The God-Battling Platform was grand and magnificent, floating in the night sky like a colossal landmass and providing more than enough room for combatants to clash.
Standing upon it, Qin Ming emphasized beforehand, "A fair duel!"
Not long ago, completely unfamiliar with the rules, he had suffered immensely. During the trials, he had been thrown into grueling fights without explanation; some opponents had arrived brandishing supreme killing armaments, while others were bizarre, extraordinarily dangerous monsters. He had fought his way through hellish, bloody battles.
Her white dress fluttering, the woman crossed the night sky and landed lightly upon the God-Battling Platform. Parting her crimson lips, she said, "Agreed."
In the night wind, her wide sleeves snapped. The brief length of forearm revealed was as fair as jade, her black hair reached her waist, and her slender, graceful figure carried an otherworldly aura, detached and solitary.
"Your Highness!" The Butterfly Maiden followed as well, her eyes filled with a strange look. Never in her wildest dreams had she imagined a youth of the Li family would dare to be so brazen.
Word had it that Li Heng had previously only harbored an unspoken admiration for Her Highness. Now that he had become a saint, he actually nurtured wild ambitions, brazenly putting his inappropriate desires on display.
As Her Highness's confidante, the Butterfly Maiden found it hard to stomach. For a former follower to turn against the natural order left her thoroughly disgusted with this ambitious young scion of the Li family.
Qin Ming looked across at his opponent. "How should I address you? We're both standing on the God-Battling Platform for a fair fight. You can't expect me to call you 'Your Highness' too, can you?"
The white-robed woman radiated light from head to toe, every strand of hair sparkling with crystalline brilliance. Her face in particular seemed veiled by a hazy wisp of moonlight, concealing her true countenance.
She felt a hint of surprise. Had this Li family descendant truly grown so conceited that he could not wait to treat himself as her equal?
Though the two had never met in person before, the Li family had long decided internally that Li Heng would serve as her follower, an arrangement known to both sides.
"The moment you became a saint, you really let it go to your head," the Butterfly Maiden voiced Her Highness's displeasure for her. How did the Li family educate their youth? This man possessed not an ounce of composure.
Qin Ming thought to himself, *I'm about to compete with this prominent woman for a rare divine flower. Did asking for her name make me seem frivolous?*
Displeased as well, he retorted, "I stand shoulder to shoulder with Her Highness. If anyone is overstepping their bounds... it is you."
The Butterfly Maiden's beautiful eyes went wide in shock. This Li family youth had merely cleared the trials, yet he already dared claim to stand shoulder to shoulder with Her Highness! He was an utter lunatic.
If not for the decorum required by her status, she would certainly have let fly a few unrefined curses.
Had the immortal radiance along the most difficult path not been snuffed out, confirming that the unknown challenger had failed, she would truly have suspected she had the wrong person.
Li Cang had contacted Her Highness in advance via conch shell, reporting the paths his descendant and the new challenger had taken.
"Heavenly God," the white-robed woman said. It was clearly not her real name. Deeply put off by this scion of the Li family, she had resolved to teach him a severe lesson.
"Let's begin!" Qin Ming said calmly.
The Butterfly Maiden could hardly bear the sight of him, thinking, *You're actually putting on airs, acting so cold and aloof before Her Highness!*
The white-robed woman—Heavenly God—cast Qin Ming a sideways glance, intending to bring him down a peg right at the outset so he would learn the sheer depth of heaven and earth.
Her snow-white clothes fluttered as divine radiance flowed across her entire body. A strange brilliance shone from her lovely eyes, appearing to warp the surrounding night sky as the entire environment abruptly transformed.
Qin Ming started. The sight before him was entirely different from a moment before. Heaven and earth turned ink-black, and an abyss loomed right in front of him, hurtling forward to swallow him whole.
His spiritual field roared as he tried to shatter the illusion and see through to reality.
Yet as he drew in a breath of night mist, he quickly realized this was no illusion. It was a terrifying domain that genuinely existed in reality.
Qin Ming's pure yang consciousness shone, manifesting a divine bridge to cross the pitch-black abyss, intending to pierce through the domain and break out directly.
Yet with a sharp crack, the divine bridge struck an unseen barrier. The path ahead was blocked; it was as if he stood upon a broken golden bridge, unable to reach the other shore.
Qin Ming was alarmed. What was this woman's background? Her arts were profoundly esoteric and bizarre; she had opened with a technique far exceeding the standard realm.
The boundless night encroached, and the expanding abyss abruptly swallowed Qin Ming whole. He felt his mind constantly sinking, his consciousness plummeting into limitless darkness as if he were about to lose his sense of self.
This horrifying method was like a grandmaster striking with sudden force, knocking an immortal down from the nine heavens, banishing them to become a mortal of the netherworld, casting them straight from heaven into the underworld.
With a thunderous shout, Qin Ming fused his consciousness, heavenly light, and divine wisdom to maintain clarity, refusing to sink into oblivion.
Having inherited the orthodox legacy of Yujing, the white-robed woman's methods were indeed extraordinary.
She naturally intended to end the battle immediately, subduing her opponent with thunderous force.
Qin Ming had no intention of letting her have her way. Cultivating three paths simultaneously, the resonance of his three powers brought him to complete lucidity in an instant.
He realized one scripture could break this predicament: the *Nine Firmaments Book*, also known as the *Plan of the Abyss*.
This true classic possessed uncanny power. In the past, an expert who mastered it had been slain, only for his consciousness to climb back out of the unfathomable, pitch-black space of hell years later.
Now, Qin Ming chanted true words, soaring upward from the pitch-black abyss like a skyward immortal sword, fighting his way out of the boundless gloom.
The next instant, his consciousness returned to reality.
Heavenly God was already attacking. Her black hair billowed as her fair, unadorned hand, wrapped in moonlight, slashed toward Qin Ming.
Qin Ming snapped his eyes open. His right hand struck out like a blade while his left hand clamped forward like a dragon claw, blending heavenly light and divine wisdom.
Heavenly God was astonished. Standing high in the clouds, she had banished his consciousness into the abyss, yet he had returned in little more than a fleeting flash of light.
She drifted back as the light unleashed from her hand shone with absolute sanctity, illuminating all directions while slamming forward with the force of a thousand surging waves.
Qin Ming's right palm slashed through the air like a heavenly saber, cutting through the thousand sacred surges, while the sacred baleful aura before his left hand manifested into a massive, tangible dragon claw that reached for the woman.
The white-robed woman had clearly underestimated him, assuming she could suppress him with a casual gesture. His strength far exceeded her expectations, and in her haste, Qin Ming's outstretched dragon claw tore away a piece of her sleeve with a sharp rip, exposing a stretch of snow-white forearm.
The Butterfly Maiden covered her crimson lips, nearly crying out. She had never imagined that ambitious Li family scion would be this strong, almost seizing Her Highness's fair wrist.
"Even a Heavenly God must descend to the mortal dust!" Qin Ming said, his intention merely to challenge the white-robed woman and defeat a powerful foe.
Yet heard from her perspective, the meaning changed completely.
"What a lecher!" The Butterfly Maiden fumed. A Li family youth who grew arrogant the moment he tasted success—his desires were brazen and unmasked!
The white-robed woman possessed peerless elegance, normally composed, graceful, and aloof. Now, a faint irritation crossed her features, and in an instant, her inner landscape manifested.
It was a pure land of the gods. She summoned no god, honoring only herself. In that site of godhood where fallen blossoms drifted, light rain fell, hazy and divine. In the center stood an altar bearing a crude, primitive wooden bow alongside seven arrows.
Standing in the pure land, Heavenly God took the wooden bow in hand and nocked a roughly crafted wooden arrow against the dragon-tendon string.
*Whoosh!*
A terrifying rainbow of light pierced the night sky, streaking toward Qin Ming with frightening momentum—far more horrifying than the invisible arrow loosed by the God Hunter Laylaya of the Black Tower civilization that day.
Qin Ming left behind multiple afterimages, dodging repeatedly, but the arrow followed him like a shadow, locked onto him and refusing to stop until it found its mark.
There was no dodging this arrow. Most crucially, as it flew, it gathered momentum, drawing upon the Dao resonance of the void and growing stronger by the moment.
Recognizing this, Qin Ming decisively unleashed his pure yang flying sword. Radiant with shifting colors and fused with multiple sword baleful auras, it blew apart all the night mist in the area.
With a thunderous boom, it flew like a streak of heavenly lightning and slashed into the crude, seemingly inferior arrow shaft.
Indestructible and all-cleaving, the Hunyuan sword baleful aura severed the crude wooden arrow!
Within the pure land of the gods, translucent petals danced on the wind, carrying waves of fragrance. Tall and slender, Heavenly God stood firm and formally loosed a second arrow.
Moreover, she did not lower the bow, repeatedly drawing arrows from the altar.
"Tianxuan, Yuheng, Kaiyang... Yaoguang!" the Butterfly Maiden cried in shock. She knew well that this was a renowned killing armament of Yujing.
At the same time, this bow and arrows were tied to a secret art.
Paired with the Seven Big Dipper Arrows, this bow had once been used to shoot down gods and intimidate hosts of immortals, earning world-shaking renown with plenty of Heavenly Immortals among its victims.
Qin Ming had initially thought she was breaking the rules by bringing some bizarre killing armament, only to realize these were weapons manifested from her inner landscape rather than physical objects.
Even so, one could glimpse the extraordinary, frightening nature of the set.
As the second arrow flew, the wooden arrow Qin Ming had severed earlier "revived." The two fading halves of the shaft rejoined, reappearing whole.
"In the past, that set of killing armaments was also manifested rather than forged. Her Highness is genuinely annoyed now—she's going to teach him a lesson," the Butterfly Maiden murmured, full of confidence in Her Highness.
A look of surprise crossed Qin Ming's face. As the Seven Big Dipper Arrows flew, even if he severed them one by one with his Hunyuan sword baleful aura, they reconstructed themselves, actively channeling Dao resonance and steadily growing stronger.
This left him somewhat hard-pressed, until he used his Hunyuan sword baleful aura to bind all the arrows together and severed them at the exact same instant, finally resolving the crisis.
Qin Ming's expression grew solemn. He realized the legacy of Yujing was extraordinary; every move this white-robed woman made exceeded his expectations.
Had his sword baleful aura not been a formidable attack capable of cutting through all peers in the same realm, another person might never have broken the endlessly regenerating Seven Big Dipper Arrows.
In a flash, Qin Ming's body glowed as he circulated the newly comprehended *Extreme Dao Golden Body*, using the immortal body-tempering method to channel heavenly light and sacred baleful aura. He drove his Hunyuan sword baleful aura and charged straight forward.
Passive defense was not his style. Choosing offense over defense, he intended to bore straight into the white-robed woman's pure land of the gods.
Within her sacred inner landscape, the ancient Great Dao treasure tree swayed, petals drifting down like rain amid a deluge of streaming light that accentuated the realm's ethereal grandeur.
Heavenly God sat cross-legged, her white clothes unstained by dust. A jade zither appeared before her, and as she plucked the strings, terrifying beams of light slashed out of the pure land.
Thunder and fire surged forth, accompanying the zither's notes and flying alongside the beams erupting from the strings.
Qin Ming was startled. A seemingly fragile, precious zither could unleash such violent beams of thunder and fire with astonishing offensive power, completely beyond expectation.
Parrying with his Hunyuan sword baleful aura, he shattered the light of thunder and fire and strode forward resolutely, determined to step into that pure land.
The white-robed woman's fair hands plucked the strings. Amid the melodious plinking, remarkably vivid visions formed—mountains and rivers manifested within the halos over the strings before flying out of the pure land.
Like a great seal of mountains and rivers imbued with vast, unfathomable force, it came rumbling down to suppress him.
Qin Ming found it absurd. Slashing upward with his sword baleful aura, he felt a weight as tangible as an actual mountain. He could only marvel at how many extraordinary arts Yujing possessed.
Yet heavy as the mountain-and-river scenery was, Qin Ming shattered it with a single sword strike.
The zither notes chimed again, churning up a terrifying blaze that poured from the pure land like a tide, blanketing the sky. At its core was Nanming Li Fire—though scarce, only a limited single surge, it remained exceedingly perilous.
Qin Ming also cultivated the *Nanming Departing Fire Scripture* and showed no fear. Guiding the flames, he merged them into his sword baleful aura before extinguishing the fiery tide with a single strike.
Heavenly God remained seated, unhurried and composed. As she plucked the strings, one bizarre vision after another materialized as though real, hurtling out of her inner landscape.
Yet none of it was enough to stop Qin Ming's advance. He rapidly closed in on the entrance to the pure land.
Like a muffled thunderclap, Heavenly God swept her finger firmly across the zither, sending one string shooting out. It transformed into a True Dragon whose roar shook the nine heavens, causing the distant Night Mist Sea to churn.
Qin Ming swung his sword toward the dragon's head.
The True Dragon coiled and lashed its massive body with terrifying presence, like a genuine behemoth charging forth.
Within the pure land, beneath Heavenly God's slender hand, a second string flew out, transforming into a Heavenly Phoenix. Its wings carried undying flames as it spread its wings and dove toward Qin Ming, radiating a terrifying aura.
Then, as she played, the third string, the fourth... all the strings flew out, transforming into a Kunpeng, a Golden Crow, a seven-colored peacock, and other supreme legendary creatures.
Qin Ming's sacred baleful aura condensed into a bright, snow-white saber. Bracing himself at the entrance of the pure land, he engaged in fierce combat against these sacred beasts and divine birds.
*Splurt!*
He beheaded the True Dragon, its pained roar echoing through the night sky.
Yet the Heavenly Phoenix slammed into him, and the Golden Crow engulfed him in sweeping fire. Fortunately, his body-tempering was well-advanced; with heavenly light churning and sacred baleful aura steaming within him, he weathered the onslaught through sheer resilience.
"Is he really going to force his way in?" The Butterfly Maiden covered her mouth, utterly shocked. Even if she thought about it for ten days and ten nights, she could not fathom how a scion of the Li family had become so terrifying.
In her eyes, Her Highness's pure land was sacred beyond measure. No outsider had ever set foot inside, let alone a man harboring improper desires.
She was stunned. This challenger stood a single step from the entrance of the pure land of the gods!
Wielding the saber forged of sacred baleful aura, Qin Ming battled the Kunpeng, the Golden Crow, and the seven-colored peacock. His gaze was resolute and his footing firm as he insisted on breaking through.
Heavenly God let out a cold snort, her white clothes whipping about. She had already risen, and the jade zither flew forward, shining brilliantly as it played on its own, unleashing music like ten thousand swords firing in unison.
It was no physical object, but a divine relic manifested from within her inner landscape.
Qin Ming struck down again and again with his saber, fracturing the precious zither. Yet it only grew more terrifying as divine power erupted and shattered.
Evidently, Heavenly God was confident and proud, refusing to permit anyone to step into her sacred pure land. She was willing to detonate a treasure formed of divine power just to halt his advance.
At the same time, she reached toward the Great Dao treasure tree. It shrank until it became a nine-colored branch, entirely translucent and sending dazzling divine light shooting into the sky.
Gripping the nine-colored branch, she swept it toward the entrance.
Qin Ming did not retreat, pressing forward in the face of adversity. At this moment, his inner landscape opened, shedding brilliant light and releasing a massive torrent of sacred power.
Even those sacred beasts, divine birds, and nine-colored rays were held at bay by the force of his opening inner landscape. Seizing the opening, he boldly took a step forward, planting his foot inside Heavenly God's pure land.
Simultaneously, his inner landscape merged with hers, the two pure lands of the gods connecting as if to form a single whole.
"This..." The Butterfly Maiden stood dumbstruck.
This was outright desecration of Her Highness! A pure land never before breached had been invaded by an outsider, who was trampling across it and leaving footprints behind.
The Butterfly Maiden could not believe it. Had a scion of the Li family truly reached such heights?
***
Meanwhile, outside the annex, the New Board received the bad news: the saint it valued above all else, the woman who had accepted Yujing's heritage, was actually fighting Taiyi.
Deeply displeased, it grumbled, "How did you arrange this? What if it ruins one of their spirits? When two tigers fight, one is bound to be injured."
The formation spirit replied, "Not if one is male and the other female."
The New Board snapped, "Go f—"
***
At the annex's main gate, Li Cang, with his head of withered yellow hair, heard movement from the most difficult path. Knowing someone had returned, he listened as the footsteps grew clearer.
"Heh..." He chuckled softly and shook his head. "Young people are still too green, lacking experience."
Suddenly, his smile froze. He saw his descendant Xiao Ba—Li Heng—limping forward, drenched in blood.
He could hardly believe his eyes. Once on the path, could someone even change course?
If Li Heng was the one returning, then who was the person who had struck the divine bell earlier and reached the annex's deepest reaches? What were they doing right now?
"Xiao Ba, what is going on?!"
***
Heavenly God's white robes were immaculate, her divine power surging. Staring at the man who had stepped into her pure land, boldly striding across it and leaving footprints, she raised her fair wrist and swept the nine-colored branch forward with sudden force!
The Butterfly Maiden knew Her Highness was furious, feeling utterly violated.
Above all, the two inner landscapes had actually fused together, making it impossible to separate one from the other.
"Heavenly God, was it?" Qin Ming said. "Allow me to help you cross a tribulation!"
He began returning to the origin, manifesting tribulation qi that swept outward toward the white-robed woman in an instant.
Chapter 454