A True Immortal of His Generation, Just... Was "Eaten."

The phantom was not tall.

Nor was it as grotesque as Ning Shuangyue’s hundred-zhang Asura Dharmakaya.

Nor did it possess the overwhelming grandeur of Gu Qing’s sky-filling thunderbolts.

It merely hovered quietly above Ning Shuangyue’s shattered chest. Its body was semi-transparent and even somewhat hunched, like a neighbor’s old man who had just woken up and was still stretching.

But the instant it opened its eyes, the Nine Heavens–Tribulation Sword in Gu Qing’s hand—the divine weapon embodying a True Immortal’s will to kill—let out a mournful cry. With a sharp crack, a fracture split across the blade.

“Do not look directly at it…”

The few cultivators outside who were still clinging to life fared even worse.

Mo Yun merely stole a glance at the phantom in the distance. In an instant, two streams of bloody tears flowed from his eyes. He screamed and covered them, his soul almost exploding on the spot.

Even though “he” had already fallen from the Imperial Throne, the absolute suppression of his level of existence remained.

“You… you are…”

Gu Qing’s hand trembled around his folding fan.

He did not want it to tremble. He was a lofty True Immortal, an existence that looked down upon all living beings.

But his body had betrayed his will.

It was a fear engraved in his marrow—and even in the instincts of every cultivator in the Canghuang Realm.

The Emperor must not be insulted.

The phantom tilted its head, as though becoming accustomed to this broken vessel of a soul.

It looked at Gu Qing, then at the shattered space around them, and finally at the segment of finger bone beneath it.

“So I’ve been dead for this long…”

Its voice was weathered, carrying a trace of self-mockery.

“Good thing… I left behind a few contingencies back then.”

The phantom smiled.

Its laughter was soft, yet it caused the protective immortal radiance around Gu Qing to shatter layer by layer.

“As for this nonsense about me fighting an Immortal Emperor on equal terms?”

“Bullshit!”

Just two words.

Crude, yet carrying an arrogance that looked down upon the entire world.

“Back then, I was merely taking a nap. Those shameless young punks ganged up on me and launched a sneak attack. That was the only reason I capsized in the gutter.”

“How did you make it sound so pathetic?”

The phantom raised a hand and lightly pointed at Gu Qing.

“Are all the younger generation nowadays as ill-mannered as you?”

“Upon seeing this Emperor, why have you not knelt?”

“You’re just putting on an act and playing tricks!”

Gu Qing screamed hysterically.

When fear reached its limit, it became madness.

He did not believe it!

How could a remnant soul that had been dead for tens of thousands of years still suppress him?!

“You’re nothing but ashes from a bygone era! You should have stayed obediently in your grave!”

“Die!”

Gu Qing burned through every last bit of his origin power.

The Nine Heavens–Tribulation Sword instantly expanded a thousandfold, transforming into a gigantic purple dragon of thunder. It opened its maw, attempting to swallow the phantom and the finger bone in a single bite.

This was the desperate strike of a True Immortal projection.

Its power was immense enough to completely erase a corner of the Chaotic Star Sea.

And yet—

Faced with this world-destroying attack, the phantom merely sighed.

“Have you forgotten something simply because I suffered one defeat?”

“I was once invincible for an entire era…”

With nothing more than a snap of his fingers—

Boom!

A crisp sound rang out.

That arrogant thunder dragon began to disintegrate from the head onward, breaking apart inch by inch.

It simply… ceased to exist.

Everything tangible was reduced to the most primitive form of nothingness.

“Pfft!”

Gu Qing spat out a mouthful of immortal blood in midair.

“Impossible… This is impossible…”

His face was filled with terror. He turned and fled.

He had to escape!

He had to take this news back!

The remnant soul of the former Great Emperor had awakened!

“Since you came all this way, why the rush to leave?”

The phantom spoke languidly.

It reached out with an invisible hand toward Gu Qing’s fleeing back.

“Come back.”

Gu Qing’s body abruptly froze, as though an invisible hand had seized him by the throat. He was dragged back by force and slammed violently into the ground.

Boom!

The impact left a deep crater in the earth.

The True Immortal projection that had just been so imperious now lay at the bottom of the pit like a dead dog, unable to move.

The phantom drifted to the edge of the crater and looked down at him.

Gu Qing struggled to raise his head. His voice came from deep within his throat, accompanied by the rasp of a broken bellows.

“The Canghuang Realm of today… has long since ceased to be your era. The current Great Emperor suppresses the eternal ages… If you kill me, and my immortal position falls, he will surely sense it…”

The phantom hovered in midair. Its blurred features seemed to reveal a hint of amusement.

Instead of acting immediately, it slowly drifted downward.

“After tens of thousands of years, has the boy living on that mountain changed?”

Gu Qing’s pupils contracted sharply.

“Forget it. It doesn’t matter whether he has or not.”

The phantom straightened and lightly tapped its ethereal fingers against the air, producing a crisp, rhythmic knocking sound, as though the entire space were his desk.

“Come to think of it, weren’t you just arguing over my life story?”

Gu Qing froze, then immediately understood.

His desire to survive drove him to nod frantically, trying to seize this final lifeline.

“No… no! That demoness was slandering your good name! She claimed that you studied demonic blood sacrifices and called you a hypocrite! I… I was defending your reputation just now!”

“No.”

The phantom shook its head and cut him off.

“She wasn’t wrong.”

The air suddenly fell silent.

The expression on Gu Qing’s face stiffened, as though he had been struck on the head. All his flattery became lodged in his throat.

On the distant reef, Su Ji’s brows rose slightly as well.

“I did study blood sacrifices.”

The phantom’s voice was utterly calm, as though it were saying, “I had breakfast.”

With his hands clasped behind his back, he paced through the shattered space. Every time his foot touched down, the raging spatial currents around him became as docile as lambs.

“Humans are simply creatures like that.”

“The higher they climb, the less willing they are to die.”

“Blood sacrifice is nothing. Even if it meant punching a hole through the heavens or swallowing and tearing apart every evil spirit in the Nine Netherworlds, I would have done it.”

A chilling glint shone in the phantom’s bright eyes.

“The struggle for the Great Dao has never been anything but a fight to the death.”

“Only the strong have the right to define what is righteous and what is evil.”

“Once you lose, you can only become what I am now—a withered corpse in the grave, a cautionary tale in the mouths of future generations.”

As he spoke, he lowered his head to look at Gu Qing, a cruel smile curling across his lips.

“So I don’t see anything shameful about researching how to ‘eat people.’”

“Especially since…”

The phantom stuck out its tongue and licked its faintly ethereal lips.

“I just woke up.”

“And although you’re a little lacking in substance, you at least have the foundation of a half-step Immortal King. You’ll make a passable tonic.”

Gu Qing’s face instantly turned deathly pale.

The phantom smiled, its laughter carrying a hint of contempt.

It raised a hand and waved lightly toward its surroundings.

Hum—

A grayish curtain of light appeared from thin air, completely sealing off the space within a hundred-mile radius.

Within this area, cause and effect were severed, and the heavenly secrets were thrown into confusion.

Even if the current Great Emperor personally attempted to divine what was happening, all he would see was a patch of chaos—not even a True Immortal could perceive anything else.

“From now on, this place is mine.”

The phantom slowly drifted above Gu Qing and placed one hand upon the crown of his head.

“As for the current Great Emperor you mentioned…”

“Don’t worry. Once I’ve recovered my strength, I’ll naturally settle accounts with him.”

“He’s nothing more than a petty man, anyway.”

“Even grievously wounded, he wouldn’t dare attack me.”

“He hounded me relentlessly, like a mosquito, refusing to let me enter seclusion and heal. In the end, he wore me down and killed me.”

“What kind of formidable figure could he possibly be?”

“Now, obediently become my nourishment.”

“No—!!!”

Gu Qing let out a shrill, anguished cry as immortal power erupted wildly from his entire body.

However—

“Freeze.”

Just one word.

The berserk immortal power within Gu Qing was snuffed out in an instant, like a flame doused by a basin of cold water.

To his horror, he discovered that even the ability to move a finger had been taken from him.

All he could do was watch helplessly as that phantom hand passed through his crown without resistance and reached deep into his soul.

“Ahhhhhh—!!!”

Yet not a single trace of his scream could escape his lips.

It was the agony of having his soul torn apart and devoured alive.

Gu Qing’s body began to wither at a visible rate.

His pure immortal power, his comprehension of the laws, and even the life force he carried all flowed ceaselessly into the phantom through that hand.

The phantom’s originally translucent body began rapidly solidifying.

The sense of weakness was fading.

In its place came an increasingly terrifying, increasingly oppressive aura.

It was a dreadful presence surpassing the Immortal King realm and closing in on the Immortal Venerable realm!

“Burp—”

A moment later, the phantom withdrew his hand and let out a satisfied belch.

All that remained on the ground was a pile of spiritless ash.

A True Immortal of his generation had just been… “eaten.”

The phantom rolled his neck, producing a series of crisp cracks.

By now, he looked no different from an ordinary man.

Dressed in a gray robe, with a lean, scholarly face and deep-set eyes, he could have passed for an ordinary schoolteacher if not for the suffocating pressure radiating from him.

“The flavor was nothing special. A little hard to digest.”

He curled his lip in disdain, casually waved a hand to scatter the ashes across the ground, then returned to Ning Shuangyue’s side and picked up the finger bone.

Then—

He slowly turned around.