pertwk Chapter 6 Endless Abyss 2
Chapter 6 Endless Abyss 2
Upon seeing the newcomer, Xue Renxian's brows furrowed suddenly, and a hint of seriousness flashed in his eyes.
This aura is far beyond what an ordinary Great Sage could possess!
His body surged with the power of sacred laws, and crimson blood energy shot into the sky like smoke, staining half the heavens blood-red. The blood-red ring on his fingertip was slightly hot, and a chilling killing intent quietly permeated the air. The black-robed cultivator before him was surrounded by an aura of darkness so dense it was almost impenetrable, like a demon solidified from the abyss, clearly not a native creature of the Kunlun Realm.
Beyond the pass, the swift demon stood in mid-air, its indifferent gaze sweeping across the majestic pass stretching for thousands of miles below.
The city wall was constructed from blood crystal rocks weighing tens of thousands of pounds, its surface covered with densely packed sacred runes. As the sun and moon revolved, the sacred runes shimmered with light, and faint sounds of dragon roars and tiger howls could be heard emanating from them. The level nine array at the top of the pass made his heart tremble slightly. The thirty-six star stones embedded at the array's core each contained the pressure of a Great Saint.
Why would cultivators from the Kunlun Realm expend so much effort to build a formidable fortress on the edge of this endless abyss?
Ji Chi was secretly surprised. He had ventured deep into the abyss, and although the blood beasts he encountered were ferocious, their highest level was only Saint King, which was not worth such a large mobilization.
What troubled him even more was that the rules of heaven and earth within this abyss greatly suppressed his Holy Soul, allowing him to unleash only 30% of his full strength. Unfortunately, as a cultivator of the Netherworld Clan, his physical body was not his forte, and facing this impregnable Holy Pass, even with his Great Saint cultivation, he inevitably felt somewhat constrained.
"Kunlun Realm truly lives up to its reputation as an eternally indestructible realm..." Ji Chi murmured to himself, his fingertips twitching slightly beneath his black robe, black runes appearing and disappearing in his palm. "If there were a Holy Army stationed in this Holy Pass, even a false god might not be able to breach the city."
He was considering whether to take a detour and avoid the formidable pass.
Just then—
With a creak, the heavy door slowly opened.
A figure slowly walked out from inside the gate.
He was a young human man dressed in brocade robes and white robes. He had a handsome face and a gentle temperament, but the aura emanating from him was that of a Great Sage!
A flash of bloodlust appeared in Ji Chi's eyes, and a hint of interest finally surfaced on his previously indifferent face.
He suppressed the surging dark death energy surrounding him, his long robe billowing without wind, his voice carrying the biting chill of the Netherworld, each word slowly resounding throughout the land: "Blood Emperor, leader of the Blood God Cult?"
"It is indeed I!" Xue Renxian replied in a booming voice.
Ji Chi raised his eyes to look at the man and saw that he had a face like jade and was incomparably handsome. The corner of his mouth immediately curled up into a mocking smile, and his tone was extremely contemptuous: "He does have a bewitching appearance, but I don't know what he is made of, daring to call himself the 'Blood Emperor'."
"The title 'Blood Emperor' is merely an honorific bestowed upon us by our fellow cultivators in the Kunlun Realm; it's nothing to be proud of." Xue Renxian's tone shifted, his eyes suddenly flashing with bloodlust, his killing intent as sharp as a knife. "But you, this otherworldly demon, brazenly annihilated six of my sect's camps and slaughtered tens of thousands of followers. This blood feud, I will exact upon you today!"
Before he finished speaking, a blood-red longsword was already in his hand. The sword was six feet long, its entire body as clear as blood-red amber, and its blade shimmered with a dazzling light under the skylight—it was the weapon left behind by a sword god from the ancient Kunlun Realm, named Blood Spring!
As the Blood Spring Sword was drawn, Xue Renxian's aura suddenly changed dramatically. A violent pressure swept across all directions, and twelve trillion sacred rules surged like a galaxy, endlessly circulating around his body. His domineering posture, like a sword god descending to earth, made the heavens and earth tremble.
"What six camps? That's utterly baffling. I only collected the souls of cultivators from one camp along the way. This person's cultivation is merely at the peak of the Ten Thousand Deaths and One Life Realm, yet he possesses the foundation of twelve trillion rules..." Ji Chi was initially puzzled, but upon seeing Xue Renxian display his cultivation, the disdain on his face vanished instantly, replaced by an extremely solemn expression. "I take back what I said before. You truly deserve the title of Blood Emperor!"
Even though he was already a Great Saint of the Supreme Realm, his accumulation of experience in the realm of ten thousand deaths and one life was far inferior to that of the Blood God Cult leader before him.
"Netherworld Palace, Swift Demon!" He announced his name in a deep voice, his tone more solemn than ever before. A flash of light appeared in his palm, and a weapon covered with ferocious patterns emerged. Hundreds of thousands of sacred rules surged forth around him, and the pressure of the supreme realm swept across the sky.
Xue Renxian's pupils contracted slightly, a strange glint flashing in his eyes—it was actually a Supreme Saint! He then smiled coldly and proclaimed loudly, "Xue Renxian of the Blood God Sect of the Kunlun Realm!"
As soon as the words were spoken, a figure moved.
The two figures clashed in an instant, and a tremendous collision of holy power erupted. The violent shockwaves swept out like a tsunami, instantly covering the entire area within a thousand miles. Mountains and rivers collapsed, clouds rolled back, and even the sun and moon lost their luster.
Xue Renxian's sword intent was unrestrained and powerful. With a wave of his hand, he unleashed a sword strike that seemed to pierce the dust, summoning the Heavenly Sword Soul. Wherever the sword's edge pointed, space shattered inch by inch. A thousand miles of void were pierced by a single sword, its destructive force unstoppable.
Although his cultivation level was slightly inferior, the Blood Spring in his hand was a weapon once used by a sword god. The supreme holy weapon's power was overwhelming, and the sword god's sword dao traces contained within the sword made his sword intent surge several times over. In addition, he cultivated the "Blood God Diagram," and his physical body had already been tempered to the level of a demigod, with copper skin and iron bones, making him impervious to all laws.
In contrast, Ji Chi possessed only an ordinary Four-Element Monarch Sacred Artifact, its power vastly different from Ji Chi's. Even more critically, the laws of the Endless Abyss exerted an extremely strong suppressive force on his Sacred Qi and Sacred Soul, causing him to lose more than half of his Supreme Realm cultivation.
With the balance of power shifting, as soon as they clashed, Ji Chi was completely suppressed by Xue Renxian's fierce sword aura, and could only parry helplessly, his sacred Dao rules being torn to pieces by the sword energy.
Seeing this, Ji Chi held nothing back. His withered, bony fingers gripped an ancient bronze lampstand—its body covered in inscribed runes and secret seals, its base inlaid with three dark purple soul beads. This lamp was an ancient treasure of the Underworld Palace, known as the Soul-Guiding Lamp. He uttered a muffled incantation, and the lampstand suddenly blazed with a ghostly green flame. This was a top-tier flame called the Evil Underworld Ghost Devouring Flame. The runes on the lamp's surface writhed like living snakes, and a black wind instantly swept through the void. Thousands of vengeful spirits shrieked in the wind, and even the space itself was shaken, cracking into fine patterns.
Xue Renxian's pupils shrank sharply. He dared not be negligent. He spun the longsword in his palm, and hundreds of billions of sword rules poured into the sword tip like a galaxy. The sword momentum rose to its peak, and he shouted, "Sword Twelve!" As soon as he finished speaking, thousands of sword shadows burst out from the sword's spine. Each sword shadow carried the rule of annihilation, intertwining to form a world-destroying sword net. Wherever it passed, light collapsed and laws became disordered. The power that was enough to destroy a large-scale mortal realm directly suppressed Ji Chi.
At the eye of the storm, Ji Chi remained unmoved, holding the Soul-Guiding Lamp above his head. The incantation grew increasingly rapid, and the lamp flame surged ten thousand feet into a dark blue-black divine light. Within this divine light, the phantom of a god of the underworld appeared, swallowing most of the sword shadows. The sword nets sizzled and melted upon touching the divine light. However, Xue Renxian's Heavenly Sword Soul, condensed from hundreds of billions of sword dao rules, was incredibly domineering. A wisp of sword intent, refined to its extreme, pierced through the defenses, stabbing into Ji Chi's holy soul like a needle. Ji Chi groaned, and dozens of sword marks cracked on the surface of his supreme body, spilling out dark golden holy blood that dripped onto the ghost lamp and was instantly swallowed.
Just as Xue Renxian was about to press his advantage, Ji Chi's incantation finally ended. A thin black line shot out from the mouth of the Soul-Guiding Lamp, wrapping around Xue Renxian's arm like lightning. The black line instantly transformed into a curse, seeping into his body like a bone-deep infection. Even the Heavenly Sword Soul he had summoned was corroded by the curse, its light dimming at a visible speed, the sword soul trembling as if about to shatter. Xue Renxian was terrified, daring not to hesitate for even a moment. He hurriedly made a hand seal to recall his sword soul, staggering back several steps, his face ashen white. The curse on his arm was still moving, actually devouring his sacred rules.
"This is the Soul-Destroying Curse of the Underworld Clan, recorded in the secret scriptures!"
A bone-chilling cold seeped into Xue Renxian's soul through the cracks, causing him to tremble violently and turn deathly pale. The black runes coiling around his soul, like ferocious serpents, were frantically gnawing at his soul's essence. Wherever they passed, the soul's divine light dimmed, and even the soul imprint groaned under the unbearable pressure. He could no longer maintain his fierce offensive and hastily drew out most of his holy power, transforming it into a golden light barrier to suppress the runes. However, the runes were like maggots clinging to his bones; the more he suppressed them, the faster they seeped in.
Opposite, the Swift Demon, wielding the Soul-Guiding Lamp, his black robes billowing, his withered fingers forming obscure underworld hand seals, his mouth uttering incessant incantations, like the wails of ghosts from the deepest hell. The wick of the Soul-Guiding Lamp flickered with eerie black flames, and as the incantation ended, thousands of gusts of wind condensed into form. These were no ordinary winds, but rather underworld gales imbued with the evil power of the Netherworld Clan's Heavenly Dao, their passage causing the void to sizzle and corrode.
A ghostly wind swept in all directions, slamming into Xue Renxian. His powerful body, comparable to that of a demigod, cracked inch by inch under the erosion of the ghostly wind, like rotten wood. Holy blood gushed out from the wounds, and before it even hit the ground, it was evaporated into wisps of bloody mist by the wind.
"Netherwind Curse, Bloodthirsty Curse, Soul-Destroying Curse..." Ji Chi's hoarse voice carried a hint of madness. With each flicker of the Soul-Guiding Lamp, a supreme Netherworld Curse power descended.
As the leader of the secular lineage of the Underworld Palace, Ji Chi's cultivation in the Holy Path might not be considered top-tier among the elite secular powerhouses of the Underworld, but in terms of talent in Holy Arts and Divine Abilities, he is undoubtedly at the pinnacle. He has cultivated all the major curses passed down through the Underworld Clan to the pinnacle of the Supreme Realm, and coupled with his spiritual power cultivation of sixty-nine and a half levels, he is enough to make him the most feared existence below the God Realm in the Underworld.
The cursed divine powers rained down like a storm, and Xue Renxian was already at his limit. The Blood-Devouring Curse, like a malignant tumor clinging to his bone, relentlessly devoured the holy blood within him. At this moment, most of his holy blood was depleted, and even the circulation of his holy power had become sluggish. The Soul-Destroying Curse was even more ruthless; the curse runes on his holy soul grew denser and denser, and his soul was pierced by pain as if cut by a knife, each breath accompanied by tearing agony. If he hadn't tightly gripped the holy artifact that exuded supreme pressure, he would probably have already been crushed into ashes by the cursed power.
Xue Renxian's heart was filled with shock. He had fought against Supreme Saints before, but none of them were as strange and difficult to deal with as this. When ordinary Saints clashed, they relied on their Saintly Dao foundation and the power of their Saintly artifacts, but Ji Chi used incantations as a spear and spiritual power as a shield, attacking the very source of the soul with every move, making it impossible to defend against.
"Hold on, you must hold on!" Xue Renxian gritted his teeth, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. A towering figure flashed through his mind: "The Demon Emperor has planted countless spies in the Endless Abyss. With the battle so fierce now, he must have sensed the commotion and is on his way!"
Upon realizing this, Xue Renxian felt calm and stopped focusing on attacking. Instead, he abruptly contracted the holy power around him, transforming it into an impenetrable golden defensive shield, and switched to a defensive stance.
Ji Chi's eerie green pupils narrowed slightly, naturally noticing Xue Renxian's change. A hint of apprehension flashed in his eyes as he stared intently at the Supreme Sacred Artifact in Xue Renxian's hand. The supreme pressure emanating from that artifact was something even he dared not underestimate. If Xue Renxian were forced into a corner and burned his Sacred Soul to activate the artifact, he would be severely injured, if not killed.
"Wait, wait it out!" Ji Chi sneered, the light from the Soul-Guiding Lamp in his hand growing ever brighter. "I'd like to see how long your holy blood can last, and how many times your holy soul can withstand the erosion of the Soul-Destroying Curse!"
For a moment, the battlefield fell into a strange stalemate. Xue Renxian, wielding the Supreme Sacred Artifact, occasionally unleashed a sharp golden sword light, repelling the approaching Netherworld Gale; Ji Chi, meanwhile, manipulated the Soul-Guiding Lamp, unleashing a continuous barrage of curses that gnawed at Xue Renxian's defenses like maggots. Sword light and curses collided in the void, golden and black light rising and falling, seemingly lively, but in reality, undercurrents surged and killing intent lurked everywhere.
Inside Blood God Pass, the Demon Emperor, whom Xue Renxian had been longing for, had already silently ascended to the highest watchtower within the pass. His body was shrouded in a faint layer of chaotic energy, appearing and disappearing unnoticed by anyone. Behind him stood a dozen or so Great Saints from the Kunlun Realm, each possessing profound Saintly foundations and restrained divine light, clearly top-tier experts who had undergone countless trials and tribulations.
"How is it, everyone?" The Demon Emperor's Dao body, Ling Che, turned around, a mocking smile on his lips. He glanced at the crowd behind him and said loudly, "This Great Sage from the Hell Realm, do you think his combat power is not bad? Our Blood Emperor is having a very hard time fighting him."
Although these words were said in jest, no one dared to underestimate them. The Blood Emperor and the Netherworld Clan cultivator were considered strong among them, and Ling Che couldn't help but chuckle upon hearing this.
The current Demon Emperor is Ling Che's Dao body. As one of Ling Che's four original avatars, his secret identity is the junior brother of the current Dao Lord of Taiji Dao, Zhen Qing Dao Huang, with the Dao name Zhen Yu. At the same time, he is also the personal disciple of Fushan Shenzun of the Five Elements Temple in the Heavenly Court Realm, and is revered as Zhen Yu Shenjun.
His ability to conceal his divine aura and move freely within the Kunlun Realm was thanks to the eighteen Heavenly Demon Stone Carvings collected by Ling Che's original body. His Confucian and Daoist avatars controlled nine carvings to seal his spiritual cultivation; his Daoist avatar controlled nine to seal his martial arts cultivation. Combined with the concealment of the ancient divine array within the Kunlun Realm, these two avatars were able to operate undetected outside the Kunlun Realm, surrounded by gods, and even freely travel between the Heavenly Court and the Underworld.
After all, outside the Kunlun Realm now, there are numerous God-level experts, and the aura of the God Realm is too obvious. If one is not careful, one will get burned.
"Unfortunately, there was a slight mishap on the Confucian-Taoist avatar side," Ling Che thought to himself. Previously, when the Confucian-Taoist avatar was monitoring the God of Fortune and Prosperity, it directly broke through the Mirror of Return, causing a backlash against the Confucian-Taoist avatar and completely exposing its aura.
With things having come to this point, the Confucian and Taoist avatars went all out, wielding the sacred book of the Confucian Ancestor and unleashing the ultimate techniques of the Four Ancestors. They swaggered into the Hell Realm along the Sanzu River tributary of the Burial Yin Mountains. The eighty-fourth level of spiritual power swept out like a blazing sun falling into the Netherworld, instantly attracting most of the gods from Heaven and Hell who were monitoring the Kunlun Realm, clearing away the biggest obstacle for their actions.
Currently, among the four avatars, the Confucian and Taoist avatars are stirring up trouble in the underworld, while the main body has retreated into the endless void to cultivate in order to reach a higher realm and has not returned yet; the Buddhist body is stationed in the Western Buddhist Realm, comprehending Buddhist teachings and not concerning itself with worldly affairs; the demonic body is even more extreme, directly hiding its identity and becoming the son-in-law of the Snow Sea Divine Kingdom of the Rakshasa Clan in the underworld.
In this way, the task of eliminating the large number of spies sent to the Kunlun Realm by the God of Fortune and Prosperity could only fall on his shoulders.
And these great saints from the underworld happened to become the best whetstones.
Ling Che's gaze suddenly sharpened as he swept over the seven Great Saints of the Kunlun Realm behind him. He said in a deep voice, "Gentlemen, as I mentioned on the way here, these spies from the Hell Realm are all elites handpicked by the Temple of Destiny. Each one of them is a Supreme Great Saint! Today, I want each of you to choose one as your opponent. Firstly, this will hone your Saintly Path, and secondly, it will allow you to familiarize yourselves with the fighting style of Hell Realm cultivators in advance, accumulating experience for the future war between the two realms."
As soon as he finished speaking, Ling Che flicked his finger, and more than a dozen hand seals shot out, transforming into more than a dozen mirror screens, each about ten feet in size, in mid-air. Within the mirror screens, light and shadow flowed, revealing the figures of the more than a dozen Great Saints of the Hell Realm who had infiltrated the Kunlun Realm. Each person's aura, cultivation techniques, and sacred artifacts were clearly reflected.
"Rest assured, Your Majesty! We will certainly live up to your expectations!" A Great Sage clad in golden armor clasped his fists first, his voice booming like a bell.
"Haha! Demon Emperor, you'd better pick a formidable opponent for this old dragon!" A gruff voice boomed from the crowd. Everyone looked in the direction of the voice and saw a man with a dragon's head and a human body, over nine feet tall, his muscles bulging, wielding a pair of eight-sided, plum blossom-patterned, bright silver hammers. Divine light shimmered on the hammerheads, faintly emanating dragon might. This was none other than Ao Dou, the patriarch of the half-dragon race. This fiend was fierce and warlike, and loved nothing more than challenging the strong.
Upon hearing this, Ling Che couldn't help but smile. He then raised his hand and pointed to one of the mirror screens. Inside the mirror screen was a cultivator dressed in jet-black armor, with a Nether Dragon mark etched between his brows. Death energy surged around him, and the faint sound of a dragon's roar could be heard. His imposing aura and pressure far surpassed those of the cultivators in the other mirror screens.
"Then, Old Dragon, why don't you go and meet this cultivator from the Nether Dragon Clan?" Ling Che said with a faint smile. "This fiend is one of the strongest among this group of Great Saints from the Hell Realm. He has the body of a divine beast and his physical body is incredibly strong, which is just what you're looking for."
"Good! Good! Good!" Ao Dou shouted "Good!" three times in a row. His dragon eyes were fixed on the Nether Dragon Clan cultivator in the mirror screen. He gripped the hammer handle tightly, and his fighting spirit soared into the sky.
With Ao Dou taking the lead, the other Great Sages of the Kunlun Realm also stepped forward, each choosing their preferred opponent. One by one, the figures on the mirror screen disappeared, and soon only three figures remained, silently floating. Among the Great Sages of the Kunlun Realm, there were exactly three who had not made a single move from beginning to end.