The late afternoon sun cast long, amber rays across the slate-roofed buildings of Winter-Frost City, painting the lingering steam plumes in shades of soft gold and bronze.
In the central plaza of the upper district, the three-hundred-yard smooth crater where the impenetrable Grand Iron-Vault had stood just an hour ago remained surrounded by terrifying silence. Thousands of citizens, guards, and visiting cultivators still stood frozen on distant balconies, their minds entirely shattered by the memory of the solitary man in the dark coat who had dismantled two Stage-5 High Sovereigns and an ancient fortress with a single, casual push of his open palm.
However, far away from the chaotic whispers of the upper district, the narrow, cobblestone alleyway of the Grand Medicine Quarter remained blissfully tranquil.
Inside the Silent-Pill Pavilion, the heavy oak doors were bolted shut, and three thick, silver-inscribed isolation talismans hung over the threshold to block out any external sound or spiritual surveillance.
The cozy interior of the shop was bathed in a brilliant, golden-amber radiance. At the center of the room, Lady Mu-Qing knelt before a large, three-legged alchemy cauldron forged from ancient white jade and dark dragon-iron. Her long, immaculate silver hair floated gently in the surrounding thermal currents, and her pale, delicate hands executed a series of lightning-fast, highly precise alchemy mudras!
"ALCHEMICAL FORMATION—EARTH-MARROW CONDENSATION!" Mu-Qing cried softly, her melodious voice ringing out like a silver bell!
HUMMMMM—!
A vibrant, purple spiritual flame erupted beneath the white jade cauldron, enveloping the sphere of golden Primordial Earth-Marrow Resin hovering inside.
Under the intense heat and the precise spiritual compression of a Stage-5 High-Grade Alchemist, the basketball-sized amber resin began to shrink rapidly. Impurities were burned off into clouds of fragrant, white medicinal steam, while the raw, heavy kinetic earth energy of the resin was refined and condensed into an increasingly dense, liquid core.
Sitting quietly on a polished mahogany bench near the front counter, Li-Wen watched the refining process with flat, observant eyes.
His broad frame was perfectly upright, his hands resting on his knees, and his massive, pitch-black heavy blade resting against the wall beside him. Beneath his charcoal tunic, his physical marrow remained quiet and steady. Deep within his lower spine, the dark-violet Void-Piercing Needle twitched subtly every few minutes, but the microscopic vault of absolute-zero sapphire ice held it in an unyielding, frozen grip.
Beside him, little Xiao-Yue sat swinging her small legs, her leather boots making soft thump-thump sounds against the wood. She was holding a small wooden bowl filled with candied mountain berries that Lady Mu-Qing had given her, chewing happily while watching the glowing purple fire with large, fascinated eyes.
"Brother Li-Wen," Xiao-Yue whispered, leaning her head against his arm and pointing her small berry stick toward the cauldron. "Sister Silver-Hair's cooking pot is super shiny! It smells like warm forest mud and sweet honey!"
"It is not food, Xiao-Yue," Li-Wen murmured softly, his raspy voice gentle as his thumb lightly dusted a speck of sugar from her cheek. "It is medicine."
"Is it going to taste bitter?" She pouted slightly, her brow furrowing in cute concern. "Do you have to drink all of it?"
"It will not be bitter," Li-Wen said calmly.
At that moment, a blinding flare of golden light erupted from the top of the white jade cauldron!
SWOOSH—!
A rich, heavy wave of primordial earth aroma burst forth, filling every corner of the shop! The wooden floorboards, the shelves, and even the stone walls hummed with a heavy, grounding resonance. The spatial atmospheric density inside the room briefly doubled as a single, liquid sphere the size of a pigeon's egg levitated slowly out of the cauldron, glowing like a tiny golden sun!
This was the Ninth-Refinement Earth-Core Liquid—the ultimate earth-elemental catalyst, condensed to its absolute physical maximum!
Lady Mu-Qing let out a long, exhausted exhale, a few delicate beads of sweat glistening on her pale forehead. She carefully caught the glowing golden sphere inside a carved white jade chalice, standing up from her knees and stepping toward Li-Wen with profound, reverent eyes.
"Senior Li-Wen," Mu-Qing said, holding the jade chalice forward with both hands, bowing her head deeply. "The Ninth-Refinement Earth-Core Liquid is complete! It contains the unyielding, primordial mass of the subterranean volcanic veins. When consumed, its immense physical density will act as an absolute sledgehammer against the Void-Piercing Needle, completely grinding the void poison and the dark needle into non-existence without requiring a single thread of spiritual Qi!"
Li-Wen looked at the glowing golden liquid inside the chalice. He did not hesitate, nor did he ask further questions.
He reached out his broad, scarred hand, took the white jade chalice, and poured the glowing golden liquid directly down his throat!
GLUG.
The moment the Ninth-Refinement Earth-Core Liquid entered his stomach, an explosive wave of terrifying, molten earth density erupted within his torso!
It was not a wave of spiritual fire or magical energy; it was the sheer, suffocating physical mass of a million tons of compressed volcanic granite circulating directly through his digestive tract and into his bone marrow!
Any ordinary cultivator—even a Stage-5 Sovereign—who consumed such a concentrated dose of raw earth mass without using spiritual Qi to dilute it would have their internal organs instantly crushed into liquid paste!
However, Li-Wen's body was the Absolute Northern Sovereign Constitution.
His broad chest expanded slightly as his internal bone structure absorbed the immense physical weight like a dry desert absorbing a sudden rainfall!
CRUNCH—! CRACKLE—!
Deep within his lower spine, the dark-violet Void-Piercing Needle sensed the rapid arrival of the primordial earth mass and panicked! The dark void poison flared wildly, attempting to burst through the ice vault and corrode his nervous system!
"CRUSH."
Li-Wen growled softly in his throat.
He did not channel spiritual Qi. He simply released the absolute-zero ice shell around his spine while simultaneously driving the immense, concentrated mass of the Earth-Core Liquid directly into the needle!
BOOOM—!
An internal physical impact echoed within his spinal column!
Under the combined, unstoppable pressure of absolute-zero physical cold from the outside and a million tons of kinetic earth density from the inside, the dark-violet Void-Piercing Needle did not even have the chance to release its poison!
CRACK—! SHATTER—!
The dark needle, forged from ancient void steel, was instantly snapped into microscopic fragments, completely atomized alongside its dark poison, and permanently converted into harmless, neutral mineral dust that was instantly flushed from his marrow!
HUMMMMMMM—!
The moment the dark needle vanished, the massive, dark-violet seal that had locked ninety percent of Li-Wen's spiritual meridians for weeks shattered into absolute non-existence!
RUMBLE—!
Though Li-Wen kept his spiritual Qi perfectly suppressed within his lower Dantian to avoid destroying the shop, the sheer, dormant magnitude of his unsealed Stage-5 Peak Sovereign energy caused the very air in Winter-Frost City to vibrate subtly!
Lady Mu-Qing's violet eyes widened in absolute, trembling shock! Standing just three feet away from him, she could feel it—a terrifying, abyssal aura that felt like standing before a cosmic primordial dragon that had just opened its eyes after a ten-thousand-year slumber!
Li-Wen slowly opened his dark, void-like eyes.
The slight, microscopic paleness that had hung around his lips for weeks vanished entirely, replaced by an unyielding, absolute vitality. His broad shoulders rose and fell in a quiet, deep breath, his hands casually returning to his coat pockets.
"It is gone," Li-Wen said flatly, his deep, raspy voice carrying a resonant clarity that vibrated through the room.
Lady Mu-Qing took a deep, trembling breath, dropping to one knee in a gesture of absolute alchemical respect. "Congratulations, Senior Li-Wen! Your body is completely restored!"
Xiao-Yue clapped her small, berry-stained hands joyfully, bouncing on her stool. "Yay! Brother Li-Wen drank the shiny medicine and didn't even make a yucky face!"
Li-Wen reached out, gently patting Xiao-Yue's small head, before looking down at Lady Mu-Qing.
He reached into his inner pocket and pulled out a ancient, weathered leather scroll bound with dark iron wire, placing it gently onto the mahogany counter beside her white jade chalice.
Inside the scroll was a lost, ancient alchemical formula from the Northern Realm—the Nine-Frost Sovereign-Pill Recipe.
"This is for your work," Li-Wen said softly.
Lady Mu-Qing's breath caught in her throat as she looked at the dark iron scroll. As a Stage-5 High Alchemist, she recognized the legendary northern runic script on the leather in a single glance! That single scroll was worth more than ten mountain cities!
"Senior... this is far too precious!" Mu-Qing stammered, her violet eyes filled with deep emotion.
"It is fair," Li-Wen replied simply, picking up his massive heavy blade and strapping it securely across his broad back.
Suddenly, before Lady Mu-Qing could speak another word, the three silver isolation talismans hanging over the front door burst into blinding, white flames!
BOOOM—!
The heavy oak doors of the Silent-Pill Pavilion did not break, but a terrifying, suffocating wave of dark-red spiritual pressure seeped through the cracks of the wood, instantly turning the air inside the shop ice-cold and heavy with the pungent smell of old blood!
Lady Mu-Qing's face turned pale instantly. "This aura... it's... it's a Stage-6 Early-Grade Sovereign!"
Outside in the narrow cobblestone alleyway, a cold, raspy voice that sounded like grinding rusted iron echoed clearly through the heavy oak door:
"Northern Sovereign... you break my sect's arrays, erase my elders, and consume the Earth-Marrow Resin that belonged to the Golden-Eagle Sect..."
The voice carried an ancient, suffocating weight that made the stone buildings on the entire street groan under the pressure.
"Do you truly believe that the Western Continent has no supreme experts who can curb your arrogance?"
Li-Wen did not display a single grain of surprise or anger. His dark eyes remained flat, indifferent, and completely calm.
He walked slowly toward the front door, his broad hand gently holding Xiao-Yue's small fingers.
"Stay inside," Li-Wen said softly to Lady Mu-Qing without turning his head.
He pushed open the heavy oak door and stepped out into the quiet alleyway.
Standing twenty yards away in the center of the narrow, shadow-draped alley was a solitary old man.
He wore long, dark-red robes embroidered with golden eagles. His hair was long, untamed, and pure white, trailing down to his waist like a frozen waterfall. His face was deeply lined with ancient wrinkles, and his eyes were not human—they were pure, glowing orbs of dark crimson fire that radiated the terrifying, world-bending aura of a Stage-6 Early-Grade Sovereign!
This was Grand Elder Eagle-Ancestor—the supreme, hidden patriarch of the Golden-Eagle Sect, a terrifying monster who had lived for over four hundred years and had not stepped out of his secluded mountain cave in a century!
Flanking the alleyway on the surrounding stone rooftops were eight Stage-5 High Sovereigns from the Golden-Eagle Sect's core council, their sharp blades drawn, their combined spiritual auras completely locking down the entire spatial coordinate of the Grand Medicine Quarter!
Grand Elder Eagle-Ancestor stared at Li-Wen with his glowing crimson eyes, his raspy voice cutting through the silent air like a serrated dagger.
"I felt the Void-Piercing Needle shatter from your spine moments ago," Eagle-Ancestor said coldly, raising his thin, skeletal hand, which was encased in a five-clawed glove forged from black meteorite iron. "You have recovered your spiritual Qi. But you are still merely at the Peak of Stage-5! Before a Stage-6 Sovereign who commands the domain of spatial law... your physical strength and Stage-5 Qi are nothing more than waves crashing against an iron mountain!"
Eagle-Ancestor pointed his meteorite claw directly at Li-Wen's chest. "Leave the dark heavy blade, hand over the small girl and her lotus artifact, and kneel before my sect's ancestral hall for a hundred years to repent for the elders you slew! Otherwise... I will refine your physical body into a puppet of blood!"
High on the rooftops, the eight Stage-5 Sovereigns sneered, their spiritual domains overlapping to form a colossal, dark-red cage of spatial suppression around the alleyway!
Standing on the cobblestone street below, Li-Wen stood perfectly straight.
The terrifying spatial domain of a Stage-6 Sovereign pressed down upon his body, but his dark coat did not even flutter. His hands remained casually in his pockets, his posture as immovable as an ancient pine rooted in a thousand-year glacier.
Beside him, little Xiao-Yue blinked her large eyes, holding her pink lotus lantern high. She looked at the red-eyed old man with white hair standing in the alley, then tugged gently at Li-Wen's sleeve.
"Brother Li-Wen..." Xiao-Yue whispered softly, her sweet voice innocent and unfazed. "The old man with red eyes has very messy white hair. Did he forget to comb it this morning?"
Li-Wen looked down at Xiao-Yue, his dark eyes softening by a subtle fraction, a faint, cold outline touching the corners of his broad lips.
"He did not forget, Xiao-Yue," Li-Wen murmured, his raspy voice flat, steady, and carrying an absolute, unyielding coldness into the freezing alley air. "He just won't need a comb anymore."
Li-Wen slowly pulled his right hand out from his coat pocket.
Now that his spiritual meridians were completely restored, his physical marrow and his unsealed Stage-5 Peak Sovereign energy merged together for the very first time since he had crossed the Eastern Seas!
A subtle, microscopic hum of sapphire-blue absolute zero began to radiate from his right palm.
He looked at the Stage-6 Grand Elder and the eight Sovereigns on the roofs, his dark eyes cold, flat, and absolute.
"Stage-6?" Li-Wen said flatly, taking a single, calm step forward. "Show me your iron.
See you in next chapter...