Whoosh...
The Human Emperor Banner also struggled violently. Within it, the battle souls of countless soldiers and generals from the Primordial Era shouted the Human Emperor's name, pooling their strength into the divine spirit formed from the true soul fragment. The banner exerted its power from within, trying to break free of its restraints and fly into Tan Lin's hand.
Boom...
As the two sides rushed toward each other, the restriction formed around the Heaven-Suppressing Runes shattered inch by inch. Tan Lin was about to succeed!
"Fellow Daoist Suiren, why the rush?"
At that moment, an ethereal voice rang out from afar, filled with ancient vicissitudes.
From the direction of the Sea of Reincarnation, a gray-robed figure strode through the air. It was Heavenly Venerable Xiaoyao's Dao Body!
He had ultimately been drawn here by the disturbance!
In truth, only one or two breaths had passed since Tan Lin appeared at the Human Emperor Hall. Everything had happened in the blink of an eye.
Even Undying Daoist had not had time to bring forth the Undying Heavenly Blade and strike before the Outer Domain underwent a shocking upheaval, forcing him to withdraw.
Tap...
Ripples spread across the void.
Xiaoyao's Dao Body appeared slow, yet he crossed an endless distance in a single step. He had created Nine Secrets: Xing, so his speed naturally stood at the absolute peak. In the span of a finger snap, he appeared directly above the Human Emperor Hall and pointed at Tan Lin!
Whoosh!
This finger looked ordinary, yet it contained the profound mysteries of temporal laws. It returned to simplicity; wherever it passed, time seemed to flow backward and all things returned to ruin!
"I have been awaiting you for quite some time, Dao Brother!"
Tan Lin had long expected this.
Facing that terrifying finger, he advanced instead of retreating. His incomplete soul completely merged with the briefly returned Imperial Dao might, while the ten fingers of both hands moved in rhythm and lightly traced through the air before him!
Rumble!!!
The polar forces of the Lunar and Solar gathered in his palms, then collided before merging together through an ingenious method!
Yet this was not a simple superposition. It truly evolved part of the mysteries of chaos, forming the phantom of an enormous Yin-Yang Millstone.
Rumble...
The millstone turned. The heavens and void collapsed layer by layer before the Yin-Yang Millstone. Wherever it passed, all techniques were ground away, and even spacetime seemed to be crushed!
Yin-Yang Upheaval, Grand Millstone Grinds the Heavens!
Bang...
The Yin-Yang Millstone collided fiercely with the temporal finger radiance of Heavenly Venerable Xiaoyao's Dao Body!
There was no earth-shattering explosion. Even the ground around the Human Emperor Hall did not tremble in the slightest.
There were only strange flickering lights as laws annihilated one another and spacetime fell into disorder.
Buzz...
Amid a soft hum from the heavens, the finger radiance of Xiaoyao's Dao Body rapidly dimmed beneath the Yin-Yang Millstone before finally vanishing. The millstone phantom also became covered in cracks, and both dissipated into formlessness!
Crack!
In the void, Xiaoyao's Dao Body shuddered violently. His expression changed slightly, and his figure instantly became far more illusory.
Though this Dao Body was not his true body, it was far from ordinary. It was likewise infused with the great might of the world's Dao marks, and even received the distant support of part of his true self's Dao Fruit.
Who could have imagined that he would suffer a loss in a direct clash?
One had to know that his true body had completed the Ultimate Leap and achieved Heavenly Heart Unification as a mythical Heavenly Venerable. Later, he had successfully possessed a Dao Attainer, forcibly seizing all of that person's Dao Fruit and Dao marks.
He was far beyond an ordinary Dao Attainer from the Primordial Era like Tan Lin!
"Sacrificing all traces of your Dao... so that is how it is. You are drinking poison to quench your thirst. This will be your final return..."
Xiaoyao's Dao Body sneered.
"Even if you can still escape with a wisp of your remnant soul this time, you will be weaker than an ant. You will have no strength to borrow and no support to draw upon. You will never rise again. Or does the great secret upon you allow you to return to your peak once more?"
As they confronted each other, his words were sharp and probing, testing Tan Lin's secrets from every angle.
"Once I kill you, Dao Brother, and bathe in a Heavenly Venerable's blood, I will naturally return to my peak... So today, this Dao Body of yours ends here! Have your true body get out here! Do not begrudge the loss of your vital blood and Origin. Without paying a price, how can there be any gains?"
A faint gleam flickered in Tan Lin's deep eyes as he spun the same sort of nonsense.
Before his words had faded, he seized the Human Emperor Banner, which had finally erased every restriction on the Dao platform and shot toward him!
The moment the banner entered his grasp, the "divine spirit" nurtured within it—the largest true soul fragment he had left behind—throbbed violently. It instantly flew out of the former battle banner and merged with his remnant soul!
Boom...
At that moment, Tan Lin's remnant soul, already more than half solidified, began frantically restoring itself at a visible speed.
Within the Human Emperor phantom that stood between heaven and earth, the most essential aura of his soul rose steadily, nearly returning to its peak. How could it possibly be only several times stronger than before?!
At the same time, upon the All-Causes Soul Pearl Barrier, the Causal Lines from his previous life that had extended into the present but remained dim and lightless lit up one after another with his return.
And Fireflies began to emerge from some of them!
In an instant, the third Deep Crimson Light Point that had just become an empty shell was once again filled with a thin layer of Fireflies.
"Die..."
Xiaoyao's Dao Body radiated chilling killing intent, yet he did not allow Tan Lin to merge with the true soul fragment without interference. Seizing this critical moment, he struck again!
Whoosh!
He took one step forward, his figure becoming blurred as temporal laws curled around his fingertips before he pointed outward.
Yet this finger did not directly target Tan Lin himself. Instead, it pointed at the phantom of Imperial Dao Laws circulating around him, intending to disrupt the local flow of time and throw the fusion of his true soul into chaos.
It could even cause a backlash against himself!
This strike was incomparably vicious.
Yet beneath the phantom, Tan Lin's face remained like an ancient well, his heart as calm as still water.
The true soul fusion had originally taken only an instant, but Xiaoyao was even faster. He had indeed chosen an excellent moment to attack.
However, the fusion of Tan Lin's remnant soul and true soul fragment had already reached its final stage. Faced with this bizarre temporal killing art, Tan Lin moved with a thought. Rather than confronting it head-on, he decisively activated the All-Causes Soul Pearl!
Buzz...
In an instant, beneath shifting light and shadow unseen by Xiaoyao's Dao Body...
Within the third Deep Crimson Light Point in Tan Lin's palm, the Fireflies that had only just accumulated into a thin foundation suddenly ignited!
Boom!
This time, he no longer begrudged the Fireflies. He pushed the dual states of [Inverted All-Causes Vision] and [All Causes Barrier], along with all their wondrous effects, to their utmost limits!
At this moment.
Tan Lin did not merely vanish from Xiaoyao's Dao Body's sight. His remnant soul itself drifted with crimson mist, ultimately transforming into a wisp of crimson mist.
Transforming into crimson, with the All Causes Barrier of "materialized crimson" serving as a formless buffer, he reduced the interference caused by Xiaoyao's Dao Body's finger to the lowest possible level!
Xiaoyao's Dao Body's pupils abruptly contracted.
His strike containing the essence of temporal laws had been neutralized so easily?
"What a fine method... The great secret upon you truly is not as simple as it was in the Primordial Era..."
After a brief moment of surprise, he spoke in a sinister voice.
His strike had failed, and in that fleeting instant, the fusion between Tan Lin's remnant soul and true soul fragment was also completely finished!
Rumble!!!
The next moment.
A force far more vast and condensed than before, as though the Human Emperor's Dao Attainment might from the peak of the Primordial Era had truly returned, erupted like a volcano dormant for countless ages!
At that moment, the Vision of Lunar and Solar polar forces intertwining above the entire Central Plains completely materialized.
They wove into a Primal Yin-Yang Grand Millstone capable of crushing the heavens. This Enlightened Dao Artifact seemed to return from nothingness as well, slowly rotating as though it could grind the Great Dao into extinction!
Xiaoyao, Do You Dare Ascend?
Whoosh...
Above the great hall, a wisp of crimson drifted about as Tan Lin's nearly complete true soul reappeared in the world.
At the same time, his primordial spirit, which had long fused with his soul, recondensed and likewise nearly returned to completeness!
With soul and spirit united and almost fully restored, a single stirring thought from him caused the great might returned through sacrificing the traces of his previous life's Dao to surge forth. The heavens above the Central Plains suddenly tore open with a massive hole.
Immediately afterward, he devoured the endless essence of the Outer Domain's starry sky like a whale swallowing the sea. Countless auspicious rays and radiant clouds descended upon him.
He was rebuilding his body!
The Origin and vital blood needed to rebuild a body?
At that moment, he had sacrificed everything from his previous life. Threads of Origin, vital blood, and Dao Fruit emerged from nothingness, as though crossing an endless river of time to briefly reappear in the present age.
As Xiaoyao's Dao Body had said, since he had already drunk poison to quench his thirst and fished the pond dry, why not go all the way?
His previous self had long fallen. That life had already ended, and he no longer cared...
How was that solved?
He merely had to begin the next Lifetime!
Today, he would let the resentment that had accumulated in his heart since he had been forced into slumber for a million years, since his blood had stained the heavens in the Primordial Era, finally flow free!
Everything was meant to serve and prepare the stronger him of the next Lifetime!
Buzz...
Endless essence from the Outer Domain surged in, churning within the Human Emperor phantom. A body of flesh and blood writhed into being, eventually taking shape and radiating an Imperial Dao aura that made all beings want to kneel.
The sacrifice of the traces of his previous Dao was irreversible. Xiaoyao's Dao Body's expression darkened. Tan Lin's aura at that moment seemed to have truly returned to the day in the Primordial Era when he had passed the Dao-Proving Tribulation and stood on the verge of the Ultimate Leap.
He was merely a Dao Body, unable and powerless to interrupt Tan Lin.
Swish!
Very soon, the Human Emperor's eyes opened within the phantom.
His eyes were like two chaotic golden lamps, one Lunar and one Solar, suddenly illuminating the entire void of the Outer Domain.
At that moment, he said nothing more. He looked toward Xiaoyao's Dao Body, and everything needed to be said was left unspoken!
Today would be the day they began settling their old accounts!
Taking one step forward, Tan Lin turned the void beneath his feet to dust and appeared directly above Xiaoyao's Dao Body. He threw out a simple, direct punch!
Bang...
This punch contained his deepest understanding of the Lunar and Solar polar Great Dao from his past Dao Attainment. Every mystery of the laws was condensed into this single fist.
Wherever the fist swept through, the void transformed entirely into Yin and Yang. This was not a simple suppression through power, but an evolution of the Dao itself!
Although in his previous life he had relied on an ingenious method to barely merge the Lunar and Solar forces, it was still an alternative form of Yin-Yang harmony. After his Human King Battle Body underwent repeated transformations and attained the Dao through this, his combat strength had become terrifyingly powerful.
"You truly are insane..."
High in the heavens, within the void where they confronted one another, Xiaoyao's Dao Body was both shocked and enraged.
Naturally, he would not await death. His hands moved as well, creating layer upon layer of temporal ripples as he sought to construct a spacetime prison of eternal exile and transfer the might of that punch elsewhere.
Unfortunately, all of it was destined to be futile!
Crack... crack...
The Yin-Yang fist seal crushed downward, and the spacetime prison shattered inch by inch like porcelain!
It was not that Heavenly Venerable Xiaoyao was weak. It was simply that this Dao Body could only possess so much of his true body's combat strength.
Moreover, no matter how powerful he had once been, he had long since self-severed. He no longer possessed the supreme strength he had wielded as a Heavenly Venerable, sweeping across the Nine Heavens and Ten Lands and looking down upon the universe.
The power his Dao Body could unleash was simply too feeble before a Dao Attainer whose Yin and Yang were in harmony!
Bang!
The Yin-Yang fist seal unleashed by Tan Lin struck Xiaoyao's Dao Body squarely in the chest.
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