In Anchor Year 57, Han Wuyou broke through to the late-stage Foundation Establishment realm.
In Anchor Year 58, the ten-year deadline arrived.
The Myriad Immortals Alliance dispatched squads of black-robed cultivators to begin the systematic purge of all rogue cultivators who had refused to join them.
Rogue cultivators across the world rose in resistance, but were crushed the moment they made contact.
While it was true that some rogue cultivators lacked strong combat abilities, the true terror lay in the combat prowess displayed by the black-robed enforcers.
Though most were only at the Nascent Soul realm, they were frightening beyond measure in actual battle. Individually, they could hold their own against more than a dozen cultivators of the same realm without falling behind.
Their methods were merciless. They left no survivors.
No matter how deeply the rogue cultivators hid, the black-robed cultivators could always locate them with uncanny precision, leaving nowhere to flee.
For a time, the world ran red with blood.
After the people of the Li World narrowly repelled one such black-robed squad, they convened in secret. After careful deliberation, they ultimately chose to submit and join the Myriad Immortals Alliance.
Having studied the secret technique, A Single Hand Veils the Heavens, recovered from the ruins of the Heavenly Mechanisms Sect, and with Shuo Feng’s maneuvering behind the scenes, they successfully passed the trial of the White Jade Heart-Questioning Platform.
For the time being, they went into hiding within the Alliance.
In Anchor Year 60, the conflicts came to an end.
Within the territory of the Myriad Immortals Alliance, no rogue cultivators remained.
In Anchor Year 61, a new decree was issued.
The maintenance of the Tianxuan Soul-Locking Array was declared the responsibility of every cultivator.
All members of the Alliance were required to cultivate a technique known as the Heaven-Mending Record.
This method did not advance one’s cultivation realm. Instead, based on one’s progress, it generated corresponding Heaven-Bestowed Points within the Tianxuan Mirror.
Like contribution points, Heaven-Bestowed Points could be exchanged for techniques, resources, and various benefits.
Though complaints were widespread, the overwhelming majority of cultivators reluctantly complied and began cultivating the Heaven-Mending Record.
In Anchor Year 63, Han Wuyou broke through to the Golden Core realm.
That same year, during a period of secluded cultivation, he comprehended the Heavenly Physician’s Immortal Scripture from the Array Breaker Jade Disc.
In Anchor Year 65, unsettling rumors began to circulate.
It was said that an additional obstruction had appeared within the world—that the cultivation progress made by cultivators no longer fully contributed to their own advancement. A small portion of it seemed to vanish, siphoned away to some unknown destination.
The rumors spread only briefly before being forcibly suppressed.
The people of the Li World held a secret gathering. After comparing experiences and cross-verifying their observations, they confirmed that the rumors were true.
Xiao Heng issued a strict warning: no one was to speak of the matter again.
The very next day, the Li World group received a “visit.”
A squad of black-robed cultivators arrived, delivering a silent but unmistakable warning.
In Anchor Year 69, the Five Elders Council launched a sudden surprise assault on Bafang Province.
This time, they had evidently developed a method to temporarily evade the targeting of the Tianxuan Soul-Locking Array.
Their offensive was swift and overwhelming. Within a single day, they seized control of most of Bafang Province.
In response, tens of thousands of black-robed cultivators descended from all directions, plunging the region into a brutal, chaotic battle.
The elite forces of the Five Elders Council were, on average, stronger than the black-robed cultivators they faced.
However, the black-robed cultivators fought with reckless ferocity, and their numbers seemed inexhaustible. Each fallen wave was immediately replaced by another, as if the supply would never run dry.
In the end, after suffering heavy losses, the Five Elders Council was forced to retreat.
Following this battle, the cultivators of the world finally learned the identity of the black-robed enforcers.
They were known as Celestial Artificers.
In Anchor Year 71, further information about the Celestial Artificers was leaked.
Celestial Artificers did not cultivate according to the existing cultivation system. Instead, once they gained the recognition of the Tianxuan Soul-Locking Array, they could directly borrow its authority, mobilizing the array's energy for battle.
At that time, the most powerful among them possessed combat strength comparable to Nascent Soul cultivators.
In Anchor Year 72, a bizarre tale shook the world. During a clash, the Golden Core cultivator Tang Fangsheng accidentally caused the deaths of over a hundred mortals in Scarlet Dragon City. Among them, a mortal named Shi Qing miraculously survived, but his entire family perished tragically.
Consumed by grief and fury, Shi Qing, in his utter despair, pleaded with the heavens.
For reasons unknown, he gained the recognition of the Tianxuan Soul-Locking Array and became a Celestial Artificer.
In an instant, he attained Nascent Soul-level combat power and brutally executed his enemy, Tang Fangsheng, on the spot.
A cultivator's arduous cultivation of over a century was surpassed by a mortal's single act of supplication.
Cultivators across the land grew uneasy and fearful.
By Anchor Year 75, Celestial Artificers with strength equivalent to the Spirit Transformation realm appeared. Simultaneously, cultivators found their own cultivation progress becoming increasingly sluggish.
In Anchor Year 80, the Myriad Immortals Alliance uncovered a major plot to destroy the Tianxuan Soul-Locking Array, executing the one hundred-plus cultivators involved.
In Anchor Year 85, Han Wuyou, through his study of the Heavenly Physician’s Immortal Scripture , comprehended an art called the Furnace of Myriad Forms Method.
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.