Extraterrestrial demons invaded; I laid the groundwork eight years in advance.

Late at night, in the bedroom of Yinyun Temple.

Li Xiuming lay on his side on the wooden bed, scrolling through short videos. The bright light from the phone screen shone on his face for a long time, making his eyes a little sore.

He glanced at the time out of the corner of his eye—2:05.

Time to sleep.

He placed his phone face down next to his pillow to charge, draped the blanket over his navel, and closed his eyes.

These past few days, he's been feeding pigs and growing vegetables in the mornings, practicing standing meditation and boxing in the afternoons, and watching short videos in his spare time.

I wasn't particularly diligent in my cultivation practice, but I never stopped.

The foundation laid before the spiritual energy revival was still there. With the return of spiritual energy, the skills he had cultivated over the years seemed to have been ignited, and he unknowingly reached the peak of the apprentice level, just one step away from a breakthrough.

"According to the official realm classification, I should be breaking through to the first level soon."

The thought had barely crossed his mind when he suddenly felt something in the air stir.

A subtle tremor seeped into his skin, as if someone had crushed an invisible piece of ice deep within his body. The bottleneck that had been stuck for so many days began to loosen.

He suddenly opened his eyes, and before he could even sit up, the bottleneck broke through.

Deep within his dantian, a vortex of spiritual energy was taking shape. At first, it consisted of only a few thin strands coiling and intertwining, but it spun faster and faster, like a spinning top being turned.

He was momentarily stunned, then followed the method in the manual to examine himself internally.

The vortex of energy in his dantian had taken shape steadily and was slowly rotating, its edges still absorbing the spiritual energy floating in the air, growing stronger little by little.

"First tier?" He blinked. "You broke through just like that?"

He looked down at his hands and clenched his fist. He didn't clench much, but he could feel the spiritual energy in the air, as if he had suddenly gained a tactile sense and could feel the shape of the wind.

He listened intently—the sounds of hens turning over in their nests in the yard, the faint contractions of the timbers on the beams of the main room in the night wind, and a low whimper from a dog belonging to a family at the foot of the mountain in the distance.

As his senses sharpened, he frowned and opened the window.

Above the distant fields, a dark red light flickered faintly in the night mist, tinging the bottom edge of the low-hanging clouds with a somber orange-red hue.

He stared at the light for a few seconds, his breathing unconsciously becoming lighter—it was exactly the same as the rift signs previously announced by the authorities.

It's not far from Wangjia Village at the foot of the mountain.

He remained silent for a moment, then turned around, dressed, and quickly crossed the courtyard, pushing open the door of the Sanqing Hall.

The hall was pitch black. He walked behind the altar, opened a hidden compartment, took out a wooden box, and lifted the lid.

The copper coin sword lay on top, its blade rusted and mottled with verdigris.

Below the sword were nine old talismans—three each of the Evil-Breaking Talisman, the Golden Light Talisman, and the Immobilization Talisman.

The edges of the talisman paper were slightly brittle, but the patterns of the cinnabar were still clear.

  

He hung the copper coin sword on his waist, stuffed the nine talismans into his bosom, put the box back and sealed it, and then walked out of the main hall.

As he passed the pigpen, Xiaohua poked her round head out from the gap in the fence, snorted, and stared at him with her round black eyes.

He paused for a moment, then reached out and patted its head: "Go to sleep."

He left the Taoist temple and followed the red light down the mountain. His eyesight had improved considerably after breaking through to the next level, and he reached the edge of the red light in less than ten minutes, when he heard a roar and gunshots.

He stopped and peered out from behind a clump of low bushes.

In the middle of the field, a huge rift floats in mid-air. From a distance, it looks like a dark red vertical pupil, staining the field within a hundred meters radius a blood red.

At the front of the rift, several people dressed in dark gray combat suits were fighting against dozens of monsters.

On the perimeter, a blockade line composed of people in black combat uniforms and camouflage uniforms had surrounded the battlefield. Armored vehicles were positioned across the intersection, and searchlights illuminated the battlefield.

Occasionally, a monster would break out of the inner circle, and the gunfire would suddenly intensify, the bullets striking the scales and sending sparks flying, forcing the monster back.

Those monsters were more ferocious than the ones he saw on TV.

There was a hyena that looked like it had been skinned, with bone spurs all over its back. It moved like a black lightning bolt, kicking up a cloud of dirt every time it landed.

There was also a bat-like creature flying in the air, its wingspan wider than a person's, bringing a gust of foul wind as it swept low over the sky.

Those men in gray combat uniforms, working in groups of five, coordinated like a machine. They moved in formation, shifting positions from front to side and back, their blades striking with astonishing precision.

A tall man withstood the impact of a giant lizard-like monster head-on without even swaying, and raised his fist to slam it heavily onto the monster's head.

A dull cracking sound rang out, like wood being smashed by a hammer. The monster's body twitched a few times before collapsing to the ground.

Two other people simultaneously filled in, intercepting the two small monsters that pounced from the flank, and each of them stabbed the monsters in the eye sockets with a knife.

On the other side, two people were attacking a bat-winged monster flying in mid-air. One of them raised his crossbow and aimed, the arrow severing the ligaments at the base of the wing membrane. The monster fell to the ground at an angle, and before it could even roll over, the other person's knife had already sliced ​​across the back of its neck.

Li Xiuming crouched behind the low slope and saw everyone's movements clearly—but that was all he "saw."

If it were him, he probably wouldn't even have a chance to swing the first knife.

He recognized the insignia on the gray combat uniforms. A split horizon, dark on the left and bright on the right, a longsword and symmetrically upturned wings.

After the Dawn Group's press conference, some people online discovered that the logo belonged to the "Dawn Organization".

He gripped the copper coin sword tightly, a fine layer of sweat seeping from his palms, making the verdigris-covered hilt slippery.

He looked down at his arms, which were noticeably thinner than those of the others. He had practiced using the nine talismans in his arms dozens of times, but had never actually released them.

He squatted there and did some mental calculations—the other five people could take down one of them in one round, and he probably couldn't last more than three minutes by himself.

The wind swept in from the edge of the fields, carrying the smell of blood and gunpowder.

The long, drawn-out scream of a monster as it was felled swirled in the night wind before dissipating into the darkness of the fields.

As he hesitated, he remembered something from his childhood.

It was an evening after the rain. He stood with his master on the stone steps at the entrance of the Taoist temple, watching the smoke from the village below slowly rise from the treetops.

At that time, he didn't understand why his master always stood at the door looking down the mountain.

That day, he couldn't help but ask, "Master, what do you do down the mountain every day?"

The master didn't speak, but instead raised his hand and touched the back of his head. After a long while, he finally spoke:

"Did you see that smoke from the chimneys?"

Xiao Xiuming nodded.

"Under those plumes of smoke, some people are cooking over a fire, and others are waiting for their children to come home," the Master said. "Mountains do not shy away from dust, and waters do not refuse turbidity. Our cultivation is not on the mountain, but in our hearts."

He didn't understand at the time, but he remembered that his master's palms were big and rough, and felt heavy on his head.

He then asked, "How does one cultivate the mind?"

The master withdrew his gaze and focused on his brow: "The Taoist path involves cultivating oneself behind closed doors, but also cultivating the world when one goes out. Inner cultivation and outer practice, without separation, is the true essence of the heart."

Xiao Xiuming seemed to understand but not quite, and scratched the back of his head.

He didn't understand what "the world" meant; he only knew how to water the vegetable garden every day. He then asked, "So when should I push open the door and go outside?"

The master glanced at him, then slowly squatted down to be level with him: "When something happens in the world, and a member of the Taoist sect sees it, it means that fate has brought us together."

The wind picked up a bit, rustling the wild wolfberry branches and leaves on the low slope.

Dark red light surged out from the depths of the cracks in bursts, stretching the gray figures across the field into long shadows.

He stared at the crack, gripped the hilt of his sword tightly, and walked down the low slope.

Smoke need not ask where it goes, the heart need not avoid the hustle and bustle; that door is never on the mountain, but only in the instant you lift your foot.