Aspiring to the Immortal Path - Chapter 772:
Chapter 772: Major Victory
Translated by: Hypersheep325
Edited by: Michyrr
Ruling over Yin and Yang, fixing the heavens and earth.
This was the secret of the Myriad Immortals Cauldron.
It could suppress all things and turn the real into ethereal, imprinting them like an image onto the cauldron for all time. The people etched into the cauldron were actually all the people it had sealed, and never again would they be able to break free of it.
It could also turn the ethereal into the real, unleashing the existences within the cauldron to attack its enemies. Those images that had been sealed there for ten thousand years had long ago become real paintings and could no longer be summoned, but the newly absorbed Spotted Char could be used. But the Spotted Char was at the Deification level, stronger than Tang Jie, so even if it were released, rather than listen to him, it might attack him, so Tang Jie couldn’t use it for now. Thus, there was still a level requirement when it came to using the Myriad Immortals Cauldron. The higher his tier, the more of its functions he could use.
The Myriad Immortals Cauldron could seal Soul Projection cultivators at the maximum. While it could seal Earth Immortals with great difficulty, even if they were sealed, an Earth Immortal could break out again. This was a limitation of the Myriad Immortals Cauldron. But while it had this limit when it came to quality, it had no limit in terms of quantity. So long as one was willing, the Myriad Immortals Cauldron could seal many people, and if one was strong enough, one could summon these people in battle and use numbers to drown their foe.
Right now, while Tang Jie didn’t have the strength to fully use it, the sealing power of the Myriad Immortals Cauldron was enough.
With the Spotted Char sealed, Jin Shanyue felt his connection with his beloved beast being severed, and he wailed as if his arm had been cut off, “My baby!”
The sorrow this time was real. His son had existed only because of the parasitic cicada, and he had pampered him only to fool his enemies, but the Spotted Char was his true love. He treated it like an extension of himself, and he had grown up together with it. How could he not be enraged to see Tang Jie sealing it?
While howling in grief, he madly lunged at Tang Jie.
Tang Jie sneered, his eyes flashing as he released his Divine Will.
His Divine Will was connected to the world, and he felt like this entire region was under his control.
Tang Jie knew that this was the Violet Palace Realm’s ability to cast arts with a thought.
He imagined casting Nine Heavens Calamity Blades in his mind, and a cloud erupted in the heavens, blades of lightning descending from it and falling towards Jin Shanyue. He had used thought casting to create these Nine Heavens Calamity Blades.
Because he was a new Violet Palace expert, he had been relying on his old methods in the earlier battles. It was only now that he remembered that he was at Violet Palace. Other than using brute force, he could also use spell arts to fight.
It was also at this time that he realized that thought casting wasn’t something as easily done as thinking a spell to cast it. There were actually many limitations.
First of all, when thought casting, one had to distribute one’s Divine Will so that it could connect to the world and enter the proper state for thought casting. It was for this reason that fiends called the Violet Palace Realm “Divine Division”.
Secondly, when thought casting, one had to visualize the spell art in question, including how it came to be and its exact function. Thus, thought casting was a major challenge to one’s thinking speed. Of course, the slowest thought was still much faster than physically casting the spell.
Finally, because of the reason above, a spell cast through thought casting had to be a complete spell. One couldn’t simply think a new spell art out of nothing.
Still, now that he was at Violet Palace, Tang Jie could cast spell arts much faster than before, and because his Divine Will had substantialized, all of his spell arts were stronger.
The Nine Heavens Calamity Blades rained down on Jin Shanyue, and their greater power left Jin Shanyue in a wretched state.
Tang Jie still wasn’t satisfied yet. He had just ascended to Violet Palace and was still anxious to play with his new toy. With another thought, a giant appeared in the sky, thrusting a finger at Jin Shanyue—the Heavenly King Mara Incantation.
But what had originally taken ages to cast now took Tang Jie only a thought.
Following that were three Matchless Slashes and nine Star Fingers.
Tang Jie was like a mischievous child, using every spell art he knew, firing them off like he was an artillery battery. But while he was all gleeful and giddy, Jin Shanyue was being pulverized.
The Violet Palace experts of the Beast Refining Gate focused mostly on raising their beasts, which meant that they were a little weak on their own. In a one-on-one, Jin Shanyue wasn’t even necessarily a match for Mystic Moon, not even considering Tang Jie. Tang Jie had been able to fight an Infant Tending cultivator when he wasn’t even at Violet Palace, so now that he was, his strength was comparable to the Deification Tier, and he was currently using all the abilities at his disposal. Jin Shanyue threw out an art relic, and it was struck down by a swing from Tang Jie’s blade. He threw out a divine treasure, and it met the same fate. He threw out one more divine treasure, and it was again struck down, all of them turning into golden grains that flew into Tang Jie’s hand. Jin Shanyue was on the verge of going mad from frustration. In such circumstances, he was no match for his adversaries, and the best he could do was just barely hold on.
As his end faltered, Feng Muyuan also became endangered. He and his pet wolf were no match for Ling Xiao and were being heavily suppressed. Not only that, Zhan Wushang had been swept into their battle as well, Ling Xiao managing to easily handle all three Deification-level opponents. This freed Ming Yekong to rampage through the Beast Refining Gate and Godhead Palace disciples, and much to their vexation, he focused only on the capable disciples.
The Beast Refining Gate and Godhead Palace had essentially gone all-out for this battle, the Beast Refining Gate sending five Violet Palace–level experts and Godhead Palace sending three, basically sending all their experts besides the sect master. They thought that this force would be enough to easily bring down the Basking Moon Sect, but the Basking Moon Sect had still given them a surprise.
The ultimate reason was that they had underestimated the Basking Moon Sect’s preparations. To protect Tang Jie, Xiao Biehan had even brought out the God-Conquering Merak Sword, and besides that, Tang Jie was able to control the power of Spacetime, warping both Time and Space. All these factors turned a battle to defend Tang Jie while he ascended to Violet Palace into a trap to exterminate the enemy.
Now, Shi Wunian had fled after being heavily injured, the Spotted Char had been sealed, and the Basking Moon Sect had an additional Deification-level Violet Palace expert in Tang Jie. The balance of power between the upper echelons of the two sides had shifted massively.
Tang Jie didn’t think this was enough and wanted to shift the balance in the lower ranks too.
He traded a blow with Jin Shanyue, using his thrown-up blood from Jin Shanyue’s palm strike to create thousands of clones, which threw themselves into the battle.
Now that he was at Violet Palace, these clones were much stronger, with the greatest difference being that they could move on from Dragonlike Hands to Heavenly Cloud Blades.
Although the illusory clones couldn’t thought cast, as their thousands of hands moved, countless flashing blades descended from the skies.
One person could summon 81 Heavenly Cloud Blades, and there were thousands of them, so the number of blades was simply astonishing.
A terrifying deluge of blades descended, covering the sky in sharp blades and long chains.
Some unfortunate cultivators were struck by several hundred blades all at once and obliterated.
Some Godhead Palace cultivators believed in their formidable defenses, casting barriers, flashing their Godhead Armors, and calling out “The defense of Godhead is unshakable!” But a moment later, hundreds of blades battered their barriers, which only lasted a few seconds before exploding into rainbow light, upon which their owners were sliced into fine meat paste.
There were cultivators of higher cultivation realms who recklessly believed that they were strong enough to use attacks to deal with attacks. One Heart Demon cultivator saw that these were spell arts summoned by illusions and unleashed a storm of ice needles to dispel them. And he truly managed to do this, but as one batch of Heavenly Cloud Blades disappeared, even more came pouring in, sweeping over him and completely consuming him.
Tang Jie wasn’t satisfied and shook the Sovereign Blade in his hand, upon which it turned into 36 blade rings of varying sizes. Tang Jie tossed them out, and they each flew at their specified target.
Art relic shards rained down as several dozen were destroyed all at once.
This was a new method of using the Weapon Mantra that Tang Jie had learned after reaching Violet Palace. Not only could he now use the Weapon Mantra at a medium distance, he could use the Sovereign Blade to extend the range even farther. While he couldn’t shatter all weapons with a single shout like the Martial Lord, he had made huge progress.
As Tang Jie continued to assail Jin Shanyue, he also controlled the Sovereign Blade to shatter weapons and collect golden grains, and miserable wails resounded across the battlefield.
Those wailing belonged to Godhead Palace, the Beast Refining Gate, and even the Basking Moon Sect.
“My art relic!” a Basking Moon Sect cultivator wailed as he saw his art relic being shattered by a golden blade.
“Apologies; that was an accident,” Tang Jie said with a shrug.
Without an art relic, the enemy cultivators were assailed by thousands of Tang Jies, and even after these Tang Jies had used up their one spell art, they could still serve as cannon fodder. As a result, the battle of the lower echelons quickly turned into a rout.
Feng Muyuan knew that the situation had taken a turn for the worse, and if they continued fighting, everyone would fall here. He could only shout, “Retreat, retreat now!”
“Awooo!” Meng Guanshan let out a howl of fury, clearly dissatisfied with this decision. But he knew that this was the only option and said in a raspy voice, “Disciples, leave first!”
All the cultivators began to retreat behind him, and the warships began to turn around and fly away.
“Don’t pursue!” Ming Yekong ordered.
He knew that his side was still outnumbered. The Basking Moon disciples were primarily relying on the formation to hold on. Once they left it, the cannon fire from the warships would quickly let them know what sort of mistake they had made. This arrangement favored defense to the detriment of offense, so if the enemy wanted to leave, they could only let them.
But while the army could leave, one or two of the upper echelons would have to remain.
As all the Violet Palace experts were preparing to retreat, Ling Xiao, Xiao Biehan, and Ming Yekong suddenly all turned on Jin Shanyue.
This was exactly the moment when both sides were withdrawing, so when Jin Shanyue suddenly came under a combined assault, he knew he was in trouble. With five Violet Palace experts attacking him at once, the most Jin Shanyue could do was defend. Escaping was out of the question.
Seeing Feng Muyuan, Zhan Wushang, and Meng Guanshan leaving, Jin Shanyue called for help, but nobody was interested in rescuing him.
Even though Jin Shanyue used everything he had, the desire to survive pushing him to his maximum potential, he was still only able to last three seconds against the combined power of five Violet Palace experts.
After three seconds, his barrier shattered, as did his last defensive treasure. Xiao Biehan’s Sky-Parting Sword, Ling Xiao’s Cloudwater Sleeve, Mystic Moon’s Profound Space Palm, Ming Yekong’s Homesick Sword, and Tang Jie’s Sovereign Blade stabbed into his body.
The Sanguine True Lord swayed and finally crumpled.
Spiritual energy surged from his massive body, and Tang Jie quickly threw out the Mountain River State Diagram so that all of this valuable resource wouldn’t go to waste. This left Xiao Biehan and Ling Xiao rather speechless. This disciple was fine in all other respects, but he was a little too fast when it came to grabbing for resources.
In the Mountain River State Diagram, He Chong looked dumbly at the sky.
“Violet Palace!” he finally blurted out in shock.