A seamless immortal’s attack!
The Dragon Emperor felt all the hairs on his body stand on end. Although he had reverted back to a nascent soul grandmaster, his soul’s foundation was far greater than a mere mortal. He could do far more than a transcending mortality sage could with his soul.
The Dragon Emperor quickly processed all the information available to him. It wasn’t an immortal monarch that had unleashed the attack but his foe, who should have used some sort of treasure to replicate the attack. But because of the magnitude of the attack, it cleared an open space within Tianyi’s Chaos Refining Formation.
It also revealed Tianyi’s location.
The Dragon Emperor’s eyes hesitated for a brief moment before decisiveness appeared. He was going to gamble it all on a single moment. He never imagined that he would have to gamble his life with a cultivator who had yet to even reach the Immortal Realm. If he won, then he would reap the rewards from Tianyi. If he failed, there was still a chance at life!
The eyes of Lei Jingye’s body immediately dulled as the Dragon Emperor’s Nascent Soul left his body.
The Dragon Emperor’s nascent soul was unique. Despite not being an immortal’s soul anymore, it showed trace amounts of a connection with heaven and earth. As long as heaven and earth exist, so will I. That was the realm of a true immortal, the Pathfinding Immortal Realm! A true immortal was incredibly hard to kill permanently, even for a newly ascended seamless immortal monarch. That was because their existence was intricately connected to heaven and earth.
It was also one of the reasons why the Dragon Emperor managed to still exist. After he started the self-detonation process, he paid a high price to forcibly downgrade his cultivation into the Pathfinding Immortal Realm. But as a result, his mastery of Dao was degraded. As for the soul fragments from his from Extremity Immortal Realm soul as of resulting of degrading his soul, he merged his shattered understanding of the Dao into them and formed an unaccountable number of embryonic soul fragment clones. Using his self-detonation as a distraction, the Dragon Emperor merged his soul with heaven and earth, waiting for an opportunity to revive.
When the Dragon Emperor awoke, he had originally set his eyes on the unborn child of Xi Mengfei. Using the Buzhou Immortal Sect’s resources to fuel his ascension to the peak once more, there was a poetic justice that the Dragon Emperor loved. Not once had the thought that he would fail or be discovered.
But he failed both times. Once in the previous timeline, due to Mengfei already discovering his abnormality. And the second time was even worse. He failed because of Tianyi, who wasn’t even cognizant at the time Because of this, he fell into a slumber for years once more. Through the twists of fate, he attached himself to Lei Jingye before eventually taking over Lei Jingye’s body and roaming the world as Longwei. He had originally planned to absorb his soul fragment clones in order to regain his mastery of the Dao once more.
And now, just as he had chosen Lei Jingye’s body, the Dragon Emperor discarded it once more as he charged towards Tianyi. As he soared through the mini Vast Void, Mengfei’s obscured sword strike flew past him and towards Lei Jingye’s body that was still protected by the golden armor. The Red Dragon Lotus’s light had faded away the moment the Dragon Emperor left Lei Jingye’s body.
Obscuring Heaven Sword Light, that was the name of the technique that Mengfei had sealed inside the Obscuring Heaven Sword Qi Talisman Tianyi used. It was an assassination technique that could strike from anywhere in the world, even from within the enemy’s body. Unfortunately, that property could not be utilized as an attack sealed within a talisman. Still, the Obscuring Heaven Sword Qi could not be underestimated as it could easily fatally injure an immortal monarch.
The Obscuring Heaven Sword Qi struck the abdomen of the golden armor. The sword qi only paused for the briefest moment before it disappeared. Lei Jingye’s eyes brightened with life once more as a howl of pain erupted from his lips. The Obscuring Heaven Sword Qi had phased through the golden armor and directly shattered the spiritual core, and exploding the excess energy after completing its task. The only reason that Lei Jingye’s body hadn’t turn into a mist was because the golden armor had forcibly kept it together. Still, after having his spiritual core shattered, Lei Jingye no longer had any hopes of cultivating unless he manages to find a treasure that could create new spiritual veins in his body.
But Tianyi could care less about Lei Jingye at this moment. Before the Obscuring Heaven Sword Qi had destroyed Lei Jingye’s spiritual core, the Dragon Emperor had already reached Tianyi’s location and caused a deep sense of crisis to emerge from Tianyi’s heart.
The roars of numerous dragons thundered in Tianyi’s head, causing his mind to be stunned for a brief moment. Then came the pain, the excruciatingly unbearable pain. Tianyi’s mind didn’t become blank from the pain. Instead, it was as if time had slowed down, and he could feel every single moment of the torture. Not even the absorption process of the Dragon Emperor’s blood essence could compare to a hundredth of the current pain he felt. It was as if pain overtook Tianyi’s whole world, and he could do nothing but experience the pain.
Crack
Crack
Crack
Inside Tianyi’s cosmos, his five nascent souls were screaming in pain. That moment Tianyi’s mind was overtaken by pain, the Dragon Emperor had unleashed his soul attack. Cracks began to appear on Tianyi’s five nascent souls’ glass-like bodies. The orbit of the eight Yang Spiritual Cores began to deviate and distort around the Dragon Pearl Core, and the resulting cycle of the cosmos sunk into pure chaos.
Outside, Tianyi’s body began to distort, parts of his body enlarge or shrinking at random intervals. Fissures appeared everywhere on his skin, causing his true qi of chaos to seep out uncontrollably. It was as if his body would destabilize at any moment and disperse into a fragment of the Vast Void.
Tianyi could detect none of this. Right now, even though he could only feel pain, he could sense that if this continued any longer, he would die. His soul would be shattered, not even being able to reincarnate. If he weren’t in so much pain, fear and terror would have long seeped into Tianyi’s heart. But now, all he could think was to dispel the pain.
But even if Tianyi had the will, he could do nothing as his nascent souls started to crack even more. Just as it seemed that his nascent souls reached the shattering point, a gentle warmth covered his whole body. His lotus incarnations created from his cultivation of the Three Pure True Self Visualization Technique emerged.
The lotus appeared under Tianyi’s five nascent souls, with each nascent soul above one of its petals. The light from the lotus enveloped the nascent souls, and new cracks stopped appearing. Not only did they stop appearing, but the old cracks also began to disappear as his nascent souls were mended.
Outside, the Dragon Emperor’s soul was already translucent to the point that it was almost invisible to the naked eye. In order to unleash this secret soul attack of his, he had forced his soul to the limit and even started to burn it to increase the power of his attack. But just as he was about to succeed in extinguishing Tianyi’s soul -he was shocked to discover that Tianyi had five nascent souls- his attack suddenly lost all effect. Not only that…
The Dragon Emperor looked at the gaping hole in his nascent soul. Something had erupted from Tianyi’s clothes like a cannonball and created the hole. Although his nascent soul was almost gone and there was a gaping hole, the Dragon Emperor still seemed calm. Calm enough to leave parting words for Tianyi.
“Count yourself lucky this time. Next time you won’t be… so for…tun…….”
The Dragon Emperor never finished his sentence as his soul turned completely transparent. His soul had disappeared. Although Tianyi lost control of his formation, the remnant true qi of chaos still damaged the Dragon Emperor’s soul, especially since he had focused all his efforts on exterminating Tianyi’s nascent souls.
Tianyi’s body floated briefly in the air before falling to the ground. The Chaos Refining Formation had already started to dissipate the moment Tianyi no longer focused on it. Up and down, right and left became distinguishable. The desert sand became visible once more; only the color was no longer light yellow but pure black. The sky appeared once more, but it was no longer blue and appeared to be shrouded in a black mist.
CRASH!
Tianyi’s body struck the earth like a meteorite, causing the sand to blast into the air and shattered the ground beneath the sand. Lei Jingye’s body also unceremoniously landed on the sand, but his impact was far smaller and less noticeable. In the distance, Daoyi and Elder Meng rushed towards Tianyi.
Daoyi activated her defensive lifebound artifact when the black sphere cracked and dispersed. The sudden shift in pressure from the inside of Tianyi’s formation and the outside created hurricane-level winds that nearly blew Daoyi into the distance. The Lei Clan members weren’t so lucky as they were blasted away by the force of the winds.
Did something happen to Tianyi? The thought flashed through Daoyi’s mind. Compared to the other Nascent Soul Realm disciples of the Buzhou Immortal Sect, Tianyi was far too powerful. There might be some who were equal to him in terms of pure combat prowess, but that was only accounting if they had the same power. Tianyi’s cultivation granted him an immense force that no normal nascent soul grandmaster or unity venerable should possess. As such, the thought of Tianyi losing to a Unity Realm venerable, much less nascent soul grandmaster, had never occurred to Daoyi.
Once the winds settled down, Daoyi flew towards the epicenter using the Core Formation Realm Cloud Treading Boots that Tianyi had forged for her. She had thought it would have been hard to search for a human inside the large mass of black sand, but Tianyi was quite easy to spot due to the enormous crater he created from his fall.
When Daoyi arrived, Elder Meng was already present. She cradled Tianyi’s head with her brows furrowed. Next to him was the pill that Daoyi occasionally saw revolving around Tianyi, only it was pure black, but she would never mistake the immortal aura it gave off. Daoyi felt her heartbeat quicken and couldn’t help but ask. “Is Senior Brother alright?”
Elder Meng held her finger up, motioning for Daoyi to be quiet. She complied. The air was tense as time passed until Elder Meng finally laid Tianyi back onto the ground. “Young Master appears fine; he is just unconscious. But his body is a bit unstable. Until his body stabilizes, we should let him remain here.”
“Do you know what happened?” Daoyi asked.
Elder Meng shook her head. “I could still perceive the inside of the formation for time, but when that Lei Jingye appeared, I could no longer sense the inside. I didn’t act because I felt that Young Master was still fine. But that all changed at the last few moments before the formation collapsed. But now, there is no danger to Young Master’s life.”
Daoyi heaved a sigh of relief, but then a question popped into her mind. “How can you sense Senior Brother’s safety?” Daoyi asked. She hadn’t seen Elder Meng use any techniques while they were outside.
Elder Meng held up a jade plate with the character of Xi engraved on it. “It’s a jade pendant linked to Young Master’s soul lamp. As long as anything occurs to Young Master’s soul, the pendant will react.”
Tilting her head slightly, Daoyi asked. “Did Senior Brother light his soul lamp? I don’t remember him mentioning it.”
“Young Master already had his soul lamp lit the moment he was born. He was still an infant at the time, so he may not remember it.” Elder Meng said.
Daoyi showed an enlightened expression. Usually, only core formation masters were able to light their soul lamps. But Daoyi guessed that there were methods for even babies to light a soul lamp, and Tianyi must have been one of them since he was Xi Mengfei’s, the Grand Elder’s son.
“Do you know when Senior Brother will wake up?” Daoyi asked another question.
Elder Meng shook her head. “I do not know. I cannot detect anything wrong with Young Master. But as long as his body stabilizes, he should have no problem awakening. Speaking of which, what happened to those Lei Clan members?”
Daoyi stilled. She had totally forgotten about them; they were unrelated people in the first place. Why would she put so much thought into them? Muttering some words, Daoyi left to retrieve the Lei Clan members. The five of them were sealed by Daoyi, so they could not use their true qi. It was unknown how much damage the turbulence caused to them.
Unfortunately, it seemed an additional member had died due to not being able to withstand the impact. Daoyi took a while to take off his spatial bag due to how gory his ruptured skull looked. Since she felt slightly guilty, she buried him in the ground where the sand was firmer with a stone tombstone.
When Daoyi returned, she was surprised to see a third and unconscious man present. The person appeared to be in his early twenties, but his hair had turned white, and his face was unnaturally pale to the point that although there was meat on his cheeks, he appeared gaunt. Despite being covered in golden armor that Daoyi recognized as an immortal artifact, his whole body exuded an aura of death.
“Granny Meng, who is this?” Daoyi asked.
“He appears to be that Lei Jingye that Young Master fought. His spiritual core is shattered, and I cannot sense a nascent soul from him.” Elder Meng said. For a nascent soul grandmaster, even if their spiritual core shattered, they could still possess another person’s body and form another spiritual core. As for taking over a core formation master’s body, a bodiless nascent soul grandmaster usually did not have the strength to do so.
“Lei Jingye?” Daoyi said aloud. Although Daoyi had met Lei Jingye once before, it was dark and years ago, so she couldn’t remember his appearance. She had seen his portraits before, but she couldn’t link the half-dead man to the portrait of Lei Jingye. Upon a closer look, she realized that Lei Jingye’s facial features were nearly identical to Tianyi’s. Except that Tianyi’s eyes made the rest of his face give off a different feel, so it looked distinct from Lei Jingye’s face.
There was some movement as if Lei Jingye was awoken from the noise Daoyi made. When Lei Jingye opened his eyes, his vision was cloudy and unfocused. Despite having the appearance of a young man, his eyes were cloudy and his hair white like that of an old man.
“Cough, cough,”
Lei Jingye hacked as if he was trying to cough out his lungs. The blood spattered onto the ground and was absorbed by the black sand. “W-who?” Lei Jingye’s voice was hoarse and scratchy as if he had not spoken in years.
“Yi’er?” Lei Jingye’s gaze focused on Daoyi in a daze, “You’re alive? Hahaha. It must have been a dream, a dream, hahaha!!!”
Daoyi frowned at Lei Jingye’s voice. It was obvious that his current state of mind was abnormal. The tenderness-filled words of Lei Jingye sent goosebumps throughout Daoyi’s body. Unaware of Daoyi’s internal thoughts, Lei Jingye continued to mutter to himself as he looked around in a daze.
“Xi Longyi! XI LONGYI!!!” Lei Jingye growled out in his crazed state when he saw Tianyi’s unconscious body. “Yi’er, quick, kill him! Kill him before he can harm you!”
Daoyi couldn’t take any more of Lei Jingye’s crazed ramblings anymore and silenced him with a spell. Or at least she tried to. Her spell fizzled out before it could reach Lei Jingye.
“Junior Niece Jiang, his body is still protected by an Immortal Realm armor. Ordinary spells won’t work.” Elder Meng said to the stunned Daoyi.
But compared to the stunned Daoyi, Lei Jingye was even more stunned. His eyes widened as he stared in disbelief at Daoyi. At the very least, Lei Jingye was stunned silent, unable to comprehend the mere act of Daoyi acting against him. But that didn’t last long.
“Yi’er, you didn’t do it, right? That bastard Xi Longyi must have done something to you! That’s why you acted against me, right? Right!?” Towards the end, Lei Jingye’s voice took on a desperate tint, despairing etching itself into his voice.
“Lei Jingye, stop deluding yourself.” Daoyi coldly said. She couldn’t stand listening to Lei Jingye’s crazy ramblings anymore. “Are you already at the point that you can’t differentiate the past and present?”
“Y-y-you! You’re not Yi’er! Yi’er would never speak like that. You fake, where did you hide Yi’er!” Lei Jingye’s tone became even crazier upon hearing Daoyi’s response.
“Rather than worry about someone whether I am the Daoyi from your first life or a fake, you should be more concerned about yourself. Your spiritual core is shattered, your path to immortality is shattered.” Daoyi coldly said.
Lei Jingye froze. But soon, a sense of horror overcame him as he realized he couldn’t sense spiritual qi at all. His hazy mind began to clear as reality began to set in. His last few memories were of escaping the ruin of the Immortal Court, and then, he there was blank. It was as if he had awoken from a long dream.
“XI.LONG.YI!” Lei Jingye’s fears turned into anger as he shouted at Tianyi. “It must have been you! You schemed against me. If it weren’t for you, none of this would have happened!”
Slap!
Lei Jingye’s voice became caught in his throat as he was stunned into silence by Daoyi’s slap. The golden armor did protect him from spells and harm, but that didn’t prevent Daoyi from slapping him, even if it didn’t hurt him at all.
“I said wake up already. Senior Brother isn’t Xi Longyi. He’s Xi Tianyi.” Daoyi’s stern voice reached Lei Jingye’s ears. He looked at Daoyi. The face was the same, so was the attitude, so why was she so foreign?
“He’s a beast in human skin… he’s a scourge to the world!” Lei Jingye continued his belief, refusing to listen to Daoyi’s words.
“You are someone blessed with another chance at life, yet you cannot let go of your past and wallow inside of it instead, ruining your own future. Laughable.” With those words, Daoyi turned around and began to meditate, no longer paying attention to Lei Jingye.