In the depths of the Karma Pavilion's grand vault, Li Xuan stood silently before a translucent sphere of karmic threads. Each thread shimmered with pale gold, crimson, or black hues—representations of debts, virtue, and sins woven throughout the lower realms and their million satellites. The hall echoed with a silence so heavy that it felt alive, humming with latent malice.
He raised a hand. The sphere trembled, thousands of karmic threads tightening around his fingers. He had done it. The entire karmic foundation of the lower realms now pulsed in rhythm with his soul.
"Billions live," he murmured, voice devoid of emotion, "but only I decide their worth."
Within the obsidian fortress of Silent Frost Keep, seven thrones surrounded a dais. Each throne was filled by one of the Seven Generals, shrouded in black-gold robes etched with ancient seals of loyalty. Their presence could silence sect leaders and force Saint-level elders to their knees. But before Li Xuan, they were shadows awaiting orders.
Xue Bai, the Ice Reaper General, knelt first. "Master, all resistance has collapsed. The Void Wolf Sect was the last to stand. We buried them beneath their ancestral mountain."
"None escaped?"
"None, my lord. Their karmic remnants were absorbed by the Seven Chains."
Li Xuan nodded. The Seven Chains were forged from void iron and karmic bone. Each general bore one, feeding him the life force and fate of those they slaughtered. Their loyalty was bound not only by oath, but through the very system he controlled.
A violet mist began to leak from Li Xuan's body, the sign of his latest evolution—his understanding of karma had begun affecting reality itself. Shadows twisted around his feet, whispering truths of lives extinguished and destinies rewritten.
In the depths of the Forbidden Flame Mines, the Forty-Nine Elites marched through the screaming tunnels. Each footstep burned with karmic judgment. Screams echoed from the rock—cultivators, beasts, even demigods who refused to submit. They were all fuel now.
Each elite wore a badge imbued with Li Xuan's own soul fragment. Through them, he saw, he heard, he decided.
"The million supporting realms," he said as he viewed their reports from afar. "They worship me, but that is not enough."
He summoned the Black Lotus Mirror, a forbidden item unearthed from the corpse of a fallen immortal. It could reflect the karmic weight of entire worlds.
As he poured energy into it, images bloomed—sects praying to his name, cities offering half their spirit stones and women, cultivators slaughtering innocents to gain favor.
Still, he felt nothing. His heart was still. The Voidheart Enlightenment Sutra he cultivated now gnawed at his soul, threatening madness.
Pain ripped through his chest.
He smiled.
"Good. If it doesn't kill me, I'll control all creation."
In a private chamber carved from crimson jade, Li Xuan sat alone. The Voidheart Enlightenment Sutra opened before him—its pages written in reversed karma, filled with agonizing paradoxes and riddles no one else could endure.
He bled from his eyes, his mind fracturing and reforming.
"Pain is insight," he muttered, forcing himself to see a thousand possible futures.
In one, he was slain by his most loyal general.
In another, the Upper Realms descended, fearing his rise.
But in most...he sat atop the throne of ten million realms, alone.
He did not flinch.
Back in the Auction Nexus, preparations were underway. His seventh major auction would occur soon. His generals managed the lower auctions, drawing in factions desperate to curry favor. The wealth he accumulated had surpassed even Top Realm empires.
Yet he gave none of it away. Everything was stored. Hidden. Stockpiled.
"What use is gold to a god?" he whispered. "I need karma. Souls. Bloodline purity."
One elite approached. "My lord, the Sky Obsidian Sect requests a private bid for the Nine Heavens Flower."
Li Xuan glanced up, bored. "Reject them. Let them bid publicly. Make them bleed before I grant a petal."
The elite bowed and vanished.
Li Xuan turned to the great screen behind him. It displayed realms trembling under his weight.
"Soon," he whispered, eyes glowing with dark enlightenment. "I will burn karma into the bones of heaven itself."
And far above, in a place where ancient immortal wills stirred, eyes began to open.
The Forbidden Realms had noticed.
But Li Xuan did not care. Not yet.
He still had dominion to secure.
And if all must die to deepen his understanding... so be it.
End of Chapter 44