I fabricated myths to guide the revival of spiritual energy.

Early morning on the first day of the Lunar New Year.

Across the vast land of China, the wind and snow have not yet ceased, but those dazzling splashes of red stubbornly pierce through the bleakness of winter.

This was not a peaceful Spring Festival.

Over the past six months, some people have seen wildcats with fangs at night, while others have sworn to have seen trees that can walk. Police stations across the country have been inundated with calls, and agents from Bureau 749 are working themselves to the bone. The air is filled not only with the sulfurous smell of burnt firecrackers, but also with an inexplicable sense of restlessness.

But that's precisely why this Spring Festival feels so precious.

People celebrated wildly, as if they had grasped at a lifeline. It was as if as long as the firecrackers were loud enough and the Spring Festival couplets were red enough, the evil spirits hiding in the shadows would not dare to approach.

Jiangnan, Wuzhen, a water town.

Red lanterns along the riverbanks reflected on the thin ice on the water, and awning boats swayed gently, their warm yellow lights shining from the windows of the houses along the river.

"Is this the kid who got into Kunlun High School?"

"I heard that he's already a master of the sixth level of Qi Refining before even graduating!"

"Wow, the Zhang family's ancestral graves are emitting auspicious smoke. No matter how chaotic the outside world becomes, their family will be secure."

Inside the hall of an old house, the heater hummed, and the round table was laden with chicken, duck, fish, and meat. Steaming dumplings had just been served, and the white mist blurred everyone's smiling faces.

The young man surrounded by people was dressed in ordinary sportswear, without any deliberate dressing up, but as soon as he sat down, everyone's eyes unconsciously turned to him.

His face held a mixture of reserve and barely concealed smugness.

"Xiao Fan, eat more. You probably can't taste the flavors of home when you're up in the mountains, can you?" His mother lovingly placed a chicken leg into his bowl.

The young man smiled, put down his chopsticks, and said casually, "Mom, we eat spiritual rice and drink spiritual spring water on the mountain. Although it's not as oily as the food at home, it's beneficial for cultivation. Ordinary grains have too many impurities, so I shouldn't eat too much of them."

The table fell silent for a moment, then erupted in even more enthusiastic praise.

"Listen to that! That's the aura of immortals!"

"No wonder Xiao Fan's skin is so good, it's like jade."

The young man reveled in the thrill of being the center of attention. On the mountain, he was an inconspicuous figure among thousands of disciples, wielding his sword three thousand times a day, being scolded like a grandson by the elders, and even having to compete for missions for a few contribution points.

But here, he is the center, he is the sun.

He was the hope for this family, and even this small town, to survive in the chaos of war.

He looked at the fireworks outside the window and thought: Cultivating immortality is really great.

It feels so good to be admired.

If things could continue like this forever, without having to face those ferocious monsters or think about grand vows of "slaying demons and eliminating evil," how wonderful that would be.

At this moment, similar heartwarming scenes are unfolding in thousands of families across China.

Luxury hotels in Shanghai, heated brick beds in rural homes in Northeast China, and stilted houses in mountain villages in Southwest China.

The cultivators were intoxicated by the warmth of family and the worship of mortals. Their swords were put away in their storage bags, and their vigilance was worn away by alcohol and sugar-coated bullets.

This world is so beautiful, and the lights are so welcoming.

No one noticed that the wind and snow outside the window seemed to have intensified.

……

At the same time, in the central Pacific Ocean.

Below the abyss, four thousand meters above the sea.

To this day, there is still no record of human exploration of this place.

But today, this desolate desert is no longer peaceful.

Hawaii, USA, Pacific Tsunami Warning Center.

In the monitoring room on the third basement level, David, the supervisor on duty, was idly scrolling through Twitter, watching videos of the ancient Eastern country celebrating the New Year.

"These Asians are really lively," he muttered, taking a sip of his now-cold coffee.

Just then, the spectrometer on the main monitoring screen suddenly flickered.

At first, there were only slight ripples, like a dead fish turning over on the surface of the water.

But then, the green wavy line began to climb wildly, instantly breaking through the warning red line and sounding a piercing alarm in this room full of sophisticated instruments!

"Beep—beep—beep—"

The flashing red light cast flickering shadows on David's terrified face.

"Earthquake? Tsunami?" He abruptly threw down his cup and lunged at the control panel. "Where is the epicenter? Guam? Or the Little Day Trench?"

"No...no, sir."

The data analyst next to me had trembling hands as he stared intently at the screen. "It's not tectonic plate movement... the epicenter is fixed, in the deep-sea plain of the north-central Pacific Ocean."

"Was that an underwater volcanic eruption?"

"No! There's no sign of any heat release!" The analyst's voice was distorted with fear. "And... listen to this sound."

He pressed the audio play button.

Those were infrasound waves captured by an underwater sonar array, accelerated, and then reverberated in the loudspeaker.

The entire monitoring room fell silent instantly.

"Thump—"

Dull and heavy.

It was like a giant hammer smashing down on the chest of the earth.

Two seconds later.

"Thump—"

The sound pierced his eardrums and directly caused his heart to resonate. David felt a sharp tightness in his chest and nausea, as if an invisible hand had gripped his heart.

"This is... a heartbeat?" David stared wide-eyed in disbelief. "There's a heart buried beneath the earth?"

"The frequency is increasing!" the analyst screamed. "Five minutes ago it was beating 10 times per minute, now it's 20! It's waking up! Whatever that is, it's waking up!"

Before David could give any instructions, the satellite cloud image on the main screen suddenly switched automatically.

That's a live view of the sea directly above the epicenter.

The once azure, jewel-like sea now presents a chilling sight.

The seawater was no longer blue, but had an eerie deep purple hue.

Countless marine carcasses floated densely on the sea surface, spanning tens of kilometers in radius. They were whales, sharks, tuna... They had no external injuries, but their bodies were twisted and swollen, as if every cell inside them had been burst by some kind of energy.

In the center of that Sea of ​​Death, the water is boiling.

A massive vortex was forming, and black lightning suddenly exploded above the sea, tearing apart the once calm atmosphere.

That wasn't a natural storm.

That's the power of another dimension, forcibly squeezing into this world.

……

Kunlun Mountain, the summit.

There's no warm heating here, nor are there steaming dumplings.

Only the eternally frozen glaciers and the fierce winds that seem capable of freezing the soul remain.

Gu Qing sat alone on a boulder at the edge of the cliff. His eyelashes were covered in frost, and he seemed to have become one with the mountain.

Below the mountain, countless lights twinkle, laughter echoes, and a scene of peace and prosperity reigns.

The mountain is a place of solitude, biting cold, and fraught with danger.

The moment that first "heartbeat" was heard from the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.

Gu Qing suddenly opened her eyes.

Deep within his pupils, golden data streams frantically filled the screen, and his originally indifferent gaze instantly became sharper than the wind and snow of Kunlun.

【warn!warn! 】

[The dimensional barrier has been breached!]

[Coordinates: Pacific Ocean, Deep-sea Crack (32°N, 168°W)]

[Energy Level Monitoring: Void Reaction...is rapidly increasing!]

[Entity Detection: The Abyssal Behemoth (Void Infected) is rising!]

Threat Level: Red (City Destruction Level -> Nation Destruction Level)

Gu Qing slowly stood up, and his body, which had been sitting there motionless for a long time, emitted a series of cracking sounds from his bones.

He lowered his head and looked towards the distant east.

My gaze seemed to pierce through countless mountains and rivers, finally reaching that desolate sea that had been dyed purple.

"Has it finally arrived?"

Gu Qing's voice was soft, yet carried an indescribable chill, "They won't even let people have a good New Year. These bastards in the Void really have no manners."

He raised his hand, and in his palm, a golden talisman was slowly condensing.

That's not a sword talisman used to kill enemies.

That was the war horn meant to awaken these "chosen ones" who were slumbering in the comforts of their lives.

"System, lock the identity jade tokens of all Kunlun disciples."

Gu Qing's eyes were cold, devoid of any pity.

He knew that once this order was given, the joyful laughter of countless families would come to an abrupt end. The dumplings in the hands of countless mothers would never again reach their sons' mouths.

But he had to do it.

Because if I don't wake up now, I might never wake up again.

"All personnel, level one combat readiness."