Aspiring to the Immortal Path
chapter-480

Tang Jie's eyes were like beads of ice as he stared at Qian Yingchen's face.

Tang Jie took in a deep breath.

He knew that this guy was intentionally provoking him.

If he took the bait, he would naturally forget about the peak and stay to fight. Thus, he ignored Qian Yingchen and ran past him toward the summit.

Qian Yingchen waved his hand, his black robe rising up like a wave to strike down Tang Jie as he bellowed, "Xu Miaoran is mine!"

Tang Jie swung his saber behind him, but he didn't engage in a fight. While evading to the side, he whispered, "Idiot, she's already my woman!"

There was no need to fight over the question of who Xu Miaoran belonged to, so he wasn't going to waste words on Qian Yingchen. And there was no point in telling him that Xu Guanghua wouldn't agree to marry his daughter to him. Even if that was true, he still wouldn't care.

Over the last few years, Tang Jie and Xu Miaoran had practically been touching heads with how close they were to each other, and their relationship couldn't be any closer. They had yet to break through the last sheet of window paper, but for this era, this was already breaking the rules. If the two of them hadn't been interacting for so long, not even Xu Miaoran would have let him go this far.

In these circumstances, some guy popping up and saying "Your woman is mine" was doing nothing more than trying to add trouble.

Qian Yingchen trembled. "Bullshit! That's impossible!"

He swung a hand around, and a sinister gale stirred, carrying dark fog mixed with chilling energy toward Tang Jie.

Tang Jie knew that this black fog wasn't to be underestimated and didn't dare to let it touch him, so he evaded again. As he moved through the fiends, he shouted, "Oh my, was that a sore spot for you?"

This casual comment was thick with derision.

Tang Jie's smirking face enraged Qian Yingchen even more.

He had been trying to provoke Tang Jie into staying to fight him, but now, Tang Jie was still charging forward at full speed, and it was Qian Yingchen who was beginning to feel the blood rush to his head.

He truly did love Xu Miaoran, and Feng Muyuan had proposed marriage on his behalf. But that had just been a cover for the real target of the Beast Garden. Since it wasn't sincere, it was a matter of course that nothing came of it. Thus, Xu Guanghua didn't agree to it, only saying that he would consider it.

These words were essentially a rejection, but in the ears of Qian Yingchen, there was still a sliver of hope.

This person could be considered a genius in the Beast Refining Gate, or else Feng Muyuan wouldn't have taken him as an adopted son. He looked down on Tang Jie, so he had always been yearning to kill him, and perhaps that would get him into a marriage with Xu Miaoran.

He had been planning this battle for a long time, not expecting Tang Jie to be unaffected while he ended up fuming.

The handsome face was engulfed by thick murderous intent, and Qian Yingchen howled, "Tang Jie, you must die! Pentabird Strike!"

As he shouted, five black dots appeared in the sky and swiftly expanded into five black eagles. They seemed to pierce through space, abruptly appearing and stabbing at Tang Jie like five spears.

One could see at a glance that they weren't of a particularly high level, only the upper grade of Spirit Sensing, but it was for this reason that Tang Jie found them so suspicious.

In his clash with Qian Yingchen, he had already sensed that they were both in the same state, not having entered Celestial Heart but possessing the strength to go against one. This was perhaps because his adoptive father was a Violet Palace True Lord.

From a certain perspective, this person's attacks were even more frightening than those of a True Person.

For this reason, Tang Jie didn't want to fight him head-on. He activated the Chaoswind Step, leaping past Qian Yingchen and continuing up the mountain.

But Qian Yingchen pointed behind him as if he had eyes on the back of his head, and those five black eagles, continuing on the same trajectory, disappeared as if they had entered a teleportation formation. When they next appeared, they were behind Tang Jie, pointing straight at his back.

Tang Jie instantly knew he was in trouble and swung his saber to the rear while his body erupted with power.

Formless Golden Body!

The saber energy chopped down on a black eagle's head, and there was a metallic clang. As the immense impact threw Tang Jie back, the remaining four black eagles slammed into him.

Tang Jie instinctively twisted his body, and one black eagle brushed past him. The remaining three slammed into his chest.

The eagle spears penetrated into Tang Jie's body as if he had no defenses, as as they entered Tang Jie's body, they opened their wings.

"Aaagh!" Tang Jie roared like a tiger, his body swelling with power as every inch of muscle became like steel, preventing the eagle wings from fully opening. Like this, the three eagles passed through Tang Jie, leaving three holes in his chest, each half a meter wide.

Any one of these three wounds was a fatal injury for a mortal, and if those eagle wings had opened, they could have cut a person in half.

But even this attack couldn't stop Tang Jie's ascent.

These were probably the heaviest injuries Tang Jie had sustained in his career. Even Celestial Heart experts had never done this much damage.

Qian Yingchen madly laughed as he raised his arms and shouted, "Die!"

A raging torrent surged toward Tang Jie.

Tang Jie raised his head and said, "You want me to die just like that? It's still too early for that."

He took away the hand covering his wounds, and Qian Yingchen realized with a start that the wounds created by the three black eagles had already started to heal.

"How is this possible?" he said in shock.

When a cultivator attained a spiritual body, their life force truly did become much stronger, allowing them to survive what would usually be fatal injuries. Each attack seemed to strike at blood and flesh, but what was really being consumed was a cultivator's life force.

Qian Yingchen's Pentabird Strike was an extremely powerful spell art that targeted life force.

This was a spell art established on the foundation of the Myriad Beast Union Mantra. Its purpose wasn't to command fiends in battle, but to convert the fiends under one's control into part of a spell art, sacrificing the fiends for a powerful attack.

While it was only five upper-grade Spirit Sensing fiends, their power was comparable to the full power of a Celestial Heart True Person. The power unleashed by three eagles was enough to instantly destroy a peak Cognitive Creation cultivator.

But Tang Jie had survived.

The moment he sustained heavy injuries, a vigorous life force had almost instantly begun to heal him. The rate of healing was beyond common sense, only possible for those few cultivators who were proficient in the Dao of Life.

At that moment, Qian Yingchen cried out in shock, "The Dao of Life!"

Yet he realized that that explanation was insufficient. Even someone who had comprehended the Dao of Life could only make their life force stronger and make themselves more difficult to kill. While their rate of healing would also increase, it wasn't this absurdly fast.

Other than Wang Juemie and Tang Jie's original body, Qian Yingchen's five birds could kill basically anyone under Celestial Heart.

But Tang Jie had healed all his injuries as easily as lifting a finger.

Recovery was always a hundred times more difficult than dealing damage!

This change dumbfounded Qian Yingchen.

Yes, this was because Tang Jie had comprehended the Dao of Life, allowing him to instantly heal his body by sacrificing longevity.

Life force and longevity had always been complementary existences. The strength of life force determined lifespan, but lifespan did not influence the strength of the life force.

To put it simply, a sick patient with a weak body would die early, but someone with a long life wasn't necessarily immune to disease and disaster. Luo Hanzhen could only live a thousand years because of his injuries, but an old man couldn't say, "I'll live for a few less years so that all my wounds will disappear."

But Tang Jie could!

The four hundred days in the Water Moon Paradise hadn't been for nothing. It had boosted Tang Jie's cultivation and also his insight into many other areas.

Through the writings and theories left behind by countless seniors, Tang Jie had made his own insights. This conversion between longevity and life force was one of these, a breakthrough created through his understanding of Life and Time.

But this method wasn't free. Converting longevity into life force was extremely wasteful.

For example, in normal circumstances, Tang Jie would have needed three days at most to recover from those injuries. But by forcing their healing, he had wasted an entire year of lifespan, a hundred times more than normal.

Even so, for a person in battle, this ability greatly boosted a cultivator's survivability.

Many cultivators would fall on the path far before they reached the end of their lifespan.

Now that Tang Jie was fully recovered, he glared at Qian Yingchen before continuing to run up the mountain.

Although he really wanted to chop this guy up, his current priority was to stop the Beast Refining Gate from getting the Space Crystal.

But to his surprise, while Qian Yingchen was shocked, he hadn't lost his courage. He continued to pursue Tang Jie, shouting, "Tang Jie, leave your life right here!"

He waved his sleeve, and five golden eagles appeared, shooting at Tang Jie's back.

This time, they were five lower-grade Mind Opening fiends.

Because he cultivated the Pentabird Strike, he didn't prioritize raising powerful fiends. He normally gathered fiends of lower levels, focusing on quantity over quality. However, the power of the Pentabird Strike depended on both the cultivator's power and the fiend's power. Thus, Qian Yingchen also raised fiends of somewhat higher grade and level, though he normally cherished them and didn't use them lightly.

As a genius of the Beast Refining Gate, he was someone to whom even True Persons were polite, yet he couldn't deal with a single Tang Jie! This enraged him enough that he finally started to take out some of his more valuable fiend birds.

These five lower-grade Mind Opening birds represented some of his finer stock.

The five golden eagles became five arrows aimed at Tang Jie.

Tang Jie silently cursed as he accelerated, dodging left and right in order to evade the five golden eagles.

Even though the Dao of Life could heal his wounds, he had to survive them first.

Those three Spirit Sensing black eagles had already left him half dead. If those five golden eagles struck true, he would probably die on the spot, making the Dao of Life useless.

As the five golden eagles charged, Tang Jie hardened his heart, shouting, "Fuck you!"

He turned around, activating the Chaoswind Step and Formless Golden Body, and then he pointed a finger at Qian Yingchen.

A moment later, the world suddenly lit up, a sharp light shining in the clouds. Dropping from the sky was a giant crescent blade.

The Heavenly Cloud Blade!

But this time, instead of several dozen, there was only the one Heavenly Cloud Blade.

This blade chopped down at Qian Yingchen. In the process, it sliced through a golden eagle as easily as through tofu.

Qian Yingchen instantly knew that he was in trouble. Letting out a long howl, he thrust a finger at Tang Jie, his body exploding with light.

An enormous light exploded between the two.

A moment later, Qian Yingchen and Tang Jie were blasted away from each other, several streams of blood shooting from their bodies.

The Heartbreak Saber had cut down another golden eagle, but there was no stopping the remaining three, which punched through his left arm, right chest, and belly. Tang Jie instantly had three holes punched through him, one of his arms even flying into the air.

Qian Yingchen had also sustained a terrifying blade wound.

This single blade had almost cut Qian Yingchen in half.

Or perhaps one could say that this blade had cleaved him apart, but the life force of the spiritual body had activated at the key moment, healing the wound. But his injuries were far worse than Tang Jie's.

This exchange had left both badly wounded.

"Awooo!" Qian Yingchen roared like a tiger. "Saber intent! Ultimate saber intent!"

The blade Tang Jie had sent out had carried traces of saber intent, which was why all of the Heavenly Cloud Blades had merged together. This was also something he had gained from the Water Moon Paradise, but he hadn't comprehended the saber intent for long. All he could do was fuse the Heavenly Cloud Blades together, and he was far from reaching the fusion of man and saber.

Tang Jie whispered, "It's only saber intent, far from 'ultimate'."

As he flew up, his severed arm grew back and the hole on his belly healed. Even his shattered heart grew back and started to beat again.

This attack had wasted a whole ten years of lifespan.

In exchange, he was going to kill Qian Yingchen!

The saber light flashed again, slicing at Qian Yingchen's head.

Qian Yingchen grunted and waved his right hand. "Block him."

A giant bear appeared in front of him and thrust a paw at Tang Jie.

"Out of my way!" Tang Jie sent the bear flying with a saber.

But a moment later, countless fiends rushed in, with even several black-robed men coming to the rescue of their young master.

Since a duel had produced no results, it was decided to turn the battle into a melee.

"Yiyi!" Tang Jie threw his head back and yelled.

Raaaa!

There was a great din as the ground broke open and countless black tentacles reached out and stopped the fiends. Meanwhile, Yiyi gracefully landed on Tang Jie's shoulder.

At the same time, Qian Yingchen swiftly took a small bottle from his Mustard Seed Bag, pouring out a single red pill.

He looked at it reluctantly and then swallowed the pill. A moment later, the gruesome wound on his body began to gradually close, and the life force destroyed by the blade swiftly grew back. His aura began to rise once more, much to Tang Jie's consternation.

He knew that this wasn't good and tried to get an attack in, but he was unable to break through the black-robed men.

As Qian Yingchen's injuries rapidly healed, he hoarsely bellowed, "For forcing me to waste a precious Lifespan Golden Pill, you deserve death!"

He thrust his left hand forward. "Pentabird Strike!"

Another five eagles appeared.

Middle-grade Mind Opening!

Even more shocking was that the bear from before hadn't disappeared, roaring as it lunged at Tang Jie and hugged him.

Six fiends!

This guy could control six fiends at once!

This was his true trump card. After two draws, Qian Yingchen regarded Tang Jie as his number one enemy, and he was willing to sacrifice six middle-grade Mind Opening fiends to kill him!

Even though he had comprehended the Dao of Life, a Pentabird Strike using five middle-grade Mind Opening birds was enough to instantly annihilate him!

Yiyi was alarmed and immediately summoned a storm of flower petals. But while her Blossom Shell might have been able to block an ordinary attack, it was far too weak in front of the Pentabird Strike.

At this moment, there was a flash of light on the horizon.

A vigorous wave of sword energy swept toward Qian Yingchen.

This sword energy was abnormally sharp, and Qian Yingchen immediately had his five eagles turn to the sword energy in shock, no longer caring about Tang Jie. Tang Jie swung the Heartbreak Saber, joining the sword energy by unleashing a powerful energy to clash with the five eagles.

There was a massive explosion, and then Tang Jie, Qian Yingchen, and that other person who had appeared in the sky were blasted away from each other.

The person who had abruptly appeared threw up a large mouthful of blood and blurted out, "Wow! Formidable!"

"Junyang?" Tang Jie was startled by this voice.

The person who crashed from the sky to his feet was none other than Cai Junyang.

When he had been contacting his fellow disciples, only Cai Junyang had been missing, because he was always traveling. Although a message had been left for him, there was no telling if he could receive it in time. He had thought that Cai Junyang wouldn't make it, but he had ended up appearing at the key moment.

Slapping his forehead, Cai Junyang laughed and said, "I finally made it. I say, did you get even stronger while I was gone?"

Tang Jie pursed his lips. "I should be the one asking you that."

Qian Yingchen had used a Pentabird Strike that had cost him five middle-grade Mind Opening fiend birds, so it was unimaginably powerful. Even a Celestial Heart True Person might not be able to take the blow. But the combined powers of Tang Jie and Cai Junyang had managed to block it, meaning that Cai Junyang had grown much stronger. From the mouthful of blood he had thrown up, it seemed like he was only a little weaker than Tang Jie.

The problem was that this guy hadn't even entered the Three Witherings yet.

In other words, Tang Jie pre–Three Witherings was weaker than Cai Junyang.

This left Tang Jie stunned.

It was only then that he realized that Cai Junyang's sword had changed.

Originally, he used a broadsword that had a blade as thick and wide as a shield. But now, he was using an azure long sword that was circled by streams of energy. Tang Jie could tell at a glance that it was no ordinary weapon.

"This is…" Tang Jie murmured in shock.

"The Taiyi Azure Sword," Cai Junyang proudly said.

Tang Jie understood. "It seems that you've had a few lucky encounters on your travels."

"It's all thanks to your Hundred Tribulations Passage, or else I would have died several times over," Cai Junyang replied. "I say, why are you in such a rush to get to the summit?"

"Someone on the summit is trying to steal a treasure, and I'm trying to stop them. But this guy keeps bothering me."

"You go. I'll take care of him for you," Cai Junyang said.

"Don't kill him. This guy is after Miaoran, so I'll kill him myself," Tang Jie said as he looked at Qian Yingchen and fell back.

"Don't even think about running!" Qian Yingchen bellowed. But as he tried to give chase, he was swept up in a wave of sword energy.

Without Qian Yingchen to stop him, Tang Jie had no more obstacles preventing him from reaching the summit. Together with Yiyi, he charged up the mountain. Alas, Black Sin had to hold off the fiends, so it couldn't be brought along.

The battle on Rally Peak was beginning to turn in the Basking Moon Sect's favor. All the disciples were gradually grasping the initiative, and more reinforcements were coming from the surrounding peaks. Even the Illusion Fog blotting out the sky was loosening, rays of light beginning to peek through.

Tang Jie ignored it all and charged toward the Hall of Mystery.

Two disciples were standing in front of the hall. When they saw Tang Jie coming, they shouted, "The Hall of Mystery is temporarily closed. We have been ordered to stand guard here. All disciples of the sect should immediately head to the front lines! Entry is forbidden!"

They were quite familiar with these words, as if they had repeated them many times already.

Tang Jie didn't stop, and the Heartbreak Saber shone with a stunning radiance. "Die!"

The two disciples had never in their dreams expected someone to so decisively take action, not fearing in the slightest that he might be killing his own.

Two heads went flying in the air, and the power of the saber entered their bodies and exterminated their life forces.

As the two corpses collapsed, Tang Jie charged into the hall while shouting, "Next time you say this, don't look so nervous, and don't prepare to cast a spell."

In the hall, that drop of blood was still flying toward the hexagonal crystal, already extremely close. Standing in front of it was none other than Xu Hanling.

Hearing someone enter the hall, Xu Hanling said without turning his head, "What's the situation?"

He had clearly mistaken Tang Jie for someone else.

Tang Jie was about to say something when he suddenly sensed danger and dodged to the side. A bolt of wind silently passed through the area where Tang Jie had been standing, striking a pillar.

Only now did Xu Hanling turn around and grab at Tang Jie. As he attacked, surprise appeared on his face. "Tang Jie?"

It was only now that he saw his foe.

"It's me!" Tang Jie responded, reaching out to grab Xu Hanling.

Their palms clashed, and Tang Jie grunted as he was sent flying.

At the same time, that drop of blood landed on the crystal. The crystal erupted with light and began to fly toward Xu Hanling.

"Success!" Xu Hanling excitedly shouted, reaching for the crystal.

"Yiyi!" Tang Jie roared.

A flower struck the crystal and threw it off course, resulting in Xu Hanling's hand grabbing at nothing.

Tang Jie lunged forward and swung his saber.

Xu Hanling roared and grabbed at the crystal, sweeping his free hand at Tang Jie. "Out of my way!"

Tang Jie was thrown back by the sleeve, but he swung his saber as he was pushed back, shouting, "Now that you've been discovered, even if you get the Space Crystal, you won't be able to leave Rally Peak!"

"You know nothing!" Xu Hanling roared. He allowed Tang Jie's attack to strike his body, which resulted in a shower of sparks.

Godhead Armor!

Why did he have Godhead Armor?

Tang Jie was startled. Wasn't this supposed to be a Beast Refining Gate spy?

But there was no time to find an answer. With the power of the Grotto Metal Mantra, some of the saber energy had managed to get through the armor and strike Xu Hanling in the back. He trembled in pain, but he still managed to grab the crystal.

The crystal instantly shone with an even greater light.

Tang Jie froze, and then he realized what was going on and shouted, "Oh no!"

He only now remembered that the Space Crystal was a divine item that controlled space. Having it allowed one to travel through space.

This was why the Beast Refining Gate only needed to think about success and not about retreat. Getting the Space Crystal would allow one to retreat. Even if it was only once, it was enough!

Xu Hanling was right. Tang Jie had come a little too late.

Tang Jie and Yiyi lunged forward, grabbing onto Xu Hanling.

The crystal flashed, and then all three of them disappeared.