Chapter 462: Embodied as a God
Rumbling sounds echoed out everywhere. Blood sprayed out of Xu Qing’s mouth, and his expression was unsightly as he continued to fall back. It was the first time anyone had ever dispelled his taboo poison power, or at the very least, delayed it significantly. If it wasn’t for Chu Tianqun’s powers of infinite resurrection, then the poison would have been effective eventually.
Regardless, Xu Qing could sense... that his poison was still at work. Although Chu Tianqun could reverse time and resurrect himself, the poison had still seeped deep into his bones. That was one terrifying aspect of Xu Qing’s poison. It had only been delayed. That said, if things kept going as they were, he wouldn’t have time to wait for the poison to take effect. What was more, the nine zombies had undying bodies. Whatever blows Xu Qing landed on them seemed to have no effect. From the look of it, the souls absorbed the force of the attacks.
This was Chu Tianqun’s method of delaying the poison. He sent the poison from himself into the zombies, and from the zombies into the countless souls. Although the souls wept and howled, Xu Qing could sense that they were pleased with what was happening.
It was as if Chu Tianqun was what they put their faith in. It was as if Chu Tianqun was their god! In fact, that was one of the powers of a god!
The nine zombies were not only eternally indestructible, they also pulsed with early Nascent Soul fluctuations. One wouldn’t have been too difficult to deal with, but nine was pushing Xu Qing to a deadly limit.
Seeing the danger he was in, his eyes flickered with cold light. He still had two trump cards he hadn’t used. Both were most effective when they were first used. What was more, he would only have one chance to use the projection of the Ghost Emperor mountain.
The most important thing to deal with are those souls. Simply suppressing them won’t do any good. I need to either destroy them... or subjugate them!
With such thoughts on his mind, his eyes shone with determination as he reached out with his right hand and activated his Gruegloom Daoseizing Art. His hand immediately became semitransparent as he shoved it deep into the pit of his own stomach. The icy hand entered him and stretched to his sea of consciousness, where he found his fourth heavenly palace, and within it... the violet moon!
He could use the power of the violet moon by activating his heavenly palace. But that was like a small pony pulling a big chariot. Though the violet moon was a part of him, his power and control over it was limited. If he wanted to release its true potential, he had to do so directly. He had to take it out!
As Xu Qing gripped the violet moon, veins bulged on his forehead, and pain filled his body. However, he didn’t frown. Cool calmness filled his eyes, along with killing intent, as he pulled it out.
As his fourth heavenly palace trembled, he extracted the violet moon and held it aloft. Boundless violet light spilled out from his hand, becoming like a sea of violet that spread in all directions. Wherever it went, everything turned violet, making it seem like the area had been separated from the rest of the world. In fact, it made it seem... almost like a god domain. Within that god domain, violet light was god power, and the source of it, the violet moon, was the god!
As the violet light erupted, Chu Tianqun’s expression flickered. His heart started pounding.
“Godly authority! That's impossible!”
Golden blood sprayed out of his mouth, and tears of blood poured out of his eyes, which bulged like they might fall out of his skull. He began to shake violently, and his hands dropped to his sides. It looked like he was just on the verge of averting his face and dropping to his knees to prostrate.
At the same time, he twitched and convulsed, as if his flesh and blood had their own will, and wanted to detach from him. However, he was an experimental god body, and the god power within him exerted a suppressing force that forced his body back into equilibrium.
Given how Chu Tianqun reacted, it almost wasn’t necessary to mention the calamity zombies. The zombies’ eyes exploded, and they dropped to their knees, trembling. Howls of grief erupted from their mouths, and the mutagen within them soared to such heights it looked like they might mutate at any moment.
At the same time, the mutagen invaded the souls attached to them, causing them to cease their shrieking and wailing. Instead, their expressions became that of unprecedented piety, filled with fanaticism and even faith. One by one, they began leaving the zombies and flying toward the violet moon in Xu Qing’s hand. As the souls flew into the violet moon, the nine zombies lost their main support, and began shaking so hard it looked like they might collapse.
Chu Tianqun didn’t seem like he could hold out against the taboo poison much longer. As the poison surged within him, he started rotting again.
Killing intent filled Xu Qing’s eyes. However, even as he prepared to continue with his current strategy, ripples spread through the dome of heaven, and a sensation of deadly crisis filled him. This sensation surpassed anything from before, filling him with an extremely disturbing sensation of inauspicious terror.
Xu Qing’s face fell.
Up above, his heavenly dao bluegreen dragon emitted an anxious shriek. It was as if an indescribable entity had taken note of the aura of the violet moon, and was waking up to come search for it. The sky then began to change color, gradually becoming red. An image of a red moon appeared in Xu Qing’s mind, along with a terrifying statue of a god. He also heard the same breathing he had heard back at the Supreme Beginning Netherflight Pillar. This was what Xu Qing had always worried about. After all, he was well aware of the origin of his violet moon.
As the heavenly dao bluegreen dragon wailed, he unhesitatingly put the violet moon back into his heavenly palace. He also retracted his taboo poison pill power and used it to cover up any traces of god power.
Having done that, he burst into motion, heading with stupefying speed toward Chu Tianqun. In the blink of an eye, he arrived, and the dagger in his right hand slashed toward Chu Tianqun’s not-completely healed neck.
A moment later, blinding golden light erupted from Chu Tianqun’s skin to block the dagger. It also created a backlash attack that sent Xu Qing flying backward, trembling and coughing up blood. At the same time, the rotting Chu Tianqun opened his eyes, looked at Xu Qing, then reached up and smashed his palm into his own forehead. A thump rang out as his head exploded and he died.
Xu Qing scowled as he backed up, all the while looking up into the sky.
The red light above was fading, and the heavenly dao bluegreen dragon was no longer wailing in anxiety. That caused Xu Qing to breathe a sigh of relief, as it was now obvious this taboo poison power had effectively concealed the aura of the violet moon.
Next he flew up into the air, reached out, and directly ripped open the sealing barrier. The barrier was immensely powerful, but his bluegreen dragon existed at a higher level and had finally worn down the barrier. It ripped apart.
However, the result didn’t leave Xu Qing feeling very pleased. If his heavenly dao bluegreen dragon was as amazing as it was supposed to be, why had it taken such a long time to break through the barrier? Even though the barrier contained god power from Chu Tianqun, the process had still taken much too long.
The bluegreen dragon seemed a bit embarrassed.
However, Xu Qing wasn’t paying attention to that. After ripping open a section of the barrier, he was about to try another teleportation when he looked outside. That was when his heart dropped.
The outside world... did not look like a desert! The area beyond the barrier was a world of ever-present mist.
The bluegreen dragon let loose a cry that seemed to be an explanation, as if it were telling Xu Qing that this was why the process took so long.
Xu Qing’s eyes narrowed.
Down below, time flowed backward and Chu Tianqun appeared again, just like before. That said, there were some portions of his face that hadn’t recovered after his resurrection, and were still rotting. Other areas glowed with violet light. That was the result of the god power Xu Qing wielded. Even after being resurrected, Chu Tianqun couldn’t wipe out those things. That said, all it did was make this resurrected Chu Tianqun look more vicious.
“You actually broke through the barrier,” he said. “Sadly... I prepared for that too. You really thought you were still on the Revered Ancient mainland? This place is the Smoke World, a place fully controlled by the Smokewights. It’s not a minor world. Rather, it’s a chunk of a major world from antiquity that was second only to Revered Ancient. The Smokewights made it their own.
“It’s a precious treasure that surpasses even taboo treasures! I paid a hundred drops of god blood to earn the right to enter it. And only one of us will exit. Either I die and you get out, or the other way around.”
Xu Qing looked down at Chu Tianqun. “In that case, I have no choice but to kill you!”
He blurred down toward Chu Tianqun.
“Kill me?” Chu Tianqun chuckled viciously, then dropped to a cross-legged position and performed a double-handed incantation gesture. Golden light sprang up around him, and at the same time, golden light shone from his eyes. Everything about him seemed golden, even his hair.
A holy sensation emanated from him, and his expression was no longer vicious. It seemed apathetic, as if he had risen to a higher level of life, and no longer needed any emotions. Then he closed his eyes, faced Xu Qing, and started chanting something that sounded like a sutra.
“Follows the dark reversal dao underworld surpasses god first period until supreme spirit darkness yang hop….”
As he chanted, the surrounding world started to tremble. This was no sutra. This was the chanting of a god!
Chu Tianqun existed as an experimental god body, therefore, he could take words he had heard chanted, then use his god power to imitate them and transmit them to the world. Everything around him rippled and distorted, and then erupted with boundless mutagen. It invaded everything, mutated everything, and even created something from nothing by causing mutant beasts to appear.
Xu Qing reeled as he was also affected; a mutagen that was not his own flowed through him.
“Yin conceals yang heights essence virtue suppress pennant yellow watchtower....”
Rumbling sounds echoed out of Xu Qing as he fell from the sky, his eyes bloodshot as he stared at the chanting Chu Tianqun. Chu Tianqun already seemed blurry, as if numerous variants of himself were superimposed on each other. It made him seem like a god being embodied, that couldn’t be seen properly. Xu Qing’s mind reeled, and he gasped for breath. His body wasn’t under his control. It was as if his enemy’s voice had become corporeal. It was in his sea of consciousness, his mind, his dharma force, his flesh. Everywhere.
Splitting pain filled him. It was the exact same sensation he had experienced in the ghast hollow beneath the Supreme Beginning Netherflight Pillar, when that god’s eye opened.