Chapter 280 - 279: Learning about the Nine Province

The bleeding fissure in the firmament pulsed with a sickly, bruised-purple light, casting long shadows across the pulverized ruins of the Central Continent’s Grand Court.

The three Demon Kings had been eradicated, their existences systematically wiped by the terrifying might of the Six Arms of Reincarnation and the inexhaustible, grinding cycle of the Five Great Secret Realms. Yet, the cosmic wound they had stepped through remained torn wide open.

Lin Yuan stood hovering in the void, his True Elemental Body radiating a flawless, self-sustaining aura that aggressively repelled the creeping demonic miasma. He lowered his gaze from the gaping rift and locked his deep purple eyes onto the Five Emperors hovering a few hundred yards away.

"The Demon Kings are dead, but the door remains unhinged," Lin Yuan stated. He then looked directly at Emperor Tianxu. "Can you tell me exactly how we seal this crack?"

Emperor Tianxu did not respond with immediate dismissal. The Qilin Emperor looked at the newly ascended Early Soul Transformation expert, recognizing that the man who had just casually executed Void Refinement-level demons was now an undeniable equal in the geopolitical hierarchy of their reality.

Emperor Tianxu let out a long, heavy exhale, the golden light of his aura dimming slightly.

"We cannot simply weave a new array over it, Daoist Lin," Emperor Tianxu answered, his voice thick with a profound exhaustion. "The Nine Heavens Ward is not a mere spell of spatial containment. It is a foundational pillar of our very existence. It was not forged by us. It was forged in the ancient era, back when the lower world was whole, back when this lower world once held cultivators of the Grand Ascension realm."

"Grand Ascendant," Lin Yuan murmured, he first heard of that realm from the monk inside the mountain and rivers painting. It was a realm of cultivation that existed entirely in the realm of myth, sitting far above the Soul Transformation, Void Refinement, and even Body Integration stages. It was a plateau where a cultivator’s will could dictate the birth and death of stars.

"Yes," Emperor Beiming rumbled, drifting closer, his Black Tortoise domain erecting a massive, invisible shield to prevent the leaking miasma from raining down onto the terrified, recovering spectators below. "Tens of thousands of years ago, our world was vast and unbounded. The Dao laws were heavy, ancient, and perfectly intact. But then came the Great War. The demonic entities of the abyss rose up in an apocalyptic tide, seeking to consume the orthodox Qi of our realm. The war was so catastrophic, so unthinkably violent, that the very fabric of our reality began to shatter under the weight of the Grand Ascendant cultivators clashing with the Demon Emperors."

Emperor Xiyan rested his massive warlord blade upon his armored shoulder, his expression uncharacteristically solemn. "To prevent absolute mutual destruction, the supreme ancestors of our world made a desperate, agonizing choice. They utilized their supreme might to physically and conceptually cleave the universe in twain. They created a new, higher-dimensional plane of existence: The Imperial Domain."

"The Imperial Domain," Lin Yuan repeated, his eyes narrowing as the true cosmological map of the universe began to unfold before him.

"It is a paradise of supreme Dao laws," Emperor Nanheng explained, her fan snapping shut. Her beautiful face was marred by a deep bitterness. "When the Imperial Domain was formed, the most powerful clans, the supreme orthodox lineages, and every single Grand Ascendant cultivator migrated upward into that new realm. They abandoned the battlefield. They abandoned us."

"Why did the rest not follow?" Lin Yuan asked, though his mind was already deducing various reasons.

"Because we could not survive the atmosphere," Emperor Tianxu replied, a profound sadness coloring his eyes. "The Dao laws of the Imperial Domain were forged to be so incredibly dense, so conceptually heavy, that any cultivator below a specific threshold would be instantly crushed into bloody mist the moment they crossed the threshold. Only the absolute elite could ascend. The rest of the orthodox cultivators—the weaker sects, the mortals, the lower-tier beasts—were left behind in the ruins of the original world."

Emperor Tianxu gestured to the sprawling, battered expanse of the Central Continent below them.

"The Dao laws of our lower world were fundamentally, and irreparably damaged during the Great War," the Emperor continued. "The spiritual Qi grew thin. The pathways to the higher realms became agonizingly narrow. We are the descendants of those left behind. We are the scavengers living in the ashes of a broken world."

Lin Yuan looked up at the purple, bleeding fissure. "And the Hollow Beyond?"

"The Hollow Beyond is the Demon Realm," Emperor Xiyan growled, absolute hatred radiating from his White Tiger aura. "When the supreme ancestors cleaved the universe, the Demon Realm was caught in the middle. It now stands as a vast, corrupted buffer zone directly between our ruined lower world and the gates of the Imperial Domain. The demons are trapped in a harsh, apocalyptic wasteland entirely devoid of orthodox spiritual Qi. And because they are starving, because their realm is a nightmare of constant, cannibalistic slaughter... they still harbor the exact same goal they held ten thousand years ago."

"They wish to take over the lower world," Lin Yuan deduced seamlessly. "They look down at the Nine Provinces, and they see a banquet of stable, orthodox energy."

"Exactly," Emperor Beiming confirmed. "The Nine Heavens Ward was the final act of the Grand Ascendant ancestors before they sealed the gates to the Imperial Domain. They placed the Ward over our sky to keep the demons out. But it has been ten millennia. The seal has never been reinforced, because there is no one left in this world with the might to repair a Grand Ascendant array. The Ward is cracking, and the demons are pressing against it."

Lin Yuan processed the staggering history. The petty squabbles of the Upper and Lower Divisions, the arrogance of the Chu and Xuan provinces, all of it was suddenly rendered completely, and utterly insignificant.

"So," Lin Yuan finally spoke, his voice cutting through the heavy silence of the Emperors. "If this world is merely the damaged, shattered remnant of a forgotten era... why is it called the Nine Provinces?"

Emperor Nanheng looked at him. "It is not called the Nine Provinces because of the political borders drawn by mortal men, Daoist Lin. It is named for the foundational pillars that still hold this fractured reality together. When the world was damaged, it was left with only nine foundational miracles capable of sustaining life. The Nine Wonders."

She raised her hand, her fiery Qi illustrating the concepts in the empty air between them.

"The First Wonder is the Great Sea Realm," Nanheng recited, a glowing blue orb forming in the air. "It makes up all the boundless oceans and subterranean lakes, filtering the corrupted ambient Qi and generating the moisture required for the life to survive."

"The Second Wonder is the Continental Land," Emperor Tianxu added, a golden-brown sphere manifesting. "The vast, interconnected tectonic plates that make up the land of the five major continents, infused with the residual bone-dust of the ancient beasts, providing the soil where spiritual herbs can take root."

"The Third Wonder is the Exotic Realm," Emperor Xiyan grunted. "It is a strange, overlapping pocket of space left behind by a shattered spatial array, possessing pure Dao compression. It allows the formation of raw Dao essences in the form of physical fish, where our Dao fishing is held to supplement our broken laws."