Aspiring to the Immortal Path

After around another day, Tang Jie finally sensed tremendous pulses of Space energy in front of him.

These pulses were so intense that Tang Jie was able to sense them far in advance of his actual arrival.

After flying thousands of kilometers in that direction, he finally arrived at a rainbow mountain range.

From here, one could see that the entire region was painted in fantastical colors. Each of these lights represented an independent subspace, and countless subspaces simultaneously existed in these mountains. But rather than shattering, they were all twisted together into a knotted mess, mountains on mountains and trees on trees, like a person bending back so far that they could put their head between their legs and up to their belly button. This mountain range was somehow even more chaotic than that, the insides mixing with the outsides.

There would occasionally be an eruption of light, each one bringing with it intense clashes of Space energy.

These seemed to be the Cavespace Mountains. Given the intensity of the spatial chaos, it was no wonder the demons had so far failed to break this place. Just how exactly did the Gigantes know how to get around?

For some reason, however, the demons had no guards around the Cavespace Mountains, instead leaving a large, empty buffer zone around it.

But the Gigantes didn’t leave the Cavespace Mountains, which resulted in the region around the mountains being eerily quiet.

In the end, I’ll have to meet the Gigantes to figure out what’s going on, Tang Jie thought to himself as he flew toward the mountains.

Even with his current strength and understanding of formations, the Cavespace Mountains were dangerous enough that he didn’t dare to say he could get through.

But Tang Jie still chose to force his way through. This was the only way he could get a meeting with the Gigantes King. In a flash, he had entered the mountains.

The moment he entered the Cavespace Mountains, a spatial fissure suddenly sliced toward him.

Spatial fissures could be considered the strongest weapons in the world. No physical substance could resist their edge, which made them the natural enemy of body cultivators. Even the strongest body cultivators couldn’t defend against spatial blades.

Tang Jie was no exception, blinking away.

Another two spatial blades flew over.

Tang Jie casually strode here and there, easily evading.

Then came four, eight, sixteen!

Tang Jie chuckled. “Their number just keeps going up. As expected, the Gigantes have complete control of the Space energy. Good, good!”

Tang Jie’s fear was that the Gigantes couldn’t control the Space energy.

The fact that they could control the spatial chaos of the Cavespace Mountains meant that there was an order hidden within this chaos.

So long as there was an order to it, Tang Jie could find a trick to exploit. But if it had been a purely natural chaos, he would not be able to rely on his formation knowledge, because nobody could predict what might happen next.

As Tang Jie advanced, more and more spatial blades appeared, but Tang Jie continued to easily dodge them, saying, “Tang Jie of the Rosecloud Domain seeks an audience with the Gigantes King. I am not a demon, but a human who has come to help you.”

There was no response except more spatial blades.

“Seems like you don’t trust me,” Tang Jie sighed.

That wasn’t strange. The Nine Disaster Fiend Monk had been a human, and demons were cunning enough that they might have already tried this trick. Not surprised that the Gigantes didn’t believe him, he could only continue forward.

Perhaps because the other side had sensed how difficult this foe was to deal with, the spatial blades suddenly stopped.

And then a blade of light shot out from the distance.

As it neared Tang Jie, it suddenly exploded into a net.

“Wow!” Tang Jie laughed. “Didn’t expect that.”

Tang Jie turned into an ethereal fog, letting the net of spatial blades pass through his body before returning to his original form.

This was harder to pull off than it seemed. A pure body cultivator would never have been capable of this, and it was only because he had the perfect body and cultivated both law and physical arts that he could do this.

But if transforming to fog could deal with spatial turbulence, then this place wouldn’t be so dangerous that even Gold Immortals might die.

Right after Tang Jie had evaded that net, another terrifying spatial storm approached.

This spatial storm obliterated all in its path, and even Yu Cheng wouldn’t have dared to take it on, so neither did Tang Jie, and he was forced to back away.

This spatial storm pushed Tang Jie all the way back the way he had come, outside the Cavespace Mountains. He blinked away in an instant, and a moment later, there was a boom as the spatial storm emerged and rapidly expanded, annihilating everything within several thousand kilometers.

When Tang Jie saw the surroundings getting razed, he understood why there were no demons standing guard here.

Undoubtedly, some devil chiefs had tried their luck against the spatial storms, and as a result, the emerging spatial storm had annihilated a good chunk of demons. As such, the demons no longer dared to congregate here.

“Really not easy to deal with.” Tang Jie shook his head and then charged back in.

But he went in from a different direction.

A few moments later, Tang Jie came back out again, another howling spatial storm close behind.

Not the slightest bit discouraged, Tang Jie chose another angle to go in.

This went on for seven days and seven nights.

In that time, Tang Jie attempted to force his way through the Cavespace Mountains numerous times, but each time, he was pushed back by that terrifying spatial storm. This spatial storm was drawn from an eternal storm in the endless void, so there was no end to it.

He attempted to communicate with the Gigantes countless times, explaining why he had come and his relationship with the Gigantes Domain, but the other party refused to respond, apparently not trusting him in the slightest.

After another failure, Tang Jie grumbled, “These Gigantes are too unreasonable! Do you really think you can hold on with just these Cavespace Mountains? All you’re doing is using the spatial turbulence together with a Five Elements Upheaval, Yin Yang Chaos Formation! I’ll break through it soon enough!”

“Eh?” A cry of surprise finally came from within the mountains.

This was the first time a Gigantes had responded to Tang Jie in seven days. Perhaps realizing their mistake, they once again fell silent. Tang Jie coldly laughed and then flew up while igniting a message talisman. “Vermillion Bird, come to me, and bring Hong Shenji with you.”

It wasn’t strange that Tang Jie had been able to guess the formation being used.

There were few formations capable of controlling spatial turbulence, and Tang Jie hadn’t been making all those attempts for the last seven days for no reason. Through repeated testing, he had finally confirmed that this was the legendary Five Elements Upheaval, Yin Yang Chaos Formation.

The Five Elements Upheaval, Yin Yang Chaos Formation was one of the top-class Immortal formations of the universe, on the same level as the Nine Executions Immortal Formation and the Eight Ocean Mountains. Its defining property was its immense complexity that was sufficient to make anyone go crazy. Its passages changed every second, and even those within the formation had to calculate the right time and place to get through. The smallest error could result in one’s death, making it one of the most treacherous formations in the world, with many people dying in the formation after laying it down.

Thus, Tang Jie wasn’t confident that he could solve it alone. Hong Shenji was comparable to him in terms of formations, and the Vermillion Bird had entered the Daos of Yin Yang and Five Elements. This formation used Yin Yang and Five Elements to create countless variables, and if the Vermillion Bird were present, there would be many more opportunities to divine its secrets. Alas, if Yu Cheng hadn’t stolen away his avatar, then it could also have taken up some of the responsibility.

A few moments later, the Vermillion Bird flew down with Hong Shenji.

Hong Shenji chuckled. “Is there a formation connected to Yin Yang and Five Elements to break?”

As an expert, he could tell what was going on the moment he heard that Tang Jie wanted him and the Vermillion Bird to come over.

Tang Jie led them over as he laughed, “The Five Elements Upheaval, Yin Yang Chaos Formation. Interesting enough for you?”

Hong Shenji’s eyes lit up. “It’s that formation? That’s a legendary Immortal formation! You could go your entire life without seeing it! I’ve heard that this formation is the best for defense and incredibly complicated. If you’re in the formation and don’t know how it works, you could go one hundred years without finding the exit. And even if you do know the trick, you have to be meticulous with your calculations, because if you mess up, you’re dead. Breaking such a formation is an immense challenge!”

Tang Jie smiled. “Indeed. The key is that this formation was also built on the Cavespace Mountains, which is a space where the spatial fabric is thin and countless spatial vortices exist simultaneously. The Five Elements Upheaval Formation established there uses those spatial storms to make it a killing machine. I tried to push through for seven days to no avail. It’s no wonder the demons still haven’t managed to get in.”

Hearing this, Hong Shenji shook his head. “That’s strange!”

“What’s strange about it?”

Hong Shenji replied, “While the spatial storms can go on without end, activating the formation doesn’t come for free. Besides that, any top-class Immortal formation needs its own long-term energy system to support it if it wants to last, and this sort of system would need to be a closed system to work. And from what you describe, a chaotic place like the Cavespace Mountains is not suitable for a closed energy system.”

Tang Jie was startled.

That’s right! How could I have overlooked that?

The spatial storm could be limitless, but not the energy supporting the formation. This was exactly why he needed a veteran like Hong Shenji here.

“This old man is certain that we can definitely break the formation if we start from there!” Hong Shenji confidently said.

But Tang Jie shook his head. “No, we can’t use that method.”

“Why not?” Hong Shenji asked in confusion.

“I just need to get in, not break the formation. If the formation falls, who will be left to stop the demons?” Tang Jie replied.

After a brief pause, Hong Shenji bitterly smiled. “My mistake. It seems that we’ll have to use the proper way, then, but that won’t be easy.”

“We can go at it slowly. But there’s one thing I find interesting…” Tang Jie muttered.

“What is it, Domain Lord?”

After some thought, Tang Jie said, “Since you said that the greatest weakness of the formation is the inability to establish a perpetual source of energy, then theoretically, constantly attacking would run the formation out of energy, no?”

“Of course,” Hong Shenji answered. “After seven days of constant testing, it must have used quite a lot of energy.”

“That means that the Nine Disaster Fiend Monk had at least this brute force method of handling this formation…” Tang Jie said.

“Theoretically, but maybe they failed to see this weakness,” Hong Shenji said.

“Or maybe they saw it but were unwilling to use it,” Tang Jie added.

Not knowing how large the energy reserve was and how many soldiers would have to be sent in would make one unwilling to employ this method for fear that the losses would be too great.

But a moment later, Tang Jie felt a sense of unease.

Were demons really ones to care about the loss of other demons?

Didn’t see it? Unwilling to do it? Lacking confidence? Or was it something else? Tang Jie fell into deep thought.