At the main mountain of the Palace of Grand Beginning, Wei Yuan's sword cultivator avatar offered a bow to Immortal Monarch Yanshi before taking a seat. "Disciple has come with a question," he said. "What is the Venerable Master's current state, and where is he right now?"
Yanshi said, "I knew you would ask this sooner or later, so I searched through all the ancient Daoist scriptures and secret histories I could find. Synthesizing the records across various scriptures, the Venerable Master was no match for the Martial Ancestor back then. After his defeat, he used a secret technique to go into hiding. When the Martial Ancestor's search proved fruitless, being pressed for time to hunt down the other Immortal Lords, he temporarily let the Venerable Master go. But if I had been the Martial Ancestor, I would certainly have left behind a contingency within the restrictions, so that the moment the Venerable Master showed himself, a thunderous blow would strike him down.
"Therefore, even though Great Tang's karmic luck is exhausted, the Venerable Master remains extraordinarily cautious and never appears in his true body. What we saw on those few occasions in the past were likely treasures akin to external avatars.
"The current Venerable Master is most likely similar to Xu Wangu, hidden away in some secret realm capable of severing cause and effect to evade prying eyes."
Wei Yuan said, "Then if he doesn't come out, wouldn't catching him remain impossible?"
"Even if he did appear, with your current capabilities, you could not kill him. Even with all of us added, along with Old Bai of the Sword Palace, it still wouldn't suffice." Yanshi was naturally well aware of Wei Yuan's divine abilities—ordinary immortals were already no match for him, but even with unhealed wounds, the Venerable Master was not someone Wei Yuan could kill at present.
Wei Yuan replied, "If I can't kill him, I can wear him down. Every year, massive amounts of karmic luck flow into my accounts. I'll just use it to grind him down, and sooner or later, drag it out until his old injuries flare up!"
Yanshi sighed. "However, the Martial Ancestor's restriction has already opened. Right now, the only Immortal Lord of our human race is the Venerable Master. Even if his injuries haven't healed, he remains a deterrent. If we pull him down and no other Immortal Lord steps up to take his place, I fear the foreign races will make their move again."
"As long as it's accomplished during the catastrophe, the foreign races won't be able to spare the attention either," Wei Yuan said.
Yanshi did not ask what would happen once the catastrophe passed; he merely said, "Still, ferreting him out won't be that simple, I fear."
Wei Yuan found it troublesome as well, furrowing his brow. "Then I will think of another way."
After departing the Palace of Grand Beginning, Wei Yuan pondered the matter as he traveled, yet no good solution presented itself. So long as the Venerable Master kept his head down, even the Martial Ancestor back then could do nothing about him, let alone Wei Yuan. Right in the midst of his deep contemplation, Wei Yuan's vision suddenly blurred. He found himself standing in a desolate world devoid of sun, moon, or stars, lit only by a dim, hazy skylight. Three cultivators—two elderly men and one youth—manifested, encircling Wei Yuan.
The young cultivator in the center sneered coldly. "Caught you at last! An avatar shouldn't be running around outside, you know. An avatar like this must be quite costly, right? What a pity it would be to destroy it."
Wei Yuan appraised the three cultivators. The two elders were in the late stage of Scenery Command, while the youth was at Scenery Command perfection. Meanwhile, this sword cultivator avatar of his had barely grazed the edge of Scenery Command.
This space had neither sky nor sun. The Splendor of the Many Realms seemed infinitely distant, leaving behind only the faintest wisp of an imperceptible connection. To silently draw Wei Yuan's sword cultivator avatar into this secret realm space was most likely the direct doing of the Venerable Master, who must have deployed an immortal treasure containing its own secret realm.
Wei Yuan showed no hint of fear. "Costly things have their advantages—namely, if you break it, you can't afford to compensate me."
"Compensate? Ha! What a joke!" The young cultivator burst into uncontrollable laughter as if hearing the most hilarious joke in the world. Then he sneered, "If your true body had come, we would naturally yield and give you a wide berth. But you are nothing more than a mere avatar—how dare you talk so big?"
Wei Yuan wasted no breath. Bringing his sword fingers upright before his chest, a soft, flawless point of sword light sparked at the tips. "Come at me together," he said.
...
A moment later, Wei Yuan stood with his hands behind his back, drenched in blood, his dharma body battered and torn. However, the young cultivator's head was held in his hand, while the two elderly cultivators had already been reduced to minced flesh scattered across the ground.
Several more cultivators appeared nearby, merely encircling him from a distance, completely lacking the courage to step forward. An elderly cultivator shouted, "Wei Yuan! Don't you get arrogant! Today, your doom is sealed!"
Another female cultivator yelled, "You might have a fearsome reputation, but aren't you still going to die by our hands?"
A young scholar shouted, "Today we slay demons and devils to restore clarity and order to the world!"
Wei Yuan chuckled in spite of himself. "Your cultivation might be mediocre, but you certainly don't lack bluster. Just hearing you shout those lines, one would think it was my true body you were killing."
The cultivators kept shouting without batting an eye or skipping a beat. When it came to the thickness of their skin, they truly had the chops to match Wei Yuan.
Wei Yuan shook his head. "Though I am merely an avatar, I will not suffer the indignity of petty clowns like you. Venerable Master, before you strike next time, recruit some people who can actually present themselves! Looking at these underlings of yours, one can easily imagine what sort of person you truly are. Let this end here!"
A light ignited between Wei Yuan's brows. A beam of sword qi burst forth from his body, followed by a second, a third, and then countless more!
In an instant, endless sword qi erupted from within Wei Yuan, shredding his own dharma body, tearing apart the cultivator lapdogs around him, and ripping this entire world to pieces.
The secret realm contracted rapidly, ultimately shrinking into a jade bottle cradled in a palm. Cracks abruptly appeared across the jade bottle before it exploded with a sharp bang, shards slicing into the palm.
The Venerable Master looked at the bead of blood seeping from his palm, then at the porcelain shards scattered across the ground. Silently, he wiped a finger across it, and the cut on his palm vanished without a trace.
Only after a long silence did a heavy sigh echo.
Beneath the Tree of the Great Dao, Wei Yuan's true body opened his eyes as a speck of light descended from the chaos and sank between his brows. The information contained in that speck was extremely limited, recording only the avatar's final self-detonation and the eruption of sword qi. As it shattered the jade bottle, the avatar had expended its final vestige of power to send ripples through the chaos, generating this speck of light in the world beyond the heavens.
Seeing that final scene, Wei Yuan understood the general cause and effect. That sword cultivator avatar had been quite precious, storing over a thousand wisps of Wei Yuan's divine intent within it, which were destroyed along with it.
Yet clearly, with an immortal treasure destroyed and numerous subordinates buried along with it, the Venerable Master's losses were far more grievous. Scenery Command cultivators—especially grand cultivators at perfection—were hardly common cabbage; even for the Venerable Master, commanding them required paying a substantial price. Yet now, all of them had been dragged down to the grave alongside this sword cultivator avatar.
Wei Yuan made a rough estimate: to slay this single sword cultivator avatar of his, the Venerable Master had paid fully nine times the price. This business didn't seem bad at all. With a shift of Wei Yuan's thought, another avatar appeared before him. This time, however, he did not make him a sword cultivator; after all, the Venerable Master would certainly be on guard against that.
The new avatar wore azure robes and had hoary hair, his aura obscure and elusive. His entire being seemed to exist yet also seemed not to exist, flitting continuously between the previous moment and the next. Carrying the aura of time, this avatar was noticeably far harder to capture. He bowed to Wei Yuan, then returned to Qingming.
Not long after, this avatar appeared in the Palace of Grand Beginning and bowed to Yanshi.
Yanshi was momentarily taken aback before recognizing that this, too, was an avatar of Wei Yuan. "What is it now?" he asked.
Wei Yuan bowed and said, "I have come specifically to seek Patriarch's blessing."
Yanshi picked up a talisman brush and spread out talisman paper. "This happens to be my forte. What do you wish to ask for?"
"To encounter an accident on the way back."
Chapter 1458