Chapter 1643: The Universe Where Time and Matter Solidify

This stretch of heaven and earth plunged into a murky darkness!

It was as if it had arrived at the moment of creation, when nothing was certain yet, and one after another, all manner of terrifying visions arose.

At times, the cycles of heaven and earth collapsed; living souls perished while their flesh endured, wandering the world, vengeful ghosts persisting through heaven and earth, turning the realm of the living into a hell of yin, devouring every spark of life.

At times, the rules themselves were annihilated, and heaven and earth became void; spiritual energy, matter, worlds — none of it existed any longer.

These terrifying scenes went on for a long while.

When the mists dispersed, a broken cycle appeared between heaven and earth, in the midst of collapse.

A tender cycle could never compare with the hundreds of thousands of years of inheritance from Taiyi Qingmu Xianzong, no matter how brief that span was for a true Xianzong, no matter that this was merely a successor and not a founder.

A flying sword with dimmed spiritual light was sent flying backward.

And from within the broken cycle, the Heaven-Slaying Soul-Execution Arrow — which gathered the power of the celestial stars, the Tiangong Star Chain, and the tides of a thousand worlds — surged mightily and flew straight forth, pinning itself into Dai Sen's Lie Yang Jianzi Domain, shredding everything along the way.

"Ridiculous!"

"A clumsy Six Paths of Reincarnation!"

Xian Qi Zi said coldly.

He was stating a fact.

Compared with the secret art inherited from the Supreme by the Xian Qi Sect, the so-called Sword of the Six Paths of Reincarnation's Destruction of the Five Elements was indeed clumsy — beyond any argument.

A sky-covering, inexhaustible tideed killing intent blanketed everything.

Jiang Ding's sword soul was a sheet of icy cold.

He clearly perceived that this arrow possessed an extremely efficient causal-locking ability; having steeped itself in the battlefield's aura for a long time, having locked on for a long time, the chance of escape was exceedingly slim.

Naturally, he would not flee either.

Even a great thousand world, in the eyes of True Immortal Zi's target, was far too small!

If he missed this chance, in the future he would almost certainly be unable to break through to Jiang Jiang Jinxian, unable to become an immortal, unable to see even a sliver of hope; his future would be as mediocre as that of every Supreme in this great thousand world!

Yes — mediocre.

In the eyes of this generation's arrogant, ignorant, and overreaching Great Sun Sword Lord, failing to become an immortal was mediocrity.

"Xian Qi Zi, you've finally become interesting."

"How wonderful."

Jiang Ding laughed softly, low.

Whoosh!

At the horizon, the Reverse Five Elements Demon-Slaying Soul-Execution Arrow — which gathered the power of an eighth-rank military formation and the tides of a thousand worlds — shot forth; what it saw was where it arrived, instantly filling the youth's entire divine soul, piercing through from between his brows.

In an instant, the divine light in his eyes dimmed.

This stretch of heaven and earth seemed to fall silent.

That peerless, unrivaled Pure Yang Sword Son had been pinned and slain right before their eyes.

This stirred many Xian Qi Sect cultivators into wild excitement, filling them with ecstatic joy.

Even Xian Qi Zi's Dao heart

stirred with a faint ripple.

This was a powerful opponent — one who could bring him a life-and-death crisis.

If this were the outside world, he would either summon many Heavenly Being elders to come suppress and slay him, or turn and flee; he would never engage in some life-and-death blood battle, for that was not his path, even if he would ultimately prevail.

Unfortunately, this was the battlefield of the Tiangong Star Chain world cluster, long premeditated by the Great Yin-Yang Sword Realm.

Unfortunately, this place concerned the secret of the Spiritual Treasure Realm; his sect could never permit him to flee, and out of his sect's and his race's sense of honor and belonging, he could not flee either.

He must slay this man!

Was the Pure Yang Sword Son dead?

Xian Qi Zi was making such a judgment.

Almost instantly, without waiting for his thoughts to complete the assessment, a faint, icy sense of crisis spread through the cosmic star river, making the judgment in place of Xian Qi Zi's thinking.

"Such swordsmanship…"

Xian Qi Zi looked back across the four directions of the cosmos, the entire stretch of heaven and earth.

The cosmos shifted; stars swayed; the nether astral winds and currents between realms flowed ceaselessly; the many Minor Thousand Worlds and Zhong Senior Qian Shi Gao Jie were in constant flux — nothing had ever been still.

Though the cosmos held no greenery, a stretch of black, heavy, deathly stillness, in the eyes of high-rank cultivators it was instead so full of life, so boundless in possibility.

However!

At this moment, this very moment, heaven and earth grew slow.

The stars' twinkling was very slow; the flow of the nether astral winds and currents was slower still; every tidal movement of the many Minor Thousand Worlds and Zhong Senior Qian Shi Gao Jie seemed to require more time, and grew slower as time went on.

Slower and slower.

Slower and slower still.

Until, gradually, they neared solidification.

This process was very, very slow — as if it had taken months, years, a long while before it came to a complete halt.

And yet, it also seemed like only an instant.

The reason it felt slow was that the thoughts of living beings had also grown slow; things that in the past could be pondered in an instant now required thousands, tens of thousands of times longer to complete.

"Suppress…"

"…suppress… suppress…"

Xian Qi Zi's thoughts were likewise strongly affected; time suddenly sped up, then slowed, becoming utterly disordered within his mind, as if he were in a dream, unable to find any anchor to reality.

Everything had already been seized in the enemy's control!

Hum!

At such an extremely dangerous moment, the Reverse Five Elements Zhou Tian Demon-Refining Furnace within Xian Qi Zi's chest ran violently in overload, blooming with boundless Reverse Five Elements power; a heavy, gray-brown chaotic divine light spread out into heaven and earth.

Before such terrifying power, even time and space could not be affected.

With the Immortal Weapon Son at the center, within a several-kilometer radius, all time and matter instantly resumed their flow.

"Suppressing the Void!"

"The immortal art Suppressing the Void that vanished at the end of the Great Tribulation!"

The Immortal Weapon Son roared.

This was an old matter from the end of the Great Tribulation—an immortal art had descended from beyond the heavens, triggering a scramble among many supreme experts, and then vanished without a trace; those supreme experts were occupied with life-and-death battlefields and had no time to spare.

And by the time they were free, no matter how they searched, they could not find it again.

Immortal arts transcend the five elements and the three realms; not a single Jiang Jiang Jinxian-level being had the qualification to deduce and lock it down, let alone an immortal art imbued with karmic ties.

This kind of immortal art would encounter the living beings bound to its karmic ties.

For example, if a certain immortal art's inheritance was bound by bloodline, then it would inevitably encounter that specific bloodline person.

For example, if a certain immortal art's inheritance carried a purpose, then it would inevitably encounter the kind of living being capable of fulfilling that purpose.

No matter how the process twisted and turned, the result would inevitably be so.

It was also possible that the immortal art's inheritance sought out one living being after another—if one died, it would seek another; if no other True Immortal was involved, across endless time, its purpose would surely be achieved.

None of it was coincidence.

The sword cultivator before him possessed the karmic tie of the immortal art!

Such a person, who also harbored intense killing intent toward the Immortal Weapon Sect—such a person truly deserved to die!

"Kill!"

The Immortal Weapon Son's face was hideous.

He pressed his hand against the Reverse Five Elements Zhou Tian Demon-Refining Furnace on his chest, deliberately pushing it into overload, erupting with layer upon layer of chaotic grey light, causing the sluggish Reverse Five Elements Demon-Slaying Soul-Annihilating Arrow to blaze brilliantly, unleashing several times its power, instantly breaking free of the solidified space's obstruction, and slashing toward this sluggish heaven and earth.

Whoosh!

The Reverse Five Elements Demon-Slaying Soul-Annihilating Arrow tore apart this stretch of solidified sky, crisscrossing, restoring liveliness to an entire heaven and earth, letting the cosmos flow once more.

Yet the cosmos remained solidified, and time continued to slow.

The Immortal Weapon Son horrifiedly discovered that he could not see the Pure Yang Sword Son's true body within this sluggish cosmic star river, could not find where he was, could not lock onto him!

The Reverse Five Elements Demon-Slaying Soul-Annihilating Arrow crisscrossed, tearing apart stretch after stretch of solidified sky and earth, yet could never resolve the root of the cosmic upheaval.

All power has its limit.

When the Reverse Five Elements Demon-Slaying Soul-Annihilating Arrow's speed slowed, the unstoppable solidified cosmos once again surged toward the Immortal Weapon Son.