For the residents of the imperial palace, be they servants or masters, all feared for their life at this very moment, even the foundation establishment disciples. It was as if the ground beneath had turned into a monster and was trying to swallow them whole. In fact, it wasn't just the people in the Imperial Palace who were frightened by the calamitous quakes, but the whole imperial capital.
Age-old buildings, some even existing when the current emperor was still but a prince, were full of fractures, and those were the lucky ones. Some had already directly turned to rubble from the earthquakes, crushing their apocalypse. Corpses lay strewn about on the ground, with even more injured people bleeding out.
A crying child could be seen pushing the corpse of his parent that was crushed under rubble. Pillars of smoke could be seen emitting from unlucky places that caught on fire. It was absolute chaos. The soldiers wanted to maintain order, but they were helpless against the hordes of panicking people rushing out of the capital, away from the Imperial Palace. Some even gave into despair and prayed to the Sword Empress for salvation.
All of this was easily sensed by Immortal Starsoul, but so what. At his current cultivation realm, he and mortals could be considered two completely different races. His origin was a human, but that was already so long ago that he long cut his connection with them. In addition, it wasn't his people that were dying, so why should he care?
What made him surprised was the callousness of Tianyi's actions. He secretly nodded. Only such a cold-hearted person could go far on the path of immortality.
Immortal Starsoul directly discarded the Xi Emperor's empty shell and escaped. Tianyi's hand obliterated the Xi Emperor's body and caused it to become a meat paste.
"How cold-blooded, you destroyed your uncle's body and spiritual core." Immortal Starsoul said as he revealed his true appearance.
He wasn't a fragment of an immortal's soul as Jiang Ziya had guessed but a true immortal without any injury. When he transcended the Immortal Ascension Heavenly Tribulation, his physical body had been destroyed, but it didn't matter much to him as he was a soul cultivator. Although his body was a soul lifeform, it could still interact with physical objects. It was just that his body was weaker than the average true immortal.
"Hmpf, do you take me for an ignorant fool?" Tianyi laughed. 'Crap!'
"Emperor-Uncle's possessed a mediocre spiritual vein at best. The only reason he could enter the Core Formation Realm was due to his unique cultivation method and the resources given to him. As long as his physical body is recreated, it will only take some resources for him to return to the Core Formation Realm. He won't even have to undergo the Nascent Soul Heavenly Tribulation to return to the Nascent Soul Realm," Tianyi said, and he wasn't lying.
The Xi Emperor's spiritual core didn't rely on his spiritual veins to be formed, but the Dragon Qi of the empire. Using the people's faith, the Xi Emperor condensed a Dragon Vein Core. Depending on the amount of Dragon Qi, a Dragon Vein Core could even eclipse a violet-gold grade spiritual core.
However, the conditions to create one would be that the cultivator should be an emperor before forming his core. How many dynasties would be willing to make a foundation establishment disciple an emperor just for his potential? Powerful countries did not need to gamble on the single talent of a ruler.
Still, there was one trait that Dragon Vein Cores was universal, no matter its grade. Dragon Vein Cores could allow cultivators to have no bottlenecks until the Unity Realm. It could be said that those cores were violet-gold cores in essence but not strength.
Ridding himself of extraneous thoughts, Tianyi shifted into a martial form. How long has it been since he used martial arts? Even before he entered the Singularity Realm, his immense amount of qi was enough to sweep most of his opponents. After he became a venerable, he didn't even need to physically touch his opponents to get rid of them.
"I admit your physical prowess is astounding, even reaching the peak of Pathfinding Immortal Realm, but that's it. You don't have the skills to match your physical prowess. Even a mortal could surpass your martial skills." Immortal Starsoul said likely. He didn't train in martial arts, especially after becoming a true immortal, but he still learned how to fight martial cultivators.
"Then you can be my whetstone!" Tianyi shouted as his body blitzed towards the true immortal, and the ground shattered underneath his step.
Truthfully, Immortal Starsoul had a headache. Since the beginning, he had been bombarding Tianyi with invisible soul attacks, but there was no apparent effect at all. Logically speaking, Tianyi should be a powerful soul cultivator to defend against his attacks, so why are his physical abilities so abnormal?!
Immortal Starsoul didn't want to use his trump cards either. He already feared that Sword Empress Xi had already detected the abnormal situation, and the barrier he created was no longer useful. Many people focused on Mengfei's title as the Sword Empress, but what they didn't know was that her formation was even more powerful than her sword arts.
If he killed Tianyi, he could kiss his life goodbye. Regardless of the overall picture, Immortal Starsoul would bet that the Sword Empress would even charge into the Nihility Sect to kill him if he dared to kill Tianyi, so that was why he wanted to subjugate the young cultivator as a hostage.
Like a ghost, Immortal Starsoul shifted his body away from Tianyi's punch. The devastation from Tianyi's full-powered punch even left him a bit speechless. It was like Tianyi had the body of a martial immortal emperor but none of the control.
He really couldn't understand why Tianyi didn't use any other attacks besides physical attacks. He had done his research and knew that Tianyi had an absurd amount of qi reservoir, lightning techniques, and other abilities, but he did not use them. 'Unless he can't?'
Thinking about it logically, how can Tianyi possess such powerful strength while still a mortal without any conditions? Feeling as if he had discovered the truth, Immortal Starsoul looked at Tianyi differently. "You can only use physical attacks."
Tianyi's body trembled, but he wasn't too surprised, and his aim was still true. Immortal used that ghostly dodging technique of his again to prevent Tianyi from touching his body.
"So what?" Tianyi asked as he stared at Immortal Starsoul as if it didn't matter at all.
"You can't even use talismans or artifacts, can you?" Immortal Starsoul asked again. Since he discovered the truth, then it meant that he had a way to restrain Tianyi. The biggest weakness of brutes was that it was hard to escape imprisonment.
Immortal Starsoul took a rope from his spiritual ring, it was an immortal artifact called the Starbounding Rope, and it can be used to tie an opponent up and prevent them from using their qi while inducing their soul to slumber.
Tianyi felt his brows furrow. Truthfully, he hadn't tested his abilities to break out of bindings, a decision he was beginning to regret. He retreated far enough from Immortal Starsoul but not so far that it would seem like he was running away. He could see that the gigantic black humanoid was still fighting, so he still had to stall for time.
The two, one an immortal elder and disciple of the Buzhou Immortal Sect—although Tianyi couldn't really be considered a disciple anymore considering he was a venerable—continue to entangle with one another. Tianyi found that he couldn't close the distance between them with the Starbounding Rope threatening him, so he decided to chuck hill-sized pieces of rocks at his foe instead.
Immortal Starsoul almost cursed when he saw this. Being hit by such a gigantic rock would still hurt him. The worst part was that his artifact was a physical item, so he couldn't enter a pure soul state to phase through the rocks.
Frowning, he caused the sky to turn dark once more, and starlight descended. They didn't attack Tianyi as the Nihility Sect immortal discovered that his attack had no effect. Instead, they gathered on the ground and formed his starlight incarnations.
Tianyi, who saw this, wanted to curse. With their interruption, he couldn't find the time to delay Immortal Starsoul's main body. Left with no other choice, he could only target the starlight incarnations. Luckily, their reaction was worse than the main body, and he discovered that he could absorb the starlight the incarnation was formed from!
"What did you do?!" Immortal Starsoul yelled as he felt a slight pain in his head. Even when his incarnation was destroyed, the spiritual sense should have returned to him, but it felt like Tianyi had ripped his spiritual sense strands into pieces, damaging him.
Tianyi smirked and continued to destroy the starlight incarnations. Immortal Starsoul could only growl and control his incarnation to fly into the sky to flee. It was only then that he discovered that Tianyi couldn't fly!
He felt incredulous. Tianyi's strength was all mismatched. He had continued to fight Tianyi on the ground, thinking that it wouldn't matter even if he were in the air. Once he realized, this Immortal Starsoul started to attack Tianyi from a distance.
Tianyi was helpless. Jumping into the air would only cause him to be a bigger target. It was not that he couldn't afford to tank Immortal Starsoul's attack, but he didn't want to risk his body exploding. Plus, he couldn't control his trajectory in the air and would become a sitting duck.
Suddenly, there was the sound of something akin to a sonic boom, causing both Tianyi and Immortal Starsoul to direct their attention. Tianyi had a smile on his face, while Immortal Starsoul had an ugly expression.
"Sword Empress Xi sure dotes on you, even willing to give you such a priceless immortal boat," Immortal Starsoul said. Previously, he only thought it was a normal immortal boat, but after he saw its capabilities, he realized that the immortal boat might equal his whole net worth!
"But how do you expect to escape without it?" Immortal Starsoul asked, his tone lowering to a dangerous level.
'By running like hell,' Of course, Tianyi wouldn't outright say that, so he simply smiled.
Immortal Starsoul had an ominous premonition, so he controlled his incarnations to set up a sealing formation. He had already known that Tianyi had destroyed a sealing formation earlier, so that was why he didn't use a formation, but now, he couldn't care anymore. If Tianyi also escaped, then everything he did would be for nothing.
Tianyi's eyes narrowed as he watched the starlight incarnations turn into starlight once more and form strange inscriptions. Although his formation techniques weren't as powerful as a true immortal's, his knowledge was still there. "Want to trap me? Dream on!'
He ignored Immortal Starsoul and began to punch the ground. It was as if a meteor capable of wiping all life off a small planet had struck the land. Fissures formed, the ground became uprooted, and there was even a hint of unbearable heat at certain spots.
Seeing the suddenly changed landscape, Immortal Starsoul's eyes bugged out. Previously, Tianyi limited his inner weight so that it would cause too much damage to the land, but now, the more chaotic the land was, the better for his escape.
To Immortal Starsoul's alarm, he lost the trace of Tianyi. He had always felt that Tianyi couldn't be detected, but it would be fine as long as he didn't lose sight of him. However, reality proved him wrong. After Tianyi caused a massive environmental change, Tianyi was just like a bug hiding in the forest. He couldn't detect him at all.
Suddenly, Immortal Starsoul's expression turned extremely ugly. When it rains, it pours. He just received a transmission from Jiang Chunye that Hun Jusang lost control of the devil monarch sealed within and was going to run amok.
"You got lucky this time," Immortal Starsoul muttered. Compared to the bleak chances of finding Tianyi, it was better to save a future pillar of the Nihility Sect.
Tianyi wasn't as triumphant as the Nihility Sect elder thought he was. When leaving the imperial capital, Tianyi had to pass through the streets and see all the devastation. He knew it wasn't Immortal Starsoul who caused this.
It was him.
He plunged the imperial capital into chaos. While he was trying to save his Emperor-Uncle, he unleashed devastation onto the citizens. Tianyi felt some sense of guilt, but what caused him more anger was his inability to control the power possessed by himself. "With great powers comes great responsibility, huh? What a farce."
Due to his sulky mood, Tianyi didn't reign in his strength after he left the capital, and the land became a cragged wasteland in his wake. When he saw that there was a settlement nearby, he would control it so as not to affect them, but elsewhere, he would vent out his frustration on the poor innocent earth.
A few days later, Tianyi saw a heavenly phenomenon in the distance, a beam of light had shot out from the Buzhou Immortal Sect and descended near the Xi Dynasty. He opened his third eye and sensed that it was his mother's technique. Without a nary word, he changed his direction and ran towards where the beam of light once was.
Tianyi thought his mood could not turn even worse, but he discovered he was wrong. He thought he could receive some good news, but he only learned more bad news. Although the escape operation was successful, there was a casualty.
Xi Ri's spiritual core was shattered, and his mind was infected with an inner devil.
