Chapter 261: Emperor Soulfish Appears
Tianyi sighed and stored the Immortal Confining Sword back into his spatial ring. After talking with Mengfei, he left Heaven, Earth, Man Trinity Palace and returned to the Buzhou Immortal Sect.
Back in the sect, Tianyi arrived at Jade Peak and met Ming Xingyun. Thanks to regaining the ability to use qi again, Tianyi had been able to sync his memories with his clones, allowing him to know almost everything that happened.
“Master, look, look, I mastered the Sea Splitter Ax portion of the Sky Splitting Ax Art!” Ming Xingyun said as she hopped around Tianyi.
“Oh really? Show me then,” Tianyi said to his disciple. Since ten years had already passed during his Immortal Ascension Heavenly Tribulation, Ming Xingyun was already over seventeen, but she still appeared to be a preteen.
With each swing of her ax, the air split and turned into a sea of wind that buffeted the surrounding. As the demonstration continued, Ming Xingyun’s move left gashes on the ground, her ax head not touching it at all.
“How’s this, Master?” Ming Xingyun asked with eyes shining.
Tianyi nodded. “Not bad.”
“Yay!” Ming Xingyun jumped into the air with jubilance.
“I’m not done yet,” Tianyi said, causing Ming Xingyun’s smile to freeze on her face. “You still have the same problem as before. You’re only able to store a portion of power behind the swing in the axe. You should aim to be able to swing it at full strength without disturbing the air until the moment of contact.”
Ming Xingyun immediately turned crestfallen at Tianyi’s words, causing Tianyi to be helpless. “Xingyun, you aren’t a child anymore. You have to be able to take criticism to improve.”
“But I’m obviously still a child. Didn’t Master say age is just a number and you are only as old as you feel?”
Tianyi’s lips twitched. He rubbed Ming Xingyun’s head and directed the topic. “No matter who it is, no one can be a child forever. I worry for you. If you do not mature, you might face trouble in the future.”
“It won’t be a problem since I have Master to protect me,” Ming Xingyun immediately said, causing Tianyi to smile.
“Some things you have to rely on yourself,” Tianyi lightly said as he stared off into the distance. His eyes became cloudy as he recounted the conversation between himself and Mengfei, and he started to frown.
“Master?”
Tianyi snapped out of his thoughts and removed his hand from Ming Xingyun’s head. “Anyways, you’re already at the peak of the Body Transformation Realm and entered the Foundation Establishment Realm, are you ready to undergo the Acupoint Opening Heavenly Tribulation?”
“Yes!” Ming Xingyun nodded with confidence.
“Alright, Master will protect you while you transcend your heavenly tribulation,” Tianyi said.
A month later, Ming Xingyun underwent her Acupoint Opening Heavenly Tribulation. Unlike Tianyi’s or Daoyi’s heavenly tribulation, few people came. One, Ming Xingyun wasn’t Mengfei’s disciple, and two, the Buzhou Immortal Sect currently was in wartime.
The location Ming Xingyun chose to undergo her heavenly tribulation was the peak of a nameless mountain, comparatively small to Jade Peak and similar locations. But, thanks to its relatively small size, Ming Xingyun was able to form a formation that covered the whole mountain, known as the Man Mountain Unity Formation.
For the first half of the Acupoint Opening Heavenly Tribulation, Ming Xingyun used her fleshly body to endure the tribulation lightning. Only when during the second half did she activate the formation. Once activated, Ming Xingyun seemed to have become one with the mountain.
Thanks to her Condensed Mountain Physique, the Man Mountain Unity Formation was practically made for her. The mountain shared a large portion of the burden from the heavenly tribulation, allowing her to successfully transcend her Acupoint Opening Heavenly Tribulation.
Not only that, using the whole mountain as a material, Ming Xingyun absorbed it and formed the True Mountain Martial Body. As long as she absorbed more spiritual mountains, she would be able to upgrade her martial body.
Tianyi didn’t have any mountains on hand to gift to Ming Xingyun, but with his abilities, he just needed to uproot some mountains from the enemy sect for Ming Xingyun. However, he didn’t and waited inside the sect.
While he waited, the Buzhou Immortal Sect’s war efforts increased, and just as it seemed that they would eliminate the Anti-Heaven and Tripartite Alliance, a third party entered the fray, Emperor Soulfish.
The snowballing advantage that the Buzhou Immortal Sect had accumulated disappeared, tipping the balance in the rebel factions’ favor. Grand Elder Zhang had suffered a grievous injury and would need years to recuperate. The sect’s third grand elder, the Concealed Emperor, could not leave the sect, so Mengfei could not deal with Emperor Soulfish thanks to the Cloud Goddess.
Without Mengfei’s intervention, Emperor Soulfish ran rampant. The Buzhou Immortal Sect also had soul immortal monarchs but no soul immortal emperors. Because of this, the sect had no choice but to make up with numbers, even though numbers were usually useless against soul cultivators.
Still, they didn’t just send numbers but brought out their trump cards, half-emperor war formations.
Tianyi was also given a mandatory order to lead one of the war formations. Usually, only immortal monarchs were given the responsibility of controlling a war formation, but with Tianyi’s mastery of the Law of Mass, he barely met the requirements.
Half a year later, Tianyi and half the sect’s immortal monarchs stepped onto a flying warship and made way for the Cloud Goddess Cult. Between the two factions, using numbers against the Anti-Heaven Alliance was more suitable. Not only that, once the sect got rid of the Cloud Goddess, then what was an Emperor Soulfish worth in front of the Sword Sovereign?
While the main assault force made its way toward the Cloud Goddess Cult, the Buzhou Immortal Sect ordered all available members to attack strategic locations to divert the two alliance’s attention, divide and conquer.
Heading the operation was Sect Master Xia. Also on board were the head elders of the six main halls of the sect, including War Hall Head Elder Huang Feihong and Assignment Hall Head Elder Brightwing.
“Tianyi, are you ready?” Sect Master Xia asked.
“Yes,” was Tianyi’s curt reply.
Sect Master Xia nodded and then ordered. “Everyone, Grand Elder Xi will take care of the Cloud Goddess. During this time, you must break the Cloud Goddess Cult’s guardian formation as soon as possible and destroy their shrine. Once the shrine is destroyed, the amount of faith the Cloud Goddess can receive will be dramatically lessened, allowing Grand Elder Xi to defeat and kill her. Once she is defeated, the Anti-Heaven Alliance will soon be finished. After that, the Buzhou Immortal Sect will deal with the traitorous Jade Cauldron, Nihility, and Leakless Sect, unifying the continent and becoming its sole overlord!”
The participating immortal roared in approval.
“Down with the Cloud Goddess Cult and the Anti-Heaven Alliance.”
“They are worthy of death, but those traitorous bastards are even worse!”
“Down with those traitorous bastards!”
“We treated them so well, yet they dare to bare their fangs against us!”
“Those Leakless Sect bastards aren’t much better. If it weren’t for us, do they think they could have become a first-rate force?”
High on morale, Sect Master Xia commanded, “Form the formations!”
Tianyi flew out from within the flying warship. Behind him followed one hundred twenty-eight immortals, twelve thousand and nine hundred venerables, and one hundred twenty-nine thousand grandmasters.
“Activate the Jadelight Emperor War Formation!” Tianyi ordered, and the immortals, venerables, and grandmasters flew to the predetermined place. Immediately after, a colossal giant over a thousand meters tall appeared.
The giant exuded a brilliant pure white light, gentle yet noble. The giant’s face perfectly mirrored Tianyi, except it had white skin, white hair, and white imperial robes.
Inside, Tianyi felt his vision change and adjust to the war formation. Tianyi raised his hand and grasped and clenched the war formation’s hand, feeling the bursting power. He could feel that the war formation’s qi was not one whit inferior to his immortal qi of primordial chaos and, in some aspect, surpassed it.
When a mortal cultivator entered the immortal realm, their qi would transform from true qi to immortal qi, and their spiritual sense would transform into immortal sense. However, their immortal qi could be further upgraded.
The source of a true immortal’s qi came from their Daoseed. Once the Daoseed sprouted into a Daotree, the amount of immortal qi would also increase, but that wasn’t the most important part. An immortal monarch must comprehend enough of the five elemental concepts to nurture their Daotree. They didn’t need to master the Law of Fire completely; just fifty percent was enough, and so on.
When the Daotree has been nurtured by the elemental concepts, it would also introduce one of the five element qis. This didn’t mean the immortal qi would change its attribute or anything, but its power would increase.
The energy of an immortal monarch that mastered one of the five elements would be twice as powerful as one that hadn’t, and one who mastered two of the elemental laws would be twice as powerful as one who only mastered one. That meant that a peak immortal monarch was over thirty times more powerful than a new immortal monarch.
Of course, the power of immortal qi wasn’t the determinant of an immortal monarch’s strength but the laws they practiced as well.
Even Tianyi didn’t have much confidence to say that his immortal qi was as powerful. He had already mastered the required elemental laws, so once he entered the Seamless Immortal Realm, he could very likely enter the late Seamless Immortal Realm.
However, now wasn’t the time to ponder such matters. Tianyi’s war formation looked up from its hand and started to walk towards the Cloud Goddess Cult’s headquarters. Once the war formations had appeared, the Cloud Goddess Cult had already deployed their barrier formations.
Tianyi saw an armored war formation, the Three-Eyed Emperor Formation, strike the barrier with its weapon, a three-pointed spear. The barrier rippled under the attack didn’t break.
Another war formation Tianyi recognized as the Heavenly Maiden Empress War Formation delivered different colored saber lights against the barrier, but it still stood strong.
“Elder Xi, we should take action too,” At one of the immortals’ reminder, Tianyi no longer paid attention to the others.
The Jadelight Emperor War Formation raised its palm towards the Cloud Goddess Cult barriers, and a black sphere emerged in its palm. Like a breeze, the black hole floated over, and upon contact with the barrier, the black hole began to enlarge. The larger it grew, the more space seemed to distort around it, including the barrier formation.
Tianyi frowned. He had tried to cause the black hole to phase through the barrier, but it seemed that the Cloud Goddess Cult’s formation had anti-spatial measures in place. Logically thinking about it, what sect wouldn’t have it? If they didn’t, wouldn’t it mean anyone who mastered the Law of Space could enter and leave as they please?
More black holes appeared in the Jadelight Emperor War Formation’s hand and floated towards the barriers. Combined with the assault of over ten half-emperor war formations, the first barrier shattered. Before Tianyi and the others could be happy, they looked up to see clouds gathering above, and at the center was a divinely beautiful woman.
“You’re opponent is me.” With a sword, Mengfei sliced through the gathering clouds and engaged in combat with the Cloud Goddess.
Tianyi averted his eyes and resumed attacking the Cloud Goddess Cult’s defensive barriers. Not long after, several monarch-level war formations also appeared, but in front of the half-emperor war formations, they were easily suppressed or destroyed. Even the Anti-Heaven Alliance’s immortal monarchs were hard-pressed under the Buzhou Immortal Sect’s full-out assault.
When the final barrier broke, Tianyi immediately unleashed his Planetary Purgatory attack. He couldn’t combine it with his Chaos Refining Formation because the Jadelight Emperor War Formation couldn’t sustain it, and its qi didn’t have the suitable characteristic.
Tianyi wanted to rip up the very core of the Cloud Goddess Cult’s headquarters, but his actions brought attention to him. Before he could complete his objective, all of them focused their attacks on him, forcing him to stop.
The Jadelight Emperor War Formation raised the power of his techniques, but it also removed the advantage of his seemingly-limitless qi and defensive properties of his body.
Still, since most of the attention was on him, this meant that the other war formations could focus on destroying the Cloud Goddess Shrine.
Tianyi unleashed several black holes, and they dragged down the Anti-Heaven Alliance’s immortal monarchs and war formations. Thanks to mastering the Law of Mass, his black hole technique had dramatically increased in power, bending spacetime as well.
Once the black holes could no longer attract and super-compress matter, they exploded like a nova, causing damage to anyone nearby. Even Tianyi had to be careful since his Jadelight Emperor War Formation was not immune, and since it wasn’t part of him, Tianyi couldn’t teleport it away either.
However, it brought more damage to his opponent than himself, so Tianyi was happy to continue. While he fought, the Buzhou Immortal Sect’s forces continued to make their way toward the core of the Cloud Goddess Sect. Along the way, the Anti-Heaven Alliance attempted to impede them, but under the power of the war formations, they were all obliterated.
Just as the Cloud Goddess Cult’s headquarters were half-destroyed, a change occurred.
Tianyi stopped his actions and suddenly saw numerous war formations and immortal monarchs arriving in the distance. He could even spot a few immortal boats belonging to the Tripartite Alliance.
“Everyone, hurry up and destroy the shrine before they can stop us!” Sect Master Xia ordered. He also commanded a Jadelight Emperor War Formation like Tianyi, and in its palm, a five-colored, five-petaled lotus appeared and floated forward, destroying everything in its path.
Sect Master Xia wondered how the Tripartite Alliance learned of their operation but didn’t have time to think. Nor did he consider what happened to the forces assaulting the strategic locations. He knew that if the Buzhou Immortal Sect failed, it would place them in a near-unwinnable situation.
Tianyi’s face didn’t change as he continued to fight with the immortal monarchs and war formations entangling him. It was not that he didn’t want to double his efforts, but the cultivators inside couldn’t keep up with the energy consumption.
His attacks had always been energy-intensive, and it was only a weakness for others, but not him. But now, it fully reared its ugly head in the critical battle.
Just as Tianyi launched another black hole, the Jadelight Emperor War Formation suddenly dispersed. Tianyi had a face full of confusion as he turned around to see the one hundred and twenty-eight immortals’ dazed expression.
He didn’t have time to consider as they all self-destructed, killing all the venerables and grandmasters. The explosion even killed some of the Anti-Heaven Alliance members, but before Tianyi could process what was happening, a familiar face appeared in front of him.
A white-haired man with a single horn in the middle of his forehead appeared. His red robes shifted as his hands reached for Tianyi, with Tianyi unable to move at all, as if frozen in ice.
