

Envoy Yao stepped forward, his thin smile remaining despite the sword intent still crackling in the air. "Gu Fengyan, losing a left arm is a small price for a Weaver Transformation expert. It is a reminder to you that today, it is not just your arm that is severed, but your entire soul that will be purified by me."

Zhi Xuan merely stared, his shoulders trembling slightly as a low, haunting, and crackling laughter echoed in the darkness. He raised his hand to his face, laughing in ancient madness. The laughter held no note of joy; it was dry like the rubbing of bones at the bottom of a ravine, echoing throughout the flattened Bamboo Forest.

Zhi Xuan lowered his right hand, revealing a pair of eyes that were no longer just sapphire blue but pulsed with blood-red at the edges, signaling the awakening of a bloodlust he had suppressed since leaving the Secret Realm.

"Purified?" Zhi Xuan repeated Envoy Yao's words while stepping forward. Every step left footprints in the form of blackish-purple glowing cracks. "You, who build grandeur upon piles of corpses and hypocrisy, dare to speak of purification?"

SRAAAAK!

The ground beneath his feet churned, splitting into long cracks. Rocks from the earth rose and froze around him as his long black hair fluttered wildly. He extended his right arm, catching the Gods Slaughter Crescent which stood upright, nearly as tall as himself.

Zhi Xuan’s right-handed grip on the handle of the Gods Slaughter Crescent sent a shockwave that extinguished the karmic fire remnants from the Eternal Killing Temple’s arrows. The giant scythe seemed to recognize its master’s bloodlust; its curved blade let out a moan capable of shaking the Divine Wheels of the practitioners present.

"One arm for all your lives," Zhi Xuan said, his voice no longer human, but a resonance from the quietest depths of the scythe. "I believe that is a very favorable trade."

Du Tianzong growled, flicked his finger, and immediately dozens of Soul Transformation experts appeared behind him. "Do not be arrogant, Devil Gu! You are merely a crippled dragon on the verge of death. With one arm gone, how can you even swing that cursed scythe?"

"You are indeed a powerful Weaver Transformation expert," Du Tianzong said disparagingly. "But in your current state, you won't even be able to withstand the attacks of dozens of Soul Transformation practitioners."

ZRAKK!

A scythe slash surged into the air, splitting the atmosphere and causing the ground cracks below to tremble violently. Seeing this, Du Tianzong's eyes widened as he formed a protective formation mudra. The protective circle collided with the scythe slash, causing a massive explosion.

The explosion from the impact did not just shatter Du Tianzong’s protection; it sent a shockwave that flattened the remaining bamboo stalks within a radius of one li. Du Tianzong was thrown back several steps, his feet dragging through the earth, creating deep trenches. His face, once full of contempt, was now replaced by genuine shock.

"I told you," Zhi Xuan whispered, his voice crawling like a snake into the ears of everyone there. "I do not like people who point their weapons at me."