World's No. 1 Swordsman-Chapter 669: The Divine Tree Collapses, the Great Dao of Death Appears!
Just as Wang Sheng piloted the Shadowless Shuttle away, several strands of immortal perception swept across where he had appeared.
Finding nothing unusual, the great figures who examined the area simply assumed that the slight disturbance in heaven and earth was a trace of a powerful being's departure. Their mastery of the Dao of Heaven and Earth could have simply been so profound that even breaking through space caused only a faint tremor.
Seated in the Shadowless Shuttle, Wang Sheng gazed into the distance. Even with his bare eyes, he could see the divine tree and the three layers of grand arrays that protected it. It looked no larger than a cartwheel from where he was, yet the overwhelming sense of vast vitality it radiated still struck him with awe.
The Shadowless Shuttle sped forward. As he approached the divine tree, the changes unfolding around it grew even more violent.
The canopy's disintegration accelerated endlessly. It broke apart and collapsed, starting from its parts that were in the outer array. Branches as large as mountain ridges crashed down one after another, splitting apart the ground they hit. Most of the falling leaves crumbled in midair.
Inside the outer array, roughly a third of the cultivators rushed toward the barrier of the middle array. However, the majority fled in panic toward the exits.
The four gateways of the outer array were packed tight. Fortunately, none of the cultivators had the mind to fight each other. Instead, they focused on escaping as quickly as possible. Though the scene was chaotic, no large-scale battle broke out.
The collapse of the divine tree grew even faster. Its dense, enormous leaves burst apart in succession. Meanwhile, its immense life force flowed toward the inner array and then vanished into nothingness. With the tree's roots withering, the ground caved in repeatedly.
Thick streams of death aura also shot into the sky from all directions. The corpses scattered across the ground dissolved under its touch, creating a sight that truly resembled the end of the world.
After advancing several tens of thousands of li, Wang Sheng was forced to stop and watch from afar. The divine tree had already completely withered. The three grand arrays flickered incessantly and were on the verge of shattering. Even if he rushed forward now, there was nothing he could do. Countless experts had gathered ahead.
Dozens of overwhelming pressures rose outside the arrays. At their source, heaven and earth seemed violently distorted.
Taiyi Golden Immortals and Grand Dao Golden Immortals were all over the area!
One could only guess how many more of these true masters of divine abilities lurked in the shadows.
Golden Immortals could already make a Heavenly Immortal like him tremble, yet from Wang Sheng's perspective, they were no more than grains of rice compared to the powerful beings before him. A Taiyi Golden Immortal was like moonlight. A Grand Dao Golden Immortal, an overlord among overlords, was like the blazing sun at noon.
Even the strength of these great figures varied. Still, when a Grand Dao Golden Immortal appeared, tens of thousands of immortals made way. Hence, every immortal faction ordered its members and disciples who were stationed outside to retreat swiftly.
Everyone understood that once the three arrays shattered, the struggle for the Dao of Life would turn into a chaotic battle among supreme powers. Standing too close meant risking annihilation from the aftershocks of their battles.
The middle ring was thrown further into pandemonium. Unwilling to abandon this fated opportunity, the Heavenly Immortals who had been waiting here for so long now fought desperately for positions closest to the inner array. The moment the inner array opened, they would rush toward the palace without hesitation. Only a few had sensed that something was deeply wrong and had already begun retreating.
The ones who benefited the most from this were the celestial sects that had focused on the treasures and spiritual herbs all over the area since the beginning. They also withdrew the fastest and farthest, with some of them already preparing large-scale teleportation arrays to leave this stretch of space.
Rumble!
There was no medium for sound to transmit in space, yet the violent tremor of the Great Dao underground caused a thunderous rumble to undeniably spread from the divine tree.
Wang Sheng stared unblinkingly as he forced himself to believe that Qinghua had already grasped the Great Dao and was already using the Apricot-Yellow Banner for defense. Escaping should not pose a problem.
Still, his senior sister was there. How could he not worry?
At that moment, the Shadowless Shuttle trembled. Wang Sheng focused, finding ripples spreading through space. Heaven and earth shook like boundless sheets of translucent cloth.
Not only did his sword realm allow him to perceive the traces and seams of heaven and earth, but he could even preliminarily draw upon their power. However, the once orderly fabric of reality had become utterly chaotic. Waves of tremor spread everywhere.
Crack!
One of the divine tree's main branches suddenly snapped, causing a fifth of the canopy to collapse instantly. Hundreds of pitch-black chains then shot out from the base of the trunk. They coiled around the massive tree and rapidly spread across the canopy, writhing and climbing like serpents.
Black mists simultaneously burst from the ground in the inner, middle, and outer rings, engulfing more than half of the cultivators still trapped within the arrays. Those who had been waiting for the arrays to open finally realized that something bad was about to happen. The ones who could still move turned and fled toward the way they had come, while those already tainted by the death aura melted where they stood.
Wang Sheng was too far away to see every detail clearly. Still, his eyes and immortal perception captured what seemed like a living hell for the immortals.
The transformation of life to death has started!
He unconsciously clenched his fist, his palm covered with cold sweat.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
A strange drumbeat echoed through space, which Wang Sheng identified as the heartbeat of a corpse. With each pound, the black chains tightened rhythmically.
The divine tree completed its most tragic and thorough destruction.
Wang Sheng seemingly heard a gentle sigh. His heart tightened, and an inexplicable sorrow welled within him.
No more than a dozen seconds had passed when the black chains forcibly broke the divine tree apart. Fragments of it filled the sky as the chains dissolved into boundless black mist.
Finally, the three grand arrays simultaneously exploded. As though a sun had exploded, waves of death aura surged into space, spreading a pitch-black radiance. The mist swiftly swallowed and melted the cultivators who had failed to escape in time.
From the depths of space, someone furiously shouted, "What kind of fiendish devil would dare set such a trap to harm others?!"
Several bursts of immortal light flared. Several great powers revealed themselves and blocked the raging death aura, causing it to recoil and vanish completely. All that was left was a palace silently floating in space.
In the distance, countless onlookers gathered. Cultivators below the Golden Immortal Realm all gazed at the palace, which was enveloped in an incomparably peaceful and serene aura. It emitted clear and unmistakable fluctuations of the Great Dao.
Meanwhile, those at or above the Golden Immortal Realm stared at the space directly above the palace, where a wooden coffin hung. Around it floated black chains that looked like writhing tentacles. Half of the chains tugged at the palace, while the other half drifted idly through space.
The coffin was half open, revealing what seemed to be a completely different world. The vast death aura from moments before had poured straight into it.
The dozens of masters of divine ability had now fully unleashed their aura, yet none dared approach lightly. On the contrary, several had even begun to retreat.
"Life and death?" a female expert questioned. She then called out, "Everyone, a peerless fiendish devil is likely in that coffin! Whether it has anything to do with the Heavenly Court's Emperor Qinghua or not, we cannot allow it to escape!"
"Hmph! Are you just all talk? Why don't you act first?"
An old, golden-haired Daoist in a ale-yellow Daoist robe slowly appeared as he chuckled lightly. He had a Go board resting in his hands. "Allow me to test it."
Two more figures emerged beside him. They were clearly his companions, tasked to guard against the other experts.
The golden-haired Daoist pointed at the coffin, sending nine white and nine black Go pieces from the board in his hands. They rapidly expanded and transformed into eighteen enormous flood dragons, which then roared at their target. However, it didn't react; it simply allowed the dragons to crash into it.
The first to reach the coffin opened its jaws and swallowed the coffin whole, only for its head to shatter on its own. One of the chains floating beside the coffin then swayed lightly. The other twisting and flying flood dragons exploded one after another before they could even reach it.
Space fell into dead silence, yet every cultivator felt their heart pound wildly.
Two Great Daos were clashing.
The golden-haired Daoist frowned at the coffin. In a low tone, he asked, "Are you all just going to stand around? This fiendish devil is proving difficult to deal with."
In response, more than a dozen streaks of light appeared throughout space as one Great Dao after another manifested in tangible form.
From within the coffin came a shrill, sinister laugh. Even the Grand Dao Golden Immortals felt their scalp go numb, a chill clawing at their Dao Hearts.
The Great Dao of Death had never manifested within the Three Realms before. After all, it stood in inherent opposition to all living beings.
The coffin trembled slightly, and a man in a fitted black robe appeared upon it. He was handsome, bloodless, and pale. His long hair hung loosely about his shoulders. Moreover, black chains intertwined behind him, forming the silhouette of a massive devil from afar.
"Qinghua..."
"It's the Eastern Pole Emperor! How has he mastered the Great Dao of Death?!"
The great powers retreated almost at once. Just bearing witness to him made the Dao Hearts of the Heavenly Immortals and True Immortals tremble violently. To make matters worse, some cultivators with unstable foundations nearly lost control and frantically ran away.
A clear yet somewhat confused remark spread from the coffin to all of space. "You..."
The golden-haired Daoist now had a phantasm of a golden giant ape behind him. However, at some point, black chains had wrapped around its wrists and ankles.
On the coffin, the handsome youth's eyes flickered with faint recollection. He stepped forward once and vanished, reappearing less than three chi away from his target.
The old Daoist seemed unable to move. With his Great Dao—the giant ape phantasm—bound, he could no longer escape.
Even more unsettling, Qinghua didn't disturb heaven and earth even a little when he teleported. The Grand Dao Golden Immortals in the area frowned. They failed to sense even the slightest fluctuation in the Great Dao when he moved.
The golden-haired Daoist trembled. "Are you truly Emperor Qinghua?"
"You..."
A sharp shout came from behind the golden-haired Daoist. "Do not be arrogant!"
Having widened the distance enough, his two companions attempted to rescue him. They unleashed a massive palm phantasm that blotted out the sky and fired an arrow wrapped in crackling lightning, attacking Qinghua from opposite sides.
The thousand-zhang palm phantasm crashed down, only to disperse on its own before reaching the emperor. The lightning bolt upon the arrow flared brilliantly, nearly illuminating the entire region of space, yet it also shattered before it could even close in on him.
The Central Apricot-Yellow Banner of Unity, one of the Five Primordial Banners, slowly appeared behind Qinghua and hovered quietly. Its profound yellow aura caused the expressions of the experts around him to darken even further!
Qinghua fixed his gaze on the golden-haired Daoist. "You..."
This was the third time he had spoken, yet he still seemed unsure what to say. In the end, he just laughed coldly and casually swept his palm forward.
The old Daoist tried to retaliate. The giant ape behind him struggled violently, but more black chains appeared out of thin air and bound it tightly. Hence, several flashes appeared before him instead as he manifested a fly-whisk, a treasure cauldron, and a wooden shield.
With his Great Dao bound, he could rely only on his treasures. He seemed intent on using them to block the palm strike and then attempting to negotiate with the sinister emperor. However, when Qinghua's attack touched the wooden shield, black flames bloomed inexplicably on the yellow-haired Daoist's chest. The yellow-haired Daoist could only watch in horror as the flame slowly seeped into him.
Right after, black fire erupted around him. He threw back his head and let out a miserable, soundless scream. Meanwhile, the giant ape behind him struggled fiercely as the black chains tightened further.
Qinghua murmured, "You... should have helped us defend the Jade Pool."
With a calm expression, he watched the immortal writhe within the black flames. His face turned even paler.
