Chapter 264

"Ran away?"

Residual sword intent lingered on his shoulder; he closed his eyes and sensed it.

At first it was over a hundred kilometers away, then hundreds more; after multiple jumps, it vanished beyond a thousand kilometers, losing all sense of direction, leaving only a general sense of where it went.

Then, faintly, he sensed a spatial seal within that sword intent—and even the general sense of direction vanished.

The opponent had pre-placed multiple short-range teleportation arrays nearby.

"Space can block the Annihilation Sword Intent!"

"Maybe at closer range I could still sense it, but I don't know if it's dozens or just tens of kilometers."

"The newly born Annihilation Sword Intent is still not strong enough..."

Jiang Ding muttered to himself and halted his pursuit.

A faint unease stirred in his heart.

When facing Foundation Establishment and Qi Condensation cultivators, the Annihilation Sword Intent was unstoppable, but now, stepping into the Jin Dan battlefield, some Jin Dan cultivators had already mastered powers on the level of space, no longer leaving him with overwhelming superiority.

To grow stronger,

he needed to hone his sword intent to a higher realm!

This was precisely why past generations of Great Sun Sword Sons had desperately pursued Dao Zi of the same realm in the Badaxian Sect, seeking to take their lives and souls.

Now, he faced the same predicament.

Xian Du.

The chancellors of the top twelve Yuan Ying-level universities and their instructors of the Sky Combat System course each sent forth a thread of divine awareness, gathering to watch the delayed cross-realm examination footage.

At this moment, all the chancellors frowned.

"Master Dinghai, Qingfeng University has a Wuxingtian Sect Five Elements Dao Zi, correct? Keep a close watch on him; add another layer of protective spells."

Lie Xing Master Dinghai Zhenjun, chancellor of Qingfeng Qingfeng Beidou University, spoke solemnly.

"Otherwise, if he uses some trick to kill the Five Elements Dao Zi, we'll have to clean up his mess—can we really let a stranger's Dao Zi die and sacrifice our own?"

"Death substitution, soul-switching spells—ones that can fool the Li Xu Void cultivators of the Wuxingtian Sect—are not easy to come by."

"Don't worry, it's impossible!"

Master Dinghai Master Dinghai Zhenjun Zhang Zhen chuckled awkwardly: "The Immortal Sects grant the Five Elements Dao Zi extremely high protection. A Foundation Establishment mid-stage cultivator can't kill him. Rest assured."

"Better to be cautious—never wrong."

Another chancellor warned—it was no joke.

Historical records show that past Great Sun Sword Pavilion Sword Sons have devised many underhanded schemes—and some actually succeeded.

For example, successfully bribing an extreme hawkish Yuan Ying cultivator from an Immortal Sect, locking him together with a Foundation Establishment breakthrough Five Elements Dao Zi, or even provoking war between the Wuxingtian Sect and the Immortal Sects...

As long as you think, you can always find a sliver of hope.

"Fine, fine, fine, I'll listen to you all—add another layer of protection, happy now?"

Master Dinghai Master Dinghai Zhenjun waved his hand.

"Prisoners!"

"The prisoners from Li Yun Sect bear restrictions left by Li Hai Zhen—their flesh and blood are dissolving; save them!"

"We haven't extracted intelligence from their souls yet!"

Jin Jin Lingfeng's face turned pale, jolting Jiang Ding from his thoughts.

He turned to the intelligence transmitted by the division's reconnaissance array.

At Li Yun Sect's mountain gate, numerous remaining Li Yun cultivators screamed, writhing and crawling on the ground, their flesh and bones peeling away at intervals, turning into wisps of green smoke that dissolved into the air.

"Wait a moment."

Jiang Ding shot off as a gray-blue aura, far outpacing sky-combat aircraft—even with the boost from a third-grade military formation.

After dozens of breaths, he arrived at Li Yun Sect's mountain gate.

Sword intent and divine sense swept across a ten-kilometer radius.

"Between soul, meridians, and flesh, there is the scent of blood-soul incense."

Jiang Ding quickly detected the anomaly.

"Just like the blood-sacrificed city—it is the presence of blood-soul incense that dissolves their souls and flesh, offering them as sacrifice to some hidden demon god."

Soon, he discovered an anomaly at the core of Li Yun Sect's mountain gate array.

Shhh!

A pale blue sword qi shot from his fingertips and struck a jet-black boulder.

Moments later, the boulder shattered into gray-white powder, revealing what lay within.

A palm-sized statue of Guanyin, its face twisted in a sinister smile, radiating thick resentment and incense.

"Namo Compassionate Guanyin!"

The dissolved souls and flesh of Li Yun Sect cultivators, mixed with threads of incense, channeled through it into some unknown space.

Jing!

The Taiqing Flying Sword unsheathed, cleaving the Compassionate Guanyin statue into two halves, threads of Annihilation Sword Qi surging into it.

The statue turned to dust.

"Blasphemy!"

In the void, Jiang Ding saw—in some distant blood-red realm—countless blood-soul specters swirling, and a compassionate Guanyin cast upon him a stern, terrifying gaze.

His breath caught.

Divine might like a prison, divine might like an ocean!

"Drop the butcher's knife, and you become a Buddha on the spot!"

"Asura, quickly convert to my Buddha..."

"... and ascend to the Western Paradise of Ultimate Bliss..."

Voices appeared one by one beside his ears, some threatening with authority, some persuading with kind words, some begging desperately; all manner of tones were present.

"Shut up."

Jiang Ding frowned.

Clang!

The sword intent of Annihilation flashed, cutting down these noises.

"Jiang Ding, this is a shrine of incense and licentious worship; be careful!"

Jin Jin Lingfeng flew in from afar, landed on the ground, and hurriedly said, "They occasionally appear in the Jiewaixian Sect; for instance, the Brother Xuanwu Heavenly Palace seals three hundred and sixty-five heavenly palace guardian generals, all possessing Nascent Soul-level power."

"There are also cultivators who covet the convenience of incense worship to break through their cultivation, but often nine out of ten die from qi deviation, while the rest lose themselves, becoming the image within the believers' incense, another creature entirely."

"True Person Li Hai must have received a similar inheritance."

"They are not necessarily strong; cultivation is the strongest, representing the highest achievements of Immortal Dao technology, but they possess quite a few eerie methods that invade the soul and spirit; one slight mistake and you fall into their trap."

"Understood."

Jiang Ding nodded.

However, possessing the sword intent of Annihilation, he believed he should not fear it.

"True Person Li Hai has been in rebellion for three years and still remains here; this must be the reason. He has established his own 'Divine Kingdom' somewhere, a place where incense gathers."

"Incense is claimed to be formless and without substance, but ultimately it leaves traces."

An Siyan judged.

"As long as we collect enough incense data, we can commission the Array Spirit of the Master Canghai Steel Floating Island Base to deduce his location, storm up there, and destroy him."

All around.

Except for the Ou Daocheng Detachment's Sky-Sea Camp, everyone else had temporarily disembarked from the sky-war machines and was busy up and down the Li Yun Sect's mountain gates.

They were setting up arrays to measure incense data, gathering the remains of the deceased citizens, and restoring damaged spiritual veins.

Most importantly,

was the trial of the Li Yun Sect cultivators who had luckily survived.

Soul-searching talismans, and even individual simple soul-searching spells, were used; piercing screams never ceased, resembling a realm of yin ghosts.

Some showed unwillingness on their faces,

some pretended not to see,

some had cold expressions.

After a long time, much intelligence gathered in the Regiment's main group.

"Heh!"

"Found something interesting; someone who wouldn't be a good person chose to be a dog, and a native's dog at that."

Ou Daocheng, responsible for organizing intelligence, suddenly sneered and shared a video obtained from a soul within the Regiment.

In the scene,

a young man shouted hoarsely, frequently waving his arms vigorously, while below him a group of Li Yun Sect Foundation Establishment and Qi Refining cultivators listened intently.

"Equality! Equality! Equality!"

"No matter how many times, we must still speak of equality!"

"The Immortal Gates have been occupied and usurped by evil people, turned into Demon Gates!"

"We must stand up and resist, defeat their evil armies, kill all those evil high-ups, liberate the Immortal Gate populace, and make the Immortal Gates great again..."

"Indeed interesting."

Many classmates smiled faintly.

"Based on his appearance, check his information."

Involving military missions, their current authority was immense; they could even investigate citizen information involving other military missions when evidence was conclusive.

Soon, information came from the Master Canghai Steel Floating Island Military Base.

"Gu Gu Shixiong, ID number 12..., Inner Qi of the Young Eagle realm at minor success, no spiritual roots, 27th-grade graduate student in the Department of Social Sciences at Qingfeng University, advisor Professor Liu Liu Zhiyuan, entered the Master Canghai Small World seven years ago on a tourist visa..."

(End of this chapter)