Wenren Li carried Chen Yixin all the way back toward Yuxu Palace. Naturally, flying was somewhat slower than repeatedly teleporting, but it was much easier on Chen Yixin, whose divine power had been exhausted.
Yet after flying for only half an hour, Wenren Li switched to continuous teleportation again. The phoenix in his arms was just about to open his eyes when Wenren Li covered them with one hand.
At the same time, he swept his other hand backward. Several spatial fissures exploded across the extraordinarily stable Upper Realm, blasting out a few drops of divine blood. Nangong Chuan had apparently stationed his avatars near the Jin clan territory personally, likely to investigate Chen Yixin’s divine art.
“His Myriad Transformations Avatar Technique is actually quite well cultivated.”
Wenren Li casually commented as he carried Chen Yixin toward the void. Silver divine power swept outward once more. Whatever might have been hiding nearby, nothing had any chance of surviving.
Clearly, the annihilation of the Jin clan had been a trap jointly arranged by Dongfang and Nangong. They could not allow Chen Yixin to continue like this. Otherwise, the advantage they possessed would be gradually worn away through the continuous shifting of strength between the two sides.
“Come out!” Wenren Li stamped down hard. The phantom of a massive silver tree descended from the heavens, and aside from the space immediately surrounding him and Chen Yixin, the entire area was swallowed by the void. At the same time, the people who had been following them finally appeared.
They were not overconfident Immortal Emperors or Immortal Lords, but Dongfang Jin and Nangong Chuan themselves. Only by joining forces could those two possibly contend with Wenren Li.
As for Chen Yixin, based on their prolonged observations, he should remain weakened for three to five days after performing the soul-summoning art. They had little confidence in facing both Wenren Li and a fully matured Heavenly Phoenix, but against Wenren Li alone, they believed their odds were favorable. That was precisely why tonight’s pursuit had taken place.
“Great Emperor is truly capable. You actually managed to save a Heavenly Phoenix that was already on the verge of death. That must have cost you quite a bit.”
Nangong Chuan sat atop a red auspicious cloud, smiling as his probing gaze settled on the ice-blue phoenix in Wenren Li’s arms. He could not help sighing. “Truly beautiful. As expected of a Heavenly Phoenix nurtured by Heaven and Earth.”
Wenren Li loosened his hold slightly. Chen Yixin transformed back into human form but remained draped over Wenren Li’s back, his eyes tightly closed and his appearance still exceedingly weak. A cloak flew over and settled around him, covering Chen Yixin completely from his hair to his body.
“Great Emperor has also become like Qingruo and Lin Yu… unreasonable and muddleheaded…” Nangong Chuan narrowed his eyes as he spoke, and a red sword appeared in his hand. It was a sword like this that he and Dongfang Jin had once used to seal Wenren Li.
“Soul-Severing Sword…” Wenren Li recognized it immediately. But the present was no longer the past. Nangong Chuan and Dongfang Jin had attacked him only when he was at his weakest. Now he was anything but weak.
“A sword I forged myself. Today, I will be the one to break it.”
As soon as he spoke, a silver sword shadow shot toward Nangong Chuan. But countless overlapping silhouettes appeared around Nangong Chuan. Tens of thousands of avatars stepped forth, and their number continued increasing.
At this rate, even if Wenren Li exhausted all his divine power, he might still fail to kill every last avatar. Worse, Dongfang Jin remained beside Nangong and had yet to utter a single word. His attention had never actually been focused on Wenren Li. From the beginning, he had been watching Chen Yixin.
Even with Chen Yixin covered so thoroughly by Wenren Li, Dongfang Jin continued staring, almost as though admiring a flawless masterpiece.
“So many years have passed, and Rong’er has actually grown to such a level—a fully matured Heavenly Phoenix even more extraordinary than Qingruo.”
Dongfang Jin stroked his beard as he spoke, a sincerely pleased smile curling his lips. Judging from his expression, he did not look as though he had come to kill Wenren Li and Chen Yixin at all. Instead, he resembled an elder visiting a junior he had not seen for many years.
Chen Yixin raised his head from Wenren Li’s neck and looked toward Dongfang Jin. After a moment, he asked softly, “You’re Zhou Yan?”
His voice still held a hint of uncertainty, but by the time he finished speaking, Chen Yixin had already become certain. Only Zhou Yan had ever treated him with that sort of manner and tone. Chen Yixin would not mistake it.
Zhou Yan had been the first person to make him feel warmth and also the first to teach him what betrayal meant.
Yet the hatred that once cut so deeply no longer stirred much emotion in Chen Yixin. After asking, he did not even wait for Dongfang Jin’s reply. He simply lowered his head back against Wenren Li’s neck, closed his eyes, and reminded him, “I’m sleepy. A-Li, finish quickly.”
“Mhm.” Wenren Li nodded. He remained motionless with Chen Yixin on his back, but countless silver vines spread from beneath his feet and began strangling Nangong Chuan’s avatars.
“Do you know why you don’t understand emotion?”
Wenren Li’s voice spread through the void. Nangong Chuan’s avatars all turned toward him, brows lifting with indifference.
Wenren Li continued, “Do you know why you cannot break through and take that final step the way Dongfang has?”
“Why?” This question interested Nangong Chuan considerably. He had survived until now by relying on the Void Origin inside the Demon Abyss Well. Outwardly, he remained a lofty Qilin Saint, one of only two such figures beneath Heaven, but inwardly he had long become neither god nor demon, his entire existence hopelessly chaotic.
One reason he was so eager to deal with Chen Yixin and Wenren Li was that he wanted to discover how Wenren Li had treated Chen Yixin. Nangong understood very clearly that once he crossed this obstacle, he could become an existence equal to Dongfang Jin and Wenren Li.
“Your three souls and six spirits are incomplete. Even a sacred beast without them is unqualified to summon divine punishment, much less break through.”
Elio’s Notes: 三魂六魄, “three souls and six spirits,” draws on traditional Chinese ideas that a person’s spiritual existence is composed of multiple hun and po aspects rather than a single indivisible soul. The novel uses these components literally in its cultivation system.
As for why Nangong Chuan’s three souls and six spirits were incomplete, he should understand that better than Wenren Li. The moment he chose to cultivate the Myriad Transformations Avatar Technique, he had already fallen into this trap. He was merely a reasonably capable creation in Dongfang’s hands.
The prerequisite for cultivating the Myriad Transformations Avatar Technique was sacrificing one soul and one spirit of oneself, then using them to condense other avatars whose strength would not fall below that of the main body. Nangong Chuan had cultivated it for so long and lost countless avatars that the avatar containing his soul and spirit had disappeared long ago.
The divine art Nangong Chuan saw back then must have been incomplete. What was missing was precisely the method for maintaining the connection between that soul and spirit and the original body. Whether the missing portion had been absent from the beginning or deliberately erased was not difficult to guess.
The expressions of Nangong Chuan’s countless avatars darkened. No one other than Dongfang Jin could have tampered with him without his knowledge. One soul and one spirit—the soul was his secondary soul, while the spirit was his emotional spirit. That was why Wenren Li had asked why Nangong did not understand emotion.
It was not that he could not understand. He had simply extracted his own emotional spirit long ago. Without an emotional root, how could he understand?
“Dongfang, was anything he said wrong?”
Nangong Chuan stopped producing more avatars and flew farther away, deliberately widening the distance between himself, Dongfang Jin, and Wenren Li.
“No.” Dongfang Jin nodded without the slightest change in expression. “There cannot be two suns in one sky. There need be only one god who governs Heaven, Earth, and the cycle of reincarnation.” Wenren Li could not occupy that position, and Nangong Chuan could not compete with him for it either.
“My only regret is Rong’er. You and I were bound by Heaven itself, yet a tree destined to wither and die severed that bond.” Dragon and phoenix were meant to form an auspicious pair. His marriage fate with Chen Yixin had once been engraved upon the divine register at the bottom of the Three Lives Well, only for Wenren Li to erase it unintentionally.
When Wenren Li relocated the Three Lives Well all those years ago, the void had encountered a chaotic current. Wenren Li brought out a silver beast egg from within it but damaged the Three Lives Well in the process. Once the well was repaired, the engraved register supposedly bearing Dongfang Jin’s and Chen Yixin’s names disappeared forever.
As expected, even after Dongfang sent one soul to renew his bond with Chen Yixin, he still failed. Instead, that soul was destroyed by Chen Yixin and Wenren Li.
Dongfang Jin recounted all this calmly, yet an ancient resentment ran beneath every word, a hatred that had endured through several epochs. Dongfang Jin was still Dongfang Jin. Only his malice and obsession had never changed.
“What auspicious union of dragon and phoenix? I only want my tree. That’s A-Li!” Chen Yixin could not resist snapping back at Dongfang Jin. There was no old affection between them worth remembering. If Dongfang wanted to rebel, then rebel—trying to use Chen Yixin as an excuse was intolerable.
“Dragons, huh… I hear they have countless lovers and sons in all kinds of strange forms, but I’ve never heard that they had anything to do with our phoenix clan. The Three Lives Well made up some nonsense and you actually believed it? That thing only responds to force, not kindness. It takes a beating before it learns its lesson.”
Chen Yixin ground his teeth, suddenly very tempted to go back and teach the Three Lives Well another lesson. He really had been too gentle with it before. It had actually dared fabricate some ridiculous marriage fate between him and Dongfang Jin.
Wenren Li was not nearly as annoyed as Chen Yixin. After thinking for a moment, realization appeared on his face. “So that was it. A-Rong should originally have been able to hatch, but because the divine register inside the Three Lives Well was damaged, he could not descend into the world.”
“But unless I am mistaken, the chaotic void current appeared because you attempted to force your way through the Realm Gate for the first time. Every cause has an effect. You cannot blame anyone else.” Moreover, Wenren Li still had reservations about Dongfang Jin’s account. The Three Lives Well had indeed lost a corner, and Chen Yixin was definitely recorded there, but the other name might not have been Dongfang Jin’s at all.
Dongfang Jin showed no anger. He waved one hand, and a mass of dim mist instantly swallowed the surrounding void. At the spatial fissure connecting back to the Immortal Realm, Dongfang’s aura caused the opening to expand continuously.
Wenren Li lowered Chen Yixin from his back and carefully adjusted his cloak and hood. “A-Rong, wait for me. I’ll finish this quickly.”
“All right.” Chen Yixin nodded. Just as Wenren Li was about to turn away, Chen Yixin tugged lightly at him, leaned forward, and kissed him on the lips. A distinct smile spread across Chen Yixin’s face. “I’ll wait.”
After speaking, Chen Yixin waved one hand and teleported away from the center where Wenren Li and Dongfang Jin were about to fight.
He would not interfere in Wenren Li’s reckoning with Dongfang Jin. Nangong Chuan, who had just discovered how thoroughly Dongfang had manipulated him, likewise had no intention of participating again—unless, of course, he had also sacrificed his wisdom spirit.
“Han Zichuan… is he in your hands?” Nangong Chuan flew to a point not far from Chen Yixin, his inscrutable gaze fixed on him. During this brief interval, he was already rapidly calculating every possible place where his lost soul and spirit might have gone.
Among all his avatars, only Han Zichuan had developed feelings for Chen Yixin. If he could feel love, then Nangong’s emotional spirit had to be within him. The location of his secondary soul remained unknown, but Han Zichuan was someone he absolutely had to recover.
Yet the day Nangong attempted to draw Han Zichuan back into his original body, the black pouch Chen Yixin had left behind carried him away instead. Nangong had assumed Han Zichuan was merely an insignificant discarded avatar. He had never imagined the loss of precisely this avatar was the reason he had failed to break through for so many years.
Chen Yixin glanced at Nangong Chuan before returning his attention to the battle between Wenren Li and Dongfang Jin. He shook his head. “He isn’t. But whether you can find him depends on whether you survive long enough to leave this place today.”
As Chen Yixin finished speaking, his aura changed. There was no trace of weakness anywhere. His supposed frailty had been entirely staged for Nangong Chuan and Dongfang Jin. Otherwise, given those two men’s despicable natures, why would they willingly expose themselves now?
Chen Yixin popped two sweet-and-sour pills into his mouth. Wenren Li had been feeding him pills nonstop during the journey, and by the time he climbed onto Wenren Li’s back, he had already completely recovered.
“A mere soul-summoning divine bird dares dream of killing this lord? You overestimate yourself!”
Nangong Chuan’s avatars once again appeared around him. The reason he had willingly sacrificed one soul and one spirit to cultivate this technique was precisely because of the way it allowed him to expand his fighting strength without diminishing himself. An enemy might fight one hundred, perhaps one thousand, perhaps even ten thousand—but against tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands, victory was nearly impossible.
Nangong, however, could produce precisely that. Accumulated over time, his avatars were enough to exhaust almost any enemy to death.
“Thirty thousand avatars—kill him!”
Nangong Chuan roared. Thirty thousand avatars simultaneously unleashed the highest sword art through the Soul-Severing Sword. This was the very sword that had once severed Wenren Li’s true body, and after years of being continuously tainted by the Void Origin, its power had only increased.
“Sixty thousand avatars—kill him!”
“Ninety thousand avatars—kill him!”
Chen Yixin vanished beneath an ocean of sword light. Even a fully matured Heavenly Phoenix should have been annihilated. A cold smile appeared on Nangong Chuan’s lips—but within that void filled with death aura, a tiny point of blue light suddenly appeared. Chen Yixin stepped out from the radiance completely unharmed, without even losing a strand of hair.
“That’s impossible. My avatars clearly killed you!” Nangong Chuan’s eyes widened. Confusion quickly gave way to inexplicable fear. He was not entirely foolish and murmured, “Undying… Heavenly Phoenix. So this is the Undying Power.”
Chen Yixin could revive immortals who had never even received an Undying Mark. How could he possibly fail to revive himself, the bearer of the Undying Decree? Forget Nangong Chuan—even Dongfang Jin would find it difficult to kill him.
Of course, the Undying Decree was not without limits. Chen Yixin’s Undying Power was finite. He could not die and revive without end. But neither was Chen Yixin merely standing there to let Nangong kill him. He had deliberately endured those three attacks for a reason.
The ice blue of his eyes deepened as he looked at Nangong Chuan’s continuously multiplying avatars. In Chen Yixin’s vision, countless green lines connected them together like a net, and any net controlled as a whole had to possess nodes.
Those nodes were the weak points of Nangong Chuan’s Myriad Transformations Avatar Technique. A pair of spiritual wings unfolded behind Chen Yixin, vast enough to cover the sky. Countless feathers rose upright before scattering and shooting toward Nangong’s avatars.
“Break!”
Each feather severed one node, causing several avatars to explode. Innumerable feathers swept outward, and in the blink of an eye more than half of Nangong Chuan’s avatars disappeared. A tree branch appeared in Chen Yixin’s right hand and a feather in his left as he walked toward Nangong Chuan step by step.
After three steps, Chen Yixin swung the silver branch directly at the Soul-Severing Sword. “Break!”
“A sword that betrayed its master has no right to exist!”
Nangong Chuan raised the sword to resist, only for the blade to tremble. The power of Wenren Li’s words contained within Chen Yixin’s wooden branch immediately reduced the divine sword’s strength by thirty percent. Then Chen Yixin swept the feather in his left hand toward it.
The Soul-Severing Sword resisted for less than two breaths before it truly snapped. A divine sword that neither Dongfang Jin, Nangong Chuan, nor even Wenren Li had been able to destroy was broken by Chen Yixin’s Undying Power—or more precisely, by the Void Origin within him.
“You… what exactly are you?”
Was Chen Yixin, whom Wenren Li and Dongfang Jin both insisted on possessing, truly nothing more than a Heavenly Phoenix? Nangong, Dongfang, even Qingruo and Lin Yu were all members of Heaven’s ancient races, yet none could coexist with the Void Origin. Why alone could Chen Yixin?
In talent and effort, none of them should have been inferior to Chen Yixin. There had to be a secret within him that Nangong did not yet know.
Nangong Chuan’s eyes darkened. Yet rather than continuing to fight, he chose to retreat and flee. As long as the green mountains remained, there would still be firewood to burn. Only by surviving could he challenge them again. Having lived until now, neither Nangong nor Dongfang was willing to die.
But before Nangong could fully leave the void, Dongfang Jin erupted on the other side.
Wenren Li had already reabsorbed every remnant of his true body. Through Chen Yixin, his Divine Crystal had become whole again. His divine power and combat strength had therefore returned completely to their peak. Although Dongfang Jin had also taken that final step, his attainment still could not compare with Wenren Li’s.
If the battle continued, Dongfang Jin’s defeat was inevitable. Yet Nangong Chuan refused to accept death, and Dongfang Jin was even less likely to accept it. Several Divine Crystals carved with special divine power shattered in Dongfang’s hands. The tremendous energy punched directly through the wall of the void, unleashing a terrifying force of suction. All four of them, being so close, were unable to escape.
Wenren Li flashed to Chen Yixin’s side, wrapped him tightly in his arms, and together they were dragged into the Extradimensional Realm beyond the shattered boundary. For gods, the danger of traversing the void was comparable to crossing the Heavenly River. Unless one was exceptionally unlucky and encountered an eruption such as a chaotic void current, disaster was generally unlikely.
But the danger of the Extradimensional Realm could not be measured. It was a true forbidden region, densely filled with temporal and spatial nodes. A single careless step could sweep someone into the torrent of time and erase them forever—or leave them permanently lost.
The extraordinarily rare chaotic void currents of the ordinary void spilled out from this Extradimensional Realm. Those currents alone had been enough to destroy the divine register guarded by the Three Lives Well. If the missing corner still existed anywhere, the Extradimensional Realm was the only possible place.
“I recognized those two Divine Crystals. A-Li gave them to me to play with, and now Dongfang Jin destroyed them!”
Chen Yixin buried his head in Wenren Li’s chest, thoroughly protected from the turbulent currents around them. Only because he was so completely shielded did he have the spare attention to sulk.
And he had a feeling that most of the things Wenren Li had once given him had probably ended up in Dongfang Jin’s possession. That man was not merely a traitor but a shameless thief who stole other people’s belongings.
“I hope Elder Brother and Lin Yu move faster. They should raid his nest soon and steal everything back for me…”
Chen Yixin wrapped his arms around Wenren Li’s waist and released some of his own divine power to help maintain the barrier around them. The moment Chen Yixin’s Undying Power entered it, it immediately began circulating with and complementing Wenren Li’s power of life.
“Those two Divine Crystals belonged to Ancient Gods. Dongfang should possess only those two. For the moment, he cannot leave the Extradimensional Realm.” Wenren Li rapidly carried Chen Yixin away from the center of the Divine Crystal explosion. They first needed to find a relatively safe place before considering how to leave Dongfang Jin and Nangong Chuan dead inside this realm.
Chen Yixin nodded and allowed Wenren Li to carry him away, but he could not resist turning back twice to look at the red and blue trails of Divine Crystal energy. Two Divine Crystals represented two Ancient Gods. They might have been gods Wenren Li once personally knew—or gods who had died attempting to reach the Realm Gate.
“Father God gave those two Divine Crystals to me before he set out. I later gave them to A-Rong. I never expected Dongfang would use them this way.” Almost nothing Father God had left behind remained in the world. Even these final two Divine Crystals had now been destroyed by Dongfang Jin.
“No. A-Li, stop. There are characters inside!”
Chen Yixin tightened his grip on Wenren Li’s hand, staring fixedly in that direction. “I… I think I’ve seen these two characters before…”
Wenren Li immediately turned back with him. Yet one of the two characters was taken first by Nangong, who had been drawn into the realm later than they were, while the remaining character reached Chen Yixin’s palm before Dongfang could rush over.
“What character is this?” Chen Yixin lowered his head and examined it carefully, but just as before, he could not understand it.
He clearly felt he ought to recognize the character, yet its meaning refused to appear in his mind. It was familiar and incomprehensible at once.
Chen Yixin looked toward Wenren Li, only to see him shake his head. “I cannot see the character A-Rong sees.”
Those Divine Crystals had remained in Wenren Li’s possession longer than anyone else’s, yet he had never seen any characters within them. Even now, with the crystals exploded apart, he still saw nothing. Whether Nangong and Dongfang could see them was equally uncertain.
“We’ll discuss it later.” Wenren Li immediately carried Chen Yixin away at full speed. If another explosion erupted inside this fissure and they were accidentally caught in it, escaping would become even harder. Worse, the disturbance here would attract creatures native to the Extradimensional Realm.
“A-Li, watch beneath your feet!” Chen Yixin warned softly. A pair of spiritual wings appeared behind him, and he wrapped his arms around Wenren Li to pull them away from a black shadow that suddenly rose from the scorched ground. They had already seen how dangerous these things were.
It feared neither the power of life nor the power of the Void Origin. And clearly, dangerous though the surface was, it remained somewhat safer than the unknown depths underground.
They continued dodging and fleeing like this with almost no opportunity to rest. They could not even determine how much time had passed, only that the depletion within their bodies continued increasing.
“A-Li, don’t you feel as though we’ve been going in circles the entire time? We haven’t actually moved very far from the fissure entrance at all.”
As Chen Yixin spoke, he wiped Wenren Li’s forehead. Black-gray dust filled the skies of this strange realm, and once it landed on the body, divine power could not easily brush it away. It had to be physically wiped off.
“Mhm. This realm’s strangeness was famous even in ancient times. This is my first time entering it.” Wenren Li rubbed Chen Yixin’s hair. Wenren Li was covered in dust, yet Chen Yixin remained perfectly clean.
“The creatures here have no spiritual intelligence, so we can’t communicate with them. Otherwise, we could have asked them to show us the way.”
Chen Yixin tossed the merfolk-silk handkerchief aside and took several objects from his storage space. Looking at Wenren Li, he said, “A-Li, buy me some time. I’m making an umbrella. This dust is disgusting.”
He refused to let Wenren Li leave the Extradimensional Realm transformed from a beautiful silver tree into a spotted one. Absolutely intolerable. Besides that, they could not determine whether the dust had any other effect on them.
“All right.” Wenren Li nodded and began clearing away and resisting the seemingly endless strange beasts of this realm, using the rock Chen Yixin sat on as the center.
Chen Yixin occasionally checked Wenren Li’s situation but spent most of his attention on the work in his hands. After an unknown amount of time, an ice-blue umbrella took shape. A moment later, however, its radiance faded and the entire umbrella turned black.
Chen Yixin had infused it with Void Origin Power. A thousand years ago, he would never have dared touch that power. But after studying it for a thousand years, he could now occasionally use a little—for example, now, when Void Origin Power was clearly more useful than ordinary divine power.
Holding the umbrella above Wenren Li’s head, Chen Yixin walked over. “A-Li, do you think the Void Origin might come from this Extradimensional Realm?”
Chen Yixin’s suspicion was understandable. Even Wenren Li could not help thinking along the same line, though his guess was even bolder. He turned to meet Chen Yixin’s gaze, slowly caressed Chen Yixin’s eyes, and murmured, “Perhaps.”
Perhaps Wenren Li, Qingruo, Lin Yu, Dongfang, Nangong—and Chen Yixin, who was so different from all of them—had all come from the Extradimensional Realm. Whether that was true or not, however, changed nothing.
Wenren Li took the umbrella, grasped Chen Yixin’s hand, and continued walking. They might still be circling, but inside the Extradimensional Realm they absolutely could not remain stationary. Otherwise, too many strange beasts would be attracted by their aura, and clearing them away would become dangerous.
The periods when they had previously stopped were already the maximum they could safely tolerate.
“From now on, A-Rong leads. Whichever direction you choose, that is where we go.”
After Wenren Li brought Chen Yixin out of the dense encirclement surrounding them, he did not immediately continue. Instead, he left the choice of direction entirely to Chen Yixin.
“All right.” Chen Yixin did not refuse. He let his gaze drift around once before rather casually pointing in one direction. From then onward, they did exactly that. They never stopped, yet they also stopped circling. The terrain beneath their feet gradually became different from the endless scorched wasteland they had previously seemed unable to escape.
“I hear water!” Chen Yixin instantly became alert. They had encountered many bodies of water during their journey, and almost without exception, each had been extraordinarily dangerous. Yet this was the first time they had heard water on such an enormous scale.
“The aura of the Heavenly River…” Wenren Li heard it too but sensed more than Chen Yixin did. None of the previous waters had possessed this aura. The unseen river ahead already carried the familiar presence of the Heavenly River.
The Heavenly River crossed the entire Upper Realm. To ordinary Immortal Lords, it had neither source nor end. Naturally, that was merely their understanding. It possessed both, but Immortal Lords and Immortal Emperors who reached those places almost never returned alive. Over time, the belief that it had no beginning and no end became accepted.
Clearly, this Extradimensional Realm was either the source of the Heavenly River—or the place into which it ultimately flowed.
The sound seemed close, yet the journey toward it took an extraordinarily long time. Their divine power was depleted again and again, restored again and again, before they finally reached a mountain closest to the Heavenly River. Before them stretched a silver current like a coiled dragon.
The water thundered with an ancient and overwhelming grandeur. Even Chen Yixin and Wenren Li felt an unmistakable sense of insignificance, as though they were no longer gods but merely ants within the torrent of time.
As Chen Yixin and Wenren Li reached the Heavenly River, Dongfang Jin and Nangong Chuan were approaching as well. The two had joined forces again. Their relationship was no longer what it once was, but both understood clearly that until they escaped this realm, cooperation was their only chance of surviving—and their only chance of defeating Chen Yixin and Wenren Li.
“Is this what people meant when they called the Heavenly River the burial ground of the gods, the final destination of all divinities?” Chen Yixin stared at the river before him, but his mind returned to the ancient battle at the Heavenly River and his experience of being swept beneath it.
The memories sealed within him one after another had once been restored through the Heavenly River’s impact. Yet compared with the Heavenly River inside this Extradimensional Realm, the river in the Upper Realm was like a grain of sand beside an entire world.
“Is the Realm Gate at the end of this Heavenly River?”
Chen Yixin turned toward Wenren Li, whose expression was much calmer than his.
Wenren Li naturally concealed nothing from him. After a moment’s hesitation, he both nodded and shook his head.
“It may be at the end, or it may appear at any temporal or spatial node. But opening it requires breaking through the boundary of the Extradimensional Realm and using the soul power of innumerable living beings to obstruct the Heavenly River. Only then might the Realm Gate that appears be opened.”
Looking at the river before them, it was easy to imagine how terrifying an amount of soul power would be required. Even if every being in the Upper Realm died, along with countless Lower Realms, it might still not be enough. Perhaps even the living creatures of the Extradimensional Realm would need to be sacrificed. For the immortality of a few individuals, such a price was horrifying.
Thus, throughout history, except during Ages of Dharma Decline when the Void Origin grew exceptionally strong and Ancient Gods attempted to force the Realm Gate through their own power, opening it had otherwise been impossible. Even Chen Yixin and Wenren Li could not accomplish such a thing.
“It is simply too difficult. The Heavenly River truly deserves its name as the burial ground of the gods.”
“No. Great Emperor is wrong. The Realm Gate is destined to open in this age. That is the fate neither you nor I can stop.”
Dongfang Jin’s voice came from behind Chen Yixin and Wenren Li. He appeared alongside Nangong Chuan. Compared with Chen Yixin and Wenren Li, who had traveled beneath an umbrella the entire way, the two of them were so filthy that Chen Yixin almost wanted to throw them into the Heavenly River for a wash.
“Since we’ve already reached this point, Dongfang, there’s no point hiding anything. Once the Realm Gate can be opened, Great Emperor won’t reject immortality either.” Nangong Chuan crossed his arms as he spoke but shifted one step farther from Dongfang Jin. They had survived together until now, but from here onward, Dongfang could no longer be trusted. Given Dongfang Jin’s nature, the moment danger arose, he was entirely capable of using Nangong as a shield.
Nangong turned his head and unexpectedly found Chen Yixin looking at him rather than Dongfang Jin. He continued his argument.
“After all, Great Emperor is the world’s only Longevity Tree, born undying and able to exist through eternity. Little Heavenly Phoenix is different… Only after crossing the Realm Gate can the two of you truly remain together forever.”
Neither Chen Yixin nor Wenren Li responded. Chen Yixin was looking at the character floating behind Nangong Chuan. Clearly, it had merely attached itself to Nangong by coincidence. He had not actually gained control over it.
Chen Yixin still did not know what the two characters were for, but whatever their purpose, keeping them in his own hands was clearly preferable.
“Absurd. Even if all of us advanced another level, we still could not obstruct the Heavenly River’s power. It would merely be throwing our lives away. If you want to challenge the Realm Gate, go ahead. Why would A-Rong and I stop you?”
If those two wanted to die, Wenren Li would not interfere, and Chen Yixin certainly would not. Wenren Li answered Dongfang Jin but ignored Nangong’s words.
Wenren Li had already linked his life with Chen Yixin’s using the Life-Binding Lock. More importantly, he had placed the primary lock on Chen Yixin. If Chen Yixin died, Wenren Li would die with him. There was no possibility of one living while the other perished.
“You’re simply too afraid of death to try,” Chen Yixin added mockingly. Dongfang Jin had likely developed a heart demon from his first attempt, or he would never have carried out everything that followed.
Yet Dongfang Jin still did not agree with them. He continued persuading them, but his attention remained overwhelmingly focused on Chen Yixin. Clearly, in Dongfang’s mind, the key to crossing the Realm Gate lay with him.
“Great Emperor may not trust me, but surely you trust the Heavenly Book beneath the Demon Abyss Well.” Nangong Chuan pushed one hand toward the Heavenly River, and a well surrounded by black aura was immediately swept into the river. Chen Yixin’s and Wenren Li’s expressions changed, and both pursued it.
Inside the well, aside from every Immortal Emperor throughout history who had gone into slumber after siding with Dongfang and Nangong, Chen Yixin and Wenren Li also saw the figures of Qingruo, Lin Yu, and others. Clearly, outside this realm they were attacking the Demon Abyss Well and had reached a critical moment.
“A-Rong, don’t worry. Those are merely temporal projections. They were not actually brought into the Extradimensional Realm.” Qingruo and Lin Yu remained safe for the moment, but whatever further scheme Dongfang Jin possessed was difficult to know.
“It seems their lives are not enough to move either of you.” As Dongfang Jin spoke, a pale-yellow illusion appeared between his hands—the temporal projection of the entire Immortal Realm.
“If I detonate another Divine Crystal here, it will be enough to push the entire Upper Realm and Void-Heaven Battlefield into the Heavenly River of the Extradimensional Realm. Great Emperor, Rong’er—would you like to see whether I can do it?”
Chen Yixin and Wenren Li stared coldly at Dongfang Jin. They truly could not allow him to proceed. Even though Wenren Li was seventy or eighty percent certain Dongfang Jin had no Divine Crystals left, they could not gamble on the remaining twenty or thirty percent.
Leave a Reply