“I’m leaving. Watch out for that freak yourself,” Lan Xiaobu said, stepping toward the planar array gate.
The blue-skirted woman quickly bowed, “Fellow daoist, I’m Peng Yuan, an elder of Nine Shuttle Void City…”
“You’re an elder of Nine Shuttle Void City?” Lan Xiaobu looked at Peng Yuan in surprise, thinking how small the world was. He’d taken out ten of Nine Shuttle Void City’s Nine-Turn powerhouses, including their city lord, Ji Yige. And now, here was the eleventh Nine-Turn sage from that city—should he take her out too?
“Indeed, Senior…” Peng Yuan looked at Lan Xiaobu, puzzled.
Lan Xiaobu chuckled, “Name’s Lan Xiaobu.”
“Greetings, Fellow Daoist Lan,” Peng Yuan hurriedly bowed again.
Lan Xiaobu eyed her curiously, “You’ve never heard of me?”
Her reaction suggested she genuinely hadn’t. That didn’t add up—he’d wiped out all of Nine Shuttle Void City’s Nine-Turn powerhouses. As an elder, how could she not know him?
Peng Yuan quickly explained, “I truly haven’t heard of you, Fellow Daoist Lan. Lately, I’ve been on the run from Meng Buchen. If not for some talismans, he’d have caught me long ago.”
Lan Xiaobu said, “I heard Nine Shuttle Void City had twelve Nine-Turn powerhouses. Not long ago, I went there, accidentally broke their rules, and got ambushed by their Nine-Turn crew. I killed them all. Later, their city lord, Ji Yige, tried to backstab me, so I took him out too. Word is Ji Yige had two Nine-Turn elders by his side—you’re one of them, right? Funny, I didn’t see either of you when he came for me.”
Peng Yuan hastened to clarify, “Fellow Daoist Lan, I’m an elder of Nine Shuttle Void City, sure, but I couldn’t stomach their overbearing ways. I haven’t been back in thousands of years. So I’m not one of their twelve powerhouses. Whether the city’s elders and lord got killed has nothing to do with me.”
That Lan Xiaobu could wipe out all of Nine Shuttle Void City’s Nine-Turn powerhouses didn’t surprise Peng Yuan—she thought it made sense. If he could fend off an Eternal Sage like Meng Buchen, why would he fear those Nine-Turn sages? They’d been asking for it, picking a fight with him.
Lan Xiaobu nodded, unbothered.
Peng Yuan continued, “Fellow Daoist Lan, you’ve refined one of the Seven Realms Stone Flags. I believe gathering all seven is just a matter of time. I have a humble request…”
“You want to tag along to the Eternal Lands once I’ve got all seven flags?” Lan Xiaobu caught her drift immediately.
Peng Yuan nodded uneasily, “Exactly. If there’s anything I, Peng Yuan, can do for you, I won’t hesitate—even if it means my death, I’d have no complaints.”
Lan Xiaobu mulled it over briefly, “It’s not out of the question. I don’t need your help now, but once I’ve got all seven flags, we can head there together.”
To him, it didn’t matter much—plenty of people were already joining him to the Eternal Lands, so one more or less made little difference. Sure, Peng Yuan couldn’t fight back against Meng Buchen and had to flee, but anyone who could evade an Eternal Sage that long wasn’t ordinary. In the Eternal Lands, with enemies galore, the stronger his crew, the better.
“Where should I wait for you?” Peng Yuan asked, thrilled.
Lan Xiaobu hesitated, then said, “I’ve got a friend in Great Mo Void Star, Zhuo Xuantian, sect leader of Vortex Origin Dao Sect. If you’ve got nowhere to go, you could wait there.”
“Got it, I’ll wait at Vortex Origin Dao Sect,” Peng Yuan agreed without a second thought, well aware of Great Mo Void Star’s location.
Lan Xiaobu handed her a communication bead, “This is one I refined—can send messages across planes. Once I’ve got all seven flags, I’ll call you to join us.”
Not many could craft a bead that transmitted across planes, but having mastered the Spatial Great Dao, Lan Xiaobu pulled it off.
Peng Yuan didn’t doubt him for a second—his strength was something she could only look up to.
…
After parting with Peng Yuan, Lan Xiaobu stepped into the planar array gate. As the teleportation rules enveloped him, shifting him from one plane to another, he brushed against the shifting spatial laws. He felt that a few more jumps like this, and he’d master these teleportation rules. Once his strength was up to par, he wouldn’t even need a void array gate—he could tear planes apart himself.
Tearing planes open? Nine-Turn sages couldn’t do it. Lan Xiaobu figured he couldn’t yet either, but he wasn’t far off.
Boom! The void gate spat him out, slamming him into an incoming meteor, shattering it to bits.
But Lan Xiaobu grabbed a few fragments midair, his expression turning cold.
This was no ordinary meteor—it was a freshly shattered life-bearing planet, with traces of human existence still lingering. Someone had blasted apart a planet with people on it, all for their dao.
Lan Xiaobu despised this kind of person—Qu Peng was one such bastard. He hadn’t fully destroyed Qu Peng’s soul fragments, but if they crossed paths again, he wouldn’t let him off.
He considered tracking the culprit through the debris but soon dropped the idea. It’d take ages, and he might not even find them. Right now, his priority was hunting down the Seven Realms Stone Flags.
This time, he didn’t bother with the Samsara Pot. He checked the direction of the fourth flag and took off with his escape technique.
For shorter distances, his technique outpaced the pot by a mile. Plus, he reckoned he was back in the plane of the Great Desolation Divine Realm—its void rules felt familiar.
Sure enough, his escape technique was leaps ahead of the pot, almost like teleportation.
In just a few days, the fourth flag’s location grew clearer. By his estimate, he’d reach it in three days tops.
Then he spotted a white mountain.
In the boundless void, this white mountain stretched a million miles, its outskirts woven with crisscrossing charm, forcing even void meteors to veer away. Not a blade of grass or tree grew—just white rock and soil.
This…
Seeing it, Lan Xiaobu instantly recalled what it was. When he’d killed the Death Sage, he’d snagged a crystal ball and jade slip from his world. The ball roughly pointed to the Great Destiny Technique’s location; the slip detailed it more precisely.
The ball’s marker was vague, but the slip was clear: a void white mountain, with the Great Destiny Technique buried deep within. Spotting this mountain here—could it be the place?
He pulled out the directional crystal ball, and sure enough, its range matched this spot. In that moment, Lan Xiaobu knew he’d stumbled onto the Great Destiny Technique’s location.
In his plans, he’d aimed to master the Causal Great Dao and Destiny Great Dao next, then seek eternity. But after snagging the Cosmic Mill, he’d grasped the Cosmic Great Dao instead. Causality was still out of reach, yet here was the Great Destiny Technique. Mastering destiny now would be a windfall, saving him heaps of time.
With it right in front of him, he had to check out the white mountain.
Stopping at its base, he immediately felt waves of soul-eroding dao aura, paired with a powerful repulsive law. Anything—living or not—nearing this place would get blasted away by the mountain’s rules.
Meteors and lifeless objects aside, even without the repulsion, no living thing could linger here. The corrosive laws were the strongest Lan Xiaobu had ever encountered. Even standing there, his soul trembled, his Longevity Realm wavering—others wouldn’t stand a chance.
He’d forged his dao through himself, building his Longevity Realm from his own laws. For it to wobble here showed how terrifying this corrosion was.
Extending his Longevity domain, he pushed forward a dozen miles to the mountain’s foot. He had to stop—the dao laws and soul corrosion were so intense that going further without pausing would overwhelm him. It made him suspect this mountain was left by an Eternal powerhouse—otherwise, he wouldn’t struggle just to stand at its base.
“Fellow daoist, after the Great Destiny Technique?” a sudden voice cut in.
Lan Xiaobu’s focus had been locked on the mountain, missing everything else. Hearing this, he turned to see a man, thin as a skeleton, sprawled on the mountain less than a hundred yards away.
