novelsky Chapter 864: A Sage's Dharma Body, Severed by a Single Sword
Chapter 864: A Sage's Dharma Body, Severed by a Single Sword
...Outside the furnace.
Half an incense stick's worth of time had passed.
The smile on Taishang Laojun's face grew wider and wider.
He gently stroked his long beard, looking utterly confident of victory.
"The commotion inside the furnace has ceased. It seems that wretched creature has been almost completely refined."
"It appears that creature wasn't all that capable after all, merely possessing some troublesome, bizarre divine abilities...
It seems the various immortals of Lingxiao need some proper training. Even such a minor little sword cultivator requires this old man to handle?"
As he said this, Laojun's voice noticeably turned several shades more sinister, especially emphasizing the word 'training'.
The immortals of the Nine Heavens felt a chill in their hearts, shrinking their necks and not daring to meet Taishang Laojun's icy gaze.
Fortunately, after saying this, Taishang Laojun's face once again resumed its kindly appearance.
He stood up, straightened his robes and hat, preparing to open the furnace and retrieve the pill.
"Congratulations, Laojun! Felicitations, Laojun!"
"With Laojun taking action, the result is indeed extraordinary! No matter how arrogant that demon was, he ultimately could not escape the palm of the Dao Ancestor!"
The immortals all stepped forward to offer congratulations, a tide of flattery.
The Haotian Emperor also nodded in satisfaction, his tightly furrowed brows finally relaxing as he laughed and sighed, "With this menace eliminated, the Celestial Court is worry-free."
However.
Just as Laojun reached out, preparing to lift the furnace lid.
*Crack.*
An extremely faint, yet extremely grating sound of shattering abruptly rang out.
In the dead silence of waiting, this sound was like a thunderclap.
Laojun's hand froze mid-air.
His smile solidified, his eyelids twitching violently.
This sound...
Something's wrong!
Back when he didn't have this level of cultivation or the Eight Trigrams Furnace, he had once forcibly refined an immortal pill to break through. At the moment of opening the furnace then, he had heard a similar shattering sound, and the outcome that time was—although the pill was successfully refined, the pill furnace he used couldn't withstand it and shattered.
He had agonized over his lost furnace for a long time back then.
And had always remembered this incident.
So when a similar sound appeared, all the hairs on his body stood on end.
"Hmm?"
Taishang Laojun lowered his head, looking at the Eight Trigrams Furnace he had long since tempered to be indestructible, something even the Immortal-Slaying Platform couldn't cut open.
He saw that on the furnace wall, smooth as a mirror and flowing with the rhythms of the Great Dao, a... crack had appeared at some unknown time.
It was a crack forced open from the inside.
Immediately after.
*Boom—!*
A fist imprint suddenly bulged out on the Eight Trigrams Furnace.
As if someone inside was throwing punches against the furnace's inner wall.
*Crack, crack...*
More cracks spread rapidly like a spider's web.
*Boom, boom, boom—!*
Amidst a sound like a violent storm of blows.
Fist imprints, palm imprints continuously appeared on the outer wall of the Eight Trigrams Furnace. In the blink of an eye while Taishang Laojun was stunned, the entire furnace was already covered in imprints.
Dense, intricate cracks also spread across the entire massive furnace body.
Then, a heart-palpitating, terrifying heat wave, a hundred times more violent than the Six Ding Divine Fire, crazily leaked out through those cracks.
Even the surrounding space was scorched and twisted out of shape.
"This... that sword cultivator wasn't refined, he... he's going to come out from inside?!"
"No... impossible!"
Taishang Laojun's eyes widened, his pupils filled with shock, fury, and disbelief.
Where was there even a trace of the Sage demeanor of one of the Three Pure Ones?
"This is the Eight Trigrams Furnace! This old man's Innate Spiritual Treasure! How could it possibly..."
*BOOM—!!!*
Before his words finished.
An earth-shattering, sky-rending explosion shattered the cloud layers of the Nine Heavens.
That Eight Trigrams Furnace which had refined countless gods, demons, evil spirits, peerless medicinal herbs, and divine weapons.
Under the watchful eyes of all.
Exploded.
Countless purple-gold fragments flew like a meteor shower, each piece burning with raging flames, smashing and collapsing countless palaces.
And at the center of that endless sea of fire and ruins.
A figure slowly stood up.
Behind him, a completely charred black fierce beast lay sprawled—it was Taotie.
That figure was completely naked, every inch of his skin flowing with golden-red magma, as if forged from pure flame and tribulation.
His head full of pale hair danced wildly in the fire. The Six Ding Divine Fire that had scattered out gradually converged, condensing on his body into divine armor composed of flowing flames.
Chen Huaian clenched his fist, flipped his wrist, and the Chaos Divine Sword once again appeared in his hand.
The sword's blade was now also wreathed in circles of golden-red fire patterns. Clearly, the power of the Six Ding Divine Fire had also been devoured into it, becoming part of the sword-forging nourishment.
Chen Huaian raised his head.
Those eyes burning with golden flames stabbed painfully into the eyes of the immortals, locking firmly onto Taishang Laojun, whose face had turned pale on the cloud layer above.
"Old thing." Chen Huaian's voice was hoarse, low.
Like two pieces of red-hot charcoal rubbing together in a chest cavity.
"Back then, was it this broken furnace, and this so-called 'divine fire', that you used to burn this Venerable One's foolish monkey?"
He extended his tongue, licking a lingering wisp of flame on his parched lips.
It was bitter.
It was the bitterness of Sun Wukong being refined for seven times seven, forty-nine days.
The corner of Chen Huaian's mouth lifted into a sinister smile, revealing gleaming white teeth.
"Have to admit... the taste of this fire is truly bitter."
"Since it's so bitter..."
He slowly raised his sword, the tip pointing directly at the heavens.
"Then why not invite you, old man, to also taste... the suffering this Venerable One's monkey endured!"
Taishang Laojun's entire body shuddered. Looking into those eyes, certain memories sealed away for many years suddenly surfaced in his mind.
"These eyes... this karma..."
Laojun staggered back a step, his horsetail whisk trembling.
"You are... Zhunti Daoist?!"
The answer he received was a sword cry that tore apart heaven and earth.
*Zheng—!!!*
Chen Huaian swung his sword.
This sword strike was not a thrust, nor a slash.
It was—a pour.
Like overturning the largest oil cauldron between heaven and earth.
*Rumble!*
The originally pure qi-wreathed Nine Heavens changed color in an instant.
Not black, nor white, but a despair-inducing crimson.
It was heavenly fire pouring down.
The sword qi unleashed by that swing, wrapped in the Six Ding Divine Fire, transformed into a sea of fire covering ten thousand miles. Like a heavenly river pouring down, it roared toward the Lingxiao Hall.
Cloud layers ignited, turning into flowing magma.
Space was burned through, revealing pitch-black chaotic void streams.
"Not good!! Retreat quickly!!"
Outside the Lingxiao Hall, countless Heavenly Troops and Generals didn't even have time to scream before the armor on their bodies turned into molten iron, instantly evaporating both man and armor into a wisp of green smoke.
"This fire... this fire can't be blocked!!"
A Golden Immortal summoned his lifebound immortal artifact in an attempt to block it, but the shield forged from divine iron melted like wax the moment it touched the crimson sword light.
He let out a miserable cry, half his body instantly charred black, fleeing in a wretched beam of light.
Heat.
Extreme heat.
The entire Nine Heavens seemed to have become a giant steamer.
Even those lofty Great Luo and Quasi-Saints now had ashen faces, forced to erect protective divine light and retreat repeatedly, watching helplessly as the glazed tiles and coiling dragon pillars symbolizing the Celestial Court's majesty cracked inch by inch and peeled away under this surging wave of fire.
This single sword strike.
Burned through Lingxiao.
And at the very center of that sea of fire.
Taishang Laojun's dharma body was like an insect trapped in amber.
"Wretched beast, do not run rampant! This Six Ding Divine Fire was refined by this old man. How could you harm this old man?"
Before his words finished.
A strand of sword qi flew out from the sea of fire.
Upon the sword qi, not only was it wrapped in the Six Ding Divine Fire, but also a viscous, ink-like chaos.
Taishang Laojun's face changed dramatically. He desperately waved his horsetail whisk, summoned the Tai Chi Diagram, trying to block this pouring heavenly fire.
But it was too late.
And too slow.
*Swish—*
An extremely thin, extremely bright, almost transcending the dimension of time golden line flashed past in the sky-filling sea of fire.
Laojun's movements stopped.
He felt no pain.
Only a strange chill at his neck, the illusion of extreme high temperature instantly incinerating his divine soul.
His vision began to spin wildly.
The world turned upside down.
He saw a crimson-red sky.
He saw a headless corpse wearing Eight Trigrams Daoist robes slowly falling.
That fire... was so hot.
Just as hot as that monkey had screamed back then.
*Thump.*
That white-haired, white-bearded head hit the ground, rolling far away. Before it even came to a stop, it was burned by the raging sword qi around it into a handful of white ash.
One sword.
Heavenly fire incinerated the world, the Dao Ancestor beheaded.
After deathly silence, erupted fury.
"AHHHHHHH!!!!"
Beyond the Thirty-Three Heavens, the Tushita Palace.
That sacred land perpetually wreathed in mist and smoke suddenly exploded.
A terrifying shockwave swept out, dispersing all the surrounding sea of clouds.
Taishang Laojun, who was in seclusion refining pills, violently spat out a mouthful of origin vital essence, letting out a shrill, utterly miserable roar that resounded through the Three Realms.
"Wretched creature!!"
"You destroyed my precious furnace! Killed my dharma body!!"
"This Venerable One and you... are irreconcilable enemies!!!"
*Boom!*
The great doors of the Tushita Palace blasted open.
A vast, boundless Sage aura, carrying surging fury and killing intent, like an awakened ancient fierce beast, swept toward the direction of the South Heaven Gate...
Like a tidal wave!
...