Chapter 379: Shattering the Void, Realm of the Martial Saint!

"Mom!"

Wang Ping's eyes went wide. His vague guess had become reality, filling him with a sudden, overwhelming surge of joy. He never expected to actually run into the First Seat here in the heartland of the Brahma Nation.

Even more important was her strength.

The Martial Dao!

Just as Wang Ping had speculated after cultivating the True Martial Sacred Body, the First Seat, having falsely proven the Martial Dao, now wielded combat power at the Qi Refining Tier!

This was his first time seeing the First Seat go all out, and his first time witnessing the true power of the Martial Dao. He was entirely overcome with shock. The First Seat simply leveled her open hand. At first glance, the gesture held no profound mystery, yet it forcefully severed the teleportation array Shasheng had laid down.

She merely stood there.

Yet she seemed to become the very axis of heaven and earth. All things resonated with her, altering their forms under her Divine Intent like illusions ready to shatter at the slightest touch.

Then, she raised one hand above her head and rested the other behind her back.

She pointed to the heavens and traced the earth.

"Mountains, rivers, and the vast earth. The sun, the moon, and the starry expanse."

Her voice boomed like thunder:

"Throughout heaven and earth, I alone am supreme!"

In an instant, under Wang Ping's incredulous gaze, the entire array was ripped apart by an even more immense will. All its profound mysteries exploded into fragments!

Yet when this profound power—capable of destroying the world and shattering stars—reached the First Seat, it entirely dissolved beneath her terrifying Divine Intent. It diminished into a mere breeze against her face. Every wave of destruction was reduced to a trace of warmth in the wind, which she casually brushed aside with a flick of her palm.

'Only Mind, Only Self?'

Wang Ping couldn't help but think of the profound nature of his own True Martial Sacred Body. But compared to him, the First Seat had elevated this profundity all the way to Qi Refining!

A second later, Wang Ping fell right into her pale, delicate hands.

She gracefully extended an arm, scooping him up and tucking him securely at her waist. From this angle, a sideways glance offered a direct view of her towering peaks.

'Hell yes!'

Excitement flooded his heart. Big Mom True Monarch was still too unfathomable and far too strict, barely treating him like a human when she tested him.

Little Mom was the affectionate one!

Although her cultivation was a bit lower than the True Monarch's, at least she could take action. Plus, she knew how to dote on a person instead of playing those exhausting testing games.

Meanwhile, the Brahma Nation's side was left almost entirely helpless:

"It's this woman again."

"If not for the intervention of the esteemed lords above that day, how could she have proven the Martial Dao? Yet, instead of showing gratitude and converting to the true dharma, she chose to become our enemy."

"Should we attack?"

"Attack my ass! The last guy who attacked her is still lying in the pure land. He lost all his cultivation, was reduced to a Mortal, and hasn't recovered to this day."

"Shasheng brought this upon himself for the sake of his disciple. Naturally, we should leave it to him to handle. It has nothing to do with us. We shouldn't get ourselves hurt."

"Exactly, exactly..."

The light and shadows of the pure land rapidly faded. Tucked beneath the First Seat's arm, Wang Ping leaped out of the turbulent void with her, eventually landing in another stretch of deep, starry space.

Shasheng followed closely behind.

However, his face was fraught with heavy solemnity. Unlike how he had dealt with Wang Ping earlier, he didn't launch an immediate attack against the First Seat. Instead, he chose to stand at a distance.

'Lian Ruzhao...'

She was the second pathfinder to emerge since the establishment of the Brahma Nation. After the incident with the Eight Trigrams Furnace, an Ascetic Monk from the Brahma Nation had immediately gone to recruit her, only to be rejected.

The two sides had even fought a massive battle over it.

The Ascetic Monk who went to recruit her wasn't weak. Like Shasheng, he cultivated under the Master of Secret Traces, and their cultivation levels were virtually neck and neck.

Yet the result of that battle had nearly caused every Brahma Cultivator's jaw to drop. The Ascetic Monk had actually lost. The woman who called herself the 'First Seat of the Martial Dao' battered him from his lofty status as an Ascetic Monk until he was almost a Mortal, leaving him teetering on the edge of death within the Cosmic Deep Space!

That battle had shocked all the Brahma Cultivators.

Afterward, an arhat of the Brahma Nation stepped in, intending to capture the woman and slowly convert her—but another supreme power intervened and rescued her.

It was the blood enemy of the Brahma Nation.

Although the Brahma Nation and the Immortal Gate already harbored immense enmity, among the Immortal Gate's Five Elements Dao lineages, their relationship with this specific lineage was as terrible as it could get.

Fire qi.

Much like the water qi lineage, this faction had been ostracized from the Immortal Gate's central domain. Forced to leave the Ziwei Enclosure, they moved to the Taiwei Enclosure to live right next door to the Brahma Nation.

If the water qi lineage had been branded a demonic path and banished to the Tianshi Enclosure due to the Great Rebellion—an intentional consequence—then the fire qi lineage was simply struck by pure bad luck. Once upon a time, their lineage had even produced a great existence that everyone revered.

At the time, all fire qi cultivators believed their lineage had a radiant future.

They were just waiting for that great existence to take one more step and achieve the status of an immortal. When that happened, the fire qi lineage would be able to open a fourth academy within the Immortal Gate, standing equal to the Three Great Academies.

The good days were still ahead of them!

Yet, when that great existence finally broke through and became an immortal, he chose to establish his own independent faction.

If he had merely gone independent, it wouldn't have been so bad. What was truly infuriating was that before leaving, he fiercely poached from the Immortal Gate's foundation and even tore apart the Great Dao.

This was even more severe than the water qi incident.

When the water qi lineage allied with the Great Rebellion and heavily damaged the other four elements, it had at least remained a matter of the heaven and earth's qi. But the Brahma Nation had directly laid its hands on the higher-tier trigrams.

If the fire qi lineage hadn't also been victims—suffering the mutilation of the Li Trigram—the enraged Immortal Gate would have likely wiped out their lineage directly. Although they eventually decided against extermination, they imposed heavy punishments. Ever since then, the fire qi lineage had been permanently stationed in the Taiwei Enclosure, standing on the absolute front lines of the Dao war against the Brahma Nation.

"Inconceivable."

Shasheng sighed faintly.

"I thought that with my Brahma Nation as a cautionary tale, the fire qi lineage would never again accept anyone connected to the Civilization-Manifesting Ultimate-Founding Qi."

Hearing this, Lian Ruzhao looked at Shasheng and flashed a beautiful smile.

"I am not like you people."

"My Martial Dao does not cultivate qi, nor does it cultivate the Eight Trigrams. It only takes a spark of human yang fire, which will eventually be severed. Naturally, it carries none of your hidden dangers."

With that, she set down Wang Ping, who was still tucked beneath her arm.

"Master!"

Wang Ping called out excitedly.

Lian Ruzhao raised her palm and said, "Good disciple, watch closely and learn. This is the Realm above Great Grandmaster Rank, achieved after the Martial Dao reaches perfection."

Saying this, she clenched her fist!

In that instant, Wang Ping's vision blurred. Under the senses of his Divine Intent, it felt as if the First Seat before him was no longer human. Countless acupoints within her body were glowing.

They looked like shining stars.

These stars linked into lines, weaving together to construct an entirely different world—one distinctly separate from the Cosmic Deep Space and the great thousand worlds. It was unbelievably real.

And in that world, there was no spiritual energy, no Immortal Dao, and no Brahma dharma. Everything operated naturally, and all things obeyed physical rules in the mortal sense. This was the First Seat's mind-only and subjective definition of the world. It was her 'Self', born and extinguished with her very breath.

Boom!

A second later, Wang Ping saw the First Seat's 'Self'—that magic-less, spiritual-energy-void world—stand as steady as Mount Tai, while the Cosmic Deep Space outside her body violently collapsed!

Almost simultaneously, Lian Ruzhao threw a punch.

As she punched, she unleashed the mighty power that collapsed the void and extinguished all magic and dharma. It was completely unavoidable, arriving right in front of Shasheng in the blink of an eye.

Because the void was shattered, vast distances had lost all meaning.

In a flash of lightning, Shasheng only had time to summon the Secret Traces Vajra Pestle, throwing the Spiritual Treasure up as a shield to take Lian Ruzhao's punch head-on.

Then, he heard a sharp crack.

From the sidelines, Wang Ping saw it even more clearly—a crack had shockingly appeared on the Secret Traces Vajra Pestle right where the First Seat's fist had connected.

'Holy mother of...'

The Spiritual Treasure was cracked!

In an instant, the Buddhist light rolled backward, and Shasheng's figure staggered back through the starry sky. His Dao foundation, already shaken by Wang Ping, now appeared a few degrees more wretched.

'This Martial Dao... it heavily counters cultivators, doesn't it?'

Shasheng's expression grew even darker.

Meanwhile, Wang Ping's eyes went wide. 'There's no Dao debate, nor did she see through any foundational secrets... Just a simple punch, and it can shake a Dao foundation!'

Yes, this was exactly why Shasheng was helpless and Wang Ping was stunned. Unlike the Immortal Dao or the Brahma Nation, the Martial Dao didn't bother with flashy, convoluted Dao debates. It followed a single principle: whoever had the bigger fist made the rules. Therefore, every single one of Lian Ruzhao's strikes carried the mighty power to shake a Dao foundation!

It was all true damage!

Although the destructive power wasn't as immediately fatal as losing a Dao debate, it won through accumulation. Furthermore, it couldn't be dodged. As long as the strike landed, the target would inevitably be affected.

"I call this 'Shattering the Void'."

Only then did Lian Ruzhao's voice finally echo in Wang Ping's ears:

"Using the perfected 'Self' to shatter the external void and the great thousand worlds, forcing heaven and earth to change according to 'My' will—this is the Realm after Great Grandmaster Rank."

"Perhaps it can also be called the Martial Saint."