Lu Yiren was the only one among them who knew the true strength of the Immortal True King Yinyuanzi, making his inclusion of vital importance.
"Yinyuanzi's greatest strength lies in having a realm higher than ours and cultivation deeper than ours, and his techniques and divine abilities lack the various flaws that plague our own," Lu Yiren explained, recounting the circumstances of his ambush against Yinyuanzi. "However, his weakness is that he cultivates only the Heavenly Concealment Profound Art and studies only the Heavenly Concealment Great Dao. He brought that single Dao to an extreme realm, which was what allowed his Dao to become equal to his body. It was by devoting himself wholly to one discipline that he attained immortality, yet that same Dao limits the breadth of his cultivation. In raw magic power, he is no more immense than the Ancestral God."
He paused for a moment before continuing, "Furthermore, crossing from the other shore into the Heavenly Immortal Realm severely depleted him, and he has yet to fully recover. That is why he has never stepped out of the Dragon Court Imperial Capital. My ambush wounded him gravely, which ensures he will be even less inclined to leave the capital now."
Emperor Ming Xun found this hard to believe. "Your sneak attack severely wounded Yinyuanzi? He is an Immortal True King from the other shore—how could you have injured him so deeply?"
Lu Yiren answered in a deep voice, "I have painstakingly refined six Great Daos, cultivating each of the six to the extreme realm. How many Great Daos has Your Majesty brought to the extreme realm?"
Reaching the extreme realm of a Dao demanded innate talent, serendipity, good fortune, and brilliance—not a single one could be lacking.
Xu Ying's attainment of the Martial Dao extreme realm was clear proof of how extraordinary that feat was.
That Lu Yiren had reached extreme realms in six Great Daos showed he was not a figure to be underestimated.
Emperor Ming Xun was visibly moved. "I have attained only one. For you to have mastered six is truly admirable."
The Far Ancestor Big Dragon said, "If even an ambush had failed to wound Yinyuanzi, that would truly be cause for despair—it would mean no amount of numbers could help us. That an ambush could injure him proves he is not invincible."
The others nodded in agreement.
Lu Yiren was an expert on par with them. If even he could not scratch Yinyuanzi during a surprise strike, then joining forces to confront Yinyuanzi in a direct clash would surely not have plucked a single hair from him either.
Xu Ying said, "Yinyuanzi also has numerous disciples whose cultivations and strength are exceptionally formidable. Lu Yiren and I have fought them before; if they entangle us during the battle, we will undoubtedly die."
Lu Yiren nodded. "Their strength is exceedingly great, and there are many experts among the dragon clan whose might cannot be ignored."
If those experts joined forces to activate their cave abysses and summon their magic treasures, even Immortal beings like the Far Ancestor and Emperor Ming Xun would have to evade their brunt rather than face them head-on.
"To besiege Yinyuanzi, we must isolate him from these people and prevent them from interfering. Otherwise, defeat is certain," the Far Ancestor said. "Does anyone have a plan?"
The Ancestral God suggested, "If I fully restore the Heavenly Dao of the Heavenly Immortal Realm, sparking a clash between the new and old Heavenly Daos, those dragon experts and outlanders will certainly come to investigate. We can strike the reinforcements as they arrive, luring them out and eliminating them piecemeal. Since Yinyuanzi has not yet recovered his cultivation, he will not easily venture out of the Dragon Court Imperial Capital. By the time he realizes what is happening, we will have disposed of most of his top fighters."
The plan was viable, but both the Far Ancestor and Emperor Ming Xun hesitated. Many of those masters were the backbone of the dragon clan, and the two emperors were reluctant to wipe them out along with the rest.
Xu Ying suddenly spoke up. "The dragons of today seem never to have learned the arts and divine abilities of the Netherworld. Perhaps we can set our battlefield in the Netherworld of the Heavenly Immortal Realm."
The arts and divine abilities of the Netherworld required ancestral worship and sacrificial offerings to form ghosts and deities. However, following their total emeraldization, the modern dragons no longer sacrificed to or worshipped their ancestors, leaving the Heavenly Immortal Realm entirely devoid of such magic.
"In other words, they cannot enter the Netherworld," the Holy Venerable said, his eyes lighting up. "If we drag Yinyuanzi into the Netherworld, we won't need to worry about being mobbed by the dragon clan and the other outlanders!"
The Ancestral God chuckled. "Restoring the Heavenly Dao of the Heavenly Immortal Realm can also suppress the Heavenly Dao of the other shore, weakening both the outlanders and the dragon immortals. When the time comes, I will fully restore the new Heavenly Dao. As our strength rises and theirs falls, victory is assured!"
Filled with confidence, the group flew up from deep underground toward the Dragon Court Imperial Capital.
Outside the capital, a resounding voice suddenly boomed:
"Xu Ying the barbarian, having heard that Immortal True King Yinyuanzi of the other shore has arrived, has specially come to pay his respects! I wished to witness the true peerless arts of the other shore, yet those I encountered were thoroughly unworthy. Thus, I first slew Qixuan and then slew Hongbo. Today, I come seeking guidance from Yinyuanzi!"
The words caused an immediate uproar across the Dragon Court Imperial Capital. The dragon immortals were even more infuriated than the outlanders, surging out of the imperial city in droves to surround Xu Ying on all sides.
Heavenly Prime Minister Yuan Heng was beside himself with rage. "Xu Ying, what immense audacity! His Majesty granted you a path of survival, yet you dare come running back? Today, there is no place for you!"
Xu Ying laughed heartily, surveying his surroundings without the slightest hint of fear. He projected his voice loudly, "I have come to challenge the true transmission of the other shore! Since the dragon clan never received the true transmission, do not embarrass yourselves! Yinyuanzi, I challenge you!"
Naturally, the proclamation reached Yinyuanzi's ears. Over a dozen disciples promptly rushed over, fuming, "Master, that barbarian Xu Ying goes too far! Please give the order and allow us to destroy him!"
Before Yinyuanzi could reply, Xu Ying's voice echoed from outside the city once more: "Yinyuanzi, could it be you fear me? Did you hear that I have reached the Eighth Level Dao Realm? Hahaha! At the Eighth Level, I can slay you at your Ninth!"
Yinyuanzi's anger flared, and he swept his sleeve. "Go and capture this brat for me!"
Overjoyed, the disciples chorused their assent and flew out of the Dragon Court Imperial Capital. Yinyuanzi stepped forward, exiting the immortal palace to gaze into the distance.
Right then, he felt that something was amiss. A thought struck him: *Not good! Someone is scheming against me! And their Dao attainment is extraordinarily high! No, it is not just one person—it is a whole group of beings with supreme Dao attainment!*
He opened his mouth to call his disciples back, but the moment they cleared the perimeter of the Dragon Court Imperial Capital, the earth shook violently. The entire capital spun dizzily, plunging straight toward the Netherworld!
Yinyuanzi sneered. "Plot against me? Do you think you have what it takes? Dao, Halt!"
He roared furiously, unfurling his ninefold Dao realms across all directions, bringing every Great Dao to a dead standstill.
The Dragon Court Imperial Capital, which had been plummeting into the Netherworld, froze rigidly between the realms of Yin and Yang, unable to budge.
Just as Yinyuanzi was about to return the capital to the mortal realm, an aged, resounding laugh echoed through the city. The Ancestral God, in his youthful form, stood within the capital, letting his aura erupt in full force. Brilliant divine light blotted out the sky. While his lower body remained unchanged, his upper body expanded into a boundless, towering giant that bridged heaven and earth!
With snow-white brows, a white beard, and blinding radiance, the Ancestral God formed a divine seal with his hands, commanding the Great Daos of heaven and earth. In an instant, the entire Heavenly Immortal Realm seemed to become his personal bodhimanda!
The realm appeared on the verge of disintegration. Countless motes of Dao ash churned from the ground, soaring into the sky to transform into luminous Dao mists!
Numerous mountain ranges and rivers in the Heavenly Immortal Realm steadily subsided, while structures erected atop layers of Dao ash crumbled one after another.
The ground continued to vaporize amidst the thunderous roars of alien Great Daos. This new Heavenly Dao had erupted once before on a minor scale, but this time it was an all-out surge!
Conflicting Heavenly Daos collided violently to seize dominion over the realm. Wherever they clashed, Dao contamination ran rampant. Garish colors stained the firmament, and nearby living beings mutated into strange forms, their very races altered.
At that moment, all the dragons and outlanders felt their Dao attainment suppressed by the Heavenly Dao. While the suppression was not crushing, it distinctly hindered their cultivation!
"Yinyuanzi, if the Heavenly Dao does not exist, where can the Great Dao reside?" The Ancestral God aimed his divine seal at Yinyuanzi, laughing. "Under my Heavenly Dao, you too are a living being subject to my rule!"
The power of his strike was terrifying. The four Heavenly Daos of the Three Realms converged within his palm, unleashing a force far more ferocious and immense than Xu Ying's Three Realms Seal!
Yinyuanzi raised his hand to meet the Ancestral God's blow, sneering, "In the Immortal realm, the Dao is equal to the body—why would I need a Heavenly Dao? Your Heavenly Dao can influence Eighth Level mortals, but it cannot touch me in the slightest!"
The instant their palms collided, the Ancestral God grunted. His colossal body was compressed and forced down, his feet losing their footing as he stumbled backward repeatedly.
The Far Ancestor roared as he struck without warning, sweeping his massive dragon tail viciously toward Yinyuanzi. Yinyuanzi smiled faintly. "So you are the first Immortal of this world? What a pity that your attempt to make your Dao equal to your body went awry! You have never grasped the true essence of the Dao's Ninth Realm!"
He raised a hand to bind the dragon, unleashing the Heavenly Concealment Great Dao like an unbroken rainbow that whipped toward the Far Ancestor!
Simultaneously, Emperor Ming Xun roared and froze space-time, pinning Yinyuanzi within the temporal flow before tearing through space-time himself to attack.
With one hand binding the Far Ancestor, Yinyuanzi pivoted sharply to face Emperor Ming Xun. Moving unhindered through the frozen space-time, he clashed against the two dragon Immortals at the same time!
*Boom!*
Emperor Ming Xun staggered back. Clashing directly with Yinyuanzi, the Far Ancestor Big Dragon tore free from the Dragon-Binding Hand, neither gaining an advantage nor suffering a loss!
Lu Yiren materialized behind Yinyuanzi, activating his cave abysses to strike ferociously. Yinyuanzi sneered, "Traitor of the other shore! You succeeded once through an ambush—did you truly think you could pull it off a second time?"
This strike was his most vicious. With a backhanded blow, he annihilated Lu Yiren's divine ability, poised to crush him beneath his palm. Suddenly, the Holy Venerable appeared beside Lu Yiren. Nine supreme cave abysses, tens of thousands of Dao fruits, and tens of thousands of Dao sceneries erupted at once, channeling into his palm to meet the blow!
With his aid, Lu Yiren pushed his cultivation to its absolute peak. Both men were thrown sliding backward, but they managed to deflect Yinyuanzi's strike!
Killing intent flared in Yinyuanzi's heart. Just as he moved to slaughter these audacious fools, Xu Ying transformed into a beam of rainbow light, flipping through the air and unleashing a spray of sword light that forced him back.
Xu Ying slammed down with a resounding thud, stepping atop the Dragon Court Imperial Capital like an unmatched titan as he roared, "Descend!"
With a deafening crash, the capital—suspended between the realms of Yin and Yang—plunged completely into the Netherworld. It slammed onto the nether ground, skidding thousands of li before finally grinding to a halt.
Back in the Heavenly Immortal Realm, numerous dragons and outlanders had been charging forward, only to watch the imperial capital vanish before their eyes.
They frantically searched in all directions. Just as Xu Ying had anticipated, having no ancestor worship, the dragons and outlanders possessed no concept of a Netherworld, let alone any corresponding arts or divine abilities.
Unable to find anything, the dragon elders and outlanders tore open the void, scouring layer upon layer for the lost city. But the Netherworld overlapped with the mortal realm rather than hiding within void folds; no matter how thoroughly they searched, they found nothing.
Even so, brilliant beams of light occasionally pierced through from the realm of Yang into the Netherworld, for these dragons and outlanders were powerful enough to catch fleeting glimpses across the boundary.
"There is a world overlapping with the Heavenly Immortal Realm!" an outlander suddenly shouted. "Master and the Dragon Court Imperial Capital have been pulled into that world! I cannot enter!"
The other dragons and outlanders rushed to his side, activating their divine abilities and ocular arts to inspect that realm. Possessing immense power and intellect, and with the Heavenly Dao of the Netherworld being relatively straightforward, it would not take them long to deduce a method to enter.
Meanwhile, within the Netherworld, Yinyuanzi floated up from the Dragon Court Imperial Capital, hovering in midair. Looking around, he chuckled, "So you are the Ancestral God? Nothing more than a petty god governing the Heavenly Dao of a primitive world. Your greatest achievement is merely controlling that crude Dao. You cannot grow—how truly pitiful."
The Ancestral God took a step forward, his fighting spirit soaring as he smiled. "I am far stronger than I once was! Having absorbed the Heavenly Dao of the other shore, I am by no means incapable of growth!"
Yinyuanzi scoffed. "The Heavenly Dao of the other shore? Have you ever seen the true Heavenly Dao of the other shore? Don't tell me you mistook the meager Dao formed by Emerald Rocks destroying your world for our genuine article? How pathetic. What you learned is nothing more than a broken, counterfeit Heavenly Dao."
The Ancestral God's expression darkened.
Yinyuanzi's gaze shifted to the Far Ancestor, and he sneered, "An indigenous Ninth Realm. I've already passed judgment: a defective Ninth Realm is hardly worth mentioning."
The Far Ancestor Big Dragon snorted. "Since ancient times, I have been invincible under heaven—"
"It is precisely that invincibility that blinded you to the road ahead. Ignorant of the fact that there are always heavens beyond heaven and beings beyond beings, you ended up this pathetic." Yinyuanzi turned his eyes to Emperor Ming Xun, shaking his head. "The same applies to you. You cultivated a defective immortality and failed to make your Dao equal to your body."
Emperor Ming Xun surged with cultivation power, ready to strike with his mightiest blow at any moment.
Yinyuanzi looked past Lu Yiren with a frosty expression, then glanced at the Holy Venerable. "The little barbarian's divine abilities aren't bad, but his cultivation falls short."
The Holy Venerable smiled faintly. "I haven't been in the Eighth Realm for very long. Once I reach its peak, I will be more than capable of matching you!"
Yinyuanzi sneered. "A frog in a well, overestimating its own strength."
His gaze finally settled on Xu Ying. "Are you the Xu Ying who killed two of my disciples?"
Xu Ying smiled. "I fought them at the same realm and killed each with a single blow. I never needed a second."
Yinyuanzi chuckled. "When I kill you shortly, I won't need a second blow either."
With a sudden roar, the Heavenly Concealment cave abyss manifested with a thunderous boom in the Netherworld sky. Its scale was so staggering that it made everyone's scalp tingle. It was as though a colossal black hole had appeared directly above their heads, harboring a breathtaking immortal realm filled with sacred mountains and blessed lands!
Xu Ying's Taiyi cave abyss had assimilated thirty other Great Dao cave abysses to become a Supreme-tier abyss, possessing an extraordinary scale, yet it paled in comparison to this Heavenly Concealment cave abyss.
The Heavenly Concealment cave abyss was at least forty times larger than his Taiyi cave abyss!
The Holy Venerable possessed the most cave abysses—nine in total—yet combined, they occupied merely a corner of the Heavenly Concealment abyss.
Lu Yiren possessed six cave abysses, the most ancient among them all, refined to immense proportions. Yet all six combined could only match another corner.
This was the true cave abyss of a harvester from the other shore—the definitive trump card of an Immortal True King!
Everyone frantically pushed their cultivation to the limit. Guided by the dragon patterns, Dao patterns, and runes of the new Heavenly Dao, their cultivations were a step or two deeper than days ago, yet facing this cave abyss, they still felt a crushing sense of powerlessness.
With a slight thought from Yinyuanzi, boundless Dao power flooded into him, making him appear like an eternal god-king of antiquity who remained immortal while heaven and earth decayed!
His suffocating aura pressed down upon them, compelling everyone to unleash their strongest divine abilities and strike at him!
Though they took the initiative to attack, their hearts sank collectively.
They had struck only because they sensed an insurmountable wave of killing intent—proof that each of them fell far short of Yinyuanzi!
The Far Ancestor Big Dragon charged toward Yinyuanzi as well, feeling a trace of puzzlement in his heart: *Yinyuanzi's cave abyss resembles the Abyss Sea, though it is far smaller... Wait, could I summon the Abyss Sea just like a cave abyss?*
In the past, he had always journeyed into the Abyss Sea himself to roam in leisure; this was the first time the thought of summoning it had ever crossed his mind.
At that thought, his consciousness traveled along the channel of indestructible spiritual light into Xu Ying's sea of consciousness: "Ah Ying, how does one unleash the power of a cave abyss?"
Xu Ying was currently driving the Zhuxian broken sword to slash at Yinyuanzi. With no time for explanations, he transmitted the method for activating a cave abyss directly into the Far Ancestor's mind.
Distracted for an instant, the Far Ancestor Big Dragon was battered by Yinyuanzi, tumbling tens of thousands of li across the ground. Scrambling to sit up, he immediately began studying the method Xu Ying had imparted.
"I can't hold out!" The Holy Venerable coughed up blood as he was knocked flying, shouting, "Far Ancestor, what are you doing?"
The Far Ancestor turned a deaf ear. Having pondered the technique, he followed Xu Ying's teachings and directly summoned the Abyss Sea.
Suddenly, the Netherworld convulsed violently. Space twisted, warped, and fractured. Yinyuanzi felt an indescribable pressure descend as a colossal cave abyss—more than ten times larger than his Heavenly Concealment cave abyss—manifested in the Netherworld of the Heavenly Immortal Realm!
Yinyuanzi's hair stood on end, utterly horrified.
"The Three Realms possesses a Tenth Level Dao Realm being?!"
Chapter 704