by RWX
Attempting a sneak attack against an Empyrean God practitioner of the [Eight-Nine Arcane Art]…poor bastard!
There were very few practitioners of the [Eight-Nine Arcane Art] in the Three Realms to begin with. The number of Empyrean Gods that had reached the Ninth Cycle were even fewer and could be counted on one hand…but Ning was one of them!
Whoosh. Ning’s right hand explosively increased in size to become many hundreds of meters long as he chased after Greatdream.
Greatdream’s evasion abilities, however, were quite astonishing. He managed to escape Ning’s attack. Although Ning’s sword was very fast, the rate at which his right hand could increase in size was, comparatively speaking, much slower. With a boom, Greatdream evaded Ning’s attack as Ning’s sword-fingers slashed past the pillars and walls of the palace. Instantly, a pillar collapsed, the walls shattered, and half of the entire palace began to collapse.
“What’s going on?!” A group of Seamless Gate members were outside the palace in small groups. All of them turned their heads to stare.
They saw Empyrean God Greatdream fleeing from the palace, soaked in blood. Filling his voice with divine power, he shouted out frantically, “Darknorth ambushed me! He came to kill me! Empyrean God Sin and Empyrean God Sealthroat sent him here to kill me!” He had decided to first shift the blame to Ning, then worry about the rest later.
“Ambush? Kill?”
These Empyrean Gods of the Seamless Gate all knew that their side had been tussling against the other side for quite some time now. The enemy side had always wanted to slay Greatdream, and so none of them questioned his claims now.
And in truth, technically speaking, Greatdream’s words were true. Ji Ning really had come to kill him! Except…it was Greatdream who ambushed Ning first.
“Assemble the formation.”
“Kill Darknorth.”
Instantly, the twenty-plus Empyrean Gods began to join together into formations, joining together to form a trio of Seven Planets Gods and a single Three-Eyed Demon.
The white-robed Ning stared at the three Seven Planets Gods and the Three-Eyed Demon before him.
“Darknorth, you actually came to ambush Empyrean God Greatdream?”
“You really are seeking out your own death.”
“Damn you.”
They all glared at Ning.
Ning said calmly, “If I said that it was Greatdream who ambushed me, would you believe it?”
“If I ambushed you, why is it that you are completely unharmed while I am deeply injured?” One of the Seven Planets Gods roared furiously. This one had a face quite similar to that of Greatdream’s. “You actually swindled your way into our ranks to ambush me. Quite bold! Everyone, attack! Wipe him out and let Sin and the others know that anyone who dares to attack us will be killed. If one comes, one will die; if ten come, ten will fall!”
Because these Empyrean Gods of the Seamless Gate stood alongside Greatdream, they had been fighting against the forces of Sin and Sealthroat for many years now. They had always been at a disadvantage due to their lower numbers and thus nursed deep grudges.
“If you were to join together and hide within the Immortal estate…I might not be able to do anything to you.” Ning mentally shook his head.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
Instantly, more than seven hundred Pure Yang swords appeared around him. The pure energy from Ning’s Jindan flowed into the swords, then was transformed and manifested as an incomparably sharp jade sword that appeared before him. Ning just glancd at the three Seven Planets Gods and the Three-Eyed Demon before him, and the jade sword instantly launched an attack.
“Kill.”
“Kill!” The enemy forces came charging straight towards Ning.
In terms of raw power, none of the Seven Planets Gods were comparable to the one which Redsnow commanded.
As for the Three-Eyed Demon, it was the weakest of the four, and by a wide margin at that.
It must be understood that during the Crimsonbright Realmwar, Evergreen’s Daofather golem had been able to suppress the Seven Planets God…but Ning’s perfect Heaven Punisher had been able to suppress the Daofather golem! Now that Ning had a Pure Yang Jindan that was similar to that of a weak Daofather’s, his sword was incredibly powerful when using the most terrifying stances of the [Brightmoon] sword-art. The past hundred years of battle had only caused his sword-arts to become even deadlier.
The power of this sword-strike he had just launched was actually much more powerful than that of even the perfect Heaven Punisher he once commanded.
“Die!” The Seven Planets God that Greatdream commanded let out a furious roar. He wielded a pair of enormous scimitars in his hands, and he sent them chopping downwards towards Ning.
The jade sword arced through the skies in a solitary, beautiful line.
Swish.
Although Greatdream sought to block it, the jade sword was simply too fast, and he was just a bit too slow. It must be understood that the demon king was just as fast and strong as the Seven Planets God, but even he was unable to block Ning’s jade sword. And after a century of battle, the current Ji Ning had improved tremendously compared to the Ji Ning of the past.
Slash. The jade sword slashed downwards across the body of the Seven Planets God.
“Go, go!” Ning stared coldly.
The many Immortal swords around him undulated, allowing his energy to flow through and coalesce into two more jade swords that immediately flew towards the enemy.
“How can this be?”
“Good heavens.”
“How can he be this powerful?! How can an Empyrean God be this strong?!”
In almost the blink of an eye, the three Seven Planets Gods and the Three-Eyed Demon were all destroyed. The Empyrean Gods that had been within the formations were terrified. Greatdream, in particular, found this all impossible to believe; how could this person be so powerful? This was a level of power that caused him to feel despair.
“Spare us!” Greatdream called out hurriedly.
Slash! Slash! Slash!
One of the jade swords was spent, but the other two continued to fly forwards. All the Empyrean Gods they flew past were chopped apart into multiple pieces. These Empyrean Gods immediately began to heal themselves and flee in terror…but alas, they were quickly ground up into tiny slices of meat.
“Die.” Ning stretched out with his two hands, which instantly swelled in size. They seemed to become two enormous black clouds that slammed towards the remnants of the Empyrean Gods.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Ning’s two gigantic cloud-sized hands clapped together multiple times, with all of the Empyrean Gods trapped within them. He clapped them into dust. Just a few claps later, their divine power was completely used up and they all perished.
More than twenty Empyrean Gods…had died, just like that!
In truth, if all of them had hidden themselves within their Immortal estate and relied on the formations of the estate to protect themselves, there would’ve been nothing that Ning could’ve done. Perhaps Ning’s Rahu Formation was capable of breaching the combined defenses of more than twenty Empyrean Gods who were jointly resisting him within a formation, but Ning didn’t have any other Immortals following and assisting him at present. All he had was the Pure Yang Jindan within his body, and so Ning was ‘only’ as strong as a perfect Heaven Punisher, with his sword-arts being more profound than before.
But they had instead chosen to exchange attacks with Ning?
That was suicide…and so they really had died.
“The person who kill you was me…Ji Ning,” Ning murmured softly to himself.
At his level of heartforce, Ning knew exactly when to kill and when not to kill. He had already made the decision in his mind.
After killing Greatdream and the others, Ning only let out a sigh and shook his head. He remained as calm and collected as ever as he began to return to the others.
……
“Eh?”
&
nbsp; “That’s Empyrean God Darknorth over there!”
“Isn’t Darknorth supposed to be with Sin and the others?” Quite a few of the Empyrean Gods were confused. Ning had only informed Sin and Sealthroat of his decision to attack.
Whoosh. Whoosh.
Soon, two more figures appeared. They were Empyrean God Sin and Empyrean God Sealthroat.
“It’s good to see you back.” The two of them both felt relieved upon seeing him.
“I told you I’d be fine,” Ning said. He had the power to defeat all of the enemy’s Empyrean Gods at the same time; of course he would’ve been fine.
“How’d it go?” Sealthroat immediately asked.
“Dead,” Ning said.
Sealthroat and Sin both revealed looks of wild joy on their faces. Sin mumbled to himself, “Wonderful. No matter what we tried, we weren’t able to do anything to him. He was simply too crafty…but now, he’s dead. Wonderful, wonderful!”
“All dead,” Ning elaborated.
“All…dead?” Sin and Sealthroat revealed looks of disbelief on their faces.
They really couldn’t believe what they had just heard. In fact, that very day the two of them paid a personal visit to the place where the Seamless Gate’s forces had gathered. They stared at the collapsed palace, at the shattered ground, at the scars of battle…but there wasn’t a single enemy Empyrean God in sight. Only then did they truly believe that Ning had done what he said he had done.
“More than twenty Empyrean Gods. All dead. How?!” Sin was filled with confusion. “There were so many of them. Most were comparatively weak, but they had the absolute advantage in raw numbers. Even if they just joined together into simple Seven Planets Gods, they would become incredibly powerful.”
“If you can’t understand it, don’t bother trying to. Darknorth had his own methods for succeeding. All we know and need to know is that he is very powerful. No wonder the demon king said that he is very likely to succeed in leaving Undermoon Lake.” Sealthroat couldn’t help but sigh and smile in amazement while praising Ning. “This is perfect. If Greatdream was the only one to die, the other Empyrean Gods of the Seamless Gate would’ve posed a headache as well, forcing us to constantly be on our guard. Now, however, we have nothing to fear.”
“Agreed.” Sin nodded as well.
Greatdream had already become a person of the past. What Ji Ning cared about the most right now was the final challenge! He was just one step away from leaving Undermoon Lake.
The third day since his arrival on Kilostar Island.
The dawn moon had risen into the skies.
On the other side of Kilostar Island, Ning was standing with the other two, staring off into the distance.
Sin pointed towards the distance. “Look, over there! That’s the Path of Blades. It is the final challenge. If you are able to walk the Path of Blades, you’ll make it to the fifth island and be able to leave.”
“The Path of Blades?” Ning stared at the distant wooden bridge. The wooden bridge led to a place that was filled with countless enormous knifes, swords, and spears that stood upright and erect.
* * *
Book 20, Chapter 27 - The Final Challenge: The Path of Blades
“How strong is the guardian of this ‘Path of Blades’? Anything special to watch out for?” Ji Ning asked.
This was the final challenge. Ning understood that the guardian definitely had to be a terrifyingly strong figure.
Empyrean God Sin and Empyrean God Sealthroat exchanged a glance, then they both laughed. Sin then turned to Ning. “The foe you will encounter on the Path of Blades…is yourself!”
“Myself?” Ning was flabbergasted.
“Right.” Sin explained, “When you challenge the Path of Blades, the enemy that appears will look exactly like you and have the exact same divine body, the exact same divine abilities, the exact same Immortal energy…the exact same everything. In fact, if you use sword-arts, he’ll choose to use sword-arts as well. The only difference is…the sword-arts that he uses will be the sword-arts of Undermoon Lake.”
Ning felt shocked. His greatest advantage was that his Pure Yang Jindan had reached the second tier…but on the Path of Blades, this would give him no advantage at all!
“On the Path of Blades, you will strictly be competing in pure combat techniques,” Sealthroat explained with a sigh. “I would compete in spear-arts, while you will be competing in sword-arts! Only if your sword-arts are sufficiently profound will you be able to defeat your foes. In addition, on the Path of Blades, there will be a total of ten such opponents. All of them will have the same divine body and same abilities as you, but the sword-arts they use will be different. The later guardians will have increasingly profound sword-arts.”
“The Path of Blades…it has ten guardians that are akin to ten of you. Only by defeating these ten copies of yourself will you be able to reach the fifth island and leave Undermoon Lake,” Empyrean God Sealthroat said.
Ning nodded slowly. Defeat himself? Ten increasingly powerful versions of himself?
He now understood how difficult it would be to traverse the Path of Blades. Ning no longer felt that confident in his ability to defeat it. The reason why he was much more powerful than the other Empyrean Gods was thanks to his Jindan and his [Eight-Nine Arcane Art], but now both advantages had been stripped for him. If this was purely a competition of sword-arts…
Fortunately, the hundred years he had spent battling in Demon Icepass had resulted in his sword-arts improving dramatically! And after reaching Kilostar Island, he had trained for another ten-plus days, resulting in him getting the vague sense that he was closing in on complete mastery of the [Five Treasures], with his sword-arts reaching the speed of light.
“What level of sword-arts will be necessary to overcome the Path of Blades?” Ning no longer felt confident.
“Brother Darknorth, you are the one who the demon king said has the highest chances of surviving and leaving Undermoon Lake. All of us will be watching you with hope,” Empyrean God Tyranodragon said with a laugh.
“If you can leave, we’ll be able to leave as well.”
“If brother Darknorth wishes to leave, it won’t prove to be too difficult a task!”
More than two hundred Empyrean Gods were here, gathered around a campfire that was currently being used to roast skinned animals. They all looked towards Ning with scorching gazes, because in their heart, this ‘Empyrean God Darknorth’ stood the highest chances of succeeding out of them all. All of them had been trapped here for far, far too long; in their innermost hearts, they deeply desired to be able to leave this place.
“Alright, alright! Don’t give Darknorth too much pressure.” Empyrean God Feiyou boomed out, “Do you really think Undermoon Lake is so easily escaped from? Let Darknorth take things slowly.”
“Right. We won’t rush him. We’ve been waiting for so long already; another ten thousand years or even another million years is nothing.”
“I’m personally in no rush, but the outside world is in a state of chaos. The earlier we can leave, the better. If we take too long, the war might have ended already. If we go out early, at least we’ll be able to help out a bit.”
The commotion continued unabated. As for Sealthroat and Sin, the two Empyrean Gods had reached Ning’s side. Sealthroat said softly, “Darknorth, to tell you the truth, this Path of Blades…Sin and I have been challenging it for many, many years. No matter how hard I try, I’m unable to overcome the seventh opponent, while Sin has been stymied by the sixth opponent. Each of the ten guardians is more powerful than the last, and I have four more remaining before I can leave, while Sin has five! Our chances of improving are quite minute…”
“It’s true.” Sin let out a sigh as well. “I’ve only defeated half of the ten guardians; five more are left! I truly have no confidence in myself anymore. In truth, Ninedawn stood a very good chance. He had already reached the eighth guardian, with only two more to go after beating that one. But alas, he ended up dying i
n the hands of Greatdream. Greatdream was more formidable than the two of us as well; he had already reached the eighth of the guardians as well.”
Ning nodded. He could sense that Sin and Sealthroat no longer had enough faith in themselves.
“I don’t know how long it would take for the two of us to leave on our own.” Sealthroat looked at Ning. “These two hundred Empyrean Gods have entrusted their hopes to us, but the two of us can’t do it. It’s all up to you.”
“Darknorth, it really is up to you.” Sin looked at Ning as well.
“I can only promise to do my best. I’m not certain that I can succeed either,” Ning said.
“Oh, right…” Sealthroat advised, “Remember, if you are able to defeat the ninth guardian, immediately withdraw and come back to Kilostar Island.”
“Why?” Ning was stunned.
“Because if you can defeat all ten guardians in one go, you’ll immediately be sent towards the fifth island,” Sealthroat said hurriedly. “But what of the two hundred Empyrean Gods over here? They are all waiting for you to lead them out of this place. If you can defeat the ninth guardian, you should take them all with you when you go challenge the tenth guardian.”
“Right, right, right! It’s said that Jueming gained a sudden insight when challenging the Path of Blades, and so made it all the way past the final three guardians without giving anyone advance notice. He immediately left without being able to take a single Empyrean God with him.” Sin said angrily, “Jueming was too selfish!”
“Perhaps it wasn’t his fault,” Sealthroat said. “It’s possible that he was so excited by his sudden insight that he lost track of how many guardians he had defeated. He just continued to fight until they were all gone…and by then, there was no way back for him!”
“Hmph.” Sin just let out a contemptuous snort. Clearly, he nursed quite the grudge against Jueming.
“There’s no point in saying all these things.” Sealthroat smiled as he looked towards Ning. “Darknorth, the two of us can’t do it. It really is up to you.”
