Volume 8, Chapter 478 – The Immortal Stele? Nothing Special

“What an arrogant evil spirit! Pity, since the dawn of creation, the Immortal Alliance has suppressed your kind of demonic heretics, and we will continue to do so until the heavens collapse and the earth crumbles. Do you know why? Because evil will never triumph over righteousness!”

Du Wu spoke with unshakable confidence.

“Evil will never triumph over righteousness? Who decides what is evil and what is righteous? Are wandering ghosts evil? Look outside, they stand with the common people now. Are you righteous? Yet you stand opposed to the masses!”

Lu Yao shot back.

“Anyone who betrays the Immortal Alliance is a demonic heretic. They don’t count as common people.”

Du Wu’s reply was unyielding.

“Heh… So it turns out that what defines a demonic heretic isn’t their actions, but whatever comes out of your mouth.”

A cold smile curled on Lu Yao’s lips. “I’ve changed my mind. Whether you mend the heavens or not, the Immortal Alliance has no right to exist!”

With those words, she raised her right hand, index and middle fingers pressed together. Her dark nails lengthened wildly, stretching to over four feet in the blink of an eye, thin as cicada wings, yet gleaming with a metallic sheen like a razor-sharp black sword.

“Go!”

Lu Yao commanded Zhang Zhi beside her.

“Many thanks for saving my life, miss!”

Zhang Zhi clasped his fists in salute before bolting out of the grand hall.

In the next instant, Lu Yao vanished like a ghost, reappearing right in front of Du Wu as if teleporting. The sword-like nail tore through space, aiming straight for his throat.

Clang!

A crisp impact rang out. Surprisingly, the strike, powerful enough to rend space, was blocked.

Rеαԁ oո KαtRеαdinɡСafe

Qi Huang focused her gaze and saw a towering stele, ten feet tall, standing between Lu Yao and Du Wu. Its surface was densely inscribed with characters, the most prominent being the ten large words at the top:

“Immortal Ancestor Du Jie’s Glorious Stele.” ¹ 先祖杜节老仙人之丰碑 (Xiānzǔ Dù Jié Lǎo Xiānrén zhī Fēngbēi)

Crack! Crack!

Only then did the space behind Lu Yao shatter in succession. Everywhere she had passed, spiderweb-like fissures spread outward, unleashing ripples of spatial distortion that obliterated everything in their path.

“Retreat!”

The Heavenly Tribulation Realm elders, sensing the dire situation, swiftly fled with their subordinates in tow.

“A peak-level Flying Corpse? You are indeed strong. Fast, too. But no matter how strong you are, can you surpass the Immortal Stele? No matter how fast, can you outpace my divine sense?”

A mocking grin crept onto Du Wu’s face.

‘This old bastard can actually wield the Immortal Stele directly?!’

Qi Huang’s breathing grew ragged. She had witnessed the stele’s power before, its mere aura had annihilated all life for dozens of miles. How terrifying would its physical form be?

“Oh?”

Lu Yao’s expression remained indifferent. She stretched out both hands, and with a sharp “shing!”, the nails of her other eight fingers extended to four feet as well. Then, like a frenzied beast, she launched a relentless assault on Du Wu.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

Du Wu manipulated the Immortal Stele to block each strike. Just as he had claimed, though his strength and speed were inferior to Lu Yao’s, his divine sense could lock onto her movements!

As the battle dragged on, Lu Yao’s body began to glisten with fine sweat. The droplets evaporated into green mist that dispersed into the air.

Gradually, Du Wu’s complexion turned ashen, and the stele’s movements grew sluggish.

Reαⅾ on ΚаtReаԁіոɡСαfe

“No! Corpse poison?!”

By the time Du Wu realized it, it was already too late.

Seizing the opening, Lu Yao thrust her right hand into Du Wu’s left chest, and tore out his still-beating heart.

“This stele is powerful, but it can’t block poison.”

She shook her head disdainfully, then clenched her fist, pulverizing the heart in a burst of gore.

“You… don’t celebrate too soon!”

Du Wu, a mid-stage Heavenly Tribulation Realm expert, did not die instantly. With a thought, a doppelgänger emerged from his body, while the gaping wound on his chest vanished without a trace, only his tattered robes proved he had ever been injured.

Qi Huang’s eyes narrowed. The wound had now appeared on the doppelgänger’s chest. The old man had transferred his injury, an ability all cultivators gained upon reaching the Divine Realm.

Du Wu then used his divine sense to control the lifeless doppelgänger. He dipped his fingers into its bleeding chest and smeared the blood across the Immortal Stele, shouting:

“Ancestors, lend this unworthy descendant your power! Blood Sacrifice, Manifest the Immortal’s Might!”

As his voice faded, an apocalyptic wave of divine sense descended from the heavens. Space warped beneath its pressure, resembling a river of stars pouring down upon the imperial capital.

Lu Yao, standing directly below, bore the brunt of the assault.

BOOM!

The next moment, everything within a ten-mile radius of the Immortal Alliance’s headquarters was flattened as if subjected to dimensional collapse. The earth itself sank, only Du Wu remained untouched.

Under the overwhelming force, Lu Yao dropped to one knee, her body trembling. The veins on her slender neck bulged from exertion.

“Hah! How does it feel? Now you understand why the Immortal Alliance stands unshaken? Why evil spirits will never prevail?”

Rеaԁ οո KаtRеaԁіոɡСafе

Du Wu laughed triumphantly.

“I said, from today onward, the Immortal Alliance will cease to exist. And I always keep my word.”

Lu Yao spoke each syllable with deliberate force. Still trembling, she reached up and removed her veil, revealing a single, glaring blood-tear mark.

“To still move under the Immortal’s suppression… You are the first. You should be proud to die like this!”

Du Wu’s voice carried a note of surprise.

But at that moment, endless Yin energy surged toward Lu Yao from all directions, blotting out the sky. Its sheer volume made its boundaries untraceable.

Nourished by the Yin energy, Lu Yao’s power skyrocketed once more. Slowly, she rose to her feet.

“Hmm?”

Du Wu’s brow furrowed. A sense of foreboding gripped him. He plunged his hand into his doppelgänger’s chest, scooping out a handful of blood, and splashed it onto the stele.

“Blood Sacrifice, Second Form! Stele’s Judgment!”

The Immortal Stele shot into the sky, expanding with the wind until it loomed like a mountain. Then, with the force of a collapsing peak, it crashed down upon Lu Yao. Space shattered in its wake, leaving terrifying fissures in its path.

Lu Yao did not dodge. Instead, she raised a slender hand and met the stele head-on.

BOOM!

A deafening explosion shook the world.

The stele struck the earth, carving out a crater dozens of miles wide. The seismic shockwave toppled buildings for miles, and the ensuing blast hurled dirt and stone like cannonfire, obliterating anything still standing.

In that single strike, the entire imperial capital was wiped out, replaced by a towering mushroom cloud. Millions perished without even a chance to scream. The only mercy was that, thanks to the Yin energy Lu Yao had summoned, their souls would linger as ghosts.

Rеαԁ oո KαtRеadіոgCafе

Hovering in the air, Du Wu stared at the colossal stele embedded in the ground. His expression eased, the Yin energy had stopped gathering beneath it. That meant the Corpse Demon was dead.

“Finally. None survive beneath the Immortal Stele.”

He exhaled in relief.

But then—

The Yin energy around him suddenly surged to life, rushing toward the stele with even greater frenzy than before.

“How is this possible?!”

Du Wu’s voice trembled. Fear twisted his features. He wanted to strike again, but he had exhausted his strongest techniques.

Moments later, the Immortal Stele began to rise, as if pushed from below.

Under Du Wu’s horrified gaze, Lu Yao emerged, holding the stele aloft with one hand. Each step sank deep into the earth, yet her face showed no strain.

“This was your trump card?”

With a slight squeeze of her right hand, a crack split the stele from its base, branching upward until the entire monument was veined with fractures.

BOOM!

The Immortal Stele finally gave way, collapsing into rubble.

“The Immortal Stele? Nothing special.”

Lu Yao smirked, her voice dripping with scorn.