Xu Ying pondered for a moment, then said, "Since Brother Dao has such ambition, how could I refuse to help you fulfill it?"
He had refrained from using Zangification when clashing with Immortal Emperor Meng Shanming out of concern that he would set a poor example. If others saw that even the Ancestor of the New Dao had undergone Zangification—and was so terrifyingly powerful after doing so—they would surely follow suit and abandon any thought of forging ahead.
Yet since the Holy Venerable wished to see Zangification, he could not turn him down.
The Holy Venerable said with satisfaction, "My thanks to Dao Ancestor Xu."
One after the other, the two walked out beyond the sky.
Yuan Weiyang looked up and suddenly asked, "Senior Brother Lou, is the Holy Venerable about to prove his Dao and become a Supreme?"
Lou Mingyu hurriedly said, "Lady Yuan, you must never call me senior brother! We cannot scramble our seniority like that!"
He hesitated briefly before continuing, "Your keen eyes see everything, my lady. The Holy Venerable indeed intends to prove his Dao as a Supreme. Previously, he needed me to protect his Dao, having me accompany him wherever he went. But this time, he no longer needs me. In my view, his strength has reached the absolute peak of the Dao Scenery Realm. Taking one more step forward will make him a Supreme."
Yuan Weiyang asked in doubt, "Could he be trying to borrow Ah Ying's power to help him achieve the Supreme Realm?"
Lou Mingyu shook his head. "It has only been a little over a year since he severed his cultivation to switch to the New Dao. How could he possibly recultivate to the Supreme Realm so quickly?"
Having said that, understanding suddenly dawned on him. The Holy Venerable had immersed himself in the Supreme Realm for six hundred thousand years, perpetually exploring the ninth realm, and had accumulated an incomparably profound foundation. While others might need years, decades, or even centuries of accumulation to switch to the New Dao, he had no need for years of gradual polishing; his progress would naturally outstrip anyone else's!
*Could Master intend to use the pressure of Dao Ancestor Xu's Zangification to force his own breakthrough?*
As this thought crossed his mind, Xu Ying and the Holy Venerable had already arrived in the starry sky.
All at once, a vast swathe of the starry sky plunged into absolute pitch-black, stripped of all light. That was the dark pollution caused by Xu Ying's own Zangification!
Such pollution would trigger a backlash from the Heavenly Dao, which was why Xu Ying could not unleash it within the Heavenly Dao Ancestral Court.
Zangification was exceptionally perilous. If too many practitioners underwent Zangification, they would even pollute the Earth Immortal Realm's Heavenly Dao and alter it entirely!
If the Earth Immortal Realm's Heavenly Dao transformed into that of the other shore, the realm would become hospitable to the other shore's outlanders, and practitioners who had undergone Zangification would likely transform into the form of those outlanders as well!
On the other side, radiant cave abysses emerged behind the Holy Venerable, one after another, formed from the Great Daos he had cultivated.
Surprisingly, he had even more cave abysses than Xu Ying—nine in total.
Nine Supreme-grade Great Daos!
This meant the Holy Venerable possessed astonishingly profound magic power!
The Holy Venerable was one of the few individuals who could match Xu Ying at the same cultivation realm. His magic power was even more immense than Xu Ying's, as could be glimpsed from his Daming Palace.
Within the Daming Palace were countless Dao trees, Dao flowers, Dao fruits, and Dao sceneries of the New Dao. Although they had all been simulated, they proved the Holy Venerable possessed extraordinary mastery over each of those Great Daos.
Furthermore, during his journey to the Mortal Realm, he had gained the opportunity to study and comprehend the Emerald Rock Great Dao, causing his Dao attainment to skyrocket even further.
Abandoning myriad Great Daos, he had focused exclusively on the Emerald Rock Great Dao, and what manifested now were these nine great cave abysses!
What Xu Ying manifested, on the other hand, was a dark cave abyss—pitch-black on the outside, yet blindingly bright within.
The instant the two clashed, Yuan Weiyang and Lou Mingyu saw the Holy Venerable's nine great cave abysses spinning like spinning tops. They gathered and dispersed amidst the dark cosmos, drifting unpredictably as though forming different battle arrays, marshaling the power of each cave abyss to contend with his opponent.
Lou Mingyu was the Holy Venerable's disciple and was thoroughly familiar with his Dao methods and divine powers. Yet the Holy Venerable had also guided Yuan Weiyang in the past, making her half a disciple herself.
Even so, seeing how the cave abysses' Dao power was being marshaled and channeled left both of them deeply astounded. Evidently, this method of refining and maneuvering cave abysses was something the Holy Venerable had created during this past year and more!
Not even Xu Ying, Yuan Weiyang, or Lou Mingyu had ever touched upon such a method of operating cave abysses.
Enlightenment struck both of them. They thought to themselves, *Forming formations from different cave abysses unifies disparate Great Daos, gathering their Dao power into a single body. This grants divine powers the reinforcement of different types of Dao power, making them vastly more formidable!*
Yuan Weiyang had refined six Supreme-grade cave abysses, while Lou Mingyu had refined eight—one more than Xu Ying. As both of them pondered and digested what they saw, they realized that by drawing inspiration from the Holy Venerable's method, they could comprehend countless remarkable, peerless divine powers of their own!
Yuan Weiyang thought to herself, *The Holy Venerable truly lives up to his reputation as the genius of his era. His natural talent is extraordinary, not a shred inferior to Ah Ying's or mine.*
Yet the person confronting him was Xu Ying after undergoing Zangification.
In his Zangified state, Xu Ying resembled an ancient deity of the other shore. His physical body had grown even stronger, his speed swifter, and his magic power purer!
The Holy Venerable's divine powers were ever-changing, but Xu Ying deployed only martial divine powers. With every gesture and stride, he moved like a titan cleaving open heaven and earth, tearing through every divine power the Holy Venerable threw at him!
The Holy Venerable mobilized his various cave abysses to gather different strands of Dao power. Yet under such a tempestuous onslaught, he fell into dire peril in a matter of moments!
*The Holy Venerable is in trouble!*
Just as this thought crossed both observers' minds, the Zangified Xu Ying closed the distance to the Holy Venerable. Leaning back slightly, he raised both arms high. Seven great cave abysses converged above his head, coalescing into a massive, dazzling golden greataxe that cleaved downward toward the Holy Venerable!
The Immortal Mystic Technique was all-encompassing. The divine powers Yuan Weiyang had derived from it were predominantly delicate and supple, yet she could likewise mobilize the Dao power of all her cave abysses.
Xu Ying's comprehension of the Immortal Mystic Technique did not mean merely adopting its Dao methods wholesale. Instead, he blended it with everything he had learned and realized, creating his own suite of martial divine powers. Expansive and sweeping in their execution, bold and transformative in motion, they resembled a titan cleaving open heaven and earth—and were thus named the Eight Immortal Methods.
What he unleashed now was the First Method: Earth Cleaving.
Pushing his cultivation and strength to their utmost limits, the Holy Venerable channeled his nine great cave abysses into a Nine Stars Formation. Under the aegis of the immortal formation, the disparate Dao powers of the cave abysses merged into one. He thrust forward with a palm, sending Dao power soaring into the sky to form a resplendent giant hand that rose to meet Xu Ying's axe.
The starry sky suddenly shuddered violently, myriad stars trembling rapidly as though painted upon a violently shaken curtain.
The next instant, the giant hand formed from the Holy Venerable's nine Great Daos was cleaved in two by the axe! Possessing peerless momentum, Xu Ying brought the axe light crashing down. The Holy Venerable met the blow head-on with both hands and let out a muffled groan. The skin on his arms burst open with crisp cracks, and his garments billowed outward as though filled with trapped air, violently venting from his sleeves, pant legs, and collar.
That was the spectacle of his own vital blood being crushed and forced outward by the sheer weight of that axe strike!
Behind him, the nine great cave abysses shifted through a rapid sequence, forming seven distinct formations one after another before finally absorbing Xu Ying's strike. Yet his heart sank.
The Zangified Xu Ying's strength was simply too terrifying, and the profound Dao truths embedded in that blow were even more astonishing. It had inflicted a severe Dao injury upon him—and worse, this Dao injury stemmed from an alien Great Dao that carried the insidious tendency to Zangify him!
Xu Ying spun immediately and threw a punch. Upright and majestic, it seemed like an ancient god-king hammering open the cosmic primordial chaos. As the fist flew forward, the sight of a great trichiliocosm expanding into existence unfolded before the Holy Venerable's eyes.
The Second Method of the Eight Immortal Methods: All Heavens!
The instant the Holy Venerable came into contact with it, he felt his physical body threatening to burst outward and rip apart. It was as though his Dao methods were on the verge of being assimilated by the Dao power contained within that fist, transforming into the very Great Daos of the world birthed by that punch!
Alarmed, he neither dodged nor evaded, marshaling his nine great cave abysses to resist. Flurries of multicolored Dao rays erupted around them, dazzling and magnificent, sweeping across the river of stars!
That was the phenomenal spectacle formed as the Holy Venerable's own Great Daos were unraveled by the sheer might of Xu Ying's All Heavens!
Xu Ying took a step forward, Dao power coiling around his body like an ancestral divine dragon from primordial antiquity, pouring outward alongside his palm strike. As the blow shot forth, indestructible spiritual light surged and roiled with it, carrying an overbearing, peerless innate Dao power!
The Third Method of the Eight Immortal Methods: Dragon Dance!
Meeting this strike, the Holy Venerable felt as though his internal organs were about to shatter. Even with his cultivation and strength pushed to their very limits, he felt as if this single move would bury him once and for all!
Suddenly, he caught a faint glimpse of the gateway to the Supreme Realm. He thought to himself, *Just a little more! Take one more blow!*
Seeing that he had actually withstood three of the Eight Immortal Methods, Xu Ying's competitive spirit flared. He thought, *The Holy Venerable is formidable indeed! I assumed that after my Zangification, defeating him would be a simple matter, yet he actually withstood three of my strikes! In that case, there is no need to hold back the remaining moves!*
Letting out a resounding roar, branch-like patterns flew around his body, coalescing into a vast, hazy gray mist. His massive frame stood amidst the gray mist as countless branch-like patterns gathered into a broken sword, which he thrust forward in a single strike!
The Fourth Method of the Eight Immortal Methods: Immortal Slaying!
The Holy Venerable sank into a deep crouch. Behind him, the nine great cave abysses spun ceaselessly like a revolving lantern, their various formations pushed to their absolute zenith as blazing Dao power surged forth and flooded into his body.
In this very moment of battle, the Holy Venerable managed another significant breakthrough, elevating his formation mastery to a higher level!
Ever since he had established his renown, this was the first time he had ever experienced such rapid progress in his Dao methods!
Yet before Xu Ying's sword could arrive, the sword qi was already upon him. The sibilant sword glow buffeted his hair and skin; the severed strands from his crown whistled backward through the air, and hairline cuts of blood appeared across the surface of his skin.
Fixing his gaze on the incoming sword tip, the Holy Venerable sank even lower. Gathering all the power he could muster, he thrust a single finger forward to collide with the sword.
*Swish! Swish! Swish!*
Suddenly, a sky full of sword silhouettes surged toward him. That single broken sword multiplied from one into ten thousand, forming ten thousand streaks of sword qi stabbing straight at him!
The Holy Venerable flicked his fingertip, likewise multiplying one into ten thousand to meet the assault. In the starry expanse, swords and fingers snapped and shattered with sharp cracks, blending into a crimson torrent that engulfed the Holy Venerable!
Steadfast as a monolith, the Holy Venerable remained utterly unmoved, yet the nine great cave abysses behind him boomed thunderously as they were pierced through by streaks of blood-dyed sword qi!
The crimson sword qi whistled across the sky, piercing a chain of distant suns and whipping up tempestuous solar storms.
Xu Ying let out another roar as his technique shifted once more. Coiled in indestructible spiritual light, he pushed both palms forward. Within that spiritual light, a forest of Dao trees emerged, resembling an ocean of Dao methods!
The Fifth Method of the Eight Immortal Methods: Ten Thousand Daos!
A look of gratification appeared on the Holy Venerable's face. *This is a Dao method he comprehended by referencing the layout of my Daming Palace. He ranks my Dao method above the Immortal Slaying Sword and the Far Ancestor Primordial Spirit. It seems that in his heart, I am still exceptionally formidable.*
He thrust both palms forward, likewise activating the Dao methods of the Daming Palace—likewise manifesting a forest of Dao trees with ten thousand Daos seething in full force!
Yet the moment they made contact, his physical body, primordial spirit, bodhimanda, and Dao scenery were all pushed to the brink of collapse, nearly shattered into oblivion!
Like a heaven-propping giant god, Xu Ying bore down with a ferocious, overbearing physical frame, shoving the Holy Venerable backward. The Holy Venerable coughed up mouthful after mouthful of blood, his eyes nearly tearing at the corners as he drove the nine great cave abysses to their utmost limits. Yet even the nine great cave abysses began to crack with visible fissures!
He let out a furious roar as the hot blood that had lain dormant in his chest for so long began to boil. Summoning every drop of his potential, he fought to resist Xu Ying's blow!
Just as his physical body, primordial spirit, bodhimanda, Dao scenery, and cave abysses all reached their absolute breaking points, a colossal boom resembling the creation of heaven and earth rang in his ears. The Holy Venerable's aura expanded with a thunderous roar, his cultivation climbing at breakneck speed!
Behind him, the nine great cave abysses connected to the void. An endless stream of Dao power transformed into multicolored rays that poured in from the void, flooding into the cave abysses and repairing their damaged fractures.
The nine great cave abysses expanded at a pace visible to the naked eye. The immortal mountains within them grew taller and more ancient, new immortal mountains formed continuously, and the spiritual qi and spiritual power within them surged with newfound vigor.
Blazing Dao power reinforced the Holy Venerable's physical body and primordial spirit, healing his Dao injuries and elevating his cultivation and strength across an entire monumental threshold.
*Boom!*
Their palm forces collided, unleashing the power of ten thousand Daos. A deafening Dao resonance echoed across the starry sky, ringing loud and clear even within the Heavenly Dao Ancestral Court!
Xu Ying withdrew his hands, dispersing his Zangification to return to his human form. Looking at him with a smile, he said clearly, "I thought I would have to unleash all of the Eight Immortal Methods to force Brother Dao to achieve the Supreme Realm. I never expected that the Fifth Method alone would be enough."
Brimming with murderous aura, the Holy Venerable hurtled before him and shouted, "Unleash the remaining three methods! Let us fight another round!"
Facing that terrifyingly immense pressure, Xu Ying showed no fear at all. He laughed and said, "Even if I used the remaining three methods, I would surely lose to you, so I might as well not fight. Holy Venerable, you wished to witness the power of Zangification, and I have shown it to you."
Only a moment ago, the Holy Venerable had been pushed to the edge of life and death, driven half-mad by the beating he had taken, which was why he had briefly lost his composure. Calming himself upon hearing those words, he offered an apologetic bow. "I was rash. Please do not take offense, Dao Ancestor Xu."
Even so, having come so close to being beaten to death left a lingering irritation in his heart, and he silently cursed Xu Ying for being an infuriating rascal.
Had they continued, he could surely have defeated Xu Ying in one or two moves, giving Xu Ying a taste of what it felt like to be pushed into a desperate corner.
"Dao Ancestor Xu, now that I have proved my Dao as a Supreme, how about I lend you a hand?" the Holy Venerable suggested. "You can rest assured that I will strike with deadly intent to help you achieve your breakthrough to the Supreme Realm."
Xu Ying replied modestly, "My thanks for the Holy Venerable's kind intentions. However, since my battle with Meng Shanming, I have felt that my foundation in the Dao Scenery Realm is still lacking. I need to settle and consolidate for a while longer before attempting a breakthrough."
The Holy Venerable frowned. "As long as the pressure is great enough, you can break through without any consolidation."
Xu Ying shook his head. "I appreciate the Holy Venerable's goodwill. But if the foundation is unsteady, the earth will shake and the mountains will crumble. I would prefer to consolidate a bit more."
The Holy Venerable suppressed the urge to grab him by the collar and force him to accept his 'goodwill.' Exhaling a breath of turbid air, he said, "What a pity that I could not witness your final three methods."
"Indeed," Xu Ying agreed, sighing wistfully. "I wonder who will have the privilege of witnessing my complete Eight Immortal Methods."
The Holy Venerable snorted and turned away. Although he had used the pressure Xu Ying exerted on him to break through the Dao Scenery Realm and prove his Dao as a Supreme, he felt not the slightest bit happy.
*If only I could find a chance to give this fellow a sound thrashing, this life would not have been lived in vain! Otherwise, even if I go to the Heavenly Immortal Realm to meet my death, I will die with regrets!*
Chapter 672