Ignoring Cai’s questions, Shi Mu waved his hand to dismiss the territorial barrier set up around his mother’s grave. He paid respect to his mother one last time with a bow, and then lifted himself with a bolt of green light and headed into the distance beyond the sea for a few hundred miles until he finally stopped in the air above a barren island.

　　“Oh, I see! Who knew that the Absolute Yang Flames in your left hand could also be used like that? How bizarre!” Cai remarked as it perched on Shi Mu’s shoulder after hearing his explanation along the journey.

　　“But I won’t know how strong my Energy Construct is without flexing it,” Shi Mu replied as he scanned the barren island below his feet. It was about ten odd square-miles, filled with barren rocks and boulders without a single sign of life.

　　His body flashed with the dual colors of red and white, which gathered into an image of a gigantic flaming red ape.

　　“There!” Shi Mu swung his hand toward the island.

　　The Flaming Ape Energy Construct charged at the barren island below, the flames in its two hands blazing brightly for a second before two broadswords made of fire appeared in its hands. It swung, and with a loud screech, a single gargantuan sword beam of red and white hurled out.

　　Booooommm!

　　A large ditch about ten odd yards long and several yards wide was carved onto the island. The red-white arc of light had sliced through the rocks like a hot knife through butter.

　　The Flaming Ape Energy Construct had not ceased as it continued to whack on the barren island in a crazed fashion, slicing and dicing with its large broadswords while spitting flames out of its mouth.

　　Its hurricane storm-like attack quickly overwhelmed the island as tidal waves thrashed out of the indirect forces into a cacophony of booms, as if a dozen thunderbolts had rumbled at the same time.

　　It took only a few minutes before the barren island ceased to exist completely, crumbled into the roaring waves of the sea.

　　Shi Mu’s face beamed with ecstasy.

　　The Flaming Ape Energy Construct became even more potent after he merged the power of his left hand into it, which was most telling in the Energy Construct’s unleashing of Primordial Inferno. All it took was a little bit of those white flames, and its raw damage output swelled.

　　The barren island below him sank because a single Primordial Inferno attack had destroyed its base in the ocean, causing the entire island to crumble into the water.

　　“Thrilling!” Shi Mu cried, letting out an enraptured cackle.

　　Cai too was quietly stunned, apparently stupefied by the power the Flaming Ape Energy Construct.

　　Shi Mu’s cheering stopped abruptly as he quickly summoned the Energy Construct back to him, his face a little pale.

　　The damage output may have increased by several folds, but the Real Qi it expended was proportionately greater. With the amount of Real Qi he had now, he couldn’t use it at full strength thoughtlessly.

　　He produced a mid-rank spirit stone in his hand and started to replenish his lost Real Qi.

　　A few moments later, he cast away the exhausted Spirit Stone as a thought roused in his mind. With a flash of flames, a pair of flaming wings on his back.

　　If the power of his left hand could be combined with his Martial Energy Construct, then it could surely be used with his flaming wings too.

　　His left arm once again turning scorched-black as he drew the power of flames out of it, Shi Mu redirected the power into his flaming wings.

　　Phooooll!

　　Si Mu’s wings were suddenly enlarged by several dozen folds, its surface now spotting fine cracks and wisps of white not unlike a web of veins and capillaries throughout his wings.

　　“What…?” Surprised, he subconsciously flapped his wings a bit.

　　His figure blurred. Without leaving even a single afterimage, he vanished from the air above the ocean.

　　A few hundred yards away from where he originally was, a silhouette suddenly blurred out into existence—it was Shi Mu. He scanned his surroundings for a while, perplexed at what happened… and then understood.

　　He took a deep breath, suppressing the manic joy within his mind over his discovery, and once again stretched his gigantic flaming wings outward before flapping them a little.

　　The scene before his eyes started to blur a bit as he hurled forward at terrifying speed. It was so fast, it must have been more than ten times his original flying speed.

　　A few moments later, on a space somewhere above the ocean, Shi Mu’s figure reappeared. No longer able to contain himself, he channeled his rapture into a boisterous guffaw.

　　Even a Heaven-rank powerhouse may not even be able to catch up with insane speed like that! If Shi Mu ever encountered another Heaven-rank opponent, he would have a fail-safe to fall back on. Even if he couldn’t overwhelm his opponent, he was still all set to flee.

　　The caveat, of course, was that it exhausted a lot of his Real Qi, much like the Flaming Ape Energy Construct did. Taking into account the current amount of Real Qi stored in his body, Shi Mu estimated that he could only manage this hyper-speed for about fifteen minutes.

　　And truly, that would be more than enough for him to cruise through thousands of miles away from a tight spot. If combined with a high-rank spirit stone as a constant supply of energy, he could fly even longer. He was pretty sure any normal Heaven-rank powerhouse wouldn’t be able to catch him even if they had their own pair of wings.

　　He took a deep breath, forcing down the maddening joy coursing through his veins, and summoned the Green-winged Flying Carriage as he slowly retraced his flight.

　　After testing around with his Flaming Wings for a while, he had totally left Cai alone somewhere in the ocean way back. He should probably go look for it now…

　　…

　　At the same time, but at the very east of the Lushan Kingdom.

　　At the border between the Lushan Kingdom and the barbarians’ wasteland was a city close to a military barracks called Donglin City, one of the easternmost cities of the nation.

　　It wasn’t a very big city to begin with, inhabited by a population of less than ten million who are mostly just people who had always been living at the border. They usually busied themselves with their own work at this time of the day, but today, they made an exception.

　　They had swarmed to the streets and lifted their heads upward, their eyes looking at the sky.

　　Because today, the sky was filled with a large passel of godlike men floating in midair.

　　Leading the group was the priest Ziyu of Transcending Heaven Immortal Cult, who was still fresh from the grief of losing his most beloved disciple. He spotted a rather regal, deity-like image, his blue priestly robe adorned with patterns of the bagua symbol rattling loudly as it billowed in the wind. His face had a profound sense of sobriety.

　　Standing behind him were three Earth-rank powerhouses, two of them being the fair-skinned priest with the black beard, Qing Mu. The priest with a round face in a blue robe, Bai Shi, was also there. In his lap was a mutant dog with six ears.

　　Behind these four Earth-rank powerhouses were three golden carriages hovering in the air where a dozen Xian Tian warriors stood, all of them donning the blue bagua robe of the Immortal Cult. They stood tall and undaunted, dignified.

　　Then, facing against them was a lone middle-aged man with a golden robe and similarly golden hair and beard. He stared at the crowd assembled before him.

　　“You, golden-haired scum! Was it you who forcefully trespassed the forbidden land of the Transcending Heaven Immortal Cult and murdered all of our beloved elite disciples?” Bai Shi raised his voice, and it boomed across the sky.

　　“It’s the Transcending Heaven Immortal Cult!”

　　The bystanders below exploded into a furor before the golden-haired man could even react. The gods of the Transcending Heaven Immortal Cult graced the sky above them today, and it made them really excited.

　　Many of the bystanders followed up with quieter discussions of their own, murmuring to themselves, “Who is this weirdo in a golden robe daft enough to anger the Transcending Heaven Immortal Cult? Does he know he’s about to die?!”

　　“You, golden-haired scum! Answer the bloody question. Why did you trespass into the forbidden land of my cult, and murder our brothers and sisters?” Seeing the golden-haired man remaining quiet really provoked Bai Shi’s ire, causing him to take a step forward as he persisted in his questioning.

　　This time, the man in the golden robe finally raised his head slowly, eyeing Bai Shi for a second before a dull response, “Why would anyone explain themselves to some ants they are about to crush?”

　　“You—!” Bai Shi was so enraged he couldn’t even complete his own sentence.

　　“My beloved disciple, Sheng Er, died by your hand… didn’t he?” Forcing the boiling blood down his veins, Ziyu took a step forward and probed.

　　“Oh, you mean that coward who used a spirit tool to save his own skin? The same coward who abandoned his own people in order to flee first? Oh, I killed him first, alright,” The golden-haired man answered.

　　“You have the nerve to kill the people of my cult, but do you have the nerve to tell us your name?!” Ziyu questioned through gritted teeth.

　　“My name is of no concern to ants like you, but… I concede that it would be quite pitiful if you people had died without even knowing the name of the one who ended you,” The man said, his eyes narrowing. “You may know me… as Ao Zu.”

　　The crowd repeated his name in a stunned manner, but it wasn’t because the name was infamous—it was because no one had ever heard of that name at all.

　　Ziyu’s mind raced. He recalled that his master, Wu Chen, had once mentioned a mysterious, ancient family bearing the surname Ao.

　　Just as Ziyu was still musing over the possibilities, Bai Shi—who had been standing next to him—was suddenly pulling the edge of his sleeves. “Brother Ziyu, our formation is now complete. There’s no need to buy time anymore.”

　　“Good,” came the reply. Ziyu discarded the thought and turned to the other two men after him, nodding.

　　“In formation!” he ordered.

　　The two Earth-rank fighters and Bai Shi each led a golden carriage, splitting up into different directions. At the same time, standing behind the man in the golden robe were three new blue-robed Earth-ranked priests, each with a golden carriage carrying a dozen blue-robed Xian Tian priests.

　　Aside from Ziyu, there were seven Earth-rank fighters, making a total of forty-nine Xian Tian warriors, surrounding the man who had called himself Ao Zu in the middle.

　　Once the seven troops stood still, the leading Earth-rank powerhouses each turned their palm upward, producing a new blood-red stone-made token in their hand.

　　It was not a transparent token, but in their hands, red glows coursed through their layer in a sinister, unsettling fashion.

　　“Begin!”

　　The seven Earth-rank priests shouted in unison, and the seven blood-red tokens burst out red beam straight into the sky before pooling together on the space ten yards above Ao Zu’s head.

　　Boooommm!

　　The earth below Donglin City was suddenly seized by terrible tremors. Panicked, the citizens below quickly lost any interest in watching a couple of gods as they scrambled to any direction they could go. Unfortunately, a few of them not fortunate or fast enough were instantly crushed by the fallen bricks of tumbling houses.

　　“No good, we have to get out of this city!”

　　Someone yelled above the din, and suddenly millions of civilians rushed to the gates of the city, a few of them lost their footing in the chaos, and become casualties to the panicked stomps of the stampede.

　　Yet, those who had reached the gates first noticed that the gate of the city had already been barricaded by a three yards-wide sword.

　　In fact, the gate was not the only spot in the city with such a barricade. There were a total of seven gigantic swords breaking out of the earth like that, with their tips pointing at the sky above and their hilts rested on the earth.

　　The gigantic swords seemed to be made of the same material as the red tokens, each of them flaring a sinister vermillion glow.

　　“Immortal-maiming Seven Stars Array—Heaven Seal!” Ziyu cried.

　　A drape of red lights suddenly poured out of the vermillion swords underneath, expanding towards either of the sword’s sides. As the drape of light from all seven swords expanded in unison, they started to cross over to each other’s path.

　　The seven gigantic swords linked together with seven drapes of light like a seven-pane screen linked seamlessly on its edges, surrounding Donglin City in the middle.

　　At the same time, the blood-red light emitted from the hands of the seven Earth-rank powerhouses were like stars as they formed a dome of light from above, merging together with the walls of light the swords had created so that there were no gaps in between.

　　Hum!

　　A sound not unlike the tolling of a large bell rang.

　　The Immortal-maiming Seven Stars Array was finally completed: a dome overhead, cupping from the sky to the earth, entrapping the entire city.

　　However, ever since the formation was initiated until its completion, Ao Zu had been watching the situation without once wanting to stop their operation, as if the entire array was set up for someone else rather than himself.