Chapter 88: Victory (Seek Follows!)

The "momentum" shifted instantly to its opposite extreme.

This was Yuemu Zhou’s sought-after “small overcoming large,” the single opportunity he had waited for through countless prior oppressions.

You would rather trade ten for one to crush me—then what of a hundred for one, a thousand for one?

Let the Immortal Lord’s claw pierce through my body, while I return a hundredfold harm upon it!

The Immortal Lord’s iron body was torn apart in an instant; overwhelming sword qi overwhelmed it—not from strength alone, but from the manifestation of “momentum” in battle.

When that “momentum” had been hammered and compressed without ever breaking, it was inevitable that this ultimate release would come.

Yuemu Zhou drove his sword into the Immortal Lord’s forehead.

The hollow eye sockets held no expression, yet when that emptiness stared into the Immortal Lord’s golden pupils, it formed an unspoken oppression.

Both were barely touching the Heavenly Tower realm, yet the Immortal Lord possessed numerous abilities—and still fell to Yuemu Zhou’s hands.

This sword may not kill it outright, but after this strike, the tide of battle reversed: the Immortal Lord became a mortally wounded, gasping shell.

Sword qi shredded every inch of its body; softening and splitting could not be avoided, frosty You fire could not halt it—within a breath, the Immortal Lord’s aura plummeted to its nadir.

For the first time, this body was shattered to this degree: from the torn chest and abdomen emerged a deep, profound blue—the original seed was exposed.

This was where the Immortal Lord’s consciousness resided. Destroying it would not directly erase its awareness, but it would inflict grave injury and render its consciousness a wandering ghost—able to inhabit any vessel, yet forever unable to repair itself.

In prior battles, the Immortal Lord had constantly shifted it within its body to evade Yuemu Zhou’s strikes—but now, with its entire body torn apart, where could it flee?

Yuemu Zhou immediately fixed his focus on this target. Though he did not fully understand what it was, he knew well enough: kill the chicken by cutting its throat, strike the fish on its head—anyone could see this thing was extraordinary, perhaps even its vital point, like the snake’s seventh inch.

Vast sword qi coalesced instantly, a great dragon lunging toward the blue core; the Immortal Lord’s remaining body parts surged forward to block—but only delivered their surviving flesh to be shredded once more by the sword qi.

Most of the sword qi was blocked, yet Yuemu Zhou’s blade still cut through like a hot knife through oil, piercing straight through the You blue sphere.

The deep glow dimmed instantly.

At the same time, a freezing, searing pain erupted in his abdomen—the Immortal Lord’s claw had pierced through.

Never mind.

In this situation, it could only continue its offensive.

For the opponent’s “hundred” had already been inflicted upon it; to retreat now would mean abandoning even this “one.”

Yuemu Zhou had precisely seized its unwavering offensive stance—after this exchange became irreversible—he unleashed his turning blow.

One sword for one claw—the outcome was decided.

It was time for his relentless pursuit.

Yuemu Zhou lifted his sword, ready to summon sword momentum once more.

But at that moment, his body stiffened—searing pain in his abdomen, strength suddenly vanished.

This sensation was all too familiar: the same weakness he had endured day and night for the past eighteen years.

He looked down: a luminous pearl was being pulled from his lower abdomen by the dragon claw.

His black eye sockets seemed to reveal shock, while the golden pupils remained as indifferent as ever.

From the very beginning, it had had only one goal.

That dantian seed.

Let its own body be torn apart, fall into the fate of being finished by the next sword strike—it only needed this one claw to reach the seed!

And Yuemu Zhou allowed it to pierce his lower abdomen not from negligence, but because such a claw capable of extracting the dantian seed was utterly unheard of!

The vast majority of cultivators possess a dantian seed, located within the dantian, where the meridian tree grows.

But would a single sword thrust through the lower abdomen sever one’s entire cultivation path? Would masters who had entered the Mystic Gate or even the Heavenly Tower suddenly become useless?

Naturally not. Though the dantian seed, once destroyed, is nearly impossible to replace, under normal conditions it is exceedingly difficult to damage.

First, it is tiny and hard to strike in combat; second, it is extremely tough and smooth, nearly impervious to blades; third, as the origin of true qi, it is constantly guarded by surrounding true qi.

Combined, these three factors make destroying an opponent’s meridian tree harder than smashing their skull.

Thus, to destroy a person’s meridian tree, one typically needs a higher-level cultivator to forcibly pour overwhelming true qi into the body to obliterate it.

And without surpassing a full realm, this process usually takes considerable time—it cannot be achieved instantly.

Now, both were at the Heavenly Tower level, and the dantian seed was protected by vast true qi—how could one claw extract his meridian tree?!

Yuemu Zhou’s lower abdomen was stained You blue; the protective true qi was entirely consumed, and the connection between meridian tree and flesh was melted away.

Yet as the dragon claw gripped it, and the You blue began to spread, the meridian tree—born less than an hour ago—suddenly retracted all its branches, reverting to the luminous pearl, squeezing out all true qi and energy, hardening into a solid outer shell.

Thus, the Immortal Lord, who had intended to destroy it directly, chose instead to extract it.

But for Yuemu Zhou, the moment his meridian tree regressed into the dantian seed, his entire body lost its foundation.

Though he still stood at the Heavenly Tower realm.

In the Shengmai Realm, destruction of the meridian tree meant all cultivation was lost, for the cultivator’s power came solely from true qi; in the Mystic Gate Realm, most were the same—but sorcerers and some gifted martialists could resonate directly with mysterious qi through innate insight, so they were not fully reduced to mortals; but at the Heavenly Tower, one connects with heaven and earth through “nature” and “destiny”—losing the meridian tree does not sever one from heaven and earth, so there is no realm regression at the Heavenly Tower.

If a normal Heavenly Tower cultivator were here, even with diminished power after losing the meridian tree, they could still fight using heaven and earth’s power; if they were a sorcerer, the impact would be even less.

But Yuemu Zhou was different—his body was already withered and frail, battered repeatedly in battle, sustained entirely by true qi.

Heaven and earth’s power merely responds to the body’s “command” and cannot enhance the body itself; mysterious qi is the spiritual energy of heaven and earth, which can be applied to the body through certain methods—but that is at best external healing, and Yuemu Zhou had no such insight; only true qi is genuinely generated within the body itself, the vital substance sustaining one’s entire essence, energy, and flesh—the Treatise on Martial Arts calls it the person’s second blood.

Now that true qi was gone, Yuemu Zhou’s decaying body entered its final moments.