The Modern Martial Immortal

Using Void Flicker, Yaoguang appeared directly above the small city, which spanned no more than fifteen hundred kilometers across.[1]

The entire city appeared to have fallen into a deep slumber. Every inhabitant's face was drained of color, each one trapped within horrifying nightmares.

Countless terrifying thoughts born from those nightmares rose steadily upward, gathering into a grotto-heaven hovering above the city like a phantom, like a curtain of light, continuously devouring the emotions generated by the city's terrorized citizens as well as the essence, qi, and psyche of every living soul within.

At this rate, all the cultivators in the city would be dead within ten days at most, drained dry by the violent surge of emotions. As for the nearly one million ordinary people living within the city, the fiendish cultivator had likely arrived a day or two ago, and ordinary people could not endure for long. Most had already perished.

Yaoguang swept out with his hand, and the grotto-heaven that had encapsulated the city was ripped apart as though struck by the blade of divine retribution.

The sudden blow startled the Void-Piercing fiendish cultivator within. "Deputy Sect Master Yaoguang of the Heavenly Dao Sect?!"

The moment he recognized the attacker, the Void-Piercing cultivator lost any desire to fight to the death. The instant his grotto-heaven was torn open, he seemed to activate some life-preservation technique. The surrounding void began to churn as he rapidly dissolved his form, splitting into two clouds of dark mist that streaked away into the distance.

The Fiendish Dao was formless. Nearly every fiendish cultivator lacked a fixed physical body, which was precisely why they could shift their form the instant they came under attack.

But this advantage, overwhelming against lower-tier cultivators, was of little use against Void-Piercing cultivators who wielded the power of the void, and even less so against someone like Yaoguang, a Void-Refining cultivator who had planted a void Dao Seed.

As the two clouds of fiendish mist attempted to flee, Yaoguang's grotto-heaven materialized. Following Yaoguang's pointed finger, the grotto-heaven's power projected outward, planting what seemed like a black hole within each of the two mist clouds and beginning to devour them voraciously.

Though the mist itself carried void properties and could even warp space, it was still rapidly consumed in the face of Yaoguang's grotto-heaven power. The scene was like a black hole swallowing two stars, only those stars were made of fiendish mist.

No matter how desperately the Void-Piercing Realm fiendish cultivator struggled, he could only watch helplessly as his own body was drawn ever faster toward Yaoguang's grotto-heaven.

"Damn you!" the fiendish cultivator shouted.

Faced with death, the fiendish cultivator made a decisive choice without a moment's hesitation. The fiendish mist transformed into absolute darkness that blotted out everything around it, shrouding even Yaoguang's grotto-heaven power and preventing it from locating the fiendish cultivator's true body.

"A life-bound Dao Technique derived from the Great Dao of darkness?"

Yaoguang's expression did not change. His True Spirit Light blazed outward. Illuminated by it, the grotto-heaven that had been obscured by the Great Dao of darkness regained the ability to perceive its target and locked onto the location of the fiendish cultivator's true body.

In the next instant, Yaoguang stepped through the void. A Void Flicker brought him directly above the fiendish cultivator's true body, and his grotto-heaven manifested, dragging both the cultivator and the surrounding space into itself.

"How is this possible? My Dark Tracelessness is difficult to detect even for Void-Refining cultivators, which is precisely why the sect assigned me to infiltrate the southern domain... and yet you..."

The Void-Piercing Realm fiendish cultivator was both stunned and furious. His body of mist continued to shift and morph, searching desperately for a way to escape the grotto-heaven's refinement.

But with each surge of power from Yaoguang's grotto-heaven, he could only watch as more and more of his body was consumed and ground away, becoming part of Yaoguang's grotto-heaven. No amount of struggling or resistance made any difference.

"Stop! Yaoguang, if you kill me, you will have made an enemy of the entire Yin Lunar Sect! The Heavenly Dao Sect's sect master has a long tradition of suppressing deputy sect masters who grow too prominent. Within the sect, the sect master already has his eyes on you. If you also provoke our sect, you will be besieged from the inside and out, and your reign as lord of the southern domain will soon come to an end! Spare me, and I can petition the sect to cease all operations against your southern domain. We could even join forces and help you stand against Zong Wenxian together!"

The fiendish cultivator's psychic thoughts extended through the dark mist in continuous waves, each one carrying a strange resonance that seemed to inspire involuntary trust in whatever it conveyed. This was another of his Dao Techniques: the Heart-Bewitching Mantra.

Unfortunately, Yaoguang did not even need to invoke his soul-type defensive Dao Technique, the Supreme Selflessness. Simply maintaining the True Spirit Light was enough. Thanks to the True Spirit Light's inherent properties, the bewitching power of the Heart-Bewitching Mantra, which had barely reached the beginner stage, was effortlessly dispersed.

"You knew this was my territory and still dared to run rampant here. Let me use your lives to warn the Yin Lunar Sect exactly what price must be paid for setting foot in the southern domain," Yaoguang said calmly, accelerating the grotto-heaven's operation.

Beneath the overwhelming dominance of void power, the fiendish flames born from the fiendish cultivator's true body were ground down and put out one by one, converted into void power that flowed into the grotto-heaven. Any attempt to struggle and resist was completely pointless.

Within half an hour, the fiendish cultivator had been completely refined, broken down into nourishment that expanded the grotto-heaven. Afterward, Yaoguang grasped the air, and three masses of fiendish mist condensed in his palm, forming three spirit treasures.

"A broke loser," he remarked.

"This Void-Piercing fiendish cultivator did not specialize in Dao Techniques related to slaughter, sacrifice, or bloodshed... There is at least a second Void-Piercing cultivator still somewhere in the Meng state."

With that assessment made, Yaoguang recalled the nearest city to mind and flickered away, vanishing from the small city in an instant.

The fiendish cultivators' presence within the Meng state had grown so severe that the ruling families of the state had in all likelihood already defected or been overrun. Seeking information from local families would be pointless. Besides, with his Void Flicker having reached the mastery stage, sweeping through Meng state would not take him long.

Perhaps because he had wiped out the fiendish cultivators in every city he visited, or perhaps because slaying a Void-Piercing Realm fiendish cultivator had put the Yin Lunar Sect on alert, by the time Yaoguang cleared the nineteenth city, he found not a single fiendish cultivator remaining.

Yet from the traces left behind, it was clear that fiendish cultivators had been rampaging here not long before. They had to have left very recently.

"They sensed the danger? Understandable. With a Void-Piercing cultivator dead, any faction would realize the threat and swiftly retreat," Yaoguang said.

Following the traces that the fleeing fiendish cultivators had not had time to erase, Yaoguang chased after them. He had traveled less than twenty thousand kilometers when a group of over ten fiendish cultivators appeared within his perception.

Yaoguang materialized before them, not wasting a single word with the group, whose strongest members were no higher than the ninth tier. His grotto-heaven swept out and pulled them in, and he proceeded to refine them one by one.

Fiendish cultivators typically had no physical form, existing in a state that could be described as pure energy. In this state, they were no less useful as cultivation material than rare and precious resources.

Of course, only a Void-Refining cultivator had the capacity to refine fiendish cultivators as cultivation material.

The Void-Refining Realm. The very name said it all: the realm of one who refined all things under heaven into nourishment for the self and expanded the grotto-heaven with whatever existed. Living beings could be refined; the sun, the moon, and the stars could be refined; even time and the void itself could be refined.

The only variable was how swiftly or slowly each substance could be refined.

While in the process of refining the fiendish cultivators, Yaoguang sensed something and reached out, plucking a communication jade talisman from one of the cultivators still being consumed by his grotto-heaven.

A sweep of his psychic thought quickly decoded the message within. "Unknown powerful cultivator spotted! Gather at Spiral Dream City immediately. Begin withdrawal at once!"

"Spiral Dream City?"

Yaoguang crushed the jade talisman, recalled the city's location from memory, dismissed any thought of a potential trap, brought out the Void Disk, and headed there at full speed.

With his current strength, as long as he did not encounter a Dao Lord or a fiendish cultivator with techniques specifically designed to counter his Void Flicker, nothing in the world could restrict him.

In less than half an hour, Yaoguang arrived outside Spiral Dream City aboard the Void Disk.

"Hmm?" The moment he reached the Spiral Dream City, he sensed something.

Danger. Something dangerous was concealed within this city. But...

The danger is not overwhelming. If my judgment is correct, there should be a Void-Refining fiendish cultivator hiding inside. Yaoguang thought.

These fiendish cultivators had clearly investigated the combat forces at his disposal. Aside from himself, his most powerful subordinate was Qi Sha.

If a Void-Piercing fiendish cultivator were running rampant at the border, the person he would most likely dispatch in response was Qi Sha, a peak Void-Piercing cultivator who commanded the Great Dao of destruction. In that case, if Qi Sha had actually received the information and made his way to the Spiral Dream City, a concealed Void-Refining cultivator would be more than enough to ensure his death.

And even if a Void-Refining cultivator were lured there instead, it would not necessarily matter. The Yin Lunar Sect had Void-Refining cultivators of their own, and with Void-Piercing fiendish cultivators providing support on the side, the outcome would be far from certain.

"A Void-Refining cultivator... You came at exactly the right moment." Yaoguang put away the Void Disk and brought out the Two-Realm Ruler.

"The Dao Artifact auction has not yet begun, and there are barely any Void-Refining cultivators present, yet already quite a few people are stirring up trouble in the Southern Capital and undermining order. When it comes down to it, my deterrence is simply not strong enough. And what better way to strengthen it than by slaying a Void-Refining fiendish cultivator?"

In the next instant, he appeared directly above Spiral Dream City.

This city had once been a major one in the Meng state, home to hundreds of thousands of cultivators and tens of millions of inhabitants if ordinary people were counted as well. Now, it was a city of the dead.

Countless tendrils of fiendish qi, varying in strength, filled every corner of the city like a great net, or like a gaping maw, seeming capable of swallowing any living being that entered. In the eyes of those within, Yaoguang would be no exception.

A quiet hum rippled outward. The moment Yaoguang appeared above the city, several psychic thoughts stirred simultaneously.

"Void traversal techniques?! A big fish has taken the bait!"

"Wait, let me see who this is! Deputy sect master of the Heavenly Dao Sect, lord of the southern domain, Yaoguang?! A big fish! This really is a big fish!"

"Lord Evil Eye, your baiting technique was simple enough, but you have drawn out the Heavenly Dao Sect's greatest asset in the southern domain."

The moment these psychic thoughts identified who had arrived, every one of them started burning with excitement.

Shortly after, a creature resembling a humanoid figure but possessing six arms and three pairs of eyes manifested above the city. The fluctuations radiating from his body made his nature unmistakable.

He was a Void-Refining Realm fiendish cultivator!

1. Editor's thoughts: Right, such a small city. 1500km across. Just about the distance between New York and Miami as the crow flies (that's 1600, but still)... ☜

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