Xu Lan stood atop empty space, within the velvet dark between the Earthly Realm and the Netherworld.
Her eyes glistened, her divinity fully activated as she stared into the emptiness before her. With those eyes, she saw the Netherworld's 'wall,' and could even see beyond it.
At her side, a humanoid ape dug into his ear with his pinky finger, sitting on empty space as he hugged one knee with his free arm.
"The Netherworld reacted differently this time. Why do you think that is, Monkey?" Xu Lan directed the question without looking back.
"Fuck if I know!" The Monkey King stared at the wax on his finger before blowing it away.
At the same time, he dramatically scratched his hairy chest, which was exposed through his loose robes.
"The Netherworld is the only of the Three Realms that puts up a fight, regardless of the odds. Even when you sent those immortals in with your divinity, it tried to fight back."
"If you weren't a goddess you'd be cooked, even if you are one of the shittiest goddesses I've ever met." The Monkey King yawned.
"It's true. The Netherworld takes action against everyone that tries to enter it from another Realm. Even so, there's more to it this time."
"What do you mean?" Monkey asked even though he appeared entirely disinterested.
"Usually, the Netherworld tries to apply pressure or it toughens the wall and forces an intruder to expend extreme effort. However, it did more than that this time."
"Impossible," the Monkey King waved dismissively.
"I thought so too, but it was actively fighting me. It even made me suffer in place of the immortals I sent." Xu Lan pondered with a smile.
"Tch. The Netherworld wouldn't have the nerve to do something like that when its Paramount Dao is still dormant."
As he said this, Monkey looked down at the hairs in his hand that had come loose.
"Perhaps-" Xu Lan had been about to say more, but something changed which she caught in her eyes.
"They're all converging on a single location. A continent. Albion." She reported, mainly to herself.
"Albion, huh? That place has some strict Laws. No one there can access internal energy the normal way, but I bet that divinity of yours will ignore that rule." Monkey sat up straighter, his eyes slightly narrowed as he probed.
"That's right. The immortals have full access to their energy." Xu Lan nodded.
"That's nice." Pretending to be impressed, the Monkey King opened his hand and blew away the loose hairs.
Those hairs flew off into the emptiness.
"So they found the Supreme Immortal, eh? I thought it'd take longer, honestly."
Xu Lan folded her arms, her eyes slightly narrowed. "Now that I know where to look, I finally see him. Jin Huang."
"Jin Huang..." Monkey repeated the name, cradling his head in his arms as he stared upward at nothing.
"Interesting." She noted something.
"What is?" He glanced at her.
"There's someone with them that I don't recognize, but there's an aura of Heaven on him. There's... Hm?" Xu Lan momentarily lost her composure, and took a step forward as if she was trying to get a closer look at something.
"What... What is that..." Her eyes sparkled intensely, but she only seemed to get more confused.
The Immortal Ape frowned, "What's up with you?"
"That boy with the aura of Heaven. He's a sword cultivator but his sword... There's some kind of jade energy- !"
Xu Lan suddenly gasped. "Impossible!"
Smiling playfully, Monkey leapt up with overflowing curiousity. "What, what, what? Come on say something!"
Xu Lan was about to open her mouth and speak, but the empty space between the Realms suddenly seemed to come to life.
Space shook as numerous points in reality came undone, then the 'wall' of the Netherworld begun to shimmer.
At the same time, Xu Lan cried out as she suffered a terrible backlash. "Aah! This can't be happening!"
Dancing around her, the Monkey King tried to ascertain what was going on as his tail moved about energetically.
"I've never seen anything like this! The Netherworld... it's like it's waking up! Incredible!" Monkey laughed.
"It rejected my divinity. Those immortals are no longer able to utilize their energy, and I can no longer monitor the situation. This is bad." Xu Lan assessed as she caught her breath.
"Worst of all, I have no idea what this means."
Flicking her wrist, Xu Lan turned on her heel as a crystal talisman appeared in hand. "I must report this."
As she walked back to make her report, Monkey laughed again, "Yeah, you do that."
He stepped up to the shimmering wall of the Netherworld and pressed his face against it. "Wow! It's almost solid."
Trying to glance through the wall, he chuckled, "Don't let me down, you guys!"
His cheeky laughter filled the dark emptiness.
_________
"What is happening!?"
"Goddess Xu Lan!"
The immortals cried out, but received no response. Their characteristic white energy had vanished at some point, leaving them powerless.
Most immortals, even immortal beasts, relied heavily on the divine energies they would have cultivated. Not a lot of them could boast both powerful energy cultivation as well as body cultivation.
Seeing the immortals panic was all the indication Jin Huang's group needed.
Lu Chen sprung to action, doing his best with just his bodily strength. Hei Shisan threw dirt in multiple eyes and utilized every underhanded method he could.
Shen Wuyou quick-fired precise dice-rolls to calculate exactly what action would acheive the desired result. He was a hurricane of mild inconveniences that somehow defeated a handful of immortals.
Without their internal energy, the immortals were like fish out of water.
Jin Huang, being the only one capable of using his full power, was now a menace on the battlefield.
However, he soon met his match in the form of the Immortal Elephant and Immortal Hippo: Sage Monarch and Behemoth.
Han Jianyu, after killing Silent Raid with a single attack, had seemingly passed out on his feet. Judgement had fled from his attack, but was still unable to escape the terrible collateral damage.
All about them, the land was ravaged by that one move. After that, Han Jianyu's sword finally shattered; the jade aura did not return.
"So this is the power of the Supreme Immortal Body! Truly remarkable!" Sage Monarch said, his heavy and wooly body locked in a clash with Jin Huang.
The Immortal Mammoth towered over him like a moving fortress of fur and ivory. His humanoid frame was thick with slabs of muscle, long tusks curling past his jaw while a trunk thicker than a man's waist lashed violently through the air.
Beside him stood Behemoth.
The Immortal Hippo was shorter than Sage Monarch, but incomparably broader. His skin looked like layered iron plates stretched over a monstrous frame. A massive jaw split his face nearly ear-to-ear, each step sinking into the earth with explosive force.
Jin Huang grinned despite the blood running down his forehead. "Finally. Two people that know how to have a little fun!"
The battle raged on, with not one of them noticing just what exactly was happening around them.
The Netherworld itself had changed, becoming more active. It acted directly against Xu Lan, and made things even harder for the immortals.
Not only did it rob them of their internal energy. Once it prevented Xu Lan from interfering, it returned the backlash that was supposed to be directed at them in the first place.
And now, that backlash was multiplied.
Even as Xu Lan made her reports, the Monkey King laughingly observed, Jin Huang and the others fought against the immortal beasts and everyone else in the Netherworld carried on with their lives, no one realized what was really happening.
Also, no one had made the most important connection. No one could. Yet.