Chapter 11: The Submission of the Central Elites, the Nine-Tiered Pagoda, and the Legacy of the Dao Wheel

The silence that settled over the Grand Dao Crossing Plaza was complete, heavy, and suffocating.

It was not the silence of peace, but the terrifying hush that follows a catastrophic lightning strike upon an open plain. Two miles of gleaming, carved white marble—built five thousand years ago to withstand the trampling of ancient war-beasts—lay cracked, webbed, and crushed into fine white powder beneath the feet of the Imperial Sun Sanctuary disciples.

Twenty-two young men and women, who only moments prior had stood like arrogant young gods gazing down upon backwater mortals, were now pinned face-down against the pulverized stone. Their magnificent gold-and-purple silk robes, woven with defensive spirit-threads and emblazoned with the proud triple-sun crest of the Central Divine Continent, were scorched black at the seams. Smoke rose softly from their robes as the ambient golden heat boiled the spirit-moisture straight out of their pores.

At the center of it all, kneeling in the deepest pit of shattered marble, was Yin Tianming.

His jade fan, a mid-grade Fourth-Rank spiritual treasure capable of blasting away Foundation Establishment armies, lay in six jagged pieces around his trembling hands. His fine leather boots were shredded. His crown had fallen, scattering his long black hair in messy, sweat-soaked tangles across his pale face. Blood, thin and bright crimson, leaked from his nostrils and dripped onto the broken white dust below.

He could not lift his head.

The weight pressing down on his shoulder blades felt as though a mountain made of solid, molten iron had been lowered onto his spine. Every time he tried to circulate his inner Foundation Establishment spiritual energy to fight back, his meridians screamed in agony, as if his very veins were being filled with liquid fire.

Above them stood Lin Chen.

Lin Chen had not unsheathed a weapon. He had not even raised a hand. His hands remained casually clasped behind his back. His dark green and white silk robes fluttered gently in the hot, herb-scented wind, unsoiled by a single particle of dust. His expression was neither angry nor vengeful; it was the calm, mildly curious look of an immortal scholar looking down at a minor disturbance in a quiet courtyard.

“I asked a question, Young Master Yin,” Lin Chen said softly. His voice was pleasant and melodic, yet it echoed across the entire two-mile plaza as clearly as if he were whispering into the ears of every person present. “Who was it that needed to kowtow?”

“Y-You…” Yin Tianming choked out, his teeth grinding so hard that a trickle of red escaped the corner of his lips. “You… country… dog… Do you… do you know who my father is?! I am… the third son of the Imperial Sun Sanctuary’s High Elder! If you… if you dare humiliate me here…”

“Your father?” Lin Chen chuckled softly, shaking his head with genuine, lighthearted pity. “We are four hundred miles deep inside an ancient, closed spatial realm that opens once every fifty years. Your father is currently thousands of miles away across the boundary ocean, sitting in his grand hall, oblivious. Tell me, Yin Tianming… can your father’s hand reach through five thousand years of ancient spatial arrays to shield your neck right now?”

Yin Tianming’s breath hitched. A cold, visceral terror—far colder than any frost technique—shot through his chest, paralyzing his heart.

He looked up with bloodshot eyes, trying to catch a glimpse of the young man standing above him. But all he could see was the vast, golden phantom of the Innate Heavenly Furnace looming five hundred feet in the sky, burning with golden origin flames that made the sky weep tears of purple distortion.

“No…” Yin Tianming stammered, his pride finally breaking beneath the suffocating weight of absolute death. “No… don’t… don’t kill me…”

“That depends entirely on your sincerity,” Lin Chen replied smoothly.

With a light wave of Lin Chen’s right hand, the terrifying pressure pressing down on Yin Tianming eased by ten percent—just enough to allow the young master to raise his chest off the dust, though his knees remained firmly locked against the floor.

“Your spatial storage rings,” Lin Chen instructed calmly. “All twenty-three of them. Take them off and stack them neatly on this marble slab.”

Yin Tianming’s eyes widened in utter disbelief and humiliation. “All of them?! Those contain our sanctuary’s secret pills, our high-grade spirit ores, the herbs we collected over three days—”

“Zhao Ling,” Lin Chen called out softly, not even bothering to look back.

SWISH!

A razor-sharp, dark silver beam of sword-qi shot past Yin Tianming’s left ear, grazing his cheek so closely that three strands of his hair were neatly severed before the beam slammed into the marble pillar behind him, blowing a ten-foot hole straight through the ancient stone!

“I-I’m taking them off! I’m taking them off!” Yin Tianming shrieked in absolute panic, his trembling, blood-stained fingers clawing frantically at his own hand to tear off his golden spatial ring!

Behind him, the twenty-two sanctuary disciples—seeing their proud leader crumble into a sobbing, terrified heap—did not hesitate for another second. With trembling hands and terrified groans, they stripped their fingers of every single spatial ring, jade pendant, and high-grade storage badge, placing them in a glowing, glittering pile at Lin Chen’s feet.

Twenty-three spatial storage artifacts of the highest central grade lay piled together like a mini-mountain of gold and jade.

Huang Yanyan stepped forward, her red silk dress swaying with every graceful, cat-like step. She opened her crimson lace fan, looking at the pile of treasures with a bright, delightful sparkle in her red eyes.

“Ooh~ Husband,” Huang Yanyan purred, picking up Yin Tianming’s golden spatial ring and casually examining its internal spatial contents with her powerful spiritual sense. “This little young master was quite wealthy! There are twelve six-hundred-year-old Fire-Vein Ginsengs in here, four bottles of Fourth-Grade Spirit Cleansing Pills, and over thirty pounds of Void Iron Ore! The Central Divine Continent really is rich!”

“Keep them all, Yanyan,” Lin Chen said with a warm smile. “Consider it a contribution from the Imperial Sun Sanctuary to our Lin-Su Clan’s expansion fund.”

“Thank you, Husband~” Huang Yanyan giggled sweetly, blowing a playful kiss toward Lin Chen before effortlessly sweeping all twenty-three spatial rings into her own crimson storage sleeve.

Lin Chen turned his attention back to Yin Tianming and his trembling disciples, who were still kneeling on the ruined floor, looking like beaten dogs awaiting their final sentence.

“Now,” Lin Chen said, his tone turning crisp and authoritative. “The Eight-Trigram Trial Array stands directly behind you. You and your disciples will step onto the secondary array nodes and act as energy conductors to activate the spatial elevator for us. Is there any objection?”

“N-No! No objection at all, Senior Lin!” Yin Tianming cried out, scrambling backward on his hands and knees toward the ancient array pillars, his face pale as chalk. “We will activate it immediately! Immediately!”

The twenty-two sanctuary disciples scrambled like frantic ants, taking their positions at the surrounding stone pillars, injecting their remaining spiritual energy into the array nodes without needing a second warning.

On the northern side of the plaza, Prince Han Wu and the eight surviving members of the Northern Frost Empire stood frozen in sheer, unadulterated shock.

Han Wu’s jaw was slightly slack. His grip on his seven-foot dragon-bone halberd felt weak and useless.

He had prepared for years to enter the Heavenly Dao Pavilion. He had trained in the bitter cold of the Northern Glaciers, breaking his bones hundreds of times to master his ancient ice body, believing that the true threats in this world were the monstrous geniuses of the Central Divine Continent. He had expected Yin Tianming to be an immovable mountain that would require his entire team’s combined strength to negotiate with.

Yet… that very same Yin Tianming, along with twenty-two elite sanctuary disciples, had just been forced onto their knees by a nineteen-year-old youth from the Eastern Province without a single weapon being drawn!

As Lin Chen walked toward the central activation platform, his eyes casually swept past Prince Han Wu.

Prince Han Wu instantly straightened his back, his heart pounding in his chest like a war drum. He immediately held his dragon-bone halberd horizontally in his left hand and brought his right fist across his chest, performing the highest military bow of the Northern Frost Empire!

“Prince Han Wu of the Northern Frost Empire greets Young Master Lin!” Han Wu said loudly, his voice filled with deep, sincere reverence. “Our Northern delegation has no intention of competing with Young Master Lin for the primary treasures of the Pagoda! We ask only for permission to follow behind and seek secondary insights!”

Lin Chen stopped, looking at Han Wu’s honest, battle-hardened demeanor. A pleasant smile appeared on Lin Chen’s face.

“The heavens cover all under them, Prince Han Wu,” Lin Chen said calmly. “As long as your blades are not turned against my people, the path into the Pagoda is open to all who have the strength to walk it. Bring your team along.”

Han Wu’s eyes lit up with intense gratitude. “Thank you, Young Master Lin! The Northern Frost Empire will remember this favor!”

RUMBLE!

With Yin Tianming and his twenty-two sanctuary disciples desperately channeling their spiritual energy into the surrounding Eight-Trigram pillars, the giant stone platform at the center of the plaza began to hum with ancient, resonant power.

Eight massive beams of colored light—red, blue, yellow, green, black, white, gold, and purple—shot up from the array nodes, intersecting directly at the center of the platform to form a swirling, staircase-shaped portal of liquid golden light!

This was the Grand Dao Spatial Elevator, the direct conduit leading up into the suspended Nine-Tiered Heavenly Dao Pagoda!

“Qingyao, Yanyan, Zhao Ling,” Lin Chen called out, stepping onto the glowing portal. “Let us ascend.”

Su Qingyao walked up smoothly, her hand slipping naturally into Lin Chen’s left palm. Her icy-blue aura wrapped gently around his arm, her eyes shining with quiet, unshakeable trust.

Huang Yanyan stepped onto his right side, hugging his arm affectionately against her soft chest, her red eyes sparkling with anticipation.

Zhao Ling followed close behind, standing three steps back like an unyielding silver shield, her hand firmly resting on her sword hilt.

SWISH!

As the golden light enveloped the four of them, their figures dissolved into four streaks of brilliant starlight, shooting straight up into the clouds toward the floating ninth tier of the ancient Pagoda!

Behind them, Yin Tianming collapsed onto his back on the ruined marble floor, gasping for air as if he had just escaped the jaws of a primordial dragon. His eyes stared blankly at the indigo sky above, his heart permanently shattered by the terrifying shadow of the young man named Lin Chen.

The interior of the Nine-Tiered Heavenly Dao Pagoda was vast beyond human imagination.

Rather than being a simple stone building, each tier of the Pagoda was a self-contained spatial pocket world, engineered by the grand immortal masters of the primordial era to test different aspects of a cultivator’s foundation, soul strength, and comprehension of the worldly laws.

• Tier One to Tier Three: The Trials of the Mortal Foundation. Here, incoming cultivators were subjected to extreme atmospheric gravity, elemental elemental tempests, and hordes of illusionary ancient beasts designed to crush those with weak meridians or impure spiritual roots.
• Tier Four to Tier Six: The Trials of the Dao Heart. These tiers contained ancient illusion arrays, soul-cleansing spirit waterfalls, and ancient combat mirrors that forced cultivators to face flawless phantoms of themselves.
• Tier Seven and Tier Eight: The Chambers of Ancient Heritages. These levels held ancient stone tablets, weapon-refinement altars, and preserved Fourth and Fifth-Rank spirit skills left behind by extinct primordial sects.

However, for Lin Chen and his group, the spatial elevator did not stop at Tier One.

Because Lin Chen’s Innate Heavenly Furnace possessed a purity of origin energy that exceeded the maximum threshold of the Pagoda’s ancient detection arrays, the elevator bypassed the lower six tiers entirely, carrying them directly to the threshold of the Seventh Tier!

BOOM!

The golden starlight dissolved, and Lin Chen’s group materialized inside a massive, circular hall carved entirely from ancient Nine-Heaven Star-Steel.

The ceiling of the Seventh Tier was open to the cosmic void, presenting a breathtaking view of swirling purple nebulas and glowing golden constellations. In the center of the vast hall stood thirty-six giant stone pillars, each engraved with complex, glowing golden runes detailing the lost martial arts of the primordial era.

At the far end of the hall, resting upon a floating altar made of white jade, was a floating, spherical artifact.

It was three feet wide, forged from a dark, metallic alloy that seemed to absorb all light around it. Ancient, silver spatial runes revolved continuously around its equator, emitting a quiet, rhythmic pulse that sounded like the deep, steady heartbeat of a sleeping titan.

[System Feature Active: Primordial Artifact Identification]

[Target Identified: The Heavenly Dao Spatial Anchor (Control Core of the Pavilion)]

[Artifact Grade: Seventh-Rank Dao Tool (Damaged – 42% Functionality)]

[Primary Function: Maintains Spatial Stability of the Heavenly Dao Pavilion Realm]

[Secondary Function: Contains the Origin Heritage of the Ancient Void-Cleansing Sect]

Su Qingyao gasped softly as she looked at the floating spherical artifact. Even standing fifty yards away, she could feel her Nine-Ice Divine Sword vibrating in its scabbard, reacting to the intense, ancient spatial laws radiating from the altar!

“Lin Chen…” Su Qingyao whispered, her eyes fixed on the core. “That artifact… it contains pure, unrefined Spatial Dao Laws! If a Foundation Establishment cultivator can absorb even a fraction of its energy, breaking through to the Golden Core Realm would be as easy as taking a breath!”

“It is indeed a Seventh-Rank Dao Tool,” Lin Chen said calmly, his eyes narrowing slightly as his System Oversight scanned the structure of the hall. “However… it is not unguarded.”

HUMMMMMM!

The moment Lin Chen’s words echoed through the silent steel hall, the thirty-six ancient stone pillars around them began to glow with blinding purple light!

CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!

From the shadows behind the stone pillars, four massive figures stepped out onto the polished steel floor, their heavy iron steps causing the entire tier to tremble!

They were Ancient Puppet Guardians—ten feet tall, forged from indestructible Star-Iron and powered by ancient Third-Grade Golden Core Spirit Stones embedded in their chests! Each guardian held a sixteen-foot battle-axe that burned with searing purple lightning, and their cold, empty metallic eyes glowed with murderous red light!

[System Interface Active: Enemy Analysis]

[Target: Four Primordial Star-Iron Guardians]

[Combat Capability: Equivalent to Middle-Stage Golden Core Realm Masters]

[Special Characteristic: Absolute Iron Defense, Shared Spatial Energy Shield]

Huang Yanyan’s red lace fan closed instantly with a sharp CLACK. Her red eyes narrowed, a dark, thrilled expression spreading across her exquisite face as her suppressed Golden Core aura began to pulse rapidly beneath her dress.

“Four Middle-Stage Golden Core puppets~” Huang Yanyan purred, her voice dripping with dangerous, sultry excitement. “Husband… allow your Yanyan to shatter them into scrap metal!”

“No need to unseal your Golden Core origin, Yanyan,” Lin Chen said smoothly, stepping in front of her. “Releasing your full demon empress power inside this enclosed Pagoda might trigger the ancient auto-destruct arrays left by the Void-Cleansing Sect.”

He reached out his right hand into the open air.

OOMMM!

A blinding flash of golden light erupted from his palm!

The Innate Heavenly Furnace materialized in a compressed, three-foot form, floating smoothly above Lin Chen’s right hand. Its golden flames burned with such intense, absolute purity that the purple lightning surrounding the four massive Star-Iron Guardians began to flicker and break down!

“Qingyao, Zhao Ling,” Lin Chen instructed calmly, his voice ringing with absolute, commanding leadership. “Take the two guardians on the left. Block their movements for ten seconds.”

“Understood!” Su Qingyao and Zhao Ling replied in perfect unison!

SWISH!

Su Qingyao’s Ice-Heart Divine Sword unsheathed completely! A two-hundred-foot wave of pure, absolute-zero ice-qi erupted from her blade, freezing the steel floor and coating the legs of the two left guardians in three feet of solid, unbreakable spirit-ice!

At the same time, Zhao Ling transformed into a dark silver streak of lightning, her Dragon-Blood Sword flashing thirty-six times in a single second, striking the joints of the guardians’ armor with precise, point-blank sword-blasts that prevented them from swinging their massive battle-axes!

Meanwhile, Lin Chen turned toward the two remaining Star-Iron Guardians rushing toward him from the right!

The two massive iron titans raised their sixteen-foot lightning axes high into the air, bringing them down toward Lin Chen’s head with enough force to split a mountain peak in half!

BOOM!

Lin Chen did not dodge. He did not retreat.

He simply tossed the floating three-foot Golden Furnace forward!

[Innate Heavenly Furnace Technique: Primordial Origin Suppression!]

FLASH!

The three-foot Golden Furnace expanded instantly into a hundred-foot golden wall of absolute flame!

The two massive lightning battle-axes slammed into the golden furnace wall, but rather than shattering it, the lightning axes were instantly melted into liquid red metal upon contact! The terrifying golden origin fire surged along the iron arms of the two guardians, instantly melting through their indestructible Star-Iron armor like hot knives through butter!

“Melt,” Lin Chen commanded coldly, making a light grasping motion with his hand.

BOOM!

The golden origin fire swirled into a giant flame vortex, completely enveloping both ten-foot Star-Iron Guardians!

Within three short seconds, the two terrifying Middle-Stage Golden Core puppets—capable of annihilating entire provincial armies—were reduced to two glowing pools of liquid steel on the floor! Their Third-Grade Golden Core spirit stones cracked and shattered, their core energy cleanly absorbed into Lin Chen’s System Fate Value Storage!

[System Alert: Two Star-Iron Guardians Destroyed]

[Fate Value Points Acquired: +6,000 Points]

[Total Fate Value Points Balance: 20,800 Points]

On the left side of the hall, Su Qingyao and Zhao Ling finished their execution!

With a blinding, elegant combination of Su Qingyao’s Nine-Ice Divine Sword freezing their cores and Zhao Ling’s Crescent Dragon Flash severing their head-joints, the remaining two Star-Iron Guardians collapsed onto the floor in shattered, lifeless heaps!

The entire battle had lasted less than twelve seconds.

The Seventh Tier of the Heavenly Dao Pagoda was quiet once more.

Lin Chen walked calmly past the smoldering pools of liquid steel, stopping directly in front of the floating white jade altar at the end of the hall.

The three-foot dark metallic sphere—the Heavenly Dao Spatial Anchor—floated peacefully above the altar, its silver runes revolving slowly, as if welcoming its new master.

Su Qingyao, Huang Yanyan, and Zhao Ling gathered behind Lin Chen, their eyes staring at the ancient core artifact with deep awe.

“Lin Chen,” Su Qingyao asked softly, her hand gently touching his back. “How do we claim this core?”

Lin Chen looked at the floating sphere, his golden-tinged eyes analyzing the intricate, five-thousand-year-old spatial runes floating around its equator.

“This artifact was left behind by the last grand master of the Void-Cleansing Sect,” Lin Chen explained smoothly. “It cannot be refined through ordinary blood-drip recognition or spiritual force brute-forcing. To claim it, one must possess an origin energy purity that satisfies the ancient Dao laws embedded within its core.”

Lin Chen slowly extended his right hand, placing his palm gently onto the smooth, dark metallic surface of the sphere.

HUMMMMMM!

The moment his palm made contact, a blinding wave of silver light erupted from the sphere, filling the entire Seventh Tier with intense, swirling spatial ripples!

[System Interface Active: Ancient Core Alignment Protocol Initiated]

[Target Artifact: Seventh-Rank Heavenly Dao Spatial Anchor]

[Host Origin Energy Purity: 100% (Perfect Innate Heavenly Furnace Foundation)]

[Match Rate: 100% – PERFECT ALIGNMENT]

[Initiating Ownership Transfer & Spatial Sub-System Integration…]

BOOM!

A column of pure, liquid silver starlight shot out from the core sphere, pouring directly into Lin Chen’s right hand and surging into his meridians!

Inside Lin Chen’s dantian, his Perfect Origin Core began to spin at unprecedented speeds! The pure spatial energy from the ancient core was rapidly refined by his Innate Heavenly Furnace, transforming into refined, golden-silver origin spatial threads that wrapped around his spiritual core like protective dragon veins!

[System Notification: Host Cultivation Breakthrough!]

[Host Cultivation Level: Elevated from First Level Foundation Establishment -> THIRD LEVEL FOUNDATION ESTABLISHMENT!]

[Spatial Domain Unlocked: Void-Cleansing Spatial Shield (Level 1)]

[Mastery Unlocked: Absolute Spatial Tethering over the Heavenly Dao Pavilion Realm!]

SWISH!

The massive, three-foot dark metallic sphere shrank rapidly, dissolving into a tiny, glowing silver-and-gold marking shaped like a nine-tiered pagoda directly on the back of Lin Chen’s right hand!

At that exact moment, the entire world inside the Heavenly Dao Pavilion—the outer crystal mountains, the toxic marshes, the floating islands, and the Nine-Tiered Pagoda itself—trembled in silent, harmonic submission!

Lin Chen slowly opened his eyes.

Deep within his pupils, two glowing silver spatial rings spun slowly around his golden origin flames, giving him a divine, majestic aura that made him look like a true sovereign of the void!

He raised his right hand, looking at the glowing pagoda mark on his skin.

With a simple thought, the entire spatial map of the Heavenly Dao Pavilion appeared clearly within his mind—every beast, every herb, every hidden array, and every cultivator currently inside the realm was completely visible to his spiritual oversight!

He could see Prince Han Wu climbing the stairs of the Fifth Tier…

He could see the Clear Water Palace disciples gathering herbs in the outer valley…

And he could see Yin Tianming and his disciples sitting in broken defeat on the marble plaza below, utterly miserable.

Huang Yanyan looked at Lin Chen, her red eyes sparkling with absolute, overwhelming admiration and love. She stepped forward, wrapping her arms around his neck, pressing her soft lips firmly against his cheek.

“My handsome husband~” Huang Yanyan whispered sweetly, her crimson gown rustling against his silk robes. “You didn’t just take the treasure… you took the whole ancient world!”

Su Qingyao walked up beside them, a breathtaking, radiant smile illuminating her beautiful face as she took Lin Chen’s other hand.

“Congratulations, Lin Chen,” Su Qingyao said softly, her voice filled with deep pride. “The Heavenly Dao Pavilion is now yours.”

Lin Chen looked down at his two extraordinary partners, then looked back at Zhao Ling standing respectfully behind them.

He smiled smoothly, his voice calm, magnetic, and echoing with unshakeable, grand ambition that stretched far beyond the borders of the Eastern Province.

“This is merely the first step, my Qingyao, my Yanyan,” Lin Chen said, looking up at the swirling cosmic void above the steel hall. “The Eastern Province was our foundation. The Heavenly Dao Pavilion is our domain.”

He turned his eyes toward the west—toward the vast, infinite expanse of the Central Divine Continent.

“Next…” Lin Chen declared smoothly, “…we take the heavens.”

[End of Chapter 11]