The sky, as dark as ink, resembled a primordial beast descending upon earth, swallowing the universe. Thick, ominous clouds enveloped the air, making it so suffocating that it was hard to breathe.

In the distance, a towering mountain peak piercing the heavens stood amidst the writhing foggy mountains, sending chills down the spine and causing tremors in hearts.

"Indeed, it is the second-order spiritual herb... the Immortal Orchid! I can't believe there are several plants!" A young man in a blue robe lay on the edge of the cliff, staring excitedly at the spiritual herb on the steep cliff that emitted a faint blue glow.

"This is wonderful! With these spiritual herbs, I have enough to present to the elders for this month. Even Xuan'er’s portion is covered now."

"For the past three years, it's always been Xuan'er helping me, and finally, I can repay her."

As the impending rainstorm approached, the young man quickly harvested the spiritual herbs. As he was about to leave the mountain, he was intercepted by three boys, around the age of fifteen or sixteen. His face darkened immediately.

One of the boys' aura was grand, and he carried himself with an air of nobility, with the world's spiritual energy swirling around him. He had evidently achieved the sixth level of the spiritual realm!

"Hey, it seems that brick can float up the stream now, Feng Chen. Even a waste like you can have good luck and gather a second-order spiritual herb." The boy on the left sneered, and his gaze switched to Feng Chen's medicine bag.

"Isn't it? A waste who regresses instead of advancing in cultivation for three years! But...we do need to thank this waste for collecting enough spiritual herbs for us." The boy on the right also gloated, his eyes filled with greed.

"You two gutless fellows, why are you rushing? First, let's take care of business, the Blue Jade Orchid will be ours soon." The boy in the middle, the leader, looked directly at Feng Chen, a shadow flickering in his cold eyes.

"Cui Hao, Bi Changchun, Liu Meng, you three stooges sent by Shentu Wu, again!" As if remembering something, Feng Chen glared at them, roaring with rage.

"I, Feng Chen, swear that one day, I will crush you three and that rogue Shentu Wu into dust!"

"Heh!" The boy in the middle, named Bi Changchun, scoffed and looked at Feng Chen disdainfully. "Do you think you're still the genius who reached the fifth level of the spiritual realm in just half a year three years ago? Pah! I tell you, you're now nothing better than a pile of shit! A piece of trash that wastes oxygen by merely existing!"

"How can it be that this useless fool has nothing more than good looks? Yet that girl Xue Luxuan is still smitten with you. However…heh heh, that's all in the past. Just three days ago, after you went up the mountain to gather herbs, Sister Luxuan agreed to become Brother Shentu's partner in one month's time."

Boom!

"Bloody bullshit!'" The sound of the words sent Feng Chen's head spinning, shaking his head fiercely. "This is impossible. It can't be possible. I want to know the truth!"

"You think you will still be alive to leave this mountain?" Bi Changchun blocked Feng Chen's path with a sidestep, his ferocity showing unreservedly on his face. "I told you everything only because Shentu Shixiong commanded it. He wanted you, a useless piece of trash, to die knowing why. If it wasn't for the pleading of your darling Lu Xuan behind your back three years ago, Shentu Shixiong would've crushed you with a punch back then. You surviving till now, is all gifted by Shentu Shixiong's mercy!"

"Everything I needed to say, I have said. Now you can die now!" Bi Changchun fiercely threw his fist towards Feng Chen. His fist was like a descending meteor, fiercely shaking the air around it.

Despite Feng Chen's caution, how could he, at a second-stage of Spirit Realm, be a match against Bi Changchun at a sixth-stage realm?

"Bang!" The fists collided, Feng Chen screamed from the strike, sent flying, as if hit by a rhinoceros, "Ah..." Amid his cries, his right arm shattered into pieces. Bone fragments and blood splattered everywhere. His body began to fall towards the cliff edge.

"Swoosh!" Bi hopped off the cliff like a spectral apparition, immediately yanking the spirit medicine pouch off Feng Chen's waist. He then stomped onto Feng Chen's falling body, stepping off of him to return to the top of the cliff.

"I, Feng Chen, will not let you off even as a ghost..." A voice of extreme unwillingness echoed in the wind. Bi tightly clenched the pouch in his hand, casting a look into the abyss below, a grim smile at his lips, "Let's go, we can't pass up the rewards from Shentu."

"Brother Bi, this is a high cliff, that piece of trash will die for sure, but I am worried..."

"We are hundreds of miles away from the sect, if we don't tell and Shentu doesn't, who would know? Moreover, it's not a big deal if a single disciple from a pool of thousands died, whoever came to know, we still have Shentu behind us, the Elder will not dare to touch us..."

The three went as fast as they could, vanishing into the mountains.

"Whoosh… whoosh…" The downpour finally tore through the dark clouds.

"Is this how I die? No! If I died, what will happen to Xuan'er? Xuan'er would never betray me, it must be Shentu Wu's dirty tricks at work! I can't die, I can't die!" Feng Chen felt his world spinning as he descended into the valley, like a falling meteor in the rain.

Feng Chen, dizzy and disoriented, didn't know how much time had passed. Suddenly, "thump!" He felt an unbearable pain flowing all over his body as if thousands of swords had pierced him, then lost consciousness.

"Splash!" Unconscious Feng Chen's body descended rapidly, pierced by branches at the foot of the valley, "rustle" leaves fell in a flurry as he harshly landed on the ground.

"Roar!" Suddenly, the valley seemed to tremble with the approach of a fifth-tier monster, the flaming lion. Standing before Feng Chen's bloody body, its postured like a mini mountain, its entire body covered in fur like burning flames.

Zhang launched with his jaw wide open to bite Feng Chen.

Without a doubt, one bite and Feng Chen would be torn apart and swallowed.

At this very moment, the Red Flame Lion suddenly stopped in its tracks, the excitement was still reflected in its fierce face, even the saliva that had already dripped from its mouth was frozen mid-air.

Looking down from the sky, a shocking scene was unfolding. Not only the Red Flame Lion, even the whole valley had fallen into a dead silence.

Leaves stopped falling, flying beasts remained in flight, hovering over the valley. The waterfalls from the mountain cliffs stood still...Every living being had turned into a motionless state.

Soon, the sky seemed to be torn apart by a pair of invisible hands, a massive chasm appeared in the sky. The abysmal rift in the heavens seemed to cut off the north and south ends of the horizon, so dark and deep, starred with so many galaxies and constellations. The stars were varied in shapes, flat, rounded, helical, silently drifting within the galaxy.

The galaxy was shining and sinuous, extending into boundless space-time.

Suddenly, a giant figure millions of feet tall appeared in the galaxy. He was stepping on stars, wearing a crown on his head, extremely daunting, as deep as an ancient pool, as high as a mountain. But for some reason, he looked sad and angry, his deep eyes blazing with hatred.

Upon closer look, one could see that he was staring down at Feng Chen, who was badly wounded at the bottom of the valley.

He began to step out from the galaxy, and with each step, the stars under his feet burst, and the galaxy rippled.

He stepped out of the galaxy, crossed the light, as if cutting through space-time, falling towards the valley like a meteorite.

In a blink, his towering body changed, turning into a middle-aged man surrounded by divine light, hovering hundreds of meters above the valley.

The divine light obscured his face, the only clear thing were his deep eyes. He looked down at Feng Chen, his eyes were turning red.

Those were a pair of heart-stirring eyes, a pair of eyes that could bring out sorrow from within.

A long while passed.

The middle-aged man didn't make any movement, as if by magic, Feng Chen rose in the air towards him and eventually came to float in front of him.

The middle-aged man stared intensely at Feng Chen, a thick white fog-like substance enveloping Feng's body.

Then, a bewildering sight transpired: Feng Chen's body rapidly regenerated - flesh mended, bones fused back together. His previously lost right arm sprouted inch by inch from his shoulder, like bamboo shoots after the rain, and his vital signs recovered steadily.

Yet, contrasting with Feng Chen's revival, the middle-aged man's figure began to grow faint, his silhouette ephemeral, as if he was the wisp of smoke that strayed between heaven and earth, threatening to dissolve at any moment.

Ten breaths later, Feng Chen was completely unscathed, even his emerald robe, which had been punctured by a tree branch, was as intact as before.

The middle-aged man lifted his hand, a seed radiating with a divine aura shot out from his fingertip with a flash of white light, embedding itself in Feng Chen's forehead.

In the serene moment that followed, the middle-aged man seemed to want to engrave Feng Chen’s features into his heart forever. His receding eyes lingered on Feng until his figure disappeared into the void of the world.

The moment the middle-aged man disappeared, Feng Chen, who was floating in the air, flew toward the valley groggily, quickly returning to the cliff.

As soon as Feng Chen left the valley, the frozen scene within it sprung back to life - leaves continued to fall, birds fluttered and circled in the air...

"Roar!" The Red Flame Lion roared angrily as it watched the meat in its mouth disappear.

Time tricked by...

Mists rose between the mountains, the silver moon shone dimly, and a dense mist pervaded the air, thick enough that it seemed like it could condense into water droplets.

"Cough, cough!" Under the dim moonlight, Feng Chen opened his eyes. The scenery in his vision was only too familiar - if this wasn't the place where he fell off the cliff, where else could it be?

"I clearly fell off the cliff... Could all that just now be a dream?" Feng Chen felt something was missing from his waist, "My medical pouch is gone, indicating whatever happened just now wasn't a dream!"

"But I remember my right arm was blasted to pieces by Bi Changchun, why is it completely intact now? Could it be that I'm currently a soul and my body is still at the bottom of the valley?"

"Hisss...it hurts so much!" Feng Chen pinched his cheek vehemently, feeling the scorching pain radiated from it. After moments of numbness, he was filled with wild elation!

"I didn't die, I didn't die, I didn't die! Hahaha, heavens be praised!"

He took a deep breath, the damp air entering his nostrils, yet, his excited heart was having a hard time calming down. Just as Feng Chen hadn't gotten a chance to contemplate why he didn't die and why he was here, a massive amount of information surfaced in his mind.

Before he could check, the scenery in front of him changed abruptly. To Feng Chen's astonishment, he was somehow floating in the midst of the galaxy!

Endless stars, dazzling and eye-catching, slowly revolved around him. Yet, he found himself immeasurably massive, as if he had multiplied billions of times in size, his body filled with a destructive force that seemed able to shatter the sky and obliterate the earth. As if he could shatter stars with one punch, and snap the milky way with one step!