Chapter 1164: Overturning Heaven and Earth with a Single Hand
Chapter 1164: Overturning Heaven and Earth with a Single Hand
Daoist Baihua turned her head away, trembling uncontrollably, not daring to respond.
Li Ping waited for a long time, but she still refused to change her mind. With a soft sigh, he put away the three True Immortal Scripts at his side.
"Very well. If you are unwilling, Fellow Daoist, I shall not force the matter."
"After all, not everyone possesses the courage to leverage the power of a True Immortal..."
"Do you have any difficulties with moving the Five Elements Great Cave-Heaven, Fellow Daoist?" Li Ping asked, returning to the matter at hand.
Sensing that the terrifying auras of power around her had vanished, Daoist Baihua finally managed a brief recovery from her terror.
Saint Emperor Li Ping's tone was now subtly different. Baihua knew that if she refused again, she would truly enrage this madman. Left with no choice, she reluctantly agreed.
"Please set out as soon as you can, Fellow Daoist," Li Ping said, as if it were an afterthought. "And since you'll be in unfamiliar territory, I will send one of my disciples to accompany you, just to be safe."
"This is..."
Even for someone as worldly as Baihua, who had personally witnessed the destruction of entire realms, the sight was difficult to process. Before her stood a body that appeared perfectly human, but was, in reality, a composite of billions of tiny, unknown insects, writhing ceaselessly. Each insect was an individual with its own thoughts, yet they had somehow united to form a single, "human" collective.
The chill that gripped Daoist Baihua wasn't from fear of the endless, grotesque insects. It was a purely instinctual reaction from her body.
Those insects seemed to possess some kind of innate power to suppress bodies composed purely of energy.
Even though she was a Longevity cultivator, and even with a considerable distance separating them, Baihua still felt a sudden agitation and unease stirring within her. Her instincts screamed at her, warning her to stay far away from this insect-human.
"You can call him Dao Yi," Li Ping stated, ignoring her unspoken horror.
"Rest assured. Although Dao Yi's own power is somewhat lacking, he possesses some rather peculiar abilities. With his assistance, your task of moving the Five Elements Great Cave-Heaven should be much easier."
Seeing no way out, Daoist Baihua could only brace herself and give a slight nod. Under Dao Yi's lead, she headed straight for Tianling Province.
As Li Ping watched the two figures recede into the distance, he felt little joy at having subdued a Longevity cultivator with just a few words.
"My own strength is still insufficient. I have to rely on external objects for intimidation. If I could wield the Source Power Essence, none of this trouble would be necessary."
Dao Yi was a special variant of the Dao Yi insect, preserved within the Ten Thousand Beast Condensation Crystal.
No matter how large its population swelled, it could always maintain a single, collective hive mind. More critically, this Dao Yi insect did more than just produce spiritual energy.
Instead, it seemed capable of inhabiting spiritual energy, using it to reproduce and gradually transforming itself into an existence indistinguishable from spiritual energy.
Given favorable conditions, Dao Yi needed only about a year to convert the spiritual energy of an entire small world into "itself."
The entire process was silent and subtle, not even affecting the various life forms that relied on spiritual energy to survive.
Even cultivators of lesser strength would be unable to detect a thing.
Only those who had reached the Nascent Soul stage, having formed an independent grotto-heaven within their bodies, could perceive this mutated spiritual energy.
Li Fan had sent Dao Yi—nurtured with a wisp of his own consciousness—to the Five Elements Great Cave-Heaven for the precise purpose of allowing it to undergo a transcendent evolution there.
By harnessing the vast reserves of spiritual energy within the Five Elements Great Cave-Heaven, he intended to cultivate enough mutated spiritual energy to shake the entire Xuanhuang Realm to its core.
Under normal circumstances, Dao Yi would never have been able to establish itself in the Xuanhuang Realm.
Once the mutation of spiritual energy exceeded a certain scale, it would inevitably attract the attention of cultivators and be reported to the Ten Thousand Immortals Alliance.
And while it would be troublesome, exterminating these insects would not be an especially difficult task for the Alliance.
However, there is always a delay between discovery and response.
With a sufficiently large initial population, it could achieve a complete transfusion of the realm's spiritual energy before the cultivators of the Xuanhuang Realm even had time to react.
This strategy, cutting them off at the very source, was the killing blow Li Ping had prepared for his counterattack on the Xuanhuang Realm.
When spiritual energy itself gained self-awareness and the ability to distinguish friend from foe.
The advantage held by the cultivators of the Federation of All Worlds when fighting those of the Ten Thousand Immortals Alliance would be immense.
"It was time to make the sun and moon shine in new skies."
"The very air of the Xuanhuang Realm has grown decadent. It's time to teach them a harsh lesson."
As a clone of Li Fan, Saint Emperor Li Ping had his memories concerning the [Truth] erased.
In his own mind, he was a product of chance—the very consciousness of the Xuanhuang Realm, born from its desperate will to survive a world-ending crisis.
A so-called Saint of Heavenly Mandate.
He was privy to the vast majority of the Xuanhuang Realm's secrets.
He had even foreseen countless futures in which he met his own destruction.
And his ultimate goal was to reshape the world itself, to liberate the Xuanhuang Realm from the corrupt rule of the Ten Thousand Immortals Alliance.
Saint Emperor Li Ping firmly believed that he was not far from achieving this goal.
...
The finals of the first Great Qi Fishing Tournament had officially begun.
A total of ten finalists would now demonstrate their angling prowess before the Saint Emperor himself.
All three of the Saint Emperor's disciples had originally entered the competition, but in the end, only the simple-minded Wang Xuanba had made it to the finals.
This fact only served to underscore the competition's fairness.
After passing through a circular gate of light and a brief wave of dizziness, the ten contestants found themselves in what appeared to be a perfectly ordinary garden.
The great, faceless Saint Emperor was seated by a small pond not far away, fishing with his eyes closed.
For most of the ten, it was the first time they had been in the Saint Emperor's presence. Not daring to disturb him, they bowed their heads and waited anxiously.
After a long while, the Saint Emperor abruptly retracted his fishing rod.
To everyone's surprise, what he pulled from the pond was not a fish of any kind.
It was a ball of white light.
Casually stowing the ball of light, the Saint Emperor turned to the ten distinguished anglers and explained the rules of the final round.
"In this pond, I have placed countless treasures."
"One person, one rod, one chance."
"The higher the quality of the treasure you fish out, the better your score."
...
His words sent a thrill of excitement through the crowd.
The Saint Emperor had promised that regardless of their ranking, any treasures they caught would be theirs to keep!
As the others watched with eager anticipation, Wang Xuanba, being the Saint Emperor's disciple, went first.
Wang Xuanba had never been to this Fishing Pond before.
He sat for a long time in a daze before finally retracting his rod.
But his line came up empty.
Nothing!
Wang Xuanba was utterly dejected.
Seeing this, the other contestants were deeply shaken. They realized the Saint Emperor's test was far from an ordinary fishing trip. One by one, their expressions grew tense and serious.
As they took their turns at the pond, a total of one purple, three blue, and five white balls of light were fished out.
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