Chapter 317: The Immortal Clan's Dao Foundation Late Stage

Smoke and dust scattered at the foot of Sunset Glow Mountain.

Bai Qieyun plummeted from a hundred zhang in the air, crashing into a pile of jagged rocks in the forest. The boulder he struck shattered into pieces. A thin layer of evening dew coated the rubble; now, caught by the shockwave rolling down from midair, it was whipped into a misty spray of fine water droplets that rustled in the night wind.

That sword intent had already drilled into his meridians through the thin cut on his chest, stirring up a storm of thunder intent within his Dao platform. The Dao origin throughout his body abruptly stagnated!

He lay flat on his back amidst the rubble, staring up at the night sky that had been thrown into chaos by the blast sweeping in from the eastern heavens. Disbelief still lingered in his eyes!

They were both at the Dao Foundation Middle Stage!

He, Bai Qieyun, cultivated two Great Divine Abilities—Thousand Cloud Convergence and Jade Boat Guarding the Pass. He was a prominent figure of this generation in the Yutai Bai Family. He had walked the Nine Quarters for decades and fought countless battles with cultivators in the same realm.

He rarely tasted defeat!

But today, that mysterious man had defeated him with a single sword strike!

And above in the night sky, those several streams of divine sense all fell into absolute silence.

Far in the distance, Lin Suri stood firmly in place.

Ever since Chen Lingxi made his move, he had been gazing toward the western sky using the Method of Qi Observation.

Even though he had witnessed Chen Lingxi in action back in the Weiji Grotto-Heaven, and had seen him slay a cultivator at the Qi Circulation Tenth Floor while only at the Qi Circulation 9th Floor himself, the way he wielded his sword light today was vastly different from back then.

In the past, Chen Lingxi's sword momentum would unroll like a mighty river, surging forward for thousands of miles with overwhelming intensity.

But today, that single sword light had condensed a thousand sword rainbows into one, binding a slaughtering force vast enough to span the heavens into a mere three chi.

He could truly extend and retract his power at will.

'Brother Chen...'

'To think he has already become this powerful.'

He marveled inwardly.

When they first met in the Weiji Grotto-Heaven, Chen Lingxi had still needed to push his entire foundation to its limits just to establish an agreement with him.

Later, when they fought side by side in the Ancestral Mountain, Chen Lingxi had utilized the Thunder-Concealing Sword Scripture, the Purple True Precious Qi, and the Twelve Chimes of the Heavenly Drum. At that time, Lin Suri only felt that this young man possessed extraordinary talent and would surely achieve greatness in the future.

But that phrase, "achieve greatness in the future," was ultimately just a promise of the future.

A dozen years was not considered long.

For the cultivators of the Great Xuanzhuo Realm who easily spent centuries in secluded retreat, a dozen years was nothing more than the snap of a finger.

Yet in these mere dozen years, Chen Lingxi had actually grown to the point where he could cut down a Dao Foundation Middle Stage expert with a single sword strike.

How could this not leave him marveling?

'With such overwhelming strength, could Brother Chen really be able to test out a thing or two?' he wondered, his gaze still fixed on Sunset Glow Mountain in the distance.

Upon Sunset Glow Mountain!

Chen Lingxi stepped on the clouds and ascended, landing on a cliff face roughly a thousand zhang from the stone platform at the summit.

Below the cliff was a mountain ridge piled high with layers of crimson rock!

Above the cliff, that stone platform stood at the highest point, and a person sat right in its center.

The man sat cross-legged, dressed in white. His robes bore few decorations, save for a wisp of cloud pattern embroidered on his cuffs.

He appeared to be around thirty years old, fair-faced and beardless, with very faint eyebrows and slightly elongated outer eye corners. At this moment, his eyes were lightly closed. Not a single trace of his aura leaked out; he looked just like a jade statue enshrined on the stone platform.

Then, the person on the stone platform opened his eyes.

In an instant! The entire Sunset Glow Mountain seemed to tremble!

From that stone platform, bolts of lightning detonated around the white-robed man's body. The thunderous momentum abruptly surged, expanding to ten zhang, then dozens of zhang. In the blink of an eye, it illuminated the night sky over Sunset Glow Mountain into broad daylight.

The roar of thunder followed, shaking the heavens and the earth!

Wherever the thunder rumbled, the divine senses of the Dao Foundation cultivators that had been vaguely circulating in the night sky scattered one after another, like smoke and dust blown away by the wind.

Chen Lingxi stood upon that cliff.

The imposing pressure of the lightning bore down in front of him, overflowing with killing intent!

"Dao Foundation Late Stage. Formidable as expected!" Chen Lingxi stood in place, raising his head to watch the powerhouse in the distance.

Up on the stone platform, the white-robed man had already stood up. Bright golden lightning slowly circulated around him, illuminating his white clothes until they seemed translucent.

Then...

This Dao Foundation Late Stage figure did not speak a word. He simply raised his hand!

He lifted his hand into the air, and a point of bright golden lightning flared brilliantly at his fingertip. Within that lightning, the reflections of thousands of mountains and peaks seemed to appear.

Chen Lingxi remained where he was, but his divine sense had long since connected with the Enemy-Slaughtering Spirit Wall.

The Spirit Wall rose with light, and the four directions stirred!

The dense Dao origin throughout Chen Lingxi's body surged, as if someone had hurled a heavenly river down from above his Dao platform, pouring it straight from the depths of the Dao platform into his limbs, bones, meridians, acupoints, flesh, and fascia!

His Dao origin, which could originally only be considered thick and solid, now transformed into an almost world-covering, majestic momentum, completely elevating every trace of aura around him!

And at this moment, Chen Lingxi held back no longer.

He unleashed his entire foundation to the absolute limit.

Within his Inner Divine Palace, the phantom of the azure-gold true dragon suddenly opened its dragon eyes. A majestic burst of vital energy flooded out from the depths of the palace, traveling along his meridians to his flesh, fascia, and bones.

A bone line resembling a dragon's spine faintly arched up on his back and shoulders, and his muscles bulged one by one, stretching his profound-colored Dao robe from the inside.

When he opened his mouth, the breath cycling between his chest and abdomen faintly carried a low, rumbling roar, like some behemoth slowly turning over deep underground.

The True Edict of Approaching the Dao, the Palace Building Realm, the Dragon Transformation Mystic Mechanism.

At the same time, the branches and leaves of the Thunder Prison Profound Root deep within his Dao platform churned. The Great Prison Furnace rose from the deepest part of the Thunder Prison. Its mouth opened wide, and ten thousand zhang of lightning radiance poured out from the furnace, dyeing the night sky above this crimson cliff entirely in gilded gold.

A slit split open between his brows, and a vertical eye slowly opened from within. Inside the pupil, a patch of Weiji Thunder Radiance solidified like crystal.

The Thunder Prison Immortal Eye!

The moment the eye opened, the air within several hundred zhang suddenly stagnated. It was as if that single eye were gazing down upon this domain from the heavens, seeking to lock everything within it into a fixed fate.

Beneath his feet, the Thunder Prison Heaven spread out, turning a radius of several hundred zhang into a sea of pale golden lightning. The Immortal Smiting Thunder Pool surfaced from the deepest part of the lightning sea. The immortal-smiting tribulation-grinding qi within the pool churned endlessly, sparking countless arcs of lightning as it ground together!

He stood right in the middle of this lightning sea, right beneath that Thunder Prison Immortal Eye.

Three hundred zhang away, Bai Huan stood amidst bright golden lightning. Between the two men lay an empty stretch of crimson rock.

The spiritual lightning and the Weiji Thunder Radiance illuminated each other from afar, casting the rock face half in bright gold and half in pale gold, meeting perfectly in the center.

Bai Huan's eyes flickered slightly, and he finally spoke.

"You also cultivate thunder. Very well!" With those words, he took a step forward.

As his foot landed, the crimson rock face beneath him spiderwebbed outward. The bright golden lightning around him violently expanded, surging up layer by layer until, in the blink of an eye, it condensed into the phantom of a lightning mountain over a hundred zhang tall, pressing straight down from the sky toward Chen Lingxi.

Great Divine Ability, Spiritual Lightning Ray Mountain.

The lightning mountain had no physical body; it was formed entirely from streaks of bright golden spiritual lightning winding, linking, and compressing together. The moment it struck, it would be like a hundred-zhang mountain crashing down from the heavens, crushing anything beneath it to dust.

Chen Lingxi stood within that sea of lightning and looked up.

As the lightning mountain pressed down, the spiritual lightning collided with the sea of lightning. The two expanses of lightning intersected, and the light sparked in that instant was nearly blinding. The night over the entire Sunset Glow Mountain was utterly drowned in that radiance.

Chen Lingxi willed it with a thought.

The Immortal Smiting Thunder Pool beneath his feet surfaced from the sea of lightning, and the immortal-smiting tribulation-grinding qi within the pool was drawn completely into the Return to Void Sword Pagoda behind him.

The six-layered glazed sword pagoda emerged beside him. The eaves on all six layers lit up in unison, and the immortal-smiting thunder qi—having been entirely absorbed by the pool—poured out of the pagoda. Like thousands of pale golden lightning threads dangling from the sky, they all converged into the Abyssal Heaven Spiritual Sword in front of him.

He unleashed a sword strike.

Jade Tiger Rebellious Sea Sword Light!

Sword rainbows erupted from the blade's edge. One split into ten, ten into a hundred, a hundred into a thousand! Millions of azure-gold sword rainbows spanned the sky, soaring straight up to meet the Spiritual Lightning Ray Mountain pressing down from above.

The sword rainbows and the lightning mountain violently collided in midair.

Then, both the sword rainbows and the lightning mountain shattered in unison.

The very moment the light scattered, Bai Huan took his second step.

He raised his eyes and looked over.

Beneath his brow line, his two pupils suddenly lit up, shooting forth two beams of blazing white radiance. Wherever the radiance passed, the void twisted and auras fell into chaos. The layer of lightning prison shielding Chen Lingxi was actually sliced open by those two beams of light.

Great Divine Ability, Great Radiant Eye!

Under the gaze of these eyes, all spells, all arrays, and the circulation paths of all auras were laid bare with nowhere to hide. If cultivated profoundly enough, it could even directly shatter the critical nodes of an enemy's divine abilities!

When Bai Huan's gaze swept over, Chen Lingxi felt a slight chill in his heart.

The Return to Void Sword Pagoda behind him sank. Immediately, he flipped his hand, and the Jade Tiger Rebellious Sea Sword Light erupted once more from the Abyssal Heaven Spiritual Sword, condensing into an azure-gold sword edge roughly three chi long.

The sword edge pierced forward, stabbing straight into Bai Huan's bright golden lightning.

Bai Huan did not dodge; he merely raised his hand and tossed something.

It was a fine needle about three cun long. It was pale cyan in color, with an extremely thin layer of spiritual light flowing over it. This was the signature artifact he had refined in the Great Xuanzhuo Realm, known as the Radiant Qi Needle.

Once the fine needle left his hand, it neither dispersed nor expanded. It merely shot out at lightning speed, meeting Chen Lingxi's three-chi sword edge head-on.

The needle and the sword edge collided.

"Ding!"

Then the sword edge disintegrated from the center, turning into shattered azure-gold light that scattered into the sea of lightning.

Chen Lingxi's pupils contracted slightly.

'Has the sheer depth of a Dao Foundation Late Stage's Dao origin actually reached such a level?'

The slaughtering power of his sword had already been condensed to the absolute limit. Yet the weight of the Dao origin upon that Radiant Qi Needle was like a boundlessly deep and wide river placed in front of his strike. No matter how incredibly sharp his attack was, it was shattered in a single blow!

At this moment, Bai Huan showed not the slightest hesitation!

The bright golden lightning around his body suddenly retracted, turning stark white. He then raised both hands high, making a phantom lifting motion toward the heavens.

The thunderclouds that had originally only covered Sunset Glow Mountain now exploded outward across the sky.

The clouds churned from within, and in the blink of an eye, they dyed the sky of the entire secret realm a bright crimson-gold.

In the deepest depths of the crimson-gold clouds, a speck of radiance was born. It then melted outward, transforming into a massive array spanning a thousand zhang, which slowly ground down from the heavens.

Great Divine Ability, Complete Heaven Refinement!

Beneath that Great Divine Ability array, all auras were extinguished inch by inch. All spells, all arrays, and the circulation of all auras were being "refined" under that array!

It was as if someone had turned the entire firmament into a massive furnace, pressing down the furnace lid from the heavens to utterly refine and smelt everything inside.

Chen Lingxi raised his head.

Looking at the massive array slowly crushing down from a thousand zhang above, he once again felt the terrifying might of this Dao Foundation Late Stage cultivator.

He hastily circulated his Dao origin and pointed his index finger at the sky. At his fingertip, a wisp of a patterned line flowed out from the depths of his Dao platform.

Great Divine Ability, Heavenly Statute Edict!

"The auras of this land shall not enter the smelting furnace. The void of this land shall not bear the crushing weight," Chen Lingxi intoned. The profound spiritual light of that edict shot from his fingertip, bypassing the edge of the thousand-zhang array to land squarely in the void within a hundred zhang around him.

The thousand-zhang array continued to press down slowly from the heavens.

But starting from a hundred zhang above Chen Lingxi's head, the void being crushed by the array split open slightly from the middle.

Within that slit, it was as if the void had been carved out. The array's crushing momentum remained, but the void was no longer bearing its weight.

Bai Huan looked at that empty slit. His brows twitched involuntarily, and he flicked his sleeve!

A flag flew out!

The flag was barely two chi long and stark white. It was embroidered with exceedingly complex patterns in fine threads of five colors. Red, cyan, yellow, white, and black swirled in overlapping layers across its surface. For every cun it turned, five different strands of light radiated from the flag.

Artifact, Five-Light Great Banner.

Bai Huan tossed the banner into the air.

The banner swelled as it caught the wind, transforming in the blink of an eye into something over a zhang tall. It planted itself firmly on the peak of Sunset Glow Mountain!

Five streams of light erupted from the banner. Like five long rainbows hanging down from the heavens, they shrouded the entire heaven and earth around Sunset Glow Mountain from all four directions.

Where the red light fell, fire qi spawned; where the cyan light fell, wind and wood surged; where the yellow light fell, earth qi sank; where the white light fell, metal qi sharpened; where the black light fell, water qi permeated.

The qi of the five elements pressed in from all directions. Under the crushing weight of the five elements, the Thunder Prison Heaven around Chen Lingxi abruptly sank.

Bai Huan snapped his fingers again!

Another jade seal flew out!

It was only the size of a fist and entirely amber in color. Engraved upon it was an ancient beast with its maw wide open. The beast's mouth was empty, yet a faint suction force emanated from within.

Artifact, Amber Seal!

Bai Huan tossed the seal into the void. The moment it left his hand, it expanded, transforming into a massive object several zhang across in the blink of an eye. It hung in the sky with the beast's mouth facing downward. The suction force it generated landed entirely on the Dao origin within Chen Lingxi's Dao platform.

Chen Lingxi's heart jolted.

He could clearly feel the pool of Dao origin in his Dao platform being pulled by that external suction. It was as if a massive bamboo pump had been plunged into his Dao platform, slowly siphoning it out drop by drop!

At the same time, Bai Huan did not stop.

With a flip of his palm, another divine ability burst forth!

Bai Family Divine Ability, Jade Platform Seal!

The void trembled, generating a crushing weight as heavy as a mountain, slamming squarely down upon the space where Chen Lingxi stood.

Chen Lingxi's entire body shuddered.

Bai Huan raised his hand once more. From the bright golden lightning around him, he separated a wisp of pale cyan spiritual light. Once the light left his body, it turned into a beam that shot straight at the space between Chen Lingxi's brows.

Bai Family Divine Ability, Upper Spirit Profound Light!

Bai Huan's killing intent was endless. He pulled a small array disk from his sleeve and tossed it into the void.

Bai Family Divine Ability, Yuan-Expelling Array!

The moment the array disk left his hand, it expanded into a formation dozens of zhang in radius. An invisible force field was born from within it. Inside this field, the circulation of all Dao origin was suppressed by an external force.

Chen Lingxi's Dao origin grew sluggish!

"This Dao Foundation Late Stage expert of the immortal clan truly is different from ordinary cultivators!" Chen Lingxi took a deep breath and reversed the Abyssal Heaven Spiritual Sword in his hand. A Jade Tiger Rebellious Sea Sword Light violently erupted once more, carving out a three-chi-long rift in the void and completely shattering the killing intent of the artifacts and divine abilities within it!

Circulating the vital energy drawn up from his Inner Divine Palace to support his body, Chen Lingxi flickered and immediately escaped the void suppressed by the five elements' qi and the three artifacts.

Then, he fled into the distance, his speed pushed to the absolute limit.

Bai Huan frowned.

This person was rather strange. He had come menacingly, yet before they even had a proper exchange, he was already leaving?

"Within this secret realm, I'm not afraid of you running away," he scoffed coldly. "Once I thoroughly consolidate my cultivation and no longer fear being besieged by the masses, I will come and kill you!"

He did not pursue. The bright golden lightning around his body slowly retracted.

Meanwhile, Chen Lingxi fled for a long time before finally landing in a mountain hollow.

The layer of majestic Dao origin surrounding him—drawn from the Enemy-Slaughtering Spirit Wall—was slowly retracting. His aura completely returned to his Dao platform, the Thunder Prison Heaven around him dispersed, and the Thunder Prison Immortal Eye between his brows slowly closed.

Then, he slowly raised his head, looking toward Sunset Glow Mountain, a faint smile appearing on his face.

"This Dao Foundation Late Stage isn't quite as strong as I imagined," Chen Lingxi murmured, raising his hand. "Whether it's the three Great Divine Abilities, the Bai family's divine abilities, or the three artifacts... none of them are unbreakable." As he spoke, the Dao-Absorbing Fruit slowly surfaced in his palm.

Slaughtering power surged across the fruit's surface, resonating from afar with the Seventy-Two Qi Origin-Holding Array inside his Sea of Consciousness.

"Once I truly cultivate this Seventy-Two Qi Origin-Holding Array to perfection," he said softly, "coupled with this Dao-Absorbing Fruit... it will be enough to slay him."