VMMM—
A tremor, so faint it was nearly drowned out by the mountain-shattering roars of the dragon and the bellows of the True Monarchs, echoed in the very instant Heaven and Earth dissolved into chaos and all living things were struck dizzy and blind.
Like a small fish navigating the torrents of a storm-tossed sea, an unremarkable streak of pale white Flowing Light zipped straight into the monstrous, terrifying fissure that the Dragon Monarch’s roar had torn open on the side of Spirit Mountain!
The instant the Flowing Light vanished into the darkness.
A cold and resolute voice detonated deep within the Crown Prince of Nanyin’s Heart and Spirit:
"Our deal is off!"
The corner of the Crown Prince of Nanyin’s eye couldn’t help but twitch.
Even with the profound self-control forged over hundreds of years of practicing the Emperor’s Heart Skill, an ineffable wave of frustration and fury instantly surged through his chest.
’What a monster from the Northwest Demon Sect!’
’Utterly devoid of integrity!’
’He turned on me faster than you can flip a page!’
He took a deep breath, forcibly suppressing the rage that threatened to shatter his regal composure.
This was not the time to dwell on it. He still had work to do.
And he would do it, with or without Qi Yun!
The Crown Prince of Nanyin tore his gaze away from the fissure’s entrance, turning it back to the most chaotic, most pivotal part of the battlefield.
There, the "Enlightenment" of the Dragon Monarch by the World Honored One’s effigy and the Dragon Monarch’s all-out "resistance" had reached their most brutal and dangerous peak!
The True Dragon’s colossal body thrashed and twisted madly beneath the chaotic Celestial Vault. Every movement shattered vast swathes of the void, and a waterfall of Dragon Blood mixed with cyan and gold light rained down.
The golden transformation had consumed more than half its body. Even the tip of one of its magnificent horns was now a piercing gold.
Within its vertical pupils, the savage wildness of the Dragon Race clashed violently with a cold, detached Compassion born of Buddha Nature. It caused the dragon’s eyes, once like a pair of cyan suns, to flicker erratically between frenzied madness and vacant emptiness.
The manifested vision of its Dao Fruit roiled and trembled ceaselessly behind it.
A golden Buddha stood majestically upon a vast ocean... It was a scene of two Great Daos colliding and invading one another in a frenzy.
Meanwhile, the effigy of the World Honored One, seated upon the Twelve-Grade Golden Lotus, remained perfectly still and solemn.
However, its right index finger remained extended. From its tip, a thread of golden Buddha Light—one of ultimate purity and ultimate tyranny—stretched out like the toughest silk, binding it firmly to the patch on the Dragon Monarch’s chest that had first turned gold.
The collision of the two forces had transformed the space around that area into a distorted, indescribably colored "Zone of Daoic Ruin."
Even light and sound were devoured and annihilated within it.
As he took in this scene, the Crown Prince of Nanyin’s eyes flickered.
’Was this... how Father was subjected to Enlightenment too?’
A grim light flashed in the Crown Prince of Nanyin’s eyes. He hesitated no longer.
He slowly drew an object from within the folds of his robes, where it was kept close to his chest.
It was not some dazzling Supreme Treasure; in fact, it was surprisingly crude—
A sheet of plain, unremarkable white paper, its edges even slightly frayed.
The paper was soft and of common stock, like the cheapest calligraphy practice sheets from a mortal academy.
But as the Crown Prince of Nanyin slowly unfurled the white sheet with trembling hands...
A strange transformation began!
In the center of the paper, an ink mark came into view.
It was not a meticulously drawn Talisman, nor was it an arcane script.
It looked more like a wild scholar, drunk and delirious, had picked up a brush laden with thick ink and made a single, careless stroke across the paper.
A crooked, splattered, utterly artless—ink mark.
But the very instant this ink mark was fully revealed to the chaotic battlefield—a space already saturated with Buddha Light, Dao Rhyme, Demonic Qi, and a dragon’s might—
SHIIING—!!!
A sword’s cry—clear, lonely, and piercing to the extreme—shot toward the heavens from that insignificant sheet of white paper!
No!
That was not a sound, but an "Intent"!
A supreme Sword Intent that reigned above all creation, that looked down upon the vicissitudes of the mortal world, that remained itself, unmoved and eternal!
This was utterly different from the tyrannical will of the World Honored One’s Handwriting, with its "I alone am supreme" philosophy that sought to bring all of Heaven and Earth to Enlightenment and absorb them into its Buddha Country.
The Intent bursting from the white paper was "solitary pride"!
It was "boundless desolation"!
It was the resolution of "though I face ten million, I will go forward"!
It was the soaring pride of "with sword in hand, I dare question the heavens"!
It was as if a peerless Sword Immortal stood alone atop a colossal peak, indifferent to the roiling sea of clouds at his feet and the rise and fall of dynasties in the mortal world.
In his eyes, there was only the sword in his hand and the eternally unchanging heavens above.
Infinite Light blossomed from that thin sheet of white paper!
The light was dazzlingly white, coldly white—a white that could seemingly illuminate every illusion in the world and sever every entanglement!
The light rapidly contracted, condensing.
Three feet above the paper, it slowly coalesced into an object.
It was not the imagined Divine Soldier with Sword Qi that pierced the heavens, nor was it an immortal artifact circulating with Dao Rhyme.
It was merely a... Three-foot Cyan Blade, so ordinary it could not be more so.
The hilt was wooden, with no adornment; one could even see the fine grain.
The iron blade was dull and lightless, with no hint of sharpness. It looked more like a piece of unhoned pig iron.
And yet, it was this seemingly mundane cyan blade.
Its tip, however, was naturally aimed from afar at the ever-solidifying effigy of the World Honored One on the golden lotus—the figure radiating the immense power to bring Enlightenment to Heaven and Earth!
"This aura...?!"
"Something’s wrong!!"
The expressions of the Buddhist Cultivation Bodhisattvas—who were locked in a fierce struggle with sixteen Righteous Dao True Monarchs and whose ranks were already in disarray from a Demon Dao True Monarch’s surprise attack—all changed drastically at this moment!
From that seemingly ordinary Three-foot Cyan Blade, they sensed an aura... an aura on a level that felt chillingly familiar.
An aura from the same source as the World Honored One’s Handwriting, yet one that followed a completely opposite path—
A Realm Above the True Monarch!
PFFFT—!!!
Below, the Crown Prince of Nanyin, who held the white paper in both hands, suddenly spewed a mouthful of blood!
And that was not all. Thin lines of blood began to trickle from all seven of his facial orifices.
The incredibly durable gray monk’s robe he wore began to disintegrate inch by inch, revealing the skin beneath.
His skin, once as smooth as jade, was now covered in a dense network of bloody cracks, like fractured porcelain.
From the depths of every crack, that cold, solitary white Sword Intent seeped out, threatening to tear his body—a body that housed a Venerable Dao Foundation and contained Dragon Qi—apart from the inside out!
This was the power of a being Above the True Monarch. Even when released through a sheet of paper sealing but a single wisp of its "Sword Intent," and even when he was not the target, the residual power it radiated was far more than a Great Master could withstand!
This was why he had needed to cooperate with Qi Yun.
By joining forces, two wielders of a Venerable Dao Foundation could use the "Supreme" nature of their foundations to support each other and share the burden. It was perhaps the only way to remain standing against the aftershocks of power on this level.
Unfortunately, that Demon had fled too quickly.
The Crown Prince of Nanyin’s vision swam with black spots, and his Divine Soul felt as if it were being pierced by a billion ice needles.
But he grit his teeth, clinging to his last sliver of clarity with immense willpower. His hands, as if cast from iron, held firm to the sheet of paper as it began to smolder at the edges with a faint white flame, and he lifted it high!
SHIIING!!!
The Three-foot Cyan Blade hovering above the paper moved.
There was no earth-shattering fanfare, no dimension-rending phenomenon.
It simply transformed into a "white line" of ultimate purity and, like a painter’s most effortless brushstroke, shot out flatly toward the distant effigy of the World Honored One.
It moved faster than thought, so fast that the very concept of "distance" seemed to lose all meaning.
One instant, it was above the paper.
The next, it had "arrived" before the vast, sea-like, "I alone am supreme" golden Buddha Light that surrounded the World Honored One’s effigy!
The Buddha Light surged, attempting to block and dissolve this unremarkable "white line."
Yet, wherever the white line passed, the incomparably tyrannical Buddha Light, as if meeting its nemesis, silently parted, faded, and was annihilated!
It was as if this common-looking blade was born with the power to "Slay Buddhas"!
The sword’s tip pointed directly at the World Honored One’s brow, a point shrouded in a halo from which it gazed down with indifference!
In that hair’s breadth of a moment, as the tip of the white-line sword was about to touch the halo on the World Honored One’s brow, an instant when even time seemed to freeze—
Yet another change occurred!
Beside the Twelve-Grade Golden Lotus upon which the World Honored One’s effigy sat, the void, which had been suppressed into absolute stability by its supreme power, rippled gently like the surface of water, without any warning.
A humanoid silhouette even more illusory and ethereal than the World Honored One’s effigy—one that seemed sketched from pure light and shadow—stepped out of the rippling void.
The figure’s face was indistinct, its clothing simple.
Only its eyes were perfectly clear.
And what eyes they were!
Cold. Indifferent. Pure. Piercing.
Its eyes held nothing of creation, nothing of living beings, nothing of Compassion, and nothing of tyranny.
There was only the sword.
There was only an absolute edge—one that could sever all things, shatter the Ten Thousand Laws, and point directly to the source of all!
Its right hand opened, then slowly closed around the hilt of the unremarkable Three-foot Cyan Blade.
He then raised his gaze to the effigy of the World Honored One seated upon the golden lotus.
The sword’s tip was aimed at its brow.
A voice—level, clear, and devoid of any emotional inflection—sounded softly amidst the utter chaos of Heaven and Earth:
"Looking to die?"
...
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