Here is Chapter 27 of
The world changed—quietly.
No trumpet, no tremor. Just a shift.
A subtle silence that lingered longer than it should have, the kind that made ancient beasts stir in their sleep and cultivators suddenly awaken in cold sweat. In the grand expanse of the Lower Realms, something unseen had tilted reality.
At the center of it all stood Li Xuan.
Within the karmic sanctum buried beneath the roots of the Celestial Tree of Echoes—a hidden place that did not exist on any map—Li Xuan meditated, untouched by time.
His soul was now threaded with the Voidheart Enlightenment Sutra. With every breath, he inhaled the fragmented truths of karma, and with every exhale, those truths stabbed his mind with unbearable clarity.
His mind cultivation had reached a point few could imagine.
But it came with a price.
Blood dripped from his closed eyes. His bones creaked under the weight of reality's scrutiny. Even the space around him bent, unable to withstand the spiritual pressure.
Still, he did not stop.
"I am not cultivating strength," Li Xuan whispered to himself. "I am cultivating control."
In the karmic plane, where reality's threads revealed themselves like rivers of light, he stood above an ocean of crimson strands—each one representing a life, a cause, a ripple of action that would feed into the flow of fate.
He extended his hand.
One thread glowed brighter than the others.
It belonged to General Yin, one of his seven most loyal commanders. Li Xuan studied it. It pulsed steadily, showing faith, devotion, and absolute loyalty.
Then, without hesitation, Li Xuan severed it.
Thousands of miles away, General Yin fell to his knees, choking on blood, his cultivation collapsing.
He would live—but he would never again ascend.
Li Xuan's voice echoed through the karmic plane: "Loyalty untested is weakness undiscovered."
It was not about betrayal.
It was about preparing for a higher path.
If he could not bear the weight of severing his own foundation, how could he manipulate the foundations of heaven?
Moments later, a pulse rippled through the auction network.
In dozens of cities across the Lower Realms, Li Xuan's shadow auction houses activated. His elite underlings—the Forty-Nine Shadows—held simultaneous micro-auctions. Minor sects gathered. Treasure changed hands. Secrets were traded. Alliances shifted.
None of them realized they were pawns on a board Li Xuan had built.
He no longer needed to appear in person. His presence existed in karmic form in every house, every bidding war, every transaction.
But this time… he had added something new.
A hidden item.
An unnamed relic.
A cursed artifact that whispered to the user in dreams.
None of the auctioneers even knew what it truly was.
But every bidder wanted it.
Across hundreds of auctions, the artifact reappeared with a different form—sometimes a mask, sometimes a ring, sometimes a talisman—but it always fed karma back to one source:
Li Xuan.
This was the Crimson Thread Protocol—a karmic feedback system designed to create a false demand, ignite conflict, and generate waves of karmic interaction across the realms.
Every desire it provoked would be repaid to Li Xuan as fuel.
Violence surged. Greed swelled. Sects prepared assassins to steal it after auctions ended.
Exactly as planned.
And while the realms danced in chaos, Li Xuan prepared to ascend to the final stage of karmic fusion in the Lower Realms.
He entered The Chamber of Reflection, a place carved from the bones of a long-dead immortal. The chamber was alive with pain, resonating with the cries of a thousand years. Here, he would meditate.
Alone.
For thirty-one days, Li Xuan's body remained motionless.
But inside, his mind was a battlefield.
Every memory resurfaced.
Every doubt.
Every betrayal—both suffered and inflicted.
He relived the pain of the Voidheart Sutra. The betrayal of his past life. The cold silence of power gained through fear rather than love.
At the end of the thirty-first day, the chamber cracked.
When he stepped out, the world no longer looked the same.
He no longer looked the same.
His eyes had turned fully violet, glowing with karmic fire. A soft aura clung to him, imperceptible to mortals but suffocating to saints.
He was no longer bound by mortal cause and effect.
He was cause and effect.
He returned to the Sanctuary, where his remaining six generals knelt.
"You may speak," he said.
General Niu rose. "Sovereign, word spreads of immortal fragments stirring in the Deep Rifts. The forbidden realm's border is fluctuating."
Li Xuan nodded. "Good. Prepare a false expedition. Let the major sects think it's their idea."
"And the minor sects?"
"Sacrifice them. Their deaths will echo deep."
The generals did not flinch.
They understood now.
Their Sovereign was no longer merely building an empire.
He was preparing a convergence—one that would collapse karmic structure across all Lower Realms.
The first wave was coming.
And only those who had already died to themselves would survive it.
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