Chapter 968: The Flame of Love (part 1)
‘Heaven-shaking and earth-shattering’ was certainly a description.
Of course, different people had different concepts of what ‘heaven’ was.
For example, to the empress, ‘heaven’ was humankind. Everything shē did was for hēr people. And in a time period in which humans were not flourishing, shē was fighting an uphill battle.
To Xu Qing, ‘heaven’ consisted of all the people he had come to care about on his journey. There was Sergeant Thunder, Grandmaster Bai, his Master, Erniu, Plumdark, Ling’er, and others.... That ‘heaven’ also contained things connected to those people, for example, Sea-Sealing County, Seven Blood Eyes, or the Holytide Region. Those things brought meaning to his life, and were a foundational element of his personal human nature. They were like an anchor that enabled him to stay connected to his human nature even when using godly nature.
That was even more the case considering that his new fleshly body was made from the flesh of the broken face. He was now more like a god than ever, and therefore, the brightness of human nature was incredibly important.
It was no surprise that Huang Yan had his own ‘heaven’ in his heart....
Years ago, he had been soaring proudly through the sky when he casually looked down and caught sight of something stunning. He saw a figure on the Forbidden Sea brandishing a huge sword. That became his ‘heaven and earth.’ It became his world. His everything.
Because of that, he joined Seven Blood Eyes as a clone, not concerning himself at all with status or identity as he pursued the object of his desire. He experienced setbacks, but always kept moving forward. He was proud, but for the sake of that person, he could be humble. He was strong, but for that person, he could be weak. For his entire life, he had refused to offer sacrifices to the broken face. He didn’t concern himself with the lives or deaths of other living beings. As the ‘South Phoenix,’ and in fact, one of the only members of the Phoenix species, he had always held his head high.
But there was one person that could cause him to bow his head. That was because his heart had been touched. It was the only time it happened in his entire life.
Therefore, after Huang Yan said what he said moments ago, Xu Qing had already guessed what was going on.
Second Elder Sister was angry.
“No,” Huang Yan said forcefully. “NO! We have to get moving right now!”
Taking a deep breath, he transformed into Flame Phoenix, causing the Forbidden Sea to turn dark. His massive form could only be described as sky-obscuring and sun-blocking. Where he went, wild colors flashed in heaven and earth. When his feathers rippled, winds screamed.
The majestic ruler of South Phoenix raced across the Forbidden Sea.
Xu Qing had been around to watch as love developed between Huang Yan and Second Elder Sister. And therefore, he quickly flew up into the sky to follow.
Moving with the speed of lightning bolts, the two of them disappeared over the horizon. Their target destination was an island some distance away.
“As you know,” Huang Yan projected to Xu Qing, “every few decades Seven Blood Eyes holds the Grand Competition. Last time it was in the Merfolk Isles, and you and I both participated. Well the Grand Competition is happening again, and this time, Elder Sister is officiating. This time, the training is being held in Lobsterfolk territory. Just now, Elder Sister sent me a voice message indicating that the Lobsterfolk summoned their god, which is really just a godly entity.” [1][2]
To truly powerful experts, godly entities weren’t a very big deal. Over the past few months, Xu Qing had killed seven or eight of them. And if Huang Yan took action, he could wipe one out with a single breath.
But the fact that Elder Sister was angry changed everything.
Xu Qing nodded and kept a very serious expression on his face. “We’d better speed up!”
“That’s my bro!” shouted Huang Yan as he accelerated in Flame Phoenix form.
As they sped along, Xu Qing’s godsource surged, filling his body and making him shine with golden light. When it combined with the silver color within him, it made him seem like a godly devil. That, of course, was what happened because of the fact that his body was made from the flesh of the broken face. The body had actually been created first with immortal mercury, and then combined with the flesh.
With the Profound Sun Immortal Light Magic, he was accelerating the fusion process with his soul, which involved slowly assimilating all of the immortal mercury. When it was all gone, and he had no immortal mercury within him, then his soul would be fully fused.
As for the fleshly body made from the broken face’s flesh, this brought some astonishing transformations that weren’t limited to a flesh-and-blood upgrade.
His void soil was now completely golden. What was more, the golden void soil now had four shimmering god talismans on it. One was a life essence talisman, the others were godly authority talismans. The life essence talisman was made from his dao of mages, dao of emperors, and all of the cultivator techniques he had learned. The most dominant of all of them were his Xeno-Immortal School techniques.
Surrounding his void soil was an astonishing ring, which formed the border. It was a xeno-immortal lineament!
As for his three god authority talismans, they represented the violet moon, the misfortune, and the god curse. They weren’t very different from before. The biggest difference to his void soil was to the godly authority lineaments that he had yet to gain enlightenment of and use.
Before, there had been 100 of them. But right now, that number had increased... to over 1,000! In the past, Xu Qing had sensed that if he could ever gain full enlightenment of all 100 of them, he would be at the peak of Void Returning.
But now....
If Xu Qing’s life essence lineament had formed the limit of his void soil, then the 1,000 lineaments brought by the broken face just raised the upper limit of his cultivation base. Now he sensed that if he could cause all 1,000 of them to shine brightly, he would break through from Void Returning and into Smoldering God. And he would be an unrivaled and unequaled Smoldering God. That said, it was also going to make his cultivation a lot more difficult.
Thankfully, there were other transformations to Xu Qing. As of now, there was no such thing as spirit power to him. In terms of levels, spirit power was so weak to his new body that it essentially didn’t exist. Instead, what flowed through Xu Qing was pure godsource power!
As a result, it wasn’t just his void soil that was golden. His sea of consciousness had become a golden god sea. All of those things raised his potential. In terms of his defenses, they were terrifying.
Because his body and soul weren’t fused, if his fleshly body got too strong, it could put negative pressure on his soul. Therefore, Master Seventh had left two sealing marks on him. One was an Imperial Sovereign sealing mark, the other was a Quasi-Immortal sealing mark.
As Xu Qing cultivated the Profound Sun Immortal Light Magic, and continued to fuse his body and soul, the two sealing marks would naturally unseal. In the end, when they completely unraveled, his fleshly body power would be equivalent to a True God! That was equivalent to a Summer Immortal!
Before going into seclusion, Master Seventh had explained to Xu Qing that the broken face of Eminent Desolation had failed to break into the Living God level, and was stuck at what was essentially the peak of God Paragon. If one of hīs arms became an independent entity, it would be as mighty as an ordinary God Paragon, and even a mere finger would be as strong as a God Lord.
Compared to the boundlessness of the broken face, the body Xu Qing had was barely more than a scrap of flesh. As a result, it could only unleash the power of a True God or Summer Immortal.
With those two sealing marks in place, Xu Qing’s soul wouldn’t be influenced by the broken face’s flesh. And even with the seals in place, his fleshly body power was at an astounding level. Nothing beneath an Imperial Sovereign could even harm him.
After having fought several godly entities, Xu Qing had verified that. His fleshly body defenses were beyond comparison.
For example, when that god-river dragon lashed its tail at him, Xu Qing remained as unshakable as a mountain. And when the tail hit, it shattered.
Unfortunately, that only related to his fleshly body, meaning that his cultivation base didn’t receive any benefits. That said, his fleshly body was now so strong that the difference between his battle prowess was vastly beyond what it had been before.
The past several months of training had enabled Xu Qing to confirm the exact level of his battle prowess. He could kill four-world Smoldering Gods. As for those with five worlds or more... it would be difficult for him to cause trouble for them. That said, they wouldn’t be able to harm him.
Therefore, Xu Qing knew that his most important task right now was to assimilate godly authority to make himself more deadly! At the same time, he had to cultivate the Profound Sun Immortal Light Magic and work on removing the sealing marks.
I need to fight. I need to gain enlightenment. And I need experience in deadly situations.
After enough time passed for half an incense stick to burn, Xu Qing and Huang Yan were just about to arrive at Lobster Island.
Huang Yan cast his senses about, and after confirming that Elder Sister was safe, he transformed back into the form of a human fatty.
“By the way, this spot was picked for the training because of its connection to Torchlight. It’s one of Torchlight’s secret bases on the Forbidden Sea. After Seven Blood Eyes found out about it, they picked it for the event.”
Xu Qing didn’t react in any way to Huang Yan’s words. After detonating his soul and being resurrected, he had reached the point where talk of Torchlight and Zi Qing didn’t elicit an emotional reaction from him. It wasn’t just his facial expression. He felt that way deep in his heart. He was like a deep sea with no waves on it. But if such feelings did erupt, they would do so with killing intent.
That was how Xu Qing had always been since he was young. The situation with Zi Qing had been the only exception. But that exception had been resolved.
Xu Qing’s calm mental state was back. It was with complete calm that he looked at Flame Phoenix in Huang Yan form.
Huang Yan cleared his throat. “Elder Sister doesn’t like it when I look like a big bird. She prefers this handsome and dashing look.”
Huang Yan patted his belly, causing his flesh to jiggle a few times.
Xu Qing chuckled and then looked off into the distance.
1. The Chinese characters for Lobsterfolk does not include the most common characters for ‘lobster,’ and in fact, it’s a more general term that can refer to a variety of clawed crustaceans. For the sake of simplicity, I’m just going to go with the lobster interpretation. ☜
2. Huang Yan actually gave Xu Qing all of the background information about the Grand Competition inchapter 111 . The actual event started some chapters after that. ☜