That familiar sword light surged into the sky, as though it sought to cleave everything before it.
Chen Kuang had once seen this very sword slash from the western reaches of the Imperial Capital, annihilating the entire Wind and Rain Tower before his eyes. A half-step Grandmaster had died under that sword as effortlessly as smoke in the wind.
And now, this sword, equally radiant, if not more so, was once again unleashed. But the enemy it faced was not some mere half-step Grandmaster... it was a force hundreds, even thousands of times stronger!
Before him, the figure of the woman stood tall. Her jet-black hair danced like a waterfall in the storm wind. Her oversized black robes flared wildly, like a butterfly on the verge of breaking free.
The sheer veil covering her face had already been shredded by the gale. Amidst the few strands of fluttering hair, a pale, coldly exquisite face emerged, like a flower blooming only for a fleeting instant.
Shen Meinan and Shen Xingzhu truly were twins, Chen Kuang couldn't help but think.
Their facial features had at least a 60% resemblance.
But Shen Meinan was still too young, her face held more of a delicate, girlish charm. Her brows and eyes were not yet fully matured, far less cold and ethereal than Shen Xingzhu's world-stunning beauty.
Anyone who had seen Shen Xingzhu's face would surely believe: if immortals existed in the world, they would look like this.
"Shh-!"
Shen Meinan's sword slashed upward from below, slicing open a gaping fissure at the tiger's mouth of the pale giant hand!
Countless Mysterious Divine Path Sect disciples had self-detonated their divine souls beneath this hand and failed to deal any true damage, only skin-deep wounds.
But this sword strike was vastly different.
The fissure at the tiger's mouth of the giant hand suddenly tore open layer by layer, its stone-like pale skin, flesh, and bones all shattered in that instant!
"Boom!"
Like a mountain collapsing, the thumb of the pale giant hand tilted backward, Shen Meinan had severed it with one sword!
In that sword, Chen Kuang vaguely sensed... the embryonic form of a Dao Domain.
She... was about to step into the Profound Realm?!
Chen Kuang was momentarily stunned. He reflexively thought this was impossible. After all, he was the one who had destroyed Shen Xingzhu's Dao heart. In theory, she should now only have one path forward: to rebuild her Dao heart, and begin cultivation anew.
That would mean willingly crippling her own cultivation, reverting to the Moon-Embracing Realm, and choosing a new path altogether.
But that was no easy feat.
After all, asking the heavens a question was not something without prerequisites, otherwise, wouldn't everyone be able to attain the Dao?
If Heaven believed your chosen path was a dead end, then no matter how you asked, it would all be for nothing.
In most cases, a cultivator could only recognize one true path for themselves.
Switching paths entirely... was an enormous challenge.
Of course, if it were Shen Xingzhu, no one would doubt her ability to succeed.
But putting aside the question of whether the person before him was even Shen Xingzhu, Chen Kuang did not believe she could have found a new path so quickly.
What's more... the aura of this Dao Domain hadn't changed at all.
Chen Kuang was full of questions.
But the moment his gaze fell upon the back of the woman before him... all doubts vanished:
The only one who would stand in front of him without hesitation was Shen Meinan.
...
"Shen Xingzhu... as expected, formidable!"
Wen Yao drew in a deep breath. On his left hand, the corresponding thumb snapped off instantly.
Though he could not see clearly who stood before him, he could feel, this sword strike carried a will he was all too familiar with.
No one but Shen Xingzhu could wield such a sword!
To be called the "Dao Marker" by the Confucian Master, she truly lived up to that name.
Still just a Master Realm cultivator, not even fully into the Profound Realm, and yet she could wound the flesh of a Celestial Vastness Realm entity?
Such talent was already beyond imagination.
If it were the Wen Yao of the past, he would've likely sighed in admiration, as if looking up at a celestial being.
But now, he was walking the Path of "Only Me."
He could not allow himself a single trace of inferiority, that would be to sever his own Dao.
His awe passed in a fleeting moment. Wen Yao then sneered coldly:
"Unfortunately... after today, there shall be only one 'Dao Marker' in Cangyuan, me!"
He looked over the battlefield, riddled with the dead and dying.
"The Mysterious Divine Path Sect, just like this Ancient Battlefield of Meditation, shall be reduced to ruin, nothing but dust scattered in the wind!"
He drew in a deep breath, and his raised hands once again closed together.
"Rumble..."
The two massive pale hands mirrored his movements and came together in a crushing motion.
Across both hands, intricate crimson patterns began to glow, covering the entire arms. A wild, ancient aura surged forth and suppressed the entire battlefield!
All surviving cultivators were, in that instant, forced to their knees by this primordial pressure.
Anyone who dared resist was instantly crushed into gore!
The rest could not even lift their heads. Trembling, they knelt, unable to control the growing terror in their hearts.
It felt like... a terror engraved in their bloodlines!
As that ancient aura erupted, the massive hands clapped together.
Shen Meinan's surging sword energy was shattered on contact!
"Pfft!"
Blood spurted from her lips. Her face turned ghostly pale. Her body flew backward like a kite with its string severed, caught by Chen Kuang.
The moment Chen Kuang touched her back, he felt an overwhelming force flood through his fingers, up his arms, and into his entire body!
The power was far beyond what he could bear. Even with the Moon-Clad Kasaya, which granted him near-limitless Spiritual Energy, he felt his arm fracture from fingertip to shoulder. Flesh and bone were crushed into pulp.
At the same time, the passive effect of Flesh Reishi activated, healing his body in real-time, desperately contending with that overwhelming power.
But it wasn't enough.
That force was simply too immense. Chen Kuang couldn't stop himself from being pushed backward.
He was about to crash into the other pale hand from behind!
The gap between the two giant palms was shrinking rapidly, soon to be no wider than Sky-Slit Gorge.
If he was trapped between them now... it would be certain death!
Chen Kuang pressed both palms against Shen Meinan's back, closed his eyes, and suddenly snapped them open.
Four pupils burst into golden light:
Heavenly Demon Mimicry: Dual-Pupil Ancestral Invocation!
As long as someone had used an ability on him before, he could instantly replicate it!
Even something like the dual-pupil divine ability!
Bloodline... Reversion!
In that instant, it was as though Chen Kuang hurled himself into the roaring wheel of samsara.
His consciousness leapt through countless lifetimes, in some he was a peddler, in others a prince. Sometimes a craftsman, a fisherman, a man, a woman, a cultivator... or just a mortal.
From his bloodline, a towering tree sprouted, and Chen Kuang traversed each of its branches, finding every ancestor's identity.
Unfortunately...
The furthest he could trace was to an ancestor at the Master Realm, and even then, only a distant, itinerant cultivator.
Expected, really. If his ancestors had truly possessed great power, it would be hard for their descendants to have fallen to such mundane lives.
Take Wen Yao, for example, his lineage boasted a Celestial Vastness Realm ancestor. To this day, Wen Yao still stood at the peak of a pavilion.
But even this was enough for now.
Golden light blazed in Chen Kuang's eyes. With a wave of his hand, a robed phantom descended upon him, an ancestor clad in azure.
Master Realm cultivation flooded into him in an instant.
His Spiritual Energy surged!
A white lotus bloomed on his forehead and thirteen petals fully unfurled, Thirteenfold Force!
Originally, Chen Kuang could at most stack sevenfold force, but after summoning this physical-cultivation ancestor, combined with the passive effect of Martial Prodigy, his understanding of Descent from Tusita Heaven suddenly leapt to a whole new height.
He had actually broken through, from sevenfold all the way to thirteenfold!
"As I thought, the upper limit of 'Descent from Tusita Heaven' is far beyond what I'd previously imagined!"
Chen Kuang drew in a deep breath, wrapped an arm around Shen Meinan's waist, and bellowed:
"GO!"
With a sudden pivot, he stomped hard onto the pale giant hand!
"Crack! Crack!"
The clash of two titanic forces made his entire body emit the sound of bones fracturing, and yet that hand was also left with deep cracks!
Had it been anyone else, they would have been killed instantly by the impact.
But in this moment, Chen Kuang finally invoked the Fifth Form, the one he had only comprehended once and could never previously sustain:
"Vajra Bodhi!"
Indestructible, Immutable!
Unlike his prior fleeting epiphany, this time, behind him appeared a faint Buddhist radiance, lending an aura of solemn majesty to his furious expression, as though he were a true Vajra Guardian incarnate.
His legs bent like springs, and in the next moment, he erupted with all the power in his body. Using the rebound force, he launched forward with one foot-
"BOOOOM-!!!!"
Clutching Shen Meinan, he shot forward like an arrow released from a divine bow, moving faster than the eye could follow, like instantaneous movement, bursting out of the prison formed by the clapping of those two pale hands.
Behind him...
"RUMBLE!!"
The surface of the giant hand had been stomped so hard that it was left with a webbed crater over a hundred zhang wide!
Wen Yao's right palm suddenly exploded at the center. Blood sprayed into the air.
His pupils contracted. His face twisted in disbelief.
"How is this possible..."
What shocked him wasn't that someone had managed to wound the "Canliao" body of the Ancestral God again,
It was that he had just sensed... the aura of another dual-pupiled individual!
In any era, only one person could possess dual pupils, and that person was the one destined by the heavens to achieve Sainthood.
That was always how it had been believed.
But now, a second one had appeared?!
The "Only Me" Path demanded uniqueness.
Wen Yao's greatest source of confidence was his supposedly unique dual-pupiled physique!
And now, that confidence was shaken.
"A second one...?! How can there be a second one?!"
In an instant, his cultivation, once ascending steadily and rapidly, was abruptly halted.
The Dao Domain that had just begun to form collapsed violently, his realm falling back to the peak of the Master Realm, and still declining!
Wen Yao's face turned a livid shade. His killing intent surged once again.
"If I don't kill this second dual-pupiled bastard... My 'Only Me' Dao can never be achieved!"
I must kill him!
Before his eyes was still the illusion of ancient times.
But thankfully, his enemy was now right in front of him, he no longer needed to search.
In reality, the whites of Wen Yao's eyes had become densely veined with blood, crawling like twisted roots, it was grotesque to behold.
His forehead was likewise bulging with pulsing veins.
The power of Dual-Pupil Ancestral Summoning was taking a massive toll, especially as this was his second summoning using a proxy, a shortcut, really.
If he had succeeded in achieving the Dao just now, his surge in power could have allowed him to sustain the summoning longer.
That had been Wen Yao's original plan.
But now that his Dao Foundation was crumbling, the duration of Ancestral Summoning was drastically shortened.
He had to act, now.
A ruthless gleam flashed through his eyes.
He suddenly bit the tip of his tongue, forcing out a mouthful of essence blood imbued with bloodline power, and spat it onto his own hands.
Instantly, the same ancient barbaric patterns surfaced along both arms. His skin turned ghostly pale.
The injuries on his hands... healed in an instant!
The severed thumb regrew. The crater in his palm sealed shut.
Wen Yao staggered unsteadily, his footing unsteady. Using essence blood to enhance the fusion of Ancestral Summoning damaged his very roots, but he didn't care.
---
Meanwhile, Yan Hui, who had been hiding in ambush, narrowed his eyes as he watched from the rear and let out a cold smile.
The Ancestral God might be invincible...
But Wen Yao himself was only at the pinnacle of the Master Realm!
Among their generation, apart from Shen Xingzhu, Yan Hui had never lost to anyone.
Now, with the snipe and clam locked in battle, it was the perfect time for the fisherman to take the prize.
Yan Hui let his arms fall. The golden rings around his wrists buzzed, spinning rapidly as they gathered power, before transforming into a shadowy blur and shooting forward!
"Whoosh——"
....
Chen Kuang, still holding Shen Meinan, had just stabilized his posture. He began using the Pearl-Wielding Serpent Transformation to heal their injuries, when he saw the two pale hands once again regenerate into their original form.
His heart sank further.
Jiang Yunqing flew up beside him and said, "You two go. I'll hold them off."
Shen Meinan wiped the blood from the corner of her lips, gave Chen Kuang a look, and firmly declared:
"You alone won't be enough. At most, only one of us can make it out of here today. I'll stay behind too."
Jiang Yunqing nodded.
"Brother Chen, your strength is exceptional. You're the most likely among us to survive this."
What had just happened, Jiang Yunqing saw it all. He knew he couldn't have done the same.
Moreover, Chen Kuang's strange and terrifying recovery ability was a powerful asset.
Chen Kuang was about to speak, when suddenly, a furious roar came from Wen Yao's direction:
"Yan Hui! You deserve death!!!"
The three of them turned their heads at once.
What they saw left them stunned:
Two gaping holes had appeared in Wen Yao's chest and abdomen!
One of them was right where the heart should be!
They could clearly see the heart had been smashed, blood gushed out like a fountain.
And yet, Wen Yao hadn't died!
His eyes were blood-red, and his golden dual pupils burned with blazing brilliance. He turned his head sharply to glare at the red-clad youth who had just revealed himself:
"Those who stand in my way... shall be slain without mercy!"
With a sweep of his arm, one of the pale giant hands withdrew from the void and slammed down toward Yan Hui, grabbing him in a single motion!
Yan Hui's face went deathly pale. He struggled with all his might, but it was in vain.
The void from which the hand extended began to expand rapidly.
The pale hand dragged him into the Void of Cataclysm and Tribulation, the "Mijie Space."
Chen Kuang's heart stirred.
This was... the Dao Domain of Time and Space!
Not long ago, he had witnessed a sword from Huo Hengxuan that also carried the power of time and space.
This was the same force!
"To disrupt the symphony of myriad phenomena... one must first strum its strings."
How do you strum the strings of all things?
"Go with the flow, find the same frequency..."
Chen Kuang murmured, then closed his eyes.
He summoned his Killing Sword.
Unlike Huo Hengxuan, he didn't have the realm to wield an invisible sword superior to a real one.
So he raised the physical sword high above his head.
At that moment, a mysterious Dao aura appeared around him.
Jiang Yunqing and Shen Meinan were both stunned.
"That's... Dao Resonance?! Whose Dao has he comprehended?!"
Chen Kuang's sword slowly descended, cleaving toward the heavens, toward the earth..
And toward the massive hand about to return to the void.
He declared:
"Sever!"