"What?!" The one-armed elderly man watched as the entire world collapsed on itself, including his physical body like a castle of crumbling sand. Instincts derived from over a hundred thousand years of arduous, combative, and cunning cultivation kicked in as several actions were taken.
Mystic Ward.
Defensive Ascension Art.
Mental Incantation.
The body, the spirit, and the mind were guarded and aggressively defended against any foreign influence, expelling everything unnatural, and mounting a firm defense against any further intrusion. The crumbling of his body slowed down immediately after his invocation of his Mental Incantation, a six-armed demon of unknown origins manifested within his Sea of Consciousness and mists of silvery spiritual light was revealed, tethered to his psyche and senses.
"An illusion?!" The six-armed demon was thin as the elder, without a single piece of cloth covering its upper body, yet the outlines of each fiber of muscle beneath its taut, dark reddish skin was well defined and seemingly contained the strength to shatter planets and grasp stars. It clenched its fists and pulled the silvery spiritual lights as if they were threads, seizing them entirely.
Every clench of its fist was stronger than the last. It made a total of seven grasps, one with each arm, and the final one was bringing all six arms together into a clap. The force released a wave of momentous power, eradicating, expelling, and suppressing all foreign forces. Even within the Sea of Consciousness, the Law of Momentum displayed its wondrous principles!
"What exceptional methods! Worthy of a Sage." A majestic voice boomed within his mind like a divinity from every direction. The silvery spiritual lights softened and expanded at speeds that the six-armed demon was unable to keep pace with. It targeted the inevitable flaw of momentum, this inexplicable concept. Everything had a limit.
A true master of the Law of Momentum once said with his dying breath as a sword cleaved through his True Soul, rippling through the ages: "My momentum could never reach infinity. Alas...if only I was stronger."
The six-armed demonic figure was engulfed instantly.
The crumbling world of the one-armed elderly man resumed and for the first time in a long, long time, panic settled within his heart. The world collapsed into darkness alongside his physical senses. No, he didn't have any activated physical senses, they had long since been taken over, fooling even his Mystic Soul.
"HUUU!" He felt his lungs and mind breathe greedily as if they had been strangled for a very long time. The inhale was desperate and needy.
THUD!
The elderly man's thin body slammed against a hard surface as his physical senses returned to him. His first sight was a familiar floor of the white vessel and his first sensation was warmth brought about by the ship's atmospheric formations regulating heat.
"I've only dabbled with the principles of Mental Incarnations, backed solely by my cultivation of the Mind Dao and my own path," a familiar voice resounded that caught the elderly man's attention, and the words confirmed his assumption of being caught within an illusion. The voice belonging to that white-robed youth sounded again in his ears, "However, your Mental Incantation might be extraordinary, but lacking in passive properties, only effective when actively used. What an interesting little flaw."
Mental Incarnations could be likened to Martial Arts for the physical body or Spiritual Spells for the spirit, but with mental energies and the mind as its foundation. They relied solely on mental energies and the Sea of Consciousness as their foundation while Ascension Arts could include all four types of principles. Similar to Arts and Spells, they needed to be actively controlled and used.
Unlike the one-armed elderly man's Six-Fists Asura Visualization Method, Wei Wuyin's Neo-Dawn Visualization Method was a passive protection against illusions, and mental influences, and possessed the inherent properties of maintaining one's sense of self and personal awareness of one's reality.
This resisted illusions or foreign influences such as charms or guidance of thought, the latter of which was often deployed by Heavenly Seers to emulate the Heavenly Daos. Wen Mingna had once fooled San Yongli into thinking she had influenced a situation due to this renowned ability that made Heavenly Seers utterly terrifying and extremely dangerous. Similarly, incredibly useful for avoiding calamities or instigating them.
The Eye of Illusion assisted in the creation of the Neo-Dawn Visualization Method. Clearly, while illusions were prevalent within the one-armed elderly man's cultivation society, being able to identify that he was in an illusion after seeing signs of the world crumbling, the flaw of his Visualization Method was that he needed to identify first to dispel it in the first place.
The one-armed elderly man slowly lifted his thin body as he felt impressed upon his body what he initially feared. The Imperial Law chained him as if a quintillion sets of hands were gripping him tightly, while the Endless Void Mirror's aura was permeating throughout his flesh, stagnating the flow of his energies, and threatening to shred him with chaotic spatial power.
He sighed.
"I never left." As he steadied his mind and adjusted to the situation, he lifted his head to find the brilliantly radiant Baby Defiant, the Neo-Dawn Solar Star, and the other celestial bodies native to the Ancient Sealed Regions. He was incomparably calm despite his perilously dire situation.
Moreover, his Soul Lock of Lawful Authority Spell which was used to restrict his cultivation base was reinforced by three other seals-Imperial, Space, and Time. He could feel his cultivation base limited to its absolute maximum, the Mystic Star Phase. Not even his Mystic Intent could be fully circulated at this moment.
All access to his Internal World and Saint Rings was blocked. He couldn't extend his Spiritual Sense beyond his skin, and within his body, it was stagnate and unmoving, seized by the present time power of the Law of Time. He could only sense an unmoving image of his inner body, dantian, and Sea of Consciousness.
This was a thorough seal that any True Sage Phase cultivator would dread. This was what he dreaded the moment Wei Wuyin revealed his control of laws earlier, after curb-stomping Young Master Shang, that he would rely on the Endless Void Mirror, other Heavenly Treasures, and his quintillions of living subjects to derive gross levels of power with his personally grasped Minor Imperial Law while he was in a sealed state.
Only after leaving the Endless Void Mirror's range of effect and away from Wei Wuyin's territory where he reigned supreme due to his Imperial Law, specifically because it was derived and fueled by the reverential belief and faith of others, did he dare take any action.
He weakly shook his head, "Never clash with an Imperial Ruler in their territory." The mockery in his tone was sharp and self-directed. This was a core rule that anyone worth their salt would understand. Within their territory, they were gods. Outside their territory, they were weaker than most cultivators of their level. Of course, this was only toward the type of Imperial Law that relied on claimed territory and its people.
Eventually, his gaze focused on Wei Wuyin. On the white vessel, there were more individuals than before. A golden blonde-haired, soulful blue-eyed beauty who exuded an easily recognized heavenly aura, a silver-robed, icy-faced beauty, and an average-faced, big-breasted woman who looked rather lazy as she stretched idly on the railing.
While Heavenly Seers were feared, they had an unchangeable quality-their easily distinguishable heavenly presence. They simply could not hide their identities or that aura, and even mortals would be able to identify them at a single glance. If the elderly man had seen Ming Shufeng amongst Wei Wuyin's earlier group, he might have been a little more cautious, a little more deliberate.
He sighed once again, this time with a heavier breath rife with acceptance. In his mind, Ming Shufeng or her master had leaked a little about the future, and that caused him to be a little careless and end up here.
Young Master Shang's situation wasn't any better than him. The young drunk was tied to a railing and thoroughly suppressed. However, Tuo Bihan was giving him sips from his leather flagon of seemingly endless wine. The young master was calmer even, enjoying every sip with visible relish as if it could be his last. This type of airy, free-spirited attitude as carefree as a drunken immortal drifting across the clouds was worthy of admiration in some ways.
"You're right," Wei Wuyin stepped forward, his aura swathed with the brilliance of the Imperial Law, exerting authority upon the world like a peerless king, unquestionable and indomitable across the ages.
"When?" The one-armed elderly man slowly sat cross-legged. While his cultivation base was restrained, he could make tiny adjustments in posture and did so freely. The acceptance in his tone wasn't resignation. As a cultivator who traversed the path of the Mortal Dao and Mystic Dao for over a hundred thousand years, what ups and downs hasn't he experienced?
"Will you tell me why?" Wei Wuyin countered.
"..." The one-armed elderly man closed his eyes and proceeded to meditate.
"If you want to torture him, I can tell you this now, the chances of you getting any information out of him is zero. No, less than zero. You might get false information without even knowing it." Young Master Shang warned. He looked at Tuo Bihan as if expecting something. The old man gave him another swig.
"..." Wei Wuyin quietly glanced at the one-armed elderly man. After a long, long moment, he directed a question at Young Master Shang: "Why did you come here?"
"To find you," Young Master Shang confessed without any hesitation. "To bring you back."
