"Let me show you what the supernatural powers of a Peak Dao Integration Realm expert truly are!"
With a pointed finger, an immeasurable spatial storm rushed straight at Tongtian.
The Three Saints of the Mystic Gate changed expression dramatically.
The Two Sages of the West were overjoyed.
Tongtian suddenly threw a punch!
Rumble!
The sound echoed through the Three Realms, Six Paths, Nine Underworlds, and Ten Lands.
A thunderclap erupted from the flat ground of the Earth Immortal Realm.
Even the clouds above the Investiture of the Gods Battlefield vanished without a trace.
Endless spatial storms erupted.
Extremely sharp spatial power scattered in every direction.
The observing Three Saints of the Mystic Gate and Two Sages of the West were directly caught in the aftermath.
They were sent flying uncontrollably.
The hearts of the Three Saints of the Mystic Gate sank.
Though they despised Yang Mei's conduct,
they sincerely admired his cultivation.
They could not withstand even such a casual finger strike!
Tongtian likely could not withstand it either...
Huh?!
The Three Saints of the Mystic Gate's eyes abruptly widened!
They saw a figure from behind!
It was Tongtian, standing tall and erect like Buzhou Mountain, not having moved even half a step!
Tongtian had actually held on!
The Three Saints of the Mystic Gate were ecstatic. They did not care to investigate why right now; they were simply overjoyed!
Since Tongtian had held on, their Eastern Mystic Gate still had hope!
The Two Sages of the West opened their mouths in shock.
They too had been struck by the spatial storm.
Yet while Jieyin and Zhunti were being blown backward, they kept staring at Tongtian.
They wanted to see Tongtian sent flying as well!
But to their great surprise,
Tongtian stood firmly in place.
Even as endless spatial storms howled,
he remained utterly unmoving.
Though they were enemies,
a phrase inexplicably surfaced in the minds of the two Western Sages:
"Heaven-Propping White Jade Pillar, Sea-Supporting Purple Gold Beam!"
Tongtian stood tall and straight, like the Ancestral Vein of Eastern Mountains—Buzhou Mountain!
His spine was ramrod straight!
Tongtian smiled faintly. "I told you, I don't believe you!"
Yet inwardly, he sighed.
Thankfully, Senior Lin Dong had bestowed Pangu Spine upon him.
Otherwise, he would not have been able to withstand this single move!
Yang Mei was greatly shocked. "Impossible!"
"How could someone at the Sixth Heaven of Dao Integration Realm withstand this move of mine?!"
"What method did you use?!"
One realm was one heaven. In the Primordial Era, that was a truth as immutable as law!
There was no reason Tongtian could have held on!
Yang Mei instantly lost his composure. Things seemed to have slipped beyond his control!
Tongtian looked at Yang Mei with faint mockery.
"Of course someone at the Sixth Heaven of Dao Integration Realm cannot withstand a Peak Dao Integration Realm expert. That is common sense!"
Yang Mei frowned slightly. "Then what method did you use?!"
The corners of Tongtian's mouth rose. "When did I ever say I was at the Sixth Heaven of Dao Integration Realm?"
He unleashed his aura.
Great Immortal Yang Mei was instantly dumbfounded!
Tongtian's aura actually continued rising from the Sixth Heaven of Dao Integration Realm.
It soon crossed the Seventh Heaven.
Then it reached the Eighth Heaven.
Then the Ninth Heaven.
It even reached the Tenth Heaven.
Before Yang Mei's stunned gaze,
Tongtian's aura steadily stopped at the Peak Tenth Heaven of Dao Integration Realm and no longer rose!
Yang Mei pointed at Tongtian, unable to speak. "You... you..."
Tongtian sneered.
"Did you really think I believed your nonsense?"
"Could a Peak Dao Integration Realm expert be defeated by someone at the Sixth Heaven of Dao Integration Realm?"
"You dared to say something like that, but I did not dare believe it!"
"Normally, whatever an expert at the level of a Dao Ancestor like you says, I should believe."
"But your actions just now made me understand."
"You truly are suited to be the Dao Ancestor of the West, sharing the same conduct as Fellow Daoists Jieyin and Zhunti."
"You clearly said you would not interfere in the Investiture of the Gods Calamity, yet you first threw a peak Quasi-Saint incarnation into the Immortal Slaying Sword Array."
"What did you say back then?"
Tongtian pretended to ponder, tapping his temple theatrically.
"You said that as long as someone could defeat Daoist Yang Liu, you would let go!"
"But you went back on your word!"
"Afterward, you repeatedly made more faithless moves!"
The ridicule on Tongtian's face became even more obvious.
"I am a saint of the Primordial Era, not an idiot. Faced with the words of someone with zero credibility, do you think I should believe them?!"
The Three Saints of the Mystic Gate were wildly ecstatic.
The twists and turns of the situation, the joy, despair, and then joy again, had set their hearts racing!
But this was a good thing!
Tongtian had actually reached the Tenth Heaven of the Dao Integration Realm. It was truly inconceivable.
Yet it was unquestionably a good thing!
Tongtian said coldly,
"I burned Merit for a hundred million years within the Time Array, only raising my cultivation to the Sixth Heaven of Dao Integration Realm. Would that not have betrayed that boundless Merit?"
Yang Mei said angrily, "Even if you are at the Tenth Heaven of Dao Integration Realm, do you think you can certainly defeat me?"
"No!" Tongtian answered bluntly. "That is why I prepared something else!"
Tongtian's Dharma body abruptly grew a full circle larger. His muscles knotted as boundless strength surged forth.
It forced the saints to retreat unconsciously.
He said calmly, "Duobao knows Pangu True Body, the Nine Revolutions Profound Technique, and the Great Dao of Strength. Surely you do not think that I, his master, do not?"
Yang Mei thought inwardly, This is bad!
There were always certain miraculous techniques in the Primordial Era that could raise a cultivator's upper limit of combat power.
Pangu True Body, the Nine Revolutions Profound Technique, and the Great Dao of Strength were three of them.
Strictly speaking, Yang Mei's Space Great Dao was the same.
The ranking of the Five Supreme Laws was based on the combat power of the Three Thousand Great Daos' former Chaos Fiendgods.
All Five Supreme Laws could raise a cultivator's upper limit of combat power.
Yang Mei began to panic.
He had originally intended to crush Tongtian at the very moment his confidence was at its greatest, just after his breakthrough, making Tongtian's Dao Heart collapse so that he could never advance another step!
But who would have thought Tongtian had never intended to stop at the Sixth Heaven of Dao Integration Realm?
Burning Merit madly for a hundred million years... was that something a person could even do?
How much Merit would that take to squander?
But Tongtian did not care in the slightest. He was determined to burn Merit!
What was the boundless Merit Senior Lin Dong had sent over for?
Was it not meant to increase Tongtian's strength?
If he did not use it now, was he supposed to let Yang Mei benefit from it after he was imprisoned?
Tongtian was not that foolish!
Only after preserving his life could he speak of anything else!
That was Tongtian's true thinking.
Yang Mei's face darkened like water.
He calculated rapidly.
Tongtian was at the Peak Tenth Heaven of Dao Integration Realm.
He himself was at Peak Dao Integration Realm.
They were separated by two minor realms.
It seemed that he held the advantage.
But this was the Primordial Era. Tongtian was a saint and had the advantage of fighting on home ground.
Although he was Hunyuan, he was not, in the end, a saint.
He could not borrow even the slightest bit of the wondrous effects that saints could wield.
This canceled out more than half of his advantage in realm.
Furthermore, the Peak Tenth Heaven of Dao Integration Realm was truly among the Upper Four Heavens.
The same held true for a cultivator's major realms.
It was no longer possible for him to seize Tongtian in one stroke.
His opponent had the ability to resist!
And furthermore...
Tongtian's Pangu True Body, Nine Revolutions Profound Technique, and Great Dao of Strength
could all raise the upper limit of combat power.
Especially when those three great secret arts were combined in one person, they could erupt with power far beyond one's own realm.
Yang Mei truly did not want to fight someone possessing such secret techniques.
Who was the last great expert to combine these three secret arts?
Pangu!!
These secret arts had originally been passed down by Pangu.
Unfortunately,
Tongtian was one of the cultivators capable of bringing these secret arts to their utmost limit—he was one of Pangu's Three Pure Ones, Pangu's most orthodox inheritor!
The more Yang Mei thought about it, the tighter his frown became.
All sorts of irritation rose within him.
He roared, "Tongtian, you plotted against me?!"
Yang Mei was filled with regret. Why had he given Tongtian one day?
Could he not simply have cast aside all pretense and crushed all these great experts directly?
Why had he given Tongtian one day?
That one day had made all the difference!
If he could, Yang Mei would definitely go back in time and slap his past self from a day ago dozens of times.
For acting so smug!
Now look at the trouble he was in!!
Tongtian mocked, "Plotted against you?"
He shook his head and laughed at himself.
"Who in the Primordial Era does not know that I am incapable of plotting?"
What?!
Yang Mei was furious!
Was this not a slap to his face?
You had just humbly begged me to give you one day. Was that not plotting?!
Who were you trying to fool?!
But when Yang Mei swept his divine sense across the battlefield, he found that all the saints were nodding in unison, fully agreeing with Tongtian's words!
Yang Mei was instantly dumbfounded!
What did this mean?
So they all thought Tongtian had not plotted against him?
Seeing Yang Mei's bewildered and furious expression, Yuanshi explained:
"All the saints in the Primordial Era know that Junior Brother Tongtian does not scheme against others."
"Everything he has done—expelling unworthy disciples, relinquishing his saintly position, disbanding the Interception Sect, or restoring his saintly position now and burning Merit to elevate his cultivation..."
"Everything he does is out of loyalty to his Dao and his teachings."
"To intercept is to perceive the true principles of heaven and earth and seize a sliver of life."
"Everything Junior Brother Tongtian has done was merely seeking life through death."
Yuanshi could not help but mock him.
"Can that even be called scheming?"
"It's far too crude!"
"True scheming is an arrangement so subtle it moistens things without a sound—using heaven and earth as the chessboard, creation as the chess path, and all living beings as the chess pieces."
"Even if you know full well that you are inside the game, when you try to respond, you still cannot escape it."
"That is what true scheming is!"
Yuanshi glared fiercely at Tongtian.
"If I had known this bastard had such a powerful trump card, I absolutely would not have let him play such a heart-stopping game!"
"Luckily, the Great Immortal cooperated. Otherwise, he would have been suppressed long ago."
"This bastard Tongtian insisted on facing life and death head-on to seize a sliver of survival..."
"And that is called scheming? That is called recklessness!"
Tongtian nodded in agreement. "Senior Brother is right. I have learned my lesson!"
The two saints exchanged glances, each seeing the amusement in the other's eyes!
Yang Mei was no fool.
How could he fail to hear that they were insulting him in a roundabout way!
Tongtian's so-called non-scheming scheme had allowed him to turn defeat into victory from a hopeless situation.
Then what the hell was it when he had held the absolute advantage, only to suffer a reversal?!
Put bluntly, the two Mystic Gate saints were playing off each other to undermine his confidence!
Yang Mei was so furious that smoke nearly poured from all seven orifices!
He could no longer maintain the bearing of an enlightened master or the Western Dao Ancestor!
Yang Mei's face turned livid green.
"Do you really think the Tenth Heaven Peak of Dao Integration Realm can certainly defeat me?"
"How naive!"
"I..."
Tongtian interrupted him, looking at Yang Mei with a peculiar expression.
"Who told you that reaching the Peak Tenth Heaven of Dao Integration Realm would be enough to defeat you?"
"When did I ever say that?"
Huh?!
A bad feeling arose in Yang Mei's heart.
Tongtian said calmly,
"You are the Western Dao Ancestor, one who can stand shoulder to shoulder with Dao Ancestor Hongjun."
"You returned to the Primordial Era to seek Karma with the Dao Ancestor, cursed him loudly on the Investiture of the Gods Battlefield, and frightened him so badly that he did not dare take a single step out of Zixiao Palace."
"With combat power like yours, how could I dare treat you as an ordinary Peak Dao Integration Realm cultivator?"
Huh?!
Yang Mei was not the only one who sensed that something was wrong.
The Three Saints of the Mystic Gate and the Two Sages of the West all frowned at once.
There was so much resentment in Tongtian's words!
But after thinking it over carefully, the saints understood.
Yang Mei was not a saint of the Primordial Era.
His return to the Primordial Era and interference in the Investiture of the Gods Calamity had been an unforeseen accident.
At a time like this, Hongjun should have stepped forward to deal with the aftermath.
But Hongjun had not appeared!
That was highly abnormal.
In truth, Tongtian was not alone in thinking this way. The Mystic Gate saints all felt the same.
"Dao Ancestor" was not merely an honorary title; more importantly, it carried unparalleled responsibility!
The moment Yang Mei appeared was the moment the Dao Ancestor should have fulfilled his responsibility.
But Hongjun had not appeared.
As a result, the Four Saints of the Mystic Gate had suffered every manner of humiliation from Yang Mei.
What was wrong with Tongtian venting a little?
Could Hongjun do it, yet Tongtian not even be allowed to mention it?
Still, Yuanshi vaguely felt that Tongtian was not resentful at all. Rather, he seemed somewhat mocking.
The concern hidden deep within his heart suddenly surged forth.
I hope it is not as I imagine. Otherwise, the Mystic Gate saints will truly be in danger!
But Yuanshi was also puzzled.
Why was Tongtian saying such things now?
It was obvious that it did him no good!
Yuanshi could not understand!
Yang Mei frowned, his two long longevity brows fluttering along with his movements.
"Tongtian, if you have something to say, say it plainly!"
Tongtian smiled self-deprecatingly.
"Since the Dao Ancestor has hidden inside Zixiao Palace and refuses to take even one step out, we can only think of a solution ourselves."
"One of the Five Supreme Laws, the Space Great Dao, is not so easy to deal with."
"Not to mention that you are at the Peak Dao Integration Realm."
"If I truly fought you with this, then even after fighting for tens of millions of years, I probably still could not defeat you. Most likely, I would still be suppressed by you."
Tongtian sighed.
"Long ago, I was fortunate enough to meet an unparalleled great expert, who bestowed a magical treasure upon me."
"Originally, I did not want to use it so soon."
"After all, the power of this magical treasure is too great. I cannot control it..."
"But now, facing you, Great Immortal, I have no choice but to use it!"
Eh?!
From Yang Mei onward, the saints all frowned involuntarily.
This conversation sounded so familiar!
After thinking for a moment, they could not help looking toward the Immortal Slaying Sword Array.
Was Daoist Duobao, who was smiling as he devastated the countless immortals of the Western Teachings, not saying the exact same thing just moments ago?
He had encountered a senior through a great opportunity and been bestowed a magical treasure.
That magical treasure had looked as though it had been cast from the same mold as the legendary Earth Splitting Chisel.
And its power... had moved even the saints!
They had all witnessed Duobao wielding the imitation Earth Splitting Chisel.
To speak plainly, even Daoist Yang Liu, whom even the saints' incarnations had been unable to handle,
had possessed no strength whatsoever to resist Duobao's magical treasure.
He had perished completely!
It was simply eye-popping!
Could Tongtian be doing it again?
This premonition suddenly surfaced in the hearts of the saints.
The Three Saints of the Mystic Gate exchanged looks, their divine souls trembling with excitement.
Though this was utterly fantastical,
the three saints truly hoped it was real!
The Two Sages of the West turned pale. Unlike the Three Saints of the Mystic Gate, who were half-believing and half-doubting,
Jieyin and Zhunti believed it almost immediately.
They involuntarily retreated, and even their Dharma bodies trembled slightly!
They had simply experienced too many things stranger than this!
For example, Pingxin of the Six Paths of Reincarnation!
Leveling up before a great battle was something she had pioneered!
Then there was Duobao, whom they had seen with their own eyes,
and Tongtian...
Even if Jieyin and Zhunti were screaming inwardly a million times over, This isn't real!
their bodies still honestly retreated.
Even though their side still held the advantage and had a great expert at the Peak Dao Integration Realm.
The Two Sages of the West inexplicably felt that they needed to retreat,
or they might suffer misfortune!
Yang Mei's longevity brows flew in fury. "Tongtian, stop boasting. If you have the ability, bring out your magical treasure!"
He said disdainfully,
"What kind of magical treasure could compare to an Innate Supreme Treasure?"
"You seem to have forgotten that I just took all of your magical treasures!"
Tongtian burst into laughter. "Since the Great Immortal has commanded it, this junior naturally obeys!"
He slapped his forehead.
Before you continue