Realms In The Firmament

Zong Xingyu sat on the chair of the prime master in the West Hall, with a weird and ironic smile on his haggard face.

“A piece of demonic soul. Hah. Demonic soul!”

“I am just a piece of demonic soul too, am I not?”

“F*ck the demonic soul!”

“Isn’t it the essence of demons to go against the trend of times and fill the heart with evilness?”

“What on earth can’t I be against them? Nothing!”

“Hah hah hah…” He suddenly laughed bitterly, yet with the laugh, he started to shed warm tears in the eyes.

When the tears crazily ran out his eyes, the demonic qi that had filled up his body seemed to be decreasing…

However, as he calmed down, the demonic qi was back again.

A group of Ye Xiao’s people, including three thousand cultivators who were beyond level five of Dao Origin Stage; which was highly commended by the leaders in the union’s army and was assigned to start the second wave of attacks, suddenly fell into big trouble in the battle.

Countless people of the West Hall kept approaching from everywhere. They were attacking even more fiercely than ever before. They might have already done their best to fight earlier, but now they were burning their lives to fight. When they attacked, they only wanted to hurt the opponent, not to keep themselves safe.

They were giving up their lives for the fight!

They were fighting a desperate fight with red eyes.

[I will kill you! Even if I have to kill myself to do it, I will kill you! I will drag you down to hell! If my death could only bring a little damage to you, I would love to die anyway!]

How fierce and bold they were! Because they fought without considering their own lives, they were fifty percent more powerful than they were usually!

In the end, the attacks from the two sides stopped, and the people were gone.

The cultivators of the West Hall were all crowding in the front!

It was absolutely a tough fight! That was a battle of life and death indeed! These people had made up their minds to put on a desperate fight!

The leaders of the union’s army didn’t seem to be worried, but deep in their hearts, they were astounded. They had fought the East Hall and won a great victory, which made them all highly spirited. As they arrived at the battle against the West Hall, they fought for justice righteously, and everyone in the fight knew that the Qing-Yun Realm would fall if they didn’t win the last fight in the West Hall. The union’s army was in the prime status, and they should have destroyed anything that stood in their way like cutting grasses and killed the main forces of the West Hall.

However, as the fight began and the two sides finally crashed each other, the enemies had already given up their lives to fight. The first group of cultivators who fought in the front line got destroyed by the desperate West Hall people. It was the first time the union’s army had ever lost such a big amount of people in the war. All the people they had lost in the previous battles; including the one in the East Hall, weren’t as many as they were losing this time. At least fifty thousand men of the union’s army were killed!

At this moment, the second group of elites who were highly spoken of didn’t have time to show their significant power before the enemies’ overwhelming attacks started to crash them. The enemies’ suicidal attacks strongly restrained the elites team. Many people of the elites team actually got killed in surprise. How was that not astounding to the leaders?

However, Ye Xiao, the Moon Queen, Xue Danru, and other super cultivators weren’t that surprised about the result. The West Hall had sent out every single man they had to put on suicidal attacks. As a matter of fact, everybody knew that the West Hall was much more powerful than the East Hall.

In the previous battle, the East Hall apparently wasn’t in the prime status. Every man in the East Hall had only half of their powers. Besides, before the battle actually started, Ye Xiao had killed many of the superior cultivators of the East Hall. The union’s army was incredibly more powerful than the East Hall force. Even with such a great advantage, the union’s army had lost nearly forty thousand men in that fight. Now they were fighting the West Hall, which was much stronger than the East Hall, it was reasonable that the union’s army would lose fifty thousand men. In fact, even if they lost a hundred thousand men in this battle, it wouldn’t be a big surprise.

Most importantly, the West Hall was fighting the best they could. Obviously, the West Hall had done the last thing they could. If the union’s army won this battle, the war was ended. In other words, this might be the last battle they had to fight in the war. If they won this fight, then they won the war and if they lost this fight, then they lost the war!

What surprised Ye Xiao was the fact that the West Hall was actually putting on a suicidal attack as if the West Hall was the one who had been bullied… He wondered why this was happening.

[We should be the ones who are willing to die in the battle. We are the ones who should fight with courage and fright at the same time. We are the ones who have been forced and enslaved.]

[Why do you act like you are in desperation?]

[Isn’t it… Isn’t it weird? Isn’t it twisted?]

[Unbelievable… How could you act like it is the righteous thing to be demons? So weird…]

“Ye Xiao! You are an ignorant hypocrite! Since you dare to come to the West Hall, why don’t you show yourself, so we can have a good fight!”

A middle-aged man with long beards stepped out from the crowd, speaking loudly like a ringing bell. The sword in his hand was shining cold light, and that sword was pointing right at Ye Xiao, who was hundreds of meters away. Many cultivators who stood around Ye Xiao could feel the cold qi from that sword blew over them, and they trembled because of the chill.

“It is the third elder of the West Hall, Feng Buping!”

The Moon Queen stared at that man and said, “If there is a ranking list of all-powerful cultivators in the world, Feng Buping can definitely get into the top twenty most powerful cultivators. I am afraid he is even beyond either of Yue Shuang and Yue Han!”

“Top twenty…” Ye Xiao blandly smiled; half closed his eyes, and blandly said, “Feng Buping, you might have a chance to fight me if this happened some time ago. Well, as for now… Come on. Be honest to yourself. Do you really think you deserve it?”

Feng Buping terrifyingly said, “You do not deserve the title. You don’t get to own that title of the world’s most powerful cultivator! Why can’t I challenge you? Ye Xiao, even if you already got your position on that chair of the world’s most powerful cultivator, do you really have to look down upon all the heroes in the world like this?”

Ye Xiao said, “I don’t care if you think I deserve the fame or not. I can accept either. But you are just a demonic creature. You do not have the right to challenge me, freak!”

Feng Buping’s eyes were burning in flame, and he was shaking. He half closed his eyes and fiercely said, “Ye Xiao! What is this? Are you frightened? How dare you call yourself the world’s most powerful cultivator if you are just such a pathetic coward!”

Ye Xiao laughed loudly and said, “Feng Buping, nice try. Just cut the nonsense, will you? Stop your stupid trash talk. Listen carefully. If I die, I am a dead man in the Qing-Yun Realm. What are you when you die? Do you dare to say that you are still a human?”

Feng Buping’s face turned green. He sounded extremely cold and said, “Your death is your own business. My death is mine. Xiao Monarch, this is the martial world. People live, people die. You win, you live. You lose, you die. Now you are here, I will fight you to the end. That is all. You don’t need to say those pointless talks. It only stains your fame.”

“Do I have the right to do anything? Well, I don’t care about rights. That is the problem after I win the fight and earn the chance to live.” Feng Buping coldly said, “Perhaps, it will be too late to think about other things after fighting this battle, but this is how the marital world runs, isn’t it? Things only end when death arrives.”

“Demon? Human? Whatever…” Feng Buping cruelly looked at Ye Xiao and said, “Nothing is more important than survival.”

Ye Xiao laughed loudly and said, “You have seen through a lot about life. Well, since so, let’s see who survives this fight first before either of us spends any time talking about other things! However, I am not going to change my decision. You, Feng Buping, are not qualified enough to challenge me! Show yourself, Han Bingxue!”

Ye Xiao shouted.

Han Bingxue stepped out the crowd with his long white clothes on. He was all white like ice and snow.

He was like an ice sculpture in the middle of the boundless snow-capped mountains. Even his eyes seemed to be filled with the coldness of the ten thousand years old ice. As he stepped out, he spoke in a voice that was extremely indifferent, as if he could freeze the entire world with it, and said, “Feng Buping, you are going to fight me, Han Bingxue!”

Feng Buping was shocked for a while, and then he sneakily chucked. He said, “The Unique of the World? Han Bingxue? Come on! I have to say the following words as a response to the Xiao Monarch now because Han Bingxue is too weak to fight me!”

Han Bingxue stood there like a spear standing straight up and didn’t move—he just stared at Feng Buping silently. The next moment, he slowly drew out his sword—the Ice Sword.

Feng Buping seemed to be provoked, and said, “A man who overrates himself is seeking death from me!”

Han Bingxue’s face was expressionless, and he was still cold like ice. The long Ice Sword had been drawn out half way from the scabbard. When it was just about to be drawn out of the scabbard, it caused a heavy vibration in the air!

– Clang! –

The clear sound of the sword rang up like the cold wind whistled over from the sky.

The ice-cold wind blew over and froze thousands of mountains at the same time!

Han Bingxue had held his sword in hand. It was obviously a sign of battle, and he didn’t even bother to say a word.

“Good! Good! Great!” Feng Buping’s eyes were full of anger, and he said, “If you really want to die this much, I will send you to hell first before I get to kill the hypocritical Xiao Monarch!”

Han Bingxue’s clothes were white like snow, and his sword was cold like ice. The coldness on his face was enough to form up an ice mountain. He still didn’t say a word, but finally took a move. – Shoot! – With a dash, he rushed forward with the sword in front.

While the sword was moving, he and the sword together became a cloud of snow storm in the whirlwind!

As the snowy whirlwind arose, the temperature dropped drastically. After that, snowflakes appeared in the air because of the drastically dropping temperature, and then fell down from the sky!

It was snowing!

All of a sudden, the air became so cold and the land was frozen. It seemed the spiritual energy was frozen at the same time.

Feng Buping was astonished.

As he could remember, the Frost Sword… Han Bingxue could never be this powerful!

Even though some people described Han Bingxue as a man who was peerless in the universe; unique in the firmament, brilliant in the world—they only said so because of his excellent movement technique and his pretty face.

Even though the Frost Sword was the most recognized title of him, he wasn’t truly great at the power of extreme coldness. As Feng Buping and many of the others remembered, Han Bingxue was merely a little higher than the average level. His martial art was much weaker than the: Extreme Cold Art of the Ice Cloud Palace, the Qiong Hua Ice Art of the Qiong-Hua Palace, even the Pure Ice Heart Formula of the Sky Ice Palace, and the Ice Sky Cold Moon of the Cold Moon Palace!

However, what Han Bingxue just did had shown some magnificent power that was beyond all those martial arts mentioned above. In fact, only the great Elder Xuan Bing’s Ling Xiao Ice Art from the Misty Cloud Palace might be as powerful as what Han Bingxue was operating!

[Is it possible… Is it possible that this man is not Han Bingxue? Is it possible that he is actually the Elder Xuan Bing from the Misty Cloud Palace?]

[Is this even possible?]

[No… It can’t be…]

[Can’t it?]

[I have seen every single one from the Misty Cloud Palace except their great Elder Xuan Bing since the war began. Is it possible… that she has disguised herself as Han Bingxue and kept hiding behind while waiting for an opportunity to win the battle!]

While Feng Buping was still lost in his own imagination, Han Bingxue had already approached with the sword in his hand.

The sword was cold.

The face was cold.

The man was cold.

He was like a bone-chilling whirlwind.

Feng Buping felt like he was trapped inside an ice mountain. That stunning power of the enemy could never be the power of Han Bingxue. However, the cold sword was about to get him, so he couldn’t spend time thinking anymore. Therefore, he made a move with his sword in full power!

He truly did it in full power! In fact, at this moment, he had activated all the demonic energy he had inside the body to enhance himself so that he could defend himself against the horribly powerful attack from Han Bingxue!

The dark cloud suddenly spread out hundreds of meters away.

In fact, with his outstanding power, he could spread the dark cloud much further away in full power.

However, he didn’t, because when Han Bingxue made the sword move, he operated his Cage Phase technique at the same time.

Feng Buping might be more powerful than the people who knew about him, but he hadn’t reached the Cage Phase yet. In other words, he was almost one whole level weaker than Han Bingxue. Therefore, when the Cage Phase power was released, Feng Buping was immediately locked. Although he was only locked for an extremely short moment, it already gave Han Bingxue enough time to put the sword into Feng Buping’s throat!

Han Bingxue’s cold ice spiritual power burst!

The energy had frozen Feng Buping’s body, energy, and demonic qi at the same time.

Feng Buping stood in the same place, with a thick layer of frost covering his entire body. After a while, a series of cracking sound could be heard from his body, because it was breaking like a piece of cracking ice. His blood, flesh, and bones gradually became pieces of crystal ice falling down and rolling on the ground.

Han Bingxue slowly withdrew his sword with an expressionless face, and then he coldly said, “What a trash! How dare him to challenge Chief Ye!”

He made a long sigh to the sky and sounded extremely sorrowful, like he couldn’t bear seeing the current social conduct in the Qing-Yun Realm, like he was bemoaning the hard times and the misery of the people, like he was the only one in the world who had seen through the truth of the world, and said, “The West Hall has gone crazy…”

Then he shook his head, made a sigh, and got back to the crowd.

As he stood in the crowd, he stood straight up, with an expressionless face. He was like the snow, and his sword was like the frost.

“Damn… That pretentiousness…” Li Wuliang rubbed his own jaw, couldn’t help praising, and then said, “I will give full marks for that!”

Xue Danru blushed and hurriedly looked aside.

…

The third elder of the West Hall, who had burst into his limit in cultivation, couldn’t get through one sword attack of Han Bingxue before getting defeated and killed. Both his soul and body were destroyed!

Even his blood, flesh, and bones had become pieces of ice on the floor.

People of the West Hall were shocked by the cruel truth.

In fact, even Ye Xiao’s men were shocked.

[Since when did Han Bingxue get such astounding power?]

[He has many titles: the Frost Sword, the Unique of the World, and many others, but… He shouldn’t have reached such an astounding level in cultivation!]

Perhaps, people believed that only people like Wu Fa, Xuan Bing, and Xue Danru could be that powerful!

Xue Danru was thinking. [Well, I am flattered. I was definitely weaker than this in the old days… In fact, even now, I may still be weaker than this. A freak’s brother must be a freak… Wait. My husband is not a freak though!]

“Who is next?” The lady’s husband, who wasn’t a freak, held his huge saber on the shoulder, stepped out the crowd and spoke arrogantly.

Li Wuliang was jealous of Han Bingxue for the wonderful show earlier, so he wanted to put on a show of his own too.

Apparently, they were the same kind of people. The two of them were Ye Xiao’s sworn brothers, so they were both freaks as Xue Danru said!

On the West Hall’s side, an old man was just going to step out, but a talking voice stopped him. Somebody shouted and said, “What next? What is this? We are in the most critical moment now. Do you really think we should fight alone one by one?”

“Let’s go together and fight! We will fight to the end! Either the enemies die, or we do!”

A man whose face was colorless suddenly showed up in the sky. It was the prime master of the West Hall, Zong Xingyu.

However, his face was pale, and his body was shaking. His eyes were filled with madness.

With an order, as the prime master of the West Hall, he didn’t wait for the others to move and just rushed forward by himself. He became a stream of glaring light shooting toward Ye Xiao.

“Something is wrong.”

Ye Xiao, Xuan Bing, and Jun Yinglian exchanged hints with each other through eye contact.

The people who stood up and fought for the West Hall were all the elites. The West Hall was fighting their best this time. However, there seemed to be something strange that Ye Xiao noticed. What surprised him that much was that no elites from the Demon Soul Dao appeared for the battle.

Ye Xiao wasn’t so sure about how many superior cultivators the Demon Soul Dao had, or how powerful they were. However, if this was the last battle in the war, at least the Red in the Sky, the man behind that giant dark hand, and the Honor Demon should have shown themselves in the fight already.

There must be something wrong.

If the enemies didn’t all show up yet, it meant there were a lot of problems that should be considered.

However, the enemies were here. Tens of thousand were attacking together, which was quite difficult to defeat. Ye Xiao and his people didn’t have a lot of time to think, so they just wielded their swords and forged.

“Guys, we must be careful. Heads up and be aware of the Demon Soul Dao’s sneaky traps! Pay attention to the environment!”

All that Ye Xiao could do was to warn the others by saying these words.

That was all!

Now that the prime master of the West Hall, Zong Xingyu had shown himself in the battle to fight against Ye Xiao, the West Hall’s side was spirited up. People of both sides were all determined to devote their lives for the victory. Everyone was doing their best and doing everything they had learned in their lives to kill the enemies, like two groups of crazy bloodthirsty beasts. The two armies crashed fiercely and burst out thunder and fire.

Zong Xingyu had just shown up, and what he said had led to a huge fight that was full of blood!

Ye Xiao and Zong Xingyu both became a whirlwind and rushed over to each other immediately.

However, as Ye Xiao fought Zong Xingyu, he realized that something was wrong.

Zong Xingyu, the man Ye Xiao was fighting at the moment seemed to be much weaker than Ye Xiao expected…

As Ye Xiao finally got to fight this man, Zong Xingyu was giving Ye Xiao a feeling of certainty, with which he believed he was definitely going to win!

It felt good, but it surprised Ye Xiao.

The man he was fighting against was the prime master of the most powerful sect in Qing-Yun Realm after all. How could he be so weak?

As Ye Xiao sensed, Zong Xingyu was only as powerful as Wu Fa. That was all…

However, after giving it a second thought, Ye Xiao seemed to understand it.

[Perhaps, Zong Xingyu isn’t too weak.]

[He is as powerful as Wu Fa, which means he isn’t weak. Wu Fa was the most powerful cultivator in the world after all.]

[I am so sure that I will win this fight. I feel that Zong Xinyu is too weak. Maybe I am too powerful!]

[I have been greatly improved so fast recently!]

[I have been boosted!]

[I am way beyond these people’s league now. Because I am too powerful, Zong Xingyu becomes so weak to me! That is why I have this feeling… That is why Zong Xingyu is so unbelievably weak to me…]

Ye Xiao wanted to defeat Zong Xingyu as quickly as he could because it might end the war soon, or it would at least force the final opponent, Zong Yuankai to show up, so he kept attacking with his tremendous spiritual power.

Ye Xiao clearly sensed a golden core running fast inside his dantian.

The feeling of fullness and softness made him believe that he could fight in full power forever and wouldn’t feel tired at all.

[So… This is the realm of the Golden Core Phase!]

He was enlightened.

However, there was one thing he didn’t know. The golden core in his dantian was totally different from the golden core that people knew about!

The other cultivators’ golden core was in golden color. That was why it was named golden core. As for Ye Xiao, his golden core was in golden purple!

The appearance of his golden core was already different from other people.

Ye Xiao himself knew very little about the golden core though. It was his first time to see a golden core when he got it himself after all. How could he tell any difference between one and other’s golden cores? He thought everybody had the same golden core…

After all, golden purple was one kind of golden!

Most importantly, after the golden core was formed inside him, he could clearly feel that his East-rising Purple Qi was slowly improving automatically while the golden core was rotating by itself. Although the East-rising Purple Qi improved slowly, it was a lot faster compared to the days when he had to improve it himself!

During the drastic fight, Ye Xiao was having some incredible changes.

When he first returned to the Qing-Yun Realm and luckily swallowed the inner core of the Golden-scale Dragon Fish, there was a huge power starting to hide inside him. As the golden core kept turning in the dantian, the power from the inner core of the Golden-scale Dragon Fish started to come out fast, going directly through the dantian into the golden core.

Aside from that, the energy from the Divine Yin Yang Fruit and the energy from other precious materials that he had eaten before all started to be digested when the golden core was running. Every bit of the energy went into the golden core. All in all, the energy that Ye Xiao had taken inside his body in his life that hadn’t been absorbed yet was now started to come out because of the golden core. All the hidden energy had slowly become the purest purple qi inside his Jing and Mai, running toward the dantian and turning into the purest spiritual energy which Ye Xiao could use as he wished.

Zong Xingyu was attacking as crazily as he could, trying to defeat Ye Xiao as soon as he could. In fact, he was breaking down. For him, it was acceptable to defeat Ye Xiao with a suicidal attack. He might even enjoy the death if he could win the fight with it.

However, as he fought for a while, he realized something that totally broke him down…

Although he was already attacking like crazy, Ye Xiao, his opponent, was moving like sleepwalking, casually waving his hands, moving here and there, and then eventually prevented getting hit by any of the attacks…

Zong Xingyu was an expert cultivator himself, so he was sure that Ye Xiao wasn’t pretending, or fooling him around. Ye Xiao was truly just like sleepwalking. He was in that status. In other words, Ye Xiao did not truly care that much about the fight he was having. If that was not the case, he must be lost in thoughts of something else, which was definitely irrelevant to this fight.

Zong Xingyu realized that Ye Xiao had only paid no more than five percent attention to the fight at the moment.

“He… He is… Is he cultivating? Is he meditating? Is he comprehending something deep?” Zong Xingyu was provoked by Ye Xiao’s absence of respect.

[I am fighting you with my life! Come on!]

[How can you just be in meditation?]

[How can you meditate when you are in the middle of a fight?]

[How dare you do this?]

[How could you do this?]

[Can you at least show some respect to your opponent?]

[Come on!]

[Can you?]

Zong Xingyu was ragingly furious. He kept rushing forward while gritting his teeth, attacking Ye Xiao energetically!

At this moment, Zong Xingyu was on the verge of a breakdown. [My father doesn’t like me. My father looks down on me. Even you… Even Ye Xiao dares to look down upon me now!]

However, there was an absolute gap between him and Ye Xiao in cultivation. No matter how he tried, how he attacked with full power, he couldn’t hurt Ye Xiao. Although Ye Xiao moved like sleepwalking; half closing his eyes, totally absentminded, he casually avoided getting hit by all those fierce attacks from Zong Xingyu.

He just got through the energy blows safely with some casual moves. In fact, every move Ye Xiao made at the moment was incredibly powerful. When Zong Xingyu’s full power attacks approached, they were like small stones falling into an ocean. It stirred up nothing, and just disappeared into it!

After a while, rising purple qi started to come out from Ye Xiao’s body…

For cultivators who had experienced cultivation, that was something pretty usual. When somebody cultivated long enough and the martial art circulated to the highest level, spiritual qi would be out from the cultivator’s body.

However, one thing was different. Whoever was cultivating and having the spiritual qi rising up, he or she must be cultivating in an absolutely safe circumstance. Ye Xiao didn’t. Instead, he was actually in the middle of a big fight. As the spiritual qi rose up while he was in the fight, it wasn’t just ignoring the opponent, but humiliating him!

He might be careless to forget about the presence of the opponent. He might be impolite not to show respect to the opponent. In fact, he totally ignored the opponent at the moment!

As he was at such an incredible level, he was extremely arrogant and he knew it. Who dared to do mess with him anyway?

In the sky, a cloud of dark gray fog was floating in the air. The Honor Demon was coldly staring at the people below him.

He was about to fly down and stop Zong Xingyu’s madness, but then he realized what was happening to Ye Xiao. “Oh?” He couldn’t help feeling surprised by Ye Xiao’s change.

[This man… Ye Xiao… He is breaking through a new level…]

[If this is it…]

[People of the West Hall will die here. I will get less of these people’s souls than I should. Well, it doesn’t matter… If Ye Xiao can break through a level and reached an even higher realm in cultivation… His soul… His precious soul will be such a treat to us! It is definitely the best we can get!]

[If he successfully breaks through, he will reach the limitation of cultivation in the Qing-Yun Realm… It means he will be ascending to the upper realm soon. When he is about to ascend, his soul is the most powerful soul. With his soul alone, we can light up two altars at a time…]

The Honor Demon kept watching everything that was happening in the fight with joy in his eyes. “As long as Ye Xiao can breakthrough successfully, I would give up two West Halls for it… Well, it turns out a great thing to start this battle beforehand…”

“If this is the case… The force of the West Hall… The men we have here… I guess I should just let it go…”

The Honor Demon was murmuring. In his mind, his own son, who was facing a life and death fight against Ye Xiao actually meant nothing to him.

He couldn’t care less about it…

Watching Ye Xiao breaking through, the Honor Demon was getting more and more beaming with joy… He couldn’t stop the smile on his face…

Truth to be told… If Lei Dadi and the other two great elders saw Ye Xiao now, they wouldn’t be happier than the Honor Demon.

…

Zong Xingyu was in a desperate situation now. He didn’t know what he could do, so he kept shouting like thunderclaps. He almost broke his teeth because he gritted his teeth so hard. He kept attacking and didn’t stop shouting. All he did was to draw Ye Xiao’s attention. In fact, he would feel better if Ye Xiao turned to look at him and killed him right away because he was exhausted by the way Ye Xiao ignored him. Unluckily, Ye Xiao didn’t have any feeling about it. Apparently, he was totally lost into a mysterious and strange atmosphere.

[So… It turns out… This is the Golden Core Phase everybody worships so much… This is the golden core… It turns out that the East-rising Purple Qi can run this way. If not that the golden core has activated the East-rising Purple Qi in a certain way, if I just let the East-rising Purple Qi run as it did, it may take me over ten thousand years to get a tiny step ahead in the process. I thought I would stop at the third level of the East-rising Purple Qi… However, with the help from the golden core, it isn’t impossible to break through the third level anymore. It may still take a long time, but I will reach the fourth someday in my life…]

Ye Xiao was totally lost in his thoughts and soaked in the images of a new world of martial arts that he had never reached before. He felt comfortable everywhere in his body.

In the end, the golden core inside his dantian gradually grew to the utmost size and started to shine in splendid gloss, which shined up the entire space inside his dantian. It was some extremely golden purple light that was wrapped by some mysterious mist, filling up his dantian.

A breakthrough!

The last step of the Golden Core Phase! The top of the cultivation limitation.

At this moment, Ye Xiao finally returned to himself. His spiritual mind and his concentration were back to him from somewhere extremely far away. He was back to the battle now.

As he was awake, he immediately looked around the battle. What he saw were some dead bodies lying around him on the ground. Further away, there were several hundred dead bodies of superior cultivators of the West Hall in the dust. In front of him, there were over one hundred superior cultivators who were still alive, but these people were staring at him at the same time with fear and fright in their eyes as if he was death itself.

Xuan Bing and the others all had their own fights to pay attention to, so they were in other places far away, enjoying the fights against the enemies. Ye Xiao was apparently facing these enemies all by himself.

He was a bit morose about being left alone, but then he shouted angrily and said, “How could you do this to me, you guys… That is cruelly careless… You actually left me to several hundred superior cultivators here… Do you really think I can defeat them all? I am even not sure if I can survive it here…”

He was telling the true thought in his head though. He was morose about it, and he felt a bit dizzy too. He was dizzy because of the hundreds of top-level Dao Origin Stage enemies in front of him… As he looked around again, he realized many of them were familiar. It meant these people should all be heroes who were famous legends in the world.

He carefully estimated the men he was fighting and realized that the weakest among those people was as powerful as the Xiao Monarch in a previous life…

[This is a group of unbelievably powerful people… Are you sure you should leave them all to me?]

[Are you sure you want me to deal with these people alone?]

[Don’t you think you are unacceptably overestimating me now? Do you want me to die? You guys are trying to kill your husband, your brother, your ultimate master, and your beloved Xiao Monarch!]

“You guys really are unbelievably insensible!” Ye Xiao discontentedly muttered to himself.

However, deep in his heart, he tried to accept it. [Fine. With great power comes great responsibility. I am the best, the strongest, and the most powerful. I guess I should just take this. Okay. I will keep stalking as many of these guys as I can. When my people finish their fights, they will come to help me… I hope I can hold it to that point though!]

[The heavens always blesses the kind!]

If anybody heard Ye Xiao’s voice in the head, be it enemies or allies, they would show some weird expression on their face first, and then cursed him badly! He was just so shameless!

He was unbelievably shameless, degrading, and dishonored! He should have been more modest, yet he had shown the enemies of how such a hypocrite he was!

Everybody had clearly seen what had happened in the fight.

Ye Xiao casually moved and wielded his sword repeatedly to deal with Zong Xingyu with totally effortless ease. If Ye Xiao only fought Zong Xingyu like that, it wouldn’t make things worse. After all, powerful cultivators like Ye Xiao and Zong Xingyu were difficult to understand. Not everyone had the capability to see through the fight between these two men. However, as Ye Xiao’s Golden Core Phase was improved, he became even more incredibly powerful. Whoever of the West Hall went near him within thirty meters around, would arouse Ye Xiao’s enmity. After that, Ye Xiao would stick his long sword over and dragged those people inside his attacking area.

He didn’t stop sleepwalking though. He kept playing his casual sword moves, and those who were inside his attacking area were all struggling under his sword lights—they didn’t even have a chance to fight back! Obviously, they couldn’t get a chance by themselves. Even Zong Xingyu was unable to hit Ye Xiao, let alone the others in the West Hall!

Ye Xiao kept sleepwalking, and many superior cultivators of the West Hall were dragged to the attacking area of Ye Xiao from the other people’s battles, and they didn’t even know how it happened. Ye Xiao was fighting all alone with the sword in his hand. He fought like sleepwalking and wielded the sword like some random moves of some unprofessional technique. One attack to the east, and then one attack to the west, he was just playing, but turned out to put those superior cultivators of the West Hall into some formidable situation!

They wanted to attack, but they couldn’t, because they couldn’t even resist the sword light from Ye Xiao’s attack first.

They wanted to pull back, but whoever dared to move backward, Ye Xiao’s sword light would rise upon him. The faster they retreated, the faster they got killed. There were already roughly five hundred people who died around the area because they made a mistake of retreating.

In the end, it naturally became a strange scene in the battle. Over a hundred superior cultivators of the West Hall were forced to stay inside the attacking area of Ye Xiao, trying to keep themselves from getting hurt. It was more like these people were spending their time in the battle to help Ye Xiao practice his martial art!

If they stayed in the attacking area, they might stay safe. If they tried to escape, they would die!

The blood around the area had proved it. Nobody dared to doubt it!

Xuan Bing and other people on Ye Xiao’s side also saw what happened with their own eyes. Why would they worry about Ye Xiao?

There was nothing they could worry about!

Ye Xiao was totally controlling everything by himself!

However, none of them had thought that Ye Xiao would say those words at the first second he was awake.

He did say some words like how could you leave me to all these people? How am I going to defeat them all? Why could you be so in ease while I may die at any second… How can you not worry about me?

Why would they worry about him anyway?

Luckily, nobody could hear the voice in his head, otherwise, he would definitely become a much more shameless prick in the others’ hearts. Maybe he could make an excuse like he was only in a weird dream, but there really should be a bottom line to it!

“Ye Xiao!” Those superior cultivators, who had luckily survived his casual attacks were all raging in fury. Someone said, “You bastard! How could you fool us around like that? You can kill us, but you should never humiliate us!”

Ye Xiao was absolutely unaware of what had happened, so he rubbed his head, and said, “I… I don’t think I have ever humiliated you. What? What did I do? No! Nothing as I can remember!”

Zong Xingyu nearly got his lungs to explode because of the anger that filled his chest. He said, “Ye Xiao! You are an influential figure in the world now. No matter how pretentious you are, you should know there is a bottom line. Do you think you are showing respect to your own fame?”

Ye Xiao got a hint of confusion in the eyes. Apparently, he was even hazier than before. He was lost in a messy thought…

[Did I fool him?]

[How did I fool him?]

[I would love to fool him, but I don’t think I did!]

While he was thinking about whether he did or did not humiliate the enemies, Zong Xingyu had already rushed over fiercely with a twisted face while attacking desperately.

What Ye Xiao could see were the red finger marks on Zong Xingyu’s face. It seemed this man was slapped on the face really hard! His hairs were in a mess, and so were his beards. All in all, Zong Xingyu had become so ugly like a beggar…

Ye Xiao was surprised and he said, “You… What… What happened to your face?”

Of course, he had every right to ask this question. As he could remember, Zong Xingyu was even a little bit more powerful than Wu Fa. He was not as powerful as Ye Xiao, or Jun Yinglian, Li Wuliang, and the others who had been greatly improved recently, but he was still one of the recognized super powerful cultivators. To slap him across the face was definitely more difficult than to hit him with a fist or a sword attack. No matter what, Ye Xiao felt pretty impressive for whoever did that to Zong Xingyu!

If he didn’t ask Zong Xingyu what happened, it would be easier for Zong Xingyu. However, now that he had asked, Zong Xingyu was so humiliated that he wanted to kill himself!

[what happened to my face?]

[Are you serious?]

[Do you really have to shamelessly ask such a question?]

“Ye Xiao, you and I are absolutely irreconcilable!” Zong Xinyu was furious, and he couldn’t hold his anger anymore.

[What happened to my face? You did all this to me! You did this when you were sleepwalking, you bastard! I just took one tiny step backward right there, and then you slapped me across the face, cut my hairs with your sword and cut my beards too…]

[And now… At this moment, you actually asked me what had happened!]

[I know you want to humiliate your enemy, but do you really have to go this far?]

“Ye Xiao, you are such a bastard! To what end do you want to humiliate me?” Zong Xingyu was freaking out.

Ye Xiao grinned, but he still had no idea what had happened. [Holy sh*t! Why is everybody acting so weird today? You are the monsters and the demonic creatures, aren’t you? We are enemies! We are at war! Why are you talking like I have been bullying you?]

[Is this world upside down now?]

[The villains act like they are some righteous men…]

“Fine! So I humiliated you… What can you do?” He was also angry now, and said, “I have never seen anybody more shameless than you all!”

That was what aroused the flame of anger and dignity of the West Hall cultivators.

They had been escaping, hiding inside that area for quite a long time, and it was killing them. Now that Ye Xiao tore off the last bit of the loincloth, these men couldn’t stand it anymore. Two elders shouted fiercely and rushed over with their swords in hand. “Ye Xiao! I am going to kill you!”

– Boom! – They actually exploded themselves to attack Ye Xiao.

Ye Xiao waved the Stars Sword in his hand, and it created a purple light shield, protecting Ye Xiao from the explosive blast. The fierce explosion was stopped right outside the energy shield, and Ye Xiao said, “Why are these people all like soft shrimps… Are they all starving or something? Even the explosive attack was weak…”

Many of the enemies spat out a mouthful of blood at the same time.

They didn’t get hurt by any injuries inside their bodies, or by the blast of the suicidal explosion…

In fact, they were exasperated!

“West Hall! West Hall!” Zong Xingyu shouted, and then said sorrowfully, “From now on, there is no West Hall in the Qing-Yun Realm!”

Before speaking out the last word, he already rushed forward with his sword in hand.

The determination had shocked every cultivator of the West Hall. Their faces all looked solemn and stirring.

Afterwards, the superior cultivators of the West Hall kept rushing toward Ye Xiao, putting on their own suicidal attacks toward Ye Xiao. They all exploded themselves to hurt Ye Xiao!

All of a sudden, within a thousand miles, the world started to shake because of the blast.

Several deep fissures on the ground were crawling away…

Dust and mist kept rising up to the sky and covered the sun…

All of a sudden, people within a thousand miles could not hear anything else anymore…

The prime master of the West Hall, Zong Xingyu was the first one who made the self-explosion attack and started the explosion storm with his own death.

Before he died in self-explosion, he took a look at the sky, tilting his head.

In the sky, there was a cloud of blurry dark fog floating high in the air.

The dark fog was encircled with the most horrible vibe.

Zong Xingyu knew, or he sensed, that the darkness in the fog was his father, who was watching this fight.

He seemed to see the cold eyes of his father, which he never wanted to look into.

Those eyes were ruthless and sharp.

Even though he was going to die, the owner of those eyes still just indifferently watching like a stranger.

Zong Xingyu didn’t entertain high hopes that the owner of those eyes would get down and save him, but he did hope that he could see a hint of unwillingness and tenderness. However, the only thing he could see in those eyes was a sneer. [Do you really think that killing all of your people out here can stop me from getting more energy for the altars?”

[It is always the demonic soul!]

[All you care about, even at this moment, you only care about the demonic soul you want!]

Zong Xingyu was hurt deeply in his heart. He started to laugh like crazy because he couldn’t be more desperate and hopeless at the moment. He abruptly rushed toward Ye Xiao. After the dash—he gave up his body, blood, soul, and everything he had in that explosion. Under his father’s watch, he had turned himself into a splendid firework display. That must be the most wonderful thing he had ever done to himself.

“This world…” Before he made the self-explosion, he said these words.

“This world is so ugly!”

The war didn’t stop when Zong Xingyu died. His death didn’t put an end to anything but only led it to a more drastic fight.

All the cultivators of the West Hall started to recklessly run toward Ye Xiao after Zong Xingyu killed himself. They all knew they could never defeat Ye Xiao, but all of them chose to die in defending their own sect.

The extremely tragic battle had lasted for one full day.

In the end, every cultivator of the West Hall died.

When the last enemy died in the battle, people of the union of all sects in the Qing-Yun Realm; men or women, strong or weak, old or young, all felt exhausted.

At this moment, the third group of cultivators that Ye Xiao had arranged to stay behind finally arrived at the battlefield.

When these people; who had just arrived, saw what happened in the battle, they were all shocked deep in their hearts.

“The West Hall is… The West Hall is gone!”