Chapter 544: A point of a finger and you're a dead man
Translator: Sparrow Translations Editor: Sparrow Translations
Even though the Heaven-Bearing Emperor was just a Physical Spell Body, a figure of light moulded by Lin Feng's mana and spirit, his facial features and outward appearance were exactly identical to Lin Feng's own. Neither was it a clay puppet or a wooden sculpture, with its movements and manner of speech capturing Lin Feng's personality and charm.
To the Marquis of Jinghuan, the Heaven-Bearing Emperor's attitude was akin to how an adult would deal with a little child throwing a tantrum. Normally, the adult would ignore the ruckus and focus on his own affairs. If the child gets out of hand, the adult would then frown and slam his palm onto the ground in a fit of pique, leaving the child to cry alone while he goes about his own business again.
The more Lin Feng ignored the Marquis of Jinghuan, the more infuriating and unbearable it became for the arrogant self-entitled Marquis. Unfortunately, the sure-fire trick he prepared - the Ultimate Annihilation Divine Light - strangely had no effect whatsoever on Lin Feng. Now, he no longer dared to be presumptuous and could only swallow his anger, making him feel even more suffocated.
As the Heaven-Bearing Emperor began retrieving the Hundun corpse, the Marquis of Jinghuan felt his heart gashed and dripping with blood. "That's supposed to be mine!"
But he did not dare to loiter around any longer. If Lin Feng dishes his hand out again, he may be unable to escape a second time. Furthermore, he already kept his Immortal Royal Flag after dealing with the Heaven-Bearing Emperor, while the Ancient Brush Elder who was protecting Xiao Zhener had freed himself and was charging over with frightening ferocity as Xiao Yan's group watched on like tigers waiting to pounce.
The Marquis of Jinghuan severed his painting scroll and countless rays of light instantly fired out in all directions. Amidst the radiance, there were terraces and pavilions, rivers and seas, blazing suns and torrential downpours, and almost everything else under the heavens. Following the brilliant explosion, everything caught in the swirling flow of light was also blasted to smithereens, as if numerous spatial dimensions were collapsing simultaneously.
The violent outburst roared towards the Ancient Brush Elder and Xiao Yan's group, dissolving all the space into an empty void in its wake. This was almost equivalent to a single blast from someone in the Immortal Soul Third Level, laying waste everywhere in an avalanche of destruction.
The virtual space battlefield, which was already experiencing chaotic space-time fluctuations, became even more sporadic and unpredictable, completely spiralling out of control. The Marquis of Jinghuan, being inherently sinister, summoned a spell to attack Xiao Zhener who was still caught in the middle of the Thunderstorm Tribulation.
At this moment, the tumultuous tempest suddenly ceased, exposing the figure of a young lady in green robes. She sat cross-legged as her head radiated with resplendent golden light. A female infant similarly sat cross-legged, meditating in mid-air with her hands clasped together to summon a spell. The female infant then descended onto the lady's head as the lady opened her eyes, not to look at the horrifying spell flying straight for her, instead turning to gaze at Xiao Yan nearby. Her eyes, usually void of passion and desires, finally blinked with ripples of life and emotion.
She smiled brightly and muttered through her delicate lips, "Brother Xiao Yan ..."
The spell she summoned altered rapidly as a talisman shot upwards, suspended mid-air in front of her. The talisman beamed with a luminous glow as two pillars of light, one red and one blue, intertwined and spiralled forward, torpedoing straight for the fearsome spell released from the Marquis of Jinghuan's scroll.
The two great forces collided, but the dual red and blue pillars of light completely obliterated the countless rays of radiance unleashed by the Marquis of Jinghuan! The terraces and pavilions, along with millions of other images, shattered like glass tiles, being reduced to dust and waste. Her talisman also contained a terrifying spell and was similarly a one-use expendable magic item, but its power exceeded her opponent's weapon by a notch.
The Marquis of Jinghuan eyed the lady closely and let out a low grunt. Seizing the split second when Xiao Yan and the rest were blocked by the clash of spells, he flashed the Immortal Royal Flag, conjuring swirls of black light before vanishing into the space.
After noticing how the lady had the ability to neutralize the Marquis of Jinghuan's spell, the Heaven-Bearing Emperor devoted his undivided attention to collecting the Hundun corpse. As for the Marquis of Jinghuan, Lin Feng grinned and weighed the Ancient Royal Dagger with his hand then looked over the Great Golden Poleaxe snagged by Yue Hongyan, with only one message left for him: Little brat, I welcome you, I welcome you back anytime, I welcome you back to visit as often as you please.
As Lin Feng gazed at the slightly aggrieved Xiao Yan, he smiled and said, "Compared to him, there's someone else here now that matters more to you."
Upon hearing this, Xiao Yan promptly turned his head around to look at the lady in green. His throat quivered a little. "Zhener ..."
No matter how far apart they were, or how long they have been separated from each other, her figure has always lingered in Xiao Yan's mind, never once fading, instead always etching deeper in, as if engraving an indelible mark onto his soul.
Compared to the previous occasion they reunited, the lady's disposition has become more ethereal. Having just overcome the Thunderstorm Tribulation and forming her Nascent Soul, her entire body seemed to be one with the space. In front of everyone else, Xiao Zhener always put up an ice-cold front, only exposing certain sides of a child-like personality in front of Xiao Yan. She pranced elegantly towards Xiao Yan, tilting her beautiful face as her lips cracked a gentle smile.
"Brother Xiao Yan, you seem to have grown a few centimetres taller."
Xiao Yan smiled back exuberantly, "You're teasing me again."
Although Lin Feng was not present personally, he could still witness the heartwarming scene unfolding before him through the Heaven-Bearing Emperor Spell Body. He smiled, then withdrew his consciousness and placed it at the black rock in front of him. Following the Marquis of Jinghuan's departure, there was no one left to halt Shi Tianyi's advance. Even though there might still be other Grandmasters in the Advanced Nascent Soul stage around, Shi Tianyi nonetheless released brilliant rays of light in all directions, sweeping through the entire area. The Polycoria in his eyes resembled the interchanging cyclic sun and moon, exposing and piercing through all the cracks and flaws in everyone's mana and Abhijina with a single glance.
The Great Thunderclap Temple's Unmovable Nagaraja Buddha Cloak, combined with the Great Void Sect's Supreme Nine-holed Deity Treasure Manual, allowed him to attain a state of near invincibility. Even the Vanishing Spell at his feet was the Great Void Sect's Elite Vanishing Heaven-Ascending Spell. He stepped onto the space as if taking a stairway up to the heavens, which voided his opponents' ability to grasp his spells.
The intricacy of his Vanishing Spell coupled with the power of Polycoria strangely reduced his opponents' speed, making it impossible for the horde of Nascent Soul cultivators to land a hit on him no matter how hard they tried. Shi Tianyi might possess the strength to endure the combined assault of this crowd singlehandedly, but he clearly did not wish to exert so much energy nor reveal too many of his hidden tricks. Yet, it was this strategy of conserving his strength which still prevented his foes from devising an effective way of dealing with him.
Then, the light from the glowing black rock began to dim. Massive amounts of gravel and grains began exfoliating on the outermost layer of the rock and dispersing to the surroundings.
"The treasure is coming out now!"
The crowd sped up their combined assault in a desperate effort to force Shi Tianyi back, who was already the person nearest to the black rock.
Shi Tianyi slowed his movements down, fixed his gaze on the black rock and winced. He suddenly shut his right eye as the Polycoria in his left eye shone with an increasingly blinding glow. One could vaguely observe the cycles of the sun, moon and stars extinguishing as the eye blinked, as if projecting the history of the universe and documenting its evolution since ancient times.
Under the gleam of Shi Tianyi's Polycoria, all falsehood and deception seemed to have evaporated into thin air, eliminating pretence and retaining only the truth, hence exposing the true nature of everything within its vision. He stared at the black rock with his left eye, his expression as composed as ever. In a flicker of his eye, he actually cleared the path and distanced himself from the black rock. The other cultivators were slightly dumbfounded, but most of them seized the chance and pounced to the front, throwing themselves at the black rock. Only a couple of Grandmasters in the Advanced Nascent Soul stage sensed that something was amiss and stopped in their tracks, shifting their gaze back and forth between Shi Tianyi and the black rock, waiting to see what would happen next.
Suddenly, the black rock disintegrated entirely, reducing itself to a dust storm which blanketed the space as it spread into the distance in all directions. The crowd could not care less about a star fragment shattering and ceasing to exist as everyone focused their attention on the treasure emerging from the debris of the dying black star.
An ominous, demonic aura emanated from within, overwhelming the place. Towering columns of black smoke rose like a thick fog, enveloping the surroundings with this horrifying aura capable of wiping out all beings. But within the black fog, there was a flickering white light which exuded the quality of life and vitality.
As the crowd observed closely, they noticed that the white light did not originate from any sort of treasure, and was instead a young man. His luscious white hair draped behind him and flowed with the wind, radiating a certain kind of elegance yet sending chills down others' spines like a bad omen foreshadowing disaster. All the black fog and white light gradually gathered back inside the man's body. The man appeared composed, scanning the crowd calmly with a gaze that concealed his merciless intentions.
"What's going on? Why is it a human?"
"Could it be a demon? No, judging from its mana pulses, it's certainly a human. His mastery ... is in the Advanced Aurous Core stage."
The young man did not spare them a glance, and instead examined his surroundings and gazed towards the dark space in the middle of the virtual space battlefield. After a while, he let out a dissatisfied sigh but still did not speak.
After the black fog and the white light had vanished, his mana evidently became more ordinary, indicating that he was an Advanced Aurous Core cultivator who has yet to undergo the Thunderstorm Tribulation and conjure a Nascent Soul.
One of the Nascent Soul Grandmasters frowned and demanded, "No, the spiritual energy coming forth from the black rock's core certainly confirmed the presence of a magic treasure and was not the mana of a human. Young man, hand the treasure over. This is not something you can claim as your own, it will only bring you misfortune."
The man looked at him coldly, not uttering a single word, then turned behind. The crowd then realized that there was actually a miniscule black hole behind him. What was even stranger was that the black hole did not produce any massive suction forces and instead continuously distorted itself in situ. A faint beam of Treasure Light shot out from within.
"Over there!" Someone immediately lunged over and fired a series of raging waves at the young man. "Move!"
The young man seemed unfazed by the incoming attack. He remained rooted to his current position and merely lifted his hand, casually pointing at his assailant. His deep, merciless voice rumbled through the space.
"Obliterate."
In an instant, that space surrounding the reckless Beginner Immortal Soul cultivator surged with vast amounts of black gas without warning, sealing in a deathly stillness. It was as if a portion of space fused entirely with the power of destruction, creating an isolated death-trap where all matter, spiritual energy, and life were annihilated, reduced to absolute nothingness. Even the dimensions of space and time were eliminated, now ceasing to exist.
The cultivator who attacked Wang Lin vanished instantly without even making a sound.
The crowd simultaneously gasped in horror. How did an Advanced Aurous Core cultivator kill a Beginner Nascent Soul cultivator with only a single finger?
There have certainly been instances where Advanced Aurous Core cultivators manage to transcend boundaries in mastery differences to slaughter Grandmasters in the Beginner Nascent Soul stage. Although rare, these instances are still acceptable as genuine possibilities. But this young man accomplished this feat with such ease, indifference ... and heartlessness!
An Advanced Aurous Core cultivator butchered a Beginner Nascent Soul cultivator as if he was culling a chicken or a dog! He even did it with more ease than killing livestock - a point of a finger and you're already a dead man!