Chapter 583 - 15: Mercilessly Destroying the Flowers

"Fellow Daoists, please wait a moment. I will be right back."

Fang Cheng left them with these words and flew gracefully out of Sheyang Mountain, leaving Ascendant Dun’an, Monk Haideng, and Qiu Jingyu to stare after him in astonishment and confusion.

An extreme, icy intent instantly pressed down on him from all sides.

Countless threads of sword-light, each one unnaturally cold, slashed toward him.

Each strand of sword-light held the power of a full-force strike from a Tribulation Realm Cultivator.

The cold was terrifying. Any ordinary cultivator below the Five Tribulations who entered the array would soon find their qi, blood, and Magical Power frozen solid, unable to circulate them properly.

This was precisely why even a renowned great power like Ascendant Dun’an, after trying various methods, dared not attempt to break out of the Grand Array.

But Fang Cheng merely smiled. With a wave of his hand, he brushed aside the swarming threads of sword-light. His figure flickered, and he reappeared before a charming female cultivator.

The Grand Array’s staggering cold and its threads of sword-light were as nothing before him.

The charming woman was clearly a Demon Cultivator. Seeing Fang Cheng charge toward her, she remained unruffled. Instead, she offered him a bewitching smile, one that could captivate any living soul. A Demonic Light flashed in her eyes as she unleashed a potent Illusion Technique against him.

Fang Cheng feigned being caught in the spell, a dazed look crossing his face. But his actions were utterly ruthless. He threw a punch.

Just as a triumphant look appeared on the bewitching female cultivator’s face, a deafening BOOM echoed through the void. Even the Snow Full of Heaven and Earth Formation faltered for a moment.

A dark golden fist-light slammed into her full, firm chest. An infinite power, condensed into a single point, violently erupted.

The woman’s voluptuous body instantly exploded into a mist of blood.

Fang Cheng turned nonchalantly and walked toward another female Tribulation Realm Cultivator.

The woman’s face was a mask of terror. "Sister Bingxian, save me!" she cried out.

An overwhelming cold light descended, and the void around Fang Cheng instantly transformed into primordial ice, freezing him solid.

The power of this Grand Array was comparable to an attack from a Six Tribulation Cultivator.

Seeing Fang Cheng’s brutal ferocity, Wu Bingxian of Guanghan Palace immediately unleashed the array’s full power.

However, countless chaotic sword-lights suddenly erupted from Fang Cheng’s body. They expanded in a flash, overlapping with the Snow Full of Heaven and Earth Formation.

A vast and mighty aura of slaughter filled the heavens.

Sword-light clashed with snowflakes, and countless blasts of cold energy detonated. It was as if the world was being turned upside down. The void froze, shattered, and then froze again.

Innumerable icicles spread and shattered in a repeating cycle.

A female cultivator in a black dress, her bearing noble and elegant, saw the Grand Array spiral out of control. Her vision was filled with the chaotic flashes of cold and sword-light. Suddenly, her vision blurred as a streak of sword-light flashed past.

Despite her One Tribulation Cultivation, she couldn’t even form a thought before this impossibly fast blade of light.

Her Protective Spiritual Light was like paper, torn apart with ease.

She had no time to activate any other Divine Techniques or Magical Artifacts.

Just like that, the beautiful female cultivator was sliced in two. Her Divine Soul had no time to escape before it was enveloped by a flash of Buddha Light and refined into a Relic.

Sutra of the Buddha’s Hidden Talisman.

Meanwhile, another female cultivator—tall, with a graceful and serene disposition—also failed to escape the murderous sword-light that filled the sky.

Within the span of a single breath, the woman was slain mid-air. Fang Cheng then used the Sutra of the Buddha’s Hidden Talisman to forcibly refine her Divine Soul into a Relic to nourish his own.

Now that all forty-nine of its Tier Five Flying Swords were gathered, the Great Inference Celestial Net Sword Array’s variations were endless and its killing intent limitless. It was truly a peerless Slaughter Treasure Technique.

In the World Heaven from which this Sword Array hailed, it was crowned the world’s number one killing formation, said to be capable of cutting through anything.

Even in World Heavens like the Red Profound Realm, Extreme Jade Heaven, or Dongxuan Realm, it was still one of the top one or two methods of slaughter in any given realm.

It only seemed mediocre in a place like Qianyu Heaven, where Spirit Immortal legacies and Upper Realm Treasure Techniques were commonplace.

In what seemed like the blink of an eye, Fang Cheng had killed three Tribulation Realm Cultivators.

Both the three on Sheyang Mountain and Wu Bingxian of Guanghan Palace found this difficult to accept.

It had been a long time since these Tribulation Realm Great Powers had felt such a profound sense of shock and disbelief.

Suddenly, a series of sword chimes rang out across the sky.

Ninety-nine ice-blue Array Flags were shredded to dust by the sword-light, and the gloomy clouds that had shrouded the thousand-li area instantly dispersed.

Breaking one array with another.

Fang Cheng stood in the void, his wide sleeves fluttering. He looked toward Wu Bingxian, a trace of surprise on his face.

Of the four women, her cultivation was the most profound. She had passed the Fifth Celestial Tribulation, and her Divine Techniques were nearly on par with the Celestial Dao itself.

At this moment, she had summoned a Jade Ruyi, which hovered above her head. It bloomed with a boundless, brilliant light, blocking the Great Inference Celestial Net Sword Array.

But under the relentless assault of the sword-light, the brilliant light surrounding her was already riddled with cracks, and the Jade Ruyi itself had begun to dim.

Just as Fang Cheng was about to surge his Magical Power and kill her in one fell swoop, a Talisman suddenly flew out from her person.

The Talisman fluttered in the wind and transformed into a man. He was handsome, with a tall, straight posture and was dressed in a silver robe. He had a refined, scholarly air, like a man of great learning, and stood before Wu Bingxian with his hands clasped behind his back.

"Xian’Er, who has forced you into such a sorry state?"

Ignoring the danger around them, the man immediately turned to Wu Bingxian and asked with concern.

He was debonair, and his voice was soft and gentle, easily winning people over.

Wu Bingxian said, her voice filled with sorrow and fear, "My lord, this man possesses world-shocking Divine Techniques. The other sisters have all fallen at his hands."

"Oh," the man said, his expression impassive. He focused his attention on the surrounding Sword Array before his gaze finally settled on Fang Cheng.

"So, it is you, Fellow Daoist! I have heard the Demon Lord speak of you. You are truly a great talent, one that even the Demon Lord is wary of," the man said, his brow furrowing.

Fang Cheng asked calmly, "And who might you be?"

The man replied leisurely, "I am but a humble Demon Servant under the Demon Lord, hardly worth mentioning. Fellow Daoist Fang, I’ll take my leave now. Perhaps we will meet again some other day."

With that, his body wavered and transformed into a Golden Boat. Carrying Wu Bingxian, it smashed through the curtain of sword-light and soared into the sky, heading straight for the Outer Void.

The Golden Boat radiated an aura of indestructibility, of crossing to a distant shore. It was actually able to withstand the Great Inference Celestial Net Sword Array head-on.

Moreover, its speed was incredible. In the time it takes to snap one’s fingers, it was about to vanish from sight.

Fang Cheng sneered. ’A mere avatar thinks it can escape from me?’

Without any visible action from him, an immense, spectral Sun Dial suddenly materialized in the sky above Sheyang Mountain!

The Sun Dial emitted countless transparent ripples that spread through the void. Within a hundred-li radius, the flow of time instantly slowed almost to a complete stop.

The Golden Boat froze high in the Extreme Heaven, crawling upward as slowly as a snail.

Fang Cheng ascended to the sky in a single step and gave chase. He threw more than a dozen consecutive punches before finally shattering the Golden Boat.

The force of his final punch continued unabated, directly blowing Wu Bingxian’s head apart.

The beautiful woman from Guanghan Palace died without so much as a whimper.

Her Divine Soul emerged, attempting to flee, but it was frozen in place before Fang Cheng’s Light Yin Divine Techniques, unable to move.

Fang Cheng calmly refined her Divine Soul into a glittering, brilliant Relic, then casually withdrew the Great Inference Celestial Net Sword Array and returned to Sheyang Mountain.

"Daoist Haideng, is Fellow Daoist Fang truly a newcomer to the Tribulation Realm...?"

Qiu Jingyu watched as Fang Cheng descended in his Escape Light, her beautiful eyes shimmering with a strange luster as she secretly sent a mental transmission to Monk Haideng.

Monk Haideng quietly replied, "When I first met him a hundred years ago, he was still at Mid-stage Dharma Phase Cultivation... But even then, he already possessed Tribulation Realm methods. I never expected his cultivation to advance so rapidly."

"Indeed. Even if we were to find a peerless Dao Body to possess and start our cultivation anew, we might not be able to progress at such a speed."

When Fang Cheng returned to Sheyang Mountain, his expression was somewhat grave.

He had just used Wu Bingxian’s Divine Soul Relic to view her entire life’s memories, gathering a great deal of intelligence.

"The man’s name is Yu Wenxu, and his Daoist title is Master Xiaoyao. He comes from a World Heaven that is facing its final calamity. Although he passed the Ninth Celestial Tribulation long ago, he has been unable to ascend because the Celestial Dao Origin in his home world is incomplete."

Fang Cheng explained to the three of them.

"His Dao companions are spread across numerous worlds, and their numbers are staggering. Even Wu Bingxian didn’t know the full extent. In the Dongxuan Realm alone, he has four Tribulation Realm Dao companions and over a hundred concubines at the Dharma Aspect and Life Soul stages..."

Unable to ascend to the Upper Realm, this Yu Wenxu roamed the myriad heavens, philandering and leaving a trail of romantic entanglements in his wake.

Wu Bingxian and the other three women had joined forces to trap Sheyang Mountain only after receiving his inter-realm transmission.

The Dao Talisman Wu Bingxian carried was merely one of Yu Wenxu’s avatars, possessing less than ten or twenty percent of its true body’s power, which was why Fang Cheng defeated it so easily.

’He must have encountered one of the Demon Lord’s avatars during his travels through the heavens and was subsequently subjugated, becoming a Demon Servant.’

’Or perhaps he willingly submitted.’

Fang Cheng’s thoughts churned. ’The power of the Demon Lord’s avatar shouldn’t have reached the point where it could easily subdue a Nine Tribulation Expert.’

’Perhaps for a "desperate" cultivator like Yu Wenxu, the Demon Lord represents the only hope of breaking through his current realm.’

’If this man goes to the Red Profound Realm, he will surely become the Red Profound Association’s second-greatest enemy,’ Fang Cheng thought to himself.

...