In truth, compared to the authentic and complete Boundary Stripping Spell from his previous life, the technique Lu Yan displayed right now was merely an imitation of the outer shell, like drawing a cat to paint a tiger.
He had merely replicated the appearance of the geometric prison of light and casually stolen the name of the spell; he hadn't replicated even a fraction of the core of the actual Boundary Stripping Spell.
The three-colored geometric prison of light slowly expanding in midair was not a top-tier divine ability that truly shook space. It was merely his earth, wind, and fire spiritual roots driving the elements of heaven and earth to violently collide.
The violent elemental turbulence formed by their mutual strangulation relied on pure chaotic energy to forcefully grind down and dissolve the structure of all matter within this sealed space.
Erasing traces directly from the level of existence, it was as different as heaven and earth from the orthodox Boundary Stripping Spell in his memories from Naruto, which could directly decompose things into atoms.
This half-baked spell looked intimidating, but its upper limit was extremely low. It could only be used to annihilate and deter unarmed mortals who didn't have a shred of spiritual energy to protect themselves.
Any cultivator who had just stepped into the early stage of Foundation Establishment could casually prop up a basic spiritual energy shield and firmly block all the turbulent impacts, leaving the person inside completely unharmed—not to mention the protective cultivator's robes and life-bound barriers of Golden Core and Nascent Soul cultivators.
But in this current scenario, this move had its own unique convenience and advantage.
At this moment, geothermal heat surged from the Molten Heart Tower outside the city, and the earth, fire, and wind elements between heaven and earth were so abundant they were almost overflowing. He didn't need to consume spirit stones or precious forging materials to set up a formation beforehand; he could draw upon the free-floating elements around him out of thin air to construct the prison of light.
Ultimately, the few refugees clinging to him and pestering him—even if all their lives were added together, they weren't worth a single low-grade spirit stone. They simply weren't worth the extra depletion of his own reserved resources.
The blinding earth-yellow, azure, and crimson lights intertwined in layers, completely wrapping around the woman blocking the path on the sand and the few refugees who had joined in to beg, forming an airtight, sealed cage.
Lu Yan stood quietly outside the prison of light, his fingers hanging down, his knuckles turning slightly white from tightly clutching the four banknotes in his palm. As the caster who had personally activated the spell, he could clearly perceive everything happening inside the barrier through the film of light.
Flesh, tattered clothes, and the child's frail bones were all repeatedly torn, ground, and dissolved in the chaotic and violent elemental turbulence. Within a few short breaths, not even a complete skeleton remained; they were reduced to dust too fine to be seen by the naked eye, completely dispersing into the sandy earth.
Yet such thorough annihilation, leaving not a single trace, still could not suppress even half of the monstrous hatred and chilling sorrow surging and circling in Lu Yan's heart. On what basis?
On what basis did this crowd of short-sighted mortals, who cared only for a single bite of food before their eyes, get to stand so lightly upon the blood-paved bones of the Ten Thousand Formations Sect's disciples? How could they casually critique the sacrifices of those who had martyred themselves for the city, and arbitrarily disparage the cultivators who had fought with their lives to protect it?
Since they were so certain that the disciples of the Formation Sect lacked strength, couldn't defend the city, and deserved to die, then they might as well experience it for themselves.
If the thousands of fellow disciples of the Ten Thousand Formations Sect had chosen to stand by and watch, letting the Ice Spirits trample Everspring City, would these people even have the right to stand here today, crying about their suffering and morally blackmailing cultivators?
The brilliant, sharp-edged glow of the geometric prison of light in the air slowly faded. The three-colored spiritual light receded into Lu Yan's body like a tide, leaving behind only a flat, clean, and completely empty shallow pit in the sand.
It was as if those few people had never existed. The pupils of the refugees watching from afar, waiting to get a share, suddenly contracted. Their bodies froze in place, and though the warm wind and sand blew against their skin, it felt like bone-chilling ice piercing into their very marrow.
“M-Murder! The cultivator killed civilians! Run!”
Shrill, terrified screams pierced through the hot, oppressive wind outside the city. The refugees who had dared to surround Lu Yan and pull at his robes just moments ago were now like startled birds, scrambling and crawling as they fled in all directions.
Some lost their bearings and tripped onto the scorching sand, completely oblivious to the large blood blisters forming on their palms as they focused solely on running forward blindly.
The queue of refugees that had originally formed a long dragon stretching hundreds of meters outside the gates of Everspring City was forcefully torn apart from the center, with the sand pit at Lu Yan's feet as the focal point, splitting cleanly into two halves.
The crowds on both sides frantically shrank back to the left and right, everyone terrified of getting even half a step closer to that empty patch of land. The clamor of begging vanished instantly, replaced only by a chorus of panicked cries and chaotic footsteps.
Lu Yan indifferently swept his gaze over the fleeing crowd. His fingers slowly loosened their grip on the banknotes, and the four silver bills fluttered slightly in the wind and sand. His chest was filled with a complex mixture of emotions.
Several chaotic and heavy emotions tightly wrapped around his heart, clogging his breath and making it sluggish. Was it a burning, prairie-fire-like anger? Was it a bone-chilling sorrow that made even his soul tremble? Or was it an indescribable, suffocating bitterness pressing down on his throat?
He had personally slain defenseless, low-class civilians, including a naive, ignorant child of only three or four years old. He had slain the very common people that his sect had taught from generation to generation to protect with their lives.
Back then, the old man had sat in front of the sect's mountain gate, teaching them the way of cultivators over and over again—to guard cities and protect mortals. Yet today, he had personally broken the bottom line his sect had upheld for a lifetime.
If his master knew of this in the afterlife and saw this scene—saw him slaughtering women and children out of resentment—he would probably break free from the shackles of death at the first opportunity and personally strike down this rebellious disciple who had violated the sect's teachings.
A highly self-deprecating, bitter smile tugged at Lu Yan's heart, and his throat tightened. Fortunately, the old man had long since been laid to rest in the underworld.
He couldn't see or hear the “innermost thoughts” of these mortals. Otherwise, it was truly unimaginable what kind of pained, disappointed, and desperate expression would appear on the old man's wrinkled face.
There was not a single trace of superfluous emotion on Lu Yan's face; only a silent indifference remained in his eyes. He merely exhaled a heavy breath laden with yellow sand. The dusty wind rushed up his throat and into his nasal cavity, making his chest feel slightly congested.
He turned and strode straight toward the south, the soles of his shoes grinding against the hot, dry sand, each step steady and resolute.
His primary goal right now was to head to Beizhou City and enter the Central Continent through its teleportation formation.
After experiencing the Boundary Cliff where his spiritual energy had been forcibly suppressed by the laws of heaven and earth, nothing would make him willing to take that death-defying path again. He would rather take a detour through the official city pass to safely enter the Central Continent and search for materials to heal Jiang Ci's heart.
The fine dust in the sand pit was whipped up into the air by the hot wind, and a gray haze shrouded the entire sky, casting a deathly, sorrowful gray mist over the originally yellowish sky.
Everything within his line of sight was a hazy gray, and even the crimson silhouette of the Molten Heart Tower in the distance became blurred and indistinct.
Lu Yan walked south all the way until the thick, mottled outline of Everspring City completely vanished past the horizon. Only when the figures of the refugees huddled along the roadsides, struggling to survive, were no longer visible did he slightly relax his tense shoulders, the heavy oppression in his heart easing just a fraction.
On the highest eaves of the Everspring City gate tower, a hunched figure sat cross-legged, his old, coarse cloth robes fluttering back and forth in the wind.
Today, the clouds were heavy, layering over and blocking the blazing sun. It wasn't terribly hot or oppressive, and only a thin layer of sweat broke out on the old man's body. Compared to the last time he had waited in ambush for Lu Yan and Jiang Ci, enduring the baking sun until he was drenched in sweat, his current state was a rare comfort and leisure.
The old man's eyelids drooped, making him look half-asleep, but in truth, his gaze was firmly locked onto Lu Yan's departing back. Only when the white-clothed figure had completely vanished at the end of the road did he slowly speak to himself, his voice hoarse and thick with the scent of alcohol.
“Good grief, this World-Breaker has finally stepped out of Everspring City's gates, finally willing to make a move toward the Central Continent. If I hadn't found those two useless brats a few months ago, everyone would probably have ended up dead in this wretched place.”
The old man casually reached out into the empty air before him. The space silently tore open to reveal a narrow, pitch-black rift, and from its depths, a rich aroma of wine faintly wafted out.
He reached inside and fished out a coarse earthenware wine gourd. Its surface was covered in a smooth patina from years of handling. He tilted his head back and took a huge swig of the spicy, strong liquor from the spout, the burning liquid rolling down his throat and into his stomach.
The liquor dripped down his chin, wetting the front of his robes, but he didn't care at all. He casually wiped the wine stains away with his hand.
“Off to the Central Continent. Looking at it this way, there is still a sliver of hope to resist the Lord of Ascension. Otherwise, this entire world would be trapped to death in this tiny, desperate place, cycling in reincarnation forever with no hope of escape, hehe.”
The old man wiped the remaining wine stains from the corner of his mouth and casually tossed the heavy wine gourd downward. The gourd fell straight from the eaves over ten meters high, smashing heavily onto the hard, cold stone surface of the city wall, yet not even a tiny crack appeared on it as it rolled safely to the base of the wall.
His eyes wandered, and his mental state looked completely crazed—sometimes laughing, sometimes frowning. He turned his head to look in the direction of the Molten Heart Tower standing in the center of the distant plains. The crimson tower continuously emitted heatwaves. The old man chuckled softly, his tone full of mockery.
“The Heart of the World has been drained and overdrawn by the joint forces of various factions, its source power mostly lost and on the verge of exhaustion. Yet you, who occupy the sky, aren't in the least bit of a hurry, watching your foundation erode with your own eyes.”
“Since that's the case, if I release a little bit of my cultivation, you probably won't mind, right?”
As his voice fell, an indescribable, mysterious aura that transcended the conventional realms of this world slowly drifted out of the old man's body.
This aura did not belong to the Body Integration stage of ordinary cultivators, nor did it fall within the scope of Grand Ascension cultivators. Its level was far above Tribulation Transcendence and ascension, yet it was still bound by a layer of invisible shackles. It had not completely broken free from the source constraints of this world and could not fully transcend reality.
The air of the entire surrounding plains vibrated violently along with it, and the free-floating spiritual energy between heaven and earth became restless. The frequency of the airflow's vibration hid an irrepressible excitement, as if the entire world was boiling for this high-level aura.
A massive gap suddenly tore through the heavy clouds high in the sky, and the phantom of a long staircase with a white base and a red carpet appeared out of thin air. The staircase cascaded all the way down from the top of the clouds to the ground, spanning the entire plain outside Everspring City.
Suspended at the top of the staircase was a pair of boundless, hollow, lifeless giant vertical pupils filled with endless greed and madness.
The giant eyes frantically scanned the entire land, their gaze precisely locking onto the source of the old man's aura. A desire to devour everything surged within them, wishing they could tear this special existence apart, devour and refine him, and claim him entirely as their own.
If Qingwei were standing on the city gate tower at this moment, he would have recognized at a glance that this staircase spanning the sky was the very Ascension Staircase that Zixiao had trodden back then.
The phantom of the long staircase sometimes turned illusory and faded, nearly dissolving into the clouds, and sometimes became solid and clear, its sharp edges within arm's reach.
It was as if it was hesitating due to the high-level aura that had suddenly emerged on the earth, debating whether to completely break free from the constraints of the clouds, descend in its full physical form, and directly strike to obliterate the source of the aura.
The moment the crazed old man saw the long staircase appear, he immediately retracted all of his leaked cultivation. All the mysterious aura within his body was instantly sealed, with not a single trace left exposed. He jumped up and down on the narrow eaves of the city wall, cursing angrily, his shouts drifting high into the sky along with the hot wind.
“You ************ bastard! Did you really turn all your sanity into a puppet just for that so-called ascension, and now you even have to block my leaked aura immediately, terrified of ruining your scheme to refine heaven and earth? You absolute son of a bitch!”
The Ascension Staircase, which was sacred, solemn, and symbolized transcendence and ascension in the eyes of ordinary cultivators and mortals, appeared in a completely different, horrifyingly terrifying light to the old man.
The pristine white staircase was not carved from jade or immortal materials at all; instead, it was composed of densely packed, sharp, and chillingly cold fangs.
The long, crimson carpet laid down the center of the staircase was a giant, fleshy tongue that twisted and writhed constantly, coated in thick, foul saliva.
Deep within the clouds at the end of the long staircase was a giant face of flesh and blood covered in transparent, divine mucus. In an instant, the entire sky was dyed a viscous, glaring blood-red.
In the air, one could clearly see membranes of flesh and blood constantly surging and throbbing, as well as thick blood vessels intertwining like crouching dragons. The stench of blood could be smelled even from hundreds of meters up in the sky.
The giant vertical pupils suspended in the sky did not possess a single shred of clarity; there was only the endless madness of plundering all things, a deep-seated and extreme loathing for all living beings in the world, and a paranoid craving to completely grind down and refine the source of the entire heaven and earth. It was as if all living creatures in the world were merely nutrients for it to absorb.
The old man cursed inwardly at this dog of a bastard who cared nothing for draining the pond to catch the fish, completely ignoring that it would only end in a tragic mutual destruction.
“Since your heart is set on refining all things and devouring heaven and earth, then I will find some trouble to waste your energy. I have long grown sick of this repeating torture. At worst, I'll reincarnate and continue to tangle with you. Bring it on.”
The old man's cheeks were flushed, and a strong, pungent smell of alcohol lingered around him. He looked clearly dead drunk, his steps light and wobbly.
The eyes in the sky were also made of clay—mere showpieces.
As long as he completely retracted all the special aura in his body, the flesh-and-blood staircase in the sky would no longer be able to capture any trace of him, failing to lock onto his position.
Sure enough, the flesh-and-blood staircase hovered in midair for a long time, but it could no longer find even a trace of the old man's aura. In the end, it could only slowly dissipate. The blood-red clouds receded bit by bit, and heaven and earth returned to a superficial state of peace and harmony.
Yet this harmony and normalcy were limited only to the vision of ordinary mortals and low-level cultivators.
In the old man's unique, transparent vision, heaven and earth had never recovered their original clear blue sky.
The sky permanently a viscous, glaring blood-red. Gazing as far as the eye could see at the end of the plains, one could faintly see a giant flesh-and-blood wall of infinite height traversing heaven and earth. Thick, throbbing muscles and intertwined, massive blood vessels resembled crouching dragons, wrapping around the entire land layer by layer. The wall was still slowly and continuously advancing and encroaching, compressing the living space of all creatures bit by bit.
“Want to swallow me and use me as nutrients? Keep dreaming. Perfect, I'll let you taste backlash and experience the joy of a myocardial infarction. Let's see if you can steadily withstand this wave of backlash!”
The old man snorted coldly, completely ignoring the drop of dozens of meters from the city wall. He lightly leaped down from the narrow eaves, landing weightlessly on the ground, and strolled leisurely toward the gates of Everspring City.
The two low-level cultivators guarding the city gates were still immersed in the massive shock brought by the phantom of the staircase in the sky earlier. Their minds were dazed, and the horrifying images of the blood-colored staircase and the giant vertical pupils replayed in their minds repeatedly, leaving them unable to snap out of it for a long time.
Seeing the old man slowly walking toward the gate passage, one of the cultivators subconsciously snapped out of it. Following the city defense rules, he spoke to remind him, his voice still trembling slightly: “Please show your pass to enter the city.”
The old man raised an eyebrow, silently praising him in his heart. Under such a grand heavenly phenomenon sweeping the city and throwing everyone's minds into chaos, this young cultivator could still maintain his duty and stay vigilant. Such temperament and talent were truly rare.
He paid absolutely no attention to the other party's demand for a pass. Without pausing his steps in the slightest, he walked straight through the gate passage, a faint, invisible barrier around him blocking the guarding cultivators' line of sight as he stepped directly onto the city streets.
The cultivator who had just spoken to demand the pass suddenly felt a violent daze in his soul. His head grew heavy and swollen, and the scene before him warped slightly. By the time he snapped out of it and regained his senses, the gate passage before him was already completely empty, with not a single figure in sight.
He blankly raised his hand and patted his throbbing head, frowning deeply as he wondered if someone had just passed through the gates. However, he couldn't grasp a single clear memory in his mind; it was all a blur, as if the scene just now had been an illusion appearing out of thin air.
Forget it, better to focus on guarding the gates. With refugees piled up like mountains outside the city, they had been taking shifts day and night without a break, not even getting a single full night of peaceful sleep. Overdrawing their mental energy for days, it was only natural for their brains to grow foggy and experience hallucinations.
His fellow guard beside him suddenly grabbed his arm, his knuckles turning white with force, his voice trembling uncontrollably. Raising a finger, he pointed shakily toward the direction where the Molten Heart Tower stood in the distance.
The guarding cultivator looked in the direction of his companion's trembling finger, subconsciously chuckling and shaking his head, assuming his companion was just like him, experiencing visual illusions from days of fatigue.
“I told you, it's definitely hallucinations from staying up late for days. The foundation of the Molten Heart Tower is solid; how could it possibly explode out of thin air?”
Just as his voice fell, a deafening, thunderous explosion suddenly erupted from the direction of the Molten Heart Tower in the distance, sending a pillar of crimson fire shooting straight into the clouds.
The two of them instantly froze in place, the smiles on their faces completely solidifying. Only ear-piercing, frantic laughter mixed with out-of-control, terrified screams burst forth beneath the quiet city gates.
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