Even a supreme oddity like the decayed fan was locked down. Qin Ming searched all over himself and realized that only the old rag remained unrestricted. Without hesitation, he wrapped it around his right hand and struck straight out with an open palm.
In an instant, it was as if a blazing sun soared into the air within the crimson forest.
The smile on Dao Seed No. 3 faded. In his eyes, this strike carried an insult. The "flesh Dao field" he had meticulously selected and reserved for himself had dared to aim for his face right from the start.
He stood suspended in midair, motionless as a green pine rooted in a cliff face. He carried an aura of effortless distinction and possessed a formidable will. Only at the very last moment did he simply raise his right palm upright.
He made no superfluous moves, embodying the natural way of the Dao and a return to unadorned simplicity. The distinct patterns on his right hand met the sun-like strike with a heavy boom.
Like thunder cracking in the void, resplendent divine dawn radiance shone in all directions, and an endless rain of light poured down.
Centered on the two combatants, swaths of towering ancient trees in the crimson forest crashed to the ground. Trunks so thick it would take several people to encircle them exploded simultaneously, sending fragmented leaves and shattered branches flying across the sky.
Qin Ming's expression turned grave. This newcomer was no weaker than the crimson figure.
A single blood monster was already deadly enough, casting the shadow of death over him. Now that another Dao seed had arrived, his predicament had worsened considerably.
He had harbored no extravagant expectations for the old rag, knowing full well it would not actively awaken. It had always regarded its temporary owners as mere fleeting travelers in its life.
In this regard, it fell far short of the Yellow Silk Canopy.
Nevertheless, the fundamental properties of the exotic metal cloth remained ever-present, capable of boosting his heavenly light and pure yang consciousness to a certain extent.
Even so, Qin Ming had gained no advantage.
Dao Seed No. 3 spoke: "Somewhat stronger than anticipated—you actually managed to block my palm."
His right hand still remained raised before him, devoid of any sweeping motions, exuding calm and ease.
To Qin Ming's eyes, this detached, superior posturing only made him itch to slap the fellow flying.
From the woodlands to one side came the violent ripples of the Yellow Silk Canopy erupting with all its might.
Qin Ming's heart grew heavy, fearing that Little Yellow might truly self-detonate; it had made such half-jesting remarks in the past.
Taking advantage of the crimson figure's absence from this immediate area, he quietly brought out the pure white conch disc. It was more precious than even rare Dharma conches and could transmit messages over immense distances.
"High methods are forbidden here," the blood monster's voice rippled through the air.
Sure enough, Dao charm fluctuated violently, and the odd treasure in Qin Ming's hand was locked.
This was the enemy's home ground, adjacent to a supreme realm, and the blood monster commanded fragmentary rules, making it extraordinarily troublesome.
Abruptly, terrifying light erupted from where the Yellow Silk Canopy fought. Mental power burned and exploded violently, razing a vast swath of the crimson forest to the ground.
Qin Ming seized this window to try once more, attempting to activate the teleportation talisman seized from the Black Flame Phoenix while simultaneously dashing toward the Yellow Silk Canopy. If he succeeded, he could scoop it up and escape in one go.
Yet while mid-stride, he realized that he had failed once again; the teleportation talisman was locked down as well.
Qin Ming was mentally prepared for this. After all, even a supreme oddity like the decayed fan was temporarily unusable.
"No need to come over! I can still hold on!" the Yellow Silk Canopy called out with resolve.
Its canopy fabric was dim, the silhouettes atop it blurred. It rotated slowly, blocking the humanoid monster that had reconstituted itself after exploding into a mist of blood.
Qin Ming worried for it, his heart weighed down.
He harbored a suspicion that the crimson figure was likely the physical embodiment of some residual power from a supreme sanctuary. On its home ground, it was exceedingly difficult to destroy.
"You dare let your attention wander in my presence?" Dao Seed No. 3 strolled leisurely through the void, cutting off his path.
Qin Ming evaluated the situation. In his judgment, though both the blood monster and Dao Seed No. 3 possessed deeper cultivation than his own, they had not reached the point of overwhelming superiority.
The greatest problem now was that within this crimson forest, his adversaries seemed to possess immortal bodies.
Putting all other thoughts aside, he released his heavenly light outward.
Dao Seed No. 3 wore a faint smile, graceful and debonair, carrying a transcendent, ethereal quality. A holy brilliance radiated around him, as though purifying this battlefield.
This time, he took the initiative to strike. A fine drizzle, like the light of transcendence, drifted out from his person. The raindrops elongated into thousands of gossamer threads, draping across the space ahead.
Outside Qin Ming's body, a tangible spirit field expanded. Layer upon layer of ripples spread, warping the night sky and causing the piercing threads to emit shrill, metallic clangs.
With a thunderous rumble, terrifying ripples rolled out once more from the center of the neighboring battlefield. The runes surging up from within the Yellow Silk Canopy poured down like a torrential deluge.
It resembled a self-destructive detonation!
The canopy grew even dimmer. The exotic metal material was indestructible and could not break apart, but there was no telling how severely injured the newly awakened weapon spirit had become.
Qin Ming turned his head, deeply alarmed.
"No matter, I can still fight!" the Yellow Silk Canopy reassured him, telling him not to worry.
"Dividing your focus before me again," Dao Seed No. 3 sneered.
As though ascending to immortality, dense sheets of light rain poured out, howling as they morphed into chains capable of slicing through the void, hurtling forward.
Qin Ming could hardly be called distracted. At his level, even in the midst of a bloody battle, he could still survey the entire battlefield and capture every subtle shift in every corner.
Outside his body, his omnipresent spirit field shook violently. Certain patches were pierced through; those crystalline threads of rain were far more terrifying than deadly divine spears.
With a squelch, blood blossomed near Qin Ming. At least five crystalline threads skewered his flesh.
Amid metallic ringing, his right hand blazed with light, severing the threads.
Simultaneously, Qin Ming raised his Inner Landscape Heaven-Opening Axe. With a thunderous roar and swathed in radiant runic brilliance, it cleaved forward as though driving a thousand surging waves.
In an instant, the heavy great axe and its blinding runes hacked down again and again.
Dao Seed No. 3 wore an unnerving, perverse smile. Initially, he merely raised a single right hand to meet the Inner Landscape Heaven-Opening Axe head-on, producing deafening metallic clashes.
Qin Ming was already wounded. As his fierce assault pressed on without pause and he unleashed such trump cards in succession, more fractures surfaced across his flesh, and blood poured out in streams.
Yet Dao Seed No. 3 was no longer quite so poised either. After intercepting thirteen consecutive axe strikes, he abruptly pulled back, no longer meeting them head-on, and gave his right hand a flick.
"Take another one if you can!" Qin Ming ignored his wounds and continued to wield the Inner Landscape Heaven-Opening Axe. Tremendous arcs of axe light swept forward like comets streaking across the sky.
Dao Seed No. 3 stated coolly, "Ineffectual strikes."
It had to be said that his strength was absurdly formidable.
In the past, many of Qin Ming's foes could not withstand even a single axe strike, yet this person had traded blows with him barehanded.
Now, Dao Seed No. 3 moved like a divine demon in a sea of night mist, darting left and right at extreme speed. Through direct action, he demonstrated that he had not been overwhelmed; he simply refused to waste excessive energy.
He seemed to be showing off his technique, attacking with pure, peerless speed. Breaking through to Qin Ming's front, his fingertips glowed as he tore open Qin Ming's spirit field.
His five fingers shone brilliantly, unleashing five beams of light that gouged five bloody holes into Qin Ming's body.
"Hm?" Dao Seed No. 3 sensed something amiss. Although he had warped the void and avoided being trapped by the spirit field, his mind fell into a momentary daze.
Qin Ming had once been tormented near to death by the power of the Great Dream Divine Mushroom. Inspired by that experience, his spirit field carried hallucinatory properties, condensed into a mental phantom field.
*Clang!*
Qin Ming's nine-colored sword baleful aura surged forth, piercing through the night sky. With a sharp rip, it cleaved straight through, causing Dao Seed No. 3's head to burst apart.
With a shrill, muffled roar, Dao Seed No. 3 vanished from his spot and teleported hundreds of zhang away, his shattered head reconstituting itself.
He had no physical body; his mental energy radiated terrifying ripples. Enveloped in Dao charm, he was even more formidable than a creature of genuine flesh and blood, his strength unfathomable.
Qin Ming's eyes brightened. He noticed that this Dao seed had dimmed slightly and had not fully recovered, proving that the previous strike had inflicted substantive damage.
Dao Seed No. 3 did not possess a truly unkillable body like the blood monster.
At present, it was simply that his mental form could not be extinguished in a single blow.
Just like the immortal path, a pure yang consciousness was difficult to extinguish.
In truth, most powerful cultivation systems were similar in this regard.
Take the cultivation civilization, for instance: even after killing a grandmaster's physical body, their Nascent Soul remained difficult to eradicate.
Furthermore, Qin Ming could sense that this person did not command fragmentary rules; overall, he was somewhat easier to deal with than the blood monster.
He acknowledged that his foe's cultivation was indeed deeper than his own, but it had not reached an insurmountable gulf that would plunge him into utter despair. Augmented by the rag to bolster his strength, he might well fight this through to the bloody end.
Dao Seed No. 3 strolled through the void, still ethereal and transcendent, his feathered robes fluttering in an aura of supreme detachment. However, his smile had vanished, and a chill had settled into the depths of his eyes.
He spoke coldly, "You surely do not think you are capable of fighting me?"
Before Qin Ming, the nine-colored sword baleful auras interwove like a true dragon poised to surge into the heavens, spewing terrifying sword light that threatened to tear open the sky.
He said in a deep voice, "Am I not?"
Dao Seed No. 3 scrutinized him and said, "Where do you get the confidence to be so arrogant? You have not even reached the fifth realm, yet you delude yourself into thinking you can confront a Dao seed?"
At this moment, Qin Ming felt his physical body growing increasingly scalding. He longed to sink beneath the earth at once, merge with this terrain, and achieve the Tongyou transformation.
Yet he was helpless; the enemy would never grant him such an opportunity.
He was uncertain whether forcibly constructing a flesh-and-blood city would equate to binding his own hands and feet, drawing a cage around himself in this place, so he dared not put it into practice.
Dao Seed No. 3 sneered faintly and said, "King of some petty corner—you surely don't believe you can fight above your realm against every opponent, do you?"
He looked at Qin Ming and declared, "You are merely my flesh Dao field. No one defies the realms to defeat a Dao seed."
In an instant, his form turned ethereal, shifting unpredictably as extraordinary phenomena manifested around him. One moment he appeared solemnly dignified, wielding a vajra pestle; the next, his feathered robes fluttered like an exiled immortal standing above the highest heavens.
Qin Ming had a sudden flash of insight: every one of these figures had once been a flesh Dao field for him, hosts he had parasitized in the past.
This was an unfathomable creature with blood on his hands beyond measure.
Dao Seed No. 3 shot through the void like a wraith. One moment he glared like an enraged vajra, erupting with a terrifying dharma manifestation and swinging the vajra pestle forward; the next, he was as detached as an exiled immortal, jabbing forth an immortal-shocking finger.
In an instant, Qin Ming was plunged into a desperate crisis.
Blood burst from his body repeatedly. A finger pierced his shoulder; the vajra pestle shattered the flesh and bone of his hand into a mangled pulp.
With a roar, nine-colored sword light flashed in and out of Qin Ming's mouth and nose, continually slashing outward to ward off the other silhouettes.
At the same time, his spirit field expanded, seeking to constrain the opponent's true form.
Qin Ming pushed his Chaos force to its utmost limit. Fist radiance streaked across the night sky like divine rainbows. Amplified by the rag, he repeatedly clashed head-on against his foe, locked in an unyielding battle of attrition.
With a heavy bang, Qin Ming was finally sent flying. His cultivation fell short, and his bid to fight above his realm had failed. Drenched in blood and covered in fractures, he left a bloody footprint with every step he took.
The ground beneath him buckled, and he staggered backward in retreat.
Dao Seed No. 3 spoke: "This is the disparity!"
Feathered robes swaying and looking as handsome as jade, he stepped forward through the void.
Qin Ming took a deep breath. At this point, standard methods were useless; even unleashing all his trump cards had only barely enabled him to resist, making him taste a long-forgotten sense of powerlessness.
Now, he could only resort to forbidden methods.
If his ultimate Chaos force erupted repeatedly in his current state, riddled with fractures, he would likely fail to endure it and disintegrate from within first.
Yet if he did not employ the ultimate silk book method, what other recourse did he have? He truly could hold out no longer.
He had no time to lose and could deliberate no further; moving like a divine demon, his foe had already closed in.
In an instant, Qin Ming fused multiple techniques together in a desperate gamble.
Using the doctrines of the silk book to govern all his forces, he mobilized the entirety of his essence, energy, and spirit. Dozens of halos blossomed around his body, and in a flash, the cracks across his flesh deepened alarmingly, on the verge of detonating completely at any second.
In the next breath, Qin Ming unleashed another technique: blending heavenly light with his consciousness and divine wisdom, he forged them into a God-Beating Whip concentrated at his right hand, blazing with boundless, blinding brilliance.
This was the definitive killing art for dual-path cultivation developed by Tang Jin's master, Li Wuwei. Originally, it required extracting seventy percent of one's heavenly light and pure yang consciousness outside the body, concentrating them to the absolute extreme before blasting the enemy.
Cultivating three paths simultaneously, Qin Ming was naturally suited for this technique, and he had incorporated the power of the esoteric sect into it as well.
The reason it was called a forbidden technique now was that Qin Ming had drawn out nearly all of his heavenly light, pure yang consciousness, and divine wisdom. He forged them into a God-Beating Whip—and also something akin to a terrifying heavenly sword tempered a hundred times over—aimed straight at the Dao seed condensed from a mental force field.
In reality, this was the extreme concentration of Chaos force forged into a weapon and inscribed with countless unique runes; in Qin Ming's hands, the original technique had long since mutated and could no longer strictly be called the God-Beating Whip.
For a practitioner of two paths, concentrating seventy percent was already courting disaster.
Yet advancing along three paths, he had merged nearly all his power.
Qin Ming's body instantly felt hollowed out, retaining only a sliver of pure yang consciousness. Fortunately, having thoroughly mastered the Scripture of Harmonizing Body and Dao, he circulated it immediately to stabilize his physical frame, and at the first opportunity swung the fused ultimate weapon in his hand—the Hunyuan Slash.
With his dark hair flowing and trailing the light of ascension, Dao Seed No. 3 teleported forward, his steps blinking in and out of reality like blooming immortal buds. His right hand sliced across the void like an immortal sword.
*Boom!*
As the two clashed, Qin Ming suppressed his opponent head-on for the very first time. Dazzling light from his right hand illuminated the heavens.
Dao Seed No. 3's right hand exploded, shattering into streaming luminescence.
Moreover, though the Hunyuan Slash had dimmed significantly, its momentum remained unbroken. With a dull thud, it detonated the opponent's head.
Dao Seed No. 3 reacted with uncanny speed, abruptly pulling back.
His entire being was condensed from a mental force field blended with Dao charm; severing his head could not utterly extinguish his consciousness.
Though his form had dimmed, he reconstituted himself whole once more.
Just as Qin Ming's Hunyuan Slash was about to disperse, he condensed it once more using his forbidden method and bolstered it with the rag. This time, it took neither the shape of a whip nor a sharp sword, but clung directly to his right hand, interwoven with dense Hunyuan runes more piercing than an exploding sun.
He swung his palm forward, sweeping straight for the other's face.
Having only just reappeared, Dao Seed No. 3 retreated hastily. Unable to dodge, he met the strike head-on. With a sickening burst, his arm exploded once more, followed by agonizing pain across his face.
This time, Qin Ming finally got his wish: he landed a solid slap across the other's face, completely shattering it.
Along with it, Dao Seed No. 3's entire head detonated as well.
Without question, this strike was exceedingly destructive—and just as deeply insulting.
Turning into a head-exploding maniac, Qin Ming had once again bludgeoned the opponent's head to pieces.
Unfortunately, the consumption was simply terrifying. The Hunyuan Slash dispersed into endless streaming radiance, which Qin Ming forcibly reabsorbed into his body rather than letting it scatter into the void. For now, he needed to unite his form and spirit to nurse his pure yang consciousness.
Qin Ming's body trembled. The violent rush of essence, energy, and spirit caused blood to seep continuously from the cracks across his flesh, but he finally managed to calm the surge before his body could be torn apart.
Dao Seed No. 3 retreated far into the distance. Forget his earlier smile; even his calm, composed aura had been shattered. His face was dark as stagnant water. Having his head repeatedly blasted apart and taking a heavy slap to the face made it impossible to maintain his unruffled demeanor; the opponent was brazenly humiliating him.
He said coldly, "I chose you as my flesh Dao field, but do you truly believe that will tie my hands and make me afraid to destroy you? I wish to borrow a vessel, but it does not have to be you."
Qin Ming could not stand his haughty posture. No one had ever dared belittle him like this, picking through him like merchandise and treating him as soil to nurture someone else's Dao.
He said in a deep voice, "A mere Dao seed from a failed civilization—what gives you the right to act so haughty and self-important? Even your supreme sanctuary has fallen, so what are you clamoring about?"
Dao Seed No. 3 froze upon hearing this, then laughed. "Is that how you understand it?"
He said nothing more, yet the confidence in his heart, coupled with a blatant arrogance, was written across his expression.
Qin Ming's pupils shrank, his heart sinking. A possibility struck him.
The supreme sanctuary had been slaughtered and had plunged from beyond the heavens, but perhaps the killer had never departed. Perhaps it had remained here all along, quietly lurking, chewing upon its prey and feasting upon a gluttonous banquet.
A massive headache seized him. This place was far more perilous than he had imagined.
Almost immediately, another thought followed: *No, this parasitic civilization must have been gravely wounded as well; otherwise, they could never have stayed so quiet, hiding away for so long.*
The fall of any supreme sanctuary was inevitably accompanied by boundless tempests of blood and gore. Achieving it was an immense undertaking, never easy; the civilization behind Dao Seed No. 3 must have paid a catastrophic price.
Could it be that they were awakening now?
In the span of a lightning flash, countless questions raced through Qin Ming's mind.
Earlier, a divine moon had risen into the sky over this land. Could that have been an intentional act by the parasitic civilization, looking to hunt once more?
Or was the civilization itself in terrible shape, still slumbering, unable to control the chained blood moon and accidentally letting lunar yin power leak out?
If they wanted to hunt, who was their target? Yujing's side, or the totem camp?
Evidently, multiple factions had suddenly converged upon this land. Even if that parasitic civilization had awakened, it would not dare act rashly.
*Wait...* Qin Ming remembered how the Golden Roster had insisted on driving the Celestial Clan, the Abyssal Civilization, and the totem factions outside the enclave, dumping them into the territory of the crimson forest. Had that been intentional?
He suddenly realized that the fallout of the supreme blood battle might still be brewing. None of the factions involved were benevolent, and the overall situation was remarkably intricate.
As for the present, he had to rely on his own bloody fight to save himself; there was no need to dwell on the rest.
In the distance, the blood monster took heavy strides, wanting to rush over and salvage the situation after realizing that the Dao seed had had his head blown apart repeatedly, fearing something might go awry.
"With me here, you're not going anywhere!" The Yellow Silk Canopy spun, unleashing destructive power.
With a deafening boom, it exploded once more.
This time, the Yellow Silk Canopy actually accompanied dharma chains shooting forth, burning fiercely. Little Yellow's sigh drifted through the air, tinged with regret and a touch of sorrow.
Struck by the dharma chains, the blood monster dimmed considerably when it detonated this time. Its origin had finally suffered a blow, and a rather severe one at that.
Even so, it reconstituted itself immediately, whipping around to glare at the sovereign parasol falling from the void.
"Little Yellow!" Qin Ming roared.
That mutual-destruction maneuver had left the Yellow Silk Canopy dimmed to the extreme. Its runes were nearly extinguished, and the silhouettes on the canopy surface were on the verge of vanishing.
Qin Ming felt a suffocating knot in his chest. He feared he might never see Little Yellow again; even if it revived and a new weapon spirit emerged, it would no longer be the same companion.
At this moment, Qin Ming's eyes stung with unshed tears.
"I'm fine, I can still fight!" Tottering and trembling, the Yellow Silk Canopy floated upward once more, blocking the humanoid blood monster.
"Don't push yourself!" Qin Ming shouted.
The Yellow Silk Canopy sighed softly with boundless lamentation. "You must help me gather my power again in the future!"
"I will!" Qin Ming nodded emphatically.
At the same time, he sent another voice transmission, urging it to preserve itself and not let its core imprint be erased. Otherwise, even if it re-manifested later, it would no longer be who it was.
The Yellow Silk Canopy swayed drunkenly. "No matter. Now that the ox is gone, there's still the bird. My turn hasn't come yet."
"What are you talking about?" Qin Ming stared in its direction.
Then, he saw a Black Flame Phoenix charge out from the canopy surface leading a large troop of soul silhouettes. Shrouded in the light of dharma chains, they hurled themselves at the blood monster.
Qin Ming was dumbfounded. He instantly realized that "the ox is gone" meant the soul light of Grandmaster Earth Ox had been blown to bits.
His eyes had been red with sorrow just moments ago, moved by the Yellow Silk Canopy's desolate tone, only to discover—it had merely lost an Earth Ox?
Qin Ming truly had not seen this coming.
The stinging in his eyes vanished at once, and he plunged back into a bloody clash against Dao Seed No. 3.
Dao Seed No. 3 hesitated and wavered, but finally hardened his heart, declaring, "Just a flesh Dao field! I will destroy it first, then slowly comb through and cultivate it afterward!"
In an instant, Qin Ming came under unfathomable pressure, blood spraying in all directions.
The battlefield was extraordinarily gory!
To make matters worse, Qin Ming began to lose control of his own body. His feet rooted themselves into the ground, impossible to lift, and his entire person began sinking into the depths of the earth.
Merging as one with this earth, he was about to undergo the Tongyou transformation—a process that could no longer be stopped.
Dao Seed No. 3 followed immediately, gazing downward. "Even the heavens are aiding me! Are you taking the initiative to transform into a flesh Dao field?"
Underground, Qin Ming snapped his eyes open. He realized he might have misunderstood earlier. Though he was temporarily confined to a single spot, drawing a cage around himself, it did not mean he was unable to fight.
In that case—he had room to accomplish a great deal.
Qin Ming's eyes blazed with astonishing brilliance. If he could break through rapidly in this place, he would pin Dao Seed No. 3 down and make the fellow call him father!
Chapter 550