The world had changed, though few could explain how.
Across the Lower Realms, cultivators found their thoughts echoing strange patterns. Fortunes reversed. Allies betrayed. Enemies stumbled without cause. Yet no one could find the hand behind it all.
In truth, they never would.
Beneath the Grand Serpent Ridge, in a place once abandoned and long forgotten, a hidden auction house was lit by violet fire.
This was not one of the main seven halls. It was a minor outpost—one of the dozens Li Xuan had seeded throughout remote regions. Its purpose was not profit. It was filtration.
Tonight, it was operated by General Wuyin, one of the seven pillars under Li Xuan's command.
She stood cloaked in black flame, her eyes veiled behind silver crystal. Dozens of robed figures sat in the circular chamber, all cloaked in illusions, their identities unknown to one another.
But Wuyin saw all.
Through her master's karmic techniques, their secrets—bloodline, sect, and intent—were laid bare before her even as they whispered their bids.
"First item—Ashen Soul Bloodgrass, refined from the corpse of a Mahayana cultivator slain at death's peak," she announced.
The silence was immediate. Then a quiet voice spoke: "Ten thousand Void Crystals."
Another followed. "Twenty thousand."
The bids climbed.
But Wuyin wasn't listening to the numbers. She was studying their emotions, their urges, their karma.
She already knew the final bidder—Li Xuan had told her three days prior. Everything in this auction had been predetermined. The items, the winners, the conflicts that would arise from their delivery.
This was a web of karmic threads, and tonight's auction would tighten them into a net.
Back in the Heaven Auction Pavilion, Li Xuan watched through Wuyin's senses, seated within the Hall of Ghost Mirrors.
Beside him knelt one of the elites—No. 27, named Lin Shu, an emotionless assassin refined through five realms of soul torment.
"I completed the severing, Master," Lin Shu said. "The Golden Ocean Sect has lost all memory of their trade routes. Their transport cultivators are lost in a maze array."
"Good," Li Xuan replied.
"Shall I kill the remaining elders?"
"No. Not yet. Let them survive. Let them struggle."
Karma tasted richer when marinated in desperation.
Behind him, the massive Ghost Mirror flickered. A figure appeared within—a hooded cultivator standing on the shores of the Crimson Lotus Sea.
An envoy from the Wheel Temple.
Li Xuan's eyes sharpened.
The Wheel Temple was an ancient remnant of the Upper Realms, sent downward to observe balance and fate. They had remained neutral for eons.
Now, they were watching him.
He rose to his feet.
"Send them an offering," he said. "The bones of three false prophets. Wrapped in the flag of the Eternal Mandate."
"Yes, Master."
And as the order was given, the karmic web pulsed again. New threads were born. New consequences set in motion.
---
Meanwhile, in the far reaches of the Mirror Claw Region, another hidden auction took place—this time handled by Elite No. 14, named Yun Ruo.
She was gentle by nature, a skilled pill maker and appraiser. But her hands were stained black with the consequences of a thousand manipulated trades.
In her auction, she presented a Phoenix Soul Pearl, laced with karmic corruption. The winner, a young sect heir, would refine it—unaware that it would hollow his Dao foundation within a year.
Why?
Because he was the final heir of a sect that once rejected Li Xuan's disguised bid to buy their archive.
There were no coincidences in the realm of karma.
Only debt.
Only repayment.
---
After three auctions ended across distant realms, Li Xuan returned to his inner sanctum, where the Voidheart Enlightenment Sutra continued to tear his mind apart.
He sat in the center of an ancient stone array, his flesh peeled back in some places, revealing veins of light and shadow.
Every breath brought unimaginable pain.
But within that pain, clarity.
He understood.
He could now calculate karma to the fifth recursion—predicting what would happen if he pulled one thread not just once, but five iterations into the future.
It was like seeing the future without needing to see it.
He stood at the edge of destiny and held a dagger to its throat.
His generals did not know the full truth.
His elites did not see the grand design.
But Li Xuan was no longer building just an auction house.
He was cultivating a Karmic Monarchy.
He would not rule through armies or declarations.
He would own choice itself.
---
That night, beneath a crimson moon that none noticed had turned slightly violet, Li Xuan summoned all seven generals and forty-eight elites through the karmic array.
Their images appeared before him like ghosts in a mirror.
His voice rang out—not loud, but absolute.
"We enter the next phase. All secondary auctions will double in frequency. Profits are secondary. Karma is primary."
General Wuyin bowed first. "As you will."
General Ruoqi followed. "The collectors are ready."
Each elite responded in unison.
"By your command."
Only one did not speak—Elite No. 44, a mute soulbound sword cultivator whose oath had burned away her tongue and sealed her fate.
She simply knelt, her blade pointed at her own throat as a symbol of eternal submission.
Li Xuan's gaze swept across them all.
He said only one final sentence:
"Let the realms learn what it means to owe me."
And then, the mirrors dimmed.
The meeting was over.
But the consequences had only begun.
---