Chapter 150: Ten Thousand Miles Round Trip in a Single Breath
The sword rose, the sword fell, and a blizzard raged.
Han Qing's sword, like the wind and snow of a winter plain, entered that starlight with extreme coldness and harshness.
Countless clear cracking sounds rang out as countless stars were split open, cut to pieces.
Those stars were not real, only condensations of starlight. Though shattered by Han Qing's blizzard sword, they did not truly fall apart but instead became countless fragments gleaming with starlight.
In the night sky before the divine path, countless traces of meteors appeared, each with an extremely tiny fragment of starlight at its forefront.
On the water in the stone flats and channels, countless streaks of starlight with trailing tails also appeared, looking exceptionally beautiful.
Those densely packed, minuscule meteors pierced through the violent blizzard and landed on Han Qing.
Pat, pat, pat, pat—like sudden rain, like wind and sand beating against a tent. The surface of that ancient armor was instantly covered with countless tiny wounds.
The dust in the gaps of the armor was shaken away, and the rust on the armor's surface was gradually knocked off by the starlight fragments, faintly revealing some crimson colors.
"Useless coward!"
Seeing that the Star Gazer had used starlight to enter the blizzard and gain the upper hand in the field, Endless Blue could no longer wait for her husband to make the first move. With a low, resentful shout, she swiftly rushed over.
Accompanying her figure as she arrived below the divine path was a towering wave hundreds of feet high—icy seawater, a will of utter stillness and death.
In a battle at the sacred domain level, to win, one could not hold back at all. The moment she struck, she used her most powerful Dao technique!
Boom! Like thunder, the sound of crashing waves rose within the Heavenly Book Mausoleum. Endless blue waves surged toward Han Qing!
Han Qing's aged face showed no change in emotion, like an old tree root that had been cut down for centuries.
The expression in his eyes also did not change, like an old well that had been dry for centuries.
Facing the combined assault of the strongest techniques from two peerless experts, he still held his sword and chopped straight forward.
His sword came from the northern snow plains, cold and murderous to the extreme.
The blizzard howled fiercely, trying to devour those countless tiny meteors and freeze the towering waves solid.
Could he do it?
...
...
The world before the divine path of the Heavenly Book Mausoleum was divided by three sublime auras, presenting three miraculous scenes.
The night sky was split into three parts: one side filled with meteors, one side filled with wind and snow, and one side filled with blue waves.
In the distance, a small red flower appeared and disappeared among the wind and snow, the stardust, and the raging waves, as vivid as before.
Countless snowflakes fell, freezing the channel water, only to be broken again by the tiny meteors. Then, countless waves of deathly still water crashed over.
The rust marks on Han Qing's armor were completely wiped away by those small meteors, then washed clean by the endless seawater, becoming extremely bright.
The armor's surface reflected the complex light of starlight and seawater mixed together, coating the night sky above the Heavenly Book Mausoleum with a faint, deep color.
With two muffled thuds, a mark from a horsetail whisk appeared on the bright armor's chest, and beside it, a star-shaped pattern about an inch deep nearly pierced through.
Blood slowly seeped from the gaps in the armor, instantly frozen into blood blossoms by the low temperature, like blood coral.
Facing the strongest attacks of two sacred domain experts simultaneously, no matter how profound Han Qing's cultivation was, he was forced into a disadvantage, clearly entering a dangerous situation.
Yet, that small red flower behind the wind and snow, deep in the stardust, high above the blue waves, still swayed silently, clearly not intending to join the battle.
Don't Be Red suddenly looked up toward the peak of the Heavenly Book Mausoleum.
A hint of astonishment appeared in his calm, clear eyes.
Heavenly Sea Saint Empress stood at the peak of the Heavenly Book Mausoleum. No matter how fierce the battle below the divine path was, her expression did not change at all, and she didn't even glance at it.
Her gaze fell on an extremely distant place, tens of thousands of miles away.
Her soul was also tens of thousands of miles away.
By the stream beside the old temple in Xining Town, tens of thousands of miles away, that monk suddenly opened his eyes and looked across.
A night wind lightly brushed the treetops, also lifting the hem of the stunning woman's robe across the stream.
Heavenly Sea Saint Empress stood by the stream, yet seemed no longer there.
The monk frowned slightly, flicked his sleeve, and tossed the string of prayer beads in his hand into the stream.
With a plop, the beads fell into the stream but did not sink. Instead, they suddenly scattered into dozens of beads, shooting rapidly in all directions across the water.
The blood lotuses, swaying between the two auras, were struck by these Buddhist beads and moved violently, as if pulled by invisible ropes, drifting slowly and laboriously toward the opposite bank.
He sensed something, so he was willing to abandon his personal Dharma beads to lock the starlight around the stream and keep her soul here.
Heavenly Sea Saint Empress's lips curled slightly, revealing a mocking smile, and she also flicked her sleeve.
A gentle night wind fell on the stream's surface. The drifting blood lotuses could no longer advance, and the Buddhist beads scattered like stars on the water trembled for some unknown reason.
When the night wind stilled, she had already vanished by the stream.
...
...
Due to various considerations, the wilderness between the capital and Luoyang had few farmlands, mostly open plains.
In the deep autumn night, these plains, just drenched by a heavy rain, were extremely muddy and difficult to traverse, not much better than the great swamp northeast of White Emperor City.
To Daoist Ji, this was nothing.
After leaving the capital, he had been walking eastward. Before long, the outline of that majestic city could faintly be seen ahead.
But he did not continue forward. Instead, he stopped on the plain and glanced at the hourglass in his hand.
The upper half of the hourglass was nearly empty, the falling sand stream very thin, as if it might break at any moment.
He looked up at the night sky.
The sky, which should have been densely filled with stars, now showed not a single star, only endless blackness.
At the edge of the night dome, many fast-moving cloud wisps could faintly be seen, and only there could a trace of silver light be glimpsed.
Those night clouds constantly tore at each other, entangled, and combined, forming an increasingly clear picture with the darkness in the center.
It was an enormous black dragon, spanning the entire night sky, like a mountain range.
The edges of this black dragon shimmered with silver light, giving a particularly cold feeling.
Daoist Ji stood on the plain, looking at this dragon formed by the night sky, his expression turning grave.
Since the battle began, he had finally been located by Heavenly Sea Saint Empress.
He could even clearly sense that her soul was returning from tens of thousands of miles away, and that Heavenly Sea at the top of the Heavenly Book Mausoleum was also withdrawing her gaze.
If her gaze ultimately fell here, if her soul returned to her body, if she came here, then he would have no choice but to fight her head-on.
Even if she was now at her weakest in two hundred years, he still did not want to fight her directly.
Twenty years ago, he had already learned enough lessons.
A clear light seeped out from the depths of his Daoist robe.
This clear light was extremely sublime and holy, beyond description in mortal language.
His Daoist robe began to tremble slightly, especially at the cuffs.
With a tearing sound, the cuffs of his robe split, and more than a dozen extremely fine threads were pulled out by an invisible force.
In the night sky, more than a dozen cracks appeared on the body of the black dragon, clearly formed by Daoist magic, and the clear light shone from within.
...
...
Her soul returned from ten thousand miles away.
Heavenly Sea Saint Empress's phoenix eyes became even brighter.
She withdrew her gaze from the distance, not looking toward Luoyang, but toward her feet.
An extremely clear phoenix cry suddenly rang out within the Heavenly Book Mausoleum, echoing through the night dome!
This phoenix cry was so domineering that nothing else in heaven and earth dared to make a sound!
Heavenly Sea Saint Empress vanished before Chen Changsheng's eyes.
On the white divine path, two streaks of black light, like smoke and mist, suddenly appeared.
The edges of the black light cut through space, producing extremely sharp sounds.
Those were the phoenix's wings.
Heavenly Sea Saint Empress finally revealed her strongest form before the world.
Nothing could match her speed—neither sound, nor sight, nor even thought.
She did not go to Luoyang but, like a black bolt of lightning, landed on the stone flat below the divine path.
The dark phoenix wings fanned the night wind but thickened the darkness.
From the pitch-black night, a white, crystalline finger extended.
That finger calmly and irresistibly destroyed all the wind, snow, meteors, and seawater ahead, pointing toward the Daoist nun's brow.
That finger abruptly appeared in the Daoist nun's eyes.
Panic surged in Endless Blue's eyes. Her face, once considered clear and beautiful, twisted in shock and fear.
She screamed in terror, her robe trembling violently, stirring up wave-like ripples on the ground as she rapidly retreated.
At the same time, her horsetail whisk wildly danced before her, scattering wave after wave of deathly stillness.
But how could she evade that finger?
That finger was steady, calm, with no visible flame, yet it held the hottest temperature in the world—the true fire of the phoenix.
With hissing sounds, the deathly still waves were instantly vaporized into countless white mists, which quickly dispersed.
The layered ripples on the ground were instantly dried up and began to burn. The fire spread with incredible speed to Endless Blue's feet, and with a whoosh, ignited the hem of her Daoist robe!
That finger continued forward, calm and steady, yet immensely grand, as if even a thousand mountains and ten thousand rivers would have to yield.
Endless Blue watched the finger drawing closer, her face ashen, utterly despairing.
With a soft snap.
A small red flower appeared before Endless Blue's brow.
That small red flower was tender, its petals gently trembling in the night wind, vivid and bright. A few dewdrops could even be seen on the petals, still slightly wet.
That finger landed on the small red flower. The petals trembled slightly, and the dewdrops evaporated at a visible rate, but much slower than the earlier waves had dissipated.
The true fire of the Heavenly Phoenix could burn through everything in the world.
The petals gradually softened, then withered, looking particularly wilted.
Finally, with a puff, they dissipated into the night wind.
That finger also vanished at the same time, gone to who knows where.
Endless Blue looked toward a certain place and screamed, "Run!"
...
...
(Being sick with a cold really sucks. I want to curse.)