Tianyi sighed as he gazed ahead. He stood in the Vast Void outside the Numinous Realm. His figure was more insignificant than a speck of dust compared to the entirety of the immortal-rank realm.

Although he had many conduits, they shared one mind and one soul. He just got done with one war and was already entering another war in just a few thousand years.

Tianyi blinked and made a wry smile. ‘I really became old. I’m beginning to think a thousand years of peace is too short.’

Of course, it wasn’t true peace. At least, not for the entire Three Thousand Immortal Realms System. The myriad forces of the Primordial Realm competed against each other constantly for dominance and resources. It wasn’t always war, but it was a never ending conflict. And that was with the presence of demons eyeing the same land and resources.

It wasn’t just in the Primordial Realm; it was the same in the Numinous Realm. In fact, this was what the Numinous Sword Sect and Immortal Court wanted to see. Although they would still win if the other forces allied with each other, the two hegemons did not want to decrease the disparity in power but increase it.

Although this was an open scheme, the forces had no choice but to jump into the pit. Rather than facing certain destruction, it was more logical to compete against similar or weaker forces.

It wasn’t all about interests. As the conflicts increased, enmity would inevitably be sown, further shackling this belligerent relationship.

It was the same everywhere. Even without a hegemon pushing the conflict behind the scenes, where there was life, there would be contradictions. The best examples were the various forces of the lower realms.

However, none of this mattered at this point.

There wasn’t only one figure surrounding the Numinous Realm, but countless ones. They were not the various members of the Immortal Court, but Tianyi’s conduit. They seemed to be just standing there, staring and doing nothing. At least on the surface.

If anyone tried to leave or enter the space outside the Numinous Realm, they would discover that they would barely make any progress no matter how far they traveled. Tianyi had elongated and magnified the space around the immortal-rank realm. It was like what he did to protect Shangri-La in the final Divine Beast-Human War, but on a grander scale.

While this happened, the various Tianyis stood there, unmoving.

“No reaction?” one of the Tianyis asked. ‘Did they not discover it, or are they pretending?’

Tianyi was confident in his mastery over spacetime, especially with his experience in the True Nothingness as Nahui Ollin System, but he would never underestimate a divinity.

However, even if it was a trap, Tianyi still walked into it. It was only one of his conduits, but it was the most powerful one.

Upon entering, Tianyi did not release his immortal sense. Although his body could only be sensed through the regular five senses, his immortal sense did not have the same trait. Because of this, he often coated one of his conduits with a layer of immortal sense so as not to appear invisible to his allies.

“Really, no one?” Tianyi asked aloud. He had stopped right outside of the Numinous Sword Sect. Of course, this outside was the airspace perimeter of the hegemonic force, and it was high in the sky, just touching the ceiling of the Numinous Realm.

“I haven’t done this in a while,” Tianyi muttered to himself and raised a palm.

A miniature sun did not appear in his palm. No, that would be akin to shining a high-powered flashlight in complete darkness. It may have worked on the Eight Pillars Sect, but the disparity in strength between it and the Numinous Sword Sect could not be quantified. And the Numinous Sword Sect had ruled their realm for far longer than the Immortal Court. It was hard to believe they didn’t take any precautions, and that’s without accounting for the divinity.

A hole opened in Tianyi’s palm. Within was infinite space and a solar system with eight orbiting planets. He turned his hand, aiming at the Numinous Sword Sect.

The Constellation Cessation did not fall slowly from Tianyi’s hand. Rather, it shot out faster than a bullet. The nine miniature planets continued to orbit the miniature sun. Only they weren’t so miniature compared to when they first left the Nine Heavens Universe. The farther the attack traveled, the bigger it grew.

The motions of the nine miniature planets generated a powerful gale force, leaving a trail as it spiraled toward the Numinous Sword Sect. For a moment, Tianyi couldn’t help but think, ‘I won’t accidentally destroy the Numinous Realm, right?’

It was not an unfounded worry. When he destroyed the Eight Pillars Sect, it left a lasting mark on the Huang Realm that would take an indefinite amount of time to recover from. Even when the Huang Realm turned into the Primordial Realm, the wreckage remained.

That attack didn’t threaten the stability of the Huang Realm, but Tianyi had grown by leaps and bounds since that war. Comparing his current Constellation Cessation to his former version was like comparing the bright moon to a firefly.

Still, he had already released the attack, and it was too late to recall the attack. Nor did he want to. Tianyi immediately disappeared and hid himself to watch the devastation.

Only, his Constellation Cessation never reached its target.

A sword seemingly condensed out of metallic light shot from the Numinous Sword Sect and bisected the Constellation Cessation. Although it only struck once, the sun and eight planets split in half and separated.

Because of the disruption, the Constellation Cessation should have exploded, but it didn’t. Instead, the split halves diverged and strayed from the original trajectory, but it would still fall onto the Numinous Sword Sect.

Several more sword lights shot from the heart of the Numinous Sword Sect, splitting the two halves of the Constellation Cessation even more. When they were split into thirty-two parts, the sword lights stopped and Tianyi’s attack fell outside the perimeter of the Numinous Sword Sect by over ten thousand kilometers.

Upon contact, the split Constellation Cessation released its power. Spheres of destruction expanded and destroyed the surrounding land. Their power penetrated deep into the land and affected the spiritual veins, which led to the guardian formation of the Numinous Sword Sect to flicker. A few of the fragments were rather close and their edges grazed the Numinous Sword Sect, destroying the outer protective formations.

“A pity,” Tianyi muttered. Splitting his attack into pieces seemed to only affect the range and concentration of the damage, but that was far from the truth. The power of the Constellation Cessation was not even a hundredth of its full power. Those sword lights weakened the synergy between everything by breaking them down into thirty-two fragments.

Tianyi didn’t have time to think for long because he saw several sword lights shooting straight toward him. ‘As expected of a divinity, can you sense my location?’

He immediately took defensive measures and concealed himself within spacetime.

At that moment, three more sword lights shot out from the Numinous Sword Sect.

‘Hm?’ Tianyi gazed at the incoming sword light with trepidation. Compared to the previous sword lights, the three new ones were coming straight at him. ‘Was it because I concealed myself between spacetime? So, Divinity Yanxu attacked my location, not because he sensed my location, but because he sensed the fluctuation of spacetime?’

Since that was the case, another conduit appeared next to Tianyi, while the original disappeared. The new Tianyi was not covered by spacetime. In fact, he didn’t use any techniques and simply used his physical might to escape.

Although several more sword lights shot out from the Numinous Sword Sect, they were more scattered and not as accurate compared to the second barrage. This confirmed Tianyi’s hypothesis.

Tianyi’s physical might was impressive, more than enough to contend with immortals, but this was his zero-level conduit. Even if he seemed to have escaped the sword lights, it did not mean he escaped their range.

Soon after, the replacement conduit was shredded, and a large amount of immortal qi of primordial chaos escaped. Although it was insignificant in Tianyi’s eyes, the amount of qi was still more than most monarchs had before the conduit completely disappeared, cutting the connection to the Nine Heavens Universe.

“Sure enough, divinities should not be underestimated,” Tianyi said. This was his third-level conduit that had left the Numinous Realm and reappeared in the Vast Void.

He reported what happened to Huang Feihong, the Immortal Minister of War and the commander of this operation. “Understood. Nine Heavens Grand Elder, deploy your conduits and bombard the Numinous Sword Sect.”

“Understood,” Tianyi said. ‘I’m totally being treated as a tactical bomber or strategic orbital weapon,’

Tianyi’s third level conduit didn’t go in. Instead, his countless zero-level conduits appeared in the sky of the Numinous Realm.

Unlike the stronger conduits, the zero-level conduits could not display the maximum might of the Stellar Silence or Constellation Cessation, but it didn’t matter. They just needed to open portals to the Nine Heavens Universe in order to unleash the techniques.

Compared to the conduits forming the attacks, there was a slight delay, which was crucial in a duel, but this was war. Aside from the disadvantage of slower speed, this method also had the advantage of being able to unleash more powerful attacks. After all, the spells were formed in his inner universe not limited by the Heavenly Dao.

When the countless Tianyis appeared, they did not blot out the sky, but to those with sharp vision, they would be able to discern the countless dots that appeared in the sky. Coupled with what happened earlier, the members of the Numinous Sword Sect realized that their enemy had not given up.

Every Tianyi pointed their palm at the Numinous Sword Sect. A portal opened on their palm, but before many of them could shoot, countless sword lights shot out of the Numinous Sword Sect, destroying the zero-level conduits.

But for every conduit destroyed, two more would take their place.

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From inside the Numinous Sword Sect, Divinity Yanxu frowned. Naturally, he was the one who released all those sword lights. When he saw Tianyi’s first Constellation Cessation, even he was shocked by it.

Although the mystery contained within was not at the divine level, the energy it used would even make divinities like himself hesitate. However, dealing with it was much easier.

Unfortunately, he underestimated its power, and it still caused some damage to the Numinous Sword Sect’s guardian formation. That was the smaller problem. The larger problem was the damaged spiritual veins.

And now, the instigator appeared again. “I already designated him as a danger, but the Nine Heavens Sovereign is much more troublesome than I expected. Although he can’t threaten me, his danger to the sect is on the same level as the Concealed Emperor and Perfected Huanglong!”

Divinity Yanxu increased the number of sword lights to deal with the increasing number of Tianyis. He had thought the Nine Heavens Sovereign’s incarnations would not be able to outlast him, a divinity—especially after that opening move—but more and more incarnations appeared. None of them succeeded in releasing an attack, but because of the increased number, he had to reduce the power of each attack to increase the quantity.

Eventually, a single sword light could not kill one incarnation, and it would take two. Even so, the number of incarnations continued to increase. The number of sword lights increased, but so did the number of strikes that were needed to kill each incarnation.

“How is he doing this? Even if he had an infinite source of energy, the sheer amount of incarnations should strain his soul to the point of it being disintegrated. Not to mention my own attacks,” Divinity Yanxu muttered. He sighed.

He hadn’t wanted to do this, at least not yet. He wanted to take action and slay the Nine Heavens Sovereign before the other Immortal Court’s divinities took action to weaken their advantages. Although his sword light seemed purely material, they also contained soul attacks. Hence his shock.

Simultaneously, he cursed the Buddhists. What happened to the alliance, the agreement to advance and retreat together? Ever since the first All Pantheon Conference ended, the Buddhists seemed to have vanished.

The Numinous Sword Sect had tried to contact them many times, but it all ended in failure. Even the token to enter the Pure Land Pseudo-System lost its function. Not to mention entering, they couldn’t even find a general direction. It was as if they vanished from the universe.

“Sure enough, it’s unreliable to depend on outsiders. Everything is up to us.” Divinity Yanxu took a deep breath and his voice spread into every corner of the Numinous Sword Sect. “Sword immortals, the time has come to unsheathe your blades. The Hegemon War is upon us!”