Aspiring to the Immortal Path
chapter-529

Unsheathe, turn, chop!

Li Song did everything smoothly and naturally.

But to his shock, as he turned around to swing the sword, Tang Jie also turned around, a golden saber in his hand.

The two of them turned around together, and when they saw each other, their eyes both momentarily froze in shock.

The same thought flashed through their minds.

But there was no time to think. In a confrontation on a narrow path, it was the courageous one who emerged victorious. As this thought passed through their minds, the two unleashed their most powerful spell arts.

Tang Jie used the Matchless Slash while Li Song mustered all of his power, spiritual energy flowing up his arm and into the sword as he prepared to unleash his Heaven Origin Divine Sundering, the move which he was most skilled in.

But at that moment, Li Song suddenly felt a hint of dissonance.

The circuit was incomplete, and his spiritual power stopped cold, leaving Li Song baffled and shocked.

He raised his head to look up at the end of that spiritual flow.

What was in his hands wasn't some rare and precious sword, but only a sword hilt.

A sword hilt!

Li Song was dumbfounded.

What was going on here?

Why was there only a sword hilt placed together with the Supreme Imperial Jadefall Pill?

Li Song froze.

That frozen moment was an eternity for him.

A moment later, the golden saber, wrapped in a frenzied power, sliced through the narrow space between them, striking Li Song's defenseless body in an explosion of spiritual energy.

"Awooo!" Li Song let out the greatest howl of pain in his life.

Blood fountained out as Tang Jie cleaved off half his body, drenching the entire room in blood.

But he was still a Heart Demon True Person, with many tricks up his sleeve. The moment he was injured, he shot into the air.

But in the confines of the small building, he didn't have any space to maneuver. This charge upward had him colliding against the ceiling, and even with the power of a Heart Demon True Person, he failed to break through and was bounced back.

Tang Jie flew up, swinging a punch at Li Song.

The fist slammed into the body, unleashing an immense power that quashed all the strength that Li Song had just barely managed to muster.

"Aaagh!" Li Song screamed. He glared at Tang Jie and shouted, "Why?" He did not understand why they had been thinking the same thing.

"I was about to ask you the same question, but I can guess that you got greedy." Compared to Li Song's confusion, Tang Jie quickly realized why Li Song had wanted to kill him.

As he spoke, he changed back into his original face.

Upon seeing that familiar face, Li Song was utterly stunned. "Tang… Tang Jie!"

What came in response was Tang Jie's thunderous punch.

This punch struck him in the abdomen and blasted apart his liver.

Li Song cultivated the Greenwood Mantra, and the liver was the source of his power. Even with a spiritual body, this area remained his most vital part. As his liver shattered, all of his gathered energy dissipated. Tang Jie grabbed Li Song, and his fingers bulged as spiritual energy pumped through them into Li Song's body, preventing him from restoring his liver.

With his cultivation level, it should have been impossible to suppress Li Song, but he had already done his research on Li Song and knew of his weaknesses. Coupled with his thunderous strike, he had managed to take down this mighty Heart Demon True Person.

"Don't kill me!" Li Song cried out in fear.

"Don't worry. If I wanted to kill you, I wouldn't have gone through all this trouble." Tang Jie held Li Song as he went downstairs. Of course, he relieved Li Song of his Mustard Seed Bag, as well as that sword hilt.

He carried Li Song down the stairs and out of the building, after which he threw Li Song on the ground.

"What are you trying to do?" Li Song fearfully stared at Tang Jie.

Tang Jie didn't answer his question, eying him before saying, "I forgot that you could still talk."

He punched Li Song in the chin, blasting off half of the man's face.

Li Song yowled in pain, but he couldn't say a word. Although Heart Demon True Persons had an astonishing recovery ability, while being restrained, this healing ability was useless. On the contrary, the faster he recovered, the more pain he was in.

Tang Jie began to take out materials from his Mustard Seed Bag.

He began to scatter these materials around Li Song while forming hand signs and sending out streams of spiritual energy that vanished into the air.

Li Song's eyes widened.

He was laying down a formation!

A formation that had him as the center!

What was this bastard thinking?

Tang Jie moved faster and faster as he distributed the materials, his hands moving so fast that they were blurring. Finally, Tang Jie drew back his hands, all of the points of spiritual light flashing for a moment before disappearing.

The formation was complete.

Smiling, Tang Jie took out three banners.

The Eight Gate Banners.

The three small flags flew out, landing in the clearing and disappearing.

Tang Jie then said, "You want to know what I'm doing? It's very simple. I'm fishing!"

He squatted down, hugged Li Song, and shouted, "Senior Li, Senior Li, you have to hold on! You can't die! Please, you can't die!"

Li Song stared at Tang Jie in shock and fear.

He finally understood what this bastard was thinking. He was using him as bait to lure in others from Godhead Palace.

With an ambush formation laid down and the man himself waiting for the moment to strike, even Master Xuan Zhong would probably fall prey to this ploy.

Moreover, while Tang Jie was speaking very loudly, if one listened closely, one would realize that the sound wasn't actually radiating outward, but was being directed in a certain direction by Tang Jie's spiritual energy.

In other words, no matter how loudly he shouted, only the people in one direction could hear, while no one in the other directions could. This would prevent too many people from coming over.

Hugging Li Song, Tang Jie shouted again and again.

Several people soon came in from the direction the noise had traveled.

It was several Godhead Palace disciples and two Beast Refining Gate disciples.

These people had heard Tang Jie shouting and had come over to see what was happening.

Arriving in front of the small building, they saw Li Song lying in a pool of blood while Qian Yingchen held him and wailed.

These people quickly went over, their leader shouting, "Is it Senior Li Song? What happened to him?"

Li Song's eyes bulged, and he tried to tell them not to come over, but a ball of air was stuffed in his throat, preventing him from getting out a word.

Tang Jie slightly raised his head, his eyes seething with murderous intent.

He said, "He's about to die."

He turned around and swung his saber!

There was a flash of golden light.

Several bodies flew into the air.

Tang Jie threw out the Mountain River Diagram and put away the bodies.

He didn't even need to activate the formation to deal with this sort of opponent.

He turned back to Li Song and smiled. "Let's continue."

He hugged Li Song and continued shouting.

This time, he sent the sound in a different direction.

In this fashion, Tang Jie quickly killed several waves of people, including one of the Spirit Ring True Persons Ao Chihu had brought and Little Nine of the 12 Hawks.

Through Tang Jie's killings and the shocking development taking place outside the palace, the 12 Hawks had been cut down to four people: the eldest, Nan Ningjiang; Third Hawk Zhou Fanghua; the seventh Hawk; and the tenth Hawk.

The shouting continued, and Tang Jie happily continued with the killing. Each person from Godhead Palace he killed reduced his foe's strength by that much while also adding to his spoils—these people had managed to gather up quite a lot of nice things while searching around the Myriad Court.

He was still shouting.

A call came from the distance. "Is that Brother Qian? How is Senior Li's condition?"

He turned and saw three people coming over: Huang Yue and Elders Gold and Silver.

"Shit." When he saw these three, he immediately frowned.

This was truly a rather hard morsel to chew on.

Two Heart Demon True Persons plus Huang Yue was a force that Tang Jie wasn't confident in dealing with, even with an ambush and the formation.

This was the problem with fishing. Once the bait was thrown out, there was no taking it back. No matter how big a fish bit on the hook, Tang Jie had to try to take it down.

As he looked at the three, his eyes gleamed with ruthlessness.

No matter how big the fish was, he was still going to gulp it up!

He raised his head and shouted, "Hurry! There was a treasure in the white jade building, and Senior triggered a trap when trying to get it and was severely injured!"

The trio instantly glanced at that small building.

But a moment later, the three of them still came his way.

Shit. Can they not be such good comrades? Tang Jie mentally cursed.

He had intentionally mentioned that there was treasure in the building to split them up. If even one of Elders Gold and Silver were drawn away, Tang Jie would have been much more confident in his chances, and then he could deal with the remaining one.

But the three of them had rejected the temptation and come to see Li Song's condition. Since the plan had failed, Tang Jie could only toughen up and say, "Please, save Senior Li."

The hand holding up Li Song twitched as it slid something into Li Song's body, an object that almost had Li Song's soul fleeing him.

The three of them came over, saw how injured Li Song was, and instinctively moved closer. Tang Jie used this opportunity to withdraw.

At this moment, Huang Yue suddenly stopped and asked Tang Jie, "Brother Qian, are you injured?"

Out of concern for Qian Yingchen, he had stopped approaching Li Song, and Elders Gold and Silver stopped with him.

At this moment, a light erupted within Li Song's body, and then there was a thunderous boom as Li Song's body exploded into countless little chunks of meat.

A Heavenbane Lightning Pearl! Shock appeared in the eyes of Elders Gold and Silver and Huang Yue.

The distance, which wasn't particularly great, gave them less than half a second to react, but this was just barely enough to save their lives. The moment the light erupted, the three of them instinctively applied barriers, and while the powerful shockwave of the Heavenbane Lightning Pearl struck the three before they could put their barriers up, the following eruption of power was stopped before it could fully be unleashed.

Three barriers of light enclosed them, and they stood fast against the explosion like three rocks against the ocean.

In the end, these were Celestial Heart True Persons. When they were focused completely on defense, even a Heavenbane Lightning Pearl would find it very hard to kill them.

Even so, the fierce flames still sent them flying, and their barriers flickered like embers in the wind, flashing for a brief moment before completely disappearing. The remaining energy smashed into them, causing them to throw up blood.

While they had endured through the middle of the explosion, they had been caught by its tail. Though they had the constitution of True Persons, they were still rather badly wounded.

At the same time, Tang Jie rose up from the smoke left by the explosion, unleashing a golden wave of light as he soared.

The golden blade cut into Elder Silver's body, coming away with a dazzling streak of blood.

Elder Silver, who had just endured the explosion of the Heavenbane Lightning Pearl, fell out of the air after suffering this heavy wound. As for Tang Jie, he also threw up a little blood, but not because of anything Elder Silver had done. Rather, he had also been affected by the explosion. However, because he had been able to plan for it, his defenses had fared better.

"Qian Yingchen, you…" the three of them shouted in disbelief.

Tang Jie ignored them and swung his saber at Elder Gold.

In the face of that dazzling golden light, Elder Gold roared and thrust out his palm, sending out a blast of violet energy.

The saber energy clashed with the palm blast, and the golden saber was stopped cold.

At the same time, Huang Yue's eyes flashed as he looked at Tang Jie. He was finally using his Insight.

The truth made him shudder.

He cried out in disbelief, "Tang Jie! You're Tang Jie!"

Tang Jie smirked. "You needed Insight for that? I thought you would have realized when you saw my saber."

Elder Gold had reacted much more quickly, using the most effective countermeasure the moment he saw the golden saber.

"When?" Huang Yue shrieked. "When did you turn into Yingchen?"

Huang Yue's greatest concern wasn't their current situation, but when exactly Tang Jie had turned into Qian Yingchen. He suddenly had a very bad feeling that he could kiss his thousand-year King Sesame goodbye.

Tang Jie chuckled. "Would you believe me if I said 'just now'?"

As he spoke, he blinked to Huang Yue's side and swung his saber.

Huang Yue reacted rather quickly, hastily dodging to the side as he thrust his palm at the air. A giant energy palm immediately appeared and swung at Tang Jie.

These people all knew the power of Tang Jie's golden saber, so they had already developed countermeasures. The simplest method was to avoid close combat and use spell arts to attack him from a distance. Even if the golden saber could be used with spell arts now, in a clash of spell arts, it wouldn't overpower them.

Of course, it was impossible for this method to beat Tang Jie all by itself. Fortunately, Huang Yue wasn't alone. He had the support of Elder Gold.

Tang Jie had no choice but to evade the palm. Huang Yue used this chance to look at Elder Gold, and what he saw almost made him fall over. Elder Gold was carrying the wounded Elder Silver and running away!

"Elder Gold, you!" Huang Yue angrily roared.

Elder Gold completely ignored him.

Elders Gold and Silver weren't the same as Huang Yue. Though they belonged to Godhead Palace, they had started as wandering cultivators. While they might not have been as strong as those from the orthodox sects, they had much more experience.

When Huang Yue saw Tang Jie, he believed that they could deal with him if they all worked together, but when Elder Gold saw Tang Jie, he thought about all the forces that had appeared with Tang Jie back then. They could deal with this Tang Jie, but who could say where that True Person Gui was? And what of that body cultivator who had been capable of killing He Yueyang? Or that Yiyi who could summon Black Sin? Or those accursed beans?

The moment they confirmed that their opponent was Tang Jie, Elders Gold and Silver entered self-preservation mode.

This was what made them better than Huang Yue.

But while they wanted to leave, Tang Jie wasn't going to let them.

Tang Jie chuckled and said, "You should just stay right there."

He pressed his hand against the ground. "Rise!"

Dark fog billowed out of the ground, instantly engulfing the area around the white jade building.

The fleeing Elders Gold and Silver suddenly found themselves in a dark space, and no matter in which direction they went, they couldn't leave.

"What is this?" the two said in shock.

"The Yellow Springs Prison Formation?" Huang Yue had some understanding of formations, so he immediately realized what this was.

This was an imprisoning formation that ensured that an opponent couldn't escape. When Tang Jie was laying his ambush, his first consideration was to make sure that no one escaped so that he could keep up his strategy. He had used this formation because this place was thick with Yin energy and death energy, perfect for a ghost formation.

Besides imprisoning, he also gave it some lethality.

Although it lacked killing power on its own, it could attack through other means, though this was restricted to ghosts and fiends.

And Tang Jie just happened to have ghosts on hand.

Tang Jie waved his hand, and those Shamblers he had tamed emerged.

Tang Jie made several hand signs and then pointed at the Shamblers. "Parade of a Hundred Ghosts, go!"

Huang Yue was aghast. "The Parade of a Hundred Ghosts? Tang Jie, you would break the taboo and use a ghost-controlling spell? Any user of ghost spells will be punished by the entire world!"

"I just have to make sure no one finds out, no?" Tang Jie coldly replied. He thrust out his hands, and a sinister wind blew in the formation, carrying with it furious roars as countless ghosts flew out, real mixed with fake.

At the same time, the several dozen Shamblers charged at Elders Gold and Silver.

While these Shamblers had average strength, they had tough and fierce bodies, and when coupled with all the other ghosts Tang Jie had released, this place was soon filled with wailing as Elders Gold and Silver hastily tried to defend themselves.

Meanwhile, Tang Jie swung his saber at Huang Yue over and over, using the unique space of the Yellow Springs Prison Formation to flit around like a ghost and causing Huang Yue to scurry around like a rat.

But he was still Shi Wunian's disciple, and even the worst of Shi Wunian's disciples was still the disciple of a True Lord. As he focused entirely on defense, he turned out to have quite a lot of tricks. He used various spell arts and threw out art relics like they were on sale, and Tang Jie was momentarily unable to kill him.

This left him rather speechless.

Huang Yue seemed to realize something, and he savagely laughed. "True Person Gui and that body cultivator, even those beans, aren't here, right? Yes, yes, since you snuck in as Qian Yingchen, you couldn't bring too much that belonged to Tang Jie. That's why you don't have anything except that golden saber, right? With only that, don't even think about trying to kill me. And the more time I buy, the more likely it is that other people will come upon this place. Hahaha, you can't kill me, Tang Jie!"

Tang Jie sighed. "You're too confident. It's just that something has happened over by my original body's side, so he hasn't had time to turn his attention to this side."

"What did you say?" Huang Yue was stunned.

In the darkness, Tang Jie's eyes gleamed. "I said that you're dead."

A belt of saber energy flew out.

Huang Yue was going to dodge as always, but he found that he couldn't.

This saber was like a sun shining over the world, completely filling this space and blinding him.

"This is…" Huang Yue gazed at Tang Jie's saber in shock.

The saber energy grew larger and larger before him, until it completely engulfed his body.

At that moment, he felt his body turning light.

His life force poured out of him like floodwaters rushing out of a dam.

Crimson filled his world.

That belt of saber energy remained as glorious as ever.

"Saber intent…" he mumbled.

His head spun in the air and crashed to the ground in a cloud of dust.