The Heavenly Emperor Returns

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What... is that?

At that moment, countless beings across all realms raised their eyes to the boundless firmament, expressions shifting from vague confusion to numbed awe, mouths parting unconsciously, pupils contracting to pinpricks as their minds failed to comprehend what loomed above. Just like the Ten Ancestors, their faces twisted into expressions of shock and raw terror.

"That... that's a hand!"

A thunderous, desperate cry tore through the heavens, echoed by millions.

From the edge of all things, descending from beyond the Sea of Primal Chaos, came a single jade-white hand enveloped in immortal brilliance—vast beyond comprehension, vast beyond logic, vast beyond reason. Sun, moon, and star clusters were insignificant dust motes in its grasp; entire galaxies became the size of nail clippings upon its fingers.

One hand filled what could only be called a hundred boundless universes.

It radiated divine light that seared the eyes, a brilliance that bent the laws of nature. Every palm line flowed like a river of time itself, each crossing of lines twisted into space-time axes, and each hair upon the skin shimmered as a fully realized Dao. Above the outstretched fingers, the sea of chaos churned in reverence, refusing to touch it.

This hand was not a manifestation. It was truth. It was law. It was finality.

Boom—!

The hand pressed downward, and in its descent, countless universes cracked open, collapsing into death before immediately cycling back into rebirth, entering a supreme samsara loop that no being could escape.

"Transcendence… This is true detachment!" the Ten Ancestors cried in unison, their voices steeped in fear.

In the face of this hand, they felt as powerless as they did when they first confronted the Third Bronze Coffin's master upon the Etu Plateau at the dawn of Chaos. The unbearable pressure, invisible yet absolute, forced their knees to weaken and their pride to shatter.

"Who commands that hand?!"

"Who dares act against us?!"

"What does he intend to do?!"

Voices once known for authority now trembled, their words betraying a creeping, suffocating panic. The mere existence of that palm shattered their mental defenses, robbing them of even the illusion of resistance.

"Variable… this is the true variable."

The red-haired Ancestor, wrapped in a malicious aura that could drown a star, stared at the hand with eyes full of fear and recognition. He remembered a gaze—a faint, watching presence that had once sent chills down his immortal spine, a shadow that had driven him to exterminate every anomaly across the eons.

When Huangdi and Ye Di rose, they had shifted their attention, believing the dread in their hearts was merely phantom fear. After all, they had reigned from the birth of time, and no truth could be hidden from them.

Surely, if such an existence lived, some trace would have surfaced. Some ripple would have echoed through the cosmos.

But now, the silence had become revelation, and the variable was real.

"Do not panic," the First Ancestor said, voice low and iron-bound, forcibly suppressing the tremble that threatened to crack through his soul.

Upon hearing his voice, the other Nine Ancestors steadied themselves, turning toward him like drowning men reaching for a final thread of certainty.

"First Ancestor… what do we do?"

"This hand is unstoppable," he replied grimly, "so we must activate the Great Sacrifice. Only the one in the Third Bronze Coffin can contest this."

No further hesitation followed. In unison, the Ancestors soared into the skies, stretched their arms outward, and closed their eyes.

A dark crimson aura burst from their bodies, spreading like a malignant tide through the void, manifesting as blood-colored tendrils that pierced into infinite planes. The tendrils connected across the dimensions, anchoring into every realm, draining them of essence, Dao-fruit, and foundational life-force.

From this sacrificial torrent, a bridge of blood took shape, arcing across star systems, stretching into the Etu Plateau, aimed at one singular destination—the Third Bronze Coffin.

Clang—

The ancient coffin, forged before time itself, quaked at its core.

Elsewhere, countless lives snapped from their trance, their dread briefly overtaken by a question none dared voice aloud.

"Is that hand… saving us?"

"Could it be avenging Huangdi and Ye Di?"

No one knew. But the Ancestors' terror proved beyond doubt—this jade-white hand was their enemy.

Even amidst devastation, hope kindled in a million worlds.

Though Huangdi had fallen… though Ye Di and Wu Shi Di lay silent beneath the stars…

The Emperor's light had not gone out.

The war for all life endured.

And far across the heavens...

Numerous heaven-tier powerhouses who had turned away from the Golden List in grief now looked back, their gazes catching the white jade palm frozen against the fabric of reality.

"What… is that hand?!"

In stunned disbelief, names from all corners of existence stared—Yang Tianqi, Luo Feng, the Lord of Ten Thousand Demons, the Ninth Son of the Chen Family, Li Baye—all united in silence.

It shattered Dao. It cracked cosmic law. It defied the Heavenly Will. It cut across fate and time.

"It's Emperor Lian! His Majesty Shen Lian has taken action!!"

Cries of reverence erupted—Wang Nixian, Chen Nanxuan, Su Yu, Demon Lord Chonglou, Xu Shizi—those who had once fought beside him or witnessed his will knew, without doubt, who this power belonged to.

No one believed Shen Lian would move again. Of all the ancient powers, only he had the audacity to ignore the rules of the cosmos, to wield a hand that transcended order itself.

"What?! That's Shen Lian?! That hand… it's really his?!"

Most had only heard of him in legends, had seen glimpses of his descent into the world of Shrouding the Heavens, his casual obliteration of forbidden zones, his sweeping away of Supreme beings. Yet those feats, terrifying as they were, paled before the Ancestors.

Even one of the Ten could crush those so-called Supremes with a flick of their fingers.

But now, against Shen Lian's hand…

They froze.

They feared.

And they faltered.

Across all existence, from the lowest cultivator to the most ancient immortal, the realm itself seemed to hold its breath.

The white jade hand stood atop the river of time, crossed all worlds, and surged with a pressure that not even the heavens could deny.

This time, they would witness the true might of Emperor Lian.

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