Carrying the colossal Penglai Immortal Mountain upon its back, the Black Tortoise divine turtle stood guard outside Hunyuan Palace. Its roar was like thunder as it spewed thick smoke, fire, and lightning from its maw, blasting one immortal corpse after another off their feet.
Yuan Tiangang and the other immortals seized this opening to channel their magic power into streaks of brilliant rainbows, lifting the entire Hunyuan Palace below and transporting it onto the Penglai Immortal Mountain.
The Black Tortoise divine turtle raised its mountain-thick legs, stomping down all around and trampling the immortal corpses into disarray. Bearing everyone upon its back, it bolted across the Ziwei Remnant Realm at astonishing speed.
Behind it, immortal corpses surged like a tidal wave. These corpses could fly and cast immortal arts; how could the Black Tortoise divine turtle possibly withstand them alone?
Upon the immortal mountain, though there were only a hundred-odd immortals, their cultivation was no weaker than that of True Immortals. They were merely restricted by the Penglai Immortal Realm, unable to step beyond its borders.
Silhouettes flickered through the air. The immortals condensed their immortal dao divine arts, their Primordial Spirits emerging to establish immortal dao domains. Channeling their divine arts and deploying the immortal artifacts they had forged, they repelled the leaping immortal corpses one after another.
Numerous immortal corpses also clambered up the Black Tortoise divine turtle's legs, scrambling onto the ancient divine beast's shell and charging straight into the Penglai Immortal Realm.
Without a hint of panic, Shenpo assigned personnel to intercept them.
Yet their numbers were simply too few. A portion of the immortals had previously fallen in the clash with the Ancestral Court; with only a hundred or so remaining, how could they possibly defend a mountain as vast as Penglai?
Before long, countless immortal corpses soared above the Penglai Immortal Realm, while many others climbed up the slopes. Unfurling their respective immortal dao, they corroded the Heavenly Dao domains and slaughtered their way into the fairy realm!
The immortals engaged the charging corpses in fierce battle!
Above their heads, the Immortal Realm was faintly visible, its immortal radiance shining down and bathing the mountain peaks of Penglai.
Within Penglai, they were true immortals, possessing cultivation and strength vastly superior to ordinary immortal corpses!
The Seven Immortals of Penglai flitted across the field. Yan Yu, Xiang Hao, Yu Qin, and the others were all pavilion masters of the same sect. Though they were perpetually bickering and running each other down, their coordination was seamless.
Though Pavilion Master Lin Tianhua's cultivation fell far short of theirs and he had not even attained the realm of an immortal, his time cultivating on Penglai—combined with the rigorous guidance of the seven patriarchs—had caused his strength to improve by leaps and bounds. In this battle, he could just barely lend a hand.
Nevertheless, the Seven Immortals cherished him dearly, reluctant to let him take risks, and kept him shielded behind them at all times.
Suddenly, an immortal corpse approached. Patriarch Yan Yu executed the Three Forms of the Startled Swan—the divine art flew forth like a startled swan with fluttering, iridescent wings, its immortal dao aura chilling and peerlessly sharp.
Yet when the Three Forms of the Startled Swan struck the corpse, it had no effect whatsoever, merely jolting the corpse slightly.
The immortal corpse burst with brilliant dao light as resonant dao chants erupted around it. Thick, broken dao chains danced about its body as it raised a palm and smashed it down toward him.
Patriarch Yan Yu's expression changed drastically. He surged with all his magic power to meet the blow, but the instant they collided, blood gushed from his eyes, ears, nose, and mouth.
His Primordial Spirit was forced out and instantly compressed, shrinking amidst popping crackles.
Just as he was about to be crushed to death by the palm, silhouettes flashed by. Xiang Hao, Yu Qin, and the others charged forward with resounding shouts, striking together to meet the crushing blow.
The Seven Immortals of Penglai spat blood in unison, their physical bodies and Primordial Spirits heavily injured, leaving them utterly drained.
"It's the corpse of an Immortal King!" Patriarch Yan Yu forced out a breath and shouted, "Fall back!"
The group retreated toward Hunyuan Palace, only to see the other immortals falling back in that direction as well, evidently having encountered formidable powerhouses among the immortal corpses.
"As long as we hold Hunyuan Palace, victory is ours!" Shenpo's voice rang out from before the palace gates.
The immortals formed a perimeter around Hunyuan Palace, defending every direction and fighting desperately against the encroaching corpses.
Soon, every immortal was wounded, forced to give ground until they were pushed closer and closer to the gates.
Meanwhile, bearing the Penglai Immortal Mountain on its back, the Black Tortoise divine turtle sprinted madly across the Ziwei Remnant Realm. Behind it on the desolate plains, countless immortal corpses either ran or flew, relentlessly pursuing the ancient divine beast.
Despite the turtle's astonishing speed, immortal corpses continuously landed upon its shell to join the fray.
Fortunately, its persistent headlong dash kept the main horde from catching up. If that surging sea of immortal corpses ever overtook them, even if Xu Ying himself stood guard, they would likely be swallowed whole in an instant!
Even so, Yuan Tiangang, the Seven Immortals of Penglai, Fairy Gushe, and the rest were in dire straits. In particular, many of the terrifying figures that had landed on the Black Tortoise's back were Immortal Kings in life. Even in death, stripped of their Primordial Spirits and physically mutilated, they posed an immense threat!
Fairy Gushe wove between the miniature immortal mountains, using them as cover to evade the attacks of the corpses.
Her strikes were exceptionally ingenious. Spreading the fingers of her Primordial Spirit, she tugged at the karmic threads entwining the immortal corpses, temporarily restoring their memories of life. In that brief instant when a corpse froze in stunned bewilderment, an immortal sword would pierce straight through its skull or cleave it in two at the waist.
Her cultivation techniques and divine arts were formidable, making her one of the top powerhouses of the Penglai Immortal Realm.
Suddenly, an immortal mountain sank abruptly as an immortal corpse sixteen feet tall landed upon it.
Fairy Gushe tried the same trick, reaching out to hook the corpse's past karma. But the corpse suddenly blazed with blinding light, its Great Dao forming chains that coiled about its frame as profound dao chants resounded to the heavens!
Her heart sank, and she immediately abandoned the miniature mountain.
"Another corpse of an Immortal King."
She retreated toward Hunyuan Palace, but seeing immortal corpses closing in from all directions and the immortals backed right against the doors, her dread deepened.
*This is the Penglai calamity I deduced through the laws of karma. If we don't flee, none of us will escape this doom!*
Fairy Gushe hesitated, looking toward the immortals guarding the entrance. They were old acquaintances, yet she wavered at the thought of throwing away her life alongside them.
*I ascended to Penglai for longevity, to become an immortal—not to die here!*
Gritting her teeth, she turned and flew away.
Just as she was about to fly out of the Penglai Immortal Realm, she spotted a familiar figure darting through the floating miniature mountains, evading the pursuit of numerous immortal corpses.
"Yuan Tiangang! He's still alive?"
Fairy Gushe flew forward. A slender immortal sword shot out, slaying one of the corpses besieging Yuan Tiangang, and she rendezvoused with him.
Seeing her, Yuan Tiangang was both startled and overjoyed. He hastily said, "Fairy, have you also deduced the key to breaking this impasse? I calculated that our turn of fortune lies in this very moment! Look up!"
Fairy Gushe had been about to urge him to leave Penglai with her, but upon hearing this, she looked toward the sky. High above, numerous figures crisscrossed, evidently experts of Weixu's Hua family forming a bizarre formation.
Yuan Tiangang said, "The key to turning misfortune into blessing is to send out an expert to eliminate those Weixu experts in the sky! They are the corpse controllers. If we kill them, Penglai's crisis is resolved! I am not strong enough to slay them, but with your strength, you can do it! Fairy, I will escort you out!"
Fighting with everything he had, he covered Fairy Gushe as she pushed out of Penglai, shouting, "Fairy, the safety of us all rests upon your shoulders!"
Floating in midair, her robes fluttering, Fairy Gushe was torn inside. *If I leave right now, I will live. If I go fight those Weixu experts to the death, I might perish there. After all, Weixu cannot be without precautions. Besides, my deduction showed that we have almost no chance of surviving this calamity...*
A battle raged in her dao heart. Suddenly, she turned away and murmured, "Forgive me, fellow Daoists. I cannot see past life and death..."
She flew away from the battlefield. A moment later, Fairy Gushe fiercely gritted her teeth, shot straight into the sky, and charged toward the Hua family experts stationed beneath the monstrous eye!
"Karma belongs to the past; the future is yet unwritten! Perhaps the chance to survive lies precisely in this gamble!"
Murderous intent radiated from her. If she fled now, she might preserve her life, but her dao heart would be tormented by self-reproach forever.
Rather than that, she would shatter her own laws of karma and gamble her life for the immortals of Penglai!
***
Ziwei Remnant Realm.
Purple qi cascaded from the heavens like a waterfall, suspended between heaven and earth. The monstrous eye of Weixu blotted out the sky, and within it, Xu Ying and the Five Extremes Immortal King stood facing each other.
The Five Extremes Immortal King had previously been shocked when Xu Ying blocked his Five Extremes Immortal Light, suspecting that Xu Ying had regained the memories of his first life. Only when he saw the Heavenly Dao Divine Person did he put his mind at ease.
He had been one of the Immortal Kings who ambushed Xu Ying on the Heavenly Road back then, and he had been terrified by that incarnation of Xu Ying, leaving him somewhat prone to paranoia.
His robes whipping in the wind, Xu Ying stepped into the monstrous eye of Weixu, the Heavenly Dao Divine Person hovering behind him.
Five strands of immortal qi circled the Five Extremes Immortal King. He smiled faintly. "Xu Ying, the Little Celestial Venerable was defeated by my hands twice. The first time was on the Dao Comprehension Platform, where I had my disciples and grand-disciples master the Ten Thousand Immortals Five Extremes Formation and gravely wound him. And now, heavily injured once more, he has had no choice but to bring you out to save him. How pathetic."
He chuckled softly. "Of all the people he could beg for salvation, he should never have begged you. Because you are even more pathetic than he is!"
He laughed aloud. "Back then, you were sliced into over a dozen portions and thoroughly divvied up. Your physical body and Primordial Spirit were pared away, and your memories sealed, leaving behind nothing but your indestructible true spirit. For over forty thousand years, the bodies spawned from that indestructible true spirit have been like walking corpses, without the slightest ability to master their own destiny. You have been toyed with for over forty thousand years! Yet he begs you to save him—who, then, could ever come to save you?"
Standing opposite him, Xu Ying met the Immortal King's gaze squarely, utterly unmoved by his words. He said calmly, "I made you feel threatened, which is why you resorted to a war of words to disrupt my dao heart. Five Extremes Immortal King, after you killed me back then, how did things turn out for you?"
The Five Extremes Immortal King remained impassive.
Xu Ying continued, "When the cunning hares are dead, the hounds are boiled for food. After being used by the Immortal Realm, you dogs were discarded in the lower realm. Even someone as powerful as you had no choice but to flee to Weixu and keep company with rotting corpses. You are fit only to play the Immortal King in Weixu. Do you dare take half a step outside?"
The Five Extremes Immortal King's dao heart remained tranquil. The five strands of immortal qi transformed into five immortal sashes, arranging themselves into a formation as if five duplicates of him were setting the array.
The aura of both men surged violently, their momentum clashing as each sought to seize the initiative.
Xu Ying rather admired his composure. Smiling, he said, "Meng Wuhuai has already been killed by me."
The Five Extremes Immortal King's heart thumped violently.
The death of Immortal Master Meng Wuhuai dealt him an enormous shock!
Meng Wuhuai had been just like him: an Immortal King who participated in the Heavenly Road ambush against Xu Ying. After Xu Ying was defeated, the Immortal Kings had parted ways on bitter terms due to an uneven division of the spoils. Meng Wuhuai found the Penglai Immortal Mountain and became the Immortal Master of Penglai, while he entered Weixu to become its ruler.
The Five Extremes Immortal King was well aware of their respective capabilities.
Though Meng Wuhuai was slightly weaker than him due to Penglai's incomplete Heavenly Dao, the gap between them was negligible; both were beings at the Immortal King level.
For Xu Ying to have slain Meng Wuhuai could not fail to shake him to the core!
The instant his heart skipped that violent beat, Xu Ying seized the fleeting opening and struck with ruthless decisiveness!
The moment he attacked, it was the Zhuxian sword qi!
Boundless murderous intent swept across heaven and earth, sweeping the eight wildernesses, splitting the universe, cleaving heaven and earth, obliterating all living beings, and extinguishing every shred of vitality!
The killing intent within this sword went far beyond executing immortals. It was clearly meant to slaughter all creation, slay immortals and annihilate the Dao, recreate heaven and earth, reset the cosmos, and give birth to the Great Dao anew!
With no time to think, the Five Extremes Immortal King immediately channeled the Five Extremes Soaring Sky Skill, the five immortal sashes forming the Five Extremes Formation to meet Xu Ying's strike!
This was the very same sword technique that had slain his avatar; naturally, he was intimately familiar with it.
When the Little Celestial Venerable fell into the ambush, he, the Ninth Immortal King, the Imperial Monarch's direct descendant Young Master Yuchuan, and others had gathered at Hunyuan Palace, waiting for their target to walk into the trap. Yet what awaited them instead was Xu Ying's Zhuxian sword qi, which had nearly wiped them all out in a single sweep!
This time, the Heavenly Dao Divine Person behind Xu Ying unleashed the Zhuxian sword qi as well, even more overbearing than the strike from Xu Ying himself. Beneath such sword qi, the Five Extremes Immortal King suffered the chilling illusion that his immortal dao was crumbling and he was about to be slain!
*Rip! Rip! Rip! Rip! Rip!*
The five immortal sashes of his Five Extremes Formation shattered to pieces, their dao chains and runes severed clean through. Faced with Xu Ying's sword, his divine arts had no room to display their power!
Xu Ying had never cultivated the Five Extremes Formation. When the Little Celestial Venerable was injured within it, Xu Ying had been unable to heal his dao injuries. But there was no need for him to learn it.
The Zhuxian sword qi broke all immortal arts. Why bother learning them?
The sword light illuminated the Five Extremes Immortal King's physical body and laid bare his Primordial Spirit. In the very next moment, it would execute him!
Right then, the Five Extremes Immortal King's Primordial Spirit raised the Twelve-Storyed Mansions in its palms, activating the treasure to shield his front.
The doors of the Twelve-Storyed Mansions flew wide open, and twelve imprints of Xu Ying soared out in unison. Divine light burst from their eyes as their shouts parted the clouds, their fingers forming sword gestures that struck squarely against the Zhuxian sword qi!
When the Five Extremes Immortal King had taught Hua Cuoying the uses of this supreme Immortal King treasure, he had held back, withholding many of its advanced transformations.
Now, faced with a matter of life and death, he decisively unleashed the full might of the treasure.
The twelve imprints of Xu Ying were like twelve Xu Ying Primordial Spirits.
"Xu Ying, this treasure was refined from your own realms. Never expected this, did you?"
Forced backward continuously by the Zhuxian sword qi, the Five Extremes Immortal King watched countless blasts of sword qi detonate and graze past him with piercing whistles, leaving numerous wounds across his body.
Yet he showed not the slightest trace of fear. Instead, a sneer curled on his lips. "You never imagined that the treasure I refined from your realms would save my life today!"
Above Xu Ying's head, his Primordial Spirit leaped forth: One Qi Transforming into Three Purities, splitting into three Primordial Spirits. Each unleashed the Zhuxian sword qi, thrusting forward almost simultaneously!
This strike coincided precisely with the moment the twelve imprints within the Twelve-Storyed Mansions had exhausted their initial momentum and had yet to gather their next reserve. The Three Purities Primordial Spirits and three beams of Zhuxian sword qi arrived before the Five Extremes Immortal King's brow in a split second!
Terror finally seized the Five Extremes Immortal King's face. His Primordial Spirit frantically reached out to block, but with a succession of sharp snaps, its five fingers were cleanly severed, utterly frail before the Zhuxian sword qi!
The flesh of his forehead split open, his death beneath the Zhuxian sword qi imminent!
Only then did Xu Ying's voice drift into his ears:
"Five Extremes, if I want to kill you, not even I can save you!"
Chapter 364