Boom!
Gathering all of his power together and forcefully exploding it outwards, the mist restricting his movement was momentarily pushed back. Allowing him to regain control over his body again and have his dao domain spread out and prevent the mist from getting close enough to rescript his movement again.
However, his domain did nothing to stop the approaching guardian, who didn't show any signs of being affected by his dao domain, as she rapidly approached him at a speed visible to the naked eye. Treating his dao domain like it wasn't there in the first place.
"This…" Feeling a sense of disbelief and confusion after seeing how the guardian was able to ignore his dao domain, Xuan Hao could not help trying to recall anything from the scroll of trials that might help him understand what is happening before the guardian had a chance to reach him.
Unfortunately, the scroll of trials did not provide a lot of information on the guardian herself. The information inside the scroll instead covered the formation that created the mist and the goal of the trial-
Wait! The goal of the trial mentioned something about the powerful abilities of the guardian being able to bend the very fabric of reality itself to her will. Maybe this is not meant as a way to show off how powerful she was but was instead meant in a way to describe her ability to make use of illusions to bend one's very perception of reality itself!
Realizing this, Xuan Hao turned his attention away from the approaching guardian that was now only a few dozen meters away from him and instead began paying more attention to his surroundings.
There!
It was through this that he managed to spot a small unnoticeable wisp drifting towards him.
The wisp seemed ordinary and look like it had almost merged completely together with the thin mist covering the plaza, but after taking a second glance at the unassuming wisp that was drifting closer to him at a speed no slower than that of the approaching guardian, it did not take long for Xuan Hao to realize that the small wisp was far more dangerous than the guardian that was now only a few steps away from reaching him.
Swish-!
Ignoring the guardian, Xuan Hao turned around and stabbed towards the unassuming wisp with all his power!
Swish~
Not a second later, the figure of the guardian directly passed through him before dissolving into small motes of light that merged together with the thin mist, while the small and unassuming wisp transformed into the beautiful and breathtaking figure of Aria, the guardian of the trial.
BOOOM-!
Just in time to resist his sword attack at the last moment before her figure dissolved into countless small wisps that spread out across the entire plaza. Making it hard for Xuan Hao to figure out which of them was the real guardian.
"How annoying…" Seeing how the guardian had managed to resist his attack before dissolving into countless small wisps, Xuan Hao could not help feeling a headache setting.
The guardian was clearly strong enough to fight him given that she had been able to easily resist his sword attack just now, but instead of doing this, she had instead decided to deal with him through illusion techniques.
Although he now had a feeling that the trial was set up to test him in these aspects, he could still not stop himself from feeling a sense of annoyance after seeing the countless wisps spread out across the massive plaza. Even if his divine sense was strong and superior to that of most Soul Ascension Realm Experts, it had still taken him some time to find the small wisp that had been approaching him from behind.
Not to mention, the only reason he had managed to find it was that there was nothing other than that one wisp and the fake guardian approaching him. Nothing like the countless wisps that now covered the entire plaza…
RUMBLE-!
For this reason, Xuan Hao directly conjured a sea of swords in the air above him through the Sword Dao-
Swoosh~
Swoosh~
Swoosh~
Before waving his hand and sending the countless swords gathered in the small sea of sword out towards the countless wisps spread out across the enormous plaza. Knowing that it would take him an eternity if he decided to go through each of the wisps and check them individually with his divine sense… And that was on the assumption that Aria didn't have any method to change her true body to one of the wisps he had already checked!
Because of this, the simplest and easiest way to go about things would be to launch an attack on all of the wisps at once. The wisps that had the ability to defend itself would be the true body of Aria, while the rest would be illusions, simple as that.
Bang! Bang!
"Ah? More than one!?"
Unfortunately for Xuan Hao, things did not work like he had expected, and his swords encountered resistance at more than a hundred of the different wisps. Indicating that the true body of Aria was not a single wisp like the first time but had instead split up into several different wisps!
Hmph, you won't be able to deal with me this easily!
Recovering from the shock of suddenly realizing that Aria had the ability to split her body into a hundred different wisps, Xuan Hao focused the countless swords floating aimlessly around the plaza after having stabbed through the illusory wisps that were not part of Aria's true body, towards the hundred or so wisps that were.
Boom! Boom!
Not a second later, over a hundred sword streams formed above each of the wisps that were part of Aria's true body before beginning to rain down on the small wisps. Giving them no chance to resist as the constant stream of swords engulfed them completely. Keeping them trapped without any way to escape.
Slowly, the size of the wisps decreased, and their luminescent glow reduced began growing dim. Making Xuan Hao narrow both of his eyes as he prepared for the inevitable counterattack.
Swish-!
However, just at this moment, one of the illusory wisps that he had already deemed as nothing more than a simple harmless illusion, sprung forth with a terrifying power far beyond that of any of the other wisps that he was currently in the process of grinding down with his Sword Dao.
"Huh?" Not at all expecting something like this, Xuan Hao could only let out a somewhat stupid sound before realizing the seriousness of his current situation. Even if he wanted to use his spatial movement technique to move away, the space inside the plaza was far too stable for him to do something like this with his current comprehension of the Dao of Space.
For this reason, Xuan Hao could only do his best to dodge the terrifying wisp heading directly towards him. Not having enough time to do more than put up a basic defense with his dao domain-
Crack~
However, the small and unassuming wisp was far too powerful, as it directly pierced through the ice barrier that had been formed by his dao domain before turning into a sharp ethereal spear that was heading directly towards his head!
Ptsh-!
"Ah-!"
Feeling the spear piercing through his head before continuing into the distance, Xuan Hao could not stop a small scream from escaping what was left of his mouth, as most of his head had been destroyed by the ethereal spear that continued moving into the distance before disappearing beyond the plaza.
Whoosh~
Rapidly consuming the qi in his body, Xuan Hao didn't waste a single second before repairing the rather large hole that had been left in his head by the ethereal spear. Although he was in the Dao Domain Lord Realm and this was far from enough to kill him, the amount of qi required to recover from such an injure was not small. Especially considering that if he didn't recover in time, his body would end up dying and he would be left with nothing more than his soul that would then have to steal a new body that he would have to recultivate or build his own.
No matter which of these two, they both came with all sorts of negatives. Stealing a body from someone would never allow his soul to be in proper sync with the body. Preventing him from continuing to advance on the path of cultivation, while the act of rebuilding his body from scratch was something that could take hundreds, if not thousands of years…
It was also because of this that cultivators would never view abandoning the body as an option for survival. The only people who could do something like this, were the demonic cultivators who had all sorts of ways to recover far faster and continue their cultivation even in a brand-new body that they were not accustomed to.
For powerful demonic cultivators, as long as they had a few powerful bodies stored up, there would be no problem for them to rapidly recover their strength again after abandoning their original body…