Chapter 141: Killing the Ninth Realm from the Fifth Realm, an Epoch-Making Feat!
A massive head, resembling a fruit grown on a five-hundred-year-old ancient tree, was struck down blow by blow by An Le, and was finally severed entirely.
Like a ripe melon falling from its vine, with a dull thud, it crashed into the surface of the Canglang River. Deprived of any sustaining spiritual power, this head—which had been tempered to an extreme degree of resilience—sank down into the depths of the great river, falling utterly silent.
An Le stood motionless on the spot, the aura around his entire body surging to an immensely formidable peak.
He had stepped out from his skiff, and to ensure the foolproof execution of Tong Guan, he had displayed nearly all of his foundational assets.
He had even borrowed every scrap of power available to him; the lingering combat souls of those who had died in battle here since antiquity and whose spirits drifted at the bottom of the Canglang River were all utilized by him to form a formidable tide of ghosts.
His own invincible momentum, a white python transforming into a heavenly dragon!
Coupled with the condensed Primordial Spirit Heart Sword.
Along with the negligible yet present primordial vital energy and blood.
This was the absolute peak of An Le's personal combat power that he had been able to unleash thus far—barring, of course, the condition of borrowing the power of the Majestic Aspiration.
After all, his opponent was a ninth-realm powerhouse, a supreme master who had stepped into the pinnacle of both physical body refinement and spirit forging.
Tong Guan had one cognition that was entirely correct: the gap between the fifth realm and the ninth realm was the gap between heaven and earth, fundamentally unbridgeable.
Yet until the moment of his death, Tong Guan had never imagined that he would be suppressed by a fifth-realm cultivator to the point where he did not even have time to react, before having his head struck off.
Of course, the primary reason was the collapse of his immortal platform, which led to the shattering of his mind and spirit. He had been ambushed by An Le's Heart Sword, which exploded inside his Niwan Palace, instantly plunging his consciousness into absolute chaos and depriving him of any ability to fight back.
Even so, holding the first-rank ultimate Return of the Swallows, An Le still had to hack several times before he could forcefully sever the immensely tough, thoroughly tempered spine of Tong Guan and chop off his head.
A lean camel is still bigger than a horse; this had to be acknowledged.
Since An Le had chosen to kill Tong Guan with his own hands, he naturally had to factor in every possible danger, going all out without a shred of relaxation or carelessness.
And facts proved that An Le's gamble was correct.
After borrowing the spiritual momentum, An Le's aura surged, and his combat power was greatly enhanced—this was the crucial turning point.
Therefore, killing a heavily injured Tong Guan, whose Niwan Palace had been thrown into disarray by the Heart Sword, was quite reliable. In the end, no further twists or accidents occurred.
The Dao fruit [Blood Guanyin] was indeed formidable. After An Le crushed it, almost all cultivators beneath the ninth realm perished, and even that eighth-realm ghost official from the Underworld Mansion died completely.
Yet Tong Guan alone remained alive. In fact, An Le felt that if the situation had dragged on any longer, Tong Guan might even have outlasted the duration of the [Blood Guanyin] and ultimately made a complete escape.
That was not a scene An Le wished to see.
He wanted Tong Guan dead; therefore, he had stepped out of the light boat and personally wielded his sword to kill him, refusing to give Tong Guan any chance of escape.
Of course...
He also wanted to make a big gain!
If he could kill a ninth-realm expert, the benefits for An Le would be immense. Even though Tong Guan had already been heavily wounded by the [Blood Guanyin] Dao fruit, he was still an incomparably powerful ninth-realm expert!
Invincible momentum and a fearless heart could both reap tremendous benefits from this slaughterous wave!
A fifth-realm warrior killing a ninth-realm master—regardless of the methods used—was a record-shaking achievement through the ages. How could it not be called invincible?
As for the [Fearless Heart], it went without saying. Earlier, when he killed that sixth-realm cultivator, the Fearless Heart had fed back a wisp of pure energy. However, that sixth-realm opponent was too mediocre; An Le had fought across realms with zero pressure, so the feedback from the [Fearless Heart] naturally wasn't much.
This time, however, it was entirely different!
Boom!
Tong Guan's headless corpse stood erect upon the blood-stained surface of the river. Despite being gravely wounded by the Blood Guanyin, his physique remained immensely robust. With his head severed, blood instantly gushed out from the bowl-sized opening of his neck like a pillar.
It looked like a column of water spouted by a giant whale roaming through the vast sea.
The blood pillar, dozens of zhang high, was truly shocking to behold.
With both hands gripping the Return of the Swallows, An Le panted heavily, and the aura surrounding his body began to decline rapidly. Especially the Heart Sword—which had burrowed into Tong Guan's Niwan Palace and subsequently detonated itself—appeared dim in color, covered in cracks, and seemed on the verge of shattering upon its re-condensation.
Of course, what caused An Le's expression to turn truly solemn was not the fracturing Heart Sword, but the accumulated spiritual momentum piled up behind him!
An Le had not dared to condense too much spiritual momentum onto himself; he had only gathered the absolute limit that his physical body could withstand, not daring to absorb any more.
Borrowing momentum from the deceased required paying a karmic price.
Receiving spiritual momentum upon oneself and utilizing the power of the dead also meant bearing the toll of the dead...
And that toll was deathly qi!
However, deathly qi was not actually what concerned and unsettled An Le the most this time.
What truly cast a shroud of gloom over An Le's heart was the terrifying entity at the bottom of the Canglang River—the one Zhao Huangting had once spoken of.
An Le felt that the instant he guided the spiritual momentum, some unimaginably terrifying existence was about to awaken. A gaze that seemed to pierce through the netherworld was about to fall upon him, and vaguely, An Le could catch a glimpse of a hazy, towering ghost...
Zhao Huangting had said that at the bottom of the Canglang River lay the skeleton of a terrifying entity whose single leg bone reached a thousand zhang.
The ghost he had glimpsed was likely the spirit of that entity.
An Le did not dare to borrow the momentum of that ghost, fearing that if he truly borrowed it, he would never be able to repay the debt.
At this very moment, what made An Le's scalp tingle was that the ghost of that terrifying entity seemed to have locked onto him. Even though he had severed the guiding thread of spiritual momentum, the entity had not dissipated!
Vaguely, behind An Le, the river water seemed to part, and a hazy, gigantic hand—immense beyond measure, resembling a small house—gently descended toward him.
It was as if it intended to bestow its momentum upon An Le!
However, the [Emperor] Dao fruit within An Le's body trembled slightly.
An invisible aura and deterrence spread and intertwined from within An Le's physical form.
That formless palm paused, and in the end, it slowly dissipated, retreating back to the depths of the Canglang River.
The river's surface remained calm and tranquil, as if the hazy giant hand reaching out from the riverbed moments ago had merely been an illusion.
With a solemn expression, An Le turned his head to glance back.
The bloody mist condensed by the Blood Guanyin Dao fruit began to slowly recede, and the ghosts lingering behind An Le also began to disperse.
A wave of exhaustion instantly surged forward, spreading through An Le's entire body.
At the same time, An Le felt a wisp of black airflow abruptly appear within his Niwan Palace. As this black airflow intertwined, it made the already fragile Heart Sword appear even dimmer.
The colorful radiance presented by the Zuo Wang Primordial Spirit lost its luster.
"Deathly qi..."
An Le's expression was grave. He knew that this wisp of deathly qi was the price paid for borrowing the spiritual momentum—an equivalent exchange, so to speak. Borrowing momentum from the dead could never be done without paying any price.
Gazing at the deathly qi that seemed to cast a layer of dust over his mental space, An Le furrowed his brows slightly.
However, very soon, his brows smoothed out.
Azure subtitles flashed and shimmered before his eyes.
[Fearless Heart (Dao fruit): A dragon battles in the wild, leaping across major realms to slay foes, forging a towering fearlessness, the Dao fruit feeds back automatically!]
Sure enough, the feedback from the Fearless Heart Dao fruit had arrived!
The cultivators of the Underworld Mansion had not been killed by An Le; they had been wiped out by the power of the Blood Guanyin Dao fruit, and thus their deaths were not factored into the Fearless Heart's feedback.
However, Tong Guan—this ninth-realm expert—had been killed by An Le with his own hands, his head severed blow by blow!
Cultivators in this world, even when they reached the ninth realm, could not achieve the legendary ability to regenerate from a single drop of blood or reconstruct severed limbs.
A severed head meant death; a shattered heart, even if sustained temporarily by vital energy, would eventually lead to death...
Yet, cultivators in this world could also live for immense spans of time; ninth-realm masters could live for five hundred years, which was quite peculiar in its own right.
An Le wondered if existences capable of surviving a decapitated head, a crushed heart, and a shattered body truly existed in this world...
Perhaps, behind the Heavenly Gate, those legendary immortals possessed such abilities?
An Le shook his head, not delving any deeper into this sudden whimsical association.
A breath of pure energy was born out of thin air. An Le closed his eyes, feeling the pure energy surge from within his body, rushing rapidly along his limbs and skeletal frame.
However, the majority of the pure energy converged toward the Niwan Palace at the center of his brow.
That wisp of deathly qi lingering within the Niwan Palace was actually suppressed by this pure energy, rendering it immobile. The previously dim mental space of the Niwan Palace also grew bright at this moment.
The pure energy wrapped around the Heart Sword, causing it to gradually solidify and recover, its colorful radiance becoming even more dazzling and eye-catching.
The Heart Sword vaguely grew stronger, and the Zuo Wang Primordial Spirit sitting atop the Heart Sword witnessed the colorful glow behind it expand even further. Rising from the hundred zhang within the mental space, under the transformation of the massive amount of pure energy, it vaguely reached a thousand zhang, almost filling the entire mental space with radiant glow!
It felt as though only a single step remained before reaching the sixth realm of spirit forging, the realm of Ascension.
On the other front, the pure energy also refined An Le's physical body, making his physique increasingly powerful, his spirit bones and flesh and blood growing sturdier. Furthermore, within his dantian, the pure energy surged, transforming into primordial spiritual qi. Wisp after wisp fell like rain, causing the primordial spiritual qi in An Le's dantian to gather into a vast lake!
Beyond the lake lay the vast sea. When primordial spiritual qi gathered into a sea, it was a sign of the great completion of the sixth realm. The sixth realm of physical refinement was known as "Viewing the Qi Sea," where the qi sea had to condense and become visible—only then could one reach the pinnacle of the sixth realm.
Therefore, now that the primordial spiritual qi had condensed into a dantian lake, he could be said to be growing closer and closer to the sixth realm.
However, the sixth realm served as an enormous watershed in cultivation, and breaking through it was no easy feat.
Many cultivators remained stuck at the bottleneck of the sixth realm's peak for decades, centuries, unable to break through until their dying day.
Despite the feedback from the Fearless Heart Dao fruit, it was still not easy for An Le to break through the barrier in one go and step into the sixth realm.
He still needed a touch of personal enlightenment.
The automatic feedback from slaying Tong Guan was indeed the most abundant An Le had encountered thus far.
Aside from the one-third used to suppress the deathly qi, the remaining pure energy directly helped An Le push both his spirit-forging and physical-refinement cultivations to the perfection of the fifth realm.
Naturally, An Le's own talent as a [Through-the-Ages Prodigy] also played a colossal role.
Though the pure energy could not directly help him break through realms, it transformed the primordial spiritual qi in his dantian through his inner elixir and the profound intent of the ancient five-colored divine birds, causing the primordial spiritual qi lake to grow increasingly vast.
Once An Le broke through to the sixth realm of Viewing the Qi Sea, he would likely gain a tremendous amplification!
After all, when many people impacted the sixth realm, their primordial spiritual qi barely gathered into a small puddle.
An consummation like An Le's, which directly gathered a vast lake of primordial spiritual qi, was exceedingly rare.
Obtaining the feedback from the [Fearless Heart] took practically only an instant.
Yet, his body—which had previously been hollowed out of strength from slaying Tong Guan—instantly restored itself to its prime condition.
Of course, An Le still made his complexion look somewhat pale, even allowing that wisp of deathly qi in his Niwan Palace to manifest slightly.
After all, a fifth-realm warrior killing a ninth-realm master was indeed an astonishing and earth-shattering feat.
Aside from the harvest of the Fearless Heart Dao fruit, An Le had another massive gain: the transformation of his invincible momentum. The original heavenly dragon had grown increasingly real and clear, and even faintly emitted a brilliant golden light that grew more dazzling and eye-catching!
Invincible momentum seemed to be an extremely profound and mysterious power.
Li You'an had once gathered invincible momentum, and after stepping into the sixth realm, he chose to integrate that momentum into his cultivation, making his path of cultivation smooth and unimpeded.
An Le's current invincible momentum was even more powerful than the one Li You'an had condensed back then. Once An Le stepped into the sixth realm and integrated his invincible momentum into his cultivation, his breakthrough in cultivation realm might turn out even more exaggerated than Li You'an's!
The bloody mist scattered, and the Blood Guanyin completely vanished.
A subtle stir arose in An Le's heart. Vaguely, he could sense that the [Blood Guanyin] Dao fruit had grown completely dim and was even covered in cracks; hoping to unleash its self-detonating effects once more was likely out of the question, but its ability to borrow spiritual momentum seemed to remain intact.
It belonged to a state of a damaged Dao fruit.
An Le was not too disappointed. After all, the [Blood Guanyin] Dao fruit had successfully resolved a desperate situation, wiped out all attacking cultivators of the Underworld Mansion—including the ninth-realm powerhouse Tong Diaosi—and could well be considered to have retired with merit.
...
The bloody mist completely dissipated, and the scene on the river gradually became clear within the mental perceptions of various powerhouses.
Li You'an was bathed in starlight, his majestic mind and spirit nearly warping space. A thousand or so sword artifacts hovered horizontally, their tips spitting out sword qi that faintly cleaved open dark, jagged cracks.
His gaze was locked dead upon the massive bloody Guanyin statue slowly dissolving above the Canglang River.
He wanted to prevent Tong Guan from making a move against An Le the very moment the Guanyin statue vanished; he was even prepared to kill Tong Guan to ensure this, no matter the cost.
In Li You'an's heart, An Le absolutely could not die—not only because An Le had inherited the Holy Master's future sword qi, but also because An Le was, in his eyes, the ultimate spark capable of starting a prairie fire and burning everything to ashes!
He could not afford any mishaps!
Rumble!
The river water, which had been frozen in place, seemed to regain its vitality at this moment. Yet the instant it recovered—perhaps to vent its suppressed anger—it violently lashed out with terrifying, rolling waves!
A headless corpse, still spurting scalding hot blood, was knocked high into the air by the river, crimson blood splashing everywhere...
The sharpness and keen edge in Li You'an's eyes froze involuntarily.
He stared at that headless corpse, recognizing that familiar aura...
Was it not that favorite trusted aide of the Zhao family's Son of Heaven, Tong Diaosi?!
A supreme ninth-realm master with a forged immortal platform had just died like this?!
Even for Li You'an, a momentary blankness surfaced in his heart at this moment. He saw the Return of the Swallows in An Le's hand, still stained with the stubborn blood of the ninth-realm expert.
An Le had used his sword to chop off Tong Guan's head?
The fifth realm... killing the ninth realm?!
Li You'an felt his state of mind grow somewhat turbulent, the starlight fluctuating as if it were about to shatter space itself.
Not only Li You'an, but every single strand of probing mental energy intertwined above the Canglang River was so shaken that they nearly failed to steady themselves, almost being completely drained by the great evil lurking at the bottom of the Canglang River.
...
Upon the ancient city tower mottled with the marks of time, the Grand Preceptor of the Yuan Meng Empire, Boyan, reappeared, holding his feathered fan. Before he could even flutter the fan once, his expression froze, replaced instantly by a trace of sheer disbelief.
"Impossible! The fifth realm killing the ninth realm? How is that possible?!"
Boyan muttered softly under his breath.
Even the peerless prodigies of their Yuan Meng Empire, or the Yuan Meng Emperor himself when he was in the fifth realm, could never have killed a ninth-realm expert.
To severely injure Tong Guan with that Blood Guanyin and then draw his sword to kill him?
Even if a ninth-realm expert had been severely wounded, did he truly think the fifth realm could kill the ninth?
How An Le had managed it was beyond Boyan's comprehension; even when he pinched his fingers to calculate, he could make neither head nor tail of it.
Because, vaguely, a great terror loomed, making his calculating fingers nearly cramp up.
Yet, Boyan could be certain that Tong Guan had indeed been killed by An Le's own hands, because the invincible momentum crowning An Le's head—which was undergoing a transformation and emitting golden light—was the best proof!
"This boy... is extraordinary. The threat he poses must be rated up another level. A fifth realm killing a ninth realm is too terrifying... Can those prodigies on our Yuan Meng Falcon Ranking compare to him?"
Boyan muttered, his self-confidence somewhat shaken.
...
The battle on the Canglang River battlefield came to a halt.
The wars spearheaded by peerless military generals like Ye Longsheng, Zhong Shiji, and Di Cang naturally could not end just because someone said so.
However, the clashes between the top powerhouses paused temporarily.
Ye Longsheng's eyes shone brightly as he gripped the Asphalt Spring Spear, his fighting spirit soaring as he felt a surge of hot blood in his chest.
Wearing a bronze mask and gripping the Zhao Ancestor Dragon-Slaying Saber, Di Cang threw his head back and laughed uncontrollably, his hair disheveled like a wild madman. It was too exhilarating!
Tong Guan... had actually been counter-killed by An Le!
This simply made Di Cang feel supremely gratified!
After laughing heartily, Di Cang's eyes blazed with fighting spirit. With a wave of his dragon-slaying saber, surging blade qi forced blood to spray from the Yuan Meng general facing him.
Under the drive of his towering fighting spirit, his Cyan-Faced Army—all wearing cyan masks—also surged with battling intent, growing bolder with every fight as they suppressed the Yuan Meng main army.
The situation on the battlefield even shifted as a result.
...
The southern bank of the Canglang River.
Raindrops fell silently onto the canopy of the carriage, kicking up a hazy mist of water.
Prince Jiangling stood upon the carriage shaft, accompanied by the Second Prince Zhao沛 and Li Qingchuan, a Daoist master of the Heavenly Master Mansion.
The three of them fell silent.
In their eyes, An Le was bound to be killed by Tong Guan; yet, the reality had unimaginably reversed itself.
"The fifth realm killing... the ninth realm?"
Li Qingchuan spoke with difficulty, his voice bitter.
He had once thought that if he couldn't find trouble with Zhao Huangting, he would seek trouble with An Le...
Yet now, it seemed this An Le was even more terrifying than Zhao Huangting, at least Zhao Huangting hadn't killed a ninth-realm master recently...
"Impossible... impossible..." Second Prince Zhao Pei took a deep breath, his astonishment turning into sheer terror.
Killing a ninth-realm master... this was something he had never imagined possible.
...
...
Li You'an strode across the waves, his gaze falling upon An Le with a hint of disbelief.
The surrounding cultivators of the Underworld Mansion had all perished as well, though naturally through a different method than Tong Guan—a distinction that was easy to tell at a glance.
This crisis, which everyone had thought would be endlessly thorny for An Le, turned out to... amount to nothing at all.
An Le actually harbored a trump card capable of bringing even a ninth-realm powerhouse to grief!
Beneath the Canglang River, majestic drawing forces continued to erupt. An Le tapped the tips of his toes on the rippling river surface and swiftly swept back onto the light boat.
Inside the cabin, Zhao Huangting was wrapped and entangled by the sword qi released from the Evergreen sword artifact.
However, positioned within the bloody mist, he had naturally witnessed the scene of An Le personally executing Tong Guan with utter clarity.
"This kid... I'm understanding him less and less."
Zhao Huangting suppressed the astonishment in his heart and burst into laughter.
The Evergreen sword flew over, pinned at An Le's waist, while the Return of the Swallows returned to its sword box, slung across his body.
An Le smiled and cupped his fists toward Li You'an, though he did not speak.
A curve formed at the corner of Li You'an's lips, his eyes full of appreciation and admiration: "You truly are... more legendary than I was."
An Le merely smiled gently, his complexion pale, the wisp of deathly qi lingering between his brows extremely conspicuous.
Li You'an furrowed his brows slightly...
Not just Li You'an; the mental perceptions of numerous powerhouses clearly observed this wisp of deathly qi between An Le's brows.
For a moment, many people breathed a sigh of relief. Killing a ninth realm was indeed not easily done, and the price paid was equally massive.
Deathly qi entering the Niwan Palace would inevitably impair the boy's spirit-forging path; even if he stepped into the sixth realm of Ascension, every step forward would be fraught with difficulty.
This was essentially trading one's own foundation for the life of a ninth-realm master.
Was it worth it?
Naturally, it was worth it. After all, this deathly qi was not entirely unerasable!
If one could find certain rare heavenly treasures and earthly materials, there was still a chance to grind away the deathly qi.
Even so, for a fifth-realm warrior to kill a ninth-realm master—regardless of whether external force was borrowed—was an epic feat bound to be recorded in history!
Very soon, the entire world would likely spread word of the teenager's record-shaking achievement!
A ninth-realm master had used his life to prove the birth of a legend!
"Rest assured, I will find a way to help you remove this wisp of deathly qi."
Li You'an was silent for a moment before saying in a deep voice.
In his view, surviving was a fortune in misfortune; as for deathly qi... they would just find a way to resolve it. With his strength, status, and prestige, finding a solution wouldn't be difficult.
An Le continued his gentle smile as he retreated back into the cabin.
Li You'an stepped aside, pacing beside the skiff to escort it. In truth, this skiff no longer required any escort.
Because the dead Underworld Mansion cultivators aboard those twenty ghost-ships could no longer pose any threat. A grand, roaring attempt to intercept and encircle had met such a desolate end.
The grim and miserable corpses scattered across the ghost-ships seemed to be repenting.
The skiff slowly sailed past, leaving behind only the roaring river waves and the corpse of Tong Diaosi, which was slowly being swallowed and sinking into the riverbed.