Surprise

"This place really isn't nice," mumbled Xu Yue as she looked at the endless ocean of metal in front of her.

Looking at that ocean, Xu Yue didn't know whether to wonder at the power of nature or to destroy the ugly monstrosities in front of her.

Everything, from the smallest bug to the largest demon beast all of them were composed of metal, but even so, bending most people's normal view of the world, the metal beings moved as if they were made of flesh and blood.

Their bodies stretched, bent and most mindboggling also bled a silvery white blood when harmed, by the extremely cruel environment around them, in this place, no normal creature of flesh and blood could survive unless they had a high enough cultivation base, as even the very air around them would rapidly kill them.

As such, the metal region is one of the dozen or so regions uninhabited by humans.

Of course, this place could not hope to compare to the likes of the space region, where even high level cultivators could easily die without any warning even though they had been as cautious as possible.

Unlike that hellscape, some high level cultivators do go through the Metal Region, as this place can be considered a holy land for those who are comprehending the metal dao.

And just as Xu Yue was pondering whether to create a painting of the metal region, suddenly time seemed to slow down to a crawl as a straight white line appeared in front of Xu Yue and began traveling towards her.

"What is this?" thought Xu Yue as she did her best to dodge the attack, but before she could react, the white line began speeding towards her with incredible speed.

As soon as that happened, hundreds of spatial barriers appeared around Xu Yue, and Hulli Jing instantly opened her eyes.

Even though the white line pierced through the nigh-indestructible spatial barriers without slowing down at all, as soon as one barrier was destroyed, ten more appeared, but sadly it seemed as if this had no effect on the white line.

Suddenly, for only a moment, the white line slowed down to a crawl, and the next moment Hulli Jing suddenly spat out a mouthful of blood before fainting.

Even though this only gave Xu Yue a few trillionths of a second to respond, a spontaneous hole in space-time then swallowed Xu Yue and Hulli Jing, sending them to an unknown location.

Not having time to do anything, another hole in space-time appeared behind Xu Yue as soon as she arrived, but somehow, it seemed as if the white line was even faster than that, as it arrived in front of Xu Yue only a few moments after that.

Without any time for any more preparations, Xu Yue used the most primal method available, as her intuition told her to not let the white line touch her at all costs.

At this moment, both Xu Yue squeezed everything she could out both her soul and dao to stop the white line, this alongside countless defensive treasures and barriers tried to delay the inevitable for as long as possible.

A boundless force pushed against the white line, Xu Yue's soul which was tempered against the river of fate and her Dao, whose power rivaled that of Dao Saint's only managed to delay the white light for a mere moment.

And to do something like that, Xu Yue's soul reached the limit and became extremely fragile, threatening to collapse at any moment.

Every single defensive treasure Xu Yue put in front of her seemed useless, as unlike the attack on her back at the Luck Gathering tournament, this attack seemed to be in a different league.

As such, none of these treasures managed to gain her even a moment in time.

In another location,

Suddenly Yue opened her eyes with a shocked expression on her face, and without a moment to waste, she turned to Xu Lanfeng.

"I can't sense my connection to my main body," said Yue, and a soon as those words came out from Yue's mouth, Xu Lanfeng's true body, which was residing in the Origin Sword Sect opened it's eyes.

"My senses were deceived," thought Xu Lanfeng as she similarly to Yue, could no longer sense Xu Yue, then without wasting a moment disappeared from her location.

...

Suddenly, an androgynous figure appeared in front of Xu Yue, as the latter's desperate attempts at stopping the white line seemingly gained her enough time.

Looking at the androgynous Dao Saint in front of the white line, a figure that was hidden in the shadows seemed surprised.

"That was fast, but-"

A moment later, everything stopped.

The white line, the figure hidden in the shadows, the injuries of Xu Yue's soul, everything stopped.

Suddenly, the shadowy figure appeared outside of the three thousand regions, as it used it's nearly infinite speed as a True Immortal to run away.

"What is that thing?" mumbled the true Immortal as his voice, for the first time in his countless reincarnations began shaking with fear from a mere Dao Saint.

Suddenly and without any warning, this being that had hidden in the mortal world for countless eons and had restrained it's ascension to become an immortal up until now suddenly disappeared.

No resistance.

Even though this being, with it's accumulation, was much much stronger, perhaps thousands of time stronger than the average newly ascended true immortal, without any warning, disappeared.

Having his very existence annihilated from this reality in an instant, one moment he was there, and another he was not.

Suddenly, the androgynous figure disappeared as a giant eye suddenly appeared in the endless void outside of the three thousand regions.

Without any warning, the Grand Dao struck, aiming to annihilate this being from outside of it's domain.

But surprisingly, the androgynous figure did not resist allowing itself to be annihilated by the Grand Dao.

Of course, the Grand Dao could not sense the tiny white light that was traveling towards the river of time at this moment.