Chapter 662: Startling the World
That green leaf came from the night.
The Pope walked out from the night, his face pale, almost transparent, the vast starry sea in his eyes spinning at an incredibly high speed, like burning flames.
Just as the Pope unleashed his ultimate technique, striking at the Heavenly Sea Holy Empress with the Green Leaf World, the battles in Luoyang City and by the small stream ten thousand li away had also reached their most critical moments.
The Black Ruyi, which had already dispersed into Daoist techniques, constructed countless sharp lines around the Changchun Temple. Clear light flickered in and out of sight, and an extremely cold aura enveloped the entire temple. The water in the vats froze into ice, then the vats themselves shattered from the cold. The bean-sized lamps in the temple froze into glassy beads, then cracked. Even the magma surging from the cracked ground was instantly frozen solid!
Ji Daoist's Daoist robe turned white—a frosty color that also seemed like the passage of years. Gazing at the frosty aura enveloping the temple, sensing the fluctuations of power coming from the Mausoleum of Books, a trace of profound, distant emotion suddenly appeared on his indifferent face. Clear light seeped out from his Daoist robe, flowing like clear water into those starry radiances that represented Daoist techniques.
The surviving Daoists in the Changchun Temple spat blood as they ceaselessly chanted the Daoist scriptures.
An extremely complex and difficult syllable sounded from between Ji Daoist's lips!
It was the final volume of the Three Thousand Daoist Scriptures, the most difficult Dragon Language, the essence of the highest Daoist techniques!
As this syllable emerged, the night sky over Luoyang suddenly trembled. The Daoist techniques formed by the scattered Jade Ruyi momentarily stalled, and the frosty aura in the night sky visibly receded!
Ji Daoist drew his longsword and struck for the first time!
The Daoist sword fell, and in the night sky, a sound—unconscious yet extremely uneasy—pierced through, followed by countless shattering noises!
Countless tiny sounds rang out. The shattered vats remained broken, and the large transparent ice block inside them also cracked. The glassy bead-like lamps cracked as well. The frozen magma cracked, breaking into fragments, melting into clear water, turning into water mist. Frost and snow all shattered. The glassy world was once again ruled by clear light!
Ten thousand li away, by the stream beside the old temple, that monk walked before the Heavenly Sea Holy Empress.
The Heavenly Sea Holy Empress's eyes became incredibly bright. Golden flames burst forth, as if a phoenix was about to be reborn from within.
These were true phoenix eyes.
Wherever her gaze fell, the fragments of blood lotuses on the stream, like sentient beings with consciousness, floated up one after another, covering the monk's body. Then, piece by piece, they shattered like maple leaves.
Beneath each shattered blood lotus petal, the monk's robe tore, and his skin split. What flowed out was not blood, but a milky white ray of light.
Those rays contained unimaginably holy energy, similar to the holy light from the Divine Palace, yet with a fundamental and fatal difference for the life of this continent.
This was also holy light, but it came from another world—a world of an alien race with natural hostility.
Countless rays of holy light burst forth from the monk's body, but there was no sound by the stream behind the temple. The boiling water stilled, and the steam rising from the water also stilled.
In this absolute stillness, only one thing was still moving: the monk's finger, pointing toward the center of the Heavenly Sea Holy Empress's brow.
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...
The green leaf arrived at the top of the Mausoleum of Books, before the Heavenly Sea Holy Empress.
It was a real world. The trees and stones within the mausoleum sensed that real, immeasurable weight, trembling uneasily and sinking downward.
If she were still at her peak, perhaps she wouldn't find this troublesome.
But at this moment, she had already left the state of divine concealment, unable to coexist with the world or hide within it.
If her body, Dao, and soul were all intact, she might be able to forcibly block this world, just as that man named Chen Xuanba had once done in the Garden of Zhou many years ago.
But her Dao techniques had been broken by Ji Daoist in Luoyang, her divine soul was suppressed by that monk by the stream in Xining Town, and now, at the top of the Mausoleum of Books, only her physical body remained.
Even if she possessed the body of a true phoenix, she could not withstand the arrival of a world.
What could she do? Would she be destroyed here and now?
Just as everyone was looking up at the top of the Mausoleum of Books, filled with various emotions, waiting for that final moment to arrive, a phoenix cry, clear and piercing to the extreme, rang through the night sky!
From the Snow Old City to the Eternal Life Sect, from the Great Western Continent to the Cloud Tomb, the entire world could hear no other sound—only this phoenix cry.
This phoenix cry was domineering to the extreme, proud to the extreme. The starlight scattered across the night dome was refracted by the green leaf, then torn apart by the phoenix cry, instantly dissipating into nothing!
The terrified shouts and fleeing sounds of the demonic beasts in the solitary peak of the Cloud Tomb suddenly vanished without a trace, as if it had become a true tomb.
By the stream, the golden flames emanating from her eyes were smeared with a chilling, murderous intent. The stream water and stones caught fire, and the blood lotus fragments also burned!
The stream water moved, the stones moved, the forest moved, and the night wind moved.
The night wind gently brushed her robes. Her divine soul rose up, from tens of feet to hundreds of feet, until it could only be looked up to, as if it might touch the night dome. Before this enormous figure, seemingly formed from the starry sky, the monk in the stream was like an ant. The ten thousand feet of holy light radiating from his body, like an insignificant lamp, was instantly suppressed, nearly extinguished!
At the same time, the Daoist techniques that had been shattered by the Dao sword in Luoyang City fell to the ground. True phoenix blood appeared from the void, merging with the magma, and began to burn everything.
The black dragon that had appeared in the night sky outside Luoyang earlier suddenly reappeared, but this time it had grown wings. It burst through the mist-formed fairyland, its phoenix claws lightning-fast, grabbing the Dao sword in Ji Daoist's hand. Its phoenix beak, like a falling star, accompanied by that clear, violent phoenix cry, pecked at Ji Daoist's eyes!
She stood at the peak of the Mausoleum of Books, looking at the green leaf, her expression indifferent.
This was the highest point of the capital, because she stood here. She should stand at the highest point. Once she yielded, this place would no longer be so high and perilous, and she would no longer be herself. So from the very beginning, she had never thought of avoiding this green leaf. Her choice was to meet it head-on. But what could she use to meet it?
The green leaf was a world. Even divine artifacts like the Frost Remnant Divine Spear or the Two Severing Blade could not withstand it.
Her right hand sank slightly, and she grasped something in the night sky.
That thing was heavy, square, and not a weapon.
It was a stone tablet.
Chen Changsheng looked at it, feeling that the lines on that stone tablet were somewhat familiar. Then he realized what it was, and was struck speechless with shock.
That stone tablet was the Zhaojing Stele!
It was a Heavenly Book Stele!
The Heavenly Sea Holy Empress reached out and grabbed the Zhaojing Stele from the mausoleum!
Then, she smashed it down toward the green leaf!
When she grasped this Heavenly Book Stele, her sleeve shattered.
When she swung this Heavenly Book Stele, the entire night sky shattered.
The Heavenly Book Stele heavily struck the green leaf.
The green leaf was very light and soft; the stone tablet was very heavy and hard. Their meeting should have been like a withered leaf falling into wet water, like a piece of paper falling into a furnace—no great sound.
But this meeting would certainly not be like that.
If thunderclaps were deafening, then what kind of sound would it be if all the thunder from the first year of the Grand Beginning era to tonight gathered at this very moment and sounded together?
With a thunderous roar!
The Mausoleum of Books, which had never changed since its appearance, seemed to lift off the ground, shaking three times.
The buildings in the southern part of the capital, which had just stabilized, collapsed instantly like a sand city blown by the wind.
The forests within the mausoleum were all shattered, then flew up into the air.
The sea of lotuses that filled the Mausoleum of Books was shaken up. A waterline dozens of li long rose up, encircling the mausoleum.
A crack appeared in the night dome.
The starry sea seemed to have changed its shape.
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(Somewhat cool.)