Defeating the Invincible Nascent Soul

"Damn it, fighting myself is exhausting. Good thing the Invincible Nascent Soul doesn't have much of a brain." After that relentless burst of attacks, even Lu Yang was on the verge of exhaustion. Strictly speaking, the Invincible Nascent Soul did not have a brain at all; it was merely Lu Yang's theoretically strongest state. However, that theory applied only to techniques. Although it was also quite adaptable, it still fell short of Lu Yang himself. This had been an impromptu tactic Lu Yang devised halfway through the fight. No matter how adaptable the Invincible Nascent Soul was, it could never match Lu Yang's versatility. The clearest proof was that when it witnessed his move, it froze for an instant, utterly unable to react. Moreover, a theoretically strongest state was not the same as reality. The Invincible Nascent Soul could only draw upon the power it possessed, but Lu Yang was different—Lu Yang could borrow the strength of his true body! Inferior in adaptability, inferior in drawing external power—those were the Invincible Nascent Soul's two greatest weaknesses. If this strategy still failed to defeat the Invincible Nascent Soul, Lu Yang was ready to simply unleash the Immortal Fairy Imitation Fist and beat it to a pulp. After all, the Immortal Fairy wouldn't lend her power to the Invincible Nascent Soul, meaning it couldn't use the Fairy Imitation Fist. One misstep led to another. Having taken that punch, the Invincible Nascent Soul lost the initiative once more. It wanted to execute the Lu Yang Imitation Fist to rapidly replenish its mental energy, but Lu Yang gave it no such chance. Unleashing Sword Dao and spells in tandem, he battered the Invincible Nascent Soul into continuous retreat, its aura steadily withering. *Boom—* Lu Yang sent the Invincible Nascent Soul flying once again, snapping a pillar in the grand hall. Lu Yang pressed his advantage, but unexpectedly, as if foreseeing its defeat, the Invincible Nascent Soul took a step forward and vanished into thin air! Lu Yang's pupils narrowed slightly, instantly recognizing the spell it had cast. "Inches to the Ends of the Earth?!" This was the very first spatial divine ability Lu Yang had learned, capable of randomly teleporting him to some cliff edge. However, because of its extreme randomness, and because Lu Yang always had other ways to resolve danger, he avoided using it whenever possible. Ever since learning it, he had left it to gather dust. Who would have thought that before he even got to use it, the Invincible Nascent Soul would use it to flee? It hadn't used this move when the Immortal Fairy subdued it before because she was simply too powerful, leaving it no time to cast it. Lu Yang, however, was evenly matched with the Invincible Nascent Soul, making it easy for opportunities to escape to arise during combat. "Don't think you can get away that easily! Inches to the Ends of the Earth!" Even though the cliff's location was random, the Invincible Nascent Soul was ultimately a part of Lu Yang. Wherever the Invincible Nascent Soul randomly landed, Lu Yang would follow. Lu Yang's true body took a step forward and vanished from the spiritual space as well. Now that it had fled outside his body, there was no need to fight it with a soul form. ... "Hm? Where is this?" After taking that step, Lu Yang found himself surrounded by pitch darkness. Looking up, he saw only a sliver of sky above. He stood on a stone ledge jutting out from a sheer cliff, beside which lay a cave. Intuition told Lu Yang that the Invincible Nascent Soul was hiding deep inside the cave. Lighting up the cave with Three-Flavor True Fire, he revealed cobwebs draping the interior and countless bats hanging upside down from the ceiling. Spooked by the True Fire, they swarmed out all at once like a dark cloud. A stone stele stood deep inside the cave. Lu Yang examined the stele closely. The inscription essentially claimed that its owner was a mighty cultivation expert who had secluded himself here to break through to a higher realm. Alas, the attempt failed, and he perished, his Dao extinguished. Before dying, he left behind a trial: whoever passed it would become his true successor and inherit his entire legacy. Lu Yang read the final line word for word: "My successor, if you receive my legacy, it signifies that you possess wisdom, courage, and Dao heart. I believe that in the future, you will surely fulfill Master's lifelong wish and become a Nascent Soul stage cultivator..." The owner of the stone stele had merely been at the Golden Core stage. None of the arrangements he left behind could escape Lu Yang's divine sense. Sweeping through with his divine sense, Lu Yang immediately spotted the inheritance concealed beneath the stele: a cultivation method, a storage ring containing unknown contents, and a pouch of spirit stones. "It's actually an incomplete cultivation method." Surprised, Lu Yang quickly scanned the entire technique with his divine sense. This truly was an extraordinary opportunity. If one completed the cultivation method, it could support cultivation all the way to the Soul Formation stage! Furthermore, even completed, this was merely the first half of the technique. If combined with the lower half, it would be enough to support cultivation all the way to the Body Integration stage! Lu Yang promptly tossed the inheritance to the back of his mind. When he spread his divine sense, he smoothly located the Invincible Nascent Soul hiding behind the stone stele. Realizing it had been discovered, the Invincible Nascent Soul turned into a bolt of lightning and sprinted out of the cave. "Stop right there!" Lu Yang pursued in close quarters, the man and the infant hugging the cliffside as they shot straight toward the sliver of sky above. Just as Lu Yang was about to catch up to the Invincible Nascent Soul, a shout of "*Aaaah—*" echoed from the cliff edge above. A herb gatherer carrying a foraging basket had accidentally slipped and fallen. Lu Yang abandoned the chase to catch the herb gatherer. "Close one, very close one. Lucky you ran into me. If you had fallen like that, not even a branch growing out of the cliff face would've been guaranteed to catch you." Bidding farewell to the utterly bewildered herb gatherer, Lu Yang resumed his pursuit of the Invincible Nascent Soul. The Invincible Nascent Soul repeatedly cast Inches to the Ends of the Earth to flee, and Lu Yang cast the exact same technique to chase it. They fought across various cliff crevices, constantly stumbling upon blood pools hidden at cliff bases that could awaken bloodlines, masterless growth-type dharma treasures, and elderly men reduced to mere souls... And whenever he was on the verge of catching the Invincible Nascent Soul, someone would invariably tumble off the precipice—a dragon person falling from a cliff, a junior cultivator plummeting from a cliff, a young heir despised by his clan tumbling from a cliff... Lu Yang had no choice but to rescue them first before resuming the chase. Fortunately, people didn't fall off cliffs consecutively. After crossing five different cliffs, he finally caught up with the Invincible Nascent Soul. "Still trying to run?!" Without elixirs to sustain it, the Invincible Nascent Soul was thoroughly exhausted. Lu Yang, on the other hand, had been taking pills throughout, leaving him glowing with vigor and bursting with momentum. A colossal palm descended, pressing down like the collapsing heavens. Undaunted by the move, Lu Yang decisively swung his sword. Sword qi transformed into a dragon soaring through the sky, shattering the palm that was fierce only in appearance, and pinned the Invincible Nascent Soul directly against the cliff face! "You lose." Lu Yang looked on indifferently, floating before the Invincible Nascent Soul with the tip of his Green Blade Sword leveled at it, gleaming with chilling menace. The Invincible Nascent Soul bowed its head in defeat, obediently flying back into his spiritual space. "Strange. Why does it feel like I still can't control the Invincible Nascent Soul?" Though he had won and the Invincible Nascent Soul had quieted down, Lu Yang sensed that something was off. It seemed the Invincible Nascent Soul was still not entirely obedient to him. The Immortal Fairy pondered for a moment. This was something she had never encountered before; logically, it made no sense. "Oh—this immortal gets it! This immortal defeated the Invincible Nascent Soul first, while you defeated it second. If you want full control over it, you still need to defeat this immortal!" Lu Yang: "..." *Fairy, you're doing this on purpose, aren't you?* The Immortal Fairy grinned and leaned in toward Lu Yang's stony-faced expression, offering an apologetic smile. "Aiya, Little Yangzi, don't be mad. How about this: why don't you hit this immortal once?" Lu Yang looked at her suspiciously and gave her a gentle shove. The Immortal Fairy staggered back two steps, collapsed delicately onto the bed, covered her face, and drawled: "Aiya—this immortal admits defeat." On this day, Lu Yang defeated the Invincible Nascent Soul and conquered the Immortal Fairy, achieving a feat unprecedented since ancient times.