In Hand

Even the surging Earth, Water, Fire, and Wind, and the Chaos Thunder born when the clear and turbid energies collided and exploded, all came to an eerie standstill.

At that moment, even Dao Xuan's movements slowed. A terrifying pressure seemed to come from every direction, pinning him down.

"Bzz!!"

The next moment, Dao Xuan saw countless shadows appear throughout the Dream World, stretching in from every direction.

They were the shadows of bamboo stalks—countless bamboo stalks casting their silhouettes into the dream.

At the sight of them, Dao Xuan's heart jolted. Much had become clear.

So Jieyin is one of the Ten Great Spiritual Roots transformed into human form—the Bitter Bamboo. He even used his true body and countless Bitter Bamboo stalks to form this Dream World, planting himself inside the dream?

A thousand thoughts flashed through Dao Xuan's mind. Jieyin was going all out now.

After all, he had even exposed his true body.

What Jieyin's true body was had always been shrouded in legend, a secret buried deep.

Perhaps no one knew apart from the Three Pure Ones and Nuwa, who were Saints like him.

Yet to deal with Dao Xuan, Jieyin had now revealed even his deepest secret.

Countless bamboo stalks towered toward the heavens, their branches and leaves swaying as though in the wind, rustling softly.

Countless roots formed the Dream World's foundation. Now Jieyin poured all his strength into using those Bitter Bamboo stalks to hold everything in the Dream World still.

Then another Bitter Bamboo stalk appeared—or rather, the ancestral root of all the others.

It was Jieyin's true body, the original Bitter Bamboo stalk. All the others had sprung from it, much like his clones.

This stalk was his true body, and he had refined it into a magical treasure: a bamboo branch.

That branch was renowned. It was the Six-Root Pure Bamboo.

"Bzz!"

The Six-Root Pure Bamboo appeared in an eruption of boundless, dazzling light, then swept down toward Dao Xuan's head.

Things had reached a point where neither Jieyin nor Zhunti held anything back.

Jieyin in particular had put everything into this strike. Coupled with the Dream World's suppression, it could likely subdue even a mid-stage Quasi-Saint, someone a realm above him, and leave them converted by billions of Bitter Bamboo stalks into a puppet.

But Dao Xuan was the exception. Though he knew that unleashing his full strength might alert the one in Zixiao Palace that something was amiss, this was a matter of life and death.

Dao Xuan could no longer afford to worry about that.

With a thought, he drew on the power of his Inner World and poured it all into himself. His magical power seemed to swell without limit.

It grew so immense that his body could barely bear it. Cracks appeared all over him.

The Daoist robe on his body burst apart in an instant!

Dao Xuan stood naked, revealing powerful muscles. His figure shot upward until he looked like a small giant.

The Twelfth-Rank World-Cleansing White Lotus beneath his feet had remained unscathed under Jieyin and Zhunti's combined assault.

Yet now Dao Xuan himself drove it downward beneath his weight! It could no longer hold him up.

"Roar!"

Dao Xuan unleashed a roar that shook the heavens, erupting with unimaginable force.

One after another, the countless Bitter Bamboo stalks exploded. The entire Dream World shook violently once more.

Boundless Chaos cracked like an enormous shattered mirror, splitting into countless chasms.

Within those chasms, Chaos energy broke apart into clear and turbid energies, giving rise to Earth, Water, Fire, and Wind that raged everywhere.

Dao Xuan threw a punch straight into the descending Six-Root Pure Bamboo. It snapped with a sharp crack and flew far into the distance.

Only then did Daoist Zhunti's Bodhi Golden Body finally react.

Of course, all of this had happened in a flash, over no more than a few breaths.

Things had already gone somewhere Zhunti had never anticipated.

His senior brother Jieyin had suddenly gone all out. And Dao Xuan had become terrifying in an instant, as though he had swallowed some mighty tonic!

Without a second thought, Zhunti pulled his Bodhi Golden Body back.

He tried to flee.

But—

It was too late!

After punching the Six-Root Pure Bamboo away, Dao Xuan reached out with that great hand and grabbed for Zhunti's Bodhi Golden Body.

Zhunti roared and desperately accelerated. Strangely, the faster he fled, the closer he came to Dao Xuan's hand, as though he were flying into its palm of his own accord.

Jieyin had already told Zhunti that Dao Xuan was proficient in the Space-Time Dao, so that was no surprise. But the Bodhi Golden Body was incomparably important to him. He could not let it fall into Dao Xuan's hands.

Zhunti drove his Bodhi Golden Body with all his might. Its eighteen arms blurred into streaks of light as it struck an unknowable number of times in a single instant.

Yet those countless blows fell upon Dao Xuan's hand like clay oxen sinking into the sea, vanishing without a sound.

The sight was eerie and terrifying beyond measure.

They were both Quasi-Saints. How could Dao Xuan be so strong?

"Explode!"

Just as Zhunti sank into despair, Jieyin suddenly shouted and detonated the Dream World himself.

"Rumble!!"

The Chaos, already on the verge of collapse, erupted in a violent explosion.

"Boom!"

Dao Xuan took the brunt of the blast. Its force hurled him backward, and he spat out a mouthful of blood.

At the same moment, Jieyin and Zhunti both screamed.

To deal with Dao Xuan, they had both used the Dream-Proving Dao, layering their dreams together. Only then had they produced an effect powerful enough to trap Dao Xuan in the Dream World, unable to escape.

Now that Jieyin had detonated the Dream World, both men suffered the backlash. Their injuries were worse than Dao Xuan's, and they coughed up blood again and again.

Zhunti's scream was the most agonized of all. Though the explosion had wounded Dao Xuan, at the last moment he had still torn a large chunk from Zhunti's Bodhi Golden Body.

Why did Zhunti value his Bodhi Golden Body so highly? Because it was his true body.

These two senior and junior brothers were cunning indeed! Each had come up with a wild scheme. Jieyin had turned his true body into billions of clones and planted them in his dream, supporting an entire world and greatly amplifying the power of his Dream World.

What was more, he had refined the Six-Root Pure Bamboo from his true body too! It was a Supreme-Grade Innate Spiritual Treasure.

And Zhunti? He already had the Seven-Treasure Wondrous Tree, the treasure with which he had proven his Dao, openly refined from part of his true body.

But who could have guessed that he had refined another part of his true body as well, turning it into the Bodhi Golden Body?

One in the open, one in the shadows! They had put every part of their true bodies to use.

"Hahaha!"

Dao Xuan laughed as he looked at the large chunk of the Bodhi Golden Body he had torn free. He had suffered a slight injury, but he had achieved his goal.

Dao Xuan promptly stored the chunk of the Bodhi Golden Body in his Inner World.