A hundred-zhang bone blade plunged from the sky, impaling the earth and trembling incessantly.
This was part of the dharma body of an immortal-rank powerhouse, worth an immense fortune; looking upon it brought pure joy to Wei Yuan's heart.
Heavenly Bone was alarmed and hastily ascended into the air, but halfway up, Hongmo forcefully pushed it back down. She said, "Don't be afraid!"
"They're hiding another immortal! I—"
Hongmo was exceedingly calm. "If another immortal truly intervened—no, not even an immortal, so long as it's someone at the pinnacle of Scenery Command who has birthed a true spirit—it would count as violating the rules of the grotto-heaven duel. When the Heavenly Dao backlashes, Yanshi will only die faster! So it cannot be an immortal; it's most likely an immortal artifact or spirit treasure capable of only a single strike. You have plenty of bone blades. What are you afraid of?"
Heavenly Bone finally calmed down, popping out a new bone blade from between its ribs.
Hongmo suddenly asked, "Why are you so jumpy? What's wrong with you?"
Heavenly Bone muttered in a low voice, "I don't know why, but ever since moments ago, I've felt an instinctive dread, yet I have no idea where this fear is coming from."
"Even facing Yanshi's immortal sword, we wouldn't be afraid. Why are you frightened like this?" Hongmo was thoroughly bewildered.
Heavenly Bone could not explain it either, and could only sweep the surroundings with its divine sense over and over again, yet it found nothing.
Hongmo gazed toward the Evil Sun hanging high in the heavens and asked, "Is it that?"
"Isn't that one of the Heavenly Pillars from the Desolate Realm? I've seen them before. No, it's not that. The Heavenly Pillars don't obey anyone's commands. Once triggered, it would only destroy this realm, and no one would escape. Why would I fear it?"
By now, Heavenly Bone's eight bone blades were whirling about. Four parried Xihe's ceaseless sword qi, two guarded its rear to eliminate any stray sword qi that broke through, and the two longest blades trailed behind it, keeping watch on the surroundings while slashing continuously to ravage the battlefield.
With every stroke, spatial scars were gouged across the void, consuming vast amounts of realm-heaven power to mend.
That clear, brilliant sword light from earlier had sliced off one of the bone blades Heavenly Bone had been trailing behind.
After fighting for a while longer, seeing Xihe's sword qi dwindle and that brilliant sword light fail to reappear, Heavenly Bone's arrogance reignited. It roared with laughter, "Is this all you've got? Surely not! If this is all, then this venerable one will take this grotto-heaven as nourishment. From this day forth, this realm will no longer have someone named Wei Yuan!"
Wei Yuan's figure finally materialized. His head touched the celestial vault while his feet planted firmly upon the earth—a true colossus spanning heaven and earth. The sealed battlefield containing Heavenly Bone and Hongmo was merely the size of one of Wei Yuan's eyeballs.
This was Wei Yuan's mindscape world, and what had appeared was not a physical body, so naturally, it could be as immense as he desired.
Heavenly Bone felt not so much that its dignity had been provoked, but that its intelligence had been insulted. Enraged, it bellowed, "Bring your true body here! If you can take three of my strikes, I'll admit defeat immediately!"
Wrath surged within Wei Yuan in that instant as well. He retorted coldly, "What kind of thing do you think you are? Neither man nor ghost! I've slain more than one True Immortal—would I fear a plaything and clown like you?"
Heavenly Bone cleaved through countless rays of sword qi with a single blade, pointing its tip at Wei Yuan. "Cut the chatter! Come and fight!"
Wei Yuan naturally had no fear. His true body manifested, spear in hand, standing with his hands behind his back. Behind him, his deft fingers smoothly chambered a sword bullet into the breech.
No matter how formidable Heavenly Bone was, it could not see through Wei Yuan's dharma body, and thus could not spot Wei Yuan's little movements behind his back. Instead, it extended a bone blade, pointed at Wei Yuan, and curled it in a beckoning gesture.
Another wave of fury surged within Wei Yuan, but right at that moment, he realized something was amiss: in just this brief span, he had grown angry three times.
In an instant, Wei Yuan's consciousness turned icy, sealing away the portion where fury ran rampant. That part of his divine sense was still ablaze with blazing rage, practically boiling over. Fortunately, Wei Yuan switched his primary processing to the Splendor of the Many Realms, isolating and sealing off that original divine sense to prevent further influence.
*How insidious!* Wei Yuan thought.
This ability to stir and manipulate emotions unnoticed was Heavenly Bone's true killing move. Who could have thought that this Heavenly Bone, which looked like a bumbling brute, was actually a supreme master of soul manipulation?
Wei Yuan considered his Dao heart pure and flawless, his cultivation perfected without the slightest vulnerability, yet even he had fallen into the trap without realizing it.
Not only did hearing Heavenly Bone's roar affect one's mind, but even gazing upon its dharma body subtly exerted an influence. Once Wei Yuan became vigilant, he discovered that Heavenly Bone's body was itself a wrathful manifestation of the Buddhist Dao. Had Wei Yuan's attainment in the Buddhist cultivation path not advanced by leaps and bounds in recent years, this secret would have been nearly impossible to uncover.
Heavenly Bone did not wish to control Wei Yuan; all it wanted was for Wei Yuan to strike—a single blow would suffice. Wei Yuan had only lent his grotto-heaven. As a lender, he could not take action himself; intervening in person would count as violating the Dao oath and incurring the Heavenly Dao's backlash. At that point, Yanshi would not necessarily lose, but Heaven and Earth would target him, causing ill luck in all things—tantamount to fighting under a perpetual Heavenly Dao curse.
The Wise King of the Left's strength was only a sliver below Yanshi's. He would never pass up such a golden opportunity and would surely seize upon Yanshi's compromised state to violently gouge out several of his grotto-heavens. When that happened, Yanshi's power would plummet drastically, perhaps leaving him even weaker than Lu Changhe or Liumiao had been.
Heavenly Bone's wrathful manifestation was concealed exceptionally well, and it had consistently maintained the guise of a dim-witted brute. In reality, its wrathful manifestation had been cultivated to an extraordinarily exalted rank. In the past, many powerful adversaries had found themselves inexplicably overcome by fury, only to suffer baffling defeats.
Over the past several thousand years, Heavenly Bone had suffered a grievous defeat only once, at Xihe's hands. On that occasion, it had successfully stoked Xihe's fury—only to be hacked into sixteen pieces by a flash of sword light, followed by centuries of deep slumber.
In truth, between the two Dharma Gods, Hongmo and Heavenly Bone, Heavenly Bone was the one pulling the strings and devising strategies.
Once Wei Yuan figured this out, he naturally cursed its treachery. Yet the Northern Liao Esoteric Sect operated in utmost secrecy; gurus and Dharma Kings rarely showed themselves in public. The core Dharma Gods of the Esoteric Sect were mostly mere legends; within the Palace of Grand Beginning, only Xihe had ever encountered one, leaving behind merely four words: "Slain with one strike."
From the preceding combat, Wei Yuan had already gauged the Dharma God's strength. Overall, it was far superior to the Little State Preceptor's true body, stronger than the immortal hound, and also stronger than Liumiao and Cangwu, falling only slightly short of Yanshi's true body—exceedingly formidable. Even after being suppressed by Wei Yuan with the domain's power, it was only a hair below Cangwu.
Yet Wei Yuan felt something was off about this Dharma God, as if something were not quite right.
Wei Yuan snorted and unleashed his divine sense, enveloping the entire realm-heaven. His illusory dharma body expanded even larger, to the point where his brow touched the firmament and his chin scraped the ground—heaven and earth could hardly contain his colossal face.
This appeared to be a show of force born of blind fury, completely laughable bluster in the eyes of Heavenly Bone and Hongmo—in other words, impotent rage.
In truth, however, the wrath spurting from Wei Yuan's eyes was made up entirely of data, covertly gathering every scrap of information Heavenly Bone leaked and recording it. Even if he could not keep Heavenly Bone here this time, as long as he gathered enough data, he could analyze its weaknesses and give it a grand surprise the next time they met.
Wei Yuan deliberately taunted, "Destroying you is as simple as turning my palm! Show whatever tricks you have, and this venerable one will crack them before your eyes!"
Heavenly Bone immediately barked, "Fine! Watch closely then!"
It rubbed four of its bone blades together, unexpectedly coaxing out a burst of deep-blue electrical radiance! The lightning grew brighter and brighter, coiling into a sphere that gradually swelled with the terrifying power to pierce right through a continent!
Hongmo suddenly said, "He has concealed his true body. This strike of yours most likely won't hit."
Heavenly Bone replied, "No matter. This strike can blanket nearly half of the realm-heaven. As long as he moves to block it, that counts as violating the Dao oath. Even if he doesn't block, grazing him even slightly counts. And if he truly doesn't block at all, I'll take the opportunity to destroy half of his realm-heaven and rescue the old man's grotto-heavens."
Hongmo remarked, "The old fellow can't even beat this single grotto-heaven with five of his own. What a waste—why even maintain grotto-heavens? He'd be better off welcoming a few Dharma Gods inside."
The two Dharma Gods communicated through divine sense, completely inaudible to outsiders. Yet within the realm-heaven, Wei Yuan's divine sense was overwhelmingly powerful far beyond imagination, capturing every subtle leak of their divine sense.
Under normal circumstances, such stray ripples of divine sense would be like the buzzing of a mosquito in a bustling marketplace, completely unnoticeable. But once those ripples were converted into data and analyzed by the Splendor of the Many Realms, the result was entirely different.
In moments, a conclusion crystallized before Wei Yuan: the divine sense fluctuations of the Dharma God before him had two centers that communicated with one another, highly likely indicating twin souls. Furthermore, there was an incongruity between the divine sense fluctuations of the dharma body's head and its torso, ruling out two souls inhabiting a single body.
Then, a seemingly impossible conclusion emerged: this was not a single Dharma God before him, but two, fused together through some secret art so as to occupy only a single grotto-heaven slot!
Wei Yuan's eyes lit up. "You can do that?!"
The Splendor of the Many Realms promptly supplied the answer: *Of course. Just as Wei Yuan's seven grotto-heavens were counted as one, even his true body's mindscape world had been bundled in.*
Wei Yuan did not feel in the least that he was in the wrong; so long as one could deceive the Heavenly Dao, that was one's own skill! However, the other side consisted of two Dharma Gods, and they were uncoordinated, which meant they had been temporarily fused together with a secret technique. As long as he split them apart, the Wise King of the Left would have one extra grotto-heaven on the field, directly breaching the Dao oath! When that time came, Heaven and Earth would target not only the Wise King of the Left, but also these two Dharma Gods before him.
This was the first time Wei Yuan had ever seen a puppet spirit creature whose status reached the immortal rank. Since it had passed right under his nose, if he didn't pluck something off it, his Dao heart would never be at peace.
"Can they be split apart?" Wei Yuan asked.
*Based on current data, there is a thirty percent chance—*the Splendor of the Many Realms responded.
A thirty percent chance? Do it! Wei Yuan made up his mind on the spot. Immediately, the sea of karmic luck sank slightly as ten million human luck vanished, and the probability jumped from thirty percent to fifty percent.
At this moment, another clear, brilliant sword light appeared, gleaming platinum, and circled lightly around one of Heavenly Bone's blades!
Heavenly Bone was scared out of its wits, nearly turning tail to flee. But after a burst of sparks, only a shallow sword score was left on the bone blade. That platinum sword qi instantly turned ferocious, sawing back and forth around the bone blade, showering sparks in all directions and digging deeper and deeper grooves.
Heavenly Bone finally steadied its nerves, after which rage surged. Just as it was about to seek out the source of the sword light, countless points of colored glaze light appeared in midair, coalescing into a pagoda that clamped down on that bone blade. The blade's tier was forcibly suppressed by an entire grade, instantly losing its invulnerability!
Then, a patch of black qi emerged and enveloped the bone blade!
The black qi vanished an instant later, but the bone blade within had vanished along with it.
Only now did Heavenly Bone feel piercing agony, but fury overwhelmed the pain. It threw back its head and roared toward the firmament.
It was roaring not at the realm-heaven, but at the Heavenly Dao!
That strike just now had clearly been the combined effort of three formidable Scenery Command cultivators, and counting that terrifying sword light from earlier, that made four of them! These were authentic Scenery Command figures of this realm, not semi-illusory beings scraping by in a grotto-heaven. Just like Wei Yuan's true body, so long as they intervened, they were violating the Dao oath!
Yet the Heavenly Dao showed no reaction whatsoever, as if it were completely blind. No wonder Heavenly Bone was so furious.
Wei Yuan had anticipated this all along and merely sneered. He had expended a vast amount of karmic luck—how could the Heavenly Dao not be blind?
Chapter 1284