Hai Shang You Ruo’s face was as delicate and fair as egg white, exquisitely cute. Her small hands, one holding a purple bamboo fishing rod, the other carrying a Heluo fish, faced directly the sword that Zhang Ruochen thrust towards her with overwhelming momentum.
Although the time rules of the Five Realms Heaven had been completely expelled by sword dao rules, around her body, an absolute self virtual time domain manifested.
The absolute self virtual time domain silently blocked the Chen Yuan ancient sword three feet away.
She gazed calmly at Zhang Ruochen.
The sword tip pierced through the virtual time, steadily approaching her heart.
Two feet, one foot…
“Your progress is truly rapid. If you had mastered Sword Seventeen, you might really defeat me, but Sword Sixteen is not enough.”
Just as the Chen Yuan ancient sword reached her brow, Hai Shang You Ruo swung the purple bamboo in her hand.
It was only a bamboo stalk, yet it carried the might of a peerless divine sword, containing incomparable sword dao prestige. The purple bamboo struck Zhang Ruochen heavily, producing a deafening sound, sending him flying backwards in explosive retreat.
“Eh! You have also mastered the absolute self virtual time domain?”
Hai Shang You Ruo’s lips were red, her teeth white, her eyes brightening slightly.
Because the purple bamboo had not actually struck Zhang Ruochen. As it neared him, time paused for an instant. In that instant, Zhang Ruochen retreated rapidly.
Zhang Ruochen’s figure stood straight as a peak. Around him appeared an invisible Taiji circle, with yin and yang qi flowing within.
The Taiji circle, with yin and yang dual aspects, crisscrossed everywhere.
“Absolute self virtual time domain? No, something even more profound.”
The Five Realms Heaven transformed into an ocean of time mark light points. Zhang Ruochen moved through the light points, his footwork flowing like clouds and water, containing wondrous patterns, as he unleashed a second sword strike.
“Light of Fleeting Years!”
This was the seventh layer of time swordsmanship, the Fleeting Years Swordsmanship.
After three thousand years of cultivation, though the Fleeting Years Swordsmanship was not yet perfected, he had entered its halls.
The most important aspect of time swordsmanship was speed, using time as an advantage to make oneself faster and the enemy slower. Time was the primary factor determining speed.
At the same time, time could break all techniques.
No matter how powerful the defence, before the power of time, it would crumble.
Just like the divine power that the Sumeru Saint Monk had left to protect the Kunlun Realm. After one hundred thousand years, it had become virtually ineffective. Even the power of a Buddha Ancestor could not withstand the erosion of time.
All the cultivators below the sundial stopped cultivating and stood to watch the battle.
Not only Xu Rulai and Gong Nanfeng, but also Que.
Both combatants felt that the other’s strikes were as fast as lightning, swift as wind and thunder. In a flash, they exchanged hundreds of blows.
Yet to the three spectators, their movements appeared slow, every technique change clearly visible.
Each time Zhang Ruochen attacked, before his sword reached Hai Shang You Ruo, it was deflected by the purple bamboo. From beginning to end, Hai Shang You Ruo stood in place, one hand holding the fish, the other lightly countering with the bamboo rod.
In the eyes of any cultivator, Zhang Ruochen was utterly dominated, unable to get close to her. Even his sword strikes could only reach halfway.
The other half could never be completed.
Yet Hai Shang You Ruo’s brows furrowed lightly. Though it appeared she forced him back each time, her true intent was not merely to repel him, but to severely injure him.
However, the current Zhang Ruochen was no longer the same as before. Each time he anticipated her moves and retreated unscathed.
Compared to his first visit to the Five Realms Heaven, his combat strength had undergone heaven-shaking changes. His difficulty as an opponent had increased tenfold or more.
If she had not witnessed his step-by-step cultivation, Hai Shang You Ruo would never believe a god spirit could achieve such growth through merely three thousand years of training.
Even thirty thousand years would not yield such improvement.
“Pu!”
After countless exchanges, Hai Shang You Ruo finally stepped forward. Lotuses bloomed beneath her feet, shattering space and time. Before Zhang Ruochen could retreat again, she tapped his chest with the purple bamboo.
Golden light flared at his chest, accompanied by resounding Sanskrit chants.
Zhang Ruochen’s powerful physical defence blocked the bamboo, sparing him a pierced body. Yet his internal organs were damaged, and he spat divine blood.
Zhang Ruochen flew backwards, crashing below the sundial.
“Chen!”
Gong Nanfeng rushed over, helping Zhang Ruochen up. “Why provoke her? She is Hai Shang You Ruo. She may look like a little girl, very cute and obedient, but she has cultivated for hundreds of thousands of years.”
Hai Shang You Ruo’s silver hair danced in the wind, her voice clear. “Zhang Ruochen, I have never understood. Your spiritual power is strong, and you have cultivated arrays, talismans, illusions, and many other arts. Why do you not use them against me?”
“And the sundial. If you activated it to fight me, you might not be so suppressed in the dao of time.”
Zhang Ruochen’s attainment in time dao was not weak, but his cultivation time paled against Hai Shang You Ruo’s. How could over ten thousand years compare to her hundreds of thousands of bitter cultivation?
Zhang Ruochen stood, his figure gradually straightening, blood at the corner of his mouth. He smiled. “My purpose in fighting you is to temper my sword dao and time dao. Cultivating in the Five Realms Heaven is for secluded self-improvement. Defeating you is a difficulty I must overcome on my cultivation path, but it is not the goal of cultivation.”
Hai Shang You Ruo nodded lightly, walking with elegant small steps into the Future Divine Hall.
Gong Nanfeng sighed. “You are already beaten like this. Stop pretending to be fine.”
Que said, “With Ruochen’s current strength, in a true life-and-death battle, it is hard to say who would die.”
Que knew that Xutian had not forbidden Zhang Ruochen from using spiritual power or divine artefacts. If he truly used all six divine swords, the sundial, the Reverse God Stele, and the Yin-Yang Eighteen Bureaus, could Hai Shang You Ruo still hold the advantage?
Not necessarily.
Only now did Que understand Zhang Ruochen’s true purpose was not to defeat Hai Shang You Ruo, but to surpass himself. He deliberately bound himself, using only his purest strength to overcome his opponent.
As long as he could defeat her, after leaving Destiny God Mountain, Zhang Ruochen would break free completely. Even without the old corpse ghost and without the Sword Ancestor soul sword, he would claim his place below the Immeasurable realm.
Like a cultivator of lightness arts removing weighted sandbags.
Then would come the time when Zhang Ruochen truly contended with Taixu realm great gods.
Thinking of this, Que could not help a long sigh. “Taixu realm, ah!”
Zhang Ruochen was now only one step from contending with the Taixu realm. Yet Que, who considered himself extraordinary, knew that even another hundred thousand years of cultivation would not let him reach that level.
Unknowingly, the gap had grown so vast, beyond reach.
“Any so-called heaven’s chosen of a generation, born in this era, is truly tragic.”
Xu Rulai looked at Zhang Ruochen, feeling the awe of gazing up at a lofty mountain. An eagle could overlook the mortal world, but gazing at the sky, it could not perceive the sky’s height.
The current Zhang Ruochen was the sky in Xu Rulai’s eyes, its height no longer visible.
Once upon a time, he and Zhang Ruochen had stood at the same level.
The sundial enveloped the entire Five Realms Heaven.
In the following millennium, Zhang Ruochen repeatedly challenged Hai Shang You Ruo, losing each time, suffering repeated injuries.
Yet after recovering, he would challenge her again.
Through battle, his sword dao and time dao progressed rapidly, faster than secluded cultivation. This millennium of tempering allowed him to swiftly master the seventh layer of time swordsmanship to great accomplishment.
Though Hai Shang You Ruo still defeated him effortlessly, her expression grew increasingly serious, with no trace of underestimation.
After a millennium of exchanges, she was no longer as cold as at first. She discussed time dao and sword dao with Zhang Ruochen often.
Especially in sword dao, Zhang Ruochen’s long study of the Wordless Sword Manual and the Sword Ancestor soul sword had led him ahead of her in many aspects.
One day, after a bout, Zhang Ruochen and Hai Shang You Ruo sat side by side on the steps outside the Future Divine Palace gate, placing the Chen Yuan ancient sword and purple bamboo aside.
Zhang Ruochen took a primordial tribulation sacred medicine to heal his wounds, then suddenly asked, “You fought my grandfather-in-law once?”
“Xue Jue?”
Hai Shang You Ruo huffed like a little adult. “More than once. During his cultivation in the Destiny Divine Hall, he lost to me more than ten times. He too is a cultivation monster, growing stronger with each battle. By now he should be Taixu realm!”
She did not know her grandfather had long reached Taixu realm?
Zhang Ruochen asked, “How long has it been since you left the Five Realms Heaven?”
A trace of melancholy appeared on Hai Shang You Ruo’s small face. “One hundred thousand years!”
Though Zhang Ruochen did not truly see her as a little girl, hearing this still shocked him.
Not every cultivator was like Xutian, a cultivation fanatic who could remain in the Great Tribulation Palace for a hundred thousand years.
A hundred thousand years in the Five Realms Heaven, what difference was there from imprisonment?
Zhang Ruochen said, “Do you want to see the outside world?”
Hai Shang You Ruo’s eyes brightened with longing, then she shook her head with a bitter smile. “Xutian said that until I reach Taixu realm, I cannot leave the Five Realms Heaven.”
Zhang Ruochen pondered, then said, “Xutian is protecting you, fearing you might be harmed.”
From their many past exchanges, Zhang Ruochen clearly sensed that Hai Shang You Ruo held no grudge against him for the Life God’s death. Clearly, she too did not believe the Sumeru Saint Monk and the Ten Tribulations Ask Heaven Lord had killed the Life God.
Her earlier coldness had been purely her nature.
But after a millennium of contact, even the coldest person would no longer keep others at a thousand li distance.
Hai Shang You Ruo stood, looking up at the chaotic void above. “Zhang Ruochen, tell me about the outside world. If you have the time.”
Zhang Ruochen smiled. “What do you want to hear?”
“I heard the Hell Realm and Heavenly Court are at war again. Is it fierce? Which ancient gods have fallen?” Hai Shang You Ruo asked.
Zhang Ruochen said, “How could a war sweeping the entire universe not be fierce? The greatest events now are the fall of the Ghost God Venerable and the emergence of the Scarlet Mara King.”
