200: Chapter 200 Calamity Rises, Natural Disasters Descend

After the Cloud Sea Grand Ceremony came to a close, the Xuanhuang World did not return to peace just because the ceremony had ended.

On the contrary, an undercurrent was quietly surging across the Five Regions.

The Prodigies who had obtained the xuanhuang keys returned to their respective Sects or Families to make their final preparations for the Xuanhuang Fortress, which was set to open in three months.

But what the various forces truly cared about was not just the fortress itself.

Every time the Xuanhuang Fortress opened, it would trigger a periodic tide of Spiritual Qi across the entire Xuanhuang World.

This was the Law of the universe's own operation. The moment the Secret Realm opened, the earth veins of the Five Regions would erupt simultaneously, and the concentration of Spiritual Qi would rise sharply in a short period. Top-grade Spirit Medicines, rare mineral veins, and even some ruins buried deep underground would emerge one after another during that time.

For the major forces, it was a feast of Opportunities lasting for months or even years.

The ten years following each opening of the Xuanhuang Fortress were always the period when the overall strength of the Xuanhuang World grew the fastest.

Countless Cultivators broke through their Bottlenecks during that time, and countless forces completed the accumulation of their foundations.

This time would be no exception; the various forces had long since begun deploying their personnel, preparing to seize the initiative when the tide of Spiritual Qi arrived.

But not everyone was immersed in the impending Opportunity.

The Tianji Pavilion was situated deep in the mountains of northern Zhongzhou, where nine peaks surrounded a valley shrouded year-round in a light purple spiritual mist.

The Disciples of the pavilion were world-famous for their divination of heavenly secrets. Although most of their divinations only involved ordinary fortunes and misfortunes, the divination arts of the pavilion's several Grand Elders were enough to touch upon the deeper workings of this world.

Baili Changfeng was currently sitting in a secret chamber on the top floor of the library tower, with an ancient star map spread out on the jade platform before him.

The points of light on the star map were flickering and moving in an extremely chaotic manner, as if someone had knocked over a lamp above the map, turning the originally orderly arrangement of lights into utter chaos.

He had been sitting there for three days and three nights.

From the moment the Cloud Sea Grand Ceremony ended, he had felt a subtle change in the Qi of heaven and earth. That change was so minute that had his divination arts not reached the Transcendent level, it would have been almost impossible to detect.

He began his divination along that trace of Qi, originally just wanting to see if there would be any variables in the opening of the Xuanhuang Fortress this time.

But as he delved deeper into his divination, he touched upon something he could not ignore—tribulation qi.

He tried to further deduce the source of the tribulation qi, but found that his divination power was severely interfered with once it penetrated a certain range, as if an invisible barrier was blocking him from seeing the truth clearly.

He could only see some blurry outlines, and the location where the tribulation qi was most concentrated pointed toward Nanhuang.

Baili Changfeng looked at the area on the star map shrouded in gray mist. The mist was growing thicker bit by bit, as if something was slowly waking up deep within that land.

He sat there in silence for a long time, and finally, he slowly closed his eyes.

Nanhuang, it was Nanhuang again.

The Cloud Sea Grand Ceremony had just ended, and the top young forces of Nanhuang were gathered there. Logically speaking, that should have been the place where the tribulation qi was the thinnest.

But the results of the divination would not lie. The gathering gray energy had a clear direction, pointing straight into the depths of the Nanhuang land, as if something was quietly taking shape in that direction.

He did not delve any deeper, for he knew he had touched the boundaries of his divination abilities; continuing further would only trigger a backlash.

He could only keep that result in mind and wait for subsequent developments.

Just three days after Baili Changfeng put away the star map, abnormal movements began to appear in Nanhuang.

The first anomaly occurred in a mountain range eight hundred miles west of the Medicine King Valley.

Early that morning, the ground shook violently without warning, only gradually subsiding after about the time it takes to drink a cup of tea.

That mountain range was originally famous for producing low-grade Spiritual Plants, with gentle slopes and mild terrain. However, after that earthquake, multiple cracks in the mountains began to seep with a turbid gray mist.

This mist was completely different from ordinary spiritual mist, carrying a faint scent of decay, and wherever it passed, vegetation began to wither at a speed visible to the naked eye.

The Medicine King Valley immediately sent people to investigate, but the message sent back by the investigators contained only one sentence: "The gray mist shows signs of eroding spiritual power and cannot be dispersed by human effort."

Immediately afterward, an anomaly also occurred at a spiritual mine on the northern border of the Zhouwu Dynasty.

The originally peaceful Spiritual Vein deep inside the mine shaft suddenly began to fluctuate violently, and the concentration of Spiritual Qi skyrocketed several times over in just half a day.

The miners initially thought it was a good thing, as it meant the reserves of the Spiritual Vein might be even richer than expected.

However, the skyrocketing Spiritual Qi was accompanied by an uncomfortable aura. Miners who worked in the mine shaft for more than two hours began to experience dizziness and impaired flow of spiritual power, and severe cases even began to result in death.

Ancestor Zhou Huaixu personally went to investigate and confirmed that the aura shared the same source as the gray mist seeping from the mountains west of the Medicine King Valley.

He ordered the spiritual mine to be sealed off and reported the news to the other six great forces.

A lake on the border of the Nanli Dynasty suddenly turned black that month. All spiritual light on the lake's surface was extinguished, fish and shrimp floated to the surface after dying suddenly, and even the Spiritual Plants growing along the shores withered and died completely within a few short days.

In an ancient city with a long history within the Xuanyuan Dynasty, several bottomless cracks appeared in the ground one after another, with the same gray mist seeping from the edges of the fissures.

Similar anomalies also appeared one after another in the regions under the respective jurisdictions of the Piaomiao Sect and the Qingyang Sect.

The Seven Great Factions of Nanhuang frequently exchanged information in a short period, confirming that there was some connection between these anomalies.

That gray mist, those ominous auras, and the earth veins that were originally stable suddenly becoming restless—everything pointed in the same direction. It was as if something was waking up deep within the Nanhuang land.

Ancestor Zhou Huaixu remained silent for a moment after reading the final summary report. He stood up to find Zhou Tianchen and told him to report the abnormal changes happening in Nanhuang to Kunlun as quickly as possible.

He knew that to uncover the source of these anomalies, he would likely need to rely on the power of Kunlun.

Meanwhile, Jiang Changge had already left Nanhuang more than ten days ago.

He traveled north along the plains, not rushing his journey. He walked and stopped, occasionally resting at roadside tea stalls, and occasionally pausing in the mountains to watch the clouds, the hills, and the flowing water.

On this day, he arrived at a small town on the edge of Zhongzhou.

The town was not large, with a main street running from east to west, flanked by a few inns, teahouses, and Medicinal Pill shops.

He casually walked into the busiest teahouse on the main street, sat down at a window seat on the second floor, ordered a pot of clear tea and a plate of spiritual fruits, and leaned against the window railing to look at the crowd passing by on the street.

The teahouse was bustling with noise as Cultivators gathered together. Some were discussing matters of the Xuanhuang Fortress, others were talking about various rumors circulating in the Five Regions, and occasionally, someone would mention the anomalies in Nanhuang, their tone casual as if they were merely listening to idle gossip that had nothing to do with them.

Holding his teacup, Jiang Changge listened to those disjointed conversations, his gaze calmly looking out the window.