Buddhist Child Jijue shadowed Xu Ying closely, not daring to let his guard down for even an instant. He thought to himself, *Just a moment ago I relaxed for a brief while, and I nearly unleashed an apocalyptic fiend upon the world!!!*
Just now, Xu Ying had almost had his mind corrupted by the Imperial Monarch's great curse, but with the aid of Jijue's Buddhist dharma, he had calmed down and was now conducting himself with total propriety!
All thanks to Yuan Qi's years of diligent instruction.
Xu Ying remained in Xujiaping to practice his sword. A few days later, he cultivated a Sword Dao Golden Core and refined a sword pellet; a few days after that, he attained a transparent sword heart.
With utter focus, he strove to break through to the Sword Dao Primordial Spirit.
Once he formed his Sword Dao Primordial Spirit, he would be able to attempt to unravel the Imperial Monarch's great curse.
In the sky, the Sea of Chaos drew closer and closer to Yingzhou. Immense though Yingzhou was, compared to that vast, boundless Sea of Chaos, it remained exceedingly minuscule.
As Yingzhou flew toward the Sea of Chaos, even Buddhist Child Jijue felt his heart pound in dread, seized by the sensation of a moth hurtling into a flame.
"Sword Monarch Jinhe, you truly haunt us like an inescapable ghost!"
At Yingzhou's edge, a magnificent, surging expanse of ocean came into view. Yet the sea abruptly ended, as though severed by something. Strangely, however, waves continued to roll in from the severed boundary.
It looked as though what had been cleaved was time and space itself, while the ocean outside Yingzhou remained unbroken. Waves traveled here across the waters of another spacetime, rolling wave upon wave toward the coast.
On the shoreline, Heavenly Lord Pingnan could not contain his fury. Glaring at Sword Monarch Jinhe, who had pursued him all this way, he sneered, "Loyal and righteous souls like us braved life and death for the Immortal Realm. In death, far from returning home in honor, we were suppressed in Weixu, reduced to wandering ghosts. Hahahaha! Even now that we are dead, the Immortal Realm still sends its hounds to slaughter us!"
Sword Monarch Jinhe stepped forward and said in a heavy voice, "Duty calls, and there can be no turning back. Forgive me, Heavenly Lord, but no matter what happens today, I will escort you back to Weixu!"
Heavenly Lord Pingnan's aura surged violently, corpse qi erupting in billowing waves to form a dense sea mist, reducing him to a looming silhouette within the haze. "Sword Monarch Jinhe, you court your own destruction. Do not blame me!"
His bodhimanda expanded, the mist instantly engulfing Sword Monarch Jinhe. Heavenly Lord Pingnan ripped up his wooden staff and attacked in person!
Previously, when clashing with Sword Monarch Jinhe, he had always relied solely on manipulating the wooden staff to contend against the Jinhe Sword. Now, truly enraged, he intended to strike Sword Monarch Jinhe down with his own hands!
His body was impaled with countless sharp blades, wounds dealt by the Zhenwu Swords of the Ancestral Court during the battle there. The swords piercing him were left behind by the Ancestral Court's immortal gods of Zhenwu Monastery.
These blades were a grave disadvantage to him, liable to be seized and controlled by Sword Monarch Jinhe at any moment!
However, having recovered his cultivation through the Returning Dao Jade Platter, he far surpassed Sword Monarch Jinhe. In this battle, he was determined to slay Sword Monarch Jinhe once and for all, eliminating this threat forever!
The corpses of Immortal Kings and Immortal Monarchs, leading thousands upon thousands of Human Immortals, Earth Immortals, and Heavenly Immortals, flew far away from the waters of the duel, hovering in the sky to watch the battle.
Sword Monarch Jinhe and Heavenly Lord Pingnan were too formidable; there was simply no room for the others to intervene.
Thick mist locked away all sight. One could only faintly make out two colossal silhouettes shifting and soaring through the gloom. Sword light and crimson bristles would occasionally pierce through the fog—the sword light shearing the sea asunder, the red bristles spearing into the void like tentacles.
The two mighty beings clashed faster and faster within the mist, the might of the Sword Dao growing ever fiercer.
Yet the stronger Sword Monarch Jinhe became, the greater his peril, for Heavenly Lord Pingnan's counterattacks only grew more devastating in turn!
Suddenly, a barrage of ringing chimes rang out ceaselessly as the immortal swords embedded in Heavenly Lord Pingnan tore free one after another. Under Sword Monarch Jinhe's command, they transformed into a roaring torrent of blades.
Channeling the supreme Sword Dao he had comprehended, Sword Monarch Jinhe gave a fierce bellow and thrust his sword finger forward. The torrent of thousands of immortal swords coalesced into a gigantic blade, howling as it lunged toward Heavenly Lord Pingnan!
This was his ultimate strike. His sword heart, his Sword Dao, his Primordial Spirit, his blood and vitality—everything was poured into this peerless sword. With it, he was determined to inflict grave wounds upon Heavenly Lord Pingnan and drag him back to Weixu to be suppressed once more!
Though Heavenly Lord Pingnan's life and Dao had once been extinguished, leaving his Dao reconstructed only from obsessive lingering will and thus incomplete compared to when he lived, his cultivation still vastly surpassed Sword Monarch Jinhe's.
He knew that so long as he endured this single strike, Sword Monarch Jinhe would be spent. Instantly surging with all his cultivation, he thrust both hands forward. Countless strands of red corpse hair danced behind him, interweaving and crisscrossing in front of him.
In the blink of an eye, the myriad red bristles wove into a massive red corpse cocoon before him!
*Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!*
The colossal sword forged from countless immortal blades struck. One by one, the Zhenwu Monastery immortal swords shattered with violent pops, yet the cocoon of corpse hair was pierced through by the turbulent sword might!
The gigantic sword drove straight into Heavenly Lord Pingnan's bodhimanda, colliding with his Dao chains. One by one, the Zhenwu Monastery swords turned to dust amid the violent shockwaves, but the tremendous energy within the colossal blade continued driving deep into his bodhimanda. Incomparably domineering, its sword might rapidly closed the distance to Heavenly Lord Pingnan.
Before Heavenly Lord Pingnan, the wooden staff whistled as it sprouted branches, branching out in all directions to meet the giant blade.
This wooden staff was his treasure, known as the Heaven-Imprisoning Staff. When activated, its myriad branches spread out, capable of completely sealing the sky of an entire world in an instant, earning it the name Heaven-Imprisoning.
Heavenly Lord Pingnan had fallen during the battle at Zhenwu Monastery, and this staff had been ruined as well, leaving only half. Yet in this collision with Sword Monarch Jinhe, it still unleashed horrifying power!
Sword Monarch Jinhe's sword strike surged to its absolute peak. Its terrifying sword might even overwhelmed the Heaven-Imprisoning Staff, forcing Heavenly Lord Pingnan's colossal form to slide backward along the sea surface!
*Snap! Crack! Bang!*
Within the colossal sword, immortal blades continued to detonate, while the myriad boughs of the Heaven-Imprisoning Staff shattered continuously.
With a sharp crack, the golden clasp binding Sword Monarch Jinhe's hair burst apart. His long hair flew wild like flurrying swords. Uttering a roar of exertion, he poured every ounce of his strength into thrusting the Jinhe Sword forward!
*Boom!*
The giant sword ground forward. Meeting immense resistance, the thousands of Zhenwu Monastery immortal swords exploded in crackling succession. Shattering alongside them was the Heaven-Imprisoning Staff.
This wooden staff had endured both the battle of the Ancestral Court and the campaign at Zhenwu Monastery, having accompanied Heavenly Lord Pingnan for ages. He had nurtured it with his corpse qi, hoping to restore it to its peak, never expecting it would snap in two right here!
Like a beam of flowing light, the Jinhe Sword darted through the cloud of shattered immortal swords, seizing the fleeting opening to plunge toward Heavenly Lord Pingnan!
*Clang!*
A clear, ringing impact resonated. The Jinhe Sword struck Heavenly Lord Pingnan's palms. Pressing his left hand over his right, Pingnan shoved forward with all his might, his body driven skimming across the sea under the horrifying sword force.
With a thud, his body came to an abrupt halt, his back slamming into a colossal crag rising from the water.
Yet taking advantage of this stop, he caught the Jinhe Sword completely.
Sword Monarch Jinhe leaped forward, gripping the hilt with both hands and thrusting with all his might.
Opposite him, however, a smile surfaced on Heavenly Lord Pingnan's face, for he felt the power behind the Jinhe Sword fading rapidly.
Sword Monarch Jinhe had unleashed his ultimate attack, yet had failed to kill or gravely wound him. He had lost his final chance.
Heavenly Lord Pingnan smiled faintly. "Jinhe, you have forfeited your last chance at survival... Where is this place?"
His expression suddenly altered. Hurriedly sweeping his gaze across their surroundings, he dispersed the surrounding corpse mist.
They were standing upon a vast, mist-shrouded ocean. Huge breakers rolled in, snow-white spray pushing the sea forward—only for the waters and spray to vanish together!
Where they vanished was a cliff—an extraordinarily clean, sheared precipice. Beyond the cliff lay a boundless void that stretched as far as the eye could see!
Heavenly Lord Pingnan took in a breath of cold air. Just now, as he caught Sword Monarch Jinhe's world-shaking strike, his body had been driven sliding backward, and without realizing it, the two of them had crossed through that mysterious severed sea and crossed over to its other side!
And that other side of the severed sea lay in a different spacetime, not in Yingzhou at all!
He had finally been separated from the soldiers who had died in battle!
"Where is this place, you ask?"
A voice suddenly sounded from above their heads. Heavenly Lord Pingnan looked up in haste, only to see a tall, slender figure standing atop the towering stone stele rising from the sea behind him.
Heavenly Lord Pingnan's heart jolted violently. With his cultivation, he had not even sensed when this slender figure had appeared!
Seizing the opening, Sword Monarch Jinhe withdrew the Jinhe Sword and looked up toward the slender figure. The man had a refined, scholarly demeanor and appeared to be in his thirties or forties, looking like an erudite scholar who had thoroughly pored over the classics. Yet his temples were frosted with white, as though he had weathered countless sorrows and joys of the world.
The graying scholar looked down at them with gentle eyes. His voice was mild yet resolute as he spoke: "This is the Heavenly Sea, the Earth Immortal Realm."
"The Heavenly Sea? The Earth Immortal Realm?"
Sword Monarch Jinhe and Heavenly Lord Pingnan exchanged bewildered glances, neither knowing what kind of world the Earth Immortal Realm was.
The next moment, however, they looked at the massive stone stele beneath the scholar's feet. One section sank into the sea, while over a hundred zhang stood erect above the water's surface.
Sure enough, several large characters were carved upon the stele: *Heavenly Sea, Earth Immortal Realm*!
"I arrived here some time ago and have been studying how to get back," the scholar said, standing atop the stele, sounding as though he were addressing them yet also murmuring to himself. "Only after arriving did I discover that I cannot find the way back. I just tested it: the Heavenly Sea connects to world after world. Not a single one leads back to the place I came from."
"Connects to world after world?"
Their minds roared, and they cried out in unison, "This is not the Heavenly Sea! This is the Mysterious Sea!"
Heavenly Lord Pingnan said gravely, "This place is called the Mysterious Sea, an ocean that connects the myriad worlds of the heavens. That ocean is exceedingly bizarre; it can even connect to the demonic realm!"
"To the Ancestral Court," the scholar corrected him. "In the past, people did not know the name of this expanse of sea, so they called it the Mysterious Sea. But this stele makes it clear that this ocean is the Heavenly Sea. In that case, what is the Earth Immortal Realm?"
Heavenly Lord Pingnan frowned with slight annoyance. "Are you a schoolteacher? You speak with such coaxing rhetoric, asking so many leading questions! If you know the answer, spit it out!"
The scholar smiled. "You saw through me. In my view, the Earth Immortal Realm actually encompasses the Ancestral Court and the myriad worlds of the heavens! In truth, the myriad worlds all float atop the Heavenly Sea of the Earth Immortal Realm!"
"Wrong, entirely wrong!" Sword Monarch Jinhe suddenly cut in, shouting, "What you say is utterly mistaken!"
The scholar smiled. "Does my good brother have a better insight?"
Sword Monarch Jinhe said, "I dare not claim great insight. But we clearly came here across the sea from Yingzhou. Yingzhou's sea and this sea are one and the same, merely severed by someone into different spacetimes. Yet Yingzhou was cleaved from the Immortal Realm! If you say this is the Earth Immortal Realm, does that not mean the Immortal Realm is also part of the Earth Immortal Realm?"
Heavenly Lord Pingnan trembled violently, corpse qi roiling around him as an expression of disbelief crossed his face.
The scholar, however, clapped his hands and laughed. "Precisely! That is indeed brilliant insight, and I thought of it as well! Therefore, the Immortal Realm is also a part of the Earth Immortal Realm!"
Heavenly Lord Pingnan stammered, "To speak such words is treasonous, outrageous—you will lose your head!"
Sword Monarch Jinhe felt the world spinning around him. Hurriedly steadying his tempered sword heart, he stammered, "You speak sheer nonsense! You... you mean to say that the myriad worlds of the heavens, the Ancestral Court, and the Immortal Realm are actually one whole, all part of the Earth Immortal Realm! You... you'll be beheaded!"
The scholar looked at the two of them and smiled. "Beheaded? The Immortal Realm tried that once long ago, but failed. Gentlemen, have you ever considered what fascinating things will happen when the Three Realms tide arrives?"
Heavenly Lord Pingnan and Sword Monarch Jinhe stood dumbstruck.
When the two thought of the Three Realms tide, of how the myriad worlds of the heavens, the Netherworld, and the Immortal Realm would pull toward one another, and then looked at the boundary stele of the Earth Immortal Realm before them, an instinctive dread arose within their hearts.
"The Three Realms tide will surely be exceedingly interesting," the scholar chuckled. With that, he leaped down from the stone stele, landed lightly upon the sea surface, and leisurely walked toward a stretch of open water.
"Wait, do not leave!" Sword Monarch Jinhe hurriedly gave chase, shouting, "Who on earth are you?"
Heavenly Lord Pingnan chased after him as well, shouting, "Leave your name! There shall be a place for you upon the Immortal Slaying Platform in the days to come!"
"This humble one is Xu Jing, merely a teacher."
The scholar turned his head and smiled. A wave swept over, and his silhouette vanished without a trace.
Sword Monarch Jinhe and Heavenly Lord Pingnan exchanged a glance, then plunged into that very wave after him.
***
"Since my father has not visited this place these past few days, he is most likely not on Yingzhou. Or could it be that my father was already done in by this thieving monk?"
Xu Ying's eyes gleamed with malevolence as he cast an ill-intentioned glare toward Buddhist Child Jijue, murmuring under his breath, "I should wring this little monk's neck first..."
Already used to this, Jijue promptly plastered him with a flurry of Buddhist Dao arts. Before long, Xu Ying was restored to his senses.
"If my father hid on Yingzhou, he had only three possible destinations," Xu Ying said, now clear-headed and speaking with orderly logic. "First, to enter Weixu when the geomagnetic torrent between Yingzhou and Weixu erupted; second, to seize the geomagnetic torrent to reach the other shore formed by the Xuanhuang Twin Qi; third, to swim against the current and ascend into the Immortal Realm."
Seeing that Xu Ying had regained his wits, Jijue breathed a sigh of relief and asked, "Which path do you think he took?"
Xu Ying said, "If I were him, I would descend to the lower realm to seek opportunities to develop."
Chapter 434