Chapter 260: Senior Brother, Scroll of Heavenly Dao Changes Owner
Rumble—
Mountains and lava replaced the clouds, scattered and floating in the sky, with rolling thunder traversing between the mountains and soil. The collision of spiritual energy created alternating brightness and darkness across the hundred-mile wilderness.
On the relatively flat ground below, Hu Tianyue stood in front of Feng Yudie, Yun Yiyi, and the others, using her aura and magical artifact to shield them from the residual waves of the confrontation above. However, she still furrowed her brow.
The sudden surge of earth veins, a phenomenon that occurred once in a hundred years, left her with no energy to ponder why the timing of this event was so coincidental, almost as if it were divinely orchestrated.
Facing the surge of earth veins, Elder Tianxing’s strength rivaled even that of a cultivator in the early stages of divine transformation. In theory, dealing with the audacious Yun Kunwu should have been effortless. However, Yun Kunwu ingeniously neutralized Elder Tianxing’s manipulation of heavenly and earthly spirits with each encounter, sustaining only minor injuries after dozens of clashes.
Yun Kunwu’s swordsmanship, his profound spiritual power, and his combat experience were formidable beyond measure. If facing opponents beyond one’s realm was the unique advantage of a genius, then Yun Kunwu undoubtedly stood out among geniuses.
Boom—
Hu Tianyue waved a huge gourd to block the aftermath of the aerial battle between the two, then turned back to see Feng Yudie, who appeared somewhat helpless, sitting behind him.
—Heavenly Spirit Root, Holy Emperor’s Bloodline, Spring Spirit…
She had always believed that Feng Yudie, with her extraordinary talents, was the envy of her generation. However, compared to Yun Kunwu, she seemed to lag by at least a mountain.
“You three, don’t just stand there. Condense your qi to protect yourselves. Even an eggshell is better than nothing.”
Yun Yiyi looked flustered, quickly following Hu Tianyue’s instructions to harness her spiritual power for protection. Meanwhile, Yun Jiujiu, seeing the intense battle in the sky, sighed softly and erected a spiritual shield around herself.
Only Feng Yudie remained motionless, her gaze fixed on the thunderous firestorm caused by the battle between Yun Kunwu and Elder Tianxing above, not even blinking. No matter how many times Xiao Tian or Master Taixu told her that she would surpass cultivators of the same realm and that those higher in cultivation were only ahead because they were born decades or even hundreds of years earlier, she couldn’t help but doubt whether she could defeat Yun Kunwu if they were at the same level of cultivation now. She didn’t want to admit it, but she couldn’t.
Killing a Core Formation cultivator with a Foundation Establishment cultivation base was nothing compared to Yun Kunwu effortlessly handling a powerful cultivator nearing divine transformation with only an early Nascent Soul cultivation base.
Thunderbolt—
The loud sound of exploding qi pulses filled the air, almost knocking Hu Tianyue off her feet.
“Tsk… This doesn’t give me a chance to intervene at all,” She clicked her tongue, noticing that Feng Yudie was still standing there. She quickly shouted, “Feng girl! What are you doing? Hurry and protect yourself!”
“Ah, right…”
Feng Yudie finally snapped out of it, hastily summoning her spiritual shield. But when she turned around, she noticed that Xiao Tian, floating beside her, was gradually becoming transparent.
“… ”
Xiao Tian seemed oblivious, engrossed in reading the Heavenly Dao scroll in his hands, seated on her shoulder. His small golden eyes rapidly scanned the contents of the scroll.
“Not this… nor this… this one! Yes, this one!”
It seemed to have found something and turned to say,
“Yudie, quickly tell Yun Yiyi and the other two girls to use their bloodlines to summon the earth spirits here. The Thousand Sword Pond contains the Earth Gang Formation left behind by the former Immortal Yunjian. It can alter forms and exchange attributes of the earth. With the bloodline of the Yun family, they can achieve it.”
“Hey-hey! What’s going on?”
At the same time, the scroll of Heavenly Dao in her hand suddenly left her grasp and floated toward the sky. Feng Yudie, seeing this, widened her eyes in disbelief. Ignoring the others around her, she reached out quickly,
“Xiao Tian!”
But her hand passed right through Xiao Tian, and his figure seemed to become more ethereal, as if he would vanish before her eyes in the next moment.
Xiao Tian struggled to descend from mid-air, but it seemed as if a powerful force was pulling him upward, rendering him powerless to resist.
After hesitation, he immediately pointed his finger like a sword and forcibly pulled the Heavenly Dao Scroll, which had flown away, back into his hand. Then, he opened the first page of the scroll.
However, when he saw the contents of the first page, disbelief flickered in his eyes.
The portion where the owner’s name was supposed to be written, “Feng Yudie,” had vanished halfway, leaving only “Diao Die,” replaced by “Yun Kun.”
“The scroll has changed owners!”
Xiao Tian exclaimed, turning his head to look at Yun Kunwu in the sky, who was laughing and fighting with Elder Tianxing. The Heavenly Dao Scroll had always been associated with the Holy Emperor, and Yun Kunwu was definitely not an heir of the Holy Emperor. However, if his name had changed, the Heavenly Dao Scroll would have recognized him to the extent that it abandoned Feng Yudie and chose him instead.
“No, no, no, no!”
Xiao Tian quickly shook his head and looked towards Yun Kunwu in the sky, who was staring back with a sneer on his face, confirming Xiao Tian’s suspicion. This was different from the Heavenly Dao Scroll recognizing him. It was him defying the Heavenly Dao and forcibly snatching the scroll from Feng Yudie.
How could he be so defiant against the Heavenly Dao? Wasn’t he afraid of the wrath of the divine thunder?
Thunderbolt—
In the sky, the thunder rumbled as if an immortal was enraged, momentarily freezing even Tianxing’s expression. He squinted his eyes and looked up,
“This is…”
Yun Kunwu, bearing numerous injuries, saw Tianxing pause. Despite his somewhat disheveled appearance, his expression remained as composed as ever as he spoke,
“It seems I’ve angered the real immortals by accident. It appears that this thing is some kind of heavenly object!”
“…”
Elder Tianxing didn’t respond but glanced at Hu Tianyue below, then once again mobilized his celestial and terrestrial spirits, surging towards Yun Kunwu.
“Old man Tianxing, at your age, aren’t you afraid of falling apart?”
“Evil creature!!!”
Boom—
Meanwhile, Xiao Tian, flying in mid-air, racked his brains and shouted to those below,
“Feng Yudie!! Just do what I say and leave me alone!! I know how to find a way!!”
Feng Yudie furrowed her brow upon hearing this, then immediately summoned her spirit sword from her storage bag, stood up, and conveyed Xiao Tian’s message to Yun Yiyi and Yun Jiujiu behind her,
“Jiujiu, this Thousand Sword Pond has the Earth Gang Formation left by the former Immortal Yunjian. It can change one’s shape and form and alter the five elements of the earth.”
“What the hell?” Yun Jiujiu, frowning, didn’t understand. “Why are you sitting down to condense your energy and protect your body? Stand up and make yourself useful…”
But upon hearing Feng Yudie’s words, Yun Yiyi immediately understood. Although she didn’t know why Feng Yudie knew about the Earth Gang Formation here, she didn’t have time to dwell on it,
“Sis! Assist me in controlling the spirits!”
“Ah!”
“Don’t worry, just follow my lead!”
Seeing this, Hu Tianyue, who had protected the three of them, did not interfere. He simply ordered,
“Feng girl! Sit down! Tsk…”
But halfway through his command, Hu Tianyue’s voice abruptly stopped as his gaze shifted. He quickly swung his spiritual sword upright.
Clang—
Zhuang Yan, who had been lurking nearby, seized the opportunity and suddenly appeared, using his magic artifact to knock Hu Tianyue away from the trio.
“Damn it, Zhuang’s surname!!”
“Elder Hu, didn’t you tell me not to run away last time? Ha…”
With only one hand left, Zhuang Yan approached Hu Tianyue, but his face remained calm as if he had concluded that the advantage was on his and Yun Kunwu’s side.
Hu Tianyue had no choice but to block it, but she was worried about Yun Yiyi and the others. Without her, the aftermath of the fight between the two men in the sky would be enough to kill the three of them, and it seemed that Zhuang Yan had come here for this.
But at this time, Feng Yudie also recalled what Ye Anping had said before, pointed her finger between her eyebrows, and subconsciously said,
“Lao Jiu, come out and help!!”
Golden spiritual energy spread around her, and a golden dragon appeared. Using the dragon’s claws and body as a shield, it rolled into a huge golden poop, protecting the three people below.
Yun Jiujiu couldn’t help being startled, “What?”
Feng Yudie turned her head and looked back, smiling,
“I told you, I can protect you! Keep going!!”
Immediately, she raised her head again and looked at Xiao Tian, who was floating upwards, and couldn’t help but curse,
“Young Master Ye!! What are you doing? You should have expected it to be like this! If this continues…”
These words fell in the ears of Yun Yiyi, who was standing aside. She looked condensed, but she didn’t say anything. She just reminded Yun Jiujiu,
“Second sister, don’t be distracted!! Continue to gather spirits!!”
“Tsk… What the hell is going on!!!”
…
At this time, Xiao Tian, who was already in the middle of the battle between Elder Tianxing and Yun Kunwu, was already a little helpless. He could only watch himself and the Heavenly Dao Scroll flying towards Yun Kunwu, with no way to do anything.
“I am the weapon spirit!!! I don’t approve!!!”
It made a sword finger with its hand and used its weapon spirit laws to break away from Yun Kunwu’s control forcefully but with little success. Since the heaven-defying cause and effect could snatch the scroll of heaven, it must not be something it could resist.
Xiao Tian bit his lip, looking at Lao Jiu below, who had come out to protect Feng Yudie. He even had the idea of destroying the spiritual marrow in his heart. No matter what, the scroll could not be allowed to fall into Yun Kunwu’s hands. Once it falls into his hands, it will be all over.
But at this moment, a person appeared in its mind,
——Ye Anping.
He was also a person who could see himself. When it came to the destiny of heaven and earth, he would never lose to Feng Yudie. And if Yun Kunwu could snatch the scroll, what about Ye Anping?
Could he beat Yun Kunwu?
What if Ye Anping’s destiny was higher than that of Yun Kunwu?
It was true that among cultivators, the superior and inferior were distinguished by their qualifications.
According to common sense, the karma of a cultivator with heavenly spiritual roots would inevitably be greater than that of a cultivator with dual spiritual roots. Ye Anping was the only cultivator in these millions of years with only two spiritual roots but could also see its destiny.
The fate of a cultivator with dual spiritual roots was higher than that of a cultivator with a spiritual root and a body of sword heart…
Speaking of which, most powerful cultivators would probably just think of it as farts, but Xiao Tian took a deep breath, used his spiritual energy to amplify his voice, and shouted in all directions,
“Ye boy!!! Stop it!! Now is not the time for you to be petty!!”
At the same time, it frowned, looking at the Heavenly Dao scroll in its hand that kept flying towards Yun Kunwu, and stared at the name on the first page.
–“Sigh…”
At the next moment, a cold exhalation came into Xiao Tian’s ears. The aftermath of the originally vigorous fight stopped at this moment. The three words Yun Kunwu on the first page of the Heavenly Dao Scroll turned into flying ashes and scattered instantly.
Instead, it was the name that Xiao Tian had been thinking about – Ye Anping.
It burst into tears of laughter as if it had let out a sigh of relief,
“Ye Anping! I told you it was fate! Why deny it so stubbornly?”
Just in the next moment.
Boom—
A golden sword light sliced through the day and night, flashing across hundreds of miles, cleaving several peaks in half from the top.
Yun Kunwu, who had been confident moments before, seemed momentarily distracted. He was struck directly in the chest by the golden sword light, plummeting heavily toward the mountain forest below.
Like a meteorite, he crashed into the forest, stirring up a storm of rocks and carving out a massive crater resembling a volcanic vent.
“Cough—”
He quickly sat up, incredulously gazing at the tiny golden figure in the sky, no longer holding back his spiritual energy as he roared angrily towards the heavens.
“Who?”
The evil aura shot into the sky like a nightmare, instantly shrouding the sky above the mountain’s forbidden grounds in black mist. Yun Kunwu’s expression gradually turned grim. In that moment, he sensed that someone with a destiny even greater than his own was lurking nearby, unseen from the beginning until now.
It wasn’t someone with a higher cultivation level but someone who seemed to outmatch him consistently, someone who could truly make him taste defeat. He raised his pitch-black spiritual sword, swinging it wildly around. The black sword light scattered, turning everything it touched into dust like sand swept by a desert wind.
“Come out!! Don’t hide in the shadows. Come out and face me in battle!!! Ah ha ha ha—come out… You are an unknown elder!! Or should I say, unknown junior!!!”
His mad roar echoed far and wide. Zhuang Yan, engaged in a swordfight with Hu Tianyue, couldn’t help but glance over with concern upon hearing this. He realized that the evil pill had probably not been fully refined and, after enduring Tianxing’s repeated full-force attacks, was showing signs of cracking,
“Not good, the evil pill can’t hold on anymore… Tsk… Kunwu!! Stay calm, don’t be swayed!!”
“Zhuang!! How dare you look around? Take this!!”
Seizing the opportunity, Hu Tianyue swung his wine gourd with full force, smashing it against Zhuang Yan’s forehead and sending him crashing into the ground.
Meanwhile, Elder Tianxing, floating in mid-air with a weary expression, observed the illogical dispersion of black sword light below. He narrowed his eyes, realizing that Yun Kunwu’s focus had shifted from him to someone unknown.
In fact, during the previous surging of the earth’s veins, Tianxing had faintly felt that someone was secretly aiding him. Otherwise, the timing of the earth veins’ surge was too coincidental.
“Phew…” He exhaled, “Whoever it is, thanks for the help.”
He then gestured with his hand, and the Yin Yang Spirit Sword stood tall towards the sky, causing the underground magma to surge upward and condense into a fire beast resembling a golden crow.
Sensing the heat that seemed to scorch the forest, Yun Kunwu finally snapped out of his daze, redirecting his attention from the unknown cultivator to Elder Tianxing above,
“Oh! This is a hefty investment, the Earth Phoenix True Treasure! It must’ve taken you hundreds of years of cultivation! Tianxing old man, are you really that willing?”
“I’ve never had the chance to ascend to godhood. Keeping all that cultivation is pointless. It’s better to use it today to rid the Yun family of your scourge! The sect master spared you out of familial affection, but I’ll correct that mistake today!”
“Heh… Then let’s see how this plays out!!” Yun Kunwu’s eyes sharpened as he pushed his spiritual sword toward the earth phoenix, intercepting Elder Tianxing’s true treasure in mid-air. Their spiritual powers clashed, illuminating the entire forest once again. A burst of white light obscured everyone’s vision.
After the white light dissipated, calm returned, leaving only the battered mountain peaks and the proud golden dragon coiled atop a cliff.
Feng Yudie, peering through the dragon’s eyes, breathed a sigh of relief after a while, then furrowed her brow and asked,
“Is it over?”
“Feng Yudie!!!” Xiao Tian flew down from the sky, grabbing Feng Yudie’s face anxiously. “Yun Kun’s Nascent Soul escaped!! Are you alright?”
Feng Yudie nodded, then walked a few steps forward, gazing down at the lifeless forest below the cliff, her lips pressed tightly together.
“Um…”