Chapter 407: The Kill

As the strike came down, the resonance between the sword's edge and the Great Dao of void resulted in a sharpness that made Jing Yuntian's very soul shudder.

That edge... He felt like he had gone back in time, to when—before he had ever set foot on the path of cultivation—he had been right in the trajectory of a ten-meter-long mirror plummeting from a building thirty meters high.

Back then, he had been extraordinarily lucky; a cultivator happened to be passing by and saved his life with a casual gesture.

But this time, he could only watch helplessly as this enormous, razor-sharp Void Sword slashed straight into his Myriad Forms Fiend God with unstoppable momentum.

Under that Void Sword, sharp enough to make one's soul tremble, the mighty Myriad Forms Fiend God was cleaved in two like rotten wood. It was like the sharpest cold weapon under heaven drawn through silken tofu lovingly crafted by a master chef.

Without so much as a sound, the Myriad Forms Fiend God was cut apart. In the instant it collapsed, terror unlike anything he had ever known finally erupted from the depths of Jing Yuntian's soul.

"Aahh!" He let out a great roar, his psychic thought erupting to its very limit as he retreated at full speed.

But it was too late!

Having cut through the Myriad Forms Fiend God, the Void Sword's slash struck the myriad forms grotto-heaven world behind it.

The grotto-heaven world, which was the equivalent of a cultivator's innermost essence, qi, and psyche, proved as fragile as paper in front of that sword, and was torn open as easily as rotten wood.

"How can this be!" Terrified, Jing Yuntian immediately summoned three Dao Artifacts from within his grotto-heaven world.

All three slammed simultaneously into the Void Sword with its faint trace of golden light. Yet even the mighty Dao Artifacts could not slow it down.

With a series of bangs, the three Dao Artifacts were severed, each cut clean in two.

And as they shattered, a treasure manifested from the depths of his grotto-heaven. It transformed directly into a Dao Seed, and by some marvelous property, it lured the Void Sword that had been aimed at his true Dao Seed into slashing toward it instead.

A second later, the false Dao Seed shattered with another bang. Its residual power erupted outward like an all-devouring Primordial Void, swallowing everything in its vicinity.

"Hmm?" Yaoguang seemed to recognize something in that scene, a flicker of interest crossing his eyes. "A puppet seed?"

Once a cultivator reached the Void-Refining Realm, their weaknesses became the grotto-heaven and the Dao Seed, as an injury there could be fatal. More precisely, the crux of everything was the Dao Seed.

It was the Dao Seed's existence that sustained the grotto-heaven. Lose the Dao Seed, and the grotto-heaven, deprived of its support, would gradually collapse.

Once the grotto-heaven collapsed, the cultivator's essence, qi, and psyche would dissipate, and death would follow. That was why the Dao Seed was the vital core of any cultivator above the Void-Refining Realm.

A puppet seed could mimic a Dao Seed, taking a fatal blow in the cultivator's stead at a critical moment. For that reason, every puppet seed commanded an exorbitant price; no one would trade one away even for several Dao Artifacts.

Of course, puppet seeds had their drawback: they only worked against single-target attacks. If the enemy unleashed something like the Great Annihilation Sword Qi, capable of making the entire grotto-heaven collapse with brute force, a puppet seed would be meaningless. With the grotto-heaven itself in pieces, where would a Dao Seed even exist?

"Not bad. All those years accumulating at the Void-Shattering Realm have earned you quite a few life-saving treasures." Yaoguang directly activated the True Spirit Light, locking onto every subtle shift in Jing Yuntian's aura. "Take one more strike of my sword. Survive it, and you live. Fail, and you die."

At those words, Jing Yuntian was frightened out of his wits. Yaoguang's second strike had not only crushed his Myriad Forms Fiend God but also gravely wounded his grotto-heaven, damaging its very internal structure.

If the Void Sword had not been so sharp, leaving so narrow a "wound," his entire grotto-heaven would have been teetering on the edge of collapse by now.

Hearing that Yaoguang meant to strike yet again, he threw himself into retreat while blasting out his psychic thought. "Deputy Sect Master Yaoguang, the Jing family was in the wrong, and I am willing to make reparations on our behalf! We are both considered supreme elders of the Heavenly Dao Sect. We can talk this over. Why must it come to slaughter?!"

At the same time, his psychic thought swept urgently toward Zhen Xuanyuan and Gu Li. "Supremes, save me, quickly!"

The Limitless Sword within Yaoguang was, in the end, only a top-tier Dao Artifact, and what it drew upon was merely a projection of the Great Dao; the Dao resonance around him fell far short of a true Dao Lord's.

Unless one faced it directly, there was no way for those outside the battlefield, like Zhen Xuanyuan and Gu Li, to know how deadly Jing Yuntian's situation had become.

At that moment, they were puzzled over why Jing Yuntian, who had seemed barely able to withstand Yaoguang's Void Sword just now, had suddenly crumbled, with his Myriad Forms Fiend God and Myriad Forms World sliced through as if nothing could stand in the way.

He even seemed to be in mortal danger himself, having been forced to use a life-saving treasure to survive. Only now, when he desperately begged to be rescued, did the two of them realize something was off.

Seeing Yaoguang about to bring down the third strike, the two Supremes launched their movement arts in unison, tearing through the air toward the battlefield.

"Deputy Sect Master Yaoguang, hold your hand!"

"You're members of the same sect, and it has come to openly trying to kill each other? What kind of behavior is this? Stop at once!"

Their psychic thought arrived before they did, Zhen Xuanyuan's words in particular carrying a note of rebuke.

But Yaoguang's hand did not slow in the least. Golden light flashed along the Wandering Dragon Sword, and a new Void Sword slashed at Jing Yuntian.

And this time, with the True Spirit Light having locked on him, even if the supreme elder were to produce another puppet seed, there would be no evading the attack.

Arriving on the scene to find Yaoguang still moving in for the kill after his explicit demand to stop, Zhen Xuanyuan could not hold back a furious roar. "Insolence!"

His empty hand clenched, and a ring of blazing white light, carrying a strong sealing power, descended to envelop Yaoguang. This was his life-bound Dao Technique: Firmament Suppression!

He, too, was a Void-Shattering cultivator who walked the Dao of the void, and he had practiced Firmament Suppression to perfection; it could seal the void itself and forbid all power within it.

On the other side, Gu Li appeared right behind him, his saber sweeping down in a stunning rainbow-colored arc of saber light charged with blazing, savage heat, slashing toward Yaoguang's blade.

As Gu Li appeared, Chi Yun appeared close behind. But although this supreme elder stood on Yaoguang's side, he had never imagined things would escalate to this point.

He could understand and accept swallowing the Jing family whole, making them pay a price. But if Jing Yuntian died, it would be a real loss to the Heavenly Dao Sect's battle strength.

Besides, Gu Li's saber was clearly aimed at the Void Sword Yaoguang had unleashed, not at Yaoguang himself. Weighing all this, his own hand slowed by a fraction. What he plainly failed to notice was Zhen Xuanyuan simultaneously deploying Firmament Suppression on the other side.

The instant that area-wide Dao Technique swept over him, Yaoguang's movements visibly stalled, affected by its power. Consequently, that rainbow-like arc of saber light landed with perfect precision on Yaoguang.

The two supremes, whether by design or by accident, had executed a flawlessly coordinated strike.

"Look out!" Chi Yun cried in alarm.

In the next moment, a burst of resplendent starlight bloomed from Yaoguang's body. The seven-colored radiance of the Starlight Glass Body directly deflected the saber light.

At the same time, the power of the Heaven-Sealing Stele was released.

Bolstered by the projected power of the Great Dao of void, not only was the binding effect of Firmament Suppression on him weakened by a full degree, but the power of the Heaven-Sealing Stele, a high-grade Dao Artifact, was amplified by the same amount.

The blazing white ring of light enveloping his body was blocked and frozen in place by the Heaven-Sealing Stele's power.

Seizing the opening, the Void Sword atop his descending Wandering Dragon Sword was released in full.

The Firmament Suppression, a sealing-type Dao Technique at perfection, was torn apart and crushed by the Void Sword like rotten wood.

Having shattered the technique, the Void Sword's edge fell without mercy, slashing once more, precise and fierce, into Jing Yuntian's grotto-heaven world. That sharpness, which no defense could stop and nothing could survive, made the supreme elder's hair stand on end.

"No!" he snarled. In a flash, he drew a wisp of essence, qi, and psyche out of his grotto-heaven, gambling on abandoning the grotto-heaven entirely for a chance at possession and rebirth!

He could never have imagined it would come to this. All he had done was follow Zong Wenxian's requests, applying some pressure to Yaoguang, the deputy sect master who governed the southern domain; in return, he had reaped such terrifying vengeance.

Now, not only was there a chance that the Jing family's ten thousand years of glory would be wiped away, but both his body and Dao were also in danger of perishing.

Had he known Yaoguang would grow this fast, he would never have involved himself in the struggle for the sect master's position.

In an instant, Jing Yuntian's Dao Seed shattered with a loud bang.

Yet, that wasn't all. Guided by the True Spirit Light, the Void Sword, having crushed the Dao Seed, turned its edge and slashed directly into another stretch of the void.

"No!" Amid the supreme elder's utterly terrified psychic thought, that wisp of essence, qi, and psyche he had extracted from his grotto-heaven through a secret art was engulfed by the Void Sword once more.

A second later, the Void Sword transformed into a Primordial Void, instantly grinding everything in that region to nothing.

"Yaoguang!" Zhen Xuanyuan's eyes flew wide at the sight, his psychic thought bursting out in a roar of fury laced with disbelief.

Had Jing Yuntian just... died?! A supreme elder of the Heavenly Dao Sect, a man who had cultivated for thousands of years to reach the Void-Shattering Realm, an existence standing at the very peak of the North Sea, had just been killed by Yaoguang right in front of him, the chief supreme elder!

In an instant, humiliation and rage unlike anything he had ever felt filled him.

"You dare kill a supreme elder of the Heavenly Dao Sect... You..."

But before that roar of shamed fury could fully leave him, the psychic thought that followed from Yaoguang sent a jolt through him, and a bone-piercing chill surged up and instantly restored his reason and composure.

"Zhen Xuanyuan. Gu Li. The two of you, supreme elders of the Heavenly Dao Sect, dared to join hands with the Jing family, who colluded with the fiendish cultivators of the Yin Lunar Sect, and strike at me!"

Having taken the attacks of two supreme elders head-on with the Starlight Glass Body and the Heaven-Sealing Stele, and cut down Jing Yuntian without hesitation, Yaoguang turned. His gaze stabbed straight at Zhen Xuanyuan and Gu Li.

"What audacity!"