First Immortal of the Sword

Chapter 2408 – Strange Peril

The sobbing was indistinct, grief-stricken and desolate.

Su Yi focused and listened attentively, then walked toward the source of the weeping.

Strangely, no matter how far he walked, that grief-stricken wailing still seemed far away, as if it were coming from over the horizon.

But Su Yi’s footsteps never halted. He continued pushing forward.

Bizarrely, he encountered no danger along the way. Everything was quiet and still save for the intermittent sobs.

Enough time to burn a stick of incense later, Su Yi passed through the Leaping Dragon Mountains and reached a stretch of ruins covered in scars.

The ruins stretched as far as the eye could see. Everywhere he looked, he saw remnants of ancient buildings and the vestiges of battle.

There was the imprint of a giant palm, like a chasm, and a divine mountain split open with an axe, as well as a nine-hundred-thousand-foot, perfectly straight chasm on the ground. It was clearly the result of sword qi.

Su Yi didn’t even need to think to know that once, a long time ago, a city had stood here. However, a shocking battle had befallen it, leaving its inhabitants dead and its territories in ruin.

“This… was most likely the Sky Wolf Workshop….” Su Yi’s brow furrowed.

A long time ago, there had been numerous sites for trading goods built throughout the Boundless Battlefield. Everyone could exchange treasures and buy what they needed there. The Sky Wolf Workshop had been one such place, and an extraordinarily famous one at that. It had had Master Gods in residence year-round to oversee things.

Li Fuyou had visited the Sky Wolf Workshop many times, acquiring no small number of treasures.

But now, this former gathering point for the God Domain’s experts lay in ruin!

Su Yi gazed into the distance and saw a few scattered treasure fragments, corpses, and bloodstains. From the vestiges of battle, Su Yi concluded that it hadn’t been long at all since the Sky Wolf Workshop had been destroyed, ten years at most.

Suddenly, that weeping rang out once more. Unlike before, he could hear it clearly.

Su Yi looked over and saw a collapsed, run-down altar further in the ruins.

A bony little fox with a blood-smeared pelt sat atop it. It lowered its head to the ground and wept, sounding like a woman wailing in grief.

Su Yi silently drew closer, but before he’d gotten far, the fox seemed to sense him. It raised its head, and its eerie green eyes locked onto him.

Then, it cried out, “Don’t come any closer! Hurry up and run! The Deathless Demon King will kill you!”

Its voice boomed throughout the clouds. It sounded utterly frantic.

But Su Yi paid its warnings no heed, instead approaching the altar. “Did Deathless Body Demons destroy the Sky Wolf Workshop?”

The fox disregarded this question, instead crying out with such force that it seemed its lungs might burst, “Hurry up and flee—!”

Su Yi looked around. “Why should I run? Tell me, what exactly happened here? I might well be able to help you.”

The little fox was stunned. Then, it burst into laughter. “You cannot help me. I was the one who killed everyone in the Sky Wolf Workshop. The Deathless Demon King even killed my master!”

Its voice was choked with sobs and overwrought with grief.

Su Yi’s eyebrows rose. “You? How could you… have destroyed the Sky Wolf Workshop by yourself?”

The little fox was almost too choked with sobs to speak, and its words started and stopped. ‘You don’t understand. Hurry up and leave! The Outsider Celestial Demons have already taken over the Boundless Battlefield. It isn’t just the Sky Wolf Workshop; all of the major camps’ cities have fallen!”

Su Yi’s brow furrowed. The situation is far worse than I anticipated!

Out loud, he said softly, “If everyone in the Sky Wolf Workshop was killed, how are you still alive?”

The little fox suddenly stopped weeping. It slowly raised its head and fixed its eerie green eyes on Su Yi. Then, it broke into a strange, playful grin. “I…. betrayed the God Domain! If you don’t believe me, see for yourself!”

Su Yi’s soul suddenly felt dazed. His field of vision shifted around him, and he now saw a fierce, bloody, battle raging around him.

Heaven and earth were shrouded in darkness, and divine radiance ran rampant.

Numerous deities roared in fury, waging war throughout the heavens. They were locked in combat with countless Outsider Celestial Demons. The beating of the war drums shook heaven and earth. Divine treasures shot into the firmament, glinting with cold light.

But the Outsider Celestial Demons’ numbers were too great. Their forces blotted out the sun, and they swept forth in an endless tide. One after another, the gods fell in battle.

Divine blood stained the skies red. Cries of despair shook heaven and earth. The dying gods’ voices were full of bitterness and fury.

In the end, all of the gods died in battle, and the city was laid to ruin.

The armies of the Outsider Celestial Demons were packed into every inch of sky, and they extended as far as the eye could see!

Witnessing this bloody grand battle startled even Su Yi.

But it was then that the countless Outsider Celestial Demons’ gazes locked onto him.

Boom!

A horned, thousand-foot-tall Celestial Demon suddenly roared, waved its fists, and attacked Su Yi.

With a single punch, it overturned heaven and earth, throwing the sky into chaos with enough force to strike terror into the hearts of even Nine-Tribulation Master Gods.

But Su Yi laughed coldly.

The Divine Dao Avatar seated in his sea of consciousness suddenly lit up with intense light.

It was as if countless streaks of resplendent sword qi shot forth, illuminating his sea of consciousness.

An unbelievable scene followed. That ten-thousand-foot Celestial Demon popped like a soap bubble.

The boundless demon hordes and the blood-soaked battlefield fell apart, offering no more resistance than paper window panelling. All of them dissipated.

Su Yi’s field of view returned to normal.

He still stood in the ruins. It was as if none of that had happened.

The blood-smeared little fox’s eyes widened, and it cried out, “You…”

But the fox had only just said this when Su Yi stomped, raised his right hand, and used his fingers as a sword to thrust into the sky.

Bang!!

The ground split.

A figure had been silently approaching Su Yi from beneath the ground. When Su Yi stomped, the encroaching figure had no time to react; he was shattered into pieces, dying with one last desperate wail.

And as Su Yi’s fingers thrust into the sky, the entire stretch of sky split and broke, revealing another figure, this one blood red. It shrieked, but just as it turned to flee, sword qi erupted from Su Yi’s palm and sliced it to ribbons.

Destroyed in both body and soul.

This entire series of events happened practically instantaneously. Everything, from the attack of Su Yi’s soul, to him regaining his field of vision and killing his assailants, happened in one smooth sequence, without the slightest pause or hesitation.

Had he stopped to pay attention to what the little fox was saying after regaining his vision, he could never have avoided the threats above and below him!

“An assassination attempt like this is indeed perilous. Even a Nine-Tribulation Master God would have fallen for it if they’d been at all incautious,” sighed Su Yi.

Two aspects of this attempt on his life had been sufficient to threaten Nine-Tribulation Master Gods.

First, that vision of the battlefield had seemed fake, but its attacks were real! That ten-thousand-foot Celestial Demon’s fist really could have shattered a Nine-Tribulation Master God’s soul.

Unfortunately for his assailants, when it came to the power of the soul, Su Yi had never feared anyone in this lifetime.

Besides, he had the Sword of the Nine Hells to oversee his soul. Soul attacks like this couldn’t possibly influence him in any way.

Second, the two figures hidden above and below him were both King-Level experts of the Deathless Body Demons.

Deathless Body Demons’ most terrifying quality was that they were unkillable! Even if you shattered their bodies, their blood and qi would transform into countless strands, disregard their opponent’s defenses, invade their body, and devour their blood, flesh, and vitality. They were extremely strange, and extremely difficult to deal with.

Once they invaded an opponent’s body, they could even possess them, seizing opponents’ bodies to “live again”!

Even Master Gods viewed King-Level Deathless Body Demons with trepidation.

Unfortunately for them, this ambush was doomed to be useless against Su Yi.

During Li Fuyou’s time fighting on the Boundless Battlefield, he’d killed too many Outsider Celestial Demons to count. He hadn’t just mastered all manner of secret arts designed to defeat Deathless Body Demons; he even knew their weak points like the back of their hand.

That aside, in his current incarnation, Su Yi had an even simpler way to counter them: the power of reincarnation.

So what if they couldn’t die? Once plunged into the cycle of reincarnation, he could End them completely!

It was for this reason that Su Yi resolved this incomparably perilous ambush with ease.

But knowing the truths behind it only made Su Yi’s accomplishment seem all the more extraordinary.

Off in the distance, the little fox’s eerie green eyes shifted erratically. It murmured, “Strange. You’re just a Greater God, yet you managed to counter a death trap of this level. Who… exactly are you?”

The high-pitched, feminine voice now sounded ancient and heavy, and it brought with it a heart-palpitating majestic aura.

Su Yi took a sip of wine, then approached the little fox. “It doesn’t matter who I am. What matters is whether or not you cooperate.”

The little fox sat there, its eerie green eyes seemingly taking a leisurely stroll across Su Yi. “You want me to cooperate? You could search the entire Boundless Battlefield without finding another so daring.”

Su Yi suddenly vanished in place. A moment later, he appeared directly behind the little fox, his fingers reaching for its head.

But then, the little fox broke into a strange grin.

Bang!

It popped like a soap bubble and exploded into a rain of light.

Meanwhile, incomparably tyrannical power slammed into Su Yi’s heart like a hammer.

The heart was the home of the spirit, akin to an invisible world within the individual. It contained profundities upon profundities, formless and intangible, that manifested themselves within the blood, qi, and apertures, fusing with the soul. It was the source of the essence, qi, and spirit of the body.

To cultivators, the heart was of the utmost importance. Everything they thought, saw, knew, and sensed… even their grasp of the Grand Dao and perception of worldly affairs was outlined within their hearts.

Attacks to the heart typically took the form of external stimuli or distracting thoughts. When the heart was in turmoil, the spirit was dissolute.

But in a true battle, almost no treasures, secret arts, or external powers could reach the heart directly.

Take Mu Bai. He had no fear of death, and his heart was as unyielding as iron. Thus, not even the gravest of perils could shake his heart.

Yet now, an incomparably tyrannical power slammed into Su Yi’s heart, attacking it directly!

This was naturally terrifying. A moment’s incaution, and his heart might crumble, leading to muddled awareness at best, or losing oneself to obsession at worst!

WHen that happened, it wouldn’t matter how powerful you were. You’d be ruined, reduced to a fish on the chopping block!

But then, Su Yi laughed.

His eyes were full of the utmost disdain.