These cave-heavens had been excised by Li Xiaoke from the bodies of those Nuo immortals and grafted onto himself. The immortal medicines extended his lifespan, while the cave-heavens helped him refine them.
The very best secret depositories were those where a Nuo immortal spent their entire life opening only one kind of depository and cultivating only one kind of Nuo technique, pushing it to its absolute peak!
Only in this way could the full power of a secret depository be unleashed. What Li Xiaoke had grafted were precisely depositories like these.
Take the venerable clans, like the Yuan clan: the ancestors of each generation had contributed their Yellow Court secret depositories to him, strengthening his divine sense.
Or take the newly risen Shi clan, a lineage he had only recently fostered. They had provided him with the Bubbling Spring secret depository, though it was regrettable that both Shi Mole and Shi Jingli, who had received his Bubbling Spring heritage, had perished at Xu Ying's hands.
At this moment, one cave-heaven after another was rapidly severed from Li Xiaoke, causing his cultivation base to plummet.
"You're courting death!"
Shocked and infuriated, Li Xiaoke unleashed a terrifying surge of divine sense. In an instant, his visualization coalesced into a massive bell. Its form resembled the Xiaoyao Bell, yet it bore far more runes of obscure meaning than the myriad forms of life found on the Xiaoyao Bell!
Those incomprehensible runes were precisely the Dao images of the six secret depositories' Nuo techniques!
Since he was able to pass Nuo methods down to the major clans, he was naturally well-versed in the Nuo arts of the six secret depositories as well.
Simultaneously, he stimulated the vitality of his Mud Pill, causing his shaved eyebrow to grow back. *Wait, how many hairs did my left eyebrow actually have? Was it a few more than the right?*
He was suddenly struck by the thought, but then he clenched his teeth. *Forget it! I will count them properly after killing them all!*
His divine power erupted, bringing forth Dao images of all creatures and forms, accompanied by the Nuo techniques of the six secrets as they surged toward the crowd!
Fairy Qingbi's expression changed abruptly. With a sweep of her sleeve, she bundled up Xu Ying, Xue Ying'an, and Yuan Qi. In a flash, she sped away!
Her Gourd Heaven Questioning the Immortals Scripture was incomparably marvelous. The very next instant, her figure appeared behind Li Xiaoke. With a flick of her sleeve, Xu Ying, Yuan Qi, and Xue Ying'an were sent flying into the distance.
The terrifying chime of the bell obliterated everything in its path. The ancient temple was reduced to ashes in an instant, leaving behind only a lone gateway inscribed with Immortal Dao runes.
The Immortal Dao runes upon the lintel flickered erratically, though the runes on both doorposts remained largely intact.
Behind the gateway, the altar had vanished without a trace, leaving only a deep well in the ground, its chains snapped into seven or eight pieces.
Propelled by the sweep of Fairy Qingbi's sleeve, Xu Ying flew backward against his will. Looking from afar, he saw the young maiden standing atop the black coffin, her sleeves fluttering in the wind as she pushed the Gourd Heaven Questioning the Immortals Scripture to its utmost limit!
Around her body, a gourd-shaped world seemed to manifest. Her Primordial Spirit leapt out of that world, existing beyond it, while Qingbi herself remained within the world inside the gourd.
"Li Xiaoke, you have strayed into demonic, heterodox ways. Allow me to show you what a true Qi Refiner is!"
She struck forward with her palm, and the palm imprint vanished. The next instant, the firmament quaked, and an exquisite, jade-like hand tore through the heavens. Bearing boundless might, it pressed down upon Li Xiaoke below!
That slender jade hand was unimaginably colossal, and the power it harbored was exceptionally fierce. Colliding against Li Xiaoke, who had set foot into the realm of the six immortals, it did not fall behind in the slightest!
Xu Ying stared wide-eyed, doubting the path of dual cultivation for the very first time. *Is the dual cultivation of qi and Nuo truly the correct path?*
He had always believed that the path of the Qi Refiner was destined for decline, that no matter how strong a Qi Refiner might be, they could never contend with the new Qi Refiners who had opened all six secret depositories and cultivated both qi and Nuo.
He had believed this without a shadow of a doubt.
Yet Qingbi was demonstrating with real combat prowess that this might not be so!
The sheer strength of this maiden from the coffin exceeded Xu Ying's understanding of Qi Refiners. Her dharmic power, divine sense, vitality, physical might, soul, Primordial Spirit, and yin and yang qi had certainly not reached the immortal realm. Yet she was somehow able to face Li Xiaoke, who had attained six immortal realms, head-on!
Li Xiaoke invoked his bell-shaped divine power, mobilizing cave-heavens large and small to resist Qingbi.
Fairy Qingbi's ten fingers shifted through countless variations, sending forth all manner of seal arts like torrential rain. As if a peerless giant stood beyond the heavens, myriad seals descended from the sky to batter Li Xiaoke!
Every strike crashing down from beyond the heavens was exceedingly heavy and terrifying in power, rivaling the great divine powers Li Xiaoke wielded through his various secret depositories!
*Gourd Heaven... Gourd Heaven... So that's how it is!*
The six secret depositories and twenty-one cave-heavens emerged behind Xu Ying, steadying his body. He looked up, his eyes gleaming. *When Qingbi unleashes her technique, the world in which she stands becomes the heaven within the gourd. With her Primordial Spirit detached outside the gourd, it is equivalent to standing beyond the mortal world. This technique is even more ingenious than the Taiyin Primordial Nurturing Technique. But why is it called the Questioning the Immortals Scripture?*
To "question the immortals" meant seeking the Dao to attain immortality, using one's own path to verify with the immortals how to achieve ascension.
The Gourd Heaven Questioning the Immortals Scripture meant using this technique to verify the Immortal Dao. It was clear that whoever created this technique had lacked full confidence in achieving immortality.
Li Xiaoke let out a long roar, and an eight-sided Han sword suddenly tore through the air. With a flicker of sword light, boundless sword qi instantly saturated the firmament, swirling through the sky and surging toward Qingbi!
He was known for the Dual Perfection of Bell and Sword. Once the Han sword was drawn, the might of its sword qi was even greater than the bell-shaped divine power from before!
This Han sword was another sect-protecting treasure of Jiulong Mountain. Its offensive power was exceptionally terrifying, and in Li Xiaoke's hands, its might was beyond belief!
Qingbi repeatedly cast her divine powers, causing the sky full of sword qi to vanish.
Just as she was about to redirect the divine power back at Li Xiaoke, her expression changed drastically, and she vanished from the spot.
Tens of thousands of strands of sword qi abruptly erupted from where she had just been standing, radiant as the brilliance of a thousand suns, swallowing the entire area!
When Qingbi reappeared, a trail of blood streaked her calf.
Li Xiaoke's dharmic power was simply too overwhelming. When she had tried to divert the sword qi just now, she found herself completely unable to control it and had nearly been consumed by the barrage.
Though she had dodged in haste, she had still suffered a sword strike.
The Heavenly Dragon flew over and shouted, "Qingbi, set our feud aside for now! He has a magical treasure, but you do not! Deploy me!"
Hearing this, Qingbi did not hesitate to sacrifice the Heavenly Dragon into the air.
The Heavenly Dragon vanished.
The next instant, a colossal dragon head poked out from beyond the heavens, squeezing into this world. With every motion, countless bolts of lightning erupted around it.
With an ear-splitting roar, the Heavenly Dragon lunged toward Li Xiaoke.
Li Xiaoke drove the eight-sided Han sword, its sword path growing increasingly potent. Yet the Heavenly Dragon braved the sword qi and charged straight forward, raising a razor-sharp claw to smash down heavily!
Li Xiaoke visualized the Xiaoyao Bell to block the strike, but the impact sent him flying backward.
The Heavenly Dragon lashed its tail, shattering his visualized bell with a deafening gong!
The moment his bell-shaped divine power broke, more than a dozen more cave-heavens behind him were severed by Qingbi!
Livid with shock and fury, Li Xiaoke repeatedly summoned the Xiaoyao Bell, but it gave no response. "Vile bell, even you dare betray me!"
The Heavenly Dragon rejoiced and laughed. "Your Xiaoyao Bell has already been ruined by Fairy Qingbi! You're known for your bell and sword, but now you have no bell, and your sword cannot pierce me. You can only take a beating!"
It swiped down with a claw, tearing three wounds into Li Xiaoke's immortal-like flesh and nearly severing him in two!
Yet the next moment, the wounds on his body knit themselves together.
He possessed dozens of Mud Pill cave-heavens. The vitality of his physical body was even more terrifying than Zhou Qiyun's back then; the instant a wound opened, it closed itself up!
The Heavenly Dragon charged forward with all its might, sneering, "How many cave-heavens can you afford to lose? Once you're stripped of them, do you think you can stand against the two of us?"
Li Xiaoke unleashed the Han sword, weaving a web of lightning-fast sword light. Yet he could not pierce the Heavenly Dragon's scales. And every time his bell-shaped divine power was shattered, Qingbi seized the opening to sever dozens more of his cave-heavens!
Suddenly, Li Xiaoke poured everything into his summons, roaring, "Where is my bell?!"
Beside Xu Ying, the bronze bell, Yuan Qi, and Xue Ying'an were watching the battle from afar. All at once, the bronze bell cried out in alarm, "Ah-Ying, I think I'm about to defect!"
Xu Ying reached out to grab it, but just as his hand caught the bell's suspension loop, an irresistible force flooded into the bronze bell, violently repelling his divine sense and yuan qi!
Xu Ying had no choice but to let go, calling out from the distance, "Qingbi, Lord Bell has defected again! Be careful!"
The bronze bell howled through the air, coming to hover above Li Xiaoke's head as overlapping walls of light erupted to shield him!
The chime of the bell resonated as it met the Heavenly Dragon head-on. As the saying goes, when enemies meet, their eyes blaze red. The Heavenly Dragon had been suppressed by the bronze bell for three thousand years and had long gnashed its teeth in hatred. It lunged forward to wage a desperate struggle against the bell!
Having gained a moment to catch his breath, Li Xiaoke turned all his might toward countering Qingbi. The two fought until heaven and earth lost their light.
The battle grew fiercer and fiercer. Suddenly, accompanied by a terrifying thrum of spatial tremor, Xu Ying and the others felt their bodies warp wildly, stretched and compressed by distorted space before snapping back to normal. Amid their shock and bewilderment, Fairy Qingbi flew toward them carrying a severed dragon head, her expression calm as she said, "You were right. The path of the Qi Refiner truly is obsolete. I need to cultivate both qi and Nuo."
She bore dozens of sword wounds large and small, grievously injured. The Primordial Spirit behind her was riddled with holes, and even her Realm of Xiyi had been punctured.
Xu Ying's heart pounded as he looked at the dragon head in her hand. It had a triangular snout and a savage, hideous face—it was none other than the Heavenly Dragon from before!
Just moments ago, a final clash had erupted, ending with the dragon suppressed by the bronze bell and its head severed clean off!
The Heavenly Dragon's eyes were still wide open, tears of blood trickling down.
Yuan Qi's voice trembled. "D-Dying with eyes wide open..."
"That's because I'm not dead yet!"
The dragon head glared fiercely at Xu Ying, snapping, "Victory was well within our grasp! It was that bell of yours defecting that brought us to this state! I hear you've opened the Mud Pill secret depository—hurry up and heal me!"
"There are divine powers lingering in the wound; they cannot heal it," Fairy Qingbi said as she turned and opened the coffin behind her. "My injuries are too severe. I must first suppress the lingering divine powers within them. Li Xiaoke is injured as well, though his wounds are likely lighter than ours! Let us go!"
She placed the dragon head inside the coffin and shut the lid.
The moment the coffin closed, Xu Ying caught a fleeting glimpse of dazzling cave-heavens floating within, and a faint worry rose in his heart.
Those cave-heavens were undoubtedly the ones Fairy Qingbi had stripped from Li Xiaoke.
If Fairy Qingbi could not resist the temptation, she might end up like Li Xiaoke, grafting those cave-heavens onto herself!
Xu Ying collected himself and followed Fairy Qingbi as they flew toward Jiucai Ridge in the sky. Before the black coffin, Fairy Qingbi barely managed to keep her injuries under control, her figure swaying slightly.
The black coffin flew to her side, its lid quietly lifting at one corner. Fairy Qingbi stole a glance at the cave-heavens drifting in the space within.
This black coffin had been forged by her and Li Xiaoke to suppress an evil 'heavenly god.' She had never imagined that Li Xiaoke would end up sealing her inside it instead.
That evil heavenly god had actually been the heavenly god's mount: a cunning, ferocious Heavenly Dragon. Seeing that she was also imprisoned, the Heavenly Dragon had sought to kick her while she was down, intending to capture the young woman, humiliate her, and devour her.
Inside the deep well of the stone mountain, Qingbi had used the black coffin as her stronghold to battle the Heavenly Dragon. For centuries, the dragon had never been able to best her.
Centuries later, Qingbi had matched the dragon in strength. Eventually, she had suppressed it completely, and the two had struck an alliance to deal with their common foe.
Later on, Qingbi and the Heavenly Dragon had ambushed the bronze bell together, finally securing their escape.
It was during that time that the black coffin had been refined into a magical treasure by Qingbi.
It was also this very coffin that had led Xu Ying to mistake Qingbi for a female ghost in a coffin.
However, the black coffin was purely a defensive treasure. In an attack, it could not harm an entity as formidable as Li Xiaoke. Thus, Qingbi had used it to store the cave-heavens stripped from his body.
*Should I graft them? If I possess them, perhaps I can become as powerful as Li Xiaoke... No, I would become even stronger than him!*
A complex look appeared in her eyes, causing the severed dragon head recuperating inside the coffin to shudder.
Qingbi stared at the mesmerizing cave-heavens. After a moment, her turbulent aura slowly settled.
The coffin lid closed on its own.
"Become someone like Li Xiaoke? I would rather die."
Calming her mind, she devoted herself entirely to purging the lingering divine powers from her wounds.
Seeing this, Xu Ying breathed a sigh of relief, thinking to himself, *If she failed to cross this hurdle, she would have become another Li Xiaoke, delighting in devouring humans...*
Just then, hearty laughter rang out. Li Xiaoke, drenched in blood, flew toward them with a battered bell hovering above his head. Behind him, his cave-heavens were in shambles, and the bronze bell was riddled with cracks and dents.
Brimming with murderous intent, Li Xiaoke laughed from afar. "Qingbi, Heavenly Dragon, Xu Ying—you might as well stay behind today!"
He wielded the Han sword, sending a sweep of sword qi across the vast sky, slashing down toward Xu Ying and the others!
Suddenly, the sky flared with blinding radiance as a blaze like a radiant sun came streaking through the air. A sharp talon reached down from the heavens, seizing the descending Han sword.
A senile voice cried out in boundless joy, "Xu Ying! Ah-Ying, I've finally found you! I remember you now!"
*Clang!*
From within that sun-like blaze, feathers as thick and radiant as layered sabers slashed out, sweeping directly toward Li Xiaoke with a thunderous roar!
Li Xiaoke was shocked and frantically drove the bronze bell. But the bell was already riddled with holes and leaking from all sides; the golden feather-blades sliced clean through the gaps, carving Li Xiaoke with countless bloody gashes in an instant!
Li Xiaoke roared in fury, straining to wrench the Han sword free and sever the bird's talon. But suddenly, another bird talon reached out from the blaze, seizing the suspension loop of the bronze bell!
Li Xiaoke activated the bronze bell, but its might was already crippled, leaving him unable to overpower the bird's talons. From within the flames, a three-legged golden crow bathed in fire emerged, its wings gleaming like light as they slashed down in rapid succession.
Li Xiaoke laughed in enraged defiance. "I have entered the realm of the six immortals—do you truly think I cannot match you?!"
The two tumbled across the vast sky, trading strikes as streaks of sword qi split the air and the bell chimed thunderously, flying off as streaks of flowing light.
Moments later, a beam of light pierced the sky, plunged into Jiucai Ridge, and vanished without a trace.
Xu Ying and the others watched in uncertainty. A moment later, a ball of fire came flying toward them, coming to an abrupt halt right before Xu Ying.
The flames dispersed to reveal the decrepit Jin Buyi, drenched in blood. He thrust his head right in front of Xu Ying. "I've found you, Ah-Ying! After more than four thousand years, I've finally found you!"
Tears streamed from his eyes, transforming into balls of flame that drifted around his massive head. "I thought I had lost you!"
Chapter 171