Chapter 147 - 116: Fierce Battle, The Shocked Elders of Xingyue City

Chapter 147: Chapter 116: Fierce Battle, The Shocked Elders of Xingyue City

"Exhilarating! Absolutely exhilarating!

"Hahaha! Hahaha!"

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Jiang Hao had gone completely mad. He fought viciously against himself, drenched in sweat, oblivious to everything else.

As both sides fought with reckless abandon, employing every trick in their arsenals, Jiang Hao gained a deeper understanding of himself. He discovered his own flaws and the potential for further advancement he had missed in the past.

An hour later.

Covered in sword wounds, he had finally found the flaw to break through his past self from the Spirit Transformation period.

"Your task is complete. You can take a bow now," Jiang Hao said with a knowing smile.

The Heavenly Spirit 72 Swords erupted with astonishing might. He didn’t even hesitate to use his strongest ultimate moves, Heaven Breaker and Eighteen Heavenly Hand Forms.

All three ultimate killing moves were unleashed simultaneously, and his opponent mirrored the action perfectly. However, in the end...

SQUELCH!

Jiang Hao appeared before the puppet. The Sword Embryo in his hand pierced right through its chest, exiting out its back.

Meanwhile, the opponent’s Sword Embryo landed squarely on Jiang Hao’s shoulder, cutting deeply into his flesh.

The puppet Jiang Hao shuddered violently. In the blink of an eye, both it and the Sword Embryo in its hand crumbled into a pile of stone dust, crashing to the ground.

Watching this, Jiang Hao let out a long breath of relief. But in the very next moment—

BOOM!

The stone ceiling trembled wildly, and terrifying mystical energies rippled across the surrounding walls. Countless rocks broke free from above, converging in the center.

In just a dozen breaths, the flying stones formed a humanoid figure wielding a Sword Embryo, morphing into the second puppet Jiang Hao.

"Spirit Transformation Second Stage?"

Before Jiang Hao had time to think, the counterfeit Sword Embryo in the opponent’s hand was already slashing down.

At this moment, Jiang Hao was also able to exert the peak power of the Spirit Transformation Second Stage.

"Heavenly Spirit 72 Swords! Eighteen Heavenly Hand Forms! Heaven—Breaker—!"

BOOM!

The brutal slaughter behind the stone door raged on again and again, leaving the silver-haired and grey-haired elders outside completely dumbfounded.

Especially when they saw those two figures execute the Eighteen Heavenly Hand Forms and the Heaven Breaker, endless ripples of shock surged in their eyes. But this was far from over.

Spirit Transformation.

Spirit Transformation Second Stage.

Spirit Transformation Third Stage.

...

Nine Spirit Transformations.

When Jiang Hao continuously broke through his own limits and slew the ’himself’ at the Perfect Spirit Transformation Realm, the two senior figures from the Xingyue City Earth Realm were already too stunned to speak.

"Spirit Transformation Realm Perfection... He’s actually a Cultivator at the Spirit Transformation Realm Perfection?"

Only now did the two realize this fact. The young man had been hiding his cultivation base all along. His true cultivation was actually at the Spirit Transformation Realm Perfection!

Meanwhile, Jiang Hao was gasping heavily for air. Covered in cuts and bruises, he had no choice but to sit cross-legged and begin healing his injuries.

"An absolute peerless monster. A true peerless monster!" The silver-haired elder suddenly burst into wild laughter amidst his shock, even shedding a few tears of joy. "Hahaha! To think our Xingyue City Earth Realm has actually produced such a peerless monster! Hahaha! Hahahahaha!"

With his Golden Spiritual Power and his cultivation at Spirit Transformation Perfection, he could just barely squeeze into the ranks of true monsters at his age. For a barren land to produce such a peerless monster was as difficult as ascending to the heavens.

"With his Spirit Transformation Realm Perfection, entering the Celestial List is a sure thing! Old friend, this year we’ll finally be able to rub shoulders and chat with those old fogeys!" one of the elders said, thoroughly thrilled. "Our Xingyue City Earth Realm has finally birthed an unparalleled prodigy!"

Both men were incredibly excited. It seemed they had suffered no small amount of humiliation and mockery in Nanling.

The root cause was that their Xingyue City Earth Realm had never produced a monster-level candidate. For so many years, they had merely been selecting prodigies for other regions.

But today was different. Jiang Hao’s arrival meant that from now on, the two of them could stand tall and proudly discuss the prodigies of various regions with their old peers.

Just as the silver-haired and grey-haired elders were basking in gratification...

Suddenly...

BOOM!

The space behind the stone door trembled violently, emitting an utterly terrifying pressure. The two elders paled in alarm and hurriedly peered inside.

There, they saw another figure in white coagulating, exuding unmatched magnificence.

"What? One Vein Many Transformations?"

Just a single glance left the two men standing there, frozen like wooden statues.

Inside the stone door, Jiang Hao furrowed his brows tightly and abruptly opened his eyes.

Dozens of meters away, another puppet Jiang Hao had appeared. What was different this time was that this newly formed entity possessed a Perfect Spirit Transformation Realm where all eight meridians and the spine had reached the Second Stage.

"Again?"

Feeling his own cultivation base being infinitely suppressed, Jiang Hao didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, yet an eager expression spread across his face.

Through endless slaughter and combat, constantly shattering his own limits, his entire being had undergone an astonishing transformation. If this continued, even Jiang Hao couldn’t imagine how much more of an improvement it could bring.

BOOM!

In an instant, world-shaking might erupted within the space behind the stone door as the two figures clashed once more.

Throughout the entire process, Jiang Hao was continuously battered until he coughed up blood, only to repeatedly triumph over different versions of himself at varying realms.

Fortunately, the space behind the stone door didn’t just suppress one’s cultivation base; it also possessed an unimaginably terrifying healing power. Whenever Jiang Hao slew a version of himself at a specific realm, the stone walls would feed energy back to him, elevating his self-healing capabilities to an unbelievable level.

Time slowly flowed by.

Jiang Hao lost the initial restraint he had felt. He completely let loose. As his combat experience enriched, his fighting techniques gradually reached a state of absolute mastery.

Second Stage: Victory.

Third Stage: A grueling kill.

Fourth Stage: Nearly perished from a single misstep.

Fifth Stage: A near-mutual destruction, narrowly winning by half a move.

Sixth Stage: Heavily injured, clinging to life by a thread, yet managing a desperate counter-kill.

By the time Jiang Hao faced the puppet figure whose eight meridians and spine had all reached the Seventh Stage, the two elders outside had completely petrified. They stood rigidly at the stone door, motionless, as unyielding as rock statues.

However, within those two pairs of aged eyes, world-shaking tempests were brewing.

At a certain moment.

"What is a sword?" Jiang Hao murmured to himself. "A sword is a weapon to kill the enemy. Qinghe Sword Technique, Qingfeng Sword Technique, Heavenly Spirit 72 Swords, Heaven Breaker Strike..."

Endlessly fighting against the peak versions of himself at various realms and observing the execution of his mastered Sword Techniques, he felt as if he had grasped something profound.

"Extreme Sword Realm. The Fifth Realm. Kill!"

BOOM!

At this moment, Jiang Hao seemed to transform into a Sword Fool. Facing an equally heaven-defying version of himself, he survived countless life-and-death encounters.

At the critical juncture, he finally caught hold of that elusive inspiration. Shattering his limits once more, he comprehended the fifth layer of the Extreme Sword Realm—the Fifth Realm of Sword!

"You won’t have time to mimic this strike, will you?

"Heaven—Breaker—!!!"

BOOM!

Destructive Sword Might engulfed the space. The terrifying power was swallowed by the stone walls, causing them to shudder frantically.

Astonishing Sword Qi completely buried the puppet figure, blasting it into absolute nothingness. Sword Intent permeated the entire space, lingering for a long time.

Outside the stone door, the two elders watched that strike. In their eyes, which were already swirling with tempestuous shock, new thunderclaps of disbelief erupted.

"Heavens! Eight Meridians Seventh Stage! The fifth layer of the Extreme Sword Realm, the Fifth Realm of Sword! What shocking Sword Intent! How could this level of Sword Intent possibly appear on a junior? Seventh Stage! All eight meridians and the spine have actually reached the Seventh Stage?"

What One Vein Many Transformations signified was something these two senior figures of the Xingyue City Earth Realm understood better than anyone.

The shock this young man inside had brought them had vastly exceeded their wildest expectations.

To achieve this at his age... it was simply terrifying. Just what kind of heaven-defying talent and potential was this?

Time ticked by, minute by minute.

After brutally slaying the ’himself’ whose eight meridians and spine had reached the Seventh Stage, Jiang Hao completely collapsed from exhaustion.

This entirely exceeded the limit he could endure when he was at that realm. If he hadn’t comprehended the fifth layer of the Extreme Sword Realm at the critical moment, it would truly be unknown who would have emerged victorious.

Right now, however, Jiang Hao sat cross-legged and began to heal frantically, borrowing the energy fed back by the stone walls.

This was still far from over. He had only reached the Seventh Stage; the Eighth Stage puppet had yet to appear.

All of this seemed brief, but unbeknownst to Jiang Hao, he had been inside the stone door for over three full months.

While a brief tranquility returned behind the stone door, the entire Holy City was completely boiling over.

"My god! He’s climbed hundreds of ranks again! His ranking has squeezed into the tier of the Saint Sons and Saintesses of various clans!" someone in the crowd shouted.

"Who is it? Who’s climbing so insanely fast?" another exclaimed.

Within the Celestial List that stretched across the sky above the Holy City like a grand canopy, a single moniker was skyrocketing. From the very bottom, it smashed through obstacles with unstoppable momentum, already reaching the very forefront.

And that moniker consisted of a simple title—Ghost-faced Asura!