The young Sacred Body... no, from this moment on, he had a name. His name was... Wushi!
An ordinary Sacred Body facing Feng Jiu would only die, without the slightest suspense.
There had already been a "dress rehearsal" for a battle like this. Just as Carefree Heavenly Venerate had whipped a certain Sacred Body Ye around like a spinning top, Feng Jiu could finely dice a Sacred Body into minced meat.
But... Wushi?
That changed everything!
Among the physiques of Shrouding the Heavens, Wushi ruled the skies. Who would meet him without offering him a cigarette?
He was the top dog among the Emperor's Sons, the second-generation emperor with the highest stats. A heaven-defying physique, plus two Supreme parents... his entire life embodied what it meant to win through raw numbers!
After cultivating for only a few tens of thousands of years, he could, in his old age, hold the Undying Heavenly Emperor-who had lived several lifetimes-in a stalemate for two thousand years... just how impressive was that?
He was the man the Undying Heavenly Emperor wanted to ambush but couldn't. Put a certain Heavenly Emperor Ye in his place, and the Undying Heavenly Emperor had sliced him in half at the waist with a single strike!
Feng Jiu had kicked an iron plate.
What can I even say?
I have nothing to say...
You're a second-generation emperor. Why the hell are you playing the pig to eat the tiger?
Just stage a few photos at roadside stalls, post them on Weibo or your Moments, and show everyone how you, a second-generation emperor, share in the common people's pleasures. That would've been enough...
Why actually go mix concrete on a construction site or work an assembly line in a factory?
A white dragon dressed as a fish... followed by the Dragon King's return?
An assassin organization hunted you until you practically had no road to heaven and no gate into the earth. You narrowly escaped death time after time... and finally, you barely slipped away right under a Killing Saint's nose...
How many Emperor's Sons play games like that?
Feng Jiu simply couldn't understand it!
Any other Emperor's Son bullied like this by an assassin organization would have had an Emperor Weapon descend from the heavens long ago!
He had even outsourced the job, letting Hell probe the minefield. They had hunted a Sacred Body into a frantic, stumbling flight, pushing him to the brink of despair again and again... logically, whatever trump cards that Sacred Body possessed should have been forced out.
He did harbor some wariness toward the Sacred Body Lineage.
After all, this wasn't the era after Desolate Antiquity yet. Only then would Sacred Bodies truly become roadside strays that anyone could kick.
Right now, the Desolate Ancient Era hadn't ended. Sacred Bodies could still cultivate; at worst, ominous misfortune would befall them in old age.
He could accept a prodigy with a Sacred Body popping up. After all, several of the nine great Sacred Bodies had come from Beidou. Perhaps a Great Accomplishment Sacred Body's own child really had been sealed away, or someone's bloodline had suddenly reverted to its ancestral form.
But so what?
If he killed one, then he killed one.
The nine great Sacred Bodies had resounding reputations, but that didn't mean every Sacred Body could reach great accomplishment. Plenty had died along the way.
Never mind anything else-the Feathered Divine Dynasty was very familiar with this sort of thing. Hadn't they blood-sacrificed a First-Generation Sacred Physique amid casual conversation and laughter?
All one could say was that a Sacred Body had a bright road ahead, was a genuine cultivation genius, and had a promising future.
But a genius was merely a genius. A genius who had yet to grow into a powerhouse had never amounted to much.
Of course, geniuses would usually have people investing in them and protecting them, gambling on their futures.
That was precisely why Feng Jiu had turned around and outsourced the job, wasn't it?
An assassin organization should have been enough to weigh the young Sacred Body's backing.
And yet, even when he was about to be hunted to death, he still hadn't revealed a single trump card?
Mm. Confirmed. Just another roadside stray!
And so Feng Jiu had stepped in.
But...
Hell is incompetent!
Why didn't your Killing Saint act sooner?
And another thing!
What a damned sneaky bastard!
No wonder he's the guy who raised that Big Black Dog!
Feng Jiu cursed inwardly.
He sighed ruefully. This job had blown up in his face!
What?
There was never a final payment? I wouldn't get paid even if I finished the job?
Oh. Never mind, then.
An Emperor's Son had gone to such elaborate lengths, stubbornly enduring Hell's pursuit for a million li and dancing on a knife's edge without bringing out a single ace-an Emperor Weapon, a Saint... all just to trap an assassin from the Heavenly Court.
What more could Feng Jiu say?
If he'd been set up, then he'd been set up!
He accepted it!
The other party had schemed so painstakingly, even spending a fortune by tossing out a piece of immortal tear green gold to bait the fishing spot. Such sincerity!
He really is ruthless with himself. Using Hell for life-and-death training?
Ah, I was careless too... I forgot the tradition passed down through Wushi's line.
In later ages, Wushi's Emperor's Son-the Black Emperor-had his tail fur plucked bare by a Fighting Saint Ape right beneath the Wushi Bell's gaze, suffering utter humiliation. Even when the ancient races hunted him into a stumbling, scrambling flight, the Wushi Bell never uttered a sound.
The Wushi Bell was a continuation of Wushi's life, an embodiment of his personal will. If he treated his own "Emperor's Son" like that...
Then being a little ruthless with himself was entirely understandable!
Right. That Big Black Dog, wherever he is now, is best at formations... who did he learn them from?
There's no other possibility but his owner.
Wushi's attainments in formations really were high... supposedly, lightning often struck him when he was young. Whenever he underwent a tribulation, anyone caught up in it faced destruction.
And so he specifically created the Deceive-Heaven Formation Patterns just to avoid implicating innocent people... throughout history, few who attained the Dao could create formation patterns like these, and Wushi ranked among the very best.
He absolutely must have possessed supreme talent in formations from his youth... no wonder he later detected the contingency Emperor Venerate had left in the universe-the formation patterns meant to refine the entire cosmos-and left behind the Investiture of the Gods to secretly counter and disrupt them...
At that moment, thread after thread of clues linked together. Feng Jiu understood much, and it all seemed perfectly natural.
However, it all seemed a little too late.
Right now, Wushi was unleashing his might. Standing within the divine forbidden domain, he brought all his accumulated power to bear, shaking heaven and earth, stunning the past and dazzling the present, setting the highest record this cultivation realm had ever seen!
More terrifying still, Nine Secrets: Xing was no longer quite so effective. Its invincible mechanism had been compromised!
Those were divine laws of space, slicing through the void and turning into a vast killing tribulation!
That was a divine art of karma, silent and formless, yet capable of locking onto its target with perfect precision!
"No art is invincible!"
Wushi murmured, "I admit your speed is breathtaking. But... there are always some Daos and some arts in this world against which no amount of speed will help."
"My mother's forbidden chapter... to lift the curse on my father, she poured her heart and soul into studying this field."
Curses.
Invisible and intangible, yet they brought ominous misfortune upon one Great Accomplishment Sacred Body after another in their old age. They were struck before they ever saw an enemy.
Though different in how it manifested from speed, wasn't this also a heaven-defying mechanism
?
In both cases, you were struck before you could even locate your opponent!
But the Queen Mother of the West was an emperor. How could she admit defeat so easily? To save her beloved, she tried every means to explore curses and study the mysteries of this field.
Sadly, she ultimately proved no match for the Underworld.
Yet her research had become a forbidden chapter within the Western Emperor Scripture, passed down to Wushi, and now it shone brilliantly!
Ten thousand Daos intertwined, their connections writing out the mysteries of karma as they descended upon Feng Jiu. It was as though he had fallen into an invisible net that bound his peerless divine speed.
At last, an iron fist smashed toward him, shattering the void as six vast universes revolved.
"Six Paths of Reincarnation!"
Wushi's bearing was solemn and majestic. He intended to end this battle with the Sacred Body Lineage's strongest divine ability!
At that same moment.
Feng Jiu's expression grew calm.
"I'm fighting Wushi?" He sighed softly, then suddenly smiled.
"Wushi is exactly who I'm here to fight!"
"Six Paths of Reincarnation!" he intoned softly, stirring up the dust of countless ages.