As the Flame Celestial Sovereign charged forward, Tang Jie stopped not far from him and laughed. “Long time no see. Have you been doing well, Immortal Sovereign?”
The Flame Celestial Sovereign stared at Tang Jie, a sense of bitterness in his heart.
Once, Tang Jie had been a mere ant in his eyes, but he had already grown so much.
The immense gap naturally left him feeling unpleasant.
Besides discomfort, there was also some fear.
Fear of Tang Jie’s strength.
Both Origin Defender and Jade Truth had died at his hands. Tang Jie had already proved that he could challenge and defeat Earth Immortals.
He had been forced to come here by the two sects, and while he hated Tang Jie, he also wasn’t on friendly terms with the other side. With Tang Jie seemingly getting stronger and stronger, with perhaps still more cards yet to play, he had no will to fight. Thus, he shouted, “Tang Jie, there’s no big grudge between us. While I sold you out to Blood River, you looted my treasury in return, and at the end of it, I ended up losing more. Why should we be enemies? This business is between you and those two sects, nothing to do with me. I’m willing to let the matter drop. What say you?”
He was making a peace offer.
The Flame Celestial Sovereign could tell what he was going for, and he grunted, “Tang Jie, you still haven’t won yet, so don’t get too cocky.”
“All right.” Tang Jie clapped his hands. “This is where the problem lies. As Immortal Sovereign says, I still haven’t won, so you’re still putting on airs. Even if you want to withdraw, you have no plans on paying any sort of price. But I worry that if we talk about peace after the battle, you won’t have the right to talk anymore.”
He looked around and said, “I’m fighting you guys here not because I’m trying to avoid all of you, but because I want to ascend to Immortal Platform, which means I need to expand the Yellow Court World. The best way to do this is to have a few Earth Immortals serve as fertilizer. Thus, to me, Immortal Sovereign, you represent a small fortune.”
The Flame Celestial Sovereign paled. He had never expected Tang Jie to be this ambitious.
Moreover, Tang Jie wasn’t lying. This had been his plan from the start, so for him, a dead Flame Celestial Sovereign was more valuable than a surrendered one.
The Flame Celestial Sovereign panicked. “Tang Jie, Mou Siming and Flowing Wind aren’t that easy to deal with. Fighting with me might create some variables that will cause those pretty girls of yours to lose their lives. That wouldn’t be worth it at all.”
“That might not be the case,” Tang Jie replied.
As he spoke, in the distance, Yiyi suddenly took out the crown that had been taken from the Flame Celestial Sovereign. This item was a natural Dao armament that could be used even when one wasn’t at Immortal Platform. Tang Jie had given Xu Miaoran the Bejeweled Star Lord’s arm, and he had given Yiyi the crown. It was just that Yiyi had been hiding using the formation rather than fighting out in the open, so she had had no opportunity to use it. When danger had come, she hadn’t had time, and it was Deng Yuqing who had saved her, and to die for Yiyi was something Deng Yuqing had been willing and wishing for. And now that she had taken out the crown, she could actually go toe-to-toe with Mou Siming’s Starshatter Ring. Meanwhile, the Mother Cloud combat puppet and the Vermillion Bird, two half-step Earth Immortals, attacked from the sides. Xu Miaoran helped everyone with various medicines while He Chong and Duan Fourth controlled the formations. Only Ice Phoenix continued to act aloof, watching the battle with folded arms.
Tang Jie said, “Thus, if the outcome were that hard to determine, Immortal Sovereign wouldn’t be wasting all this time chatting with me. In the end, you lack confidence in your victory. If you really don’t want to become fertilizer for my small world, then I have a suggestion. You hand over your Origin Flame and help me kill those other two. Although I could do it without you, I’d like to conserve whatever strength I can.”
Despair appeared on the Flame Celestial Sovereign’s face.
He had refined his Origin Flame by traveling across the myriad domains and collecting exotic flames, so handing it over to Tang Jie wasn’t a decision that came easily.
But if he didn’t agree, he would die, and the Five Origins Estate was closed off, so he would find it very difficult to leave unless Tang Jie let him. The Flame Celestial Sovereign finally understood why Tang Jie had chosen to fight here—not just for the formations, but because this place prevented them from escaping. Meanwhile, Tang Jie could leave whenever he wanted.
In the end, their arrogance had caused them to underestimate their foe.
The Flame Celestial Sovereign inwardly cursed, but alas, he still had to face reality.
As he was considering his answer, the old dragon’s cry for help came from the distance.
He turned and saw the Genesis Cloud strangling the dragon.
Hope appeared in the Flame Celestial Sovereign’s eyes, while Tang Jie sighed.
He knew that the dragon’s incompetence had ruined his plan to make his opponent surrender without a fight. Flowing Wind gaining the upper hand had made the Flame Celestial Sovereign believe that he could fight back.
Thus, they would still have to fight.
“Actually, this dragon was never a part of my plans, but even if I told you that I still had a hundred different ways to kill you, you wouldn’t believe me.
“That being the case, we can only fight.”
The Flame Celestial Sovereign unleashed his Origin Flame at Tang Jie.
As he had almost sold out Flowing Wind earlier, he went all-out in his attack, and his Origin Flame was much stronger than Tang Jie’s, setting the heavens ablaze.
Not daring to be careless, Tang Jie threw out the Myriad Yin Yang Furnace, which fired off its divine beam to resist the Origin Flame.
Through his repeated temperings, the Myriad Yin Yang Furnace had grown stronger and stronger, and the power of its 108 divine treasures was now enough to hold back the Origin Flames. Tang Jie then swung his sword.
A wave of sword energy surged toward the Flame Celestial Sovereign.
The Flame Celestial Sovereign waved his hand, sending a ball of Origin Flame to counter it. But the Sovereign Blade sliced right through it as if it didn’t exist. The Flame Celestial Sovereign didn’t dare to take this sword directly, so he immediately fled. However, his escape art was no match for Nearby Horizon, and Tang Jie simply blinked over to intercept him and once more swung his sword.
There was a shriek as the streak of flame was sliced in two and then came together again, reforming into the Flame Celestial Sovereign.
“You!” The Flame Celestial Sovereign roared, but before he could finish, Tang Jie chopped his sword, threw a punch, and then unleashed a waterfall of phantom swords.
He needed to finish his opponent before the old dragon met his limit, so he attacked with all his might.
The Flame Celestial Sovereign was weaker than Tang Jie already, and he had been further exhausted in the Miniaturization Formation, so the surge of the Skyrend Swordfall and a blow from the Ten Extinctions Blade swiftly took one of his lives.
As the Flame Celestial Sovereign reformed, he cried out, “Tang Jie, stop! We can talk things out!”
“Fine—hand over your Origin Flame and be my slave for five hundred years.”
“You’re raising the price?”
“Of course!” Tang Jie snorted. “You think you have the right to negotiate when you’re under siege? If you die one more time, I’ll add another five hundred years. At 2500 years, you need to hand over your Divine Soul. And if you lose ten lives… there’s no more adding, for all your cultivation will become part of my Yellow Court World. So please, continue with your hesitation!”
The Flame Celestial Sovereign was shocked and enraged, yet he still couldn’t accept being a slave for five hundred years. At this time, Flowing Wind managed to kill the dragon once, which made the Flame Celestial Sovereign think that if he held on, Flowing Wind could kill the dragon before he was killed by Tang Jie.
His hesitation slowed his reaction, and Tang Jie unleashed another salvo, combining spell arts and Dao Arts before mincing up the Flame Celestial Sovereign into ground meat.
Now it was a thousand years of slavery.