He was a white-haired man dressed in tattered gray robes.
His back was slightly hunched, and his hair hung over his shoulders like a mess of weeds.
One of his hands gently held the cold, pale little hand of the female corpse.
His gaze never left the corpse's face. His eyes held such intense sorrow that anyone who looked into them couldn't help but feel tears welling up.
Sun Tai rushed closer and spotted the man sitting on the ground.
He stopped and swept his divine sense over the man.
"Middle Infant Transformation stage?"
Sun Tai furrowed his brows and murmured under his breath.
He had assumed that whoever guarded the female corpse in this remote wilderness would be some low-level cultivator who didn't know what was good for him.
He hadn't expected his opponent to be at the same cultivation level as himself: the Infant Transformation stage, and the middle stage at that.
Still, Sun Tai felt no fear.
They were both old monsters of the Infant Transformation stage. As an elder of the Corpse Yin Sect, he not only had all kinds of sinister magical treasures at his disposal but was also well versed in corpse refinement.
If it came to a fight, he was absolutely confident he could snatch this top-grade female corpse from the other man.
"Fellow Daoist."
Sun Tai clasped his hands behind his back, wearing a smile that didn't reach his eyes.
"This female corpse has no life left in her. Keeping her is useless to you."
"Why not hand her over to me?"
"I'll offer you a hundred thousand high-grade spirit stones and three magical treasures in exchange. How about it?"
Sun Tai's voice echoed through the empty valley.
But the white-haired man on the ground didn't even turn his head.
As if he hadn't heard Sun Tai at all, he continued gazing at the woman on the Cold Jade Bed, lost in a daze.
He reached out with his other hand and gently brushed a stray lock of hair from the woman's forehead, tucking it behind her ear.
Being ignored so completely by a fellow cultivator of the same level made Sun Tai's expression turn dark.
"You refuse a toast only to drink a forfeit!"
Sun Tai let out a cold snort.
He abruptly raised his right hand, and a mass of dense black baleful aura surged from the wide sleeve of his black robe.
The baleful aura twisted and churned in midair, transforming into a gigantic ghostly claw covered in black scales.
With a howl of sinister wind, the claw lunged mercilessly at the white-haired man's back.
He didn't want to destroy the female corpse, so he focused his entire attack on the man.
Just as the ghostly claw was about to strike.
The white-haired man—Zhou Yi, the one guarding this place—finally turned around.
There was no anger or alarm on his weathered face.
Only a pair of eyes as deep as ancient wells.
Zhou Yi looked at Sun Tai and spoke in a hoarse voice, his lips cracked and dry.
"You disturbed Ting'er."
As those simple words left his mouth.
A strange ripple suddenly spread from within Zhou Yi.
It wasn't an eruption of spiritual power.
It was an emotion, an obsession, a realm that reached deep into the soul!
The Dementia Realm!
In an instant.
The temperature in the icy valley seemed unchanged, but Sun Tai's heart suddenly sank.
The vicious black ghostly claw in midair touched the invisible ripple and instantly fell apart like a pile of loose sand.
It dissolved into wisps of black smoke and vanished without a trace.
"What kind of realm is this?!"
Sun Tai was stunned. He stumbled two steps backward.
When cultivators at the Infant Transformation stage fought, they competed not only in magical power but also in their comprehension of the laws of heaven and earth—in their realms.
Sun Tai felt himself surrounded by overwhelming sorrow and madness.
Within that realm, he even recalled the worldly love he'd had centuries ago, back when he was still a mortal—a feeling he had long since buried in a forgotten corner of his memory.
A crack appeared in his Dao heart.
"Quit your tricks!"
Sun Tai bit the tip of his tongue, using the pain to force himself back to his senses.
His hands rapidly formed seals before his chest, and he spat out a mouthful of black essence.
The essence transformed in midair into an enormous Bronze Ancient Bell.
Its surface was covered in contorted human faces, and it rang out with a series of soul-shaking peals.
"Suppress him!"
Sun Tai roared. The Bronze Ancient Bell came crashing down on Zhou Yi with the weight of ten thousand jun.
Douluo Continent.
Every spectator held their breath as they watched the sudden battle unfolding on the Sky Screen.
Spirit City, Pope Palace.
Bibi Dong clenched her hands tightly.
"So this is the pinnacle of strength in that world?"
"That old monster called Sun Tai could wipe one of our major cities off the map with a single magical treasure."
On the practice field of Shrek Academy.
Tang San's eyes shone with purple light as he stared intently at the screen.
"No, there's something unreasonable about the way that white-haired man attacks."
Tang San analyzed in a low voice.
"He didn't use a weapon or a magical treasure. He used his own emotions."
"To turn emotions into a tangible domain of attack—this kind of cultivation system is completely unheard of."
In the icy valley.
Facing the Bronze Ancient Bell crashing down on him.
Zhou Yi didn't dodge.
He slowly rose from the cold snow.
One of his hands remained clasped tightly around the hand of the female corpse on the Cold Jade Bed.
With his other hand, he gently struck at the Bronze Ancient Bell in the air.
The moment his palm moved.
The Dementia Realm erupted in full.
Every snowflake drifting through the valley seemed to become one of Zhou Yi's weapons.
An immense force, carrying his determination to protect the one he loved, slammed into the Bronze Ancient Bell.
Dong!
A deep, muffled boom rang out.
Sun Tai's prized magical treasure shuddered violently in midair.
Then, before Sun Tai's disbelieving eyes.
A fine crack appeared on the surface of the Bronze Ancient Bell.
It spread rapidly, branching across the entire bell.
Crack!
The enormous Bronze Ancient Bell exploded into a heap of scrap metal and fell onto the ice.
The destruction of his magical treasure dealt Sun Tai a backlash. His chest tightened, and he spat out a mouthful of blood with a pfft.
Clutching his chest, he looked at Zhou Yi with a deep, unmistakable fear in his eyes.
"Madman! You're a complete madman!"
Sun Tai backed away, cursing furiously.
"We're both in the middle Infant Transformation stage, yet your realm is this overbearing!"
"For the sake of a dead woman, you've poured your entire mind and soul into that realm. Have you no regard for your own life?!"
Sun Tai knew he'd run into a formidable opponent today.
A madman who cared nothing for his own life and devoted his entire spirit to protecting a corpse couldn't be judged by ordinary standards.
If they kept fighting, he wouldn't gain the slightest advantage. He might even die here.
The female corpse might be precious, but he'd need to stay alive to claim her.
"I'll remember this grudge!"
Sun Tai threw out a threat.
Without the slightest hesitation, he slapped the storage pouch at his waist and took out a sheet of paper covered in blood-red runes.
He crushed it in one grip.
Sun Tai's body instantly turned into a dense mass of blood-red light.
He grabbed the Black Wood Coffin containing Qian Daoliu and shot skyward, fleeing wildly out of the valley.
He moved so fast that, in the blink of an eye, he had flown hundreds of feet away.
Watching Sun Tai flee.
Zhou Yi's expression remained calm.
He turned back and gazed tenderly at Ting'er on the icy bed.
With a wave of his arm, he set a thick defensive barrier around the Cold Jade Bed.
"Wait for me a little while. I'm going to kill someone. I'll be back to keep you company soon."
Zhou Yi spoke softly.
Then he rose into the air.
Without relying on any flying treasure, he simply stepped into the empty air.
He took a single step, and his figure vanished from where he stood.
When he appeared again, he was less than fifty yards behind Sun Tai, high in the sky.
A great pursuit between two old monsters of the Infant Transformation stage had begun across that frozen wasteland.
The scene on the Sky Screen split in two.
One half followed Sun Tai as he fled for his life, while the other showed Zhou Yi pursuing him at a leisurely pace.
The spectators across Douluo Continent followed the chase, experiencing firsthand what it meant for immortals to clash.
High in the air, Sun Tai was sweating profusely with anxiety.
He felt the Dementia Realm behind him clinging to him like a bone-deep parasite, impossible to shake off.
"Damn it!"
Sun Tai ground his teeth.
As he urged the blood-red light forward, he kept pulling various magical treasures out of his storage pouch.
He threw out a Poison Dagger glowing green.
The dagger transformed in midair into a giant venomous snake, opening its bloody maw to bite Zhou Yi.
Zhou Yi remained expressionless and didn't even slow down.
He simply raised a hand and pointed casually ahead.
An invisible ripple of his realm spread outward.
The seemingly ferocious snake didn't even brush Zhou Yi's clothes. It let out a mournful cry in midair and reverted to the shape of a dagger.
Then, with a sharp crack, the dagger broke in two and fell into the snow below.
Sun Tai's scalp prickled.
He gritted his teeth, pulled out a Black Net, and flung it behind him.
The net expanded against the wind, blotting out half the sky in an instant. Eerie green Ghost Fire burned along its strands.
Facing the net that blotted out the sky.
Zhou Yi's eyes narrowed slightly.
He quickly formed seals before his chest and uttered a strange syllable.
A dazzling white light burst from his body.
This wasn't an ordinary spell. It was an attack Zhou Yi had formed by giving tangible shape to his Obsessive Devotion.
The white light became a gigantic palm that seized the Black Net.
Riiip!
The magical net, tough beyond compare, was torn into strips with ease by the White Palm.
The two men's pursuit carried them across countless mountains.
The towering peaks below collapsed one after another, crumbling like tofu in the wake of the shockwaves from their clashes.
Snow and shattered rock flew everywhere, and the scene looked like the end of the world.
Qian Daoliu, lying in the Black Wood Coffin.
He was now in utter misery.
Sun Tai dragged the coffin through the sky at tremendous speed. Inside, it jolted violently.
Worse, every clash between magical treasures outside sent shock waves through the coffin, making Qian Daoliu's blood and qi churn.
He was a dignified, level-ninety-nine Peerless Douluo.
Usually, he was the one chasing others down. When had he ever suffered the indignity of being locked in a black box and carried off while fleeing for his life?
What made him feel even more stifled was that
he could clearly sense the white-haired man pursuing Sun Tai outside.
That power, capable of destroying a mountain with the casual lift of a hand, was far beyond the scope of any skill on the Douluo Continent.
"So this is what a cultivator is..."
Qian Daoliu gave a bitter laugh inside the coffin.
"Moving mountains and overturning seas, destroying heaven and earth."
"Compared to them, the so-called gods of our Douluo Continent are probably just slightly stronger mortals."
The chase lasted nearly as long as it takes an incense stick to burn.
At last, after flying over a vast ice field, Sun Tai came to a stop.
It wasn't that he wanted to give up running. The magical power in his body was nearly spent.
The Blood Escape Technique consumed an enormous amount of essence blood. If he kept running, he would die of exhaustion before Zhou Yi even had to lift a finger.
Sun Tai turned around, his face deathly pale as he gasped for breath.
He looked at Zhou Yi, who hovered thirty zhang away.
"Fellow Daoist, we're both at the Infant Transformation Stage."
Sun Tai gritted his teeth, trying to make one last stand.
"I admit I was somewhat disrespectful just now, but I didn't harm that female corpse."
"If you insist on fighting to the bitter end, I'll self-destruct before I let you get off lightly!"
Zhou Yi's face remained utterly impassive in the face of Sun Tai's threat.
He slowly raised his right hand.
"You disturbed her. You deserve to die."
As he raised his hand, it was as though all the air had been sucked out of the surrounding space.
A vast Dementia Realm, so overwhelming that it left Sun Tai breathless, surged in from every direction and completely enveloped him.
Within the realm, Sun Tai felt as though his mind were about to explode.
He saw every evil deed he had committed in his life, and all the innocent mortals he had killed.
Sun Tai suddenly bit through the tip of his tongue, the coppery taste of blood spreading through his mouth.
The piercing pain brought a flicker of clarity back to his eyes.
"We're both at the middle Infant Transformation stage. You think this old man is afraid of a madman like you?"
Sun Tai roared and rapidly formed hand seals before his chest.
With his movements, a violent energy erupted from his body.
The snowflakes drifting through the sky froze in midair, then instantly vaporized under an invisible force.
"Lightning Realm, break open for me!"
Rumble!
A thunderclap exploded above the valley, shaking chunks of ice loose from the surrounding mountains.
Heavy dark clouds gathered from nowhere, purple lightning rolling through their depths.
These bolts weren't ordinary natural phenomena. They were the laws of heaven and earth that Sun Tai had comprehended.
Every bolt that struck down carried a savage aura of destruction.
The Lightning Realm was utterly fierce and filled with yang energy.
Under the impact of this powerful force, the surrounding Dementia Realm—which dragged all who entered it into a daze—was finally torn open by force.
The two invisible forces collided in midair with a grating screech.
Zhou Yi grunted and retreated half a step.
His cultivation was currently at the middle Infant Transformation stage, putting him on par with Sun Tai.
He had been able to suppress his opponent just now only because his desperate realm had struck first.
Now that Sun Tai had recovered and unleashed the full force of his Lightning Realm, the two were suddenly evenly matched.
What was more, Zhou Yi had to protect the Cold Jade Bed behind him, forcing him to divert most of his attention. He couldn't fight with his full strength.
Purple lightning struck the defensive barrier Zhou Yi had put up, making it shudder as its light grew dimmer and dimmer.
Sun Tai saw Zhou Yi's predicament, and an insidious smile crept across his withered face.
"So you're a hopeless romantic, guarding a corpse and too softhearted to fight properly."