"I feel it once more. I feel the free-roaming Dao power drifting between heaven and earth gradually restoring, the shattered Great Dao reassembling... I feel it, life within my body..."
From inside the coffin, the voice of Dao Master Xuanhong drifted out, resonant and unhurried. "Xu Ying, though you saved me, though you granted me the kindness of recreating my life, I have no choice but to kill you! The danger you pose to our other shore is simply too great!"
Just as his resurrection via blood sacrifice seemed on the verge of completion, it remained a sliver short of sacrificial blood power.
Dao Master Xuanhong was stunned. "What is happening?"
He had distinctly sensed that the moment the two Dao Lords Hunyuan and Duyu died, the blood sacrifice's power would be sufficient to revive him. Xu Ying had indeed eliminated both Dao Lords, yet for some reason, he remained just a sliver short of the blood sacrifice needed for rebirth!
"Who is pulling strings in secret? Could it be Dao Master Hua?"
A chill ran through Dao Master Xuanhong's heart. "Could it be that Dao Master Hua has been watching in secret all along, also waiting for my resurrection? He wants to use me to neutralize his calamitous destiny!"
Xu Ying strode across the sea of stars, whistling through the void. As the surging wave crashed before the Lingxing Gate, he arrived before it as well.
The massive wave slammed down with power capable of shattering all things, yet it failed to shake this towering wooden gate in the slightest.
Xu Ying looked at the wooden gate with awe. Wielding the Chaotic Dao Apricot Yellow Banner, he kept the Chaos Lotus ready at a moment's notice.
He hurried beneath the gate. Seeing no movement from it, only then did he summon the Chaos Lotus once more.
From within the lotus, the final portion of blood qi formed from the blood sacrifices of Dao Lord Hunyuan and Dao Lord Duyu was drawn by the coffin inside the immortal palace, whistling away.
Xu Ying stowed the Chaos Lotus, immediately dashed out of the Lingxing Gate, activated Samsara, reversed space-time, and mobilized the Void Dao to submerge into the void, vanishing without a trace in an instant.
Those two streams of blood qi swiftly surged into the immortal palace and entered the coffin.
The chains around the black coffin suddenly shattered inch by inch, floating in midair. Then, the coffin blew apart into fragments. A handsome, bearded elder of the other shore's Sacred Clan stood suspended in the air, his Dao majesty profound and heavy, his gaze flashing like lightning as he swept his eyes across the sea of stars.
Wherever his gaze fell, countless stars in the sea of stars broke apart one after another, crumbling into powder!
"Not here!"
The handsome, bearded elder was none other than Dao Master Xuanhong. With a flicker of his figure, he appeared beneath the Lingxing Gate. Without sparing the gate a second glance, he soared directly into high altitude, sweeping his gaze in all directions in search of Xu Ying's whereabouts!
Failing to locate him, Dao Master Xuanhong stamped his foot. Immediately, space-time in the surroundings reversed, revealing Xu Ying directing Samsara. Yet in the next instant, Xu Ying's form dissolved into an expanse of Chaos.
"He is proficient in the Chaos Dao, wiping away his traces in time. What a master of escape."
Xuanhong promptly pinched his fingers to divine Xu Ying's fate, but the karma surrounding Xu Ying was severed as well, preventing him from calculating anything!
Frowning slightly, Xuanhong unfurled his divine consciousness in layered waves, extending it into space-time to scour the deepest depths and trace back the long river of time to find Xu Ying's trail.
At the same time, his divine consciousness blanketed vast distances. In a few short moments, it enveloped the lower realms of the other shore before reaching out toward the various planets beyond, plunging into their cores in the blink of an eye.
In that instant, his divine consciousness swept across hundreds of millions upon millions of lives.
A moment later, his divine consciousness had searched almost the entire starry sky before abruptly pulling back.
At the same time, his primordial spirit sprang out and leapt into the void. The divine consciousness within his primordial spirit bloomed, searching the void high and low!
Xu Ying urged the Void Dao forward, traveling through the void. Suddenly, he felt an intensely powerful fluctuation of energy behind him, making his scalp tingle.
*Dao Master Xuanhong even thought of the void!*
He immediately dove into deeper layers of the void, plunging layer by layer.
Dao Master Xuanhong might have cultivated the Void Dao before, but he was not deeply versed in it—unlike Xu Ying, who had directly studied the New Dao runes from Dao Ancestor Yuxu and started from an exceptionally high vantage point.
Yet Xuanhong's dharmic power was unimaginably vast. Detecting that Xu Ying was fleeing into the void, his divine consciousness pursued relentlessly, using sheer, overwhelming power to crush the void and penetrate deep into its layered depths!
Xu Ying glanced back and saw Xuanhong's divine consciousness turning the void into a sea of roaring flames, coalescing into a palm that spanned ever wider as it grasped toward him!
In the blink of an eye, Xu Ying dove into the twenty-eighth layer of the void. Yet Xuanhong's divine consciousness followed closely behind.
Xu Ying immediately plunged into the twenty-ninth layer, then the thirtieth. A hundred and twenty years ago, Xu Ying had been able to reach the twenty-eighth layer; over the past century, researching void techniques alongside Yuan Weiyang had carried his mastery far beyond what it had once been.
The hand of Dao Master Xuanhong's divine consciousness ran out of strength, halting before the thirtieth layer.
Just as Xu Ying was about to breathe a sigh of relief, Dao Master Xuanhong's primordial spirit dove into the second layer of the void, then charged toward the third and fourth.
His divine consciousness was instantly reinforced, and the hand broke through into the thirtieth layer!
Xu Ying gritted his teeth, urged his void cave abyss, and stepped into the thirty-first layer of the void.
With his cultivation and strength, entering this layer was perilous in the extreme. The Void Dao's power invaded his physical body, primordial spirit, and Great Dao, making it difficult for him to endure.
Nothing exists in the void. Any physical object entering it will be nihilated. In the first, second, and third layers, this process was extremely slow; such realms could often serve as an underworld. But the further one went, the faster the nihilation became. Especially past the twenty-eighth layer of the void, even an existence in the Immortal realm would be torn apart and reduced to nothingness within a short span!
Xu Ying mobilized the Martial Dao cave abyss within his body, transforming it into a Hongyuan. The Ginseng Fruit Tree rose, serving as the heaven-and-earth spirit root of his Hongyuan, while the energy of hundreds of Dao fruits poured into the Hongyuan, driving the Void Dao to resist the void's corrosion.
When Dao Master Xuanhong's divine consciousness reached the thirtieth layer, it too struggled immensely, its edges continuously torn apart by the void.
He was a master of the Great Dao, yet confronted by an unknown Great Dao like the void, he was powerless.
He attempted to project his divine consciousness into the thirty-first layer, but the moment it entered, it abruptly shattered and dispersed.
Dao Master Xuanhong sighed. His primordial spirit halted, withdrew the remnants of his divine consciousness, and returned to his physical body.
Suddenly, the Lingxing Gate behind him produced a faint vibration. Xuanhong's heart turned wary; he hastily tore through space and vanished without a trace.
The Lingxing Gate shook with increasing violence, gradually rising into the air and flying toward the other side of the other shore.
Before long, the star gate descended from the sky, landing before Li Xiao and her companions. Leading them was none other than the Eldest Senior Sister of Qionghua Island, Li Xue, who was also a Dao Lord.
The lineage of Qionghua Island all took Li as their surname. Li Xue, Li Jie, and Li Song were all Dao Lords, while the others were Immortals.
Li Xiao had also attained the Immortal realm twenty years earlier.
Light converged within the Lingxing Gate, forming an illusion of Dao Master Hua. The illumination was resplendent and magnificent. Behind him stood a pristine, luminous cherry blossom tree, its myriad petals drifting about.
Li Xue, Li Xiao, and the others hurried to kowtow, speaking in unison, "Master!"
Dao Master Hua said, "Rise and speak."
Everyone stood.
Dao Master Hua said, "The killing tribulation of the other shore is gradually rising. You must know that Heaven possesses the virtue of cherishing life and has left you a thread of survival. You must slay many opponents to lessen the calamitous destiny weighing upon this realm."
Li Xue, Li Xiao, and the others voiced their assent.
Dao Master Hua continued, "Our other shore enjoys peace and prosperity, yet there are petty scoundrels stirring up trouble in the shadows. Just now, the villain Xu Ying broke into the Lingxing Gate, slaughtered our fellow Daoists of the other shore, and sacrificed them to Dao Master Xuanhong. With Dao Master Xuanhong revived, who knows how much bloodshed he will cause? Li Xue, take charge of the Lingxing Gate and hunt down Xu Ying."
Li Xue assented.
Li Xiao kept her head lowered, her eyes darting around. She thought to herself, *How strange. The Lingxing Gate restricted area is situated right inside the gate, and this gate is the Grand Master's treasure. Why didn't he activate it to kill Xu Ying when he intruded, but instead went out of his way to have us take the gate to hunt him down?*
She blinked and thought, *Could it be that the Grand Master was beaten so badly during his last trip to Tianjing that his injuries still haven't healed?*
Dao Master Hua added, "After releasing Dao Master Xuanhong, Xu Ying will certainly set his sights on the other Dao Masters. He is cunning by nature; you may not necessarily find him. Li Xue, proclaim my command to the world and announce it in all four directions: issue a Dao Master Kill Order against him. Slay him on sight!"
Li Xue, Li Jie, and the others were astonished. Bowing, they chorused their assent, wondering why the Grand Master was so incensed as to issue a Dao Master Kill Order against a cultivator who was not even an Immortal.
What they did not know was that Xu Ying had turned Dao Master Hua's Lingxing Gate into a harvesting battlefield, murdering numerous Immortals, True Kings, and Dao Lords. Dao Master Hua was in seclusion nursing his wounds; sensing that Xu Ying was up to no good, he had lacked the strength to activate the Lingxing Gate to stop him.
He had been severely wounded by the Tianjing Dao Venerable and Dao Masters such as Ji Cang. His injuries were grave, and he could only wait until Xuanhong was revived before mobilizing the Lingxing Gate to let Li Xue and the others reclaim face.
Having escaped Dao Master Xuanhong's pursuit through the void, Xu Ying immediately fled far away. Yet he felt his field of vision distorting, and certain parts of his body were beginning to swell.
He was like a balloon being blown larger and more distended.
This was the Void Dao stretching him across various dimensions.
Knowing things looked grim, Xu Ying immediately returned to the thirtieth layer of the void, and the transformation slowed somewhat.
Only when he returned to the twenty-eighth layer did he feel that the void no longer posed a significant threat to his physical body.
"My Void Dao still lags behind Dao Ancestor Yuxu's, and even Weiyang is about to surpass me. However, once one cultivates the Dao of the Void to Dao Ancestor Yuxu's level, it has likely reached its ceiling. To take it further, one would have to leave the Chaos Sea. But how could that be possible?"
Leaving the void, Xu Ying flipped through the geographic map of restricted areas given to him by Zhangsun Shenghai and the others. After studying it for a moment, he calculated, "The closest restricted area is this Longxing Temple. Rumor has it that anyone who enters this ruin dies an inexplicable, violent death. I wonder if a deceased Dao Master is suppressed inside?"
He immediately set off for Longxing Temple.
Meanwhile, the Dao Master Kill Order regarding him gradually spread. Everyone on the other shore who received the order felt their spirits lift. Immediately, countless experts clamored about taking Xu Ying's scalp to Qionghua Island to claim the reward.
At this time, a Dao boy carrying the Dao Master Kill Order arrived before Grand Dao Lord Shenmo and said, "Master, Grand Master Dao Master Hua has issued a kill order to hunt down Xu Ying. Shall our Shenmo Dao Sect join the hunt?"
Grand Dao Lord Shenmo fumed, "Join my ass! Aside from Yu Shao, all of my disciples who attacked the Three Realms died there! Am I supposed to hunt down Xu Ying in person? This time, the four Dao Masters sent their disciples to meet the tribulation, and I sent mine as well. In the end, my disciples were wiped out. Our Shenmo Dao Sect cannot afford any more losses."
The Dao boy replied, "Master, Senior Brother Yu Shao said that Xu Ying was the one who killed Senior Brother Nie Xuan and the others in the Three Realms. Will Master not avenge Senior Brother Nie Xuan and the rest?"
Grand Dao Lord Shenmo hesitated. Originally, dispatching Nie Xuan and the others on the expedition to the Three Realms had been an attempt to seize credit; he hadn't anticipated that Nie Xuan and the rest would be so useless as to die there.
This was a bad thing, but also a good thing.
With Nie Xuan and the others dead, whenever the Dao Masters pressured him to meet the tribulation, he could deflect with complaints and tears, saying his disciples had all perished in the calamitous destiny, thus evading the crisis.
Yet by a stroke of wretched luck, the one placed on the Dao Master Kill Order this time was Xu Ying. If he did not act, wouldn't people across the other shore mock him for not daring to avenge his disciples?
"However, leaving Daoji Heaven brings the possibility of being drawn into the tribulation..."
Grand Dao Lord Shenmo hesitated for a moment, then relaxed and chuckled. "The ones taking action right now are Dao Lords at most. As long as Taiyi and the Grand Dao Masters do not intervene, who can do anything to me? I will meet the tribulation early, kill Xu Ying, cleanse the calamitous destiny from my body, and then return to Daoji Heaven."
At Hushan Pavilion in Daoji Heaven.
Dao Master Lin also received a copy of the Dao Master Kill Order. Surprised, he laughed, "Why is Brother Hua throwing a tantrum at a junior, going so far as to issue a kill order? This Xu Ying even went to Tianjing Ruins with Taiyi to rescue him!"
He shook his head.
At Mount Jiuqiu, Dao Master Luo also learned of Dao Master Hua ordering the hunt for Xu Ying. He couldn't help laughing. "Brother Hua's injuries must still linger; otherwise, given his temper, he would have split Xu Ying in two with an axe long ago. But then again, Xu Ying did contribute to rescuing him after all. Brother Hua's action is somewhat lacking in grace. Attendant!"
A Dao boy stepped forward to receive orders.
Dao Master Luo said, "I will write a letter. Deliver it to Biyou Palace and inform Dao Master Tongtian of this matter. Dao Master Tongtian is all alone; he probably doesn't know about it yet."
The Dao boy accepted the order, took the letter, and left.
Dao Master Luo smiled. "If Tongtian learns of this, will he protect Xu Ying or let things take their course?"
His interest piqued, he wrote another letter and ordered someone to deliver it to Grand Dao Lord Taiyi at She'an Palace, chuckling, "Will Taiyi take action personally and place righteousness above personal ties?"
Shortly afterward, Grand Dao Lord Taiyi was the first to receive the Dao Master Kill Order. He remarked in surprise, "What trouble has he caused this time that a Grand Dao Master personally issued a kill order?"
After a moment's hesitation, he quietly stood up and left She'an Palace.
A month later, Dao Master Tongtian also received the Dao Master Kill Order. He gave it a glance, then tossed it aside.
"Given Xu Ying's strength, this kill order is utter folly!" Dao Master Tongtian said coldly.
—
"A Dao Master Kill Order?"
Ahead, the Lingxing Gate stood tall and imposing. On his way to Longxing Temple, Xu Ying had happened to run into Li Xue, Li Xiao, and their group. Hearing them speak of the Dao Master Kill Order, he was startled at first, then burst into laughter. "Dao Master Hua won't hunt me down himself, but sends others to do it? How many Grand Dao Lords are there on the other shore?"
He shook his head.
Li Xue flew into a rage and said coldly, "Xu Ying, you are far too arrogant! How dare you look down on the heroes of the other shore!"
Xu Ying glanced at her without a word.
When slaying Dao Lord Hunyuan and True Monarch Duyu, although he had exerted his full dharmic power, he had not deployed the new Dao patterns of the Three Realms; he had still contested the two Dao Lords using the principles and patterns of the other shore.
Even under those circumstances, he had managed to slaughter both Dao Lords. Ordinary Dao Lords simply were not worth mentioning before him.
"Dao Master Hua issued a Dao Master Kill Order rather than activating the Lingxing Gate himself to kill me—taking off his pants to fart, completely superfluous. That must mean his injuries haven't healed yet..."
At this point, Xu Ying looked up at the sky and chuckled. "If I charged over to Qionghua Island right now, I wonder if I could take him out?"
Li Xue and the others were furious, shouting in unison, "Insolence!"
Chapter 814