Chapter 461
by fanqienovelChapter 461: Heavenly Emperor’s Transcendence (Part 2)
Li Ruoyu’s lips curved slightly upward.
He had anticipated this.
"Dear friends, let this end here."
Mu Fanyin grasped the Heaven’s Machine Order, her aura ethereal as if she’d leaped beyond the cosmos. Her Divine Sense became completely undetectable.
"Nonsense!"
Martial Emperor Lingxiao roared furiously. "Though you possess a treasure of the transcendent realm, you haven’t transcended yourself! Do you truly believe you alone can withstand us all?"
"Attack!"
Chaos Immortal Emperor summoned the Chaotic Tree. Roots erupted wildly, burrowing into the void to greedily absorb the power of chaos. The tree swelled relentlessly, its canopy eclipsing the heavens as branches coiled like divine chains to seal the heavens and lock the earth.
Crack!
Abruptly, at Mu Fanyin’s mere thought, Chaos Immortal Emperor’s primordial spirit and flesh were shredded to fragments without warning.
The gathered Immortal Emperors paled in horror.
Yet Yi Daoist merely smiled faintly, addressing them: "She hasn’t reached the transcendent realm and cannot fully control the Heaven’s Machine Order. Fellow Daoists, join forces!"
Boom!
Yi Daoist swept his hand across the Cosmic Chessboard. Spatial magic surged to its apex, folding the entire cosmos into the chess grid.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
Countless pieces forged from Immortal Emperors’ primordial spirits unleashed their divine abilities, all converging to slaughter Mu Fanyin.
Immortal Daoist strained to channel the Undying Heavenly Coffin. Sinister divine patterns snaked across his flesh as terrifying power detonated from him—severed his own threads of causality.
Bang!
His body exploded… yet flesh and blood reassembled within moments.
"The Great Dao of Undying?" Immortal Emperor Taisu gasped.
"Daoist friend Mu, your arrogance astounds!" Sword Master fused with his Absolute Sword. Heaven-rending sword essence surged as he became a peerless divine blade—invincible in his advance.
Qin Emperor’s fingers danced across the strings of the Three Lives Zither. Melodies swelled—now thunderous, now murmuring—unleashing the instrument’s full might, assaulting Mu Fanyin simultaneously from the past, future, and present.
Yan Immortal Emperor, Luo Suifeng, and the others likewise struck with all their might.
"Your Majesty, can Daoist friend Mu endure this?" Worry laced Immortal Emperor Taisu’s voice.
Li Ruoyu shook his head.
"If she could withstand a siege by so many Immortal Emperors, she’d hold first place on the Golden List of the Unparalleled Rankings—not I. Still… she ought to last awhile."
Thud! Thud! Thud!
As eighteen Immortal Emperors attacked in unison, the Great Dao of cause and effect shattered utterly. Mu Fanyin coughed a mouthful of blood and knitted her fingers. Seal after seal poured into the Heaven’s Machine Order.
Activating the treasure fully lay beyond her current strength. Moreover, wielding it drained her heart, mind, and energy… her time was dreadfully short.
"She was injured!" Yi Daoist’s eyes sparkled brightly. "This old man guessed correctly! Without reaching the transcendent realm, forcibly activating a treasure of that level inevitably demands a price!"
His courage to strike stemmed from the Golden List of the Unparalleled Rankings.
On that list, Mu Fanyin was merely ranked third.
If a single Heaven’s Machine Order truly had the power to turn the tables, she would be first.
Thus, Yi Daoist was confident that with eighteen Immortal Emperors striking together, they could certainly break Mu Fanyin’s Great Dao of Cause and Effect. Even if they couldn’t kill her, they could injure her.
He was cunning and experienced, never acting without certainty.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Mu Fanyin desperately activated the Heaven’s Machine Order, contracting her domain. The Great Dao of Cause and Effect coiled like a dragon, no longer attacking, but shifting purely to defense.
"Let’s help her!" Li Ruoyu solemnly said.
His past self and present self were already suppressed. Now, he could only use his Innate Dao Body, joining Immortal Emperor Taisu to charge into the fray. As these two joined the battle, the situation escalated to full-blown intensity.
Chaos was utterly shattered, the void pulverized, heaven and earth plunged into darkness.
Bang!
Yi Daoist shot out another finger strike, executing indeed a technique of the Ultimate Great Luo Heaven. That finger seemed utterly ordinary, yet it contained matchless divine power, piercing straight through Li Ruoyu’s forehead in an instant.
The power of the Great Dao of Space erupted. Li Ruoyu’s Innate Dao Body was fragmented into pieces, sealed in different spatial dimensions, unable to reassemble.
Boom!
The Chaotic Tree swept in, striking the Five Innate Elements Divine Mountain and sending it flying. Immortal Emperor Taisu coughed up blood, his face as pale as gold paper.
Only Mu Fanyin remained standing, relying on the Heaven’s Machine Order to hold on.
"Daoist friend, I cannot hold on much longer," Mu Fanyin transmitted her voice to Li Ruoyu.
The strength of the eighteen Immortal Emperors was overwhelming, all top experts from the Golden List of the Unparalleled Rankings. Even with Li Ruoyu and Immortal Emperor Taisu aiding her, her strength was waning rapidly as the battle dragged on.
At most half an hour more, Mu Fanyin’s magic power and primordial spirit would be completely drained by the Heaven’s Machine Order.
And this was still only because Ye Xu hadn’t divulged her information.
Otherwise, she couldn’t have endured this long.
"Soon!" Li Ruoyu solemnly responded.
Bang!
Yi Daoist formed hand seals and the Cosmic Chessboard manifested, its lines crisscrossing to divide yin and yang, heaven and earth, enveloping Immortal Emperor Taisu and Mu Fanyin within its grid. The Immortal Emperors were like chess pieces, maneuvered at his will.
"Time Finger!"
An eerie ripple emanated from Yi Daoist – the power of the Great Dao of Time. His index finger sliced through the heavens like a meteor traversing the River of Time, striking Mu Fanyin squarely in the back.
Pfft!
Mu Fanyin jolted violently, her entire body stiffening, seemingly frozen in place.
Her magic power and primordial spirit began to dissipate rapidly.
At that moment, the Three Lives Zither from Qin Emperor resounded violently within Mu Fanyin’s mind. Her primordial spirit seemed to tear into three parts, sealed away between the past, the present, and the future.
Mu Fanyin stared vacantly.
"Who am I, truly?"
Mu Fanyin murmured.
As for her past, she possessed only memories beginning from the Qing Xuan plane. Anything regarding the Hongmeng Dao Realm was a complete blank. She only remembered that she belonged to the Mu Family of the Heaven’s Machine lineage.
Yet, why had the master of Heaven’s Secret Pavilion claimed that she herself was the chief culprit behind the Mu Family’s destruction?
An indescribable agony tore through her primordial spirit, threatening to rend her apart.
It was at this precise moment that deep, deep within Mu Fanyin’s primordial spirit, a corner seemed to rip open. An aura that made the heart tremble emanated from her, and her gaze turned cold and malicious.
Buzz!
The Heaven’s Machine Order trembled slightly. Threads of the Great Dao of cause and effect wound around her index finger. She pointed her finger.
Crack! Abruptly.
That strand of causal thread, sharp as the most lethal divine weapon, sliced through the Cosmic Chessboard as if slicing through tofu, effortlessly shattering Yi Daoist’s divine ability.
"Cough!"
Yi Daoist spat out a mouthful of blood and was flung backward. He stared at this scene in utter disbelief.
Mu Fanyin had clearly been at the brink of collapse, utterly exhausted. How could she suddenly unleash such terrifying power?
Moreover, she seemed like a completely different person. The power of the Great Dao of cause and effect had surged violently; it was no longer the incomplete force she wielded before.
Clang! Simultaneously, Qin Emperor’s primordial spirit suffered heavy damage. The Three Lives Zither let out a mournful wail as one string after another snapped. Qin Emperor looked as if struck by lightning, wilting instantly in the blink of an eye.
"This…"
Immortal Emperor Taisu was profoundly shocked. Faced with what was clearly a dead end, Mu Fanyin had erupted with such terrifying power, snatching life from the clutches of death. It filled him with immense elation.
Immortal Daoist, Chaos Immortal Emperor, Martial Emperor Lingxiao, and Sword Master gazed at Mu Fanyin with a mix of shock and fear, not daring to press the attack for the moment.
"What… just happened?"
Now, Mu Fanyin’s gaze grew gradually unfocused. She seemed to have forgotten the events that had just transpired.
The others felt their scalps go numb with horror.
Wasn’t this just too bizarre?
Mu Fanyin had personally made the move only moments ago. How could she have forgotten it now?
"Don’t attack her primordial spirit!"
Yi Daoist, his mouth full of blood, revealed deep dread in his eyes. Both he and Qin Emperor had attacked Mu Fanyin’s Purple Palace, attempting to extinguish her primordial spirit. That action was what stirred up that unknown horror. It signified that Mu Fanyin’s primordial spirit was a forbidden entity.
Within her body, a world-shaking secret lay hidden.
"I am about to transcend…"
Li Ruoyu’s Innate Dao Body freed itself from the suppression of the Cosmic Chessboard, slowly reforming. His eyes burned with fanaticism and fervent excitement; he had sensed the change occurring in the deepest part of the Heavenly Emperor’s dojo.
The Heavenly Emperor’s dojo.
An enigmatic space-time, where innate supreme treasures and vials of immortal medicine drifted, faintly weaving together into a vast and profound great formation. Like stars paying homage to the moon, they surrounded and guarded a single figure.
That figure was Li Ruoyu.
He floated mid-air, ceaselessly drawing the vital essences from these innate supreme treasures and immortal medicines to replenish his own expenditures.
His essence, energy, and spirit converged into a massive blade.
Woo-woo!
The blade exuded extraordinary strangeness. It devoured vast amounts of innate spiritual energy, draining bottle after bottle of immortal medicine dry. It rose high, seeming to gather intensity for one earth-shattering strike.
This was the third severing.
The final step.
To sever the three bodies, one must gather their personal power— essence, energy, and spirit— into a blade or a sword, to sever into the past, sever into the present, and sever into the future.
Each act of self-severing afforded only a single chance.
Therefore, absolute perfection was essential.
Li Ruoyu’s cultivation had already reached the absolute peak of the Three Yuan Proof; further progress was impossible. Every instance of self-severing demanded extreme caution. He used his essence, energy, and spirit as the blade to complete this baptism upon himself.
"This barrier will not hinder me!"
Li Ruoyu’s eyes shone like stars. Within his mind, countless images flickered by.
From the Primordial Era, the Heavenly Emperor revered by all peoples.
To now, Li Ruoyu, the self-serving individual.
His former half and latter half lived as utterly different beings.
"Teacher, if you knew of what your disciple accomplishes today… would you rejoice for him?" Li Ruoyu thought of the human ancestor. The path he trod ultimately diverged from the path the human ancestor wished to see.
Clang!
The self-severing blade fell.
Li Ruoyu closed his eyes.
"I never regret anything!"
Like a streak of light, the blade plunged into Li Ruoyu’s fleshly body, primordial spirit, and Great Dao. It struck with a single cut into the future of time, aimed directly at that future era.
Crack!
This single slash divided space-time itself, cleaving the River of Time directly in half. The figure embodying his future aspect was forcibly severed from the flow of time, plummeting into the present world.
In that instant,
Li Ruoyu’s aura became ethereal and profoundly mystical. He leapt beyond the boundaries of the River of Time, surpassing the limits of the Three Yuan Proof.
His entire constellation of Great Daos did not transform into the Origin Dao.
His inner world did not condense into a Great Dao World of origin.
Nevertheless,
Li Ruoyu could feel that after the third severing, his power had ascended to a terrifying realm, surpassing the unfathomable might of the half-transcendent Yi Tianxing of old by an incalculable degree.
His body brimmed with vibrant vitality and immense strength.
A mere clench of his five fingers seemed capable of shattering heaven and earth.
He had transcended.
Although his constellation of Great Daos had not transformed into Origin Dao, nor had he refined a Great Dao World, in terms of raw power alone, he now stood equal to transcendents.
The sheer potency of the self-severing of three bodies was undeniable.
A distant and unfathomable voice also resounded within Li Ruoyu’s consciousness.
It was the voice of the Dao of Heaven.