Chapter 369: Crazy

A NOTE FROM D.C. HAENLIEN

I'm back. Sorry for the lack of updates until now. Those of you in my discord will know, but I learned that close family member passed away during my week long vacation. So I needed some to myself. I can't say I'm completely over it, but updates will resume.

Another thing to note is that I might not update a few times this month. I'm going to need to drive to New York to attend a funeral among other things.

Thank you for understanding.

Jiangshi were corpses that underwent a special process to turn them into flesh golems for combat. Martial cultivators, demons, or any other lifeforms with particularly strong flesh were prime materials to create jiangshi, but due to its nature, it was often seen as an unorthodox method that veered toward the devilish path.

They were divided into seven grades: white-haired, black-haired, jumping, flying, plague, and devil.

No matter the realm a jiangshi was created in, they all started as white-haired jiangshi. White-haired jiangshi had no hope of upgrading beyond their realm, and black-haired jiangshi only had a modicum of hope. The highest grade of jiangshi, devil jiangshi, could ascend like regular cultivators as long as they absorbed enough blood, but that was because they developed their own will and could no longer be controlled. As such, the most powerful jiangshi were plague-grade jiangshi, as devil jiangshi were exterminated at birth, regardless of their power.

After Daoyi returned from the Fu Dynasty, Tianyi researched a bit on jiangshi. So, after smelling the fresh blood wafting from the plague-grade jiangshi, he knew it was a freshly made one, likely not even a decade old.

Tianyi gripped the wrist of the fist embedded in his stomach and smashed down with his free hand. The screech of tearing metal reverberated in the surroundings, much to Tianyi's shock. His strength had only warped the arm.

He reared his fist back, intent on tearing off the jiangshi's arm. The plague-grade jiangshi resisted, punching and kicking with his free limbs and even biting Tianyi. The jiangshi's teeth tore through the latter's robes but only left white marks on his skin.

In the end, Tianyi only managed to land two more attacks on the jiangshi, causing the jiangshi's arm to be bent to nearly ninety degrees before Emperor Soulsilk knocked him away from behind, freeing the jiangshi. Emperor Soulsilk took this chance and launched hundreds of phantom, web-like strings that bound every part of Tianyi.

The images of spiders sucking out the juices of their cocooned victims entered Tianyi's mind. Suppressing a shiver, black flames fueled by immortal qi of primordial chaos burst from his body, burning the phantom web binding him. He moved to attack the two emperor-level experts but stopped.

Tianyi's brows pursed when he saw the similarities between Emperor Soulsilk and the jiangshi, well the portrait of Emperor Soulsilk, not his current abomination of a form.

"You're crazy," Tianyi finally said after a period of silence. "You actually turned your body into a jiangshi."

Ignoring the morality of the act, among the three orthodox paths, a soul cultivator's body was the worst material to transform into a jiangshi. Even if a soul emperor no longer needed to be bound by flesh, the creation of a jiangshi still required a portion of the original soul, meaning Emperor Soulsilk had split a part of his soul in the Immortal Realm.

Splitting a soul in the Immortal Realm was not like in the Mortal Realm, especially for those in the Seamless Realm and above. Each part of the soul carries the immortal's insight and comprehension of the worldly laws. No matter how minute, the lost comprehension would become incredibly hard to recover, and the soul would likely never heal from the act.

Emperor Soulsilk said nothing, he just stared at Tianyi with his vengeance-filled eyes. Tianyi recoiled slightly and averted his gaze directly from the former's eyes. He destroyed the Eight Pillar Sect, so the hate was justified. However, he didn't think that Emperor Soulsilk's jiangshi was a burst of impulse but a deliberate act—one that was in the making for over a decade.

The air exploded as the emperor jiangshi charged at Tianyi and Emperor Soulsilk pincered Tianyi from behind. Tianyi focused more on the jiangshi than Emperor Soulsilk. His form of existence was the natural enemy of soul cultivators.

Although he seemed directly in front of Emperor Soulsilk, his true body was a universe, and his soul was at the center of that universe, an infinity away. Soul attacks simply couldn't reach him. Even if they did, their effects were minimal.

In contrast, the emperor jiangshi composed a more significant threat. If Tianyi's current conduit were destroyed, it would take hundreds of years to create another one of equal strength and power. However, Tianyi's worries were for naught.

In his wisdom, Emperor Soulsilk had focused on the jiangshi's defense first and foremost, explaining why Tianyi's all-out strike didn't break the arm off. Jiangshi were corpses and displayed characteristics of corpses, including brittleness and difficult healing.

Although it could withstand Tianyi's powerful flesh, the jiangshi's strength was far from comparable to its defenses. Tianyi would have to lower all his defenses and allow the jiangshi to punch him tens of times before his skin would break.

In concept, the jiangshi would act as a sturdy vanguard to the Eight Pillar Sect against its opponent. Unfortunately for Emperor Soulsilk and the jiangshi, he perfectly curbed both. Tianyi would have had more trouble dealing with Emperor Infinity.

Tianyi glanced toward the yin-yang temple. After the jiangshi attacked him, the momentary weakness it displayed disappeared, revealing that it was nothing more than bait. The temple's defense had returned to normal and sent bursts of yin-yang attacks at him, which he diffused through the Law of Spacetime.

Although Tianyi could deal with all the attacks, he couldn't actually hold down Emperor Soulsilk or the emperor jiangshi. If the two decided to leave, then the Buzhou Immortal Sect would gain an enemy in the dark, like the Begonia Bodhisattva, or was he still Emperor Begonia at this moment?

'Guess I'll have to strengthen myself a bit,' Tianyi thought. His skin and robes turned translucent, revealing the Nine Heavens Universe to the world. In the sea of stars, the nine heavens centered in Tianyi's dantian. It was as if he had transformed into a miniature cosmos giant. Although it appeared akin to the cosmos giant, the difference was like heaven and earth.

Outside of the Five Phase Stellar Formation, the black storm clouds crackled dangerously. A hint of aura of punishment emerged as if waiting to strike.

Tianyi sensed this, but as long as heavenly punishment didn't fall, he would be fine. His hand clamped onto the emperor jiangshi, and the jiangshi punched Tianyi, but at the moment of contact, the jiangshi's fist began to sink into his body. Not just the jiangshi's fist but Emperor Soulsilk's curved daggers also became lodged in his skin.

Like something out of a horror movie, the emperor jiangshi began to sink into Tianyi. More specifically, he started to sink into the Nine Heavens Universe. Since he couldn't warp Emperor Soulsilk or the jiangshi into his inner universe, then he would force them in.

Emperor Soulsilk decisively abandoned his knives upon seeing what happened to his jiangshi. There was a sickening crack as the jiangshi disconnected both its arms at the base of the shoulder, but Tianyi wouldn't allow it to escape so easily.

Tianyi's figure swiftly grew larger from his near two meters to ten, twenty, fifty, and eventually a hundred meters tall almost instantaneously. The jiangshi was below average for an emperor-level expert, allowing Tianyi to shackle the spacetime around him and buying himself enough time to grab the jiangshi in his palm.

Then, he turned toward Emperor Soulsilk, who had retreated into the distance, but he still remained on the battlefield with no intention of fleeing. His hatred had seen to that.

Tianyi's giant form disappeared and reappeared behind Emperor Soulsilk. He slapped him with his hand, and the instant he made contact, he attempted to absorb Emperor Soulsilk. However, Emperor Soulsilk had used one of his arms as a shield, pushing the rest of his body away and disconnecting it.

Upon absorbing the disconnected arm, Tianyi had an impulse to spit it out immediately but held himself back. Once again, he started attacking Emperor Soulsilk, but the latter had deployed a hundred-meter barrier around him that stabilized space. Even with Tianyi's mastery of spacetime, he could only teleport around fifty meters inside the barrier.

At this time, Emperor Soulsilk shot out the phantom web to try to immobilize Tianyi, but like physical attacks, they sunk into Tianyi's form and dissipated once inside the Nine Heavens Universe. As for the emperor jiangshi, it had gone dormant since Tianyi disconnected it from Emperor Soulsilk.

And no, Tianyi was not going to say that the only way it could move was to upgrade to a devil-grade jiangshi. Nope, he was not going to tempt fate like that. In fact, he specifically ordered the Nine Heavens Heavenly Dao to keep watch in case that happened.

However, Emperor Soulsilk's attempt gave Tianyi an idea. Although he stored it as deep as he could, he still had some of the Dreamsilk Weaver Beast's silk that Daoyi had given him. He didn't know if it would be effective or not, but it was worth a try.

Tianyi manipulated the Dreamsilk Weaver Beast's silk into a net inside his inner universe and then launched out. Simultaneously, he froze the spacetime around Emperor Soulsilk as much as possible.

To his surprise, the dreamsilk net didn't enter the barrier formed by Emperor Soulsilk but bound it. Tianyi pulled, drawing the barrier and Emperor Soulsilk to him. Although it was outside of his expectations, it was not something he couldn’t work with.

He plunged himself into the barrier bound by the dreamsilk net and started absorbing the energy that made up the barrier. As the barrier diminished in size, so too did the amount of space Emperor Soulsilk could flee to.

Once the barrier shrunk to less than fifty meters in diameter, Tianyi didn't bother absorbing anymore and reached out to grab Emperor Soulsilk directly. It took a few tries, but Tianyi finally clasped both his hands around Emperor Soulsilk.

Just as Tianyi was about to absorb him, Emperor Soulsilk lost its integrity, turning into an amorphous blob of soul qi. Simultaneously, the barrier trapped within the dreamsilk net lost its integrity, becoming slime-like. He easily absorbed it and then turned toward the yin-yang temple.

When he had absorbed the blob Emperor Soulsilk's form had transformed into, he couldn't detect a soul at all—meaning Emperor Soulsilk had likely escaped. Tianyi didn't doubt his abilities to flee, but with that hatred-filled gaze, he believed that Emperor Soulsilk would not flee. At least, not yet.

As Tianyi expected, the taiji sphere began to change. Eight legs—four white ones on the left and four black ones on the right—sprouted from the sphere. Additionally, another sphere, this one depicting the eight trigrams, materialized from the back. In essence, it was a ten thousand meter large spider, a hundred times Tianyi's current size.

Tianyi couldn't stop himself from shivering once the eight spider-like gazes zeroed in on him.

When the yin-yang spider appeared, its aura skyrocketed to the peak of the Extremity Immortal Realm. With a shriek, it caused Tianyi's Five Phase Stellar Formation to halt in its tracks as cracks appeared in it.

He frowned and dispelled the formation, recalling the five constellations he used to form the formation. Next, immortal qi of primordial chaos erupted from him in large quantities impossible for even ten immortal emperors.

But before Tianyi could form the Chaos Refining Formation, the yin-yang spider slammed Tianyi into the ground, splitting the land and pinning him to the ground with its legs.

Tianyi tried to absorb the yin-yang spider, but it actually stabilized the dimensional boundaries of his inner universe. When it pierced his body, it deformed his arms and legs. In essence, Tianyi couldn't absorb the yin-yang spider at all.

Beams of white and black shot out of the yin-yang spider's eight eyes at Tianyi. The beams pierced into Tianyi's inner universe, where they continued on endlessly, leaving him unharmed.

Despite the difference in size between the two, Tianyi started to push the yin-yang spider back. After getting back on his feet, he aimed a palm at the spider, shooting out numerous Stellar Silences. The spell bombarded the yin-yang spider, causing it to shriek and take a few steps back.

Taking this chance, Tianyi charged at the spider, but the eight legs prevented him from nearing the main body. At this time, the optimal choice would be to increase his size, but if he grew any larger, the heavenly punishment would descend.

And, forming the cosmos giant would be a waste of qi since it couldn't compare to the yin-yang spider. Tianyi's best choice would be to grind it out. There must be a reason that Emperor Soulsilk didn't summon the yin-yang spider. As with all things, the likeliest possibility would be energy consumption. As long as he stalled long enough, the yin-yang spider would dissipate, and he could kill Emperor Soulsilk and attain the yin-yang temple.

Hours passed as Tianyi, and the yin-yang spider exchanged thousands of blows, neither able to clearly defeat the other. Suddenly, Tianyi's movements halted, and the yin-yang spider took this chance to attack the immobile Tianyi.

Once pinned, the yin-yang spider continually stabbed Tianyi with its legs. Emperor Soulsilk and the other immortals inside the yin-yang temple had learned neither spells nor soul attacks could restrain Tianyi. The best option was to use physical attacks.

The ground quaked as the continuous spear-like thrust forced Tianyi deeper into the ground. It was as if the yin-yang spider wanted to push Tianyi out of the Huang Realm through the lower boundary.

Emperor Soulsilk and the other immortals grew excited upon seeing no defense or reaction from Tianyi. Confident that they had him on the ropes, they increased the intensity of the attacks.

"XIA YUSHAN!!!" a monstrous bellow shook the surrounding area. So loud was it that even mortals near the edge of the Earth Continent heard the faint words.

Before Emperor Soulsilk and the others could sense what happened, the ground beneath them turned into something akin to the Vast Void, only filled with numerous stars and planets. They were instantaneously swallowed, and the portal to the Nine Heavens Universe shrunk and disappeared.

And not a moment too soon as heavenly punishment descended, destroying the land even further. In the foreseeable future, a storm would rage on for thousands, if not tens of thousands of years.