Xu Ying felt an overwhelming obsession. Accompanied by gusts of eerie wind, this obsession seemed to arise from nowhere, warping the spacetime of Taiyi Lesser Mysterious Heaven.
This obsession far surpassed the immortal obsession of the flayed, white-robed Nuo immortal, and eclipsed the resurrective yearning of the living dead upon Wangxiang Platform! It was second only to those in the Cangwu Abyss who clawed at the cliff faces, desperate to crawl out of the depths!
Within this obsession lay resentment, hatred, the will to battle, madness, slaughter, lingering attachment, and a desperate thirst for life. Yet above all else, there was fear!
The obsession seemed to distort the very curvature of spacetime, as though folding a segment of past time and space into the present—or casting the present into the past, plunging into an era of history.
*Could this be the Great Terror the old immortal of the Zhu clan spoke of?*
Xu Ying watched the figure of himself walking toward him. The sight was dreamlike yet tangible, appearing both utterly surreal and intensely real. That other self looked several years older than he was now, a young man in his early twenties.
He emerged from the swirling sands, his fluttering robes whipping amidst the howling wind and grit.
Xu Ying watched as this windblown version of himself arrived at his side and stopped. Xu Ying examined him. This other self seemed to be him from several years in the future—more mature, more confident, with eyes shining with brilliant radiance. A demonic, charming smile played on his lips, exuding an aura of evil, terrifying might, and boundless arrogance.
That other self seemed not to notice him at all. Pausing only for a heartbeat, he continued stepping forward directly toward Xu Ying, merging with his body. In that moment, Xu Ying felt as though his perspective had abruptly shifted, flipping from his original vantage point to that of the other self.
Xu Ying hurriedly looked up toward the sky. The bronze bell, which had just been clashing against the residual aura of the Heavenly Dao, was nowhere to be found. Not only had the bell vanished without a trace, even the sky-filling celestial glow of the Heavenly Dao had dispersed entirely.
*Has the Great Terror truly arrived?*
Xu Ying's heart ran cold. He urgently called for Yuan Qi, but Lord Niu Qi was gone as well—not coiled upon his shoulder, not tucked inside his collar, and nowhere within his Realm of Xiyi. Xu Ying felt a chill in his chest. It was as though Yuan Qi and the bronze bell had never existed at all. Even his memories of them grew faint and indistinct.
Everything he had experienced in the past felt like a mere delusion; Yuan Qi and the bell seemed nothing more than companions conjured by his imagination. He was a fiend—a demon who defied the heavenly road, tore it asunder, and annihilated all in his path!
He relished slaughter. He loved destruction. An insatiable craving to tear everything apart filled his being.
Xu Ying shook his head. He felt as though he had remembered something, yet at the same time, remembered nothing at all. Could this urge for ruin, this lust for devastation, truly have been him in the past?
*No! I have not returned to the past, nor has the past folded into the present!*
Pondering deeply, Xu Ying suddenly saw through the illusion and murmured in a low voice, "I doubt I was ever consumed by a lust for ruin and devastation. All of this is merely the obsession haunting Taiyi Lesser Mysterious Heaven! The obsession of Lesser Xuan Heaven has bled into reality, making me believe I returned to the past!"
He surveyed his surroundings. Taiyi Lesser Mysterious Heaven was a waystation on the heavenly road. Far too many formidable figures had perished here during the war to slay the archfiend.
Those mighty beings had been the paramount warriors of the myriad worlds, every single one a Qi Refiner at the Ascension stage. Only after undergoing rigorous trials had they been chosen to represent their respective realms in battle! Answering the summons of the Heavenly Dao, they had fought to protect the myriad worlds, dueling the great demon here and dying on this very soil.
*The obsessions of the myriad worlds' greatest Qi Refiners merged with Taiyi Lesser Mysterious Heaven, becoming the obsession of the realm itself. Whenever a certain time arrives, this obsession erupts!*
*There is no such malice, no lust for ruin or destruction in my heart. It is only the fallen warriors who died here whose obsessions believed I possessed them.*
*And so, when their obsessions fused with Lesser Xuan Heaven to replay the events of that year, I was cast as the me in their obsessions—the me forged by their imaginations.*
*That is not the real me.*
Just as this thought crossed Xu Ying's mind, the desert violently convulsed. Towering, monumental skeletons rose one after another from the sands.
As these skeletons stood, the desert swiftly receded. A vibrant lushness unfurled from the depths of past time and space, carpeted with vegetation that gave rise to winding rivers! In the blink of an eye, the surroundings blossomed with fragrant flowers and singing birds, resembling a pristine pureland of the Immortal Realm!
Across the shifting dunes, colossal fragments of dharmic treasures flew backward into the air, reassembling midflight to restore their former peak glory!
Each was a mighty treasure of unimaginable power, engraved with the profound insights of different experts across the heavens, branded with their cultivation methods and Great Daos! Every single heavy treasure bore might capable of matching the bronze bell!
Flesh and blood rapidly sprouted upon the towering skeletons, restoring them to life. The treasures, restored to their original forms, flew back to their masters one by one. The figures retreated rapidly. In the depths of the desert, shattered Realms of Xiyi swiftly reformed and settled behind them, as if time itself were flowing in reverse. They retreated all the way back to the moment the Stone City appeared, when mighty warriors strode out from its gates and arrived at this waystation along the road of ascension.
Their gazes were bright and smiles graced their faces, filled with boundless confidence.
They were the supreme experts of their respective realms. In this battle, they possessed overwhelming numbers, thorough preparation, and the backing of Heavenly Dao divine artifacts. In this battle, defeat was impossible!
Xu Ying looked at these figures restored to life. It was the obsessions of these formidable Qi Refiners that had clouded his consciousness, trapping him in this half-real, half-illusory state.
*It was their dying obsessions that formed the Great Terror,* Xu Ying thought to himself.
Suddenly, the Qi Refiners emerging from the Stone City turned their gazes upon him in unison. A chill gripped Xu Ying's heart. A thousand pointing fingers could kill a man without disease, let alone these Ascension-stage Qi Refiners handpicked from across the myriad worlds!
"Fiend!" a woman as beautiful as an immortal murmured, deep disgust gleaming in her eyes.
*Whoosh!*
A colossal greataxe came hurtling through the air, carrying monstrous killing intent as it hacked straight down toward Xu Ying's crown!
The surging killing intent threw Xu Ying's divine sense into disarray, leaving only terror in his mind: *A heavy treasure of this caliber is something I cannot withstand—not a chance! I am only a minor Qi Refiner at the Cross-Refinement stage; it's impossible for me to—*
He watched as his own hand rose. Just as the greataxe was about to cleave him, his fingers clamped firmly around the blade, freezing the massive weapon in midair.
The terrifying might within the weapon detonated. With a sharp rip, the axe radiance slashed open a chasm both before and behind him, tearing the ground apart into a grand rift valley leagues deep and over a hundred li long! Yet right beneath his feet, the ground remained completely flat and intact, utterly undisturbed.
Xu Ying felt a smile spread across his face and heard himself speaking. Yet no one could hear what he was saying, so naturally no lingering obsession had branded his voice into this realm. What answered him was the ascent of ten thousand heavy treasures, completely drowning out his words.
Xu Ying sensed the yuan qi within him surging at immense speed. His hand exerted force, and with a crisp crack, the colossal axe shattered into pieces! Instead of retreating, he advanced, charging straight into the swarm of countless treasures. With a sweep of his sleeve, he slammed a palm against a treasure pagoda. He was saying something, appearing thoroughly enraged.
Unable to withstand his power, the pagoda snapped in half at the waist, but the erupting might of the other treasures instantly engulfed him!
Xu Ying watched as his body executed all manner of profound footwork and unleashed various divine abilities at whim, darting amid the boundless treasures and weaving through world-ending destructive power! That was a level of might he had never wielded before—meeting the impacts of supreme treasures head-on, shattering seemingly invincible offensives in an instant, and snapping treasure after treasure clean in two! Even when those epoch-suppressing artifacts from the myriad worlds struck his body, they failed to inflict the slightest scratch!
Right then, the majesty of the Heavenly Dao suddenly manifested. A Heavenly Dao divine artifact had hidden among the heavy treasures, only unleashing its full fury once it drew near!
The Heavenly Dao divine artifact wounded him.
Other Heavenly Dao divine artifacts detonated at that moment as well, carving more wounds into his flesh and forcing him to retreat.
The greatest Qi Refiners of the myriad worlds grew ecstatic. Summoning their respective treasures, they closed in for the kill, their battle cries shaking the heavens and the earth.
"For the living beings of the myriad worlds!"
"For the Heavenly Dao!"
"Slay the fiend!"
Their morale surged as they charged recklessly toward Xu Ying.
Xu Ying was pushed back under their onslaught. He had to guard against ambushes by the Heavenly Dao divine artifacts, while several colossal adversaries concealed among the Qi Refiners wounded him time and again! He felt the killing intent in his chest become impossible to suppress. In the next breath, he saw his finger pierce through a woman's forehead.
The back of her head burst open, yet her Primordial Spirit flew out and lunged at him anyway, seemingly heedless of the fact that she might shatter her soul entirely. Xu Ying swept his sleeve outward, scooping her Primordial Spirit into his cuff. Water and fire refined within the sleeve, reducing her Primordial Spirit to ash and smoke!
Unable to quell his murderous rage, he tore the head off an elderly Qi Refiner in the very next instant! With a single hand, he snapped a long blade in two, pinching the broken half between his fingers and slicing it across its owner's throat!
With a thunderous roar, he rattled the Primordial Spirits of the surrounding experts. His own Primordial Spirit seized their armaments and hurled them down, obliterating their Primordial Spirits!
Bathed in blood, he clashed palms against a great Qi Refiner whose surging blood and qi reached the absolute peak of the Ascension stage, grinding the man's physical body to dust! Reaching into the crowd, he dragged out a heavenly god hiding among them, ignoring the surrounding siege to engage in brutal close combat until he severed the god's head!
Striking more than ten crushing blows in rapid succession, he shattered a Heavenly Dao divine artifact and shoved a jagged shard into the skull of another expert attempting a sneak attack. His eyes turned crimson with slaughter as he broke through the divine abilities of expert after expert. Severed limbs and shattered torsos piled into mountains around him!
This idyllic realm was pushed to near-total ruin by him and the champions of the myriad worlds!
Hundreds of experts summoned immortal palaces, driving them down from above to suppress him. Around Xu Ying, over a dozen experts were crushed to pulp beneath the falling palaces! Yet Xu Ying soared skyward against the suppression, blasting half the palace to rubble.
Not even the immortal palaces refined by immortals along the road of ascension could withstand the archfiend's slaughter.
Xu Ying stormed into the immortal palace and cut down hundreds of experts. He impaled many Qi Refiners' heads upon the palace gates, while others were smashed against the walls, painting the stone with gore! Some were drowned at the bottom of wells, while others were buried beneath the rubble.
Some attempted to flee, only to be slain beyond the firmament, leaving their corpses to drift through the starry void.
Suddenly, numerous Qi Refiners summoned the immortal spiritual root of Taiyi Lesser Mysterious Heaven. The colossal Yin-Yang Vine unleashed boundless power, sweeping forward to entangle him. Hundreds of Qi Refiners surged their true essence and drove their Primordial Spirits to wield the treasure, attempting to refine him to death!
His Primordial Spirit flew out to seize control of the artifact, contesting the hundreds of Qi Refiners for mastery of the Yin-Yang Vine until he wrested the Yin Vine for himself.
With each side wielding one of the vines, a bloody battle ensued. The Yin-Yang Vine snapped repeatedly under the strain; countless cultivators were whipped to death, and fragmented pieces of the spiritual root scattered in all directions to flee the devastation! Many Qi Refiners snatched up the broken roots and ingested them, pushing their cultivation and strength to the absolute limit to stake their lives against him. Yet even so, they could not claim Xu Ying's life.
Behind Xu Ying, they saw brilliant cave-heavens blazing with radiant light, warping spacetime itself. Behind those cave-heavens, the six great other shores were distinctly visible. This was an uneven battle; the foe they faced was no mere mortal, but an entity far beyond their comprehension.
After an unknown span of time, the slaughter finally reached its fever pitch.
As three hundred supreme Qi Refiners besieged Xu Ying, they roared in unison, invoking a Heavenly Tribulation. The immense tribulation might descended from the heavens, seeking to drag him down with them to the grave! Xu Ying pushed the Six Secret Depositories of the Human Body to their utmost limit, slaughtering thirty-three individuals in the span of a breath before raising a single hand toward the heavens to confront the tribulation head-on!
Behind the Heavenly Tribulation, war drums thundered within the Heavenly Dao world. Heavenly gods were directing the tribulation across realms to strike him down!
This Heavenly Tribulation was a trap—a lethal strike orchestrated against him! The gods of the Heavenly Dao world were driving Heavenly Dao divine artifacts in a bid to annihilate him! Even if Xu Ying survived this tribulation, he would still face the siege of one hundred and sixty-seven immortals!
Yet Xu Ying survived the great calamity and slaughtered all two hundred and sixty-seven immortals. The scene was so terrifying, so horrifying, that it was indelibly branded into the obsession of Taiyi Lesser Mysterious Heaven!
The final image showed the few surviving soldiers watching in terror as the blood-soaked Xu Ying approached them. Among them was a face—the face of Tian Qingzi, whose Dao heart had been thoroughly shattered.
Just then, the world violently shook. The mountains of corpses and seas of blood receded, and the yellow sands of the desert reappeared before Xu Ying's eyes. Having fully erupted, the realm's obsession subsided, returning to the present world.
*This battle was seen through the perspective of the strongest beings of the myriad worlds, wasn't it?* Xu Ying thought quietly to himself. *In their eyes, was I truly so evil and terrifying...*
"Don't kill me! Don't kill me!"
Shrill screams came from the distance. Xu Ying walked toward the sound. Someone had lost his mind—several Nuo masters who had failed to return to the Stone City before its departure were wailing in sheer misery.
"Stay away from me!" one of the Guo clan's Nuo masters screamed in utter terror, his expression twisted with fright.
Xu Ying stopped. In the distance, he heard someone laughing madly and shouting, "Kill!"
He walked over. It was a Qi Refiner from the Yuanding World who had already formed a Primordial Spirit. Driven mad with terror, he had slaughtered over a dozen of his own clansmen and was now glaring at Xu Ying with savage ferocity.
"Archfiend!" he shrieked, lunging at Xu Ying and unleashing his most powerful divine ability in his frenzied state.
Without thinking, Xu Ying casually met him with a palm seal. The yuan qi within his body abruptly flowed according to a mysterious principle, linking the cave-heavens of the six secret depositories.
His palm strike effortlessly shattered the Qi Refiner's divine ability and slammed into the man's chest. The man's ribs snapped with a crunch, and the robes across his back burst open. Instantly, Xu Ying's fingers flicked by reflex, tapping against the lunging Primordial Spirit and tearing it completely free of the man's soul!
Though this experience had merely been the dying obsessions of the fallen experts warping reality, it seemed to have subtly reawakened some of Xu Ying's memories. Xu Ying stood in a daze; memories of his instinctual combat prowess appeared to be slowly stirring back to life.
With his life force severed, the Qi Refiner collapsed to his knees, reaching out with four arms to grip Xu Ying's lapels in a desperate struggle. His eyes were filled with resentment and the bitter obsession of refusing to die.
"You... you are that Great Terror..."
With his final breath, he slumped forward, dead.
Chapter 150