Chapter 661: A Leaf, A World
In the mortal realm, yet not of it—perhaps because the combatants had already transcended the bounds of the mortal world.
By the stream behind the old temple in Xining Town, the monk walked up to the Heavenly Sea Empress and pointed a finger at her brow.
As his finger advanced, the starlight falling from the night sky suddenly dimmed severalfold, then twisted, as if the starry sky itself had become a falsehood.
Spiritual power from a distant continent clashed directly with that wisp of divine soul from ten thousand li away, emitting invisible waves of unimaginable force.
The treetops, still in the night breeze, suddenly shattered. From the mountain peak shrouded in distant mist came countless sounds—the fearful low growls of demonic beasts, the panicked rustle of their flight, and cries of agony.
Countless fine bubbles erupted in the stream, surging everywhere as if it had come to a boil.
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The torrential rain over Luoyang City continued unabated, but the rain around the Daoist temple suddenly ceased. The puddles on the street, which had been leaping and churning as if boiling, grew eerily still, their surfaces sheathed in a thin layer of frost.
The aftershocks of the earthquake gradually subsided, yet the surrounding buildings kept collapsing.
This was the power of Daoist magic.
Dozens of invisible lines, representing the principles and laws of heaven and earth, carved through the night, and an intensely cold aura enveloped the streets.
The jade ruyi, which had scattered into the night without truly vanishing, had shed its physical form, becoming a pure attack of Daoist magic.
The Counting Daoist stood before the temple, his expression indifferent. Countless hidden stars, symbols of Daoist magic, flickered in and out of existence around him.
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A thunderous boom suddenly echoed through the night sky above the Heavenly Book Mausoleum.
Beneath the Divine Path, the lotus fields stretched like a sea, sending up countless splashes. The vivid lotus blossoms swayed unceasingly, as if they might fall at any moment, yet they held firm with a strange resilience.
Lightning struck the water's surface, illuminating the scene with stark clarity, and casting light upon Han Qing's aged face.
This boom was not thunder, but the reverberation of two immense, irresistible forces colliding head-on.
The thick clouds in the night sky were torn apart by the fierce gale, then scattered into countless shreds, with terrifying spatial fissures visible among them.
A bolt of lightning, still in the process of forming, dissipated into nothingness before it could fall.
Without clouds, there was naturally no thunder or lightning, and no rain fell.
The terrifying clash drove away everything in the night sky, leaving only the purest heavens and the most distant stars.
The figures of the Heavenly Sea Empress and His Holiness the Pope appeared at opposite ends of the night sky, separated by dozens of li.
Starlight fell upon him and the Heavenly Sea Empress, coating them in silver, as if they were gods.
It seemed even heaven and earth could not withstand their power.
After several moments, the ripples of force from that clash in the night sky finally reached the ground.
The water spreading everywhere within the Heavenly Book Mausoleum leaped up in a terrifying, restless dance, as if boiling. At last, lotus blossoms fell from their stems, and dense holes appeared on many green lotus leaves.
The river reversed its flow, and the civilian houses across the way collapsed one after another, raising no dust, only the sound of countless snapping breaks.
In a very short time, at least several thousand houses in the southern city of the capital had collapsed. No one knew how many had died.
His Holiness the Pope gazed at the devastation in the capital, listening to the faint cries for help. He was silent for a moment, then looked into the distance.
Many were dying in Luoyang City as well. And what of Xining Town?
A white line appeared in the night sky, striking the ground. The Pope returned to the streets of the capital, appearing among the collapsed alleyways.
With his arrival, the residual waves of power gradually subsided, ceasing their rampage.
The Heavenly Sea Empress also returned to the mountain peak, her body and shadow merging as one.
His Holiness the Pope looked toward the Heavenly Book Mausoleum, raised his right hand to the night sky, and the pot of green leaves appeared before his fingers, trembling lightly in the night breeze.
Though called a pot of green leaves, it actually held only four leaves.
The Pope plucked one.
The motion was simple, and in principle, easy. But his expression was grave, and the vast sea of stars in his eyes seemed to freeze for an instant.
When that green leaf left its stem, an utterly terrifying sound rang in everyone's ears.
It was the sound of a mountain range breaking, the sound of a great river flowing backward, the sound of the sky collapsing.
The Pope hurled this green leaf toward the Heavenly Book Mausoleum.
The leaf was light, drifting lazily through the air, seemingly devoid of any power.
Yet, for the first time, a grave expression appeared on the Heavenly Sea Empress's face. She raised her right hand and pointed into the distance at a certain spot within the Heavenly Book Mausoleum.
The green leaf, stirred by the night breeze, floated through the darkness, advancing slowly.
The night breeze gradually shattered. The darkness shattered as well. The space the green leaf passed through seemed to be torn by infinite force, leaving countless cracks that lingered for a long time without closing.
The green leaf arrived at the Heavenly Book Mausoleum.
The river water leaped more violently. The green lotuses grew toward the night sky, as if breaking free from the earth's bonds, and the lotus blossoms themselves rose several feet high.
The green leaf reached the Divine Path.
Countless cracks appeared on the hard stone steps. Leaves and crushed stone from both sides of the Divine Path surged wildly toward the green leaf, then vanished without a trace, as if swallowed by a vortex.
The stone steles within the mausoleum reacted to the leaf's arrival. Countless ancient and profound auras seeped out from the rain forest, drifting toward the green leaf.
Even the starlight falling from the night sky visibly bent, turning into countless streams of light that rushed toward the green leaf!
What kind of Daoist magic was this? How could it be so powerful? How could it stir the Heavenly Book Stele, how could it alter the trajectory of starlight!
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Chen Changsheng knew this was not Daoist magic.
He watched the slowly drifting green leaf, felt its boundless power and unimaginable pressure, and finally understood why his master, the Pope, had always tended that pot of green leaves so carefully, watering it tirelessly, wanting it to grow more lush.
The green leaf was a small world. Within it were heaven and earth, palaces and towers, light and wind.
Luo Luo had once lived inside it. He had entered it too.
This was a real space, a real world. Worlds could be large or small, but to a human, their weight could be considered infinite.
Thus, whether falling leaves or starlight, all were drawn to it, then ground into dust invisible to the naked eye.
The Pope used the green leaf as a sword—he struck with a world.
Under the starlight, amid the distortion of space, that green leaf seemed extraordinarily tiny, yet also magnificently grand.
Within that green leaf, Chen Changsheng seemed to see the rivers and mountains of the realm!
What means could withstand such an attack?
The green leaf drifted slowly closer. It should have seemed light, but it gave an impression of immense weight.
Because it was a world.
The Heavenly Sea Empress's expression grew even more solemn.
Her right hand, which had been pointing at a certain spot in the Heavenly Book Mausoleum, suddenly dropped an inch, as if grasping something of immense weight.