Everyone present felt the world rules shift. An invisible chain connected around each person. Spiritual aura carried blue light cascaded from me, washing over them all before they could react. It is the truth ability formed from dao merging.
As many of them fell to ground under the sudden lose of their immense strength, reeling in confusion, I tossed the old man into the crater he had created earlier. Nie Li followed with a flick of my wrist, landing hard on the broken earth.
The rules were simple. No cultivation. No artifacts. Just flesh, bone, and will. Being within my scope, I made sure of it before them entering. " I can't help you from now on."
The old madman coughed blood as I threw him down. His spine twisted when he hit the earth, but he laughed anyway.
"Good. Good. No tricks. Better follow your own words. Watch me kill him with my own hands." May be because I used the same technique I used in imprisoning him earlier was applied and the fact that a fair fight is needed for inheritance, the old man felt a bit of truth to my word and felt he had a chance.
Nie Li stood frozen near the edge looking at his body which felt so weak that he momentarily lost balance. There is no power of body refinement, demon blood sacrifice, heavenly energy or access to his soul realm even.
For all his power, all his schemes and reincarnations, this was different. He didn't know what I had done, but he felt as if he was back to when he started cultivation. The strength was nonexistent. What kind of divine technique could remove inherent strength with just words?
Nie Li said nothing. Focusing back on his opponent, he stepped forward. But before the fight, he asked the obvious question: Have he killed inheritors before? Old man looked at him for a moment, before shortly explaining how he killed his brother and searching in ancestral lands.
" Enough talk" He soon lunged immediately after Nie Li.
The first strike was brutal. No technique, no finesse ~ just raw, desperate violence. The old man's fist cracked against Nie Li's jaw. Nie Li retaliated with an elbow to the throat.
They fought like wild demon beasts without spiritual intelligence.
Blood splattered the dirt. Bones cracked. The old man bit, clawed, snarled. Nie Li grappled, twisted, struck. Every wound felt mortal. Every breath brought agony.
The sound was wet. Both fighters staggered ~ not from surprise, but because real pain humbles everyone.
The old man suffered most. Without cultivation an old man is not just old, he is weak. His gifted physique and bloodline power lost their value along with his cultivation. The look of betrayal on his face showed his confusion at his own weakness. He thought, he could have an easy upper-hand that's why he resort to play around first. He did and he found out.
Knees cracked into ribs. Teeth broke.
The old man gouged with his fingers, biting and grunting with animal fury. Nie Li slammed an elbow into his temple, but the old bastard didn't fall. Instead, he bit into Nie Li's wrist, tearing skin.
Blood stained the sand as their once clumsy movements grew more refined, old techniques resurfacing as muscle memory.
Watching in horror, Ye Ziyun and Xiao Ning pleaded with me to stop the technique. "Why are you putting them through this?" they demanded.
( I have it under control ) I replied telepathically, calming them. ( He still has his job to do, if he get killed, it will fell on me. So he shouldn't die. It may appear brutal but on the other hand, without me, old man would have no issue murdering everyone here just to get him. Anyway this will massively compensate for his luck if everything goes as planned.) My silent response not only reassured them but also revealed that I was not truly confined to talk to them telepathically.
Seeing that I remained silent, others misunderstood my lack of a verbal response. "Stop this!" Yu Yan shouted, her voice ringing out across the Qi barrier.
***
It looked like a slaughter ritual. Nie Li's friends rushed toward me or bumped against the barrier, but they were also affected by the strength equalization. They could only watch helplessly through the qi barrier, pounding against it uselessly. The seal held firm.
The fight raged on.
The Equalization Maxim held true. It cared not who was stronger in spirit, only destiny. Here, everyone bled the same red.
Time passed. A minute? An hour? It didn't matter.
Finally, with eyes full of mud, one man lay broken. The other stood barely upright ~ shoulders heaving, ribs shifting wrong under skin, eyes unfocused.
Nie Li had won.
He kicked the old man over. "I won."
"This is not a competition but a life and death duel. If I unlock your abilities, he will recover." I tossed an ordinary weapon to the ground from my storage space.
Nie Li took the knife and approached the old man, who was now too weak to move. Old man was planning one last desperate move. Nie Li had already seen him grabbing at the mud.
The old man lunged with the mud ~ trying to twist, to strike one final time.
But Nie Li had already turned, sat on his chest, and drove the dagger through his eye.
The old man screamed once. " This...isn't what ...suppose to .." Between his ragged breath, final words spill out but without completion. Five seconds later, his limbs went slack.
His spirit began dissipating. Reduced to mortal essence, it started drifting away.
I lifted the Equalization Seal. The nature of the spiritual suppression changed. The curse chains broke, and the barrier dissolved.
Power surged back into Nie Li and everyone alive like a flood. He healed his mortal wounds in meditation.
Aftermath
Then something unexpected happened.
Kong Ming's Will flared from within him. Deep intent surfaced. The pit turned gold.
From the old man's corpse and departing spirit, motes of light rose ~ his inheritance. They were drawn into Nie Li. His realm shuddered, then broke upward. First Layer Martial Master. Second. Third. Fourth. Fifth Layer Martial Master Realm.
In seconds, he had ascended five stages. Not by stealing power, but by earning it through fair combat. He remained in meditation, absorbing new understanding from the infinity maxim.
"Interesting," I muttered, observing the transformation. "Kong Ming's inheritance recognizes legitimate victory. As I planned, the chaotic fate of his became a lot more stable. At-least I won't have to baby sit him anymore." With the part of true power unleashed I could see how the present builds up-to the future events shorty.
Half a day passed before Nie Li stood up slowly, testing his new strength. The wounds were gone, but exhaustion remained in his eyes. His friends had already helped him move to building nearby from the pit, checking for injuries even though they could see he had healed completely.
"Did you know I was going to win?" He asked me, as he got back to his feet. " Is that what you called a little difficult?" He followed, with some anger.
"The fairness of the test for Kong Ming's inheritance lay in the perception of the inheritors. The technique, nor its creator, is omniscient. I just had to make it appear so. But you won nonetheless, without my help. You were never in any real danger if you were asking me that."
Nie Li remained silent for a moment and then sighed.
"What kind of secret technique is that? Where did you learn it?"
"That's my secret. It's a secret technique for a reason."
" Are you really in martial Ancestor realm? Cause, the principles I sensed where definitely not present in that realm's power."
" Oh..yeah unless you believe the kid you grew up with is actually reached even greater realm within the same time span as you?"
" ... "
Yu Yan flew over to me, and tried to pull my hair in her small form. "It was brutal and reckless. What were you thinking?"
Looking at the rest of the faces that mirrored similar opinions, I asked them, "If I wasn't here, would he be alive? The rest of you would be just fodder for him. Can't you see the benefits Nie Li gained? Why the sour faces?"
Xiao Ning raised the next question. "Anyway, what happens now? Will Kong Ming himself come looking for you?"
Nie Li shook his head. "The old man was bluffing about that. He might not be the second to last heir. Void Emperor divined five heirs scattered across different realms. The definition of heir is loose as he allowed anyone to comprehend. Only with right amount of comprehension it can enter the level of classification.
He expects us to eliminate each other until only the strongest remains. This was always meant to happen. That mad man said he killed his brother and another. I killed a remnant soul inheritor before in the Trial tower at Nether Lord's trial. Either he lied halfway or counting these three and myself, there is still more left as you can see. There is no emperor coming to visit by now."
Later, the crowd separated. Nie Li asked me whether I could use the technique against a major realm apart, seeing its efficacy. I simply told him it doesn't work that way and went to meet with Ye Ziyun and her family.
I had to endure the small talk there with her family and Ye Zhong's threats to treat her properly, along with discussions about her engagement. Why do all the women here have to do these ceremonies anyway? I gifted them some cultivation treasures and combat techniques suited for them as gifts.
A day passed.
Treasures
Nie Li went with Yu Yan, when I told him, I sensed Zhu Long attacking Nether Lord.
Meanwhile, I went to look for treasures with Ye Ziyun and Xiao Ning. The spirits within the divine phoenix armor recognized Xiao Ning's wind and thunder attribute soul. Ye Ziyun obtained a snow spirit pearl helpful for her cultivation. They knew its activation from knowledge in the temporal demon spirit book.
I thought I wouldn't get any treasure by direct retrieval without using force to make it recognize me. But miraculously, after three rejections from three distinct weapons, I obtained recognition of a divine sword as soon as I touched it. It was a soul weapon capable of transforming into myriad forms. The moment its spirit assimilated with my soul force, I gained complete control over it. It was nurtured within, and its power grew increasingly higher but not upto the mark of weapon usable for my true cultivation either.
The name was Myriad Transformation Globe. Its primary form was that of a sphere. Sword, spear, knuckles, arrow ~ everything was among its transformations. It was the second divine treasure I obtained, the first being the Ring World, obtained many years ago.
While others assisted Glory City people in moving and relocating back to Divine Feather Sect controlled areas, Nie Li and Yu Yan returned with the Temporal Demon Spirit Book. Others left were then informed of treasure locations and each obtained one.
He was in good spirits explaining the function of the temporal demon spirit book. "I can only take ten of you at once. It has that limitation," he said, looking at us.
I thought he would be petty about me sacking Ziyun to myself still, but after I saved him from certain death, now two times, he became surprisingly lenient.
Cultivation
Xiao Ning and I remained outside while others went inside to cultivate. One day could be extended to about a century inside the small worlds contained within. By midday, Ye Ziyun and Yu Yan advanced to third realm martial master and let others enter. When I entered, it was the same array of books as when I first entered, but I found that under Nie Li's control the time space acceleration became slower and slower to a halt the moment I entered.
I let the innate resistance of my true God realm lower down and the time flow rate increased. Entering the small world, as a test first I only absorbed heavenly energy from myriad miles directly to my soul realm and cultivated. Half a year of pure cultivation advanced me to 4th stage martial master.
Next I consumed divine fruits directly refining from my dantian world, and my cultivation reached 5th stage within the next few months.
Each martial ancestor realm transformation gives a soul an overall transformation. My yang soul lost its distinct purple aura and condensed into what was more like a whitish glow. I have definitely crossed the saint soul realm in actuality, but the transformation was infinitely closer to taking the next major step but the soul didn't completely develop in the direction of transformation as in Source World. Ever since the fate soul initially condensed soul essence to 10,000 times, every major cultivation step had nearly the same strength augmentation.
After the ten fate souls condensed together in dao of dragon realm, the ten-fold increase in overall strength of soul was distributed evenly.
Now in martial master, the soul with such capacity was revised every sub step. That was the reason why the essence within myriad miles map was exhausting after two cultivation steps ~ because it was equivalent to 100,000 martial ancestor realms cultivating within advancing a minor realm. I recreated the heavenly energy well within, three more times.
On combining both; Using both myriad miles heavenly energy and essence of numerous divine phaseless fruits, my cultivation advanced to 6th stage of transformation within the next few months. The scope of creation energy reached 37 miles. The internal world has expanded from the initial 25 million miles to 40 million miles after all the accumulations till now added together including the Sanskrit wall formed.
The life essence condensation in physique copied from Yu Yan very earlier on, have already merged with the soul stars when it first formed. Now they are also sucking up the complete 100000 universe law energies I learned from apotheosis world like a sponge in response to nearing the deity realm. The name for the universe laws here are great dao laws.
The heavenly principles associated with the cultivation steps were baby steps to those in the Apotheosis world, so there wasn't anything like lack of understanding or difficulty in breakthrough.
I just need energy or means for transformations. For me, a very long time had passed, but outside only half a day had passed. When I returned outside, I saw Ye Ziyun, and sensing my aura, she exclaimed.
"You went three stages inside? How long did you remain?"
"Less than an year and half."
The temporal flow is a lot slower in Nie Li's hands who has a fraction of space time understanding and cultivation also low. So it is not accurately a century to a day level yet.
The cultivation speed was indeed extraordinary, but given my soul's capacity and the resources available, within the temporal space it was achievable. The others who had cultivated inside had also made significant progress, though not quite at the same pace.
Nie Li emerged from the book looking refreshed and considerably stronger at 6th realm.
"This changes everything," Nie Li said, examining his new strength. "With this kind of cultivation speed, we might actually stand a chance against the Sage Emperor."
Yu Yan nodded in agreement. "The time acceleration is incredible. We could train for decades while only hours pass in the real world."
On my side, both girls were examining their treasures. Xiao Ning tested her new armor's abilities. "The phoenix spirits armor is responding well. I can feel their power flowing through the armor."
"And the snow spirit pearl is perfect for my ice techniques," Ye Ziyun added, holding up the crystalline treasure. "It amplifies cold energy remarkably." They both tested the artifacts in the temporal chamber.
***
"We should return to Divine Feather Sect," Nie Li suggested. "There's still much to prepare before the confrontation, especially with demon God Sect. And we have indeed collected as much divine weapons as possible by recognition."
" There are many subsidiary human realms within here, have you arranged for them?" I asked.
" Yeah I visited some like Huyun realm, and who ever was willing, I brought them to divine feather sect affiliated areas, considering that you can't main the shielding for long after we leave. That Zhu Long indeed tried to kill many realms, but ultimately he couldn't because of the restrictions. He was only peak heavenly fate realm, without my presence Nether Lord could have killed him themselves if cornered. "