Chapter 1312: Why Can One Not Have Some Convictions as a Human Being?

The True Sovereign of the Mud Swamp calmed down completely.

"You sword cultivator are quite rare—why not come straight to my door to kill me?"

"Why all this concealment and evasion?"

He said with a cold laugh.

"Fellow Daoist of the Mud Swamp, those words are misplaced."

"It was clearly you yourself who wanted to kill and seize treasures; this sovereign merely struck back in self-defense out of urgent necessity. Why act as though you are the wronged party?"

Jiang Ding opened his eyes and smiled faintly.

"What the truth is, you know perfectly well yourself!"

The True Sovereign of the Mud Swamp snorted coldly: "This old man admits he fell into your trap today, but if you want this old man's life, you'll have to see whether you have the ability for it!"

"Jade-Poison Crystal-Jade Dragon-Earthworm!"

He growled lowly. The many jade-green pustules on his back split open, revealing a series of Kong Dong, from which half-black, half-white tadpoles—part treasure, part living thing—shot forth. Their tails swayed, but their mouths were lined with ghastly sharp teeth that could easily bite through vast stretches of space, savage and terrifying.

In an instant, these black-and-white tadpoles multiplied into countless numbers, blanketing the sky and covering a vast stretch of space.

It was not only their numbers—these black-and-white tadpoles were further linked to one another through numerous formation patterns, with streams of spatial-rule runes and life-rule runes biased toward poison spreading in all directions. In an instant they formed a three-dimensional composite grand array spanning tens of thousands of li, blotting out the sun, moon, and stars.

This was precisely the Dao-soldier treasure that the True Sovereign of the Mud Swamp had refined by adding countless heavenly materials and earthly treasures to the countless tadpoles spawned by the Heaven-Cyan Treasure-Fishing Toad!

"Roar!"

In a moment, countless black-and-white tadpoles gathered together, linked by countless formation patterns, forming a chaotic black-and-white heaven-piercing giant toad. Its bloody maw opened and closed; black-and-white yin and yang energies circulated; then its mouth suddenly snapped shut, swelling like Rushan, while its belly abruptly contracted and caved inward.

Countless spatial-rule runes and life-rule runes were swallowed like a whale's gulp, drawn entirely into the black-and-white giant maw.

Some shocking, terrifying thing was being gestated within!

"Kill!"

The black-and-white heaven-piercing giant toad roared, its mouth opening to its absolute limit.

Within that bloody maw, one could faintly see a Yin-Yang Jade Shuttle in which spatial rules and life rules circulated endlessly. Trailing silk-like threads, it flickered once and vanished.

In an instant, a thread of cold, hazy killing intent—its source impossible to pin down—rose in Jiang Ding's heart.

"Not bad,"

"It does have some flair. Worthy of two Void Refinement cultivators joining forces—far stronger than you were a moment ago."

A look of delight appeared on Jiang Ding's face.

Clang!

He drew his sword.

At the instant he drew his sword, within a range of tens of thousands of kilometers, countless primordial-magnetism order runes disguised as primordial-magnetism rules surfaced, and a hazy starry-sky city emerged—not a warship, merely a hazy sword-art phenomenon stirred by swordsmanship.

Above the starry-sky city, ground crew after ground crew transported—

Orbital giant-cannon components streamed in from all directions, and in the blink of an eye assembled within the planet's orbit into a starry-sky electromagnetic orbital giant cannon thousands of li in size.

Faintly, countless voices drifted over.

"…Charging complete…"

"…Orbital cannon re-equipped—firing permitted…"

Such and so, the myriad beings of the mortal world laughed and rejoiced within; the wisdom of countless hundreds of millions of mortal-world beings coalesced under some unknown power into a vast and terrifying might.

At the same instant the tower issued the firing-permitted command, a blue-gold flying sword descended from no one knew where, landing precisely within the starry-sky electromagnetic orbital giant cannon. Every contact point of the components mated perfectly, without the slightest error.

"Fire!"

Boom—!

Accompanied by a roar that shook the starry cosmos, a vast ocean of electrical energy was drained dry, and the sword-shaped cannon-shell within the starry-sky electromagnetic orbital giant cannon blasted through space and vanished beyond the range of observation.

Yet she did not lose her bearing.

The Yin-Yang Jade Shuttle spewed from the heaven-piercing giant toad's mouth was hazy, hidden within spatial rules, yet could not escape the lock of the Materialist Sun Sword Soul.

Under the Sword Soul's gaze, everything was revealed in the finest detail, with no war-fog obscuring it.

This Yin-Yang Jade Shuttle, along a crooked and twisted trajectory, flew with precise and unmistakable aim, slamming head-on toward the sword cultivator's skull, intending to blast his fragile body and sword-qi shield into a cloud of blood mist.

The shell fired by the starry-sky electromagnetic orbital giant cannon traveled along the path of primordial-magnetism rules, its speed clearly far greater than the Yin-Yang Jade Shuttle fired by the heaven-piercing giant toad, and far more agile—arriving later but striking first, with even time to adjust its flight posture, its sword-tip aimed at the vulnerable midsection of the Yin-Yang Jade Shuttle.

At the instant the two made contact, sparks blossomed within.

Destruction, aberration, law-prohibition, law-annihilation, primordial magnetism, sword-Dao order, and the rules of life and space clashed violently; different wills battled within.

The result appeared in an instant.

Boom!

Crack!

Accompanied by an earth-shaking roar, the space spanning tens of thousands of li first swelled violently, then shattered with a rumble, the various rules within being torn to nothing.

The Yin-Yang Jade Shuttle—a Void Refinement spatial treasure painstakingly refined by the True Sovereign of the Mud Swamp—was even more terribly snapped in two amid the dreadful collision and annihilation of rules, its spiritual light utterly extinguished, falling to the earth.

Affected by the Yin-Yang Jade Shuttle, the countless Yin-Yang tadpoles spread across tens of thousands of kilometers let out various terrified shrieks; fine destructive sword-marks appeared on their heads.

Bang!

Bang-bang-bang!

Before these half-living, half-treasure Yin-Yang tadpoles could react any further, they exploded one after another in space, not one remaining—hundreds of millions of Yin-Yang tadpoles directly turned to ash and smoke.

The sky suddenly cleared.

"Ah!"

"My old man's Jade Dragon Earthworms—"

??

The True Sovereign of the Mud Swamp screamed, coughing up a great mouthful of blood, his face twisted with boundless venomous hatred.

"These black-and-white tadpoles of yours seem to have no male toad's fertilization, no souls… so you chose to refine into them the souls of hundreds of millions of cultivators, to grant them spirituality?"

"Sigh…"

Jiang Ding seemed to see something, and sighed softly: "Usually, when I talk about acting on Heaven's behalf, there's always this little bit of shameful, chuunibyou feeling. But you people—why do you keep proving me right, over and over?"

"Is every random person I pick really this damned?"

"Can't you stir even a shred of guilt in me?"

"Let's not even talk about being kind to others, or the righteous path versus the demonic path. We're born human—there should at least be that baseline, right…"

He was baffled.

"Ridiculous!"

"You mongrel sword cultivator—how could you possibly know what this old man has been through? For these ants to add spiritual essence to my Jade Dragon Worm is their supreme honor!"

True Lord Mire sneered: "You style yourself righteous, but in this old man's eyes, beneath your sword the baleful qi soars to the heavens, bones pile across the wilds—you've probably killed more people than this old man has."

"Keep up the act, my ass?!"

"…Truly a wicked, mad, and perverse wretch. Beyond reason."

Jiang Ding shook his head slightly.

Clang!

He drew his sword and slashed down in a single strike.

In the four directions of heaven and earth, above and below, the hum of swords rose and fell like tides. Strand after strand of golden thread appeared in the starry cosmos, endlessly spawning, falling slantingly like a fine drizzle—every drop of golden rain-thread could slash apart vast swathes of spatial-rule domains and life-rule domains.

Like peeling a potato with a knife, layer after layer of protection was stripped away, and at the center True Lord Mire and the emerald-green toad were gradually exposed.