Incarnation Beyond the Body, Digging His Own Grave

The black qi erupted forth, and General Luo's physical body rapidly withered away.

The surging black qi coiled, raced, and twisted. In an instant, it transformed into a colossal demon god a hundred zhang tall, as though a heavenly demon had descended upon the world! This mountain-sized demon god had one face, three eyes, and eight arms. Its blue face bore savage fangs, and it grinned ferociously. Its three eyes were wide open, a skull crown rested upon its head, and its entire body was the color of blue lotus blossoms. Two crimson giant pythons coiled around its chest, while flames and black qi poured from its mouth.

Its uppermost pair of arms bent upward, gripping a twenty-fingered, four-sided, twelve-pronged Vajra Pestle. The second pair below curved upward, wielding a dark bronze Trident Halberd a hundred zhang long, which looked as though it weighed more than ten thousand jun. The third pair crossed before its chest, its hands forming the Vajra Mudra. The fourth pair hung downward with palms up and five fingers extended, forming the Fearlessness Mudra. In its upper left hand, it held a Dharma Wheel. Its first lower arm extended to the left, holding a black spire covered in flowing runes—the original form of the World-Destroying Mara Banner. Its fourth lower hand lay across its left hip, forming a protective mudra.

This colossal demon god was not an illusion conjured by magic, but a solid entity formed from fused Primordial Spirits. It was actually an incarnation of Ratnasambhava Wrathful King!

All cultivators in the world knew that Kunlun imposed no restrictions on cultivation arts. Yet if cultivators from other sects had witnessed this earthshaking battle, they would surely have been so shocked that their hearts and gall bladders burst, for what General Luo had manifested was the incarnation beyond the body that, according to legend, only esoteric sect Tribulation Immortals could cultivate!

The moment the incarnation beyond the body appeared, General Luo's physical body immediately dried up.

Yet after his body swiftly withered, the silver mask flickered with radiance, condensing two thumb-thick streams of sapphire-blue qi that surged into his nostrils. His shriveled body suddenly filled out again. His hollow, sunken eyes reopened, releasing a deep blue glow. In an instant, General Luo's entire body became crystalline, like a sapphire diamond.

"Hahaha!" The moment General Luo's physical body opened its eyes, he let out another earthshaking laugh and formed three more hand seals in rapid succession.

An incarnation beyond the body condensed and forged from the Primordial Spirit was the final step after achieving mastery in esoteric sect cultivation arts. Once the incarnation was refined into a true physical entity, it was equivalent to abandoning the flesh and existing solely through Primordial Spirit and spiritual qi, leaping beyond the cycle of life and death to attain a realm truly transcending mortality.

Yet the strange silver mask General Luo had always worn, shimmering with a frost-like luster, was one of the ten supreme demon-subduing artifacts of the esoteric sect—the Kubera Growth Mask!

This supreme esoteric artifact could attach itself to a trace of the Primordial Spirit and nourish a withered body with condensed vital essence. Thus, General Luo's physical body had instead become a powerful magical treasure in the hands of his incarnation beyond the body.

With General Luo's physical body and incarnation beyond the body combined, he naturally had one more than Yuan Tianyi.

Once General Luo manifested his incarnation beyond the body, his six senses became one with it. Standing a hundred zhang tall, he looked down upon Yuan Tianyi from above. In his sight, Yuan Tianyi was incomparably tiny. Moreover, how terrifyingly powerful was this refined incarnation beyond the body? It was as though unprecedented strength surged through every part of it.

For a time, General Luo's bearing and confidence soared to an unprecedented peak!

Within a thousand li, wind, fire, thunder, and lightning all stirred. Poisonous flames and lightning blazed so fiercely that heaven and earth seemed to split apart.

"Pfft! Pfft!" Several more Kunlun disciples on Kunlun Ring Island spat out their life-blood essence and flew backward. When they had seen General Luo at a disadvantage, these disciples had already unleashed their spells and magical treasures at Yuan Tianyi. But when their attacks collided with the spells and treasures released by General Luo, even merely grazing the edges made their Primordial Spirits quake violently, utterly unable to endure it.

A battle at the level of General Luo and Yuan Tianyi was no longer something ordinary people could interfere in.

Even the force at the edges was enough to overwhelm the Kunlun disciples, yet the crescent-shaped jade disc floating before Yuan Tianyi steadily protected him. Yuan Tianyi took merely one step and arrived before General Luo's physical body, which held two black broadswords.

"What an excellent Reincarnation Moon Radiance Dharma Wheel. In terms of defense alone, your magical treasure can be called the greatest in the world!"

Yuan Tianyi closed in with a single step. With just one finger, amid a flash of golden light, General Luo's blue diamond-like body turned to flying ash. Yet General Luo was not the least bit flustered. A hundred feet away, another identical body materialized.

Treading through the void! General Luo's speed was in no way inferior to Yuan Tianyi's. The body reduced to ashes had merely been an illusion General Luo had conjured in an instant.

Seeing that his arts, which possessed the might of heavenly tribulation, were useless against Yuan Tianyi, General Luo laughed wildly and seized the true forms of the magical treasures in his hands, smashing them chaotically toward Yuan Tianyi.

Breaking the Dao through force!

Though he did not cast any spells, the Vajra Pestle, Trident Halberd, Dharma Wheel, World-Destroying Mara Banner, and other magical treasures in General Luo's incarnation beyond the body had all been refined from heavenly materials and earthly treasures such as fine gold and diamond. Each original form weighed more than ten thousand jun. Now, all eight arms of the incarnation moved at once, wildly hammering down with five-colored magical treasures, as though countless mountain peaks were ceaselessly pounding away! Often, before they even struck, the unmatched force had already smashed bottomless pits into the sea, followed by heaven-shaking waves.

"Purple Cloud Miasma?"

General Luo's incarnation beyond the body was a solid entity forged from his Primordial Spirit and the spiritual qi of heaven and earth. Its strength and magical power could be said to flow without end. Even if he could not smash Yuan Tianyi to death, as long as he could suppress him, he could continue battering him for days and nights without ever growing exhausted. Yet suddenly, the scene before him changed. Purple illusory light filled his vision, and waves of five-colored poisonous smoke drifted about. Everything he saw seemed refracted, at once near and far, elusive and bewildering. Even the directions had shifted, making truth and falsehood impossible to distinguish.

"Yuan Tianyi, using such a magical treasure against me is truly looking down on me!" General Luo recognized at a glance that this was a magical treasure Yuan Tianyi had refined from Luofu Miasma. Such a treasure might have been fairly formidable to ordinary cultivators, but to General Luo, who had already manifested an incarnation beyond the body, it was nothing more than child's play!

With a shout of "Chi!", General Luo's incarnation beyond the body simply opened its mouth and exhaled. Hundreds of tangible blasts of fierce wind burst forth, carrying the roar of wind and thunder. The purple illusory light before him instantly dissipated into nothingness.

At this moment, Yuan Tianyi had already arrived before General Luo's physical body again. Seeing the formidable strength of General Luo's incarnation beyond the body, he seemed to intend to first eliminate General Luo's weaker physical body, lest it launch a sneak attack while he was entangled with the incarnation. "Hahaha! Come at me!" Yet General Luo was not alarmed but delighted, and an unprecedented brilliance burst from his physical body's eyes!

A vast, nearly transparent curtain of radiance suddenly appeared between Yuan Tianyi and General Luo. Like a curling leaf, it instantly wrapped Yuan Tianyi tightly within itself, cocooning him.

Boom!

Countless streams of golden qi instantly spread from Yuan Tianyi's body and condensed into a blooming golden lotus. The curtain of radiance binding him tightly turned to powder in an instant.

This curtain of radiance, which emanated the magical power fluctuations unique to Earth Immortal grade magical treasures, had actually been destroyed by Yuan Tianyi in a single instant!

Yet this suddenly appearing curtain of radiance had ultimately delayed Yuan Tianyi for a moment.

The time of a finger snap was still time.

Yuan Tianyi's pause lasted at most the time of a finger snap, but for General Luo, that was already enough!

Moreover, this was time he had only obtained through painstaking design!

The instant Yuan Tianyi paused, the two giant palms of General Luo's incarnation beyond the body enclosed him between them!

Outside the palms lay heaven and earth, but within them was General Luo's world! Countless densely packed talismans instantly blossomed across Yuan Tianyi's body. As General Luo's palms closed, they immediately severed Yuan Tianyi's connection to heaven and earth, stripping him away from the world itself.

To break his art, first sever its roots!

"Hahaha! Yuan Tianyi, today you have delivered yourself to your death!"

Then the Vajra Pestle, Trident Halberd, Dharma Wheel, and World-Destroying Mara Banner shrank their manifestations and struck Yuan Tianyi wildly!

Golden radiance scattered in every direction!

Those powerful magical treasures, each weighing more than ten thousand jun, battered Yuan Tianyi's tightly bound body. With every blow, a glow like golden fragments burst from his body.

"Boom! Boom! Boom!" Every strike was like someone in an endless distance hammering heaven and earth with a gigantic mallet, shaking even one's Primordial Spirit as though it trembled together with the world!

"The Glazed Indestructible Golden Body cultivated through the Empty Life Extinguishing Sea Glazed Art is nothing more than this!" General Luo's incarnation beyond the body wielded its various magical treasures, striking without pause. It was actually smashing Yuan Tianyi's body apart bit by bit!

Yuan Tianyi's Luofu Art cultivated the Body Attainment of Sainthood. Unlike arts that cultivated an inner elixir or an incarnation beyond the body, allowing one to form a second Primordial Spirit or incarnation so that one would not perish even if the flesh were destroyed, once his physical body collapsed, his Primordial Spirit would be completely destroyed.

"Not good!" On Kunlun Ring Island, tens of thousands of Kunlun disciples watched as General Luo killed Yuan Tianyi piece by piece, and smiles unconsciously appeared on their faces. Yet the woman in purple palace attire, who was as beautiful as a Moon Palace Fairy and shielded the little girl drawing on the ground, underwent a drastic change in expression behind her gauzy veil!

"Hahaha!" General Luo, who had slain Yuan Tianyi, had not yet had time to unleash an earthshaking laugh when he too sensed that something was wrong.

For within his ears and eyes, brahma sounds suddenly resounded from above the nine heavens, immortal music drifted through the air, endless white lotuses floated down, and five-colored radiance hung from the unreachable sky like hanging sutra banners. Canopied carriages and fragrant chariots moved through the heavens, while celestial maiden dakinis holding offerings such as the Eight Auspicious Symbols, Seven Royal Treasures, treasure banners, Thousand-Spoked Golden Wheels, and right-turning conches circled among them.

This was actually a sight that, in all he knew and understood, appeared only when one survived tribulation and attained sainthood or Buddhahood!

Though worldly cultivators called them the Ten Great Golden Immortals, even someone as arrogant as General Luo knew with incomparable clarity that he was still separated from attaining sainthood and Buddhahood by an unbridgeable distance.

Yet just as this thought flashed through his Sea of Consciousness, his spiritual platform shuddered. When his true heart regained clarity, General Luo, so arrogant that he had nearly ceased to regard heaven and earth as worthy of notice, felt the eyes of both his incarnation beyond the body and physical body nearly split wide open!

At this moment, above and below heaven and earth, only a single figure in white remained in his eyes!

The only thing his entire Primordial Spirit could sense was the boundless danger of having his Primordial Spirit completely destroyed!

Yuan Tianyi, dressed in white, stood at the chest of General Luo's incarnation beyond the body.

"Aooo!" General Luo, who had always been incomparably arrogant, unconsciously let out a heaven-shaking howl like a wounded beast. The two crimson giant pythons coiled around his incarnation's chest lashed toward Yuan Tianyi, while his incarnation beyond the body retreated wildly.

Compared with his hundred-zhang-tall incarnation beyond the body, Yuan Tianyi was as tiny as dust. Yet at that moment, specks of golden starlight shot from Yuan Tianyi's hand, like grains of golden sand slipping through his fingers.

But those specks of golden starlight passed directly through the two crimson giant pythons and entered General Luo's incarnation beyond the body.

Behind the golden starlight, the two crimson giant pythons instantly began turning to flying ash from their heads, inch by inch. General Luo's entire incarnation beyond the body likewise melted away like snow and ice, beginning at the chest and turning inch by inch into powder!

"How is this possible?!"

A strand of black cloud qi flew from the rapidly crumbling incarnation beyond the body and surged toward General Luo's physical body. At the same time, General Luo's disbelieving roar filled the whole world. "How could even an incarnation beyond the body be deceived by an illusion?!"

Yuan Tianyi looked calmly at the strand of Primordial Spirit escaping from General Luo's incarnation beyond the body, but did not pursue. "If it were a true incarnation beyond the body, perhaps no one in the world could stand against it. But yours merely borrowed the external power of a divine beast to fuse into an incarnation. Coupled with your insufficiently steadfast true heart, how could you be my match?"

The battle between Yuan Tianyi and General Luo had already reached a level beyond the imagination of ordinary cultivators!

It turned out that the creature which had been crouching beside General Luo all along was an ancient divine beast, the Golden Ni, long extinct in the world. The reason General Luo could manifest an incarnation beyond the body was in part because he had borrowed the Golden Ni's power. Born with a body tougher than diamond and containing boundless magical power, the Golden Ni combined with the Primordial Spirit incarnation General Luo had tempered to form an incarnation beyond the body whose power did not lose to the true incarnation beyond the body attained through the final step of the esoteric sect art he cultivated.

To make such flexible transformations in his cultivation art and achieve such results, General Luo was indeed a peerless genius, a talent rarely seen through the ages.

Yet Yuan Tianyi's realm had clearly surpassed the realm of merely invoking heaven and earth's might through spells and pursuing raw power. General Luo's incarnation beyond the body differed nothing in power, but compared to a true incarnation beyond the body, it possessed the most fundamental gap in its true heart.

Only one who had endured a thousand tribulations, possessed an incomparably steadfast true heart, and remained untouched by ten thousand demons could possibly take that final step and condense a true incarnation beyond the body.

Thus, from the moment they exchanged blows, Yuan Tianyi had already seen General Luo's fatal weakness!

After casually releasing the Purple Cloud Miasma, Yuan Tianyi used the Yama Illusion Secret Art. What General Luo most desired in his heart was to kill Yuan Tianyi and ultimately attain sainthood and Buddhahood.

Demons arose from the heart. General Luo instantly sank deeply into such an illusion.

By the time he realized he had been deceived by Yuan Tianyi's art, it was already too late. The God-Slaying Golden Sand Yuan Tianyi had been given sufficient time to release could kill even true immortals and Buddhas!

No matter how fast General Luo was, only a trace of his Primordial Spirit escaped. Not even a trace of the Primordial Spirit of the Golden Ni he called King Huang escaped.

Thus, in this battle, General Luo could be said to have suffered defeat after defeat, defeated so utterly that nothing remained!

Yuan Tianyi merely watched calmly as that trace of General Luo's Primordial Spirit lay utterly defeated, without pursuing it. Yet when only that single trace of Primordial Spirit returned to his physical body, General Luo, having suffered an unprecedented grievous injury, let out an earthshaking scream. At the same time, an indescribable desolation briefly appeared on his face. "I refuse to accept this!"

Since beginning his cultivation, General Luo had never suffered such a crushing defeat. He had fought Yuan Tianyi to prove that he was stronger, yet who could have known that he would instead be defeated so thoroughly?

For someone as arrogant as him, it was simply more unbearable than death!

Though Yuan Tianyi had shown mercy and did not pursue him to destroy his Primordial Spirit with one strike, General Luo could no longer face such unprecedented humiliation!

"I would rather die than be defeated!"

Amid his earthshaking roar, blood flowed from all seven apertures of the silver mask. He fiercely plunged both hands into the ground. With a thunderous boom, the sea surface within dozens of zhang beneath his feet split apart, revealing an enormous abyss. He, together with all the seawater and shattered rocks, sank into that abyss!

After one battle, General Luo, one of Kunlun's Ten Golden Immortals, had been defeated beyond what he could bear. He dug his own grave and buried himself!