The moon hung low over the Crimson Void Continent, casting a silver veil over the countless cities and empires now under the silent control of the Heaven Auction House. Li Xuan stood at the peak of the Blackthorn Ridge, the wind tousling his ink-dark robes, his golden eyes reflecting the deep void of the night sky.
Below him, cities bowed—not in submission, but in ignorance. They knew not that their rulers, sects, and nobles danced to the silent strings of a single puppeteer. They didn't need to know. Not yet.
"Report," Li Xuan's voice cut through the silence like a blade.
A shadow kneeled behind him. A General—one of the Seven.
"The Eastern Sky Kingdom has fallen. The elite auctioneer placed in their court poisoned the royal bloodline with loyalty runes. Their royal vaults now serve us."
Li Xuan did not speak for a long moment. His gaze pierced the horizon, far beyond what mortal eyes could see. In the karmic web that only he could perceive, lines pulsed with faint golden light—connections of fate, transactions, promises, deaths. All leading back to him.
The Voidheart Enlightenment Sutra pulsed within him. Ever since he began cultivating the forbidden mind technique, every thought felt clearer. Every scheme unfolded like a painted scroll in his mind. But so too did the pain. With each session, his mind cracked under the divine weight of insight.
He bled from the ears, trembled from invisible agony, and hovered on the edge of death nightly.
But it was worth it.
His understanding of karma had reached a new threshold. With a thought, he could manipulate the cause of a beggar's death in one nation to destroy a noble's rise in another. With a gesture, he could flood an enemy sect with misfortune they never earned—yet had always deserved.
"Begin preparation," Li Xuan finally said. "A major auction. Invite all seven Supreme Sects of the Lower Realm. Present the Dragonbone Scripture as the main item."
The General flinched. "My Lord… that scripture—"
"It's a fake," Li Xuan said coldly. "But the karmic weight it carries is real. That is all that matters."
The General bowed low, silent understanding in his eyes. In the Heaven Auction House, truth was currency—but lies were weapons.
Elsewhere in the Inner Sanctum of the Auction House—
Dozens of masked elites knelt before a circular platform where a towering jade statue of Li Xuan stood, his eyes closed in eternal contemplation. These were the 49 Elites, each bound by soul oaths, their lives forfeit at a single thought from their master.
Even among them, trust was a myth.
A tall woman in blood-red robes stood alone above the others—General Wu Xian, the most ruthless of the Seven Generals. She had personally eradicated three rising sects in the past week for showing hints of defiance. Rumors called her the Crimson Hand of the Auctioneer.
Her voice echoed: "The time approaches. The Master wills an auction that shall echo across realms."
The elites roared in unison. "Karma shall bind them. Karma shall bleed them."
In the West, at the Verdant Sun Sect—
A gathering storm brewed. One of the remaining truly independent forces in the Lower Realms, the Verdant Sun Sect, had long avoided participating in the Heaven Auction House's events. But the invitation scroll they received glowed with divine patterns, imbued with a karmic lock that would bring calamity upon any who refused.
Elder Tian of the Verdant Sun Sect stared at the scroll with trembling hands. He had seen such inscriptions before—during the Great Fall of the Azure Blade Empire.
"This… is not an invitation," he whispered. "It is a death sentence in disguise."
Still, he knew they would attend.
The Day of the Auction
In a city built upon floating black jade, the Heaven Auction House revealed its new chamber—a spiral palace of floating platforms and glowing soul-flames, each reserved for one of the greatest powers in the realm.
Li Xuan, unseen in the physical world, watched from the shadows of the Soul Reflection Mirror, his real body cultivating atop the Void Meditation Pillar. His will, however, was everywhere.
General Wu Xian stepped forward as the auction's host. Her voice rang out, infused with karmic resonance.
"Today, we present treasures both divine and accursed. Treasures that shall determine the rise or fall of empires."
The crowd of rulers, elders, sect masters, and kings all quieted. Even the arrogant Supreme Sect elders wore cautious expressions.
"The final item of today's auction," Wu Xian announced, "is the Dragonbone Scripture—an ancient technique said to be derived from the very bones of a fallen Primordial Dragon."
A silence fell across the chamber. Even cultivators in the Transcendence Stage leaned forward with greedy eyes.
But Li Xuan wasn't watching them.
He was watching the karma lines. The golden strings that pulsed and tangled around every person in the chamber. Dozens of threads suddenly converged as hands raised in bids. Karma shifted, choices were made, and power was transferred—not the scripture itself, but debts, connections, promises.
With a single auction, Li Xuan had bound every major sect in the Lower Realm to his house.
That Night
The auction was over. The Dragonbone Scripture was "won" by a reclusive prince of the Moonwater Empire—one of Li Xuan's hidden agents.
Wu Xian knelt before the Soul Mirror. "Master, it is done. All sects are in debt."
Li Xuan, still hovering between consciousness and agony from his last Voidheart session, spoke in a whisper.
"Good… soon, we will stop asking for loyalty. We will demand it."
His eyes glowed with an ominous violet-gold light. The karma lines around him pulsed violently, cracking through the air like lightning in a storm.
"The Lower Realm is ours now. Next… the gates to the Upper Realm shall tremble."
End of Chapter 30