Chapter 422: Dharmadhatu (26)
“Why are you running?” In the air, azure spiritual light relentlessly chased down the white mist ahead of it. Xu Yangyi clutched his longsword, and although his voice was soft, it was loud enough for Floatingcloud to hear. “Didn’t you say I was an insect?”
“Weren’t you looking at me from another dimension?”
“Didn’t you cross the line to immortality?”
“Then what are you running for now?!”
“So stop!”
Floatingcloud didn’t utter a word, taking shelter in the destroyed palace as if his life depended on it.
“Ten Cardinals Purgatory!” Xu Yangyi’s qi billowed. As he waved his hand, ten purple fire-dragons madly rushed out! They cut through the sky, leaving behind scorched traces!
“Junior!!!” Floatingcloud finally spoke for the first time, his voice containing unmaskable fury!”
Alarm and anger intertwined. Floatingcloud had never expected that Xu Yangyi would actually see through his intent! In his struggle against the Dream Walker just now, Xu Yangyi had actually dared to brazenly attack him, who was Great Circle Foundation Establishment, with a middle Foundation Establishment cultivation!
Swoosh! Mist scattered all around, but the fire-dragons didn’t strike. Dipping their heads in midair, the charged back again!
“Dharma Eye Beholds Heaven And Earth!!!” The likeness of countless eyes formed from Floatingcloud’s scattering mist. They were covered with talismans. In the next moment, golden lights crisscrossed in the air to form a dense spirit net, and forcibly eviscerated Xu Yangyi’s Ten Cardinals Purgatory!
“Why don’t I dare act this way?!” Xu Yangyi yelled, “Take another of my moves!”
To seize advantage of Floatingcloud’s illness was to demand his life!
He wanted to stall Floatingcloud! In the same vein, he didn’t risk finding out if Rocjourney could seal the Dream Walker after it had been forcibly possessed. If Floatingcloud dealt with him, then he was creating an opportunity for the Dream Walker. If Floatingcloud dealt with the Dream Walker, then the Dream Walker was creating an opportunity for him!
Floatingcloud had dared to cheat them in stealing the heavens and exchanging the sun. Now was the time for him to pay the price!
“Pill Cauldron Is My Heart!” Xu Yangyi swiftly chained seals. Afterwards, his gaze became like lightning. “Myriad Spirits Suppression!!!”
Boom!!! All the eyeball clouds rapidly sunk. Soon, a wretched scream echoed from all the clouds!
“This… is an offensive spiritual-sense divine ability?! Dreg! You actually possess an offensive spiritual-sense divine ability?!”
“Well you’ve been injured by this dreg now! How does that feel? You, who poses as god, Daomaster Floatingcloud?” Xu Yangyi boomed with hearty laughter as he reared his head back. His figure approached even closer!
“Mongrel!!!” Floatingcloud shouted angrily, yet his cloudy form continued to retreat, rather than make a stand. He drifted again, but the distance between him and Xu Yangyi was already in firing range of divine abilities!
“If not for my current state… you would be nothing more than a maggot!” The sound of Floatingcloud’s grinding teeth sounded as he ran off. “You best say your prayers… that I lose to the Dream Walker’s hands! Otherwise… I will doom you to a death of a thousand cuts! An insect like you dares to obstruct my path to godhood!”
“Huff…” Xu Yangyi seemed to be brash, but he was in fact always extremely vigilant in his heart. “Alright… then take advantage of this moment right now and kill this insect. Or else… this insect is going to you chase you down and sting you to death.”
Floatingcloud was beyond furious!
He was Great Circle Foundation Establishment! His qi sea had been pierced by the evil disciple Zhang Guangyao, but after forcibly possessing over half of the Dream Water, he had relied on the peculiar to return to his summit! Still, in his current bodily state, he stopped seven or eight times out of ten!
Yet this middle Foundation Establishment insect had actually seized onto the opportunity! He wanted to turn his head and slap the other to death, but he couldn’t. He had no choice but to admit that Xu Yangyi was strong!
And not paying mind about the other was also out of the question! Xu Yangyi was like a mosquito catching the scent of blood, pursuing relentlessly without abandon!
Middle Foundation Establishment chased after Great Circle Foundation Establishment! And a Great Circle Foundation Establishment cultivator that had even forcibly possessed over half of a Dream Walker! If something like this was said, no one would believe it, but in this particular time and particular place, the situation had become reality!
“I… will let you live… After I fully possess the Dream Walker, I will make sure you live… Live… in this eternal nightmare without seeing the light of day!!! I will make it so that you will never reincarnate!!!”
His heart’s rage nearly burned the heavens!
The Dream Walker also seemed to feel it… Floatingcloud could sense that its counterattack was intensifying in his spiritual sense! To the extent that it was already making an all-out effort!
What was he to do?!?!?!
Who to resolve first?
He virtually had no room to advance or retreat!
Why… Why did he actually have to be discovered? This insignificant middle Foundation Establishment cultivator was actually even craftier than he was! He killed two birds with one stone by stalling for time and scaring everyone off by making an example of Bladevessel. But unexpectedly because of the Dream Walker’s struggle, Xu Yangyi had decisively launched a revolt!
How in the world had Xu Yangyi discovered that something was off from a single shudder?!
A hundred thoughts roamed to and fro in his mind, yet he was unable to find an answer.
“Heavenly Opening… Fourth Erosion!” Xu Yangyi wasn’t as fast as Floatingcloud, and Floatingcloud gradually widened the gap. Xu Yangyi’s gaze flashed, and he weaved seals at a blazing pace. In a twinkling, endless jade-blue fire suddenly glittered all around him!
Spreading through the sky to touch the earth, the flames were like summertime fireflies, projecting an azure-green color in the sky! Right now, he couldn’t afford to let Floatingcloud escape! For even half a breath, he couldn’t give Floatingcloud the opportunity to gasp for air!
“Devour Spirit!!!”
The supreme spirit stone was already gripped in his hand. Likewise, this move poured into the Animus Armament!
Xu Yangyi dared to use the first four erosions, but unless it was the final moment he absolutely wouldn’t activate the Heavenly Opening Great Explosion!
Swoosh… A golden manifestation appeared behind Xu Yangyi, the shadow of an androgynous figure that was fully garbed in palace dress and a golden cotton cap on their head.
Star-Deity Chen! [1]
Of the Five Star-Deities, four stars shimmered. Xu Yangyi didn’t see, but after these four stars fluxed into his sword, four openwork designs shockingly appeared, those of the Five Star-Deities!
And at the same time, the golden light of his longsword flourished even more! Only the remaining final two-sixths of the blade wasn’t fully shining!
BOOM! Inexhaustible jade-green flame morphed into a green tide! As if it toppled mountains and overturned seas, the tide rushed straight to Floatingcloud!
“You scoundrel, thou dares!?!?!?!” Floatingcloud’s bellow shook the world! He felt monumental humiliation!
A middle Foundation Establishment cultivator was chasing after his back and attacking him like he was a target! And he couldn’t even attack!
Furthermore… he could sense that this move was strong! Very strong! Threefold stronger than the previous Ten Cardinals Purgatory! It truly was enough to injure him!
Xu Yangyi had pressured him into a dead zone!
“I’m! Going! To! Kill! You!!!” Feelings of sullenness and violent rage in his heart ultimately became a scream. He soared right to the skies!
Bang! White fog went motionless.
An expanse of white fog condensed into an old hand and fiercely resisted the divine ability in front of it.
It had no light, nor did it bring any unusual phenomenon. Like so, it was dull and ordinary, yet the entire tide completely vanished.
“Great Circle Foundation Establishment!” A droning sound came from Xu Yangyi’s mind, and he quickly fell back a hundred meters! He gravely observed all the fog and Floatingcloud’s solidifying figure.
Floatingcloud’s expression was as usual, without a ripple like an old well. Regardless, anyone could sense the boundless hidden rage below the other’s apparent tranquility.
Core Formation could not be disgraced, and Foundation Establishment could not be disrespected!
Great Circle Foundation Establishment was already the bridge established to Core Formation. Yet moments ago, a middle Foundation Establishment cultivator had chased Floatingcloud in a wild flight through the sky.
Even he couldn’t toss this person aside.
“It seems… that I am still too soft-hearted.” Floatingcloud looked up and sucked in heavily, seemingly ordinary. Because of extreme anger, however, his facial muscles were twitching. His ruined and tattered clothing, along with his hair and beard, was dancing freely of the wind.
“I do not know how you figured it out… Indeed, you guessed correctly, and your time of attack was also quite precise. I truly haven’t forcibly possessed the Dream Walker in its entirety. The present moment between me and it is a crucial time.” His icy gaze looked to Xu Yangyi and revealed unending killing intent. “However, you guessed one thing wrong.”
“And that…” In the midst of his speech, Floatingcloud’s entire body expanded, and infinite golden light rapidly converged over his entire figure, causing him to turn hazy. Afterwards… the neighboring thousand meters of space uniformly trembled!
From space, a hair-raising spiritual force rocketed into existence!
“This!” A great journey seemed to rest on Rocjourney’s back, and he abruptly paused. Across from him, the puppet was also the same, as if an invisible hand had pressed down on it!
As Bladevessel and Moonless crossed divine abilities, they both came to a standstill because of this unexpected occurrence.
“Great Circle Foundation Establishment…” Incredulously, the bearded Rocjourney looked to the sky.
Below were two demonbeasts. Above was a golden sea. Infinite golden light gathered at lightning speed, and the tide-like spiritual pressure of Great Circle Foundation Establishment from inside the light savagely raked through the entire battlefield!
Crash… Crash… Supremely horrific qi unexpectedly made the sound of crashing ocean tides in the air, as if it were solid!
To the ocean, the sounds of wind and swirling tides go, and to the rivers, do rows of clouds and blankets of rain come in between! [2]
Below, Bladevessel came to a sudden halt and quickly looked to the sky. His gaze flashed complicatedly.
The white wolf also paused. It wasn’t that they didn’t want to move, but the sudden explosion of Great Circle oppressive might made them feel as if they were wearing chains that were ten thousand catties heavy. In a twinkling, the were rendered immobile.
Swish… Swish… In the twinkling of golden light, a foot wearing a cloth shoe stepped out three seconds later. Then, a middle-aged man’s head followed. His face was spotlessly pure like white jade. He had a mustache that led into a long beard, his eyes were like bright stars, and he had a full head of black hair.
He was dressed in a vermilion Daoist robe. On the surface, black and white were used to outline a large image of the Eight Trigrams on his back. He had a horsetail whisk strapped to his back, and his hands were empty. His clothes dancing freely of the wind, he drifted out from the light.
“This… is Floatingcloud’s true body!” Moonless exhaled coldly. “He… He decided to handle junior brother first…”
“Fellow Daoist Wolfbane… pushed him too ruthlessly… With his dignity of a Great Circle Foundation Establishment cultivator, and likewise faced with a life-death choice, he chose… to settle things with him first…”
The scene was deathly still.
Only the middle-aged Daoist seemed calm, but his entire body was in fact drumming and sweeping forth with a spiritual pressure akin to raging waves!
He stood there, yet didn’t seem to be there. One couldn’t even see his actual appearance with a glance. The height of qi gathered caused him to resemble a black hole in the plaza. Apart from the shiver-inducing qi, nothing was visible.
“I didn’t expect… that I would have to mobilize my true body before the final step,” he sighed ruefully. With matters come to a head, he was on the contrary relaxed. He dimly shot a look at Xu Yangyi. “It appears that a dreg of a cultivator such as you still wouldn’t be able to reach my step, even if you studied scriptures until your hair turned white.”
“I allowed you an inch, but you dared to advance a foot. I allowed you a foot, but you dared to advance ten feet. Your dog courage embraces the heavens. Have you weighed your own importance?!” His final remark suddenly became an explosive roar, and tide-like qi rushed straight at Xu Yangyi!
“Urk!” A heavy groan sounded. With Floatingcloud’s roar, Xu Yangyi was squarely pushed back fifty meters to his surprise!
So strong!
The muscle of Xu Yangyi’s sword hand wildly pulsed. It was unknown if it was due to excitement. Excitement in confronting a Great Circle Foundation Establishment cultivator that was on the verge of assailing Core Formation, or because of the absolute crisis facing him.
Floatingcloud’s true body had manifested. The man was certainly in dire straits!
“One move.” Floatingcloud slowly raised a finger. “One move will fetch your dog life.”
“I will have you know… that the disparity between middle Foundation Establishment and Great Circle Foundation Establishment is that of heaven and earth.”
1. Star-Deity Chen, Mercury in traditional Chinese astronomy.
2. So to my best guess, I believe this another poem (or modified poem) from Li Bai.