In Anchor Year 468, news shook the Xuanhuang World.
The White Mist Barriers, which served as the boundaries between provinces, were inexplicably beginning to expand outward.
The Celestial Alliance dispatched Celestial Artificers to investigate the matter.
In Anchor Year 469, the expansion of the White Mist Barrier ceased. The Celestial Artificers, however, found no answers.
In Anchor Year 490, a group of cultivators emerged from the White Mist, wearing the old attire of the Myriad Immortals Alliance. Despite clearly being deceased, they moved with purpose, as though they did not realize they had died.
Unaware of the Celestial Alliance's establishment, when the Celestial Artificers arrived to secure the area, these dead Myriad Immortals Alliance cultivators engaged them in fierce combat.
Ultimately, it required the intervention of a squad of sixth-grade Celestial Artificers, each possessing Dao Unity combat strength, to subdue them and take them away.
In Anchor Year 524, Han Wuyou broke through to the Spirit Transformation realm.
In Anchor Year 539, the golden obelisks of the Xuanhuang World erupted for the third time.
Heaven and earth still trembled, though far more mildly than on the previous two occasions.
In Anchor Year 580, Han Wuyou received a secret invitation, summoning him to a clandestine stronghold in Tianyu Province.
The cautious Han Wuyou chose not to go.
In Anchor Year 592, Han Wuyou learned that the Tianxuan Soul-Locking Array in Zhengqiong Province had malfunctioned for approximately the time it took to drink a cup of tea.
The Celestial Alliance issued another Heavenly Execution Order, placing a bounty on a cultivator named Liu Yihang.
In Anchor Year 595, Han Wuyou received another invitation. Along with it came a small, circular stone disc.
According to the letter, the disc was called a Calamity Stone. When activated and carried on one's person, it could shield the bearer from the perception of the Tianxuan Soul-Locking Array.
After much deliberation, Han Wuyou finally altered his appearance and went to the meeting.
The location of the gathering this time had been changed to a hidden valley within Tianyun Province.
A cultivator introduced himself to Han Wuyou.
They called themselves the Heaven-Toppling Society, one of the resistance organizations that had once rallied the world's cultivators to fight the Celestial Alliance to the death.
After the cultivators' great defeat, they had gone underground, biding their time.
For centuries, they had been quietly inviting suitable candidates to join them.
Gu Xinghan, who had issued the Letter to the Cultivators of the World , Lan Yuchang, who had risked his life to expose the existence of the Eternal Immortal Wall, and Liu Yihang, who had recently temporarily disabled the Soul-Locking Array, were all members of the Heaven-Toppling Society.
The Society gathered the last of the world's cultivator elite. They were few, but from among them, geniuses emerged one after another.
Over the years, they had also researched many methods to resist the Tianxuan Soul-Locking Array.
The Calamity Stone was one such achievement.
It was created from a secondary entity of the Tianxuan Mirror, known as the Calamity-Ending Stone Disc.
Through years of relentless research, the Heaven-Toppling Society had discovered a possible blind spot in the Soul-Locking Array.
That blind spot was the Tianxuan Mirror's secondary entities.
As accidental offspring created by the Tianxuan Mirror, they all retained certain characteristics of the Mirror itself to varying degrees.
It was precisely these characteristics that allowed them, to some degree, to confound the Soul-Locking Array's judgment—leading it to mistake them for a part of itself, and thus exempting them from its surveillance.
Secondary entities of the Tianxuan Mirro were inherently scarce. The Heaven-Toppling Society had sacrificed many cultivators to find this single Calamity-Ending Stone Disc.
Beyond the Calamity Stone that could shield one from the Array’s perception, the Heaven-Toppling Society also possessed a great weapon known as the Heaven-Rending Arrow.
It was precisely this Heaven-Rending Arrow that allowed Liu Yihang to temporarily disable the Soul-Locking Array.
The materials used to craft it, however, originated from the increasingly frequent occurrences of Oddities across the Xuanhuang World.
The Oddities existed like a virus infecting heaven and earth. And since they could affect heaven and earth, with the Soul-Locking Array now standing in place of heaven, it followed naturally that they could affect the Soul-Locking Array as well.
After learning of the many affairs within the Heaven-Toppling Society, Han Wuyou raised a question.
Why were the society's secrets being disclosed to him in such exhaustive detail during their very first meeting?
Were they not afraid he, Han Wuyou, would report them to the Celestial Alliance?
The other party smiled and introduced Han Wuyou to someone.
It was none other than Linghu Chang, a former member of the Immortal Avengers and the Medicine King Sect.
As it turned out, when the crisis had descended on the Immortal Avengers, the survivors fled for their lives.
During the great pursuit that followed, Linghu Chang, relying on the true Medicine King Cauldron, managed to avoid capture.
He had lain low in the wilderness ever since, later joining the Heaven-Toppling Society by chance.
It was also through the protection of the true Medicine King Cauldron and the numerous resources within it that the Heaven-Toppling Society managed to develop despite the Celestial Alliance's blockade.
After another three hundred years had passed, he had gradually woken up some of the Medicine King Sect disciples slumbering within the true Medicine King Cauldron.
For instance, Liu Yihang was the adopted son of the former Medicine King Sect Leader, Liu Ruchen.
Reuniting with an old acquaintance stirred the memories of the Li World group’s tragic demise once more. The images of their deaths burned vividly in Han Wuyou’s mind, and his eyes flushed red with suppressed fury.
In that moment, he formally pledged himself to the Heaven-Toppling Society.
Han Wuyou stayed at the stronghold for only half a day before returning to the Celestial Alliance.
In Anchor Year 603, the golden obelisks began their fourth eruption.
This time, it lasted longer than the previous three eruptions combined.
In the sky above, streaks of green light crisscrossed, forming a giant net that enveloped all living beings in the Xuanhuang World.
From then on, the world's cultivators privately referred to the Tianxuan Soul-Locking Array, controlled by the Tianxuan Mirror, as the Xuan Net.
In Anchor Year 610, Han Wuyou received word from the Heaven-Toppling Society. Within the borders of Zhuyu Province, a colossal mountain had suddenly emerged from the earth, utterly destroying the original landscape.
Scarcely one in ten thousand living beings in Zhuyu Province survived this cataclysmic upheaval. The Xuan Net covering that province also seemed to have been affected.
The Heaven-Toppling Society's stronghold was subsequently relocated to Zhuyu Province.
In Anchor Year 690, during a gathering, Han Wuyou learned that the number of Heaven-Rending Arrows manufactured by the Heaven-Toppling Society had already reached three thousand in recent years.
Unfortunately, the Xuan Net was shielded by protective arrays. Even this many Heaven-Rending Arrows would likely fall short of damaging its core; they would have to wait a little longer yet.
Han Wuyou fell into thoughtful silence.
In Anchor Year 698, the Array Breaker Disc transmitted numerous array blueprints to Han Wuyou.
In Anchor Year 710, Han Wuyou secretly met with Linghu Chang and Liu Yihang, showing them the array blueprints.
In Anchor Year 711, Han Wuyou received a message from the Heaven-Toppling Society confirming that this was indeed the original architectural framework of the Xuan Net array. They inquired excitedly about the source of the blueprints.
Han Wuyou gazed silently at the Array Breaker Disc in the secret chamber for a long time. He then used a secret art to seal the Array Breaker Disc.
***
In Anchor Year 934, a street urchin picked up a jade disc from some ruins.
Thinking he had found some treasure, he was overjoyed and kept it by his side day and night.
A spiritual connection was thus formed.
The sky was no longer green. Only a vast, unbroken expanse of murky ash-grey remained.
In Anchor Year 935, legends from a century past still circulated among the survivors below.
The ground trembled. The sky cracked, fissures appearing across its breadth.
Upon the vault of heaven, the silhouettes of clashing gods were reflected within the clouds.
World-ending thunderbolts of divine punishment rained down ceaselessly, erasing vast swathes of land into nothingness.
After a long, long time, a pair of colossal hands tore the firmament asunder.
The dust settled. The winds grew still.
But the gods' internal strife had angered the great Father God.
The world had been forsaken.
Splendid architecture crumbled into ruins.
The gods who once soared through the heavens vanished without a trace.
The world was sliding into decay.
In Anchor Year 936, the orphan boy met an unfortunate end during a hunt.
The Array Breaker Jade Disc lay quietly in the barren wilderness.
Only occasionally would a curious beast come to investigate.
By Anchor Year 1032, no beasts appeared anymore.
In Anchor Year 1573, the sky was dark, the earth silent.
In Anchor Year 2078, the world was a tomb of stillness.
In Anchor Year 3024, a long-absent ray of sunlight fell upon the Array Breaker Jade Disc.
In Anchor Year 3036, Return to Truth was initiated.