Aspiring to the Immortal Path - Chapter 1296: The Deciding Battle

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

The last shockwave swept over the battlefield, enveloping all.

At this point in the battle, there were very few people still standing.

Tang Jie still had a few “stumbling blocks” in his way, while on Yu Cheng’s side, the Starbreak Dao Puppet had been destroyed, Nether God Yin Corpse had been slain, and the only ones left alive were Li Jiuyang and Wang Yao.

But Li Jiuyang’s strength was rapidly fading.

He was long dead, and all of his power came from his reserves. Each swing consumed his energy, so he could only get weaker and weaker as he fought.

Yu Cheng had clearly noticed this.

But rather than being excited, he sighed, “In the end, you never returned. This is nothing but a shadow.”

Incomparable disappointment.

Yes, Yu Cheng was disappointed.

The battle he had lost ten thousand years ago had left a shadow on his heart.

Ever since then, he had been working to return to this place, but he had also been hoping for another battle with the Martial Lord.

This desire became even greater after he obtained his Dao Unity Realm. He wished to wash away his shame by challenging and defeating the Martial Lord, even if nobody knew that he had ever been humiliated in such a way. Someone as proud as him could not stand this thorn in his heart.

Only personally defeating the Martial Lord could let him dig it out once and for all.

Alas, this Martial Lord was not the one who had defeated him.

Suddenly, Yu Cheng turned to Tang Jie.

“Forget it. Since I can’t defeat you, I can only defeat him. He’s about as strong now as you were back then and can stand in as your substitute.”

He swung the Xuanyuan Sword once more.

The wave of sword energy pierced through the axe energy and struck the Martial Lord in the chest.

Li Jiuyang froze.

He looked down at his body, seemingly unaffected, but a moment later, cracks spread across his entire body.

“Martial Lord!” Tang Jie shouted.

Li Jiuyang swayed, and then he threw the Sovereign Blade, the axe transforming back into a sword as it returned to Tang Jie. His body then exploded into dust.

He had died long ago, but only now could he find peace.

Tang Jie’s heart winced as he turned to Yu Cheng.

There was no one left to stop him, but he did not leave.

He simply stood there and quietly waited for Tang Jie.

Tang Jie reached out and grabbed the Sovereign Blade, and with a swing, the Samsara Buddha was sent back to samsara.

He strode toward Yu Cheng, unhurried yet bursting with strength.

“Finally, they’re all dead?” Yu Cheng smiled. “That’s how it should be. This is the final battle, so it shouldn’t have had too many participants in the first place. But before that, there is one more bug to clean up.”

Hearing this, Tang Jie paled. “NO!”

Yu Cheng raised his hand and stabbed the Xuanyuan Sword into Wang Yao’s body.

Clutching his chest, Wang Yao saw Tang Jie rushing over to him and struggled out, “Father…”

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to leave, but in front of Yu Cheng, he couldn’t even move.

The stab made Wang Yao feel like he was being torn apart. This was a slice at the level of the Divine Soul, his soul being cut apart and shattered, but he still wouldn’t die, the last bit of his soul being preserved so that he could feel immeasurable pain.

Yu Cheng threw Wang Yao’s body to Tang Jie.

“Bao’er!” Tang Jie shouted as he caught him.

Wang Yao clutched Tang Jie. “Fa… father… I’m… so… rry…”

Despite his difficulties speaking, Tang Jie knew what he wanted to say. Holding his hand, he said, “There’s no need to apologize. I have never blamed you. You had your difficulties to go through; I knew that.”

Wang Yao smiled.

And then his hand went limp.

Tang Jie’s heart trembled, and he continued to clutch Wang Yao.

A sliver of divine light slowly rose from Wang Yao’s forehead.

This was the last of Wang Yao’s soul, but alas, it was not enough to revive.

Tang Jie’s hand flashed gold, and that bit of soul disappeared into his grip.

Yu Cheng chuckled at this. “You did exactly as I expected you to, Tang Jie. This bit of soul isn’t enough for him to revive, but it’s enough to reincarnate, and if you use the Fake Sky, False Sun, you could even bring him back in full. But do you really think I couldn’t kill a greatly weakened foe in one strike?”

“I know, you did it on purpose,” Tang Jie growled. “When the Divine Soul leaves the body, it will constantly be eroded by the outside world, so it cannot remain free for long. If I want to reincarnate him, I can’t take it into my body, as that will only contaminate it with my energy. Thus, I can only use the power of my realm to protect him. This is the real reason you didn’t obliterate him, right? You’re using him to weaken me.”

Yu Cheng threw his head back and laughed. “Smart, but so what if you know? By this point in the battle, you must have greatly drained your Heavenly Dao Realm. How much power does it have left?”

Although Tang Jie’s Heavenly Dao Realm and Yu Cheng’s Dao Unity Realm were both enhanced by the Heavenly Daos within this world, allowing them to use them for a longer time, by no means did this mean that they could use them without limit. While they no longer received the Heavenly Dao’s hostility, they were still limited by their own bodies. It was only now that they could use their realms as they pleased that they realized how much of a burden their bodies were subjected to.

In truth, both Tang Jie and Yu Cheng were exhausted.

This was an exhaustion that came from the depths of their soul, an exhaustion that they had yet to experience since becoming Immortals.

At this moment, the two were like mortals, dragging their heavy bodies with plodding steps.

But they were still Immortals, still carrying the demeanor of Immortals that obscured their exhaustion.

Thus, Yu Cheng had stabbed Wang Yao and given Tang Jie that sliver of hope, all to add to his burdens.

Yu Cheng laughed at Tang Jie, “With this dragging you down, let’s see how you fight me!”

In his eyes, nothing was unfair.

Battle was all about doing everything one could to weaken one’s foe and strengthen oneself. He regarded Tang Jie as an equal, so he would naturally use everything he had, and did not believe that this conflicted with his desire to have a decisive battle with the Martial Lord.

As he spoke, he swung the Xuanyuan Sword again.

The storm of sword energy was like the Milky Way. Back in the chiliocosm, any one of the strands in this storm of sword energy would have been a heaven-shaking sight that would have spawned countless legends, but at this moment, they were just one small part of a massive tsunami of sword energy.

If this were not a folded dimension that concealed an even vaster space, the might of this attack would have been enough to utterly annihilate the entire dimension.

But Tang Jie’s counterattack was no less powerful.

The Sovereign Blade transformed into a saber as he swung it at Yu Cheng’s storm of swords. It lacked the complexity, being simple, direct, and fierce.

Tang Jie had started out using the saber, and his understanding of the saber was the most profound.

Many years ago, he had already condensed the complexity of his saber down to purest simplicity, concentrating all the world into a single blade, and now, his saber was even simpler and all the fiercer.

All the complexity had vanished, leaving only the saber that cleaved through the storm of swords.

Boom!

There was a dazzling explosion.

Another resplendent blast of colors illuminated the world, but this time, there was no one left to experience this world-destroying power.

The two of them fought from the heavens down to the bowels of the earth, and then back up to the heavens, roaring and rampaging, devastating the world with the most frightening powers they could imagine.

Even though the two were at the ends of their strength, one would find it hard to tell from the cataclysm taking place.

But deep down, both Yu Cheng and Tang Jie were fatigued beyond belief.

This fatigue came from their very soul, resulted from overdrawing on their power.

But they couldn’t stop, because at this stage of the battle, neither of them had the right to stop. The soul fatigue meant that they had squeezed themselves until there was nothing left. Let alone soul-destroying treasures like the Xuanyuan Sword or Sovereign Blade, or soul-shattering techniques like the God Immortal Slayer or Immortal Executing Strike, ordinary Immortals with ordinary spell arts could have slain them.

For this reason, they did not dare to be careless.

At this point, anyone who got hit first would die!

The Heavenly Dao Realm and Dao Unity Realm were pushed to their limits, the lights of sword and saber clashing in a dazzling display.

Gritting their teeth, they stubbornly pushed on, neither willing to be the first to die!

But at this most critical moment, Yu Cheng saw Tang Jie’s body sway.

Tang Jie had finally run out of energy.

As expected, the added burden of Wang Yao had made him hit his limit first, to Yu Cheng’s delight. He knew that this was no trick from Tang Jie, because they were both utterly exhausted, both about to break at any time. There was simply no point in trying any tricks.

Yu Cheng instantly gathered all his energy on the Xuanyuan Sword and slashed.

Boom!

Tang Jie was sent flying, blood gushing out of his body.

It was one strike, but it had left thousands of gruesome wounds on his body.

It was only because he was a body cultivator that he hadn’t been instantly obliterated.

But it was all useless. His body might have endured, but the damage to the soul was unstoppable.

Already exhausted, Tang Jie had no way to resist the soul-destroying power of the Xuanyuan Sword, which swiftly devastated his Divine Soul.

A phantom emerged from Tang Jie’s motionless body, writhing and howling in pain.

The last struggles of a Divine Soul.

Gradually, the Divine Soul stopped struggling and gradually dissipated into the void.

Tang Jie’s body collapsed.

Tang Jie had been slain!