Chapter 1590: The Happy Great Lie Yang Jianzi

Streak upon streak of puppet threads spread across several domains — falling on rivers, falling on mountain peaks, falling on villages, falling on commandery cities, falling on imperial palaces, falling on sects great and small… falling on every corner of the sky and earth.

In the vast, endless domain, every Void Refinement cultivator and above who raised their head to look at the sky could not help but feel a deep, reverent awe.

This place had already become a trap, a killing formation, displayed openly before them without the slightest concealment, quietly waiting for prey to come knocking.

Take a detour?

Detour around several domains in one go?

Any cultivator whose lineage stretched back far enough should know a basic common sense: when facing a cultivator of the Heavenly Mechanism Dao of Cause and Effect, the worst thing one could do was try to avoid their sharp edge.

Then what should one do?

Clang—

Amid the most ordinary sunlight, a youth in blue robes appeared; his gaze was crimson and scorching, yet at the same time utterly calm and indifferent.

His hand rested on his sword hilt as he walked step by step toward the Heavenly Being high above, with no thought of detour or escape.

The sky darkened.

Endless sunlight gathered toward the youth, toward the youth whose essence blood and divine soul had begun to burn furiously; with every step, his momentum and pressure climbed higher and higher, as if without end.

Within several domains of the Great Thousand World, all living beings fell into an eternal night.

All light, all radiance gathered toward the blue-robed youth, toward the six solar divine halos behind his head; six worlds spun without cease, blossoming with solar rule runes, converging terrifying heat.

Step after step.

With every step, the transparent puppet threads in all directions let out the explosive snap of bowstrings breaking — one after another, melted by the terrifying light surrounding the youth, unable to hold, forcibly carving out a domain belonging wholly to the sun from a heaven and earth threaded through with transparent puppet strings.

The Heavenly Being high above watched coldly, doing nothing.

The youth within the sun advanced step by step, while behind him transparent puppet threads drew together, sealing off the path of retreat.

When the youth within the sun reached the Heavenly Being, his pupils, mouth, nose, ears, every limb and every bone burned with golden flame — whether it was flame formed by the burning of his flesh, essence blood, and divine soul, or flame naturally formed by the convergence of sunlight, or perhaps both at once, no one could tell.

The only certainty was that his pressure was at least ten times stronger than before!

In this battle, either he succeeds or he dies.

If he failed, he would not wish to live — for a sword cultivator, that would be a disgrace!

The reason…

"This junior is Jiang Ding,"

"paying respects to Senior Senior Qian Si."

Jiang Ding faced a Heavenly Being directly for the first time, and bowed respectfully: "This junior has long admired Senior's great name; only now, upon meeting you, do I know the reputation is indeed well deserved."

This was a refined cultivator whose face was like a jade crown, with not a single imperfection anywhere on his person.

He stood at the center of the causal puppet threads spreading in all directions, quietly waiting for his prey to come to him; and indeed, as he had foreseen, the Pure Yang Sword Son came here of his own accord, without the slightest effort.

His dharma body had reached the very pinnacle of mortal aesthetics — a beauty too unreal to be true.

This was the renowned Heavenly Being of the Immortal Qi Sect, the one who suppressed all directions — Heavenly Being Senior Qian Si!

This was a Heavenly Being of extraordinary talent, sentiment, and brilliance; the emergence of the Immortal Qi Sect's flesh-and-blood demon-puppet Dao soldiers bore his important contribution, and the fusion of living puppets and dead puppets was vigorously promoted by him; with the dignity of a Heavenly Being, he profoundly influenced the situation of the Great Thousand World, his fame spreading within and without.

Such a powerful being had come here in person today, for the sake of a mere Void Refinement junior.

"Oh?"

"You know of this seat?"

Heavenly Being Senior Qian Si was slightly surprised.

In his deductions, this newly appeared Pure Yang Sword Son should not have been fully accepted by the Grand Yin-Yang Sword Realm; in fact, he was merely a rogue cultivator of boundless potential, and should have had no way to learn the intelligence of the highest-level situation of the Great Thousand World.

However, as the threads of cause and effect shifted, a new fate surfaced in his eyes.

"Yang Gu,"

"the Yang Gu avatar has met you."

Heavenly Being Senior Qian Si said calmly: "It seems he places great hopes in you."

"This is hardly surprising — the Pure Yang lineage is the original source of the Grand Yin-Yang Sword Realm, the most ancient branch; the later Yin-Yang lineage, and the dual-cultivation Grand Yin-Grand Yang lineage, were both born from the Pure Yang lineage. They have survived for tens of millions of years, yet from beginning to end have never found the path above the Heavenly Being realm."

"Finding even a sliver of hope, they would naturally cling to it like a lifeline."

"That is correct."

"Heavenly Being Yang Gu seems to bear no ill intent."

Jiang Ding said frankly.

Apart from the Immortal Gate, there was no one, no force in the world that could make him trust completely — no matter what happened, no matter what sincerity was shown.

This was also the reason why almost all upper-realm sects refused to cultivate ascended cultivators from the lower realms.

A Daoist powerhouse who had already grown up, apart from the emotions of their ignorant childhood, could almost never develop a sense of belonging toward new people or new forces.

All around them, in the span of a billionth of an instant's conversation, transparent puppet threads were contracting from the skies and earth of several domains, gathering toward this place, forming dense, layered transparent causal threads that wrapped the two of them — layer upon layer, without end, writhing like spirit snakes.

"Then,"

"Pure Yang Sword Son, are you here to surrender to this sect?"

Heavenly Being Senior Qian Si said calmly.

This was acceptable.

The Immortal Qi Sect welcomed any powerhouse, any future

powerhouse.

This was excellent puppet material; even when refined into puppets, surrendered powerhouses would still retain partial autonomous consciousness at certain times — this was the Immortal Qi Sect's mercy toward all powerhouses of the Great Thousand World.

"I am not."

"I merely have a question I wish to ask Senior."

Jiang Ding smiled.

"You may speak it."

The Thread-Weaving Celestial Being also smiled.

His slender hands wove the threads of fate and karma with unhurried ease, and he watched the green-robed youth before him with great interest, speaking gently.

"It's nothing important."

"I just wanted to ask, Senior, your injuries…"

With a ringing clang, Jiang Ding drew his long sword inch by inch.

"Injuries?"

The Thread-Weaving Celestial Being laughed despite himself.

It was as though he had heard something utterly ridiculous, something that made one smile and could not help but chuckle, and he did not even deign to defend himself.

"Yes,"

"Your injuries."

The smile on Jiang Ding's face began to bloom: "More than ten years ago, you should still have been locked in a death-grapple with the Yang Bone Celestial Being in the Thunder Flame Domain, right?"

"No, to be precise, nine breaths ago, you were still locked in a death-grapple with the Yang Bone Celestial Being in the Thunder Flame Domain, because nine breaths ago I was merely an inheritance disciple, and there was no need for a Celestial Being to pay an enormous price, abandon the main battlefield, and brave the enormous risk of the main battlefield's situation collapsing just to rush here to block a Void-Refinement ant."

"Nine breaths later, you had already passed through more than a dozen domains in succession and arrived before me."

"The iron law of rules in this great thousand-worlds: the walls between domains — the stronger the one who breaks through, and the more times one breaks through in a short span, the heavier the injuries and the greater the impact!"

The delight in Jiang Ding's eyes nearly overflowed as he stared fixedly at the Thread-Weaving Celestial Being: "Heaven above, could it truly favor me so? Knowing that the Zhidaoxian Sect's Dao Child is watched over by the methods of a Near-Immortal-level existence, and is wrapped in the sect's heavy protection, making a direct kill nearly impossible—"

"Therefore, it sent me you?!!"

At this moment, a kind of happiness, a kind of fulfillment, filled his heart to the brim, so much so that he completely forgot such a trivial matter as the fact that he was currently fleeing.