First Immortal of the Sword

Chapter 246 - Self-Torment

As he attacked, Su Yi had already called upon the power of his soul. Using the Universal Self-Embodiment Sutra as a source, he activated a soul-binding art. 

The soul avatar possessing Chen Zheng was caught off guard, and it instantly took damage.

“Dammit!” Within Chen Zheng’s mental sea, an angry, startled roar rang out. 

Then, something imprisoned the entire quivering entity of soul power. No matter how much it struggled, it couldn’t move in the slightest. 

“Aren’t you afraid I’ll destroy this person’s soul?” the wisp of soul power roared. 

“Tch!” Su Yi ignored him and followed through. He used a secret soul technique as a restriction, firmly sealing and imprisoning that wisp of soul power. 

The entity formed of soul power belonging to an otherworld cultivator instantly lost all ability to resist. 

Su Yi exhaled, a hint of exhaustion on his brow. With his current cultivation, using soul magic to imprison the soul avatar of someone who was at least in the Spirit Dao was clearly taxing.

Fortunately, he succeeded in the end. 

This time, Chen Zheng’s really coming out ahead. He’s obtained fortune from disaster…. Su Yi thought to himself. 

Chen Zheng came perilously close to being possessed. His plight was dire indeed. 

Yet now that Su Yi had sealed that foreign soul power, as soon as Chen Zheng healed, he could use various treasures to refine the foreign soul power that had tried to take over his body. That wouldn’t just strengthen Chen Zheng’s own soul. He could even obtain a portion of that outsider’s memories and cultivation experience!

To Chen Zheng, this was naturally a stroke of fortune as grand as the heavens themselves. 

Of course, Su Yi didn’t mind teaching Chen Zheng a secret method capable of refining that soul power to make this process go faster. After all, he thought highly of Chen Zheng's character. 

As Su Yi pondered, he placed Chen Zheng’s unconscious body on the ground, then looked up at the hovering, blood-colored vortex once more. 

“Fellow Daoist, is the Spiritmartial Marquis alright?” Ning Sihua and Mu Xi walked over.

“He’s fine. He’ll wake up soon,” Su Yi said casually.

“What about that guy just now? Did you already kill him?” Mu Xi couldn’t help but ask. 

“He’s not dead, but he’s not far from death,” said Su Yi.

Mu Xi subconsciously gasped, then said in a daze, “A mighty expert who crossed the barrier between worlds fell, just like that?”

When he recalled Su Yi’s conversation with that cultivator from another world just now, as well as the methods Su Yi had just put on display, his heart shook. A long time passed before he calmed down.

Yes, the struggle for the Grand Dao couldn’t be decided overnight.

However, when Mu Xi realized that the gulf between himself and Su Yi was insurmountably vast, he couldn’t help but feel dejected and melancholy. 

And here I thought I was a proud son of heaven, blessed by fortune, a unique genius of the Great Zhou. Now, it seems my horizons were too narrow. This world has no lack of unknown and peerless existences, like…. Like him….. Mu Xi sighed to himself, suddenly in low spirits. 

They said, “Don’t fear differences in quality; fear failing to tell the difference,” and “Don’t fear others’ superiority; fear failing to recognize it.”

To Mu Xi, the youngest of the Great Zhou’s foreign-surnamed kings, everything he’d seen during this trip to Bloodthistle Yao Mountain and everything he’d witnessed since meeting Su Yi was like a windstorm repeatedly buffeting his heart, overturning his worldview again and again and again. 

Now, even if he were even more unwilling, he had no choice but to admit it. He might be a king and a Xiantian Martial Ancestor, and he might well be possessed of great fortune, but his radiance seemed dim in comparison to the Qi Accumulation Youth before him. 

When Ning Sihua saw Mu Xi sink into silence, his expression shifting and uncertain, she couldn’t help but feel the sympathy of a fellow sufferer. She deeply understood how conflicted Mu Xi must feel.

Since meeting Su Yi, her perception of reality had changed too; he’d shocked her again and again. She couldn’t even imagine what kind of person Su Yi was or how many secrets he must be hiding. 

Nor could she wrap her head around why a young man like him was content to live amidst the mundane.

By now, she was starting to get desensitized to all this strangeness. It was like…. In this world, no matter what unimaginable thing happened around Su Yi, it seemed obvious and perfectly natural….

Meanwhile….

Boom!

A noise like a sudden crack of thunder resounded through the endless darkness, rousing Chen Zheng’s awareness.

He felt as if he were awakening from a dream. He sensed his familiar body and heard the powerful, rhythmic beating of his heart.

“I….I’m not dead, am I….?” Chen Zheng’s eyes quietly opened, and he stared in a daze, bewilderment written all over his face.

Ning Sihua couldn’t help but laugh. “Spiritmartial Marquis, please rest assured. Thanks to Fellow Daoist Su’s timely intervention, you’ve been saved from the brink of a life-and-death calamity.” 

Chen Zheng was briefly stunned. He suddenly rose, rubbed his face, then grinned as if a massive weight had been lifted from his shoulders. “So, I really am still alive…!”

This time, his behavior amused even Mu Xi, who laughed, “If you were dead, wouldn’t that make us wandering ghosts too?”

Chen Zheng rose, then solemnly clasped his fist. “Greetings, Mountain-Subduing King. Greetings…..”

He was suddenly at a loss for words; he didn’t recognize Ning Sihua. 

“This is Palace Master Ning Sihua of Heaven’s Origin Academy.” Su Yi then turned to look at him and asked casually, “How do you feel?”

Chen Zheng silently evaluated his condition for a moment. His pupils constricted. “It seems…. It seems there’s something in my mental sea, something that wasn’t there before….”

“That’s the soul power entity I imprisoned. He’s the one who occupied your body earlier.” Su Yi then simply and concisely explained what had just happened. 

Only then did Chen Zheng understand just how terrifying of a situation he’d just undergone. He couldn’t help but break out in cold sweats.

He hurriedly clasped his fist. “Many thanks, Young Lord Su. You’ve saved my life. I’ll carve this benevolence into my heart and remember it until the day I die!”

Su Yi waved his gratitude away. “There’s no need for such politeness between us. When we get back, I’ll teach you a method for refining the soul power imprisoned in your sea of consciousness.” 

He paused, then looked up at the hovering, ten-thousand-foot crimson vortex. “Palace Master Ning, you and the Mountain-Subduing King should take the Spiritmartial Marquis and leave this place. I’ll be back in a day or so, three days at most.”

Although Ning Sihua couldn’t help but feel confused about what he was planning to do, she resisted the urge to ask. She nodded, and the three of them headed for the exit. 

Before long, Su Yi was the only person remaining on the vast ritual grounds. 

He fell silent for a while, then suddenly took a deep breath and pressed off hard against the ground. 

Bzzz!

A portion of the formation’s inscrutable power surged, forming a magic cloud that carried him into the air. 

In the blink of an eye, he neared the massive, hovering vortex. 

He felt as if he’d arrived at the mouth of an endless abyss. It was enough to make just about anyone feel paltry and insignificant. 

As the vortex slowly revolved, currents of baleful energy flowed out, producing deafening booms.

This was the barrier between worlds. It was imprinted with the supreme power of spatial order!

“Without a worthy opponent, I can only resort to masochistic methods like this.....” Su Yi sighed. 

Then, he steered the cloud closer and closer to the baleful energy along the periphery of the vortex.

Boom!

He was only on the verge of drawing close to the circulating currents of baleful energy when a terrifying, annihilating force bore down on him. He trembled and instantly circulated his entire cultivation. Only then did he manage to resist the shock of that annihilating power. 

When he adjusted to this level of annihilating force, Su Yi took a deep breath, then inched closer.

Instantly, he was like a tiny ship swept into a vast, bloody whirlpool, shaking back and forth, seemingly on the verge of collapse. On numerous occasions, he was almost swept away.

Rumble!

Su Yi’s dark eyes were deep and profound as he called upon his full cultivation and began practicing. As he moved slowly but in accordance with the Pine and Crane Body Refining Technique, he resembled a solitary pine embedded in the mountainside.

The torrential crimson baleful energy crashed into him in waves, relentlessly assailing his tall, lean frame. Each attack struck with the force of a massive hammer, stimulating his skin, sinews, blood, and organs until all of them were trembling. 

That agonizing sensation made him feel as if a blunt knife were slashing him apart. Even Su Yi couldn’t help but furrow his brow and groan. 

This really was no different from torture.

But there was nothing for it. If he wanted to turn his true essence into Dao Astral Force as quickly as possible, this most brutal of methods was also undoubtedly the most effective.

Furthermore, so close to the massive vortex, a moment’s carelessness could lead to death, just like in life-or-death combat.

An hour later.

Su Yi retreated without the slightest hesitation. He returned to the ground, took out a handful of recovery medicines, and meditated. 

His face was pallid, and throughout his body, his skin was ripped open and stinging. His hands and feet quivered uncontrollably, and his true essence was almost spent. He was in an extremely weakened state.

“I’m just glad I had those guys leave first. If they saw me like this, I’m afraid it would ruin my valiant image….” The corners of Su Yi’s lips twitched.

He took a deep breath, then focused on his meditation.

A full six hours passed before he silently opened his eyes, stood, and took to the air. He stopped before the vortex’s torrents of baleful energy and began practicing the Pine and Crane Body Refining Technique again and again.

He was like a calm yet stubborn masochist, tempering his body to its limit, teetering on the edge of life and death.

There were no quick fixes or easy solutions when cultivating the Grand Dao.

If you wanted to be invincible within a given realm, if you wanted to stand above both the ancients and your contemporaries, you naturally had to endure tribulations beyond the limits of others’ endurance!

Su Yi was extremely lazy in his day-to-day life, but when it came to cultivation, he’d never slacked off.

On the contrary, he was so disciplined, and his demands of himself were exacting, that it was almost perverted. 

It was due to this willpower and spirit that, in his past life, he’d stood at the pinnacle of the Nine Provinces of the Wilds, suppressing the heavens with his sword.

And it was because of his desire to pursue greater heights of swordsmanship that he had, without the slightest reluctance, cast aside the glory and status of his past life to reincarnate and cultivate afresh!

At the end of the day, it was a matter of temperament. 

When you were wholeheartedly fixated on the sword, everything except cultivation became entirely unworthy of mention.

Two days later.

Su Yi staggered and sat down, his face pallid and his body drenched in cold sweats. He shook from head to toe as if on the verge of collapse. 

He breathed in great big gasps, yet his face lit up with irrepressible joy. In the end, even his lips curved into a smile.

Those unreadable eyes lit up with the radiance of the stars of the night sky.

“I’ve done it!” Su Yi sounded satisfied, and his voice was full of emotion. In a bit over a month, his cultivation had reached the true pinnacle of the Qi Accumulation Realm!

All of his true essence had converted into the purest Dao Astral Force!