Cosmic Chaos Descends

"A star! To think you bask in a star's gaze! Were you such an idiot you didn't even know what becomes of a lower-realm existence that draws an Upper Realm immortal's interference?!"

A murderous aura so intense it sent shivers through the air painted the sky blood-red, crushing the space around it as if to declare there was nowhere left to run.

"Though what would a worm know of such things! Fine! I'll refine you whole! Upper Realm immortal, watch closely! Watch this toy of yours shatter to pieces! And watch this body fully resurrect and return to the Upper Rea—?!"

Agony lanced through him as two red lines streaked across his right arm.

The instant he sensed the attack, a wall of surging blood had risen—and two holes had punched clean through it.

Even if he was nothing more than an unstable fragment, he had stood at the threshold of forming a Nascent Soul in the Upper Realm. And yet the fangs of that worm—a mere Core Formation insect—had reached him.

Only then did the fragment of the Great Evil grasp the true nature of the wrongness he'd been feeling.

The gulf in quality and quantity of spiritual energy between cultivation realms was absolute. Artifacts or specialized techniques might reverse the difference between early, mid, and late stages of the same realm—but a Core Formation worm leaving so much as a scratch on spiritual energy that had reached the peak of Golden Core? That defied every scrap of common sense.

"This isn't… spiritual energy?"

Reaching Core Formation meant condensing one's True Origin into a core. Achieving that with something other than spiritual energy—the power of Heaven-and-Earth Primordial Qi—was itself a sign that something had gone terribly wrong.

And that wrongness carried enough force to pierce spiritual energy that had reached the peak of Golden Core and land a clean hit.

The small girl wreathed in red energy gathered slaughter energy into both hands and swept them through the air. The wall of blood split open like soft tofu. This time he properly drew up his spiritual energy—and still both arms that blocked the strike were severed halfway through.

"Fine. You are a worm worthy of an Upper Realm immortal's attention. But something of this level—!"

Even with spiritual energy, the half-severed arms refused to heal. Only after he used blood arts to scrape away the sticky red energy clogging the wounds did the fragment of the Great Evil finally regenerate—and only then did he grit his teeth.

"To think I'd be forced to use this body's true-name Dharma Treasure against a worm. Consider it an honor!"

He scattered the Slaughter Tribulation blanketing the sky, and a colossal cauldron revealed itself once more.

The Blood Revival Cauldron.

Not the small vessel for holding blood that Yu Hee had guessed—but a cauldron that refined blood into spiritual energy and awakened it.

As befitting the true-name Dharma Treasure of the Great Evil, once called a Blood Immortal in the Upper Realm, its power lay in creating constructs from the blood of cultivators the cauldron had swallowed.

And what it held now was the blood of cultivators who had stood in the Upper Realm itself.

Even after drawing on the power ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠he'd hoarded for his complete resurrection, the Great Evil still felt that strange unease refuse to fade. A thread of impatience and irritation crept into his voice as he roared.

"Kill that worm. Kill it and put it in my cauldron."

From within the enormous cauldron, human-shaped figures of blood surged upward.

Each one radiated energy approaching Core Formation at minimum; several carried the overwhelming presence of Golden Core. They charged the small girl as one—

And every last one of them was crushed flat in the same instant, smashed into handfuls of blood that splattered uselessly across the ground.

At the same moment, the Great Evil felt the cauldron hanging in the sky begin its slow fall toward the earth, and finally looked up.

His true-name Dharma Treasure was cracking under some crushing weight, on the verge of shattering, and the soul bound to it was screaming—yet he could neither tear his gaze away nor open his mouth to scream.

Beyond his true-name Dharma Treasure, in that red sky drowned in Slaughter Tribulation—

A red star.

Or so he ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠mistook it.

A colossal.

Eyeball.

Looking at.

Him.

"Guh…!"

In the bare instant his attention slipped, the girl was already at his throat, tearing through the inside of his body. Only through direct contact did he finally understand—this was not spiritual energy. It was Slaughter Tribulation.

And just how much of that Slaughter Tribulation must there have been, for a true-name Dharma Treasure at the peak of Golden Core—poised on the brink of Nascent Soul—to fail to withstand it, to be crushed and shattered, and then to crush him along with it?

This was no worm sent by an Upper Realm star to obstruct his resurrection.

This was nothing of the sort…!

"Mon…ster…!"

The first thought that crossed my mind when I came to was simple.

Ah. So that's what a Precarious Battle looks like.

Its stats were field-boss tier, but it didn't have a boss designation—so Auto-Battle could trigger. No boss modifiers either. Probably just an event elite with one nasty prefix slapped on. And it still flagged a Precarious Battle.

Dumping every leftover stat point and still getting a Precarious Battle meant I'd genuinely almost lost.

My body hurt less than expected, but the slaughter energy consumption was way beyond anything I'd imagined. Bad enough that I even felt hollowed out. I was dying to know what the hell had happened during Auto-Battle.

Normally when Auto-Battle runs, half my consciousness sticks around so I can watch or feel what's going on—but against especially strong enemies, it feels like my mind just blanks out.

"No matter how you look at it, the Xianxia Mode developer screwed up."

They'd built a solid event chain and solid map gimmicks, then forgot to slap a boss flag on the early-crisis final boss.

A monster's strength breaks down as level, grade, and prefix in a 3:3:2 ratio. Missing the boss modifier that sits under grade meant this thing had been weakened by over thirty percent.

For reference, the remaining two points go to AI—pattern quality.

And if it's not a boss, Auto-Battle works on it.

Which, of course, meant that borrowing the mod's power through Auto-Battle—even with half my consciousness gone—fought far better than me personally flinging chopsticks and thrashing around.

I'd just proven it by dropping what was clearly supposed to be the early-crisis boss? with Auto-Battle.

Auto-Battle really is god. Auto-Battle is invincible!

Except for the experience and item drop rate penalties!

And skill proficiency doesn't go up either!

The gap between pros and cons is ridiculous. The pros? Obviously. It's convenient. Insanely convenient. You can half-remove your brain, go uweeegh, and your body still moves on its own and obliterates trash mobs and elites alike.

The modest downside is that if you fully remove your brain like I just did, you don't remember anything.

So then—what's the reward for clearing the early crisis in Xianxia Mode?

In vanilla, clearing the early crisis usually dropped gear that helped with growth, and other mods tended to hand out rewards that made snowballing early progress even easier. I couldn't help getting my hopes up!

But no system message appeared.

I'd clearly just killed an early-crisis mob, I thought—and then I finally remembered what the system had named the thing I'd just killed.

Right. Unstable Fragment of the Horrible Great Evil.

I lifted my head.

A massive red cauldron, cracked to the point of shattering, hung precariously overhead as if it might drop at any second.

Ahh.

"So the real boss is inside that thing?"

Not a fragment—the main body prepared for resurrection. If that ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was sealed inside the cauldron, the solution was simple.

Smash the cauldron.

"Uweeegh."

I tried to push power into it and got nothing but nausea instead of slaughter energy. Just how hard had Auto-Battle been dumping the stuff? Holy shit.

I had no choice but to form chopsticks and toss them halfheartedly. Maybe because the target was an object rather than a living thing, the chopsticks flew weakly and bounced off with a dull ting.

I had no idea how a cauldron that looked ready to fall apart was still holding on, but I decided to change that fast.

"About time I cleaned out the inventory anyway."

Time to dump every offensive consumable I'd been stockpiling.

Bombs with a deranged five-hundred-percent bonus damage against objects.

Consumables with elemental damage.

From anti-personnel throwables like High-Grade Shuriken and Mid-Grade Throwing Knives to area-attack tools like Multi-Shot Crossbows and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Whirlwind Fans—I yanked every variety of consumable out of my inventory and dumped them in a flood.

With just a touch of slaughter energy breathed into them, the consumables launched like chopsticks in a massed barrage that looked ready to shatter the cracked cauldron any second.

And after I'd slammed in well over half of everything stockpiled in my inventory, I finally managed to break it with consumables alone.

"…What the hell? Are you kidding me?"