He studied the scripture with painstaking care, sifting through its vast records of countless lifeforms. Gradually, he perceived a faint yet pervasive thread that bound all living beings together.
Heaven and earth were like a colossal furnace, smelting what had once been a single point of origin into the myriad forms of the world.
By cultivating this method, one could freely transform among those countless forms.
So long as one fully grasped the physiological structure of a given being, one could take on the shape of plants, trees, or beasts—so convincingly that even ordinary cultivators would find it nearly impossible to distinguish the transformed practitioner from the real thing.
Overjoyed, Han Wuyou broke through to the mid-stage Golden Core realm.
In Anchor Year 86, the number of Celestial Artificers grew steadily.
In Anchor Year 90, strange celestial phenomena occurred. Blood rained across all provinces, and cries of anguish echoed between heaven and earth, persisting for several months without cease.
In Anchor Year 91, a Celestial Artificer of Dao Unity cultivation took action, suppressing all personnel involved in another attempt to subvert the Soul-Locking Array.
In Anchor Year 101, the Myriad Immortals Alliance imposed explicit minimum durations for practicing the Heaven-Mending Record.
In Anchor Year 139, Han Wuyou received a secret message from Xiao Heng.
Arriving at a stronghold thirty thousand zhang underground, Han Wuyou learned that in recent years, under the banner of overthrowing the Tianxuan Soul-Locking Array, the Immortal Avengers had gathered a large number of like-minded cultivators.
At the same time, Han Wuyou learned an even more shocking piece of news: Over the past century, countless cultivators had vanished without a trace. Ample evidence pointed to the Myriad Immortals Alliance as the main culprit.
Han Wuyou mastered an upgraded version of A Single Hand Veils the Heavens, capable of interfering with the surveillance of the Tianxuan Soul-Locking Array within a certain range.
In Anchor Year 150, news that the Myriad Immortals Alliance and the Five Elders Council were on the verge of merging spread.
The world was astounded.
In Anchor Year 159, the Xuanhuang World was unified. The Myriad Immortals Alliance and the Five Elders Council were collectively referred to as the Celestial Alliance. A group of Celestial Artificers began traveling to the former territories of the Five Elders Council to construct the Tianxuan Soul-Locking Arrays.
In Anchor Year 160, Han Wuyou broke through to the late-stage Golden Core realm.
In Anchor Year 163, during the construction of the Soul-Locking Array, the Immortal Avengers attempted to ambush and kill array masters to obtain the structural blueprints of the Soul-Locking Array.
The attempt ended in failure, resulting in the gruesome deaths of seventy-eight individuals. This was followed by a frenzied purge by the Celestial Alliance.
Many innocent cultivators perished, and the Immortal Avengers sank into complete dormancy.
In Anchor Year 171, Tianxuan Soul-Locking Arrays fully covered the entire Xuanhuang World.
From that moment on, the sky permanently took on a greenish hue, and the Xuanhuang World entered a period of relative peace that would last nearly a century.
The number of Celestial Artificers grew ever larger, yet the cultivation speed of cultivators grew slower and slower. Moreover, their overall numbers began a steady, year-by-year decline.
Beneath the seemingly placid surface of the Xuanhuang World, powerful undercurrents churned.
In Anchor Year 260, Han Wuyou broke through to the Nascent Soul realm.
In Anchor Year 263, a single document, A Letter to the Cultivators of the World, spread to every corner of the Xuanhuang World overnight.
It tore open the curtain on a war between cultivators and the Soul-Locking Array.