Half Immortal, Half Ghost

The two halves were divided by a perfectly straight line running from his brow, down the bridge of his nose, across his chest, and along his abdomen.

His left eye was devoid of emotion.

His right eye was madness incarnate.

With every step he took,

an immortal lotus and a mass of black flesh bloomed beneath his feet at the same time.

The immortal lotus was holy and flawless.

The flesh was filthy and grotesquely warped.

Yet the two could meld together.

In the end, they transformed into a gray mark.

System notifications continued to appear in Wang Hao’s mind.

【Life form confirmed!】

【Target: Xuanming!】

【Status: Half-Immortal, Half-Aberration Symbiotic Entity!】

【The Immortal Dao is responsible for maintaining the self and the rules!】

【The aberrant force is responsible for sustaining life and evolution!】

【The two sides have achieved a temporary balance!】

【Intelligence updated!】

【In an age where the Immortal Realm has shattered and the substance of longevity has been exhausted, a stable half-immortal, half-aberration symbiotic entity is the highest form of life currently capable of enduring throughout the myriad heavens!】

【Its power surpasses that of a pure True Immortal!】

【Its vitality surpasses that of a high-level aberration!】

【Threat level: Impossible to assess!】

Wang Hao’s expression grew grave to the extreme.

The highest form of life.

Stronger than a pure True Immortal.

In other words,

the Xuanming before them

was likely the true ceiling of power in this world.

Transcendents could injure a True Immortal,

but they could almost never kill one.

And a half-immortal, half-aberration being

possessed the power of a True Immortal,

as well as the nearly indestructible vitality of an aberration.

How could one kill such a thing?

Immortal injuries could be healed through aberrant power.

Aberrant corruption could be suppressed through the Immortal Dao.

The two powers restrained one another.

And completed one another as well.

At last, Wang Hao understood.

Why Xuanming had dared to devour the Dark Immortal Gate.

Why he had been willing to cross two worlds to seize the Great Dao of Jiuzhou.

He had never merely sought to regain his power.

He wanted to use Jiuzhou’s complete laws to stabilize his Immortal Dao.

Then, by borrowing the aberrant force, gain an eternal and undying life.

Once he succeeded,

Xuanming would no longer be in a temporary state of balance.

He would become a truly complete, ultimate life form.

The Dragon-Slayer slowly spoke.

“Can we still fight?”

Wang Hao considered it seriously.

“From a rational standpoint,”

“no.”

“Then do we run?”

“We can’t run either.”

“So?”

Wang Hao raised the New Emperor Sword.

“Fight.”

The Dragon-Slayer smiled.

“You may be a shameless emperor,”

“but your bones are tough.”

Wang Hao shook his head.

“You misunderstand, Senior.”

“I’m mainly worried about the money.”

“The stronger he gets, the harder it’ll be to collect the debt.”

The smile on the Dragon-Slayer’s face froze.

He should never have praised this brat.

Xuanming stopped before the crack of immortal light.

He lowered his head and looked at his hands.

The flesh of his right hand twisted without end.

At times, it became claws.

At times, tentacles.

At other times, it became countless mouths.

His left hand remained in its immortal-body form.

Immortal radiance flowed over it.

Untouched by all laws.

Xuanming raised his right hand

and gently touched the crack of immortal light.

This time, the laws of Jiuzhou—which had once rejected him so frantically—did not summon heavenly thunder.

Aberrant power spread along the world barrier,

like countless black insects

gnawing at the laws between the two worlds.

The crack of immortal light rapidly widened.

A hundred thousand li.

A million li.

Above the entire Dark Ancestral Court,

a wound with no visible end was torn open.

One of Xuanming’s feet

stepped into Jiuzhou.

Boom!

The earth sank downward.

The heavens were thrust upward.

It was as though Jiuzhou could not bear his weight.

Pitch-black fissures spread outward from the Dark Ancestral Court.

The Central Province trembled.

The Western Wasteland trembled.

The Southern Region and the Northern Frontier erupted in earthshaking quakes at the same time.

The waters of the Eastern Sea even surged backward into the sky.

Xuanming had merely brought one foot across.

It shook the entire Nine Provinces.

The Heavenly Dao of the Nine Provinces condensed into countless chains of laws.

The chains had only just drawn near.

When the left half of Xuanming’s immortal body lit up with endless runes.

The laws of the Immortal Dao were analyzed.

From the right half of his uncanny body, black tendrils extended.

The laws were devoured.

One chain of laws after another vanished.

They had not been shattered.

They had become part of Xuanming’s body.

Xuanming raised his head.

“This is the pinnacle.”

“Immortals are bound by Heaven and Earth.”

“The uncanny are rejected by the laws.”

“But I am both an immortal—”

“and the uncanny.”

“Within all the heavens—”

“there is no world left that can stop my descent.”

His gaze fell upon Wang Hao.

His left eye was indifferent.

His right eye was filled with greed.

“I rather like the three uncanny artifacts on your person.”

The New Emperor Sword immediately spoke up:

“But I don’t like you.”

The sharp teeth in Xuanming’s right eye began to slowly turn.

“Once you become part of me—”

“you will like me.”

The New Emperor Sword fell silent for a moment.

“Master.”

“I suddenly think a strategic retreat sounds pretty good.”

Wang Hao said:

“It’s too late.”

Xuanming’s right hand had already descended.

There was no world-shrouding immortal palm.

Nor were there any world-destroying omens.

He merely reached out and gave Wang Hao a gentle grab.

The space around Wang Hao instantly became a sealed prison.

Front and back.

Left and right.

Above and below.

Every direction collapsed toward the center at once.

Xuanming intended to crush Wang Hao and the three uncanny artifacts into a single point.

The Transcendence Great Dao within Wang Hao rose with a thunderous roar.

It was a golden avenue.

Upon it stood neither ancient gods and demons nor the sun, moon, and stars.

There were only city after city.

Fields stretching across the land.

And countless busy figures.

They were the people of Great Xia.

They were also the foundation of Wang Hao’s Imperial Dao.

He was not transcending through his own strength alone.

He was using the fortune of an entire nation—

to bear the will of countless living beings.

“My empire—”

“is not yours to crush!”

Wang Hao struck out with one palm.

“Heaven-Prison Overturning Earth!”

The first palm!

The second palm!

The third palm!

Golden palm imprints crashed into the surrounding space one after another.

The collapsing space trembled violently.

The fourth palm!

The fifth palm!

The sixth palm!

The skin on both of Wang Hao’s arms split open.

Large amounts of blood splattered down.

At the first level of the Transcendence Realm, unleashing a divine-grade martial technique repeatedly was an immense burden even for him.

But he did not stop.

The seventh palm descended.

Cracks appeared in the collapsing space.

The eighth palm descended.

The entire space exploded with a thunderous roar.

A flicker of surprise flashed through Xuanming’s eyes.

At that very moment—

Wang Hao’s ninth palm did not strike the prison.

Instead, it crossed hundreds of thousands of miles of void—

and struck directly at the foot with which Xuanming had stepped into the Nine Provinces!

“The ninth palm!”

“Get back there for me!”

The force of all nine palms combined.

A golden firmament rose beneath Xuanming’s foot.

Boom!

For the first time, Xuanming’s foot was lifted from the ground.

Though it rose only half an inch.

Though it lasted for no more than an instant.

But in that instant—

all the chains of law throughout the Nine Provinces erupted.

Tens of thousands of chains wrapped around Xuanming’s ankle.

They forcibly dragged him toward the shattered Immortal Realm.

A brilliant light flashed through the Dragon-Slayer’s eyes.

With his only remaining left hand, he gripped the firewood cleaver.

“Good lad!”

“That palm—”

“was heavier than chopping wood for seventeen thousand years!”

The Dragon-Slayer took one step forward.

His aged body transformed into a streak of blade light.

He did not strike Xuanming’s immortal body.

Instead, he slashed at the crack of immortal light beneath Xuanming’s feet.

“Mountain-and-River Blade!”

“Sever the Boundary!”

The firewood cleaver descended along the traces that Cangxu had sealed with his flesh and blood.

The edge of the crack, already unstable,

In an instant, tens of thousands of miles collapsed.

Xuanming’s right leg, which had only just probed into Jiuzhou, was savagely shredded by the spatial turbulence.

Wounds appeared across his immortal-silver skin.

Yet black flesh immediately began growing from them.

It transformed into countless slender arms that seized hold of the land of Jiuzhou.

Some arms grabbed the mountains.

Some pierced into the void.

Still others reached directly for living beings in the distance.

Those arms intended to devour the lives of Jiuzhou

and help Xuanming complete his passage across realms.

Wang Hao’s eyes turned cold.

The New Emperor Sword flew from his hand.

“Opening-Heaven Nine Swords!”

The first sword.

A straight silver line appeared between heaven and earth.

Thousands of black arms were severed at once.

The second sword.

The silver line transformed into a vast curtain of sword light.

Every tentacle reaching toward the people of Jiuzhou was shredded to pieces.

The third sword.

The curtain of sword light converged.

A sword beam ten thousand miles long shot upward against the heavens,

slashing toward the right half of Xuanming’s uncanny body!

Xuanming raised his right hand.

His five fingers closed directly around the sword beam.

Crack!

The ten-thousand-mile sword beam shattered in the middle.

The New Emperor Sword let out a shriek.

A silver-haired boy tumbled out of the sword.

He clutched his waist with both hands.

“It broke!”

“Master!”

“My waist broke!”

Wang Hao remained expressionless.

“You’re a sword.”

“You don’t have a waist.”

The silver-haired boy lowered his head and looked.

“Seems it isn’t broken after all.”

He transformed back into a sword,

pretending nothing had happened.

Xuanming’s five fingers continued to close.

The remaining sword light was completely crushed.

Yet before the sword light vanished,

a strand of silver-black sword qi pierced into Xuanming’s palm.

That strand of sword qi

contained the power of the uncanny eye that the New Emperor Sword had just devoured.

Xuanming’s left half, the immortal half of his body, could disregard sword qi.

But his right half, the uncanny half, could not ignore contamination of the same origin.

The black flesh in his palm suddenly went out of control.

A mouth grew from the wound

and viciously bit down on Xuanming’s own finger.

Xuanming remained expressionless.

He brought the fingers of his left hand together like a blade

and severed his right palm in one stroke.

Before the severed palm could hit the ground,

it swelled into a ten-thousand-zhang monster of flesh and blood.

It had Xuanming’s face.

Countless arms sprouted from its back.

Its mouth repeated again and again:

“Extremity.”

“I want extremity.”

Xuanming brought one foot down.

The flesh-and-blood monster exploded with a deafening boom.

“They are nothing more than undisciplined delusions.”

“You think you can turn against this immortal?”

Wang Hao’s heart sank.

Xuanming possessed not only the power of half an immortal and half an uncanny being,

but also an almost absolute calmness and clarity of judgment.

If he had gone completely mad,

he would actually have been easier to deal with.

But a monster capable of actively severing away uncanny contamination

was truly terrifying.

Xuanming’s severed right palm began to grow back.

This time,

he did not continue testing the waters.

Immortal light swirled around his left hand.

Black mist surged across his right.

Both palms seized the cracks of immortal light at once

and tore them outward.

A piercing sound of shattering rang throughout Jiuzhou.

The crack expanded once more.

Half of Xuanming’s body had already forced its way into Jiuzhou.

The obstruction created by Wang Hao and the Dragon-Slayer

had delayed him for only a few breaths.

There was no despair on the Dragon-Slayer’s face.

He merely gripped his hatchet once more,

prepared to burn away the last of his Great Dao.

Wang Hao, however, suddenly turned his head

and looked toward the Central Province.

At the instant half of Xuanming’s body entered Jiuzhou,

beneath the ruins of the seventy-two sacred grounds in the Central Province,

an immortal aura that did not belong to the Bell Ringer slowly began to awaken.

Immediately afterward,

in the Blood-Desire Demon Palace of the Southern Region,

a blood pool sealed for hundreds of thousands of years churned up monstrous waves.

In the deepest reaches of the Western Wastes,

nine ancient immortal-copper coffins trembled at the same time.

Beneath the ice fields of the Northern Frontier,

an ancient sword that had long since rotted away let out its first cry.

The Guixu of the Eastern Sea.

A head larger than an island opened its eyes.

One.

Two.

Three.

Five.

More and more waves of immortal might rose from every corner of the Nine Provinces.

They were ancient.

Decayed.

Brimming with the aura of death.

And yet, they truly existed.

Within Wang Hao’s mind,

the Sign-In Intelligence System once again issued an alert.

【A half-immortal, half-ghostly aura has been detected!】

【The dormant immortal corpses of the Nine Provinces are awakening!】

【They have not come to protect the Nine Provinces!】

【They have sensed the possibility of evolution!】

Beneath Central Province,

a withered hand pushed aside ten thousand zhang of rock.

Within a blood pool in the Southern Region,

a skinless woman in blood-red robes slowly rose to her feet.

Inside a bronze coffin in the Western Wasteland,

a greedy laugh rang out.

“Half-immortal, half-ghostly.”

“This path…”

“Sure enough, it can be walked.”