Volume 8, Chapter 498 – Battle Against the Heavenly Stele

“Don’t rush, this is just the appetizer!”

Du Jie’s face twisted into a snarl as he bit his tongue and spat a mouthful of vital blood onto the Heavenly Stele.

Boom!

The stele trembled violently before erupting with a shockwave that blasted away the surrounding yin energy. Then, it rapidly contracted inward.

In the blink of an eye, the stele, once as vast as a star, shrank back to a mere ten feet in size. But now, its surface no longer resembled stone. Instead, it glowed like molten gold, radiating scorching heat, with roaring flames licking its edges, distorting the very fabric of the immortal realm’s space.

At the same time, the stele’s gravitational pull intensified, locking Lu Yao in place once more.

“Blood Sacrifice, Second Form: World Annihilation!”

With Du Jie’s furious roar, the Heavenly Stele suddenly shattered. The molten gold transformed into a terrifying stream of golden energy, hurtling toward Lu Yao like a blinding spear of light.

Trapped, Lu Yao had no choice but to summon a surge of yin energy, forming a shield so dense it appeared almost solid before her.

Boom!

The golden spear pierced through the yin shield effortlessly. Though corrosion slowly ate away at its mass, the sheer size of the spear, stretching dozens of feet, made the damage negligible.

Lu Yao tried to dodge, but the spear’s overwhelming mass and gravitational pull acted like a whirlpool, dragging her toward it.

Swoosh!

The spear tore through the yin energy and shot straight for her.

“Hah—!”

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Lu Yao let out a sharp cry, raising her right hand. Her thumb curled inward as yin energy flooded into her other four fingers. In an instant, her nails elongated wildly, morphing into a massive black sword several feet long, wreathed in swirling yin energy and gleaming with a metallic sheen.

“Break for me!”

With a fierce downward slash, the obsidian sword tore through the air, meeting the golden spear head-on.

Clang!

The collision unleashed a devastating shockwave, sending razor-sharp energy blades spiraling outward, obliterating nearby celestial bodies in their wake.

Crack!

In the next instant, the golden spear sliced through Lu Yao’s sword as if it were tofu, continuing its relentless path toward her, though its size and speed had diminished.

Lu Yao barely managed to shift upward by a foot, narrowly avoiding a direct hit.

Swoosh!

The spear still grazed her, vaporizing everything below her chest before streaking into the distance like a meteor, annihilating a small asteroid in its path.

Perhaps because she was an undead, Qi Huang felt no pain from the wound.

“Huff…”

Du Jie exhaled heavily, exhaustion etched across his face. That final strike had drained all his vital blood, but at least it had worked.

“Hmph! So-called ‘Prophets of Heaven’ ¹ Tianjizi , just a bunch of frauds!”

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After catching his breath, Du Jie sneered with arrogant triumph.

“I think they were right about one thing, they did predict your death.”

Lu Yao’s voice echoed once more.

“Impossible!”

Panic flashed across Du Jie’s face as he frantically scanned the area with his divine sense. But the yin energy was so dense that his perception barely extended beyond a short distance.

Forced to rely on his eyes, his expression grew increasingly wary. As time passed, he noticed the yin energy thinning, no, not thinning, but flowing toward a single point.

Following its movement, Du Jie soon spotted Lu Yao’s figure. Her mutilated body had already regenerated up to her navel, and with every passing second, more of her flesh reformed as she absorbed the surrounding yin energy.

“This can’t be! No zombie can regenerate this fast!”

Despair gripped Du Jie as he screamed in denial.

“That’s because no other zombie absorbs yin energy as fast as I do.”

A cold smirk curled on Lu Yao’s lips. “As long as there’s yin energy, I am immortal. What hope do you have against me?”

“Ah… So this is the will of Heaven. No wonder even the Celestials have become slaves to the Heavenly Dao.”

Du Jie sighed in resignation, his once-proud posture slumping in defeat.

Lu Yao frowned slightly before vanishing in a blur. The next moment, she reappeared with Du Jie’s severed head in her grip. The inky yin energy trailing behind her corroded his soul bit by bit.

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“Ah… Seeing you… I almost believe… the prophecy… of the ‘River of Blood’… is real… To think… I, Du Jie… would be its first sacrifice… Worth it… even in death!”

With those final words, Du Jie’s soul dissipated entirely.

‘River of Blood? What is that?’

Qi Huang was utterly baffled.

Recalling the battle, Lu Yao suddenly felt a chill. If Du Jie’s words were true, then her presence here had been foreseen by the Heavenly Dao all along.

‘If that’s the case, then the Heavenly Dao has known every step I’ve taken since birth.’

The weight of this realization pressed heavily on her. Gazing into the endless void ahead, she felt, for the first time, how distant her path of vengeance truly was.

“Distant? Lu Yao?” ² The first character 瑶 (Yáo) in the name “Lu Yao” sounds identical to 遥 (Yáo) in “distant” (遥远)

She suddenly understood the cruel irony of her name and let out a bitter laugh. “Heavenly Dao… So even my parents naming me was part of your design? A reminder that defying Heaven is an impossible dream?”

“Too bad for you, I’m a zombie. I have eternity to kill you.”

Memories of her family reignited the flames of vengeance in her heart. With a burst of speed, she shot through the void faster than a meteor, her heightened senses now attuned to the faintest energy fluctuations in the vacuum of space.

As she flew, Lu Yao scanned the surrounding stars, growing stronger with every wisp of yin energy she absorbed. Whenever she encountered a yin-rich celestial body, she paused to drain it dry.

Occasionally, she crossed paths with immortals traversing the void. To avoid unnecessary conflict, she steered clear of them.

Yet, from their conversations, she gleaned crucial knowledge about the immortal realm. Unlike the cultivation world, which was confined to a single continent or planet, the “immortal realm” encompassed the entire cosmos.

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After some thought, Lu Yao understood, immortals capable of traversing the stars had no reason to limit themselves to one world.

Of course, the immortal realm wasn’t solely populated by immortals. Countless cultivators and mortals lived there too, unable to cross the void. This revelation shattered her previous assumptions.

‘So even here, people are divided into ranks.’

Qi Huang sighed inwardly.

And above the immortal realm lay the Celestial Realm, the domain of the Heavenly Dao itself.

‘Du Jie wasn’t lying. If I break through the immortal realm’s barriers, I can reach the Heavenly Dao.’

For the first time, the path ahead didn’t seem so insurmountable. She redoubled her efforts, absorbing yin energy at an even faster rate.

Years passed, how many, she didn’t know, until her power once again reached the limits of the immortal realm. Concealing her undead traits beneath a mask that hid her blood-tear-stained eye, she descended onto a sparsely inhabited planet.

Rashly shattering space without understanding the full picture would be foolish.

Choosing a secluded spot, she extended her perception across the entire planet. The surface teemed with malevolent spirits, forcing ordinary people to huddle in towns under the protection of immortals or cultivators, no different from the cultivation world she knew.

Determined to gather information, Lu Yao headed toward a nearby village. Its inhabitants were the weakest of the weak, those who couldn’t even seek refuge in the towns, left to the mercy of fate.

“Help! Someone help!”

A man’s desperate cry rang out. A few miles away, in a dense forest, a young man stumbled forward, clutching a basket of mushrooms. His body was covered in wounds, his legs torn open by beastly bites.

Behind him, several wolf-like zombies stalked closer, their claws and fangs bared, ready to pounce at any moment.