Aspiring to the Immortal Path
chapter-615

The Pale Cloud Flame upon the statue seemed to sense the threat of Tang Jie's outreached hand, and it suddenly expanded, the flames turning fierce. One could even see countless giant beasts of flame within it, glaring at Tang Jie and seemingly ready to rush out and do battle with him at any time.

This sudden development dumbfounded everyone in the reception hall. Until now, the Pale Cloud Flame had always been an object of veneration, and no one had ever seen it react like this.

Tang Jie chuckled. "Even your master doesn't want you anymore, so why resist? It would be better to just obediently follow me."

A ball of flame emerged from the end of his right hand.

The moment the flame appeared, it turned into a little bird that happily flapped in the air like a little fire spirit.

When this firebird appeared, the tense Pale Cloud Flame immediately relaxed.

The firebird flew up to the sacred flame, flew three circles around it, and let out a cry. The Pale Cloud Flame immediately dwindled and began to merge with the firebird.

The firebird was created from the Pale Cloud Flame, and it naturally attracted all flames, and as these flames had come from the same source, the attraction was even stronger. Thus, while stealing the sacred flame was difficult for anyone else, it was as easy as could be for Tang Jie.

As the Pale Cloud Flame surged into the firebird, the firebird trilled and flapped its wings and grew larger and larger.

At this moment, a powerful will emerged from the flame, exerting a pressure on everyone's minds.

"Who dares to be so bold as to touch the sacred flame!" a majestic voice resounded in everyone's minds.

The Flame Celestial Sovereign!

This was the will of the Flame Celestial Sovereign. It turned out that he had left a sliver of his will in the Pale Cloud Flame.

Everyone cried out and prostrated before the domineering majesty of the Flame Celestial Sovereign.

Only Tang Jie remained standing. Having once battled with the will projection of the Guangfa Celestial Sovereign, he had no fear of the will of the Flame Celestial Sovereign. Sneering, he said, "So what if you're the Flame Celestial Sovereign? You think a sliver of your will can do anything to me?"

"Arrogant!" a dignified voice rang out.

The Pale Cloud Flame stopped merging with the firebird, and the remaining flame swelled and began to radiate searing waves of heat. The dancing flames formed into a face—the face of the Flame Celestial Sovereign.

The moment this face appeared, it opened its mouth and spat out a tongue of flame at Tang Jie.

The flame howled at Tang Jie like a dragon.

Tang Jie simply snapped his fingers, upon which the firebird trilled and opened its mouth, sucking in that flame dragon, even burping in satisfaction.

A little firebird naturally wasn't as strong as the Flame Celestial Sovereign, but this was only a sliver of his will, far away from matching the firebird.

"Bastard!" The Flame Celestial Sovereign furiously roared upon seeing his attack devoured.

With this roar, the people in the Celestial Flame Pagoda felt like thousands of needles were jabbing into their heads, and they covered their heads and moaned.

The Flame Celestial Sovereign had decided to use a Divine Will attack, not caring about the cost. This Divine Will attack was so powerful that its aftereffects left bystanders in unbearable pain, let alone Tang Jie.

But Tang Jie was fearless, and as he suffered the Divine Will attack, he shook open the Mountain River State Diagram, from which emerged his original body.

The original body and avatar merged, and with a roar, he endured this Divine Will attack.

Tang Jie was one soul sharing two bodies, each of which had developed on their own. When they merged, there was still one soul, but the combined body was much more powerful, so the Flame Celestial Sovereign had not only failed to wound him, he had greatly weakened his sliver of will in the process.

Seizing this chance, Tang Jie raised his head, a crimson flame burning in his eyes as he chuckled. "That really does have a kick to it, but I need to see what else you're capable of!"

After merging, Tang Jie was influenced by the fierce and savage personality of the original body, making his tone more brazen and arrogant. And the original body was like this because he cultivated the Parting Classic. It wasn't strange for a cultivator to have their personality twisted and warped by the arts they cultivated, and the original body was just one of many. For this reason, the unaffected avatar was closer to his original self. But regardless of which body it was, they had the same soul, so there was no problem with merging. There might have been biological and psychological effects, but they didn't reach to the soul.

Merging would create a mixture of the original body's brashness and the avatar's meticulousness.

As Tang Jie spoke, he swung a fist at that giant face of flame.

The Flame Celestial Sovereign's will was basically spent after that attack, and it had no means of fending off Tang Jie's attack and was blasted apart by Tang Jie's punch. The Pale Cloud Flame split into countless small balls of flame, which turned into fire cranes, fire dragons, fire phoenixes, and other such fire creatures, all of them howling and screeching.

"Seize!" Tang Jie shouted.

His fist had blasted apart the Flame Celestial Sovereign's will so that he could take control of the Pale Cloud Flame.

The firebird cried out, and the flame creatures began to fly toward it, and the firebird's body quickly grew to the size of an adult bird.

"Seeking death!" The last remnants of the Flame Celestial Sovereign crazily howled, and under his control, the Pale Cloud Flame twisted and writhed as he let out his most enraged roar.

"Noisy!" Tang Jie callously said, slapping that ball of flame. But rather than scattering the flame, he swatted the ball of flame toward the mouth of the firebird.

The Flame Celestial Sovereign's will sensed that something was wrong, but it was too late.

The firebird opened its mouth wide and swallowed up the flame along with the remnants of the Flame Celestial Sovereign's will.

The firebird immediately shrieked, great torrents of flame rolling off it. While its body did not grow any larger, it began to radiate an immense pressure.

"Keee!" the firebird excitedly cheered.

"Oh, it upgraded," Tang Jie smiled.

Devouring the Flame Celestial Sovereign's will had made the firebird much more intelligent and had also greatly increased its ability to control fire.

It extended its neck and pecked a few times, eating up the scattered embers of the Pale Cloud Flame, after which it then turned to the other ball of flame on the statue: the Deicide Flame.

The Deicide Flame could burn away all things, and while it was inferior to the Pale Cloud Flame in terms of transformation, it surpassed it in terms of pure power. Only someone who had entered the Dao of Fire like the Flame Celestial Sovereign or someone unkillable like the Blood River Lord could subdue such a flame without painstaking effort. Thus, even an intelligent flame monster might not be able to subdue this flame.

Tang Jie's original plan was to first take the Pale Cloud Flame to increase his chances of taking the Deicide Flame by a few percentage points.

Now that the firebird had devoured the Flame Celestial Sovereign's will, it had clearly advanced in its Dao. But after looking at the Deicide Flame, it turned around and disappeared into Tang Jie's body.

Tang Jie was startled, thinking that the firebird had realized that it was no match for the Deicide Flame and given up on it. But a moment later, it appeared in his Spiritual Space, shaking its wings and then returning to its nest, after which the nest turned into a cocoon-like spark.

The cocoon-like spark covered the firebird and began to spin in the air, flames spurting out from the openings. Flames were once more sent rippling through the Spiritual Space, and the Spirit Sea was boiled into steam. As his spiritual energy was rapidly consumed, the spark once more began to condense.

Tang Jie realized that the spark had leveled up again, but rather than one that he controlled, it was one that the firebird controlled.

The spark grew stronger and stronger, and finally, a fiery-red, slightly transparent cocoon appeared above Tang Jie's Spirit Sea. Even with his inner sight, Tang Jie couldn't peer into it.

A moment later, the firebird flew out from the cocoon, as cute and small as ever. The firebird had shrunk back to a small bird, but it now had three rainbow-colored crest feathers.

After lightly jumping around a few times, the fire spirit emerged from Tang Jie's body and charged at the Deicide Flame again.

Flying above it, the firebird began to suck in the Deicide Flame. As that divine flame of High Antiquity that nobody dared to touch entered its stomach, its belly swelled as if something was about to explode. The firebird opened its mouth and spat out a fierce flame that instantly set the ceiling of the reception hall ablaze.

The firebird fanned its mouth with its wing as if trying to say that this had been a rather spicy meal. Only then did it fly back to Tang Jie.

Tang Jie immediately felt an immense heat welling up within his body, almost melting him into a puddle. He looked at the spark in his Spirit Sea and saw that the blue Deicide Flame was seeping out of the spark, radiating intense light and heat that had the just-calmed Spirit Sea seething once more.

Tang Jie realized then why the fire spirit wanted to level up the spark. Without this upgrade, the Deicide Flame would have turned him into a charred duck.

Even with the spark's suppression, the Deicide Flame's shocking heat was still too much for Tang Jie to bear, and he almost cried out in pain.

At this moment, Tang Jie saw the eyelids of the Flame Celestial Sovereign's statue move.

Tang Jie thought he was just seeing things at first, but then he saw the eyes slowly open.

Not good!

Tang Jie immediately knew that he was in trouble.

The Flame Celestial Sovereign had probably sent down a projection.

Although a projection was still much weaker than the original, the problem was that the Flame Celestial Sovereign was watching and could provide the projection a constant stream of energy, not like with the will, which was done for the moment it ran out of energy.

Tang Jie immediately turned to run.

But rather than running out of the pagoda, he ran to the higher floors.

At the same time, the eyes fully opened, and a cracking came from the head.

In the past, he would have been able to manifest himself much faster, but the Pale Cloud Flame had been stolen, and he had lost his usual host. Relying on the statue was much slower.

As it watched Tang Jie run, the statue threw its head back and roared in fury.

"Audacious junior! Death to those who steal my divine flame!"

With great difficulty, the Flame Celestial Sovereign raised an arm and swung it through the air.