Volume 1, Chapter 120 – She’s Actually an Immortal Ascension Expert?

At the same time, in the main hall of Yaochi Immortal Palace.

Gu Han sat cross-legged, the dark-gold Donghuang Bell slowly rotating above her knees and emanating an ancient, boundless aura.

After several days of refining it and communing with it, she had established a faint connection with the quasi-immortal artifact.

Just as she immersed herself in deepening that connection and refining the Donghuang Bell further…

“Buzz…”

An urgent voice transmission rippled through her sea of consciousness without warning.

It was an emergency transmission from Li Hanyi!

Gu Han’s brows knitted slightly. She immediately halted the refinement process and sent her divine sense into the wisp of transmitted information.

In an instant, the details surfaced in her mind: the secret realm had begun closing ahead of schedule, the gate of light was absorbing attacks, and a power beyond Tribulation Transcendence was suspected of interfering from within.

“The secret realm is closing ahead of schedule? The gate of light is absorbing attacks to stabilize itself?”

With a thought, she questioned the system directly:

“System, what happened inside the secret realm?”

“And what is this ‘interference from a power beyond Tribulation Transcendence’ that Hanyi mentioned?”

【Ding! Synchronizing scan of the secret realm’s core region… Scan complete!】

【High-concentration remnant-soul aggregate activity detected! Energy-level assessment: early-stage Immortal Ascension, damaged and unstable.】

【Target identity confirmed: Venerable Tianqiong (remnant soul).】

【Current activity: extracting the secret realm’s origin and devouring energy from external attacks in an attempt to stabilize the remnant soul.】

“An Immortal Ascension remnant soul? Venerable Tianqiong?”

A cold gleam flashed in Gu Han’s eyes.

She lowered her gaze to the Donghuang Bell hovering before her.

Though she had yet to refine it completely and could not unleash its full power, it was more than sufficient to handle the situation.

She stepped out of the main hall, and in the next instant, her figure appeared above Yaochi Immortal Palace.

Rеаⅾ on КаtReаⅾinɡСаfe

Without alerting anyone, she raised a hand and lightly swept it across the empty air before her.

“Shrrk!”

Another spatial rift tore open out of thin air.

Without hesitation, Gu Han stepped into it.

Meanwhile, at the entrance to the secret realm on the Tianqiong Plains.

Despair swept over everyone present like a freezing tide.

The gate of light had shrunk to less than three zhang across and flickered erratically, as though it might disappear altogether at any moment.

The elders of the various sects were ashen-faced. Some of the weaker-willed had even collapsed to the ground, staring at the gate of light with hollow eyes.

Just then…

“Crack!”

High above the Tianqiong Plains, a spatial rift several hundred zhang long suddenly split the sky, faint silver light flowing along its edges!

A breathtaking figure in a moon-white palace gown stepped slowly out of the rift, her silver hair as pale as snow.

The instant Gu Han fully emerged…

A vast, overwhelming pressure, as though one with the Great Dao of heaven and earth, spread in silence like a tangible tide and enveloped the entire Tianqiong Plains!

She had not released it deliberately, nor did it carry the slightest trace of aggression.

But it was absolute suppression by a higher order of existence!

Under that pressure, the clouds froze in the sky and the wind fell still.

Below, countless cultivators stared upward, each wearing a different expression.

For one brief instant, their movements, their breathing, and even their thoughts ground to a halt!

They stared blankly at the silver-haired figure in the sky.

At her calm, unfathomable eyes, which seemed to reflect the birth and death of galaxies.

Their minds went utterly blank.

Rеаⅾ οո КаtReαⅾіոɡСafe

Who… who was she?!

What ancient being, long hidden from the world, had appeared before them?!

Why had she descended upon the Tianqiong Plains in such an overwhelming fashion?

What realm had she reached?

Tribulation Transcendence? Or…

A term that made their souls tremble, one they hardly dared contemplate, took root in countless minds and spread like wildfire.

Just then…

“Palace Master.”

A cool, composed voice rang out, sounding exceptionally clear amid the silence.

The crowd struggled to shift their gazes toward its source.

There, at the bow of the Cloudsea Spirit Vessel, stood the Grand Elder of Yaochi Immortal Palace, an expert even stronger than the ancestors of their sects.

She was bowing slightly to the silver-haired figure in the sky, offering a respectful salute.

Palace… Palace Master?

She was the Palace Master of Yaochi Immortal Palace?!

Countless gazes snapped back to Gu Han in unison. This time, their shock was mingled with indescribable horror and dawning realization!

No wonder!

No wonder Yaochi Immortal Palace possessed such formidable foundations!

So their Palace Master was an existence of such unfathomable power!

Gu Han gave Li Hanyi a slight nod, then lowered her gaze to the secret realm’s gate of light below, now barely a zhang across.

Her eyes remained perfectly calm, as though she were looking at something utterly insignificant.

She asked no questions and made no attempt to probe it.

She merely raised her right hand and gently brought her palm down toward the gate of light.

Reαd οո KаtRеαⅾіոgСafe

The instant her palm descended…

“Buzz!”

The space across the entire Tianqiong Plains groaned as though it could no longer bear the strain!

With Gu Han’s palm at the center, the space before her shattered like a mirror struck by a boulder, instantly filling with countless fine, pitch-black spatial cracks like an enormous spiderweb.

The cracks spread wildly, engulfing the faltering gate of light in an instant!

Then, under the horrified gazes of everyone present…

The seemingly indestructible gate of light, which connected this world to another realm, crumbled beneath her casual palm strike.

Like snow beneath the sun, it silently… disintegrated and vanished inch by inch.

It dissolved into countless specks of light that drifted through the sky like a shower of stars flowing backward, then disappeared completely between heaven and earth.

One palm strike.

Just one.

With it, she had utterly… shattered the secret realm entrance that had confounded every powerful cultivator present and seemed impossible to break!

The entire Tianqiong Plains fell into deathly silence.

Everyone remained frozen with their heads tilted back, eyes stretched wide and pupils contracted to pinpoints.

Their faces showed utter shock, bewilderment, and… the vacant disbelief of people whose entire understanding of the world had just been overturned.

Xuanyangzi, Sacred Lord of Lingxu Sacred Land, stood with his lips slightly parted, unable to make a sound.

The Barbarian King of Tianyuan Sacred Land stood rooted to the spot, his mountain-like body rigid and his eyes filled with incredulous horror.

The Flowing Cloud Sword Sect, Heavenly Fire Valley, Wondrous Sound Pavilion…

The leading elders and core disciples of every faction had turned to stone.

That seemingly simple palm strike, which had in truth contained supreme Dao laws and unimaginable power, played over and over in their minds.

She had destroyed the entrance to a secret realm left behind by a mighty Immortal Ascension expert with casual ease!

That… that was absolutely beyond the power of anyone in the Tribulation Transcendence realm!

Reaⅾ oո КαtReαdіոɡCafе

Only one realm could accomplish such a feat…

Immortal Ascension!

It had been a very, very long time since a new Immortal Ascension expert had emerged in the Southern Region!

The last Immortal Ascension expert, the “Star River Sword Sovereign,” had left this world in search of the path to immortality twenty thousand years ago!

Since then, no new Immortal Ascension expert had appeared in the Southern Region, and it had gradually come to be recognized as the weakest of the Five Regions.

But now…

Right before their eyes…

The Palace Master of Yaochi Immortal Palace…

Could she truly be a living Immortal Ascension mighty expert of the present age?!

And a year ago…

A sudden realization flashed through the minds of some of the quicker-witted cultivators!

One year ago, a magnificent phenomenon had spread across hundreds of millions of li above the Southern Region, shaking all Five Regions!

There had been a manifestation of Dao Resonance, seemingly caused by someone breaking through to the Immortal Ascension realm!

Then, after the phenomenon faded, the newly ascended Immortal Ascension expert had mysteriously vanished and fallen silent…

Countless factions had investigated at the time, yet none had uncovered a single clue. The incident had remained an unsolved mystery.

But now…

Could it be… could the mighty expert who had mysteriously broken through to Immortal Ascension a year ago, only to vanish just as mysteriously…

Be the woman before them, the Palace Master of Yaochi Immortal Palace, Gu Han?!

Once the thought took hold, it swept like wildfire through the minds of everyone who reached the same conclusion!

Shock! Horror! Realization! Fear! Ecstasy!…

A riot of emotions mingled and shifted across every face.