The So-Called Path to Immortality

Even though it was daytime and the sun was shining brightly, the sky suddenly turned dim and colorless.

This darkness began to spread outward with Qingwei as the epicenter. The sky grew darker and darker until pitch-blackness enveloped the earth, leaving not a single speck of light in the sky.

Using her nine tails to bind Zixiao, Su Li suddenly felt an instinctive warning.

This instinct was one of her talents as a half-demon, allowing her to sense fatal threats.

Now, the threat alarm in her mind was blaring at its highest volume, ringing the most urgent warning bells.

A tingling sensation originating from her brain shot down her spine. This bioelectric shock stimulated her tailbone, causing the tips of her tails to tremble involuntarily.

Her survival instinct made it impossible for her to continue binding Zixiao. Driven by the ultimate imperative of survival, her figure immediately shot backward, pulling away to a safe distance...

Zixiao took the opportunity to struggle even more violently, forcefully snapping the chain that restricted his right arm.

On his left hand, on his left leg—he broke more and more restraints, and the speed at which the chains shattered grew faster and faster.

He looked at the darkening sky. Even though he had completely transformed into an Ice Spirit, an ominous dread still welled up within his heart, which was flooded with violent emotions.

He roared, the speed of his hands not slowing down in the slightest; instead, he tore at the chains even faster. Three of the four chains were already gone, leaving only the blood-ink chain firmly wrapped around his right leg.

Unfortunately, he did not have the time to break it.

The sword light had arrived.

In the dim horizon, a single beam of light appeared.

A new moon rose from the north, hanging high in the sky, shedding its solitary, cold light. The phases of the moon cycled—the full moon became a crescent, then a waning sliver, and finally condensed into a single thread of sword intent, a surge of sword qi, and a razor-sharp sword edge.

It pointed straight at Zixiao.

The fourth chain finally snapped. It was unclear whether Zixiao had torn it apart himself or if it had been reduced to ashes under the brilliant sword light.

It was likely the latter.

After all, this sword light was too fast—so fast that Zixiao had absolutely no time to react, let alone escape.

Medicine Peak had completely collapsed. Although Bai Cen had given this peak a pleasant name, it did not matter; it was still simpler to call it Medicine Peak, a straightforward name that made its purpose clear at a glance.

However, from this day forward, it could no longer be called a peak, only Medicine Valley...

Qingwei thrust the broken half of Fuyao into the ground and knelt, his gray hair and beard soaked with sweat, hanging down in damp strands.

He stared at the massive trench plowed by his sword, thinking to himself, He should be... dead, right?

Suddenly, a sense of profound loss washed over him. Senior Brother is dead?

Hundreds of years had passed since he first sought the immortal path. His Senior Brother, Zixiao, had long been an incredibly important presence in his life.

Now that this figure, who had played such a prominent role in his long life, had met his end, Qingwei felt a sense of relief, yet also a wave of sorrow. Having finally found himself, he fell once more into bewilderment.

Only the sword scar on the ground silently testified that the man was no more.

Du Qi had stopped bleeding by now, though his face remained exceptionally pale. The moment the sword light descended, Su Li and Hua Xi had withdrawn their strength and retreated to defend themselves.

Su Li's face was white. When she was binding Zixiao earlier, she had undoubtedly suffered multiple bone fractures. Two of her nine fox tails were twisted out of shape, hanging limply.

And this was even with Hua Xi sharing half of the damage for her.

Hua Xi's injuries were comparable to Su Li's, but she said nothing. She found a relatively intact section of a ruined wall and wrapped herself in her tail to rest.

This was her usual way of healing.

Su Li retracted her fox ears and long tails. The injuries sustained in her beast form did not vanish when she reverted to her human form; instead, the backlash hit her true body, especially around her tailbone...

Consequently, she could only kneel on the ground now, unable to sit down at all. Any attempt to do so made her delicate face twitch in intense pain.

Watching from the side, Du Qi felt both annoyed and amused. He was amused by Su Li's current disheveled and comical appearance.

He was annoyed because of her recklessness—tangling with Zixiao in close combat with only a half-step Void Refinement Rank cultivation—and also because Zixiao had showed no mercy, injuring his kid so severely.

He was Su Li's Dao Protector, backed by a written contract in black and white, so calling her “his kid” was entirely reasonable.

As for age... even though Su Li had lived far longer than he had, in Du Qi's eyes, she was still like a child who did not know her limits.

Well, a child was a child, and there was nothing wrong with that. The corners of his mouth curled up slightly.

Then, his eyelids grew heavier, and a wave of drowsiness washed over him. He forced his eyes to stay focused, looking at Su Li's scowling little face.

He muttered to himself, “That's what you get... for not listening... When we get back, I'll... take it for you again...”

Everyone on the field who could still move was utterly exhausted, leaving only Bai Cen, who lay with a gaping hole in his chest, blood continuously seeping out.

Qingwei cast a faint glance at him.

He was a Void Refinement Rank cultivator, after all. If he really ended up being kicked to death like a stray dog on the street... Heh.

Qingwei slowly straightened up and looked toward where Bai Cen had fallen. The place where he lay was extremely close to the trench carved by the sword light. Had he been off by even a fraction of an inch, he probably wouldn't even have an intact corpse left...

Wait, why was Bai Cen's face even paler than before?

A sudden jolt went through Qingwei's heart. This was not the pallor of excessive blood loss.

White—a pure, snowy white was spreading across Bai Cen's face...

Frost was actually forming on Bai Cen's skin!

Looking toward the source of the frost, wisps of white icy mist were continuously spewing out from beneath the rift carved by the sword light.

A blue hand slowly reached out from the sword scar.

Qingwei felt completely drained of strength, unable to stand up again. Is this the Body Integration Rank? Why is it that even such an attack cannot kill him?

Boundless despair slowly consumed him.

He watched helplessly as Zixiao crawled out of the trench, first his upper body, then his entire frame.

How could he be completely unharmed? Impossible! Even a Body Integration Rank cultivator could not have emerged unscathed from that sword strike!

This was not only a subversion of his understanding of cultivation realms, but also an insult to the Azure Cloud Sword Art and his entire life of bitter cultivation!

Qingwei's eyes widened, bloodshot, as he stared intently at the blue crystalline shell on Zixiao's body.

Blue?

He blinked hard. That was not the deep, dark blue crystal armor from before.

It was blue-purple!

This aura had long surpassed the Body Integration Rank!

An extremely absurd feeling welled up in Qingwei's heart. Impossible!

“The Tribulation Transcendence Rank?”

Had he broken through and entered the Tribulation Transcendence Rank? Or had he finally refined that pill?

No one answered him. Only the tribulation clouds suddenly gathering in the sky silently provided the answer. It indeed was the Tribulation Transcendence Rank...

The Tribulation Transcendence Rank...

This was the supreme realm of cultivation that no one had reached for nearly a thousand years.

Yet today, in such an utterly absurd manner, it reappeared in the world.

Qingwei gasped heavily. So a cultivator's life of bitter training and consuming countless natural treasures was not as good as joining the slaughter of one's own kind, the Formless Ice Spirits. It was not as good as relying on the slaughter of compatriots, on cannibalism, to achieve the supreme path to immortality...

Zixiao looked up at the tribulation clouds in the sky, and Qingwei did the same.

The corner of his mouth curved into a faint smile.

Cultivating immortality.

Heh...