Chapter 204
Zhang Yibai remained silent, the Zhenwu Yin-Yang Twin Swords in his hands humming and vibrating, their blade light surging like a tide towards the left knee joint of the skeletal demon.
“Break—!” A cold shout rang out, and the bone of the demon's leg shattered with a crisp crack.
The Bone Great Sage stumbled and fell to his knees in the boiling lava pool, his eye sockets ablaze with ghostly fire as he roared upwards, “I hate! I hate it! I was so close to becoming a half-step demon immortal! I’ve been hiding in this dark secret realm, cultivating in seclusion, and yet you three old dogs still come in to kill me, taking advantage of my closed-door retreat to launch a sneak attack!”
“Vajra Subduing Demons!” The monk Fenyie shouted as he leaped into the air, his bronze skin gleaming with a metallic sheen.
In his hand, the Nine-Ringed Scepter radiated a brilliant Buddhist light, transforming into nine golden hoops that encircled the Bone Great Sage's neck.
The red Sanskrit characters on his cassock detached from the fabric, coalescing in the air into thirty-two fiery red lotuses, sizzling as they burned the demon's body.
Real Master Yuyao, with her flowing sleeves, summoned icy needles that danced like dragons around the battlefield.
This proud master of the Yaochi Palace rarely showed any emotion, but a hint of a smile crept into her words: “The Zhenwu Sword Intent truly lives up to its reputation. If it weren’t for you, Zhang Daoyou, exerting all your strength to drive this Great Sage out of the ancient tomb, I would have struggled to find the weak point of this vile creature…”
Seeing the Bone Great Sage trapped and at the end of his rope, Zhang Yibai felt a sense of relief wash over him, his taut nerves finally loosening.
However, before Yuyao could finish her sentence, a cold light suddenly shot from her fingertips. The icy needles that were supposed to bind the Bone Great Sage instead rained down upon Zhang Yibai’s vital points.
Swish, swish, swish—!
The change came too quickly. The moment Zhang Yibai sensed the danger, he retracted his sword, twisting its momentum to protect his heart. His internal energy surged up his meridians, a metallic taste rising in his throat.
The Yin-Yang Twin Swords formed an impenetrable web before him.
But the one attacking was Yuyao, the master of Yaochi! Though she was also at the Great Ascension stage, most of the icy needles were blocked, yet seven still pierced through the sword net, deeply embedding themselves into his right shoulder at the Tianzong point.
At the same time, a fierce wind swept in from behind—Fenyie, the monk, had somehow appeared there, pressing a red swastika onto his back!
Bang—!
A scarlet fire lotus erupted behind Zhang Yibai.
His moon-white robe burst open, and his back was instantly torn apart!
“You—, cough… cough cough…”
Zhang Yibai staggered to one knee, blood dripping from the corner of his mouth onto the sword blade, instantly vaporizing into a mist.
He suddenly looked up, only to find the Bone Great Sage silently dissipating in the lava pool, the ghostly blue fire in its eye sockets transforming into two small snakes that obediently slithered into Yuyao's sleeve.
The benevolent expression on Fenyie’s face peeled away, revealing a triumphant smirk. “Zhang Zhenren, I wonder if you like the little treasures that Yuyao and I prepared for you?”
He ignited a red lotus of karmic fire at his fingertips, burning through Zhang Yibai's last line of defense: “Back then, you opposed our plan, saying it would disturb the balance of heaven… Zhang Yibai, oh Zhang Yibai, the heavens are about to collapse! Who cares about balance now? When paths diverge, we cannot work together. For the success of our future plans, we can only send you on your way!”
Real Master Yuyao floated down gracefully, her jade hairpin transforming into a three-foot-long blade.
The sword reflected the cold light flickering in her eyes: “The flesh and soul of a Great Ascension cultivator, combined with the Zhenwu Sword, a treasure of spiritual communication, is enough to knock on the gates of heaven.”
From her sleeve flew out two bronze soul lamps, one containing the soul fire of the Bone Great Sage, while the other was empty.
Clearly, they had long prepared a ‘coffin’ for Zhang Yibai.
“Now I see, no wonder the Bone Great Sage suddenly revealed his location a few years ago and deliberately went into seclusion!” Zhang Yibai laughed bitterly.
He had thought it was an opportunity to kill the Bone Great Sage and gain merit to comprehend the Sword Intent of the Void.
Initially, he wanted to keep it all for himself, but Fenyie and Yuyao insisted on following him.
Well, he thought, let’s be generous and share.
Little did he know… his death was imminent!
But…
With bloodied fingers suddenly plunging into his chest, the purple mansion burst with a loud crack.
Brilliant golden light erupted from his fingertips, and the dome of the secret realm revealed a magnificent Taiji diagram.
“I have comprehended the Yin-Yang Sword Intent for three thousand six hundred years… but I have never used my soul as a sword to unleash the true sword that approaches the path of Yin and Yang!”
The ground shattered under the terrifying pressure, and Zhang Yibai’s body plummeted into the abyss, his tattered robe fluttering wildly.
Suddenly, his tightly shut eyes flew open.
One Yin, one Yang; one bright, one dark.
The Dao flowed within.
“Today, with this broken body, I, Zhang Yibai, shall send you both… to your deaths!”
The blood-red sky suddenly split apart, and Zhang Yibai’s sword hung above the abyss, his blood-stained white robe moving without wind.
The Zhenwu Sword hovered three inches from his brow, its blade revealing the illusory forms of Yin and Yang.
“Three thousand years of comprehension, and today I finally understand the Void Intent!”
He chuckled softly, wiping the blood from the corner of his mouth, and as his fingertip grazed the sword’s edge, his entire right arm ignited with intertwining black and white flames.
Fenyie’s chest tattoo writhed violently, and before he could raise the Nine-Ringed Scepter, it melted into golden liquid.
“Retreat! This is…!” he shouted, but before he could finish, Yuyao’s icy needles were erased by an inexplicable force.
Beneath their feet, a Taiji formation with a diameter of a thousand feet appeared, corresponding to the already Yin-Yang colored dome above.
The Yin fish surged, engulfing the life force in black mist, while the Yang fish burst forth with a blinding light that pierced the void.
Zhang Yibai transformed into a beam of sword light, and the secret realm began to twist and collapse around him.
Wherever the Yin-Yang Void Sword Intent passed, space was like rice paper soaked in ink, and the chains of law emitted sounds of unbearable strain.
Fenyie howled as he tore open his own flesh to retrieve the Buddhist bone relic, while Yuyao summoned her life-saving artifact to defend herself, even burning her essence blood.
—This was the first time in a thousand years they had been forced to self-destruct their foundations.
“Yin-Yang Void, breaking illusions to reveal the truth!” The burning soul infused into the sword, and the Zhenwu Twin Swords transformed into nothingness at the moment of their thrust.
No sword light, no sword cry.
Only the resonance of the Dao of Yin and Yang echoed in the chaos of the universe.
In the instant the sword intent approached, time and space seemed to stretch into eternity.
Fenyie saw his body simultaneously experiencing decay and rebirth within the dual energies of Yin and Yang, flesh cycling between the states of withered bones and infants; Yuyao’s life-saving artifact exploded inch by inch, revealing her gradually aging face in the ice.
In their ears rang Zhang Yibai’s cold laughter.
“Let me show you… what the realm beyond Great Ascension looks like!”
Everything in the secret realm was utterly obliterated in the waves of black and white.
When the chaotic void settled, the mountains within a radius of ten thousand miles were smoothed into a mirror-like surface, and all grass, trees, and stones remained frozen in the state they were pierced by the sword energy. Fenyie knelt in the center of the mirror, the right half of his body retaining the appearance of youth, while the left half had already withered into an old man. Yuyao hung suspended a hundred feet in the air, her lower body merging with the ice, her three thousand strands of hair turning to snow.
“Cough, cough… Zhang Yibai, that old dog, he’s already comprehended…” The blood Fenyie spat had not even hit the ground before it disintegrated into dust within the sword intent.
“He actually refined the path of reincarnation into his sword intent…” In the ice, Yuyao opened her eyes, her expression equally grim.
Their foundational Dao had been permanently eroded by the Void Sword Intent, making it nearly impossible for them to advance in this lifetime.
Unless… they could reincarnate and seize another’s body!
“Well, this is fine too. Once Zhang Yibai is dead, no one will be able to stop us.” Fenyie stood on the mirror reflecting the sky, taking a deep breath, his expression unchanged as he tore off the decaying half of his body. “We should head back…”
Yuyao sat up from the ice, her white hair slowly turning black, though her face remained aged; she could only wear a veil to cover it: “Let’s wait for the secret realm to open… It’s a pity that in this great secret realm, the area of a hundred thousand miles has fallen silent, and I don’t know how many resources have been wasted.”
…
Meanwhile, in the Cangyun Realm.
A nameless deep pool suddenly boiled, and a phantom sword shadow broke through the water.
At the tip of the sword, entwined with Yin and Yang energies, a faint soul fire flickered.
…
…
How could I, the Zhenwu Emperor, possibly die so easily?
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Chapter 219: Yuyao Must Be Heartbroken, Right?
“What terrifying residual energy! Could it be that a secret treasure has emerged?”
“Let’s go, let’s go, let’s check it out!”
The battle among the three great sacred lands created a tremendous commotion.
All the cultivators exploring the great secret realm were stirred. The urge to join the fray is a common flaw in human nature, and even these seasoned cultivators were not immune, their curiosity even more fervent.
“Master, what do you think? Should we go see what’s happening?”
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