After all, even that Cave Heaven Small World was a legacy left by the first-generation ancestor, so they had no other way to survive.
"Under the Great Collapse, all living beings are like ants." Immortal Yanshen seemed to know what the dying Shaoyang Taoist Lord was thinking; he simply said:
"If the realms were as they used to be, you would naturally be my disciples, and that would be a good fate; but as of today, even the former True Immortal of Longevity is just a survivor under the Great Collapse."
He looked at the many disciples of the Immortal Gate before him:
"You have no way to survive; since you are connected to me, then lend me your strength."
Immortal Yanshen lowered his eyelids, and with a wave of his hand in front of him, it seemed as if he was plucking invisible strings.
In the blink of an eye.
In the empty space around the Soul Predicting Path, faint golden patterns began to appear.
Centered around Immortal Yanshen, it seemed as if invisible ripples were expanding all around.
Closer to him, cultivators of the Soul Predicting Path fought fiercely, their bodies and souls fading away, their power vanishing into the unseen void.Following that, there were martial artists from the human world nearby battling against the cultivators.
Among them, many had been celebrating their hard-won victory; some were filled with tears, and others were wiping their battle blades, but as the invisible ripples expanded, these martial artists also turned to dust.
The battle between immortals and mortals that had lasted nearly a hundred years had little meaning to a True Immortal.
The existence of the Soul Predicting Path Immortal Gate was just a lure for Immortal Yanshen.
Today, almost all of the top martial artists from the entire human Jiu Province gathered beneath the Soul Predicting Path Immortal Gate, as if most of the strongest in the Jiu Province world were here.
For him, this was the best opportunity to reap the rewards.
"Dust returns to dust, earth returns to earth. A great disaster is coming, and all living beings will turn to dust. Only we True Immortals might have a slim chance of survival." Immortal Yanshen looked calmly down at the mortal world.
Before the Great Collapse, he could have lived as a True Immortal without any desires or needs.
While the blood sacrifice of living beings holds some value, it is not very meaningful.
Every True Immortal has reached a stage where they live as long as the heavens, and their power only grows with age, so there is no need to use such extreme methods to increase their strength.
However, in the time when the heavenly realm was shattered and the Heavenly Emperor was dead, the situation was quite different.
In the face of the Great Collapse that swept across all worlds, even True Immortals, who live forever, must ultimately confront their fate of death.
"Has Immortal Yanshen also taken this path?" Immortal Diyuan’s face darkened.
"He has ascended for a hundred thousand years, and even though I am still a True Immortal, I am not his match."
After the fall of the heavenly realm, the remaining immortals were naturally unwilling to accept death.
Immortal Yanshen is also an ascender from the great world of Jiu Province, like her. Though they come from different times, they are familiar friends in the celestial realm.
However, in the face of a great disaster, the two chose different paths to survive.
The path of plundering and blood sacrifice to strengthen oneself is one that not only Immortal Yanshen has taken.
Even during the peak of his power, Immortal Diyuan would avoid Immortal Yanshen now, to escape death at his hands and the theft of his original celestial energy.
Those True Immortals who have strayed onto the wrong path often appear just before the Great Collapse sweeps through the great world, trying to sacrifice countless living beings before everything completely falls apart.
If the fragments of the celestial realm appear in Jiu Province, overlapping with great worlds like Wilderness Realm, it is a sign of the Great Collapse.
Immortal Yanshen, who has chosen the path of blood sacrifice, is like a shark that smells blood.
Most of the immortals who tread this path have hearts as strong as iron and powerful magic, far beyond the likes of Immortal Diyuan, who ascended thirty thousand years ago.
"The two reincarnations of the Heavenly Emperor’s daughter should leave as soon as possible. If they fall into the hands of Immortal Yanshen, everything will be over."
At this moment, the battle situation suddenly changed, and in an instant, it was turned upside down.
The efforts of ordinary martial artists in Jiu Province over a hundred years in the Inhuman War have come to an end with the death of the leader of the Soul Predicting Pathsect.
However, what followed was a descending True Immortal.
A hundred years of hardships and the efforts of generations of martial artists ultimately became nothing before a True Immortal.
"It is always like this; the world never goes as one wishes."
Qiao Mu lowered his eyelids.
There are always obstacles in front of him, and strong enemies never cease.
Such is life; when you cross one mountain, there is always a taller mountain ahead, never a moment to rest.
Behind the Immortal Gate, there are ancestors; behind the ancestors, there are True Immortals. What comes after the True Immortal?
It was the Great Collapse that swept through the heavens and all realms, claiming even the life of the Heavenly Emperor of the Immortal Realm, let alone the other beings.
When he and Immortal Diyuan returned to Jiu Province, they had already formed a basic understanding.
Apart from Qiao Canxue and Lingling Taoist Priest, they did not mention the Great Collapse to anyone else.
When such a harsh truth was revealed, and the century-long Inhuman War was destined to be in vain regardless of its outcome, how many people still had the will to fight?
Soldiers who had fought for many years could never return home, they would never have a wife and children waiting for them, and they would never have a happy ending.
Qiao Mu raised his eyes to look at this scene.
"Immortal Yanshen, you deserve to die."
Qiao Mu’s figure darted across the sky like lightning, and the True Strength beneath his feet formed into clouds as he quickly approached Immortal Yanshen, who stood among the ruins of the Soul Predicting Path Immortal Gate.
Reason told him he should be angry and sorrowful.
If it were tens of thousands of years ago, he would indeed feel such emotions flowing.
But at sixty-nine thousand years old, even witnessing all this, his heart felt no emotions, like a dried-up pool of stagnant water.
The joys and sorrows of the human world, the parting of life and death, now seemed to him like faded old photographs, distorted and lacking the vibrancy of the past.
Yet even so.
The human world remained the place where he had clung to his beliefs fifty thousand years ago.
Even if his heart was as calm as a still well, he would still do what he believed was right.
"It’s Senior Qiao Huo!"
"The Qiao family member who returned to the human world has finally taken action!" An older martial artist, who had experienced the three-year legend of the Qiao family, couldn’t help but exclaim.
When even the greatest martial artists like Qing Li have faced defeat, only the presence of the Qiao family member could give them a bit of security amidst their fear.
Many years ago, the Qiao family members were just like they are now, always at the center of attention, always at the front lines against cultivators, leaving behind myths that future generations found hard to believe.
Today is no different.
The returning figure of the Qiao family member appeared to them like a solid and reliable mountain.
"Senior Qiao Huo has finally taken action…" Xue Changhe clenched his fist.
Earlier, during the battle against the Long Life Gate, he had urged Qiao Mu to hold back, planning to take revenge himself and end the Long Life Gate’s thousand-year blood feud.
But today is different.
The appearance of the True Immortal is an unexpected and unmatched enemy, and they naturally won’t act foolishly.
Yet, there is still some unwillingness in their hearts.
"So, you are Qiao Huo…" Immortal Yanshen’s face showed no expression, but his eyes flickered with light.
"I see your fate wheel, and you have already lived for sixty-nine thousand years. Today, are you here to stop me or to take a share?"
The two people stood facing each other, both with the same expressionless face.
Qiao Mu stood in the air.
Even without using spiritual refinement to sense, he could feel countless gazes gathering on him on the battlefield.
Even the few lucky Soul Predicting Path cultivators who had not died felt it too.
Logically, as the greatest hope for the martial artists on the battlefield, Qiao Mu should say something uplifting to save the collapsing morale of the martial artists.
But he felt no desire to do so.
"You talk too much." Qiao Mu opened his mouth, and powerful sound waves turned into visible ripples, sweeping in all directions.
At the same time he spoke, he had already activated his supreme skill, the "Tian Ming Divine Sound."
Sound skills are similar to the Eye Attacking Technique, a kind of spiritual refining martial art, focused on the mind and spirit.
After living for fifty thousand years in the Long Life Dream, sixty-nine thousand-year-old Qiao Mu stands alone at the top of strength and power in Jiu Province, unmatched by anyone.
His voice is like thunder, rolling and shaking the world around him.
When he was eighteen thousand years old, he relied on the Heavenly Demon Disintegration Method in the ruins of the Heavenly Palace, overpowering even Mahayana cultivators.
Now, at sixty-nine thousand years old, even if he cannot use the True Strength Heavenly Demon Disintegration Method as before, he is still no weaker than he was then.
At this moment, under the booming sound waves like thunder.
The sky trembles, and the mountains shake!
The once thick dark clouds crack open, and the heavenly mountain beneath him shakes and splits under the rolling sound waves.
Pale golden patterns appear in the air around him, shaking violently in the void, with the runes twisting.
The invisible waves, which were originally unseen by the naked eye, stopped for a moment.
"I… am still alive?"
As the invisible waves spread, everything in their path turned to dust; this was the true power of an immortal, unimaginable to the martial artists of this world.
Even witnessing it firsthand, one could not understand its mysteries.
But at that moment, these invisible waves lingered in the air and did not cause the fleeing martial artists to die immediately.
"Senior Qiao Huo, a member of the Qiao family has attacked!"
"With strong fighters returning from the ancestral martial family, we still have a chance to survive…"
Even knowing that the True Immortal before them was an incomprehensible enemy, the members of the Qiao family from fifty years ago had already left an indelible impression on the martial artists of Xue Changhe’s generation.
When the Qiao family member appeared, they naturally felt a confidence that was almost unreasonable.
Only Immortal Diyuan quietly shook her head.
She was once one of the True Immortals of the celestial realm and knew that the gap between True Immortals and other beings was as deep as the sky and the earth.
While traveling through thousands of worlds, she had naturally seen Qiao Mu in action, but when facing Immortal Yanshen, who was even stronger than her, she felt no confidence at all.
At that moment on the battlefield, Immortal Diyuan might be the only one who did not place her hope in Qiao Mu.
With a swift movement, she led Qiao Canxue to stand before Qiao Feixian, gazing at the two of them with a look of hope.
In her view, directly challenging a True Immortal was not wise; the only chance for survival might lie within the two reincarnations of the Heavenly Emperor’s daughter.
"Hmm?" Immortal Yanshen also looked surprised at that moment.
During his time in the mortal world, he had heard from the leader of the Soul Predicting Pathsect and other disciples about the existence of members of the Qiao family.
But seeing them with his own eyes indeed amazed him.
"After the decline of spiritual energy, how could the great world of Jiu Province still give birth to such powerful beings?" Immortal Yanshen murmured.
"My junior disciple reached the Tao Achieving Stage by understanding the way of incense, gathering the wishes of countless people in Jiu Province."
"And where does this so-called ‘earthly disaster’ that can reach such strength come from?"
He shook his head, not wanting to think too deeply.
"With the Great Collapse approaching, all sorts of monsters are showing up."
He didn’t take it seriously with his words, but his actions showed he wasn’t dismissive.
According to the tales of the Soul Predicting Pathsect leader and his disciples, the most outrageous thing about the Qiao family member in this world is not their unbelievable strength.
Rather, it is their endless numbers, like cockroaches.
If you kill one, a whole group shows up, endlessly repeating.
It is said that there is a mysterious connection between their bloodlines, and each member of the Qiao family can teleport once in their lifetime.
If you kill one, there will be endless troubles!