Chapter 1636: Your Name

A brilliant, radiant starry sky, the sun rising, illuminating countless worlds.

Tap!

Tap-tap-tap!

Another starry sky, filled with wailing ghosts and howling wolves, cold winds swirling, demons dancing wildly.

One after another flesh puppet, burdened with mechanical tubes, marched in perfect unison onto the battlefield, each step exquisitely precise, perfectly aligned with the finest patterns of the Eighth-Rank Flesh Furnace Demon Array, step by step drawing closer to the battlefield of radiant destruction.

Individually, these Taiyi Qingmu Xianzong flesh puppets differed from one another; each was a meticulously forged masterpiece, far from cheap, mass-produced standard puppets.

Some puppets took the form of majestic tigers, mountain-sized, with sharp claws, decaying skin, and rotating gears; human hands sprouted from their spines, fingers stretching like threads to secure a deep-red, vein-like mechanical tube upon the tiger's back.

Occasionally, the mechanical tigers breathed shallowly, spewing hot liquid as dark red as magma.

Some puppets were semi-human, composed of countless flesh and gears: the upper body resembled a blue-faced scholar, bearing a bamboo-shaped mechanical tube like a book basket; the lower body writhed with countless tentacles, grotesque and terrifying.

Others were flying flesh-and-machine birds, others were subterranean half-human, half-centipede flesh puppets, others were invisible puppets no larger than dust, killing without trace…

All manner of puppets—flying, subterranean, as vast as stars, finer than the naked eye could see—encompassed every conceivable type; the entire upper realm's accumulated achievements in immortal puppetry were laid bare before them, inducing involuntary suffocation.

These puppets were boundless!

One after another flesh puppet, marching in disciplined military formation, arrived from the heart of distant world clusters, filling the entire sky and earth, forming wave after wave of blood-gray tides surging swiftly toward the destroying sun, obliterating all in their path with lightning speed, utterly devoid of the sluggishness expected of conventional armies.

Nearly ten billion flesh furnace puppets!

Qi Sect Zi brought a force of nearly ten billion flesh furnace dao soldiers here!

Worse still, many of these flesh furnace puppets were filled with elite disciples of Qi Sect, countless Liánxū cultivators and He Dao Shen Jun.

Even Taiyi Qingmu Xianzong heritage disciples—cultivators of the caliber of the former Tianwen heritage—numbered dozens, controlling this terrifying army!

The starry river was choked with terrifying demonic qi.

Even He Dao beings lacked the ability to pierce through this blood-gray demonic miasma, let alone glimpse the true form of Qi Sect Zi's avatar.

This terrifying Qi Sect army swept across the world clusters like time itself, arriving here in an instant.

Deep within the blood-gray demonic miasma, eighteen ancient, crude bronze heavenly spears emitted dark aura, radiating infinite demonic light; a terrifying causal lock bound all life in this realm, freezing space, rules, and causality—time itself in this realm seemed to stall.

And within the destroying sun, a lone figure stood silently watching, with no thought of escaping the dao soldier encirclement.

And the one who destroyed the life within the sun stood alone, silently watching, with not a single thought of escaping the encirclement of the Dao Soldiers.

A battlefield exceedingly distant.

Ming Chong Guang Zi, Mu Mu Tianxue, and numerous Great Sun sword cultivators, along with Yang Tie Shen Jun and other pure yang He Dao Shen Jun, watched this battlefield, unwilling to miss the inevitable horrific Candidate Daozi clash.

The strongest of the Great Sun lineage's sacred sword duels would inevitably propel Great Sun Sword Dao further forward.

The sword dao opportunities hidden within were sufficient to make Great Sun sword cultivators ignore all risks and draw near the battlefield to observe.

The sword dao opportunities contained within were enough to make the Great Sun Sword Cultivators ignore all risks, drawing near the battlefield to observe the fight.

"Utterly unwise—the Sword Zi has no dao soldiers. Even if the current pure yang dao soldiers are useless, they could still offer some aid."

Yang Tie Shen Jun could not help but say.

Thousands of years had passed; many of his senior brothers had died, slain on this battlefield. He alone survived, his soul-sword and sword arts surging forward, now faintly possessing quasi-Tianren-level power.

Thousands of years had passed; many of his senior brothers had died, slain on this battlefield. The only one left alive, he had made explosive progress in his Sword Soul techniques and now faintly possessed quasi-Heavenly Person-level power.

Sword Zi of Tianjian, Taiyin-Taiyang Sword Zi, and Qi Sect Zi all possessed their own dao soldiers; Qi Sect Zi had taken this to the extreme—not only was his own power terrifyingly immense, but he also brought numerous Taiyi Qingmu Xianzong heritage disciples, nearly ten billion flesh furnace puppets, and Qi Sect disciples.

The Heavenly Sword Disciple, the Yin-Yang Sword Disciples, and the Immortal Artifact Disciple each had their own Dao Soldiers; the Immortal Artifact Disciple had taken this to the extreme—not only was his own power extraordinarily terrifying, but he also brought with him numerous disciples of the Qi Sect, nearly ten billion flesh-furnace puppets and Qi Sect cultivators.

Yang Tie Shen Jun could not help but ask.

He was a disciple of Yang Gu Tianren and knew well the extreme importance of the pure yang Sword Zi to the pure yang lineage.

This was the closest the pure yang lineage had ever come to surpassing Tianren since its founding—unacceptable to lose.

It could be said that this was the closest the Pure Yang lineage had ever come to surpassing the Heavenly Person since its founding—failure was not an option.

The gaze of countless Great Sun sword cultivators turned toward him, filled with strange expressions.

Yang Tie Shen Jun, puzzled, looked to Ming Chong Guang Zi.

"Do not go."

"He will kill you."

Ming Chong Guang Zi said succinctly: "When the Great Sun Sword Zi begins his sacred sword duel, anyone who attempts to interfere becomes an enemy to be fought to the death."

Ming Chong Guang Zi said succinctly: "When the Great Sun Sword Disciple begins the Sacred Sword Duel, anyone who attempts to interfere in his battlefield shall become an enemy to be fought to the death."

Whether victorious or dead, the Great Sun Sword Zi accepted it willingly.

But if anyone disrupted his battlefield,

That is a dao enemy!

"This…"

Yang Tie Shen Jun's heart froze.

…

Far, far away, in an obscure corner, two furtive figures found a Minor Thousand Worlds and used Mi Fa to bury themselves deep beneath the earth.

At that moment, amid the light that spread across the entire world cluster, they beheld the battlefield.

"Little Master, will he win?"

Within the light that spread across the entire world cluster, they beheld that battlefield.

For this old acquaintance, as long as it did not hinder his own path to immortality, he hoped this old friend could fare well—even far better than himself.

Immortality belonged to him alone; there was no need to compare with others.

This strange person beside him possessed many marvels in the art of divination and calculation.

The Path of Eternal Life belongs to oneself; there is no need to compare with others.

The strange person beside him possessed many marvels in the Dao of divination and calculation.

"I don't know."

"His life and death directly concerns the fate of this entire Great Thousand World, and even more Great Thousand Worlds beyond it. I can no longer reach a conclusion."

The Great Love God Monarch murmured.

"If he dies, even if only you and I remain, we can only fight with everything we have."

"There should still be some slim chance of obtaining that fortune…"

……

In the river of stars, the Flesh Furnace Dao Soldiers had completed their encirclement.

Those eighteen bronze war-glows emanated a dim, cursed light; thick chains coiled around the tails of the bronze halberds, spiraling round after round, stretching down into the Nine Hells Abyss with no end in sight.

One by one, the Flesh Furnace Dao Soldiers crouched low, aiming the blood-net mechanism barrels on their backs at the sun in the sky.

Clang~

From within that terrifying, destructive sun, amid countless flesh puppets, a youth in blue robes slowly drew his sword.

A heavy, scorching pressure spread across heaven and earth.

The pressure instantly split the massive Eighth-Stage Flesh Furnace Dao Soldier battle formation apart across hundreds of thousands of kilometers, revealing a stretch of pure, blazing sunlight, within which all filth wailed and crumbled into ash.

"Oh?"

The immortal artifact child deep within the blood-ash demonic qi tucked away a trace of fact-based contempt, and the Reverse Five Elements Zhou Tian Demon-Refining Furnace on its chest flickered once.

"Fellow Daoist, your name?"

Jiang Ding slowly drew his long sword.

His gaze pierced through the outer appearance of this powerful human before him, looking directly at the essence of the puppet's self-awareness, and he asked quietly.