1008 Taste of the Realm (III)
The pill that the Sword Empress gave him was truly magical. It did not increase his soul to the Empyrean level, thus achieving the level of strength. It did not increase the strength of his fleshly body or have some random powerful ability.
The pill was the complete packet. His soul temporarily reached that level, his fleshly body increased by at least 10 Infant Fiendgod Realm, and more importantly, his Grand Dao Source reached 70%.
The pill gave him the potential strength of the future. Wang Wei guessed this pill was precious and used by the upper dimension to allow certain people to taste the power of the advanced realm to prepare for a breakthrough.
Furthermore, it might also be used to test whether a person's Dao Heart has reached the standard of an Empyrean.
'However, I'm still not a true Empyrean,' thought Wang Wei before going on the offensive.
[Fate Annihilating Fist]
Old Man Nether's face underneath the flame changed as he felt the threat of death. Without hesitation, he responded.
[Wall of Wailing Soul]
Thousands of walls materialized before him, each made with trillions of souls full of karmic sins.
These souls replaced Old Man Nether and had their fate annihilated instead of him. With this method, he successfully blocked the attack, but his other tactic failed⌜transferring the sins of these people to his attacker.
Wang Wei secretly sneered at such a method. Old Man Nether'a Karma Dao application is the lowest level, focusing on basic things like good and evil.
So, how could he affect him?
[Karma Strangling]
As an Empyrean, how many lives has Old Man Nether killed? How many worlds has he influenced in the pursuit of his ambitions? How much cause and effect does he owe to the world?
Normally, he is a higher being in existence and does not have to worry about such a thing.
However, he was in deep trouble when confronting a being of the same level, a being that could turn his previous actions (causes) into tangible and practical attacks (effects].
Red strings appeared on his neck, hands, and lower limbs, binding and strangling him. Old Man Nether condensed a sword full of the power of Yin and Death Qi, trying to cut off the threads.
Sadly, his actions proved futile.
No, to be exact, his actions aggravated the power of the threads; in other words, the more he struggles, the more he has to bear the effects of his past actions.
"DAMN IT," he roared before his body spontaneously combusted into dark green flame before materializing a great distance away. Wang Wei frowned when he saw his thread not moving to his opponent. His eyes flashed with splendor as he instantly discovered the truth.
'Some type of death replacement,' he analyzed.
Old Man Nether chose one of his underlings to bear all his karma, essentially replacing him.
'However, that's not going to save you,' thought Wang Wei as the thread changed their target to the original owner; this time, they locked on his fate line. Old Man Nether's flaming face danced, probably indicating his mood.
[Light of the Pure and Noble]
A brilliant light manifested above the sky before condensing into two pairs of angelic wings. Old Man Nether had now changed into this weird aesthetic of evil and good, the devil and an angel, of light and darkness.
Wang Wei observed everything calmly. Unlike Christianity and other religions back on Earth, in Eastern Mythology, Hell is not only in charge of the wicked but also judges the good and pure heart. In other words, Hell is oftentimes depicted as a place that holds both Heaven and Hell based on these religions' standards, similar to Hades's Underworld, where Elysium is located for the people who were good during their lives.
Old Man Nether's technique is based on this. He gathered the position karma of trillions upon trillions of lives to bless him and wash away his karma, thus reducing the effect of the threads.
'Unfortunately, you're playing a game where you're out of your league.'
As a master of karma, how easy was it to switch between good and evil - from position to negative karma?
Swish!
Before Wang Wei could put his plan into action, his body moved out of the instinct of danger.
Sadly, he was a step too late, and half of his body was gone. Luckily, he acted swiftly and protected his soul.
'An ax?' thought Wang Wei as he saw the culprit of his accident. 'A powerful Emperor Artifact.' He groaned as he realized this could change the scale of this battle; he had just started and wanted to fight a lot longer.
'If only my Dao Will and Willpower Manifestation were much stronger.'
The pill did not help much in these two categories. His Dao Will could barely give a 5% strength boost - not Grand Dao Boost.
Meanwhile, his willpower was a lot better. With the strengthening of his flesh, he could use more of it. However, the increase was only 20% strength, with no Grand Dao boost.
'How did I not detect that thing?'
His senses were simply monstrous. He could sense changes in time, detect his own life and death, see how much his luck changes (it acts a certain way before death], and watch the strings of fate. And those are added senses to the normal one and his Divine Sense, an extension of his soul.
Yet, with all these measures, he still did not detect the ax before it almost killed him. He watched the ax disappear but still did not detect any information: it was there, then it was not.
Old Man Nether was prepared for an attack, most likely to distract him and sneak attack with the ax again.
[Living Universe Prison]
Wang Wei secretly shook his head as the universe he created swallowed Old Man Nether. His opponent had obviously not fought a good battle in a long time, so his natural reflexes were slow - even to someone who had just reached this level of power.
Inside the universe, Old Man Nether faces some trouble. He soon discovered this universe was a living creature whose sole mission seemed to imprison him. Furthermore, it was infinitely expanding in size at a massive rate.
'A brilliant technique that combines space, time, life, soul, and even sealing Dao.' He did not hide his envy as he fought against that universe.
Boom!
Wang Wei watched Old Man Nether calmly walk out of his technique. 'Huh? Way faster than I anticipated.' He swiftly knew the reason.
Empyreans had a Grandmist Wheel that granted them the power to create worlds and life as they pleased. As such, it was a wrong move on his part to try to restrain the latter with the power of space when he was a fake Empyrean without a Grandmist Wheel.
'Well, it's okay since it's a lesson to learn.' This battle aimed for him to test his opponent's strength while learning and adapting to fighting in the Empyrean Realm. He did not know the circumstances of his ascension, so it's best for him to be acclimated before in ⌜ just in case he does not have the opportunity.
According to some of the worst-case scenarios he has deduced, he might have to learn and get acclimated during life-and-death battles, which is not ideal for his personality, which often favors being prepared.
'At least I know how this ax operates,' thought Wang Wei. His guess is that the Nether Hell is a world created by Empyreans - where he has absolute control. So, Old Man Nether sent his ax into the world - which is technically a place outside of the universe, outside of normal space-time. That's why Wang Wei felt the ax appeared out of nowhere.
'He also used the seal on the Nether Hell to his advantage.' The seal made it even more challenging for Wang Wei to sense its
appearance. 'This tactic shows this guy might have been talented in combat. His current state is the result of years of inaction.
'Will this battle awaken his long-lost fighting instinct?' Such news was not in Wang Wei's best interest. He knew he could not kill Old Man Nether in this battle; his current strength was temporary, and he knew the latter should have one, if not plenty, of hidden trump cards.
So, when their real battle of life and death began, Old Man Nether might be back at his prime.
'Isn't this what I wanted? A battle that pushed me to the limit and pumped adrenaline like I was a junky who knew he would not survive the night.'
Wang Wei then focused on something else - his nearly regenerated, extremely pale other half body. The process almost took a second despite using his Life and Death Dao and his fleshly body regenerative ability. In a battle of such a scale, a second is too long.
'In the end, the pill only gave me the strength of an Empyrean; it did not also raise my [Existence] to that level.'
He could tell his injury was not completely healed, and once the pill's effect ran out, he would suffer all the consequences of the injuries in these battles.
