Chapter 55: Barrier Realm
The blinding brilliance of the Nascent Soul projection slowly began to fade. High above, the towering giant dissolved into countless motes of starlight, returning the sky to its natural scenery.
With a single step, Lin Yuan descended from the sky. His elegant black-and-white Daoist robes fluttering as he seamlessly reappeared in the courtyard, his feet touching down softly before the lightning sphere.
Inside the spherical cage, Xu Canghai was still on his knees, his face tilted upward, utterly mesmerized by the sight that had just graced the heavens.
The Clan Head of the Xu Clan was trembling, from a profound reverence. In his nearly four centuries of life, through all his violent conquests and bitter cultivation, he had only witnessed the manifestation of a Nascent Soul projection four times. Once, as a child, when a wandering hermit crossed the province; twice during expeditions to ancient ruins; and once from a supreme envoy of the central continent.
Lin Yuan’s projection was the fifth. And to Xu Canghai’s mind, it was by far the most terrifyingly pure and flawlessly aura he had ever felt.
Staring at Lin Yuan standing before him, Xu Canghai’s Heart completely surrendered. The last flickering embers of his pride, his defiance, and his arrogant clan superiority were thoroughly extinguished. He had lost to him. His mind was already made up. He would abide by Lin Yuan’s terms.
"Five years from now..." Xu Canghai began, his voice hoarse, completely devoid of its former thunderous authority.
As Xu Canghai began to talk, his brain failed to register that Lin Yuan, standing before him was completely, and utterly oblivious to the existence of the Barrier Realm. The Patriarch simply assumed that a cultivator with such a monstrous foundation must know the overarching history of the Nine Provinces. So, he kept explaining, speaking as if recounting the details of an anticipated festival.
"Five years from now, the Barrier Realm will tear open once again," Xu Canghai said, wiping a trail of blood from his chin. "When the tear manifests, it acts as a cosmic maelstrom. It draws a tremendous amount of treasures from across the starry domains, sucking them into its localized space. Primordial inheritances, ancient herbs, supreme divine ores... making it the perfect hunting ground for heaven-defying artifacts."
Lin Yuan stood perfectly still, his deep purple eyes unreadable, absorbing every single thing while maintaining an expressionless face.
"But you already know this," Xu Canghai continued, coughing weakly. "One needs a Barrier Token to enter. The spatial pressure at the entrance is enough to grind the soul apart. Without the token acting as an absolute anchor, the power of the Barrier Realm will instantly crush and destroy the soul of anyone who attempts to force their way inside, regardless of how powerful their cultivation may be."
Xu Canghai leaned heavily against the surface of the sphere, his eyes distant as he delved more into what he was saying.
"They say... that the Barrier Realm was once the definitive boundary between this world and the Upper World. It was the bridge to true immortality," he murmured. "But no one has ever been able to confirm whether that legend is true. The realm is broken now, shattered beyond recognition countless epochs ago when a supreme yet arrogant cultivator attempted to ascend to the Upper World without undergoing Heavenly Tribulation. He sought to bypass Heaven’s judgment itself. The resulting backlash did not merely kill him. The force of Heaven’s wrath violently shattered the Barrier Realm, turning what was once a bridge between worlds into the broken and treacherous realm it is today."
Xu Canghai mapped it out with a trembling finger. "The backlash split the realm into four massive territories: the Southern, Northern, Eastern, and Western Barrier Realm fragments. Each fragment drifts in the void, filled with its own unique horrors and treasures."
A sudden, dark shadow crossed the Clan Head’s face.
"Among the legends, there is one that terrifies even the boldest of old monsters," Xu Canghai warned, his voice dropping to a fearful whisper. "They say a mysterious cultivator, an entity of unfathomable age, made the Southern Fragment of the Barrier Realm their personal abode. According to the legend, this entity ruthlessly slaughters anyone who dares trespass upon its territory, and its cultivation is said to far surpass the Soul Transformation Realm."
Xu Canghai let out a bitter chuckle. "Of course, some have begun to doubt the story. They claim it is nothing more than a myth, a ghost story deliberately fabricated by greedy experts to instill fear in other cultivators, allowing them to plunder the Southern Fragment without competition. A phantom threat designed to scare away anyone who might challenge their claim."
He raised his gaze toward Lin Yuan, his expression turning solemn. "But ultimately, it all comes down to one’s conviction. Are you willing to risk your life to discover whether the legend is true? Throughout my time of venturing into the Barrier Realm during its openings, I never once dared to set foot in the Southern Fragment. Whatever lies there, the risk is simply too great."
Lin Yuan silently processed the information, piecing together the geography of this ancient battleground within his mind. Southern, Northern, Eastern, Western. A realm once serving as the boundary between worlds, now shattered into fragments by a fool who feared the wrath of Heavenly Tribulation.
"And even if you avoid the South," Xu Canghai added, a slight shiver running through his body, "the entire Barrier Realm is infested with wandering souls and spirit beasts of all kinds, many possessing terrifying levels of cultivation. The environment itself is hostile to life. One needs profound cultivation to truly explore the wonders hidden within such a realm without eventually becoming prey to the countless creatures that call it home."
Lin Yuan processed Xu Canghai’s words, his somewhat limited knowledge of wandering souls allowed him to grasp just how dangerous the Barrier Realm truly was. A wandering soul was simply a soul that had become separated from its physical vessel yet failed to enter the cycle of reincarnation.
Most wandering souls would gradually weaken and dissipate with the passage of time, but in a place like the Barrier Realm, where the remnants of ancient battles had saturated the environment with spiritual and death energy, even a weak soul could undergo strange transformations. Given enough time, it could absorb Yin energy, and eventually become a terrifying spiritual entity.
Some might retain fragments of their memories and cultivation techniques from life, while the strongest could even cultivate their souls independently, becoming other peculiar existences. Lin Yuan’s eyes narrowed slightly. A place filled with countless wandering souls was something else!
Lin Yuan’s pupils then narrowed slightly. "The token. Where is the Xu Clan’s token?"
Xu Canghai let out a long sigh. His shoulders slumped, accepting the finality of his clan’s downfall.
"My clan... the Xu Clan is the only clan throughout the entirety of Azure Cloud City that possesses a Barrier Realm token," Xu Canghai confessed, stripping away the last of his clan’s supreme secrets. "It is sealed within the deepest vault of the clan treasury."
He then closed his eyes, a tear of profound regret slipping down his cheek. "We did not find it in some ancient ruin. Long ago, when the Fifth Ancestor of the Xu Clan, the creator of the Five Thunder Arts, ended a five-hundred-year drought that had plagued this city and successfully broke through to the Nascent Soul Realm, his achievement shook the entire region. It was said that the Great Emperor from the Central Continent personally bestowed that Barrier Token upon our ancestor as a reward for his accomplishment. It became the ultimate pride of the Xu Clan, our most treasured inheritance, and our ticket to the Starry Domain."
Now, that ticket was going to be the very thing that funded the rise of the man who had destroyed them.
Xu Canghai slowly opened his eyes, his gaze meeting Lin Yuan’s deep purple pupils. Within those eyes, the fallen Clan Head saw no chaotic malice, no petty cruelty, and no desire to torment the defeated. Instead, he saw a cold, unwavering truth. This was a man who did not make empty promises, and Xu Canghai knew with absolute certainty that Lin Yuan would honor his word.
The Xu Clan would lose its wealth. Its power would be stripped away, and its cultivators would have their cultivation crippled. The clan that had once stood proudly atop the city would be reduced to nothing more than a shadow of its former glory.
But its bloodline would survive.
The children would live on!
"I have told you everything," Xu Canghai whispered, his voice incredibly small, resembling that of an exhausted old man rather than a Thunder Lord. He tilted his head back, exposing his throat. "Do it fast. Quickly end my life."
Lin Yuan stared at the man for a long moment. He felt no pity, nor did he feel any lingering rage. The karma between them was nothing more than a simple matter of cause and effect. Xu Canghai had sought to murder him and Bai Qingyue. Therefore, the consequence of his actions was death. To Lin Yuan, this was not cruelty, nor was it vengeance. It was simply karma. Xu Canghai had chosen his path, and now he would bear its consequence.
"Your descendants will live, bound to the earth," Lin Yuan stated, his voice carrying nothing but truth.
Lin Yuan slowly reached out his right hand. Th sphere of lightning seamlessly parted around his wrist, recognizing him as its absolute master.
He extended his index and middle fingers, pressing them gently against the center of Xu Canghai’s forehead.
Lin Yuan then channeled a concentrated, lethal surge of his newly formed Nascent Soul energy, intertwining it with the destructive essence of Tribulation Thunder. The terrifying power converged upon his fingertips before surging directly into the Clan Head’s soul. With a cold gaze, Lin Yuan violently shattered the man’s remaining spiritual defenses.
The attack then ripped through Xu Canghai’s spiritual sea like a drop of black ink falling into a clear pond, instantly dissolving the very fabric of his consciousness. It was absolute death.
Xu Canghai’s eyes instantly glossed over, the last flicker of life extinguishing in a microsecond. His body went entirely limp, slumping to the side within the fading lightning sphere, dead before his mind could even register the end.