Cohabitation with Sword Spirit

Chapter 511 - 12: Immortal Demon as One

Wang Jiu’s diagram simplifies a great deal of detail.

How can you ravage a space of thousands of miles into a densely layered sphere? And how can a divine might split that sphere in two?

In fact, the memories of these details have already become blurred, so Wang Jiu now finds it hard to completely recreate it.

However, the general outline has gradually returned to Sword World with the revival of memory fragments.

He once battled fiercely with the Demon Emperor here, and the aftermath of the battle utterly crushed everything on the site, except for a few complete remnants of the walls in the distance which barely survived; everything else turned to dust.

The Yanqi Cliff beneath his feet is nothing more than a mass forcibly ground and bonded from countless particles, yet within this adhesive, traces of the battle between the Celestial Divine Sword and Demon Emperor are contained—the mottled and colorful impressions on the cliff walls are the projections of the Immortal Techniques of two Ultimate Venerable Level powerhouses.

"Projection?"

The Sect Leader looked somewhat incredulously at the clear and tidy sword seal beneath his feet.

Witnessing this seal, he subconsciously reconstructed in his mind a grand sight of a sword opening and breaking through the world... Yet according to the Celestial Divine Sword, this is merely a projection!

A projection reduced in tier, with only one ten-millionth of the original power!

It’s truly unimaginable what the sharpness of the original swordsmanship must be!

"The divine might of the predecessor is truly awe-inspiring."

Wang Jiu glanced at the white impression under the Sect Leader’s foot, and said, "That sword seal projection was left by the Demon Emperor; well, it seems you and the Demon Race are indeed connected."

"Wait, this is just a misunderstanding..." The Sect Leader hastily explained, "The Immortal Demon War is too distant for the cultivators of Xiangzhou now; I can’t discern it at all."

"It’s not surprising, indeed he used my swordsmanship at that time." Wang Jiu said while tapping the white seal at the Sect Leader’s feet, "That was the Nine Forms Demon-Defying Sword I finally fully deduced before the decisive battle. Its complexity is so high that even Li Jiulong, who possesses the Sword Heart, can’t understand one percent of it. But the Demon Emperor merely glanced at it during the fight, and reverse-engineered my complete Sword Path, giving me a surprise during actual combat."

As he spoke, Wang Jiu felt as though innumerable memory fragments appeared from the void, rushing back overwhelmingly, completely repairing the fragmented puzzle.

The next moment, the Sword Spirit once again saw that towering figure, the Demon Emperor at the time of the decisive battle, whose body surpassed the constraints of space and matter, and even the visual projection left behind was so grand and majestic, like the mythical Exotic Beast that could carry a continent on its back.

And such an unprecedented colossal being possessed agility and cunning unmatched by anyone else, his battle had no fixed rules to follow, at every moment he could overturn common sense, overturn imagination.

Just like that torrent of demonic flames, and the sudden emergence of the Nine Forms Demon-Defying Sword.

No one could possibly imagine that the refined and skilled swordsmanship against the Demon Race originated from the highest leader of the contemporary Demon Race, the Great Demon God Emperor; nor could they possibly imagine that the Demon Emperor could fully deduce the swordsmanship created by the Celestial Divine Sword merely from a battle analysis.

...

"Predecessor, I have one thing unclear." The Sect Leader, having been fiercely washed of his Immortal Cultivation Observation, shook his head slightly stiffly, then posed his question, "Why did the Demon Emperor use swordsmanship against the Demon Race to target you? Even if it was unexpected, the effect must have been greatly reduced, right?"

Wang Jiu replied, "Because at that time I was using the Demon Emperor Seal to collect the demon race bodies for Corpse Explosion, my nature was close to the Demon Race, so the Demon-Defying Sword also had a damage bonus on me."

"... Demon Emperor Seal!?"

"Ah, seeing the Demon Emperor used it once to great effect, I tried to analyze it and used it myself."

"You two can swap around like this!?"

"That battle broke many conventions and boundaries, not just the boundaries of Jiuzhou and Immortal Dao, it also shattered our own boundaries, in actual combat we achieved miracles never before imagined."

"So, even after thousands of years, the aftermath can still kill top cultivators of later generations?"

Wang Jiu said, "There’s no aftermath anymore, these sword seals themselves are already completely dead, they won’t affect future generations anymore."

As he spoke, Wang Jiu’s gaze extended to the horizon, to the end where the mirror spread.

As their combined forces interwove and compressed against each other, the city construction outside Golden Cloud Peak was completely ground into dust and compressed into a sphere, containing thousands of Immortal and Demonic Skills within the ball. If left unchecked, even after ten thousand years, the power would not dissipate; instead, it would form a cycle, brewing incredible oddities.

However, all of this was severed by a sword flash that pierced through heaven and earth.

The sword that sliced through the sphere also severed all life within it—immortal techniques, demonic skills, the Heaven and Earth Spiritual Qi, Dao Laws—all were completely cut off by this sword. The ensuing millennia seemed like an instant, and this hemisphere was forever frozen at the moment of death.

Even the Celestial Sword Spirit itself found it difficult to fully recall the stunning nature of that sword. It only knew that if that sword were to fall on today’s Xiangzhou, the civilization that had struggled and thrived for thousands of years would be reduced to ashes in an instant.

During the long millennia that followed, this remaining hemisphere continued to maintain its deceased appearance, but the mottled sword seals crisscrossing its cross-section attracted the power of Chaos to cling to it, like a layer of floating soil.

Although the sword seals were dead, the shapes they left behind were enough to allow the power of Chaos to transform, forming nearly vibrant immortal techniques and demonic skills. Just recently, the principal and deputy of Cyan Lotus Sword Academy came to Yanqi Cliff, accidentally triggering this layer of floating soil, resulting in their deaths and the dissipation of their Dao.

"...Is just a layer of floating soil so deadly to the people of today’s Xiangzhou? What kind of grandeur did the cultivators of the Jiuzhou Era possess? In two thousand years of progress, how are we still so far from our predecessors?"

The Sect Leader sighed deeply, but soon regained his spirits.

"However, this also means that our future still holds endless possibilities."

To this, Wang Jiu remained skeptical.

Two thousand years, starting from scratch to restore immortal dao civilization to this stage, is not a bad achievement, but whether the upper limit can reach the level of the Jiuzhou Era is still unknown. The Dao Laws of Xiangzhou have too many differences from those of the Jiuzhou Era, and the lifespan of cultivators is the most typical example.

Even the Sect Leader of the Saint Sect, who possesses Immortal Immortal Techniques and has reached the Sea Overturning Realm in True Essence, can only live for hundreds of years, with the rising period lasting only a little over a century. In such a limited time, reaching the Sea Overturning Realm is already not easy; achieving a higher realm is almost a pipe dream, not to mention that Xiangzhou’s environmental resources are not as good as the Jiuzhou Era.

What if one day, the cultivators of Xiangzhou suddenly encounter a bottleneck, rendering it impossible to reach the other shore in their lifetime... could that not also happen?

"That’s why Xiangzhou needs a reliable leader to lead us to the other shore."

Wang Jiu said, "If the suspicion against the Saint Sect can be cleared, I will consider succeeding as Sect Leader, but for now, we still need to continue investigating... Alright, let’s go."

"Continue?" The Sect Leader was somewhat surprised, looking at the boundless mirrored surface around them, unsure of where they could go next.

"Backward."

As he spoke, Wang Jiu canceled the Illusion Sword Technique, using the base of the White Sword to propel himself downward, flying towards the Broken Immortal.

"There’s more than one worker’s tunnel for construction. From the inner side, there should be one or two shortcut passages directly to Golden Cloud Peak. Although it’s uncertain whether they can still be used, by bypassing the construction site relics, this is the most feasible plan at present."

The Sect Leader of the Saint Sect was just about to nod when he heard Wang Jiu add, "Though there will also be risks of the passage breaking halfway, being sucked into Chaos, risks of wall collapse and compression, and geographical risks in the Golden Cloud Peak area..."

This series of risks sent a chill down one’s spine, given the countless elites buried over the years in this number 1 relic, especially the deadly reputation of zone 33. The Sect Leader couldn’t help but ask, "Is there any other way? Like changing to another entrance."

The number 1 relic includes the entire Golden Cloud Peak relic, and the Huiyan Pass of zone 33 is only the most difficult part to conquer within Golden Cloud Peak. Additionally, there are several areas that have been explored for two thousand years, with only a step away from reaching the end.

"The safest passage to the core area is the workers’ tunnel; other places have perpetual trap mechanisms. You think it’s safe only because the mechanisms haven’t been triggered. The defensive system of the Myriad Immortals Alliance was theoretically watertight, with a self-destruct system in the final layer, abandoning the front line at the slightest sign of penetration. But the frontline workers, for their own lives, always left a few safe escape passages."

As Wang Jiu spoke, he recalled the person who explained these matters to him back then.

That woman, forever calm and in control.

In terms of strength alone, Wang Jiu in human form could at least match two or three Shang Lanfei. When it came to magical deduction, immortal dao theories, the two were equally matched. But in human relations, tactics, and strategy, Shang Lanfei’s advantage was crushing.

Despite a better win rate for Wang Jiu in strategy games, in actual command, even in simulated exercises, he never gained any advantage over Shang Lanfei.

So, even after millennia, Wang Jiu decided to continue executing the strategy set by Shang Lanfei.

To first enter Golden Cloud Peak, the best passage was the workers’ tunnel that once secretly aided the Jiu Immortal Venerables. With that tunnel, they and ten others easily bypassed the Myriad Immortals Alliance’s heavy blockade, changing Jiuzhou overnight.

Soon after, on the remnants of the Broken Immortal City Wall, Wang Jiu found the tunnel left by workers from those days, and fortunately, it happened to be the one Wang Jiu had personally traversed.

However, objectively speaking, it wasn’t really about luck. This tunnel, after the Myriad Immortals Alliance changed leadership, played such a significant role that Shang Lanfei and the others had specifically reinforced and preserved it, saying they would turn the entire Broken Immortal into a museum after the Immortal Demon war.

Unfortunately, the museum plan was never meant to be.