World's No. 1 Swordsman-Chapter 512: Spiritual Consciousness Residue of a Golden Immortal
The deep voice, filled with vast divine authority, simultaneously rang out in Wang Sheng and the two Heavenly Immortals' minds.
Wang Sheng first felt brief delight, then jolted in shock. The two Heavenly Immortals, however, immediately looked alarmed. They showed no joy, only pure panic.
Ji Li's Dao Heart, which had carried him to the Heavenly Immortal Realm, swiftly steadied itself, allowing his eyes to clear in an instant. He let go of the greatsword's blade and retreated at full speed. Meanwhile, brilliant immortal light burst out of several treasured artifacts around him. A large seal then rapidly expanded and slammed down on the white skeleton before him, causing its skull to explode.
The unsettling aura vanished with it.
Ji Li stopped in his tracks. A spiritual consciousness residue? A final echo of will?
His eyes flickered with uncertainty. Still, he took out a treasured sword. The treasured artifacts around him shone brightly again, attacking the skeleton from every direction.
"Hurry! I can hardly suppress it any longer!" Elder Long shouted.
"Got it," Ji Li answered.
Becoming far more cautious, he took out a celestial rope and released it. One end slithered like a serpent spirit, wrapping around the armor and the hilt of the greatsword.
He then raised his hand and pulled. However, the two immortal treasures were unbelievably heavy, as if resisting his tug.
Ji Li glanced behind him, finding the gourd in Elder Long's hand flashing black-red repeatedly. The fiend-blood energy seemed close to consuming it.
A Golden Immortal who has achieved true immortality is this powerful, huh?
Even though it was only one major realm above Heavenly Immortal, Ji Li learned at that moment that the obstacle blocking his path wasn't a mountain.
It was a sky.
The first three thresholds of cultivation already prevented ninety percent of cultivators from becoming an immortal. Past that, every step became a chasm.
Even those who had reached the Heavenly Immortal Realm still saw no hope of attaining true immortality. Moreover, anyone with even the smallest chance of understanding its mystery would shut themselves away. They would never wander outside to hunt for treasures or waste time on meaningless ventures.
His mind raced as the two immortal treasures drew closer. He steadied himself, stepped forward, and attempted to store the two immensely powerful treasures in his storage artifact, only to realize that he could no longer move them.
He felt as though a pair of unseen hands still pressed down on the treasures, refusing to release them.
Ji Li gravely reported, "Something's wrong, Elder—"
Elder Long shouted, "Careful!"
Ji Li's eyes widened. Around the greatsword's hilt, finger bones flew in from every direction and reassembled nearly in an instant. Moreover, the long-dead immortal's skeleton, which Ji Li had shattered earlier, merged back as well.
The flames in its hollow eye sockets burned more clearly now, and its skull had a faint golden sheen. It unleashed powerful pressure, enveloping Ji Li, Elder Long, and Wang Sheng.
It didn't actually direct it at the three. On the contrary, it was simply the natural pressure that a Golden Immortal exuded.
Using the treasured sword in his hand as a guide, Ji Li immediately fired several beams of light from all directions, targeting the skeleton's weak points. However, unlike before, the skeleton didn't shatter.
The greatsword trembled lightly as it released a flash of sword radiance. Flickering golden, the immortal armor shed a layer of soil-colored specks.
The two hexagonal arrays of the Sixfold Ground-Sealing Array shattered almost simultaneously. The armor unleashed a brilliant light, which then expanded into two round shields that easily deflected all incoming attacks.
Ji Li had already retreated to Elder Long's side. The two exchanged a glance as blood-colored spots appeared all over the gourd.
"Retreat?" Ji Li asked softly.
Elder Long whispered, "That should only be a spiritual consciousness residue. Though he was a Golden Immortal, it had been over a hundred thousand years since they had fought here. I'm sure he has long since fallen. A mere spiritual consciousness residue can't possibly harm powerful beings like us."
The skeleton planted its greatsword into the ground and stood tall within the massive crater. The immortal light from its armor faded.
Crack!
At that moment, the heavenly tribulations hit it with their last two attacks. Two lightning bolts, one from above and one from below, cleaved into the skeleton, striking it in the forehead and ankle.
The flames in its eye sockets flickered slightly, but the skeleton did not move at all. Rather, its deep voice reached Wang Sheng's and the two Heavenly Immortals' hearts.
"I, Li Mouzhen, will guard the right flank of the three armies today. By the favor of Emperor Ziwei, I have been entrusted with a great responsibility alongside all of you. We must fight with all our strength and slay the enemy to repay the Emperor. With this formation of mine, not a single rebel shall pass. We will protect the main army's frontal assault!
"Brothers, today's battle is the key to the Heavenly Court's restoration. Our enemies may outnumber us, but they are nothing more than a disorderly mob with broken morale! Hold the right flank for an hour, and they will falter. Hold it for half a day, and their army will collapse!
You might be asking yourselves why fate allowed us to survive when the Heavenly Court fell. It was so we could fight this battle today, and so we could return to the Heavenly Court tomorrow!"
"Heavenly Court? There's that name again." Elder Long sighed. "This must be the general's speech to rally his troops before the battle. The Heavenly Court once governed the order of the Three Realms, but it became too cruel. Eventually, those who rose against it won and overthrew it. I never expected its soldiers to remain this loyal even after death."
Ji Li whispered, "Elder Long, this is no time to show off. What do we do now? Those two treasures might be even more powerful than we imagined."
"We naturally have to take them," Elder Long replied, "but we should wait for now. That's just a Golden Immortal's spiritual consciousness residue at work; it shouldn't last that long. However, I can't keep this fiend-blood energy under control any longer. We have to release it."
The two exchanged a look and quickly retreated along the path they had come. When they reached the slanted passage that they had opened, Ji Li held a lotus platform. It released two streams of immortal light, covering the duo completely.
Elder Long flicked his wrist, sending the immortal gourd flying and exploding at once. Waves of black-red aura roared out. Most surged toward the two Heavenly Immortals, though a portion drilled into the blood-soaked walls in every direction. A strand also targeted Wang Sheng.
Wang Sheng felt alarmed. He was far too close to the two Heavenly Immortals. Any movement would draw their attention.
The black-red aura was the source of the fiend-blood energy—the flesh and blood of two Golden Immortals transformed. Even Heavenly Immortals dared not touch it directly.
Though his immortal body was quite tough for a mere Primordial Immortal, it still had limits. Without enough heavenly tribulation power to reinforce himself, he could not hope to withstand or control it.
Just as Wang Sheng braced himself and prepared to risk everything, the unmoving skeleton suddenly opened its jaws, and the black-red aura that had been raging all over the place immediately reversed. Like rivers flowing into the sea, it poured straight into the skeleton's mouth.
Elder Long's expression darkened. "This is bad!"
He grabbed Ji Li and shot upward, turning into a streak of rainbow light. However, they were already too late.
Filled inside and out with the source of the fiend-blood energy, the skeleton raised its right arm and pointed a finger toward the direction that the two Heavenly Immortals were fleeing. Its voice echoed in their minds again.
"My formation will not spare a single enemy!"
Simultaneously feeling a strange sensation, the two Heavenly Immortals looked down and saw a black, phantasm-like flame clinging to each of their ankles.
"What is that?!" Ji Li shouted.
Elder Long bellowed, "Put it out now! It has to be an ominous sign!"
Two waves of immortal power descended. Ji Li even swung his sword to cut it off, but the black flames were completely unaffected.
In a mere instant, they tried several methods. However, they didn't just fail to extinguish or remove the flames; they also realized that the flames weren't attached to their immortal bodies, but to their divine souls.
At the center of the blood mine's bottom chamber, the skeleton remained motionless as the black-red aura enveloped it. Even its skull blazed fiercely. Its armor still shone golden, completely distinct from the fiend-blood energy.
The skeleton's empty eye sockets now stared in Wang Sheng's direction.
Wang Sheng felt a storm of emotions as black flames burned his ankles as well. His Primordial Spirit sensed a cold and violent killing intent.
Yet he did not flee. Rather, he remained perfectly still. He was afraid, but in that brief moment, he had already determined the most probable explanation for all this and stuck with it.
The skeleton slowly turned its head back to the two fleeing Heavenly Immortals. Wrapped in crimson light, it exhaled a blood-red aura and bent its legs slowly.
Right after, it turned into a mixed mass of golden, black, and red auras. Dragging its greatsword along, it shot upward along the slope.
The skeleton then swung its greatsword forward with full force. A blood-red sword radiance erupted for tens of thousands of zhang, slicing through the entire upper half of the blood mine as though it were just a mere slab of soft cake.
Wang Sheng breathed a sigh of relief, darted out of the crevice, fell into the lower passage, and sprinted along the tunnel that he had dug. 𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖
He had guessed correctly.
General Li's spiritual consciousness residue had been imbued with the duty of guarding the right flank and protecting the Heavenly Court's main army. Anyone it had caught or tried to flee from it would draw its pursuit.
Wang Sheng then noticed that he was drenched in cold sweat. As he ran, his instincts suddenly screamed in warning.
"Careful!" Yaoyun shouted.
Did I run too far from the skeleton? Wang Sheng questioned. In a flash, he then realized, Ah, I forgot. Since it's chasing the two Heavenly Immortals, the distance between us naturally widened as well. Since I'm currently escaping...
Wang Sheng immediately retreated and unleashed the Lightning Flash that he had prepared, slipping into the lightning bolt.
Almost the instant he entered the lightning, a curtain of blood dropped from above. The massive horizontal arc of sword radiance sliced the lightning and the blood mine's entire lower cone-shaped half cleanly in two.
In no time at all, the rampaging sword radiance had demolished the entire blood mine.
