Chapter 1098: What Has Happened to the Cultivators of the Lower Realm?

Clang!

The Taiqing flying sword folded back and slid into the scabbard at the waist of the blue-robed youth.

"Truly a fine military formation…"

Jiang Ding stepped out through the barrier of the Minor Thousand Worlds in a single stride, his hand resting on the sword hilt, his gaze chillingly fixed on the million-strong Heavenly Soldiers and Generals of the Thunder Division: "Good, just so. Fellow Daoist, your strength is far too weak — feeble as ants — enough to make one drowsy, hard to find any pleasure in."

"This military formation, though, is quite good, quite excellent."

Boundless sword-Dao might radiated outward from him in every direction: the molten rock, earth, stone, mountains and rivers became the sword-intent of the earth; spring, summer, autumn, winter, wind, rain, thunder and lightning became its flow; the spatial crystal wall, thunder, lightning and sky became the sword-intent of the void.

At the very center of the highest sky, a resplendent great sun hung aloft, scattering endless radiance in every direction — magnificent and awe-inspiring — diffusing a will of law-breaking, law-binding, distortion and destruction, suffocating to behold.

This sword-Dao world was so vivid and lifelike — mountains, rivers, earth, clouds, sky, every flower and blade of grass, every tree and shrub, rushing rivers, endless yellow sands, oceans with towering waves… everything, down to the finest hair, was rendered with perfect clarity, nothing unreal about it.

This extreme realism faintly contained a kind of terrifying power beyond comprehension.

"Fourth Realm! Indestructible Sword Cultivator!"

Among the Heavenly Soldiers and Generals of the Thunder Division, Master Canghai Canghai Tianjun, and among the ghosts and demons of Blood Lake, Hua Dong Xue Yu both shuddered, blurting it out, wariness written across their faces.

As expected of cultivators from the Upper Realm — they all knew their stuff.

Fourth Realm of the sword-Dao — Indestructible Sword Cultivator!

Such a cultivator was a sovereign among those of the same rank; at the peak of Soul Transformation, they could contend against a quasi-Void Refinement cultivator who possessed the power of Order, using indestructibility to oppose the power of Order!

Add to that the sword cultivator's single-minded madness, slaughter and bloodlust, and a Fourth Realm Indestructible Sword Cultivator was a renowned and feared existence even in the Upper Realm — rarely seen in several thousand years — and every appearance would bring bloodshed and carnage to a region, specifically targeting the strong, utterly terrifying.

Such a person, in the end, either died slain by a higher-realm cultivator or advanced to Void Refinement — without exception.

The arrogance and fury on Master Canghai Canghai Tianjun's face had no choice but to be reined in somewhat.

Law cultivators were always pragmatic, always rational; upon discovering the enemy was no weakling, he immediately adjusted his response, a smile hanging on his face.

"Fellow Daoist, may I ask which sect and which school you hail from?"

Master Canghai Canghai Tianjun cupped his hands in a salute and asked.

By his own experience and reasoning, such a powerhouse should not have been born in an out-of-the-way Minor Thousand World — the conditions on every front were insufficient — so he instinctively assumed this one also hailed from the Upper Realm, having been poached by some sect or other.

"I come from Master Tushan Master Tushan Zhongting."

"Fellow Daoist,"

Jiang Ding's face broke into a genial smile; he did not refuse to converse with Upper Realm cultivators: "Might I ask where the Tianshenlei Sect hails from? And this fellow Daoist here — where does he come from?"

His gaze turned to a cultivator in the ghost-and-demon Blood Lake whose head bore enormous jet-black ox horns, his entire skin a rotting blue-black, the very image of a corpse.

This person looked like a yao-demon, but in truth he was human.

Many unorthodox sects cultivated Gong Fa that were often more demonic than demons, more ghostly than ghosts — nothing surprising about that.

The ox-horned corpse did not answer, only stared coldly at the blue-robed youth within the sword-Dao world-domain, divine sense unfurling, constantly scanning, probing, trying to parse out anything useful.

"This is Fellow Daoist Blood Corpse."

The ox-horned corpse would not speak, but Master Canghai Canghai Tianjun was quite willing to do it for him, smiling as he said: "Fellow Daoist Blood Corpse hails from Blood Lake Corpse Bone Mountain, neighboring the Tianshenlei Sect — always bitter enemies. He has also committed countless slaughters, delights in refining corpses from humans and cultivators, flaying skin, stripping bones, draining blood, eating flesh — truly a heap of evils."

"If Fellow Daoist wishes to right the wrongs of heaven and earn some merit, Fellow Daoist Blood Corpse certainly will not be the wronged party."

Yet he still did not say where his own sect came from.

In his heart, he had already begun to regret blurting out the name of his own sect right at the start — in one stroke it had shifted him from the shadows into the light, a great disadvantage.

It was really because this Lower Realm, his sect had already held for several hundred thousand years; aside from a few tens of thousands of years when contact was lost, it had always been like the sect's back garden, hard to make one raise any vigilance. Instead, seizing the initiative against Blood Lake Corpse Bone Mountain was more important — the natives were nothing but weeds to be cleared away.

Still, no matter — since the Tianshenlei Sect had gone from shadow to light, Blood Lake Corpse Bone Mountain would have to come along.

The ox-horned corpse fixed Master Canghai Canghai Tianjun with a cold, grim stare.

"Tianshenlei Sect… Blood Lake Corpse Bone Mountain…"

Jiang Ding turned the two names over in his mind.

Now that he had come into close contact with them, and fought them, many things could finally be explained clearly.

This Minor Thousand World, back when the great upheaval had not yet occurred, had been jointly ruled — or ruled in alternation — by these two Upper Realm sects. The Blood River Sect and the Tianshenlei Sect were the branch temples, the servants, the blood-food of these two Upper Realm sects… or alternatively, they might have taken in native heaven-blessed cultivators as disciples — all possible, depending on each sect's internal policies.

'Master Tushan Master Tushan Zhongting…'

While Jiang Ding was thinking, Master Canghai Canghai Tianjun and Hua Dong Xue Yu were also turning that name over — finding nothing, never having heard of it.

That was hardly surprising.

The Upper Realm was vast beyond measure; unless one was a Taiyi Qingmu Xianzong standing at the legendary peak of the sea of stars, no one could know the names of every sect.

The two Upper Realm Canghai Tianjun stirred at the same instant, their divine sense spreading outward into the distance, landing on the three native Canghai Tianjun.

……

"Greetings, three Fellow Daoists."

Master Canghai Canghai Tianjun's phantom appeared before Tushan Master Tushan Zhongting and the other two, an apologetic

smile on his face: "Earlier I was burdened with urgent matters, hurrying all the way; please forgive me for any discourtesy."

He appeared every inch the gentleman.

Not a trace of the cold indifference that had once regarded the beings of the Lower Realm as ants and weeds.

This was the united-front value hammered out through battle.

Even though those who had fought were not these three, and even though these three Soul Transformation cultivators were very likely enemies of that realm-lord — otherwise they would not have been driven out beyond the Minor Thousand World, nor would they have led outside enemies into their own homeland.

Even enemies of that realm-lord had instantly acquired tremendous value.

"Not at all, not at all."

"For the Upper Exalted to favor us, we are already overwhelmed with gratitude…"

Tushan Master Tushan Zhongting and the other two said, weeping with gratitude, their posture lowered to a degree beyond all addition.

A sheet of blood-cloud descended from the sky — it was the phantom of the ox-horned Blood Corpse cultivator. He did not waste words either; he brought a palm slamming down.

Boom!

A rotting, heaven-piercing giant palm descended from the sky, more than several dozen li wide, like the great palm of a demon lord, bearing crushing might, terrifying power, the very space about to congeal — and within the palm countless jet-black, venomous curses were mingled, the merest leak of which could suppress and slay a Soul Transformation cultivator.

Ming Chong Chong Guang Zi and Xi Ping'an looked on with complete indifference.

"Supreme Venerable, forgive the offense."

Master Canghai Canghai Tianjun was helpless.

He stepped forward, raised a hand, and pointed a finger. A wisp of golden light bloomed at his fingertip.

It was clearly only a single wisp of golden light, yet it seemed to contain countless threads of cause and fate, converging at one point, ferociously sharp to the extreme—sharper than the swords of over ninety percent of sword cultivators in the world.

This was a law cultivator—one whose numbers were dozens or hundreds of times those of sword cultivators, and who never lacked terrifying methods.

Hiss!

Dong Xue Jiang Canghai Tianjun and Shen Xiao Canghai Tianjun's pupils contracted in unison, their hearts seized with inexplicable horror.

This wisp of golden light had effortlessly pierced through Dong Xue Jiang Canghai Tianjun's rotting giant palm, which spanned dozens of miles.

It was clearly only a single wisp of golden light, yet in an instant it had slain and obliterated all the cold, sinister curses—its power terrifying beyond belief.

Yet this person clearly looked like a beaten, stray cur.

Utterly unremarkable, down on his luck to the extreme—just an ordinary cultivator, with no high status at all.

This was what horrified Shen Xiao Canghai Tianjun and Dong Xue Jiang Canghai Tianjun.

What on earth had happened in this sect's Minor Thousand Worlds, in its back garden, over these tens of thousands of years, that even a random Soul Transformation Canghai Tianjun possessed such terrifying power?