“23… 28… 34… 41…” Yiyi counted.
Duan Fourth was almost cross-eyed as he tried to keep up. “Violet Palace… they’re all Violet Palace… Why are they all just being thrown in like trash?”
Violet Palace cultivators had once been revered existences, and just seeing a living one would leave him excited for half a day. But now, one dead Violet Palace cultivator was being thrown in after another. It was mostly Infant Tending at first, and then Deification, and by the end, even Soul Projection cultivators were appearing. This was because Tang Jie had basically picked all the easy fruits and was left with the more difficult ones. Duan Fourth was even beginning to wonder if one or two Earth Immortal corpses would be thrown in.
To this, Xu Miaoran firmly replied in the negative. But even if it wasn’t happening now, that didn’t mean it wouldn’t happen in the future, for there was an Earth Immortal who had recently been courting death and always causing trouble for them. If things continued to develop as expected, this Earth Immortal wouldn’t be living for long.
He Chong and Duan Fourth didn’t understand why Tang Jie killing an Earth Immortal was part of the normal course of events, but just the corpses being thrown in represented as much spiritual energy as an Earth Immortal.
Everyone sighed and continued to watch the Violet Palace bodies fall from the sky, like mortals watching gold fall from the heavens.
In the void, Tang Jie was still battling.
After Tang Jie’s brazen slaughter, only sixty-some of the cultivators remained.
But these were the strongest of the lot, almost all of them at Soul Projection, the same level as Tang Jie. Some of them had even entered Daos and could use one or two Dao Arts.
Seeing that his Space power was running low and there were still sixty-some people, Tang Jie knew that further fighting would do him no good, so he turned to run.
“He’s running!” the surviving cultivators shouted. Originally, they had been scared stiff by Tang Jie’s power and were only fighting him because they had to. Now that Tang Jie was running, they regained their courage. One cultivator threw out a pair of golden scissors. The scissors turned into a golden serpent that took a big bite out of Tang Jie’s flesh.
Blood spilled out.
The cultivators cheered, for they had once again proved that Tang Jie was feigning his strength, and they chased after Tang Jie. They failed to notice that the blood remained suspended in space. Once all the cultivators had flown past, it began to spread and writhe, ultimately taking on the appearances of those cultivators. At the same time, Tang Jie continued to sow chaos within the formation, and as the formation neared collapse, a strange fog began to appear. Tang Jie flew into this fog, hiding himself within it, and the pursuing cultivators found nothing suspicious about it and rushed into the fog.
A cultivator was searching when he suddenly felt something weird. Fortunately, he reacted quickly enough to block the oncoming attack. When he turned to look at his assailant, he found it to be a familiar face. “Fu Feng, why did you attack me?”
The man laughed. “I’m a demon, so I’ll attack who I want.”
His attack having failed, he turned to run.
That cultivator wanted to give chase, but after some thought, he decided that there were bigger priorities, the first being to catch that kid called Hong Qianli. This guy had entered the Immortal Emperor’s tomb, so he must have obtained some important treasure. The one who killed him first would get this treasure, at which point they could turn to handling the demon cultivators.
But while he thought this, others didn’t hold the same opinion.
Sounds of combat came from all around, punctuated with the occasional cry.
“Bastard, we haven’t even finished off our common foe yet, so why are you already attacking your allies?”
A voice scoffed, “Have you righteous cultivators lost your heads? When did we become your allies?”
“But we were originally allies.”
“As a demon, I can only be your enemy, not a friend.”
“That’s right. That kid is hard to deal with, so we might as well deal with you guys first. After all, we demons are enemies wherever we go in the positive plane, so we might as well have some fun before we’re killed.”
“Agreed.”
“I knew you demons couldn’t be trusted. What are we wasting time for? Kill them!”
“Senior Brother Luo, my apologies. Although you showed such kindness to me in the past, now that you have become a demon, I must slay you to uphold the Dao.”
“You put it in such a pretty way, but there are plenty of demons here, so why come for me? You must be after my Thousand Gold Rope. I always knew you were a thankless wretch.”
The sounds of arguments came from all around.
Some of the sharper ones wondered why they were suddenly turning against each other and thought that that “Hong Qianli” might have had something to do with it, but alas, battles were easier to start than stop. When Tang Jie had been their common enemy, they had been able to work together, but what they really had been after were the treasures Tang Jie had. Now that Tang Jie was gone, they had started to fight each other once more, not caring for the reason.
As one of them had said, since they were going to fight eventually, there was no problem with fighting right now.
Meanwhile, Tang Jie secretly turned around and went up to a cultivator.
This cultivator reacted quickly, sensing Tang Jie’s approach and taking out a bell, which let out a thunderous clap. This thunder clap dizzied Tang Jie’s mind and threw his energy into disarray, allowing that cultivator to savagely thrust a finger at him that contained all his power.
In the end, Soul Projection cultivators were existences of the same level as Tang Jie, and even though Tang Jie could beat any Soul Projection cultivator he came across, when his foe was going all out, they could still cause trouble for him.
But Tang Jie didn’t panic, shouting, “Fixate!”
Through Law Speaking, the cultivator was frozen on the spot.
Tang Jie swung the Sovereign Blade, easily slicing through the bell, which exploded into countless metal shards while a golden grain merged with his sword.
Before the cultivator could say anything, a phantom bell emerged from the Sovereign Blade.
Bong!
The bell rang out.
The sound exploded in the cultivator’s mind, paralyzing his body and causing blood to seep out from his nose and mouth.
“My Thunderclap Bell…”
He couldn’t understand why that sword could emulate his Thunderclap Bell, and make it even more powerful!
Tang Jie wasn’t interested in explaining anything to him, the Sovereign Blade slicing through his body. Thunderous explosions ripped through the cultivator, blasting him to bits.
This was the power of the Sovereign Blade, shattering all weapons and emulating all weapons.
In truth, the Sovereign Blade had been able to emulate weapons for a long time now, but this ability needed time to mature. Initially, the Sovereign Blade could only emulate a tenth of the power of the treasures it shattered.
Through research and strengthening, Tang Jie was able to bring it to 100%. He had thought that this was the limit, but later, Tang Jie discovered that the Sovereign Blade was far from reaching the end, that it could display more power than the original treasure.
It was only now that Tang Jie realized how terrifying this secret art was. This was a true sovereign of weapons. In front of it, all other treasures could only bow their heads.
The Sovereign Blade had yet to reach its full power, but as it grew stronger and stronger, it had become one of the best tools in Tang Jie’s box. With this attack, Tang Jie had shown just how scary he could really be.
Putting away the Sovereign Blade, Tang Jie shot over to his next opponent, a demon cultivator.
The demon cultivator spotted him and swung his fiery saber, raised up a watery barrier around himself, put on a draconic suit of armor, summoned a rainbow pillar, and manifested a thousand hands. In a flash, he had used all of his Divine Connections and treasures to deal with Tang Jie’s attack.
Tang Jie only used one strike!
The Sovereign Blade cleaved through the thousand hands, obliterated the pillar, shattered the barrier, and sliced through the armor, biting into the cultivator. The blade instantly transformed into countless tentacles that slivered through the cultivator, every tentacle containing the power of Destruction.
Thus, the demon cultivator’s body instantly disintegrated.
Tang Jie kept the bodies of regular cultivators intact to throw into the diagram, but he obliterated the bodies of demon cultivators.
Taking his opponent’s Mustard Seed Bag, Tang Jie began to look for his next target. Suddenly, he sensed an attack and immediately threw out the Myriad Yin Yang Furnace. The Myriad Yin Yang Furnace radiated a divine aura as the attacks of two treasures clashed with it. While the Myriad Yin Yang Furnace was unmoved, the attacking cultivators were pushed back with a groan.
Tang Jie disappeared, appearing next to the two cultivators and unleashing Skyrend Swordfall with the Sovereign Blade, drowning those two in a flood of swords.
As he sheathed the blade, two more had lost their lives.
Tang Jie moved on to the next battlefield.
He crisscrossed the battlefield, exploiting the features of the Celestial Maze Formation to create openings and hunt down the cultivators. The Infinite Palace, Law Speaking, the Ten Extinctions Blade, the Myriad Yin Yang Furnace, and the Sovereign Blade were all used without inhibition. It was only at this moment that his foes realized just how terrifying their opponent was.
Perhaps he still couldn’t fight an Earth Immortal directly, but he had so many tricks that he far surpassed a regular Soul Projection cultivator. Most shocking of all was that he possessed at least three Dao Arts.
This horrifying display robbed the cultivators of their will to battle, and they began to retreat.
But there was no escape.
Tang Jie sneered. “You’ve seen everything I have, so do you really think you can escape? All of you will be staying here.”
He suddenly accelerated.
Time Dao Art, Split-Second Youth!