Chapter Seventy-Four: Glorious Achievements

When Master Lan Yi emerged from his temporary retreat, the outside was teeming with people.

There were martial artists, ordained Taoist priests, subjugated nobles of Dongyang, hurried arrivals from the homeland, and ordinary folk tasked with supporting roles. They had gathered into a vast sea of humanity, each casting a gaze—complex and expectant—toward this mortal god stepping forth from the snowy mountain shrine.

The look in a person’s eyes is a faint electromagnetic wave.

As thousands upon thousands of waves converged, Lan Yi, standing at the highest point, seemed to hear the roar of mountains and seas—the passionate emotions of the masses. Some revered him as a deity, others feared him as a demon; some wished him to stay, others hoped he would depart. Amid all these tangled feelings, one thing was universal:

Respect for strength.

This man, single-handedly, had changed the course of fate, altered the sun and moon, and redirected the world’s destiny. Even centuries from now, his great deeds would be sung in the chronicles; history would divide at the year 1909, and Lan Yi would be the architect of it all.

To honor such a being is to honor oneself.

And today, he would leave.

Lan Yi merely spoke of returning. In the minds of this era, it meant a celestial descended, raised arms in battle, endured tribulation, aided the stars and Han, achieved perfect merit, and now would return to the immortal realm, join the ranks of the immortals, and take his rightful place. It was said that, in the immortal realm, Master Lan Yi was both respected and unmatched in valor—even the Jade Emperor would show him deference.

If only one could follow Master Lan Yi back to the immortal realm.

Many harbored such thoughts.

According to the Rain Master’s account, though competition in the immortal realm was fierce, there was no want of food or clothing, opportunities abounded, and one could enjoy the company of celestial maidens and servants at leisure.

Lan Yi glanced down at the crowd.

This parting, who knew when they might meet again?

By the logic of the artificial divine realm, once all spiritual energy cultivators withdrew, the realm would adjust its time flow relative to the main world through a complex mechanism, until the passage reopened.

Thus was the value of the mountain connecting myriad realms to the main world.

Yet as long as the strong endured, they would meet again someday.

“Jin, begin the mission.”

Lan Yi spoke without unnecessary words or affectation, his voice calm and composed as always, declaring his departure.

“Farewell, Master!” Someone shouted.

Then, a chorus erupted, shaking the snow from the mountains—a generation sent Lan Yi off with voices from the heart.

Jin Buhuan dug at his ear, and patted the side of Huo Yuanjia.

“Huo Yuanjia, lend me a bit of your mental strength.”

“Alright.”

Huo Yuanjia nodded, drawing power from his waist, and unleashed a straight punch infused with over twenty years of cultivation. This blow forced out his lifelong martial will—his mental strength!

A fragment of thought, enlightenment rushing in, a profound awakening!

This punch embodied the journey of martial artists in this era—from conscription and struggle, through confusion and mire, to washing away all adornments and ascending once more. It was not only Huo Yuanjia’s personal martial path, but the collective experience of the Star-Han generation.

Mental strength forced out.

Jin Buhuan swept his hand, summoning a transparent sphere.

The moment they touched, the scene inside the sphere changed abruptly. Before those nearby could see clearly, Lan Yi and Jin Buhuan had already become afterimages, instantly bursting inside. The spherical passage trembled violently, then vanished.

This was farewell.

Master Lan Yi had completed his final tribulation, and would return directly to his place.

…

…

The instant Lan Yi traversed the temporary spatial passage, he felt immense pressure crash upon him, and icy seawater rushed into his mouth and nose.

He had been transported to the ocean.

And apparently, to the depths of the seabed.

Lan Yi did not panic.

Calmly surveying the cold, shadowy seabed, he suppressed the physiological reaction of choking, activated Earth Fiend beneath his feet and Azure Glory at his head, and in the next moment, shot upward like a swift swordfish!

Swish!

Breaking through the water, Lan Yi emerged drenched, the clinging garments uncomfortable against his skin.

Jin Buhuan was already hovering above the surface.

Seeing Lan Yi somewhat bedraggled, the shrewd dealer, inhaling spirit powder, broke into a mischievous grin.

“I warned you to be careful, lest you crash out. The mission target is at the bottom of the sea—mind your electricity, or you’ll roast yourself.”

Lan Yi’s greatest weakness now: underwater combat.

The Steel Armored Divine Thunder, his kinetic weapon, was unsuited to underwater release; its power would be nearly null. Other electromagnetic arts, if used underwater, might kill Lan Yi faster than his foes.

He had triggered the cause and effect of spiritual energy resurgence, and as the temporary child of destiny, had to address a major source of causality for the artificial divine realm to gain access to the passage.

That causality lay beneath this ocean.

By the usual course, in a few decades, this artificial divine realm would advance technologically and face invasion by biological behemoths. The source was an ancient primal giant beast left beneath the Pacific, its fate linked to other artificial divine realms.

Lan Yi had already disrupted causality.

If this beast survived, and signaled across realms in decades hence, it could destroy the realm’s operational logic, induce system conflict, and ultimately bring ruin. If such a move came from a transmigrator’s pawn, the realm would have detected and smitten it with heavenly thunder.

The battle space and the artificial divine realm were one.

Lan Yi’s actions amounted to tearing down his own house—tolerated, nonetheless.

Jin Buhuan relayed the target details.

“An infant Hundred-Eyed Giant?” Lan Yi raised his brow upon receiving them. The future of this realm truly brimmed with calamity.

The Hundred-Eyed Giant.

A mythical species, possessing innate, formidable heat-based arts and terrifying physical resilience. A single infant could destroy a world transitioning to nuclear power, reducing it to the age of bronze!

Even without considering the mysterious bio-forces behind the giant, its own combat abilities were formidable, appearing in many myths of artificial divine realms.

“It’s sealed in a volcanic fissure a thousand meters underwater.”

“It bears a biological suppression tool—a long spike.”

“Pull out the spike and kill it.”

Jin Buhuan displayed a projection: a creature eighty meters tall, with long-hooved quadrupedal form resembling a horse. Instead of a head, its upper body was covered in neural networks, dense eyes, and protruding tendrils. At present, a metal spear pierced its body, suspending it over a submarine volcanic cliff.

Could Lan Yi prevail?