The Angel Clan deity Uriel, having achieved godhood in three thousand years, was a figure of unparalleled talent and pride. Being ridiculed by Chi Yao in such a manner, even the best temperament would surge with anger.
One after another, rings of light treasure wheels emerged from his body, breaking free from the suppression of Chi Yao’s divine realm. He said, “I have long heard that you killed a deity from the Hell Realm, shocking the Celestial Court with this feat and even earning admiration from the Heavenly Palace. However, your delusion to kill me is far too ignorant.”
The two powerful divine mights clashed against each other.
Chi Yao held the Blood-Dripping Sword, using it as a mirror to gaze at her own eyes and countenance on the blade. She said, “Uriel, you came to the Jiannan Realm with Theodore, did you not?”
“How do you know?” Uriel’s eyes narrowed.
Uriel and Theodore had sneaked into the Hell Realm covertly, known to almost no one, even evading the gods of the Hell Realm. Chi Yao was merely a new deity who had ascended just a few years ago. How could she know their movements so intimately?
There was a conspiracy!
There must be a conspiracy!
Chi Yao smiled again and said, “If it were Theodore, I truly would not be certain of leaving him behind, after all, he has cultivated in the Spatial Temple for many years, possessing profound attainments in the way of space. As for you, I have not placed much regard on you.”
Doubts flooded Uriel’s mind, and he faintly sensed something amiss, urgently wishing to escape and prevent Theodore from bringing the Heaven Realm’s deities to the Jiannan Realm.
“Splash!”
His seven pairs of wings unfurled on his back, radiating the brightest light, transforming into a white divine pillar that shot toward the outside of the divine realm.
“Do you think you can still leave?”
In an instant, Chi Yao intercepted him ahead, multicoloured divine light emerging on her snow-white skin, serene and otherworldly, like an exiled immortal untouched by mortal affairs.
“Get out of the way.”
Uriel showed no mercy toward beauty, his gaze stern. Between his hands, he condensed a materialized ring of light treasure wheel.
The light treasure wheel expanded to a thousand zhang long, countless light rules and divine patterns intertwining and rotating within, crashing toward the stunning figure ahead.
The energy of the treasure wheel was so intense that it caused Chi Yao’s divine realm to tremble violently, swaying as if on the verge of collapse.
“Splash!”
Chi Yao swung a casual sword strike, trailing a sword light that connected to the horizon.
The sword light not only shattered the light treasure wheel but also struck Uriel. Though it did not breach his divine realm’s defences, it sent him flying back.
“They all say you are inadequate, yet you refuse to believe it?”
Chi Yao raised the Blood-Dripping Sword overhead. In an instant, countless sword path rules from heaven and earth converged onto the sword body.
The vast and boundless divine realm turned blood-red in a moment.
“Sword Path Mysteries!”
Uriel was greatly startled, tilting his head to the sky. On his forehead, dense silver light patterns appeared, converging into an ancient and mysterious mark.
A bolt of lightning containing endless divine power shot from the silver mark, like dozens of silver divine dragons entwined, clawing and lunging toward Chi Yao.
“Sizzle!”
Chi Yao merged with the Blood-Dripping Sword into one, becoming a beam of blood light that charged forward, overwhelming the silver flashes.
The sword tip struck Uriel’s brow fiercely, piercing half an inch deep.
Blood from Uriel’s body surged out automatically, absorbed by the blood-red sword.
Uriel’s exceedingly handsome face twisted, and he let out a long howl. From his mouth, he spat a purple-gold shield, which sliced toward Chi Yao like a blade.
Chi Yao flicked her wrist, the sword body lifting, sending Uriel flying.
Then, with a returning slash, she struck the incoming purple-gold shield, sending it flying toward the horizon, where it split into two halves mid-air.
Uriel retreated rapidly, divine blood continuously flowing from the hole in his brow, and divine energy dissipating.
“Splash!”
“Splash!”
…
Without giving him a chance to stabilize his injuries, Chi Yao moved like flowing divine light, striking with sword after sword.
Uriel had no power to retaliate. Even with his true god physique, he could not withstand it. Sword wounds multiplied on his body, his white divine feathers dyed red, and he roared in fury.
Suddenly, Chi Yao ceased her attacks, standing quietly to the side, even sheathing the Blood-Dripping Sword.
Uriel stabilized his disadvantage, light divine power flickering as his wounds vanished in an instant. His gaze turned cold. “In the end, you still cannot kill me.”
“Do you think you are still alive because I cannot kill you?” Chi Yao said, somewhat astonished.
Uriel said with utmost certainty, “I admit you are very powerful, and I am no match for you. However, killing a true deity is not so easy. With your current cultivation, even if you have grasped some sword path mysteries, it is still far from enough to kill me. And the price of failing to kill me is too great for you to bear.”
Chi Yao sighed lightly. “If only all the Heaven Realm’s deities were as self-conceited as you.”
Uriel said, “Am I wrong?”
“You may not know that I am a woman with a very narrow mind and strong vindictiveness. Using the sword to cut you is merely because I do not want you to die too easily. Every word you used to humiliate Chen-ge, I will return to you with my sword. Do you still remember how many words you said and how many sword strikes you endured?” Chi Yao asked.
Uriel’s gaze suddenly darkened, his fists clenching tightly. Yet he did not act impulsively, knowing the woman before him was indeed formidable. Now trapped in her divine realm, escaping would be as difficult as ascending to heaven.
Suddenly, his gaze pierced through the divine realm to the seabed, seeing Zhang Ruochen standing beside the thousand-plus-zhang-long divine corpse. A plan formed in his mind.
“Since you value that neither human nor undead weak ant so much, this deity shall first behead him.”
Uriel seized a white halberd from the void.
Dense supreme inscriptions emerged on the halberd, erupting with terrifying supreme power.
The same supreme sacred artifact, in a deity’s hands, unleashed power thousands or tens of thousands of times greater than in a Supreme Saint’s grasp.
“Boom!”
The white halberd transformed into a pillar supporting the heavens, each supreme inscription flowing like a great river, piercing fiercely toward Zhang Ruochen’s position.
Cracks appeared in Chi Yao’s divine realm, on the verge of being pierced through.
“You truly are courting death.”
Suddenly, Chi Yao’s gaze turned exceedingly sharp, her speed as fast as light. Before Uriel could react, she struck his chest with a palm, denting his red armour.
Uriel spat divine blood, flying backward.
“Come back.”
Chi Yao seized Uriel’s wrist, dragging him back.
Changing palm to fist, she struck his chest again.
“Crack!”
A fissure appeared in the red armour.
“Bang bang.”
Then twelve consecutive strikes followed, piercing the red armour. Blood sprayed from Uriel’s chest, his heart filled with utmost depression. Not only could he not muster power to counter, he could not even flee; he was completely crushed.
“Divine blood, burn!”
Uriel’s eyes turned cold and venomous, roaring inwardly.
“Swish swish.”
Countless sword qi shot from Chi Yao’s brow, riddling Uriel’s divine body like a sieve, then exploding, turning into a mass of blood mist and shattered divine bones.
Without giving him a chance to reform his divine body, a lotus radiating chaotic light flew from her snow-white palm, absorbing the blood mist entirely.
This lotus was the supreme treasure left by Monk Xu Mi, the Chaos Space-Time Lotus.
Uriel reformed his divine body within the lotus, but spatial rifts and time marks continuously assaulted him, bit by bit eroding his vitality.
“Chi Yao, you had best release me, or the Kunlun Realm will surely face eternal damnation, and billions of lives will perish because of you.” Uriel’s voice roared from within the lotus.
The Chaos Space-Time Lotus floated in Chi Yao’s palm. She merely said faintly, “Is that so? Just with you, you can decide the fate of the Kunlun Realm? I only know that now, I can decide your fate.”
“You will regret this.”
“I truly wish to extinguish you completely sooner, so my ears can have some peace.”
After a moment’s thought, she produced a clay vase and poured from it a golden flame, which fell into the lotus.
This clay vase had formed when the third Confucian Ancestor reached the pinnacle of the Great Dao, shaped by a sudden inspiration. Legend held that upon its formation, all text within ten thousand li fell from the pages and flew into it.
Billions of characters forged its soul.
Thus, this supreme Confucian treasure was also known as the “Vessel of Words.”
The flame within the vase was collected by Chi Yao from the site of the Fire God’s fall, called “God-Refining Fire.” Legend said the Fire God perished by self-immolation from the very God-Refining Fire he cultivated, leaving only the Fire God Armour.
If the God-Refining Fire could incinerate the Fire God, refining a new deity would naturally be effortless.
Once Uriel’s screams ceased, Chi Yao stored the Chaos Space-Time Lotus and retracted her divine realm, descending silently to the seabed and appearing within less than ten zhang of Zhang Ruochen.
She sat on a broken stone, propping her chin with her fingers, watching Zhang Ruochen quietly. Seeing him eloquently intimidating Master Night Wanderer and Seven-Handed Elder with the might of Lord Ming Wang, she could not help but laugh.
In these recent days, she had always been like this, standing nearby and watching, as if returned to eight hundred years ago.
Back then, Zhang Ruochen and she were at the most youthful and beautiful age, with the purest love, the kindest hearts, having never killed anyone, never stained with any creature’s blood, simply inseparable, full of infinite longing for the future.
In those days, everything in the world was good, beautiful, pure, as if evil and filth did not exist at all, nor did separations, deaths, partings, joys, or sorrows.
She had never thought of parting from Zhang Ruochen, neither eight hundred years ago nor now.
But she knew that now, being able to follow him inseparably was only temporary. In the end, they would part, even to the point where Sinking Abyss and Blood-Dripping might one day point tips at each other.
But…
What of it?
At least that day had not yet come.
Chi Yao cleared the杂念 from her mind, produced a wooden comb, and combed her lustrous black hair, feeling that in the eight hundred years, she had never been as relaxed and free as now, able to shed all burdens and responsibilities.
What Empress Chi Yao, what Great Might and Great Virtue, far from the Kunlun Realm, she only wished to be a quiet woman.
That woman was called Yao Yao.
A girl whose time seemed forever stopped at sixteen!
Youth never fades, always in the heart.
…
