Chapter 374: Confucius Strikes
A middle-aged man waited in the Vast Void beyond the boundary of the Huang Realm. His skin was tender and white, like a newborn, but streaks of white hair on his temple marred his otherwise perfectly black hair. Cloaked in black robes and a white overcoat, he was Confucius, the grand founder and leader of the Saintly Scholar School.
When a tear appeared in the dimensional boundary, he smiled. A giant with five arms, each wreathed in one of the five elements, and a sphere-like head shot through the exit. Punishment lightning exploded from the giant’s form and dispersed into the void, but traces of punishment lightning crackled on the giant’s charred body.
“You’ve finally arrived, Wuxing,” Confucius said, drawing the reborn chaos fiendgod’s attention to him.
Once the energy sustaining the punishment lightning vanished, Wuxing’s body began to heal at a slow but noticeable pace. However, he paid no heed as he directed his attention to Confucius. The reborn divinity had never seen the immortal before, nor had he heard of him before, but a familiar and distasteful aura emanated from Confucius. Hate rose from the deepest pit of his heart. “PANGU!!!”
Confucius didn’t lose his smile. “Although I am born of Pangu’s spirit, please don’t link me to him. Like you, I am one that seeks to break out of his bondage.”
Wuxing, however, ignored Confucius’s words. Like a bull that saw red, he charged straight at the immortal. The latter showed neither shock nor caution. He formed a single hand seal and pointed two fingers at Wuxing. A tiny sphere split between black and white formed on his fingertips. It resembled the yin-yang sphere created by Emperor Infinity, but anyone, even a mere mortal, could sense the superior charm of it.
The taiji sphere shot toward Wuxing. The further it flew from Confucius, the larger it grew; until its size exceeded Wuxing’s.
In his blind rage, the reborn chaos fiendgod reared his fist back and punched the taiji sphere—only for his fist to phase through the sphere’s boundary. His arm, shoulder, torso, and whole body entered next. But when Wuxing tried to exit through the other side, the sphere’s boundary repulsed him, causing him to bounce back and forth.
Wuxing roared as he launched a barrage of punches against the barrier that sealed him. Wherever a punch landed, the surface of the taiji sphere rippled, but only that. No matter the number of punches, the former chaos fiendgod failed to break out. Metal curved, fire dissipated, water dispersed, wood lost its vitality, and earth crumbled. Nothing Wuxing did could free himself from his predicament.
Confucius made another hand seal before clenching his fingers into a fist. The taiji sphere mirrored his actions and started shrinking.
The reborn chaos fiendgod roared, but no sound escaped the sphere—not that sound would travel very far in the Vast Void in the first place. Wuxing was forced into a fetal position once the sphere shrunk by half. The elements burst from Wuxing’s body, but all attacks were reflected back to himself. The pain, however, awakened Wuxing from his rage-induced state.
“Pangu’s spawn.” Wuxing’s voice dripped with poison so toxic it could melt steel.
He couldn’t sit idly as the sphere continued to shrink. Wuxing had a feeling that if he couldn’t escape, he would be forced to revert to his dormant state, waiting for a chance to revive, or worse. If the danger emanating from Xi Tianyi and the heavenly punishment resembled a firefly’s light, then the danger emanating from Confucius were exploding stars, ready to incinerate him at a moment’s notice.
His body reverted to the pure essences of the five elements, which his core and head absorbed. Once that happened, a ring formed of the five elements circled around it, like a ringed planet. The five-colored ring started spinning until it was one whole color and enlarged itself. The five-element ring clashed against the taiji sphere.
The ring and sphere reached an equilibrium with neither side able to overpower the other.
Confucius’s smile deepened. “Had you regained your full strength, I would have needed to spend more effort. But you aren’t.”
“You are a mere bug. Unless you reach the same height as us chaos fiendgods, you will forever be a bug!”
“You aren’t wrong. All those drastically weaker are akin to bugs, and I admit that I haven’t fully recovered my strength in this life, but it is more than enough for you,” Confucius said. Without warning, an oppressive aura emanated from Confucius’s form. It resembled the pressure Tianyi felt from Wuxing, only far more complete.
“Impossible!?” Despite the lack of a face, there was no hiding Wuxing’s sheer disbelief. “There is only one confirmed immortal sovereign, and not even a single rumor of a divinity?! How could you reach the Divine Realm?”
“I can assure you that I am not the only divinity of the Huang Realm, although that will change soon.” After speaking those words, Confucius said no more.
Instead, he increased the power of the taiji sphere. Despite Wuxing’s resistance, it was all for naught as the sphere continued to shrink. First, it shattered the five-element ring, then it destroyed any and all attempts of resistance from Wuxing. It happened so fast, the former chaos fiendgod didn’t have time to scream as he was reduced to a black sphere.
The taiji sphere disappeared and the Wuxing Core—deprived of Wuxing’s soul or thought—floated toward Confucius. The moment it touched his fingers, runes of red, black, yellow, green, and white flitted across the surface.
The grand founder of the Saintly Scholar School nodded in satisfaction and brought the Wuxing Core to his lips. He pushed it into his mouth and, with an audible gulp, swallowed the core of the chaos fiendgod. Once the core reached his dantian, Confucius closed his eyes and felt the flow of five elements released from it. Light of red, black, yellow, green, and white radiated off of Confucius. His aura strengthened and reached the point of distorting the surrounding space with no conscious effort from the divinity.
When the light faded, Confucius opened his eyes once more and his aura disappeared, as if he was just an ordinary middle-aged man. He turned toward the Huang Realm. Twin carps of black and white swam in his pupils as his gaze pierced through the protective barriers of the Broken Heaven Valley, the Buzhou Immortal Sect’s forbidden ground. There, a man with the bearing of a celestial emperor looked up.
The two’s gazes connected.
The celestial emperor pursed his brows, while Confucius smiled and nodded. He pulled back his gaze and directed his attention onto the Earth Continent. There, he observed Xi Tianyi and the Eight Trigrams Sovereign War Formation clashing. The greatest danger to the two wasn’t each other, but the remaining heavenly punishment.
“This won’t do” Confucius said.𝘣𝘦𝑑𝘯𝘰𝘷𝘦𝑙.𝘯𝑒𝘵
His hands flashed through several seals. After he finished, he pointed his fingers at the Huang Realm. Undetected by anyone within the Huang Realm except that individual watching in Broken Heaven Valley, the dimensional boundaries took on a half-black, half-white color. The taiji-symbol began revolving under Confucius control. Within the realm itself, the heavenly punishment disappeared.
“Pchuu!”
Confucius spat out a mouthful of blood as the surrounding space constricted around him. He ignored the constraints and wiped the blood with his sleeve, staining it red. Despite his injuries, he smiled. “I can’t have you dying yet. I still need you to attract his attention for much longer.”
With a wave of his sleeve, Confucius’s figure disappeared from the Vast Void. On the Mortal Continent, black clouds gathered above the headquarters of the Saintly Scholar School.
Tianyi quickly regained his bearings after Emperor Infinity released a pulse of black-white energy, forcing the former away. He didn’t have time to think about why the heavenly punishment ended until he slew his current foe. Swiping his arms, he opened up a portal to the Nine Heavens Universe, where numerous stellar incarnations streamed out.
In response, Emperor Infinity conjured a yin-yang domain that spanned ten thousand kilometers. His skin paled as a bloody aura cloaked him. The usage of the forbidden technique showed the immortal emperor’s intention. He abandoned all hopes of escape, just to leave a sliver of hope for the Eight Pillar Sect.
Tianyi frowned and waved his hand. The yin-yang domain restricted Tianyi’s portals, but it also weakened the Buzhou Immortal Sect and Anti-Earth Alliance’s members. Contrarily, the surviving immortals of the Eight Pillar Sect increased the speed of their escape.
Since Emperor Infinity released a yin-yang domain, Tianyi released a space domain. The silver domain clashed against the yin-yang domain. While it couldn’t completely absolve all the effects of the yin-yang domain, it reduced its influence until it was negligible. The clash of domains accelerated the depletion of Emperor Infinity’s qi reserves.
Then the straw that broke the camel’s back came.
While Tianyi and Emperor Infinity fought, the Buzhou Immortal Sect and Anti-Earth Alliance did not just chase down the fleeing remnants, but also set up a massive slaughtering formation. A massive formation spanning over a hundred thousand kilometers appeared. The law of the five elements, yin, yang, lightning, space, clouds, death, stars, and other laws, manifested within.
The Myriad Rule World Formation emerged and started eliminating the remnants of the Eight Pillar Sect. It was as if the world had attacked them. Surging tides drowned a hundred immortals, and raging flames incinerated another. Steel spikes pierced the fleeing immortals, soul and all. Trees sprouted from the land and drained the vitality of those trapped by its roots and branches. The land overturned and buried those unlucky enough, turning them into nutrients. Lightning descended and splintered the immortals, and starlight vaporized those struck. A black aura filled the domain, consuming the life force of all those touched.
“NOOO!!!” Emperor Infinity screamed. He increased the strength of his yin-yang domain, but it was useless. He was but one immortal emperor, while the Myriad Rule World Domain rivaled an immortal sovereign’s domain. Not to mention Tianyi’s disruption.
He flew towards the fleeing immortals of the Eight Pillar Sect, hoping to send at least one out, but Tianyi constantly teleported and blocked him. “Out of the way!”
How could Tianyi do as Emperor Infinity ordered?
Emperor Infinity’s urgency rose to the peak as the number of immortals dwindled to ten percent. And it seemed even that little percentage would soon disappear. What awaited the Eight Pillar Sect was only an entry in history books as losers.
Hatred filled the immortal emperor’s eyes. He didn’t move as Tianyi appeared next to him and allowed the latter to pierce his flesh with his fist. “At least you!”
Emperor Infinity’s hands grabbed Tianyi like shackles. No matter how hard Tianyi injured him, he refused to let go, even when he turned into more corpse than human.
A black and white tree over eighty thousand meters tall manifested behind Emperor Infinity. At the very top, a single flower and two flower buds appeared. The Daotree released an ominous light as its aura strengthened. Conversely, Emperor Infinity’s skin sagged as his flesh, blood, and soul turned into the tree’s nutrients.
The two flower buds wilted and dropped off, while the lone flowered wilted and produced a tiny fruit of black and white. That fruit was no larger than an infant’s fist, but it contained power that would cause even an immortal sovereign to hesitate. Emperor Infinity’s ghoulish gaze bore into Tianyi’s soul. “Accompany me and the rest of the Eight Pillar Sect for your sins!”
A bright light of black and white erupted from the black and white fruit. Its range grew as it first consumed Tianyi and Emperor Infinity, but it didn’t stop there. The range grew as it swallowed the land, trees, even the very sky. Tianyi’s spatial domain collapsed, and even the Myriad Rule World Formation started crumbling.
““Flee!”” Zhang Cuiying and the Eternal Night Emperor ordered. Emperor Infinity’s self-detonation had reached the threshold of an immortal sovereign, and not even Xi Mengfei would dare to take it head-on.