Volume 4, Chapter 173 – Utter Extermination (Two-in-One)

Rumble…

The mountain peaks that had been cut by the razor-sharp sword qi began shedding two huge boulders, which slid down slowly amid clouds of dust and smoke. At the places where they met the mountain body, one could even see smooth, clean cuts.

But what truly made everyone realize what it was they were trying to surround and kill was not that terrifying scene. It was the snow-haired woman cultivator standing in the void… She had actually deflected Zhang Dai’s Godslaying Sword head-on in a direct clash?

The Godslaying Sword!

That was the most important array core of the entire Godslaying Sword Array! Only with all one hundred and eight swords revolving around that upper-grade sacred weapon could the formation truly unleash its power! The force of its blade and the heaviness of its sword momentum far surpassed ordinary weapons. Added to that was Zhang Dai himself, a veteran of many years’ accumulation, practically the strongest among the forces of the human path!

How could such a combination have its Godslaying Sword knocked flying in a direct clash, only for its wielder’s body to be skewered and ground into dust with a single stroke?

Instinctively, many people wanted to blink and rub their eyes… They suspected they were seeing things.

Cui Yuanhao was among them. The instant he saw the scene, he immediately judged that this was undoubtedly another mind-warping illusion created by those golden pupils!

“What are you all standing there for…” he called out at once, trying to rally the others. “Quickly follow me and break that demon woman’s tan-art… and save Venerable Lord… save…?”

The more he spoke, the more his voice slowed to a halt. That was because Cui Yuanhao gradually discovered that the people affected by the “illusion” were far from just himself. Everyone wore the exact same expression.

This… that demon woman’s golden pupils can’t possibly be that powerful, can they?

A chill rising in his heart, Cui Yuanhao immediately shut his mouth. Then he saw Bai Xiang reach out and seize at something in the void ahead, and only then did a scream suddenly ring out from the front.

“Ahhh!”

“You… you’re actually a soul-path cultivator!?”

That was Zhang Dai’s voice!?

Under the gaze of Cui Yuanhao and the others, who were overcome with terror, Bai Xiang reached out and used Feixiang Heaven to draw Zhang Dai’s remnant soul over, shredding and devouring it, refining it completely in an instant. At once, she felt an enormous surge of mind-force energy transmitting through the sword hilt.

The moment Zhang Dai died, the Godslaying Sword Array that had been chasing after Bai Xiang from behind suddenly clattered apart and fell away. Only a few scattered swords still floated under the others’ control, no longer amounting to anything.

Run!

The moment Bai Xiang tilted her head slightly and those golden pupils turned toward him, Cui Yuanhao felt his soul leap out of his body. Without a second thought, he abandoned his sword and turned to flee.

“Cui Yuanhao!?” Another Dao Executor of Tianfu Mountain, standing nearby, witnessed this and shouted angrily. Yet in his heart there suddenly rose a tragic sense that the tide had truly turned.

Much as he did not want to believe it, Zhang Dai had most likely met with disaster.

As a veteran of the Venerable ranks, Zhang Dai naturally possessed resurrection secret arts as well. If those secret arts were still in effect, the entire Godslaying Sword Array could not possibly have broken apart in a chaotic scatter. Zhang Dai would certainly still be able to control it from afar and assist them in trapping and killing Bai Xiang.

But now…

The situation did not wait for anyone. This man also knew there was enmity between Cui Yuanhao and Bai Xiang, and he abandoned all thoughts of encirclement and grand plans. He immediately chose a direction far from Cui Yuanhao’s and fled without another word.

Think you can escape?

Killing intent flared in Bai Xiang’s eyes.

There was still some residual Tianyuan in the area. With a thought, she shook her right arm, and an invisible ripple instantly spread in all directions. In a flash, it triggered another drastic change in the heavens, making the still-unscattered storm clouds churn more violently, while more than a hundred bolts of lightning came crashing down.

Lightning and fire lit up the sky, blasting most of Tianfu Mountain’s Dao soldiers straight out of the air… Most of these people had not reached the Venerable ranks, and the spread of the interdicted airspace locked down every means of resistance they had. Nearly all of them were pierced straight through by crackling lightning. Even those who did not die on the spot would most likely perish in the fall.

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As for Bai Xiang herself, she shot downward at top speed, aiming directly at the golden sword that she had knocked flying in the clash just now.

And she was not the only one targeting that sword.

Besides Cui Yuanhao and another Dao Executor who had fled, Tianfu Mountain still had two Dao Executor Immortal Venerables remaining. The two of them immediately thought: if Zhang Dai was dead, then the Godslaying Sword had instantly become an ownerless object.

Although Bai Xiang had unexpectedly killed Zhang Dai, she had clearly shown every sign of decline while trapped inside the Godslaying Sword Array earlier. That much had not looked fake.

So was it possible… that she too was now at the end of her strength?

Compared with turning to flee and perhaps still having to endure pursuit by those demon creatures, wouldn’t it be better to seize the Godslaying Sword and use it to oppose Bai Xiang, perhaps even subdue and capture her?

Fortune favors the bold. The more desperate the moment, the more clearly one sees what lies buried in a person’s bones.

Relying on their resurrection secret arts, the two of them chose to take the risk. Cui Yuanhao could distract that demon woman for them; they would snatch the Godslaying Sword first!

They moved even faster than Bai Xiang and were closer to the Godslaying Sword than she was. One of them was clearly better at void-traversing movement than the other. He was just about to grab the falling sword when, in the next instant, a pale golden alms bowl flew in from the side and slammed into his body in midair, smashing him away and sending him flying off.

“Denghai…? You!”

The two Dao Executor Immortal Venerables froze for a moment, then flew into a rage at once.

Their movement had been obstructed for only an instant by that pale golden alms bowl, but in that split-second lapse, the golden sword had already fallen toward the scar-headed old monk charging up from below, just about to land in his hand.

“How naive.”

At that very gap, the three men heard a mocking voice sound beside their ears at the same time.

The scar-headed old monk’s face changed. His body suddenly shot another stretch upward through the air, fingers closing as he tried to seize the golden sword.

But the golden sword suddenly seemed to become sentient. Just as he was about to grab it, it twisted and slipped free, directly evading his grasp!

What!?

The scar-headed old monk stared in stupefaction… Together with the other two, he watched the golden sword swim over to Bai Xiang’s side, where it hovered obediently like a pet.

“That’s impossible!”

Unable to accept such a reality, he let out a shrill, rasping cry.

“How could you possibly control the Godslaying Sword?”

Naturally, because the Tianxuan Sword had once been part of the Godslaying Sword Array as well.

A cold smile tugged at Bai Xiang’s lips.

The Tianxuan Sword was also a lower-grade sacred weapon, originally part of the same complete set as the other one hundred and eight swords. When Zhang Dai bestowed the sword upon Cui Yuanhao, he had never imagined that anything unforeseen could happen on this trip.

In his assumptions, the moment Cui Yuanhao brought out that lower-grade sacred weapon, a mere mortal woman from the main world who had only just entered the Venerable ranks would be defeated and captured in a single move.

Later, Bai Xiang crushed Cui Yuanhao and took the Tianxuan Sword by force. That in turn meant the Godslaying Sword Array was missing one of its paired swords. Zhang Dai had no choice but to work day and night, wrapping up the final refinement of the Godslaying Sword while urgently forging another lower-grade sacred weapon to fill the gap, only then managing to complete the full sword array displayed today.

But the Tianxuan Sword still contained an unactivated hidden control.

Earlier, Zhang Dai could not command the Tianxuan Sword, because the sword had first pierced Bai Xiang’s arm and been eroded beforehand by her soul-abilities. But that did not mean the hidden control within the sword had been washed away.

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And when Zhang Dai died, his remnant soul had been shredded and refined by Feixiang Heaven before he could even make a move. That step not only replenished Bai Xiang’s enormous expenditure of mind-force, but also handed over all of Zhang Dai’s memories concerning the operation of the Godslaying Sword Array!

And on top of that, Bai Xiang was holding the Tianxuan Sword, which meant she was effectively holding one piece of the sword array itself!

Though she still could not yet control it with the same finesse Zhang Dai had, she only needed to activate the hidden control in the sword, and the entire array would be drawn to it of its own accord!

Naturally, that was far more efficient than anything those three could do.

Bai Xiang took hold of the Godslaying Sword. While sensing the tyrannical aura radiating from this upper-grade sacred weapon, she directly used it to mobilize the entire Godslaying Sword Array.

Clatter!

At once, the hundred-plus swords that had fallen earlier all straightened back up. One after another, they floated to Bai Xiang’s side like an army under her command!

“Venerable Bai!”

Seeing that all was lost, one of the Dao Executor Immortal Venerables tried to sue for peace. “This whole affair was forced through by that old bastard Zhang Dai. I warned him beforehand that he must not turn the Dao against itself and needlessly damage the harmony of the human path… He simply refused to listen to my advice!”

“Exactly!” the other one immediately chimed in. “It was all that old bastard Zhang Dai—”

Before he could finish, Bai Xiang’s figure dragged out a slow, long, bizarre afterimage. She directly shifted in front of him, her right-hand blade chopping vertically down through the center of his forehead from above, then swept forward in the same motion toward the other two.

At the same time, she flung out the Tianxuan Sword. With her left hand she grasped the Godslaying Sword, first slashing upward to cleave apart the alms bowl the scar-headed old monk hurled at her, splitting it cleanly in two. After that, she turned it against the furious, startled strike of the other Dao Executor Immortal Venerable.

Skrrt—!

There was no reaction whatsoever of the kind one would expect when blades collided.

That Dao Executor Immortal Venerable had already lost Zhang Dai’s bestowed sword, and the weapon in his hand was not even a sacred weapon. There was simply no way it could withstand the sharpness of the Godslaying Sword. Bai Xiang sliced through both man and sword in one stroke, cutting him into two halves. Even in death, disbelief still covered his face.

“Jinguang Temple is willing to serve you as master!”

Seeing his “companions” die cleanly in an instant, the scar-headed old monk shouted as he struggled to retreat, “I also know the locations of Jinguang Temple’s other ruins. You cannot kill me!”

Slash!

The moment the words left his mouth, Feixiang Heaven’s blade swept horizontally across his brow and eye sockets. His eyeballs and skull were instantly shredded and blown apart by the overpowering sword qi.

“Ahhh!”

“Bai Zhixing!”

From the blood mist flew a yellow-jade Buddhist token, and the old monk’s voice rang out from within it. “I’ll make the coordinates public… just you wait—”

Bzzz—

The interdicted airspace unfolded, and he became like a goose with its throat pinched shut. All the curses that should have followed died soundlessly.

Bai Xiang smashed the Buddhist token apart with one sword strike, then used Feixiang Heaven to seize and devour the old monk’s remnant soul. He could make no sound at all and was completely refined by her in silence.

Only after she had done all that did the Dao Executor Immortal Venerable whose forehead she had split at the start fall another few meters.

The souls of those two Dao Executor Immortal Venerables had already been taken by Bai Xiang the instant Feixiang Heaven slew them. She did not pause now either. While sending the sword array after the last remaining Dao Executor Immortal Venerable, she aimed herself in a certain direction and stepped into the air.

With every step she took, a bizarre, twisted afterimage stretched out behind her.

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How could this be… how could this be possible!?!?

Everything had happened far too quickly. By the time Bai Xiang came after him, Cui Yuanhao had only just fled a little over two thousand meters.

Let alone escaping Bai Xiang’s sight, at that distance he did not even have time to reach the ambushed flying vessel. There was no way he could dive into it and flee as he had originally planned!

What now?

Cui Yuanhao’s mind turned frantically.

A cultivation at the Immortal Venerable level did indeed allow one to cross the void, but that only ensured one would not be crushed and torn apart by it. The speed of flight through it would be extremely slow. There was no way he could shake that demon woman!

What was more, with the Void Tribulation drawing closer, Loss of Order was interfering with the main world more and more strongly… and primary order was striking back! Its most visible sign was that everything in the main world, whether the earth-veins or the void itself, was becoming ever more solid and resilient, more and more difficult to damage through brute force!

But why could she do it…?

Cui Yuanhao could not help recalling Bai Xiang’s two strikes that had slain Zhang Dai.

One forward, one back. One lifting slash, one thrust. Zhang Dai had died beneath her sword just like that. And the two sword scars that had burst forth afterward had forcibly torn open the entire stretch of airspace, dragging out two black scars each a thousand meters long, through which one could directly see the void outside!

Cui Yuanhao could not understand how Bai Xiang had done it, but that did not stop him from drawing conclusions from the traits she had displayed.

Those bizarre afterimages she dragged behind her were said to be one of the marks of those ancient human cultivators… those Venerable Saint powerhouses who specialized in body cultivation!

That was no secret technique, no tan-art. It was not that kind of thing at all.

It was pure power—the most extreme power!

Why were those afterimages so strange?

Why did the sequence in which the afterimages fell reverse the order of her advancing steps?

Because the force carried by her fleshly body was simply too strong! Strong enough to tear open the void itself!

Only when that kind of power became overwhelming to a certain degree, so great that every movement of one’s body could interfere with and damage the surrounding environment, could it leave behind such bizarre afterimages!

The more he thought, the more his scalp tingled. Cui Yuanhao did not even dare turn his head. He was afraid of meeting that pair of eerie golden pupils again!

And deep down, he had an even more frightening suspicion.

He refused to believe that power like this was something a mere mortal woman… something Bai Xiang could have cultivated at her age through her own talent and brilliance.

He suspected it was the Xuandi…

It was Emperor Feng!

He must have been reborn within that demon woman by means of the inheritance of the Xuandi Scripture! Only that could explain such methods!

A tearing sound through the air came from behind him.

Cui Yuanhao was forced to turn around, only to see a sword coming down from above.

“Emperor Feng!”

“You shameless wretch!”

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He was sent flying, and struggled desperately against the “spreading sword qi,” fighting while shouting, “A mere Sage-level great power… hiding inside a woman’s body!”

“Hahahaha! All you know how to do is bully the weak!”

“Do you dare take revenge on the Demon Court?”

“Do you dare raise your sword against those people?”

“Your ideals are the ones that are wrong!”

“Human! Demon!”

“The two can never rule together!!”

“No matter how many more times you try, it will be useless!!”

“Your plot… is doomed to fail!!!”

While he struggled, Bai Xiang merely floated quietly to one side and watched.

In reality, she had not made a move at all.

Everything Cui Yuanhao saw in the form of “attacks” had been imposed by her Golden-Pupil Illusory God.

All of his struggles and resistance might have looked heroic in his own eyes, but in truth he was only fighting empty air, even inflicting wounds upon himself.

“Emperor Feng…”

Narrowing her eyes slightly, Bai Xiang stopped tormenting him. She stepped forward, gripped Feixiang Heaven, and thrust once upward from beneath Cui Yuanhao’s chin, piercing straight through his skull.

Only at that final moment did Cui Yuanhao seem to recover his senses at last.

His eyes bulged wide. First he glared at Bai Xiang, countless emotions passing through them, before he slowly raised his right hand.

“At least…”

“Protect the human path…”

Slash!

Bai Xiang withdrew her sword, drawing with it a streak of red-and-white gore. Then, as before, she destroyed the corpse and collected the soul before looking toward another direction in the distance.

Over there, the sole remaining Dao Executor Immortal Venerable had also been slain by the sword array.

And so, Tianfu Mountain and Jinguang Temple, after going to such lengths and gathering more than two hundred people specially to launch this assassination against her, had failed completely. Including Zhang Dai, every last one of them had died. Not one remained.

But this was still not the end.

A cold light flashed through Bai Xiang’s eyes.

There were still those troop transports.

And the scouts sent by the other factions after hearing the disturbance.