Splitting the Heave

… 

The Spiritual Protection Substitution Talisman in Shang Xia’s hand shattered instantly. It barely managed to buy him a split second after blocking the yellowish-orange blade light.

The intensity of the blade light fell as it continued to chop down at Shang Xia but its tyrannical might remained the same.

Luckily, Shang Xia was ready for it. He started to defend himself after the blade light was obstructed.

He poured the Divine Fire Wine into the Hexagonal Lantern before entering the secret region. The moment he poured his Four Constellation Qi into it, a brilliant flame was lit.

With a slight intention, a pillar of flame shot into the skies. It was promptly sliced in two by the incoming blade light, but both portions of flame quickly twisted around each other to form a protective wall of fire above his head.

After chopping through the pillar of flame, the energy contained in the blade light barely diminished by a third. It continued to slam heavily into the wall of fire, shattering it eventually.

In an instant, Shang Xia lost two layers of protection. 

The blade light continued to fall and it quickly arrived 3 feet above him. Tilting his head to look at the incoming blade light, not a trace of panic could be seen in Shang Xia’s eyes.

He didn’t intend to dodge as he raised his spear. 

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As his Scarlet Star Spear shot upwards, Shang Xia tightened his grip on its shaft as he released his Divine Killing Spear.

His third martial intent wasn’t just the strongest attack he mastered. It also possessed the weirdest properties among everything he knew. Even though Origin True Qi was what powered the strike before he entered the Martial Extermination Realm, it was powered by Four Constellation Qi now that he had successfully broken through. It contained the properties of the four season samsara and made his attack much stronger than before.

The blade light crumbled when the tip of Shang Xia’s spear stabbed into it. As the energy fluctuations started to dissipate, Shang Xia’s expression became even more serious than before.

In the short exchange that happened, Shang Xia not only used his Spiritual Protection Substitution Talisman. He used his inner qi to power the Hexagonal Lantern and released his Divine Killing Spear, exhausting half of his reserve in a short amount of time.

Recalling Shang Pei’s reminder before he entered the secret region, Shang Xia found it a little unbelievable. 

It was absolutely impossible for her husband to push her away at the last second when faced with a blade light of such caliber. If they were facing the same blade light as him, there was no way either of them would be able to react in time.

Since she couldn’t possibly lie about her experience, there was only one other possibility. The blade light he faced was several times stronger than what they had to deal with!

The thought flashed through his mind as he raised his guard. He couldn’t show any sign of weakness and he knew that he would have to react quickly to whatever was thrown his way.

Shang Xia’s lightning-like gaze shifted and he quickly glanced in the direction where the cry came from before.

He was greeted with a shocking sight. He saw the peaks of several mountains poking above the sea of clouds and a familiar figure held his left shoulder that was missing an arm as he struggled to fly towards one of them. 

It was possible to fly in the secret region!

However, from the speed at which the person was flying, Shang Xia could tell that it wasn’t as easy as in the outside world.

It came as no surprise that the figure flying through the air was Duan Liufeng and he probably obtained the other Abyssal Seal from god knew where.

Unlike Shang Pei and her husband who entered together in the past, Duan Liufeng and Shang Xia appeared at different locations within the secret region. Looking at Duan Liufeng flying through the air, Shang Xia wondered if there were even more Abyssal Seals out there. Could there be more people in the secret region other than the two of them?

With that concern in his mind, Shang Xia didn’t start flying around immediately. He extended his divine perception to the greatest range he could to scout his surroundings. Back in the Cloud Water Gorge, he was able to detect a radius of 1000 feet around him without the help of the seal. In the secret region, he was able to observe anything within a 2 mile radius.

It seemed as though the suppression in the secret region was a lot weaker than in the Cloud Water Gorge. As he was observing the situation around him, he discovered that a portion of his divine perception was being ground away.

Turning to stare at the cause, Shang Xia noticed a mountain peak close to 1000 feet away. He noticed a long blade with a third of its body sticking out from the boulder it was stuck in and he turned to focus his divine perception on it. When his divine perception arrived within 30 feet of the giant boulder, it started to distort violently and he couldn’t feel anything in the area around the boulder.

Shang Xia wondered if his divine perception was stopped by some sort of spatial screen or some strange formation, but it wouldn’t take him long to figure it out now that he had arrived. As he thought of how he should progress, he decided to put his spear away.

Casually inspecting his spear while he put it away, he discovered that the tip of his Scarlet Star Spear had been shaved away. It was 3 inches shorter than it should be!

It probably happened when he blocked the blade light earlier.

At the end of the day, the blade light came from a divine weapon. The Scarlet Star Spear was merely a high-grade weapon and it wasn’t comparable in terms of quality. 

After discovering the damage to the tip of his spear, Shang Xia started to inspect the weapon a little more carefully and discovered that the shaft of the spear felt a little thinner than before.

Thinking back to how he stopped the blade light, Shang Xia recalled how it shattered his Spiritual Protection Substitution Talisman instantly. When he raised his spear earlier, Shang Xia was half prepared for his Scarlet Star Spear to shatter. Surprisingly, the spear managed to hold out and other than becoming a little thinner and shorter than before, it still maintained its properties as a high-grade weapon. 

Despite maintaining its grade as a high-grade weapon, Shang Xia knew that he wouldn’t be able to bring out its full strength when wielding this modified version of his Scarlet Star Spear.

Actually, the blade light wasn’t the full reason the Scarlet Star Spear was damaged. Shang Xia’s Four Constellation Qi also had something to do with it.

Because he poured his Four Constellation Qi into his weapon to unleash his Divine Killing Spear, the destructive properties of his inner qi and the formidable power contained in the blade light caused his spear to shrink to its current form.

After realizing what happened to his spear, Shang Xia’s first thought was about how useless a high-grade weapon was to him.

Shang Xia’s Four Constellation Qi was different from other cultivators’ rank four inner qi. He discovered that when he broke through the Jingxiu Peak’s protection formation. When he cycled his inner qi according to the seasonal sequence, he managed to produce a terrifyingly strong destructive force. That was how he destroyed the remaining energy in the blade light earlier and if he had to unleash his Divine Killing Spear a few more times like that, the spear would definitely shatter. When that happened, he would never be able to fix it again.

Since a high-grade weapon wasn’t good enough for him, a renewed sense of determination filled Shang Xia’s heart. His gaze didn’t falter as it landed on the blade stuck in the boulder.

Finally tearing his gaze away from the blade, Shang Xia looked at the sea of clouds around him. It didn’t take long for him to discover that something was wrong. He could see several mountain peaks peeking out from the sea of clouds, but the number of peaks and their location were completely different from what he could sense with his divine perception.

He could see a dozen mountain peaks but his divine perception merely detected 5 of them. That was also including the mountain peak that contained the blade stuck in the boulder.

He was sure that his divine perception could detect anything within a 2 mile radius, but it failed to sense a mountain peak that was barely 2000 feet away. Shang Xia was staring right at it, but all he felt with his divine perception was a patch of empty clouds.

Is the space around the peak twisted? Or is that a trap…

Shang Xia thought to himself as he tried to find Duan Liufeng. Unfortunately, he was no longer able to locate the man.

Shang Xia didn’t even realize when he lost track of Duan Liufeng and that caused him to grow even more wary.

Everything around him seemed to regain its original calm after he dealt with the blade light and an eerie silence pervaded the region.

Looking down at the mountain beneath him, Shang Xia decided he should examine it a little more carefully. When his divine perception covered the mountain, he felt a slight fluctuation coming from below. Hesitating slightly, Shang Xia slowly opened his palm . He felt a trace of energy emerging from the void around him before condensing into a seal that lay quietly in his hand.

It became slightly hefty after it formed completely and Shang Xia looked at it only to discover that it was the Abyssal Seal he had used to enter the secret region. That was because the six sided handle he placed on it before was also present.

Because of all the strange happenings, Shang Xia didn’t know if the seal in his hand was an illusion or the real thing.

Before he could fully make sense of what was happening, his Four Constellation Qi seemed to stain the treasure. It formed some sort of connection with him now that it was fully formed and Shang Xia could feel a strange connection with something else on the mountain below.

Following the sense of attraction, Shang Xia descended the mountain. Since he started on the mountain’s peak, he was way above the sea of clouds. Finally arriving 100 feet from the endless ocean of white, Shang Xia noticed an altar sitting not too far away.

Slowly approaching it, he discovered an empty slot in the middle of the altar that the Abyssal Seal would fit perfectly in. 

The lines on the slot were carved into the altar and the stamp on the seal fit snugly into them. 

Staring at the slot, Shang Xia aimed the seal in his hand carefully before stamping down decisively.

The moment he did, a strange glow surrounded the seal. Under Shang Xia’s shocked gaze, the seal started to transform into a strange liquid that flickered at strange intervals. 

Pinching his glabella which was pulsing slightly, Shang Xia muttered in disbelief, “This… This is world origin in liquid form!”