The Crimson Tide of Karma

Three-Unity Sword Sect.

Mo Tingbei’s toes had already brushed against the formless, insubstantial spatial ripples on the verge of unfurling, when his figure abruptly froze, as though time itself had been forcibly severed in that instant.

Jiang Jinyue’s words, sharp as an ice pick, plunged into his spiritual platform, instantly shattering a subtle yet remarkably resilient veil that had long enshrouded his perception.

A bone-chilling premonition of ill omen surged within him, akin to a deep-dwelling evil dragon suddenly rearing its head and violently slamming into the very core of his divine consciousness.

Retracting his foot, he felt the spatial ripples that had threatened to dissipate around him instantly smoothed away by a power far more immense and deeply restrained.

On the Star-Gazing Platform, the sea of clouds remained serene, and the moonlight cast a frigid glow. Yet, emanating from Mo Tingbei, an indescribable, profound sword intent—one that seemed capable of crushing the myriad stars of eternity—silently permeated the air.

In that moment, his aura abruptly deepened, becoming utterly unfathomable. With each blink, his pupils seemed to shimmer with tiny, constantly shifting sword qi calculations, as if capable of piercing through all falsehoods to gaze directly upon the very root of all existence.

“Senior Brother?” Jiang Jinyue, keenly perceptive, immediately registered the terrifying surge in his aura. This imposing presence, as incandescent as a “guest star,” made even her, a venerated Golden Core Dao Lord, sense a subtle, yet undeniable threat.

Her ice-blue eyes, wide with astonishment, doubt, and heightened vigilance, fixed upon him.

Mo Tingbei did not respond to her question.

Closing his eyes, Mo Tingbei channeled the unprecedented, peak divine consciousness he had attained through his extreme sublimation. He forged it into a formless, insubstantial, yet incomparably sharp Heart Sword, then, using the ‘Three-Unity Heavenly Dao Chapter’ as its profound foundation, ruthlessly slashed towards the corner of the mist that had been abruptly torn open.

Within his divine consciousness, vast and boundless as a sea of stars, countless fragments of information began to frantically collide, intertwine, and recombine…

The lingering questions surrounding the cultivators aboard the flying boat suppressed by Changming; the burgeoning turmoil within the Wu Yin Imperial Palace; Empress Ye Jinghuang’s sinister forbidden art, its origins utterly unknown; the wisp of pure, ancient Nine Nether bloodline coursing through Lin Xiaoxiao; old Daoist Yujizi’s inexplicably strange reaction; and that fleeting, ancient, malevolent aura that had so profoundly unsettled Jinyue moments ago…

The threads of karma, tangled like an intricate knot, nonetheless subtly converged, all pointing towards a singular, bottomless dark vortex.

However, the instant his Heart Sword of deduction grazed the core of that vortex, it collided with what felt like an impenetrable dark barrier, one entwined with endless resentment and insidious evil power! From the barrier emanated countless twisted, agonizing, blasphemous whispers and howls, as a defiled, deathly stillness, originating from the deepest reaches of Nine Nether, surged backward, threatening to corrupt his divine consciousness.

To block even the Three-Unity Heart Sword, this had to be an exceptionally malevolent and cunning anti-deduction art!

With the ominous premonition in his heart intensifying, Mo Tingbei’s patience for deduction evaporated. He snarled with furious indignation, “Break!”

The Heart Sword, burning with the very essence of his life’s Original Source, surged with blinding light. Carrying an unstoppable, resolute sword intent capable of severing all, it slashed down with fearless might!

“Break!”

As if from the ethereal depths, a muffled groan — a chilling blend of shock, fury, and venomous resentment — echoed, and the dark barrier shattered in response!

Yet, in the very instant the Heart Sword cleaved through the barrier, glimpsing a sliver of heavenly secret—

Countless fragmented, yet terrifyingly vivid images, laden with monstrous resentment and the stench of blood, crashed into his sea of consciousness like a breaching, crimson tide!

It was a boundless sea of blood.

It had swallowed the capital of the Wu Yin Imperial Palace, engulfed vast fields and towering mountains. Billions of mortals, reduced to struggling ants, dissolved in the viscous blood, their terror and despair congealing into a tangible resentment that shot skyward, staining the very firmament a ghastly dark crimson.

Countless shattered souls, their howls echoing in agony, were torn and devoured by unseen forces, much like grains cast into a colossal mill, to be ground down into the purest yet most defiled nourishment imaginable!

An immense, untouchable will—cold, and ravenous to the extreme—like the gaping maw of an abyss, greedily gorged itself on this grotesque feast of blood and souls!

These fragmented images were clear with a terrifying, suffocating intensity.

The soaring resentment, the pungent stench of blood, the final, heart-wrenching laments of all beings—all surged like a relentless tide, crashing against Mo Tingbei’s divine consciousness, delivering the most visceral sensory and spiritual assault imaginable.

Even Mo Tingbei, whose heart was forged of iron, momentarily lost his composure, if only for a fleeting instant.

Jiang Jinyue did not perform a deduction.

Having reached her level of cultivation, some matters no longer necessitated deliberate deduction.

For a Golden Core cultivator, it was said, their very being rested with the Dao, their spirit merged with heaven and earth. A single thought from them could set the heavenly secrets in motion.

The Golden Cores of the present era, moreover, were not to be compared with the so-called True Immortals of antiquity. If those ancient True Immortals, who dined on mist and drank dew, roaming freely through the Thirty-Three Heavens, were akin to flatboats drifting upon the long river of karma, then the Golden Cores of today were colossal reefs sunken deep to the riverbed, sharing the very pulse and breath of the myriad currents. They appeared to be more deeply bound, yet commanded a far more critical and influential position.

Consequently, the pursuit of ‘precognition’ was, for them, considered a lesser endeavor.

Every single thought that arose from them possessed the potential to subtly deflect the laws of heaven and earth. Each attempt to glimpse the future was akin to reaching out and stirring the already chaotic web of karma; rather than gaining clarity, it would only draw more tangled threads to wrap around one’s fingertips, introducing unforeseen variables.

And karma, it was understood, was precisely the most unreasonable, and indeed, the most perilous of shackles.

Unlike a heavenly tribulation, which descended with righteous grandeur, or inner demons, tangible and substantial, born within one’s very being, karma was silent, traceless. Yet, like a bone-deep ulcer, it clung relentlessly, a constant shadow.

The greater one’s divine abilities, the deeper one delved into the Original Source, the more immense and unfathomable the karmic repercussions that rebounded. Ancient True Immortals could still sever the Three Corpses and transcend the Five Elements to seek some measure of avoidance, but how could a Golden Core of the present era, whose Dao merged with heaven and earth, whose thoughts were intertwined with all beings, possibly evade such a fate?

Furthermore, it was precisely the actions of those ancient True Immortals—their constant prying into past and future, their desperate attempts to evade karmic entanglement—that gradually fomented the rise of terrifying aberrations like the Lord of Nine Nether, beings who utterly defied the natural order of heaven and earth, ultimately leading to the demise of an entire era.

Naturally, for those who had yet to reach the Golden Core shore, the so-called art of deduction was not entirely without merit.

The ancient war, a conflict that had transcended the wildest imaginations of all living beings, had long since wrought drastic, transformative changes upon the environment of heaven and earth.

Cultivators below the Golden Core stage, even if they were to carelessly tumble into a karmic vortex, would scarcely stir a single ripple.

The ‘future’ they glimpsed remained, in the end, merely a fleeting sliver amidst myriad possibilities.

Given that it was but one of countless possibilities, it was not deemed to defy the heavenly Dao, and thus, naturally carried no risk of karmic backlash.

In this way, it could even be seen as an act of divine compassion from heaven and earth, granting all beings a thread of courage to face the future directly.

Mo Tingbei slowly opened his eyes, and the frenzied sword qi calculations that had spun within their depths receded like a retreating tide, leaving behind only an abyss of profound exhaustion and chilling cold.

“Senior Brother, did you see it?”

Jiang Jinyue seemed to regress to her youthful days, a time when she had unhesitatingly cast the burden of all her thoughts upon Mo Tingbei.

Having only just ascended to the Golden Core realm, she had then forcefully broken out of seclusion and even recklessly employed divine abilities within the mortal realm. These actions appeared to have indeed protracted the process of stabilizing her cultivation. In this moment, though her being radiated an undeniable, vast, and boundless Golden Core Dao aura, her cultivation of life and spirit was undeniably genuine, potent enough to shake the very laws of heaven and earth…

Yet, a faint trace of doubt flickered through Mo Tingbei’s heart. This particular doubt had, in fact, begun to sprout the moment they were reunited.

Rumors held that upon achieving the Golden Core, the Dao realm would spontaneously manifest, and wisdom would become perfectly clear and profound, almost akin to the heart of heaven. Cultivators were expected to gradually shed the shackles of mortal emotions, increasingly nearing an embodiment of the ‘Dao,’ becoming distant and dispassionate. The other Golden Core Dao Lords he had remotely sensed had indeed been such awe-inspiring, yet profoundly aloof, presences.

However, the Yue’er before him…

There was no expected transcendence from worldly affairs, no indifferent chill of the Dao’s natural laws. She was, astonishingly, no different from an ordinary mortal woman.

Yet, strangely, as Mo Tingbei gazed into her still-clear, ice-blue eyes—eyes that could even ripple subtly in response to him—what welled up in his heart was not worry, but rather an indescribable sense of profound relief.

This way… it was actually rather good.

At the very least, during this final, burning journey of his life, he harbored no desire to see her transform into a truly cold and heartless ‘stubborn stone,’ losing that vibrant, singular vitality that belonged solely to ‘Jiang Jinyue.’

He took a shallow breath, firmly suppressing the terrifying, surging sea of blood that threatened to overwhelm his divine consciousness.

The ‘Three-Unity Heavenly Dao Chapter’ had been derived from an ancient, incomplete scroll passed down within the sect, and as such, possessed its own inherent divine peculiarities.

He knew that the images he had glimpsed represented the most probable outcome among myriad possibilities for the coming days.

Were he to truly voice it, and have a Golden Core Dao Lord like Jiang Jinyue bear witness, then under the mountain-heavy weight of karma on her, this future would likely become immutable, with no room for alteration.

Such a future, no matter how arduous, ultimately had to be challenged and changed.