Chapter 1231: An Array to Devour the Cong Yun Sea
Li Ping stood in serene silence, sensing the unyielding will of the great sea beneath his feet.
In the face of a life-and-death crisis, any existence would struggle with all its might.
And Li Ping could feel it now—the ocean's blazing desire to survive.
But from the perspective of the Xuanhuang Realm, its struggle for survival was an act of pure malevolence.
As the self-proclaimed embodiment of the Xuanhuang Heavenly Dao, Li Ping could hardly side with the Cong Yun Sea.
"Since you are here, you will submit," he declared.
"There is no need for any more futile struggles."
With a single thought, his divine sense blanketed the entire Cong Yun Ocean.
The scenes from tens of thousands of scattered islands, along with the countless creatures living in the waters below, instantly flooded his mind.
"This is a necessary sacrifice."
A flicker of resolve crossed his eyes as threads of golden light emerged from his body, scattering to every corner of the Cong Yun Sea.
This power, bordering on Source Power Essence, was undetectable to anyone in the Cong Yun Sea, where the strongest guardians were merely Soul Transformation cultivators.
In the span of a few breaths, the golden light had spread throughout the entire region, piercing deep into the ocean's depths to reach the seabed itself.
An unknown, violent tremor began to shake the ocean floor of the Cong Yun Sea.
Viewed from the sky, the entire surface of the ocean appeared to be covered by a vast, shimmering net.
It enveloped the vibrant, azure sea of life completely.
Dark clouds suddenly swarmed the sky.
The once-calm surface of the sea abruptly erupted into monstrous, churning waves.
The swells were even more violent than those during the fiercest storms of the past.
Some islands were capsized without warning, while even the spirit isles guarded by cultivators teetered on the brink of collapse amidst the furious winds and torrential rain.
The cultivators of the Cong Yun Sea watched the cataclysmic changes between heaven and earth in stunned disbelief.
A few cultivators with keen spiritual senses felt a chilling premonition of impending doom. Their faces paled, and casting all other concerns aside, they fled immediately through the teleportation array on Ten Thousand Immortals Island.
Their flight caught the attention of a considerable number of people, and a small fraction of cultivators chose to follow them.
The vast majority, however, scoffed at these "jumpy, cowardly mice" who fled at the first sign of trouble.
They remained on Ten Thousand Immortals Island, feeling perfectly secure as they watched the dramatic spectacle unfolding across the Cong Yun Sea.
Li Ping paid no mind to the fleeing cultivators, nor did he care about the onlookers.
His target, from beginning to end, was solely the remnant will of the Cong Yun Sea.
The golden net, invisible to ordinary cultivators, had already sealed off the entire sea.
The energy of the Source Power Essence accumulated and evolved within it, and a grand array was about to reveal its terrifying might.
The consciousness of the Cong Yun Sea clearly felt the golden net tightening its grip, and the waves it churned grew ever more ferocious.
Yet, in Li Ping's eyes, it was nothing more than impotent fury.
"How does one annihilate the consciousness of a world?"
Li Ping pondered this question as he constructed the array.
"I shall refine the gods with the suffering of all living beings."
He quickly recalled this peerless, malevolent array.
"An array that can hinder even a True Immortal should have little trouble dealing with the remnant will of a world."
"An endless barrage of meaningless, chaotic thoughts to assault it..."
As Li Ping laid down the array, strange visions began to materialize without cause in the skies above the Cong Yun Sea.
They were faces, twisted and etched with despair.
They wailed, flailing their arms.
It was as if they were crying for help, yet it also seemed to be nothing more than a subconscious shriek of agony.
More and more of these grotesque visages appeared across the celestial canvas.
They were packed so densely they seemed to fill every inch of sight.
Soon, the only sound the creatures of the Cong Yun Sea could hear was the mournful wailing of those faces, drowning out everything else.
"Aaargh!"
Those with weaker wills were quickly overwhelmed by these fiendish visages, becoming just as desperate and insane.
Even those who managed to resist soon fell into boundless, terrifying nightmares.
They vaguely saw visions of a black sun rising in the sky, a scene of absolute horror as the entire world teetered on the brink of annihilation.
Just like the despairing faces in the sky, they too experienced this unimaginable catastrophe.
The teleportation array on Ten Thousand Immortals Island remained active.
But every cultivator who witnessed the myriad faces in the sky lost the ability to control their own thoughts.
Regardless of their cultivation level, from the lowliest Qi Refining novice to the island lords at the Soul Transformation stage.
All of them succumbed.
Though their minds were filled with boundless despair, they couldn't even form the thought of escape.
And this array Li Ping had laid was not even aimed at them.
If this was the effect of mere collateral damage, one could only imagine the brutal scene now confronting the consciousness of the Cong Yun Sea.
The remnant will of a single province-sized sea stood no chance against it.
Amidst the ceaseless wails of billions of demonic faces, Li Ping felt the will of the Cong Yun Sea begin to dissipate.
The monstrous waves gradually began to subside.
It seemed as though everything was passing, that the storm was clearing to reveal a sunny sky.
But Li Ping knew that from this day forward, the Cong Yun Sea would never be the same again.
The process of annihilating the will of the Cong Yun Sea lasted for an entire day.
During this time, any cultivator who entered the bounds of the Cong Yun Sea was caught in the aftershock, plunging into terrifying illusions.
But because there were no mass casualties, the Ten Thousand Immortals Alliance had not yet had time to react.
The dark clouds in the sky dispersed, leaving the Cong Yun Sea a pristine, tranquil azure.
It was eerily quiet.
Li Ping sensed the will of the Cong Yun Sea, now scattered throughout the world.
The great golden net slowly retracted, bringing with it the world's remnant consciousness—now shattered into a million pieces—back into his body.
"Urgh..."
As Li Ping absorbed the consciousness of the Cong Yun Sea, an uncountable number of images began to flash through his mind.
Even for him, who was accustomed to constantly monitoring every event within the Great Qi Sage Dynasty, the sheer volume of information was on a completely different level.
The vast ocean was not home to humans alone.
Beneath its calm surface, trillions upon trillions of living beings thrived and multiplied.
From Li Ping's own subjective perspective, he would never have paid much attention to these creatures, which lacked even basic intelligence.
But now, he was absorbing it all passively.
In the perception of the world's will, these fish were, in essence, no different from human cultivators.
Li Ping endured the searing pain in his sea of consciousness and accepted all of this information.
As if he had swallowed some immensely nourishing treasure, the strength of his divine soul began to swell like an inflating balloon.
Among cultivators, Li Ping's divine soul was already exceptionally resilient.
But under this rapid expansion, it was inevitable that cracks began to appear.
An ordinary cultivator facing this situation could only wait in despair for their soul to shatter and disperse.
But Li Ping was different.
Wielding the Heavenly Emperor Qi Canon, he was not only anchored by the billions of citizens of the Great Qi Sage Dynasty.
He also possessed the transcendent Source Power Essence within his body.
The golden energy surged, mending the wounds on his divine soul.
At the same time, it acted as a stabilizing agent for the soul's expansion.
After the initial, dangerous phase had passed, Li Ping slowly began to adapt.
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