Chapter 1465: Five Hundred Years

Clang~

Jiang Ding sheathed his sword in the dead-silent void of space.

He gently closed his eyes, recalling the battlefields he had been through, all that he had experienced, and a strong surge of joy and delight welled up within his heart.

"Immortal Butterfly… truly a good person."

"What a beautiful Miss."

Jiang Ding opened his eyes and sighed sincerely: "As a reward, once this sovereign's power is sufficient, I shall descend upon the clan lands of the Heavenly Illusion Immortal Butterfly clan and pass judgment upon every Heavenly Illusion Immortal Butterfly."

"Rest assured."

"This sovereign has always been kind, law-abiding, and merciful. Not a single butterfly that has never killed a human shall I so much as touch."

A sword cultivator who had obtained such a wonderful opponent—it truly brought tears to his eyes, moistening them until water gathered at the corners.

"And this was merely a clone."

"If it were the true Immortal Butterfly, if it were the true Grand Yin Grand Yang Sword Child, the Heavenly Sword Child, and I've heard there's also an Immortal Artifact Dao Child—how wonderful would that be…"

Jiang Ding sank into a blissful reverie.

All of this was well-founded.

Jiang Ding carefully savored the many insights surfacing in his heart. Various thoughts on the Seventh Sword Dao Realm, the Heavenly Sword Realm, arose within him. Moreover, the numerous illusion techniques the opponent had employed during the battle with the Immortal Butterfly greatly broadened his horizons, granting him much new comprehension of the structure of the Six Paths of Reincarnation.

The world of illusion dao and the world of the Six Paths of Reincarnation shared quite a number of commonalities.

Without any exaggeration, in that flash of combat, his immortal dao foundation underwent an essential breakthrough—his sword art realm advanced to the quasi-Heavenly Sword Realm, and he could already slightly influence the rules of heavenly dao to produce changes favorable to himself.

Moreover, he now possessed absolute confidence in stepping into the Seventh Sword Dao Realm, the Heavenly Sword Realm!

Of course, the timeframe was uncertain—likely somewhere between several thousand and over ten thousand years. As he practiced the sword, comprehended sword arts, developed new sword arts, and fought in battle, this period would continually shorten.

But breakthrough was certain!

"The main issue is the lack of detailed inheritance."

"It's like knowing the path to implementation, then ignoring the patent and reverse-engineering it…"

Jiang Ding silently estimated.

For a cultivator like him who lacked inheritance, the dao path was exceedingly arduous; from the very start he was destined to fall behind the true Dao Children of the upper realm's immortal sects.

"The Youming Sword Grotto-heaven—I should go there as soon as possible."

"If possible, I should persuade the Moon Vein inheritance treasure, the Youming Pool, so that I may obtain the complete inheritance of a disciple of the Grand Yin-Yang Sword Realm."

"I think there is a way to persuade it…"

Killing intent blossomed in Jiang Ding's gaze.

Various thoughts coursed through his heart, then slowly stilled.

Jiang Ding came back to himself and looked toward the dreamy azure-blue butterfly wings he had deliberately set aside for a while.

These dreamy azure-blue

butterfly wings were the size of an adult's arm, dotted with stars upon them—beautiful and dreamlike, like ice crystals—constantly radiating a powerful bewitching force that enveloped a region of starry sky nearly ten thousand kilometers across.

Any living being here would be lost for a lifetime, unable to escape even in death.

Even though she was already dead, the power she radiated was still enough to affect early-stage Dao Merging cultivators, causing them to involuntarily lose themselves and become members of the soul labyrinth world, guarding this place forever until their lifespans completely ended.

"Soul labyrinth—not bad as a technique."

"This technique could be applied within the Six Paths of Reincarnation…"

Jiang Ding stepped forward and gently picked up the two dreamy butterfly wings; they felt slightly cool to the touch.

The instant he touched the butterfly wings, the surrounding dreamlike force intensified severalfold. The surrounding space grew hazy, and a soul labyrinth world actually arose, completely enveloping him—carrying tremendous danger.

Clang!

The Materialist Solar Sword Soul emitted a ringing sound.

Wherever the sword soul's gaze landed, a twisted rift split open. Then sword qi erupted from the pitch-black rift, forcibly tearing apart this soul labyrinth world and restoring the void of space for ten thousand li around to normalcy.

A stretch of cold, dead silence. In the vacuum, an asteroid belt whistled past him.

"Fellow Daoist Immortal Butterfly,"

"have you died completely?"

Jiang Ding Zi murmured.

He was not certain of the answer.

The upper realm's quasi-immortal sects mastered immortal dao techniques far surpassing those of immortal gates; he was not so arrogant as to believe he had the situation entirely under control.

"Quasi-ninth-tier soul material, and it's still an embryonic material—something I can refine…"

Jiang Ding's divine sense poured into the two pairs of icy-crystal dreamy butterfly wings, and he praised them.

Embryonic material and true quasi-ninth-tier material were not the same—it was only potential, not actual material of the corresponding tier. Take Jiang Ding himself, for example: in the eyes of those great demons who delighted in devouring flesh and blood, he was probably also a quasi-ninth-tier embryonic treasure, even though he was only at early-stage Refinement Void.

Now, within the spiritless universe, the spirituality within this pair of dreamy starry butterfly wings was gradually ebbing away.

The same was true for Jiang Ding—his sword soul, magic power, and divine sense were also ebbing away bit by bit. This process could not be halted; high energy inevitably transformed toward low entropy, and no one could prevent it.

The only difference was that Jiang Ding possessed resistance far surpassing that of any living being in any immortal dao universe, so the time he could endure was far longer.

After slaying the Immortal Butterfly's clone, Jiang Ding was in no hurry to return. He was not pressed for time at all—his ample time vastly exceeded the imagination of mortals.

"Fellow Daoist Immortal Butterfly, are you dead?"

Jiang Ding muttered to himself.

"Whether you're dead or not doesn't matter—it won't change anything regardless."

"This sovereign plans to stay here for five hundred years."

"Five hundred years—I'll absolutely be able to trap to death

even a Sword Child of an immortal sect, and even if a legendary Child of Immortals, a pure-blooded Child of Dragon or Phoenix were to come here, I dare say that after five hundred years, they too shall die."

"Fellow Daoist's mere clone, if it could survive such a span of time, then even if this sovereign were ultimately trapped to death by Fellow Daoist and successfully converted into a puppet, I would still concede defeat willingly."

"No matter. A bet is a bet—if Fellow Daoist possesses such a divine ability, then take this body, Fellow Daoist."

Jiang Ding said calmly.

Before returning to his homeland, he once again proposed convening an Immortal Gate Political Council session, postponing all battle plans until his return.

Yuan and the others agreed with this decision.

A Great Sun Sword Master who might lose control!

What a terrifying thing that would be?

It could even be said that if he truly lost control, the Immortal Gate would gain a terrifying opponent in the future—one far surpassing the Ancient God Alliance—brutal and cunning, with extremely powerful concealment arts, possessing an understanding of the Immortal Gate that exceeded that of all other powerful beings, and moreover having many potential die-hard loyalists within the Immortal Gate itself…

In such danger, even the slightest possibility could not be ignored.

After that council session, Yuan, Divine Mechanism True Honored One, Ten Thousand Mechanisms True Honored One, and others deeply felt the immense threat individual powerful beings posed to the Immortal Gate's security. Deeply uneasy, they unanimously endorsed the plan for a massive expansion of the Immortal Gate Citizen Fleet, and once again invested a tremendous amount of resources into the Central Array Spirit Computer's plan to advance to the Eighth Stage Heaven-Human.

In the dead silent void of space, Jiang Ding closed his eyes to regulate his breathing, letting time flow by, letting meteorites pass by his side.

He seemed to have become a dead object, motionless, staying right where he was.

One day, a planet moved past here, and the planet's gravity captured him, drawing him into the planet's gravitational pull, turning him into a stone in atmospheric orbit, revolving periodically around the planet, without any change.