Nine Venoms Sect Founder

Grating sounds akin to a sharp sword scratching a steel wall rang as Jiyan's clawed hand stabbed at the fifth elder's neck. His lips curled up. Unlike Harun and Jiyan's, the fifth elder's golden shroud wasn't merely for show and built on the formation to provide him with God-level defenses. The Divine Soul Cauldron expanded to 100 meters and smashed into Jiyan's back. An inch away from the cauldron's strike, she vanished, and faster than a lightning bolt—reappeared behind her foe—making the cauldron smash into him instead. But as if animated with a will of its own, the cauldron stopped and whirled around the elder to chase its true target.

Pressured by the formation-turned artifact, Jiyan soared higher into the air, and dropped down with an ax-kick!

BANG!

The kick turned the cauldron into a flaming meteor that raced toward the formation-bound experts. But once the fifth elder joined his hands in a prayer sign—as if paying homage to the divine cauldron—it stopped and hovered around him instead. Closing his eyes, the elder sat crossed-legged in the sky, spreading his senses to the entire city. Misty fog dropped down, trapping the mortals and sub-celestial cultivators in a haze that altered their perceptions of reality. Now, instead of a "Lord Revelation vs. Lord Revelation" clash, all saw the fifth elder confronting a joint force of World Association celestials and Dream Seers.

Jiyan didn't care. Before the final result, these petty propaganda tricks had no use.

"Lord Revelation, what a pity that you chose battle instead of putting everything in your escape. At least you could have preserved your life for some time. How about this? We can still let you go. Our priority is to refine Mehran Hisyar and absorb the secrets he carries. Why don't we make life easier for both of us?" The fifth elder offered. If anyone could set up a Divine Soul Formation, it wouldn't be such a legendary technique. Even in the hall's elder cycle, the fifth held a unique status, and was treasured by Weeping Soul. Likewise, his enlightenment level was no laughing matter.

Thus, although he possessed supreme confidence in his Divine Soul Cauldron, given Lord Revelation's strength, the elder didn't doubt that if he became dead-set on escaping, they couldn't stop him. At the same time, Lord Revelation couldn't save anyone of those they intended to butcher. That being the case, why waste one another's time? When the story spread, Gods from the World Association would take care of this new threat. They didn't have to do anything, and knowing that his master watched his performance through the celestial puppets, the fifth elder wanted to solve this in the cleanest way possible.

Alas, different people held different perspectives. In Jiyan's eyes, that truth-seeking elder was a sorrowful creature destined to live and die in ignorance. Ignoring him, she swept the formation, seeking all weaknesses to exploit—there weren't any.

Jiyan's task was simple. On top of buying time for the Reversed Potential to take form, she had to create an opportunity for Harun to break the formation's balance, and overwhelm the seers with absolute momentum. However, the flaws she spotted in the formation were just traps left for her to jump in. There was no mistake to take advantage of. This knowledge brightened Jiyan's face. After all, the seers abilities would soon become Harun's. The better they were at their jobs, the more benefit he'd gain.

Letting her arms hang loosely by her side, Jiyan cracked her neck. The icy-blue aura coating her form turned into a shroud of chilling flames, and silver flower stems of countless varieties formed around her. All across the Dark Stone City, trees withered, the ground remained still, yet towering mansions shook. It was as if the world was losing its colors, as if life had come to an end—making death the sole sovereign of mortal existences.

Jiyan's foundational method, the Fallen World Sutra, stemmed from Harun's Art of the Decaying Flower, but focused on the death and withering aspects rather than the yin forces. This enabled Jiyan to display far greater destructive powers than Harun could, but made her lose in speed and extra gimmicks. Jiyan stepped forward, and in that instant, the fifth elder had a misconception. The world was her playground, and her claws could reach the stars!

A tearing sound shook the 1,000 man formation, and from the fifth elder to the last soul puppet, all found a gray claw mark on their chests, filling them with a corrosion force that spread at breakneck speed. Jiyan took another step forward, and though the fifth elder bore the brunt of her strike, several celestials neared destruction.

Alarmed, the fifth elder moved his hands in arcane gestures. Golden light burst from the 1,000 experts, and ignoring the soul-tearing pain Jiyan lashed them with, they each fired a golden beam at her.

Grand shafts of light illuminated the Dark Stone city's sky, as if a choir of angelic gods had descended from the heavens above to bless all citizens. But as all expected her to whirl and jump, dancing across the sky to avoid this armada of dazzling bolts, Jiyan stretched out her hands, becoming a flaming ball of gray Withering Essence that clashed with all at once!

"Foolhardy!" Sensing a once in a lifetime opportunity, the fifth elder broke into a peal of laughter. The cauldron appeared above Jiyan, pouring out its golden lava alongside gargantuan thunderbolts that battered her from above. But as the seers foresaw her fall, the world across a 300 meters radius became an achromatic land, and a sublime expression of the Empyrean clan's Divine Power—Forbidden Zone—kicked in.

In that radius, everything came to a halt, and without Jiyan's permission, none could move, enter or exit. The change only lasted for one second, but in that lapse, Jiyan connected to Harun's mind and exclaimed: "Now!"

He needn't hear twice. While Mehran's Reversed Potential Formation drained Harun's energies, his left eye returned to its original golden hue. The cosmic pouches of every single cultivator across the Dark Stone City trembled uncontrollably, and the treasures they'd refined or gathered across a lifetime escaped their pockets, becoming a vortex of endless, united weapons that bashed the Divine Soul Cauldron head on!

Crack!

Unable to withstand the impact of such a devastating blow, the Divine Soul Cauldron cracked, the fifth elder and his 1,000 experts' brains fried on the spot, and Mehran's Reversed Potential Formation kicked in!

By the time the fifth elder regained his senses, a hurricane had surrounded him, his cauldron and the 1,000 experts, making the deluge of energies they threw at Jiyan strike them down instead!

The cauldron's golden lava swept through their ranks like a cannonball against a mud-brick wall, harvesting and refining the lives of seers and celestials alike. As the formation's eye, the fifth elder was the first to perish, and as the cauldron turned his entire self into food for Harun, confusion filled his eyes.

"How did it come to this? I have sought the Truth for 10,000 years, yet cannot even understand...why I die?"

Those were his final words before his body and soul broke into gray filaments and flew toward the royal palace!