Immortal Kingdoms

Coughed the old man gently.

"Youngsters are prone to express themselves without thinking in the presence of their peers," he said with a faint smile on his face. The last thing he needed was for a youngster from his sect to invoke trouble with a gathering of madmen.

After dropping that sentence, he dragged the youth away and ascended into the sky.

At most, the little tidbit of information about how high Leonardo's status was in the eyes of Grandmaster Sin was a worthy exchange for this bit of humiliation. The other party who joined the triangle, a pair of middle-aged cultivators a man and a woman, exchanged a look and decided to withdraw as well.

Now, it was only that woman from the Winter Fall Pavilion who stood in a standoff against Rosaline, who had a smile of derision on her face. "Are you going to apologize yet or must I have at your tongue?"

The woman furrowed her brows with displeasure. However, after weighing her options, she smiled despite her anger. "I'm sorry; I misspoke just then."

She could feel numerous eyes bearing down on her back, most of which held unkind intentions. She made sure to stealthily mark down the aura of each gaze and remember it in her heart; she will slowly hunt down these idiots who don't know any better.

She can't act up now and embarrass herself more than need be. Thus, she beat down the curiosity in her heart and the impulse to question Rosaline, ascending back into the sky.

Rosaline snorted, but she didn't press on anymore. She knew that it was only so much influence from Memento Mori she could borrow, it was unwise to overstep her boundaries even if in Leonardo's name.

As a former clan leader, she knew how to be flexible when the need arises.

Her eyes glowed with splendor as she cast her gaze into the distance, a domain of utter destruction encompassed hundreds upon hundreds of miles. In the center of it, all was Leonardo, draped in a fit of crimson black with a halberd twice his size orbiting his immediate vicinity.

From the mountains, lands, rivers, and seas; shadows of this weapon flashed in and out of space, striking the lightning bolts descending without rhyme or reason to obliterate whatever stood in his domain.

Many people thought that the destruction brought by the lightning was an irrevocable wound to the foundation.

They didn't know that as these currents of lightning charged and overflowed underground they formed an intricate network like the meridians of the human body. They chained up and linked to the core of it all, a pulsing black heart that was surprisingly stationed in the area designated for the core of the sub-dimension.

There was no star core, only a dormant black heart, as still as though it was dead.

In fact, this wasn't much of a surprise as many superior races start to deviate in their path of cultivation upon arriving at the rebirth realm. For the Infernals of Eternal Night, the black heart is their signature manifestation of a star core which would later evolve into a world core.

His dimension would now have a heart, meridian channels, and a neuron system to boot. It almost felt like he was creating a life form, but he quite liked the idea.

Thinking about it, his split soul which resided within the dimension could also fuse into this creation…

He wouldn't dare carry on with these thoughts.

Leonardo breathed deep and heavy, reaching out with a hand to grab that orbiting halberd by its long shaft, feeling it like an extension of his body, weightless and shapeless in his grasp.

He knew however that this thing contained unimaginable power of laws weaved into a spell of destruction were it to be unleashed without restraints. Then, he looked around at the supposedly dangerous heavenly retribution as tongues of lightning attempted to reach his immediate vicinity to no avail.

At first, the lightning could make it very close to his body. Then, it could barely cross half the distance through the domain, and its reach kept shrinking.

It had gotten to a point where Leonardo's subconscious thought would strike based on premonition with his innate martial intent as a foundation, striking the space where lightning was about to descend preceding the fact.

"Tsk, is this what you call a genius?"

The middle-aged woman, one of the two cultivators who resembled a striking pair, spoke up after clicking her tongue. She and her partner were watching silently from start to end how the Ninth Inception Arrow technique was incorporated into a new battle technique unheard of in the past.

This domain would be a nightmare to encounter in large-scale battles, especially with that crowd control potential. If he could use this technique with and without the presence of a domain in the future… She didn't even dare think further down that line.

The man by her side thought for a moment and said, "He's not even trying to pass this tribulation… If we can call it a tribulation at this point. Hmm, I heard he has a martial intent that is very compatible with the heavenly lightning, that must be true."

"Should we try and establish a good relationship with him then? It seems that Grandmaster Sin values him greatly, I doubt it's only due to his potential," she replied with a mix of questions and doubts, not knowing how to proceed.

"No rush," the man shook his head, "the ones who ought to feel antsy at the moment are the Jin Dynasty's people, they're most likely putting some diplomatic pressure on the Luan Dynasty as we speak, while the Dong Dynasty is probably enjoying the show."

It was too early to start choosing sides, especially since conflicting interests had already been mapped out.

At the moment, the Jins and the Brotherhood are exchanging active blows while the Luan is busy trying to maximize damage control, it could be said that they were in a passive position maintaining a delicate balance in open court and the unspoken rules of the core mainland.

It had to be said that their move of washing their hands clean from Leonardo as soon as possible while compensating him with private land to develop was a wise move.

Beautiful move.

The clouds quickly cleared up as what everyone considered a meaningless tribulation faded away.

Leonardo's domain, the landscape of mountains and seas, and everything in between dimmed out into an illusory image, slowly retracting into his body. Everyone assumed that the star core was crystalizing, but the fact of the matter was that his entire heart was being consumed and replaced.

However, this black heart manifested as a star core substitute— an independent dimension per se.

Whatever aura it pulsed with would be contained perfectly within Leonardo's body of law, diluted by the essence of desolation. Like this, his activities wouldn't stand out as a beacon in the dark for the God Plane, or any other Throne Plane for that matter, not until all seven fragments were gathered.

Out of which, Leonardo had possession of two, the second yet to have its potential excavated.

Swoosh!

The moment Leonardo landed in the space of ruin, yet to inspect his body and the beast claws left behind after the war as they now resided within his sub-dimension, many people had already rushed over to surround him.