Although Jiang Li considered himself powerful, the attacks of Immortal Artifacts were mysterious and unpredictable; even he could not say for certain that he would surely win. His true body drew out the Desolation Halberd.
One of his incarnations held a longsword, wielding the Heart Sword, intent on slaying the will of the Immortal Artifacts; another incarnation fused various Magical Arts, casting forth the Three Grand Arts of Buddhism, Daoism, and Confucianism in endless succession.
Bai Hongtu seemed to once again see Jiang Li back in his Union Stage days—before he had become the Human Emperor—his mastery of Magical Arts already reaching perfection, his physical strength indescribably immense, his ever-changing weapons impossible to guard against as he swept across all opponents of the same realm.
At that time, without even a suitable weapon in hand, he had already been that strong. Now that he wielded the Desolation Halberd, Bai Hongtu could no longer fathom just how powerful Jiang Li had become.
If one were to ask who in the present age could quell the chaos caused by the Immortal Artifacts, he believed that none but Jiang Li could do so. The four Confucian Protectors each wielded a Gentleman Sword in one hand and a Dragon Pearl in the other. The Gentleman Sword’s sharpness was unmatched; the Dragon Pearl’s defense was absolute.
The might they exuded clearly surpassed what the Tribulation Transcendence Stage should possess. Jiang Li swept his halberd across, shattering the four Gentleman Swords and sending the four Protectors flying. If not for the defense of their Dragon Pearls, that single strike would have blasted them straight back into their "War" Talismans!
“So painful!”
“So barbaric!”
“He’s got more strength than our Dragon Race!”
The four Dragon Pearls cried out in unison. Indeed, they had gained sentience—and with it, sensation and emotion. The “Death” Talisman attached itself to one of Jiang Li’s incarnations.
That incarnation cast the Golden Cicada Shedding Technique, allowing a new incarnation to fly out from above its head while the old one turned to ashes. The Great Scholar Script-Slip was still not satisfied.
It hurled forth a “Burn” Talisman, yet Jiang Li’s new incarnation radiated Buddhist light, reborn from the flames and molded into a Golden Body, like a Vajra Arhat. Another incarnation slashed out its Heart Sword. The sword’s intent cut straight into the Great Scholar Script-Slip’s consciousness, injuring both it and the incompletely written “Destruction” Talisman that lay beside it.
The intent of the sword did not cease—it would not turn back unless every trace of enemy will was annihilated. Terrified, the Great Scholar Script-Slip hastily wrote down a “Stillness” Talisman, clearing its mind just in time to narrowly avoid this calamity.
The Ruyi Gourd once more unleashed a Heavenly Tribulation, yet Jiang Li’s incarnation used the Free and Unfettered Technique to nimbly evade the attacks of the Heavenly Thunder, coming away completely unharmed. The Brahma Tower relied on its own heavy mass to form a black hole, engaging Jiang Li head-on.
Yet the Desolation Halberd was the ultimate weapon of firm Yang, unyielding and immune to physical wear—its form could only be changed through the gentle art of weapon refining. Unafraid of the black hole, the Desolation Halberd crashed down upon the tower’s body. Neither side employed skill—only brute strength.
Jiang Li gripped the Desolation Halberd tightly, his body utterly motionless. However, the Brahma Tower’s body was smashed with several deep craters; its once-straight spire now shaped like a gourd. A few more strikes and it would split clean in half, forced back into the furnace for reforging!
The people below watched with trembling hearts, fearful that the Human Emperor Jiang might not prevail against so many Immortal Artifacts. But the Immortal Artifacts themselves were even more fearful—terrified that they might fall and perish here today. Jiang Li sensed something watching him, full of malice.
Trusting his instinct, he looked up—but saw nothing. Still, he trusted his intuition. With a speed surpassing light, he hurled the Desolation Halberd.
The halberd vanished—only to reappear soon after, as though mimicking when the Third Prince and Fourth Prince of Great Zhou had once displayed Time Tracing.
“Human, you are worthy!”
The Yin-Yang Heavenly Seal finally located the missing portion of itself and took the chance, while Jiang Li battled the other Immortal Artifacts, to refine that fragment back into its body.
“You’ve forced me! I’ll plunge you into eternal damnation!”
The Yin-Yang Heavenly Seal’s voice dripped with venom—it had the right to be so arrogant, for it grasped the karma of all Nine Provinces.
“You shall face endless calamities; every step will be as if treading through mire!”
Its words carried the power of Dao; with the decree spoken, dire fortune should have followed.
Jiang Li ought to have experienced all manner of impossible coincidence—his Spiritual Qi thrown into chaos, his cultivation suddenly lost, or perhaps to become inexplicably hated by all, hunted by everyone, or even sink into the Temporal Mist and revert into his weakest self of five hundred years ago… Yet none of those things occurred.
Nothing at all changed upon Jiang Li’s body.
“How can it be that I cannot see your karma! How can I possibly not see your karma!”
The Yin-Yang Heavenly Seal cried out in disbelief, its composure lost as it screamed in madness. It could see the karmic threads of every person, every Spirit Treasure—yet Jiang Li stood apart, seemingly detached from the Nine Provinces, without any karmic tie whatsoever! Jiang Li, though unsure of the reason, knew this was not the moment to think about it.
His three incarnations struck together, each using their own methods, smashing the Yin-Yang Heavenly Seal until cracks spread across its body. The Yin-Yang Heavenly Seal shrieked in pain, and suddenly began to wail, “Waaaah, I don’t want to play anymore—you bully!” And not only it—other Immortal Artifacts began to cry as well.
They had only just awakened today, their intelligence that of five or six-year-old children. Mischievous at heart, they wanted to roam freely across the Nine Provinces, doing as they pleased, believing none could stop them. Yet before they could even begin, they were brutally beaten by Jiang Li.
“Little Tower, take the brothers and run! Leave the Nine Provinces!”
The Brahma Tower had already been prepared. It tore open six Spatial Rifts, and upon seeing them, the rest of the Immortal Artifacts scrambled to dive in.
[Detected Unknown World] [Detected Unknown World] …
[Detected Unknown World] Six prompts echoed in Jiang Li’s mind from the System.
The Immortal Artifacts had fled. Those Spirit Treasures that had also awakened intelligence but were slower to act lost their confidence; under the suppression of countless mighty cultivators, they dared not speak again of forming a Spirit Treasure Imperial Dynasty. Still, everyone knew that the matter of Spirit Treasures gaining intelligence was far from over.
Even if these newly sentient treasures had conceded for now, it was only temporary. If a cultivator were to keep using one, and the treasure decided to slack off or even turn against its master in battle, ruin would be inevitable. Yet cultivators had long grown dependent on their treasures.
If they stopped using them altogether, the strength of the Nine Provinces would surely plummet. Where, then, could these treasures be kept? Left with their owners, they might rebel; gathered together, they might truly form a Spirit Treasure Imperial Dynasty; destroyed, none could bear the loss.
And above all—what should be done about those Immortal Artifacts? Before Jiang Li’s era, generations of Human Emperors had relied on countless means to resist the Extraterrestrial Heavenly Demons, and the Immortal Artifacts were among the most critical of those means.
If Jiang Li were to head to the Immortal Realm and fail to return—or if one day he were to perish of old age—what would the next Human Emperor use to withstand the demons from beyond? Jiang Li remained optimistic. Those Immortal Artifacts were stronger even than the Extraterrestrial Heavenly Demons.
If he could retrieve them and bring them back, the Nine Provinces could enjoy lasting peace. He already understood from fighting them that, in truth, the Immortal Artifacts were not evil by nature. Take the Great Scholar Script-Slip, for instance—it could have pressed the “Death” Talisman onto Jiang Li’s true body instead of his incarnation.
Or the Yin-Yang Heavenly Seal—it could have declared “Jiang Li shall die” instead of merely “each step shall be hard.” They simply disliked being bound by constraints. Moreover, Jiang Li desired to use the Yin-Yang Heavenly Seal himself—to trace the karmic lines and find those seniors who had ascended to the Immortal Realm, thus uncovering the path to that world.
No one before had been able to wield the Yin-Yang Heavenly Seal skillfully enough to do such a thing. Now that it had gained sentience, it should be no problem to find the ascended seniors.
“I’ll go and bring them back,” Jiang Li said during the Grand Assembly of the major sects and powers, leaving everyone present astonished.
Find them? How?
Where could he possibly go?
“These past days, I’ve gained some understanding of the Dao of Space. I can follow the tracks of the Immortal Artifacts and locate them.”
Jiang Li had already confirmed with the System that the coordinates of the six Unknown Worlds the Immortal Artifacts had fled to were all recorded. He only needed to expend Source Points—and he could teleport there directly.
(End of Chapter)