Aspiring to the Immortal Path
chapter-603

The unstoppable Bloodguard army was gone, just like that, leaving everyone stunned.

The development was so absurd that everyone was still trying to understand what had happened.

"Just… gone?" Hei Yan weakly asked.

"Gone," Liu Qianyi confirmed.

"Who killed them, then?" Shui Yao asked.

Liu Qianyi prettily smiled and cocked her head. She then answered, "I don't know either. The formation can only simulate according to our choices. It is both real and unreal. If you have to say that the Bloodguards were killed by someone, then I think you can say that the Bloodguards killed themselves. They made a choice, and the simulation formation gave them the corresponding fate. Everything that happened just now was the process of realizing this fate."

'The Bloodguards killed themselves'?

Everyone looked to the distance in confusion.

The raucous crowd had dispersed, that berserk energy hibernating once more.

The streets returned to peace and calm. The blood and bodies disappeared, and even the traces of battle gradually disappeared.

The city was changing before their eyes, time rapidly and very obviously flowing past.

They seemed to be standing in the river of time, watching new days come and go, people living their lives from dawn to dusk. That bloody battle went from the future to history, vanishing without a trace.

None of this could be described with words, or even comprehended, and their minds were filled with the fog of confusion.

Perhaps it really was as Liu Qianyi said, that they had killed themselves.

Liu Qianyi suddenly said, "To deal with the Bloodguards, I activated the simulation formation to the maximum extent, unleashing all of the power it had. Thus, after this, the formation will cease to exist. For everyone to be able to enter this formation is destiny, so you might as well use this opportunity to find your own destiny and also recover your spiritual energy and physical strength."

"'Find our own destiny'?" everyone muttered.

"Yes," Liu Qianyi replied. "Remember: every choice we make is connected to our future!"

Hei Yan shouted, "What about the Blood River Lord? Are we not fighting with him anymore?"

Liu Qianyi smiled. "This formulation simulates the secrets of the heavens and is bursting with secrets, containing an infinite world. Once you go in, you will come across many different encounters. It's not something that you can easily interact with."

Everyone then understood that they hadn't truly entered the simulation formation yet and were only on the perimeter.

They clapped their hands and smiled. "That's great!"

Tang Jie was also happy, for it seemed like this fight had an intermission for resting.

As Liu Qianyi had said, everyone was tired and needed time to recover. Searching for their destiny in the formation was killing two birds with one stone.

That Young Master Hua then asked, "You said it's not easily interacted with, but does that mean that it is possible to interact with it?"

"That will depend on your choices," Liu Qianyi replied. "The simulation formation is a place for simulating fate, which is the most mysterious and inscrutable thing. Anything can happen in the future, and anything can not happen…"

The mood turned solemn at these words.

After Liu Qianyi was done talking, everyone closed their eyes and began to meditate, sending their minds into the formation.

A few moments later, Tang Jie opened his eyes and found that he was no longer in the city, but atop a majestic mountain. Around him were other tall mountains, and floating around him were thick dark clouds. In the distance, he could make out a vast metropolis, aglow with light and alive with people, the embodiment of peace and prosperity.

There was no one around him. Those people he had fought alongside were gone, and even Yiyi had disappeared.

Tang Jie knew that everything starting from now would depend on his choices.

After some thought, Tang Jie muttered, "As a cultivator, I stand above the mortal dust, which is why I start from a mountain. Down below is the impure and secular world, and above is the heavens. Since I seek the Immortal path, I should go up."

He looked up at the sky and saw the clouds open up, revealing a spiraling black vortex. Through the vortex, he could see a ray of light that illuminated a heavenly court where countless Immortals chatted and laughed.

Tang Jie chuckled and began to fly toward the vortex.

He was midway when he heard someone calling out to him from below.

He looked back and saw Xu Miaoran standing there, holding Yiyi. She was shouting something at him, but he couldn't hear her.

Tang Jie was about to fly down when he saw the vortex begin to contract. If he went down to pick up Xu Miaoran and Yiyi, he wouldn't have time to enter the vortex.

Tang Jie naturally understood that the Xu Miaoran and Yiyi down below were illusions, but he also knew that everything he did could affect the future, so he couldn't make any decision lightly. Today's illusion might be tomorrow's most real truth.

After taking one last look at the vortex, he flew back down without further hesitation. He returned to the cliff, and just when he was about to sweep up Xu Miaoran and Yiyi, the two of them turned into two horned black devils that attacked Tang Jie.

Tang Jie was about to cut them down when he suddenly recalled Liu Qianyi's words: every choice they made was connected to their future.

He stopped his sword and put up his Formless Golden Body. Just as the devils were about to reach him, they suddenly turned back into Xu Miaoran and Yiyi and entered his embrace.

So it was the devils that had been illusions.

Was it saying that Xu Miaoran and Yiyi would turn into devils in the future?

Or was there another explanation?

Tang Jie didn't know.

He looked up and saw the vortex closing. In its very last moments, Tang Jie saw that heavenly court behind the vortex shatter into a million fragments and fly up to the heavens.

Dark clouds obscured the sky once more, all becoming quiet.

There was no more path to the heavens, but in the surrounding mountains, countless seated phantoms appeared, their forms blurry and indistinct.

The path to the heavens has been severed!

A voice resounded and echoed in Tang Jie's mind, banging at his heart.

Tang Jie shook his head. "No, this isn't the future I want to know."

He raised the Sovereign Blade and pointed it at the sky. "I seek the Great Dao, not to be some Immortal in the heavens. So long as the Great Dao exists, then there is a road. As for where this road leads, that's not important! Wherever I go, there is the Immortal path!"

Wherever I go, there is the Immortal path!

As he spoke, a thunderclap resounded through the heavens.

The entire world seemed to pale.

A gray and hazy color obscured the sky.

Xu Miaoran and Yiyi disappeared.

Tang Jie began to fly upward once more.

There was no vortex in the clouds, no path, but Tang Jie didn't care.

He just flew upward, higher and higher.

Suddenly, countless devils and fiends emerged from the clouds, charging at Tang Jie, and Tang Jie discovered that even the likes of Shi Wunian, the Blood River Lord, the Nine Disaster Fiend Monk, and the Flame Celestial Sovereign could be found among them. They let out enraged roars as they rushed at him, seemingly trying to stop his ascent.

Wielding the Sovereign Blade, Tang Jie fearlessly soared upward.

The Beast Refining Gate's Heng Wudi was first to charge in, and he was cut down by Tang Jie with one strike.

Next was Godhead Palace's Shi Wunian, who was cleaved in two by Tang Jie's blade.

Following him were the Flame Celestial Sovereign and the Nine Disaster Fiend Monk. Whoever it was, they were all killed in a single strike.

All these Titans had was their intimidating auras, lacking the resolve to halt his advance.

But when the Blood River Lord appeared before Tang Jie, just when Tang Jie was about to strike him down, the Blood River Lord shouted, "Tang Jie, becoming an Immortal is easy, but attaining the Dao is hard! I am bound to be one of those who stand in the way of your Immortal path!"

"Then you are bound to be killed by me!" Tang Jie callously replied, swinging his saber.

"No! This will not become reality!" the Blood River Lord howled.

At the same time, elsewhere in the simulation formation, the Blood River Lord, who stood before a vast sea of blood, suddenly cried out, "How could this be? How could this brat Tang Jie be capable of slaying me? Simulation formation, show me! I want to see how exactly he was able to kill me!"

The scene in front of him shifted, and a simulation played out before the Blood River Lord's eyes.

Upon seeing the very final scene, the Blood River Lord bellowed, "The sheath! So he was the one with the Immeasurable Sword's sheath and hilt! No wonder he didn't stop me from subduing the sword spirit! Bastard, bastard, bastard!"

In the simulation, the Blood River Lord saw himself refining the sword spirit, and then he saw Tang Jie raising the hilt and taking back control of the Immeasurable Sword, resulting in the key to the Treasure Paradise changing owners, upon which Tang Jie gathered together the sword spirits and easily slew him.

After his anger had passed, the Blood River Lord laughed. "You are too kind to me! If you hadn't activated this simulation formation to let me simulate the future, I would have never known that Tang Jie had the sword hilt. Since I now know, let me see how you try to use it to take my treasure from me now! My victory in this battle is certain! Hahaha!"

As he spoke, the Blood River Lord fell from the sky.

The formation simulated the future, but every person had only one opportunity.

Whether or not this future would actually take place, once the path was set, there was no going back to the start.

Everything seemed ordained by destiny. Because Tang Jie had killed a phantom of the Blood River Lord in his ascension, the Blood River Lord had sensed it and so had chosen to glimpse the near future.

But Tang Jie had chosen differently.

For him, this battle was just a small interlude on the long path of Immortality, not worth stopping and squandering this precious opportunity.

He wanted to glimpse the Heavenly Dao!

This was why he charged his way upward, killing all in his path.

The Sovereign Blade grew brighter and brighter in the process, larger and larger. Gradually, it became a mountain-cleaving axe, like the same divine weapon that had shattered the heavenly court.

"Open!" Tang Jie yelled, his axe shining with the most brilliant light, seeking to tear open the firmament.

The clouds broke apart, and the ray of light appeared once more.

The vortex reappeared, exerting a powerful pull that guided him upward.

Tang Jie felt this scene to be very familiar, as if he had seen it somewhere before.

After thinking for a while, Tang Jie suddenly shuddered in realization. "The Dream Pearl Lady painting!"

At this moment, in this vast mountain range covered in dark clouds, a vortex spiraled, and a single person ascended from the summit.

This was exactly what he had seen in his dream of the Pearl Lady.

Could it be…

As he realized something, a finger suddenly emerged from the vortex.

It was a pure white finger, like a pillar of the heavens. It extended out of the clouds, pierced through the vortex, and stabbed into Tang Jie.

Pulverizing his body in a single strike!