Chapter 327 - 324: A Hundred Years Pass in an Instant

Chapter 327: Chapter 324: A Hundred Years Pass in an Instant

At Layman Yu Duan’s words, the members of the Righteous Path immediately breathed a sigh of relief.

That’s right. With the hundred-year lifespan limit, so what if Dongfang Wuji wasn’t dead?

Because of this world’s hundred-year lifespan limit, almost everyone calculated their own natural lifespan.

After all, no matter how long one lived, they could never surpass the century-long limit.

And precisely because lifespans could be calculated, they had naturally made their own estimations about Dongfang Wuji’s.

Ever since the legend of "One Qi, Two Thousand Six Hundred Armors Broken" from over a decade ago, there had been no new tales of Dongfang Wuji in the martial world, not even a rumor.

They had all estimated the Demon Sect Leader’s lifespan, figuring she only had about a decade left. If she were still alive and well, it was impossible for her to have remained silent for so many years.

After holding back for more than a decade, they had roughly calculated that Dongfang Wuji’s end was near, which was why they finally prepared to besiege Bright Summit.

Looking at the Demon Sect Leader before them, who seemed incapable of even caring for herself, the hearts of the Righteous Path members, which had been lodged in their throats, finally settled.

Although some of the Sect Leaders present were also in their sixties or seventies.

By relying on their life force, they could easily maintain their youthful appearance until the very end. Each one could be described as handsome and dashing.

But this Dongfang Wuji before them couldn’t even maintain her own appearance. She already had the look of death about her. How much of her peak strength could she possibly have left?

Facing the stares of the Righteous Path, Yang Xiao explained coldly:

"Eastern Sect Leader’s achievements are divine. Though her end is near, she has successfully comprehended the Qiankun Great Shift to its highest level, the 7th Floor. She has now stepped into the Half-Step Immortal Realm, where formlessness surpasses form."

"Though her life is ending and her mind is scattered, she is only lucid for the time it takes an incense stick to burn each day."

"But that’s more than enough to deal with a pack of hypocrites like you!"

’Half-Step Immortal?’ At these words, the expressions of the Righteous Path members froze.

But in the next moment, He Chong had already leaped high into the air, her body transforming into a blazing inferno as she charged toward Dongfang Wuji.

"What a load of crap. An Immortal is an Immortal. There’s no such thing as a ’half-step.’ Try living past a hundred first."

As she spoke, her body transformed into a five-meter-tall figure of fire, and she slammed her right arm downward.

The air erupted with a violent surge as a Fire Fist, burning at tens of thousands of degrees, smashed down toward the crown of Dongfang Wuji’s head.

Several of the Demon Sect Grandmasters had already retreated, leaving Dongfang Wuji alone, sitting vacantly in her wheelchair.

The punch was like a falling star. The intense astral wind it generated swept out, pressing a fist-shaped crater several meters deep into the ground.

Yet the wheelchair carrying Dongfang Wuji remained perfectly still, like a lone skiff crossing the vast ocean.

BOOM!

A hum like the clang of metal rang out.

He Chong felt as if her right fist had struck black iron, and her entire body was thrown backward.

But as she retreated, she felt a murderous intent fill the space around her.

In an instant, a chill spread from within He Chong’s body. She stared in astonishment at her own Blazing Demon God physique.

Across her five-meter-tall fiery form, more than a dozen attacks—cuts from sabers, chops from axes, strikes from fists and feet, and jabs from palms and fingers—overwhelmed her.

In a flash, her body was severed into several pieces.

All sorts of wounds—a slice at the waist, a decapitating blow, severed hands, a blasted chest—covered her body, and her massive, several-meter-tall form instantly exploded.

The largest chunk of flesh reformed into a human shape mid-air, her face deathly pale as she retreated.

In a single exchange, she was instantly defeated. Her Heart Image had been greatly depleted; a few more hits like that and she wouldn’t be able to maintain her elemental form.

Meanwhile, a muffled grunt came from the side as blood splattered from the void.

Layman Yu Duan, who had been attempting a sneak attack, reappeared from his invisible state.

Clutching his right arm, from which a large chunk of flesh had been torn, he said in disbelief, "What is this Demon Technique?!"

Yes, in the eyes of the Righteous Path, this was nothing short of a Demon Technique.

From beginning to end, Dongfang Wuji had sat there in her wheelchair, vacant and unaware, without moving her body in the slightest.

Yet in a single clash, they had been defeated.

"It’s the Qiankun Great Shift..." The divine light in Wudang’s Zhang Yuanqiao’s eyes dimmed as she spoke with gravity. "I’m afraid she truly has comprehended the 7th Floor of the Qiankun Great Shift."

"Sect Leader Zhang, what does the Qiankun Great Shift do?" one of the Righteous Path members asked in a panic.

"The first two floors of the Qiankun Great Shift allow one to shift their Heart Image, letting their qi flow endlessly in a perpetual cycle of One Qi."

"The third and fourth floors allow one to shift force, redirecting an enemy’s attack back at them through that cycle of force."

"As for the fifth and sixth floors, one can shift illusions, achieving a state of ’no sword in hand, but a sword in the heart.’"

Xuanxu sighed softly. "Years ago, when the imperial court besieged Dongfang Wuji, she faced the grand army empty-handed. But afterward, the bodies of the imperial guards were found with all manner of wounds—from sabers, spears, swords, and halberds."

"Clearly, the Dongfang Wuji of back then could already shift illusion into reality."

"But even the sixth floor could never achieve what we’re seeing now. Could the legendary seventh floor—the realm where formlessness surpasses form—truly exist?"

As Xuanxu finished speaking, the hearts of the Demon Dao members swelled with excitement, while the members of the Righteous Path felt a rising terror.

The absolute pinnacle of Martial Dao techniques!

"Formlessness surpasses form" in the truest sense!

This wasn’t the kind of "formlessness" that required you to act to break an opponent’s move.

This was a formlessness that killed the enemy invisibly while one stood perfectly still!

She was barely conscious, unable to control her own body, yet she effortlessly repelled her foes from a wheelchair.

It was the stuff of legends!

Perhaps not even a true Immortal could do such a thing.

For a moment, everyone looked at the stooped figure in the wheelchair, but what they saw was a colossal giant of the Martial Dao.

"HAHAHAHAHA! It seems you finally realize you’re powerless to turn the tide." Wei Yixiao laughed maniacally. "But it’s too late now. Don’t even think about escaping."

In the next moment, the members of the Demon Sect knelt on one knee before Dongfang Wuji in her wheelchair and proclaimed:

"We welcome the Sect Leader’s returning spirit! Aid us in eradicating this evil and defeating the masters of the righteous sects!"

As they spoke, Dongfang Wuji’s cloudy eyes gradually cleared, and a whisper escaped her drooling mouth. "Masters... Where are the masters..."

As she finished speaking, her eyes became completely lucid, sharp as a hawk’s, and she stared at the members of the Righteous Path before her.

In that instant, everyone’s heart clenched. It was the deathly illusion of being targeted by a vicious python.

At the same time, the leading Grandmasters of the Demon Sect looked at the eight enemy Grandmasters with malicious smiles.

’This is bad. The Demon Dao has the upper hand. Everyone, fight with me!’ Xuanxu thought. A five-meter-tall phantom of a Buddha materialized around his body.

But in the next instant, the Golden Lion King let out a furious roar and rapidly transformed into a giant, manticore-like beast.

Its size was in no way inferior to Xuanxu’s phantom, and it lunged proactively toward him.

In the next moment, Yang Xiao sneered as his body split into seven, his gaze locking onto He Chong and He Miao of the Kunlun Sect in the distance.

A black bolt of lightning shot past him, accompanied by a sinister laugh. "My power is a bit lacking, so I’ll take care of the small fry below the Grandmaster level."

As the words fell, the White-Eyebrowed Eagle King, who had been gathering power, lunged toward Guan Weiliang of the Kongtong Sect, his right claw poised to strike.

Instantly, it was soldier against soldier, king against king. The four Dharma Kings and one Vice-Envoy tied down five of the Righteous Path’s Grandmasters.

As for the remaining three, cold sweat beaded on their backs as they stared into Dongfang Wuji’s cloudy eyes.

Even in a three-on-one situation, the pressure they felt was greater than what the other five were facing combined.

Time seemed to freeze for a mere instant before the two sides clashed. An unprecedentedly brutal battle erupted atop Bright Summit.

When the Righteous Path members halfway up the mountain heard the commotion from the summit, they began howling and charged toward the top.

...

「Meanwhile, inside the Qiankun Qi Bag.」

Fang Can let out a light yawn, having just woken up.

’I’ve slept long enough. Time to get out,’ Fang Can thought, lightly probing forward with his right fist.

He immediately felt his hand touch an invisible, intangible wall.

’The internal space of a Sacrificial Artifact? How much power will it take to shatter it?’

Fang Can mused to himself. Without the ability to teleport, the only way to break through this space was with pure, brute force.

After all, the internal spaces of these Sacrificial Artifacts weren’t as stable as the real world. A Second Turn spatial Sacrificial Artifact could be forcefully broken open by the brute force of a Third or Fourth Turn Martial Artist.

Although the power of Martial Artists in this world was weakened, the same was true for these Sacrificial Artifacts. Therefore, he just needed to exhibit a level of power that exceeded what the artifact could withstand.

He assessed the power accumulating in his body. Since he was in total darkness with no sunlight, his physical body wasn’t receiving any enhancement.

’There might not be a real sun, but what about the sun in my heart?’ Fang Can thought. Within his sea of consciousness, a giant sun pulsed with blinding light.

Before long, a faint glow actually appeared on the surface of Fang Can’s skin, illuminating the five-meter-wide space around him.

As his body began to shine, his muscles, influenced by a placebo effect, began to surge with power, section by section, like a primordial beast awakening from a deep slumber.

"Using the light of my mind, I’ve boosted my strength to roughly the level it would be at sunrise in the real world."

But his intuition told him it still wasn’t enough.

The power he currently possessed was far from sufficient to break the Sacrificial Artifact’s spatial lock.

’Tch... So even the power of a conventional Fourth Turn isn’t enough to break it?’ A flicker of desire to conquer flashed in Fang Can’s eyes.

The more challenging it is, the harder it is to break through, the more satisfying it is to crush it!

"In that case, I’ll just have to burn my lifespan."

In the next moment, a jade pendant carved with a dragon and a phoenix appeared in Fang Can’s palm.

It was the compensation gift he had received from Su Xin Zhai—the Fourth Turn Sacrificial Artifact, the [Dragon and Phoenix Unity Pendant]!

Its effect, upon use, was to make a person of the opposite sex fall unconditionally in love with him, but it would shorten his lifespan by one hundred years.

Although it shortened his lifespan by a hundred years, that century didn’t just vanish into thin air.

According to the descriptions from Xi Xing and the others in bed that night, using it caused one’s body to skip forward a hundred years in time.

If used by certain Martial Artists who grew stronger with age, their lifespan would be drastically reduced, but their strength would increase immensely.

Fang Can was currently at the Second Turn, with a lifespan of three hundred years. Losing a hundred years meant a third of his life would be gone.

’Still, compared to a hundred years of life, it’s way more satisfying to just smash this wall of yours with pure violence.’

In his arrogant state, Fang Can’s willful words echoed in his mind.