Chapter 530: Another display of firmness!
Translator: Sparrow Translations Editor: Sparrow Translations
The Xuanlin Holy Man watched Lin Feng in silence as his eyes flickered with light.
"Leader of the Celestial Sect of Wonders – you have crossed the line."
Lin Feng casually brushed off the comment and replied, "The lines that others have drawn are not representative of my own."
As he said those words, Lin Feng wasted no more time and pushed out his palm slowly towards Yu Xintao in the distance and his fingers closed into a grip.
The Heaven and Earth Destroyer!
The space and void in front of Lin Feng immediately shattered into nothingness. The empirical elements of matter – fire, earth, water and air – began to surge around and subsequently transformed into spatial turbulence as the world shook.
Yu Xintao’s face changed. Lin Feng’s spell was incredibly aggressive, and if he had the protection of the Theorem of Xuanming he would have a chance to survive the attack, but now that the Theorem of Xuanming was destroyed and he was heavily injured as well, there was nothing he could do in the face of Lin Feng’s Heaven and Earth Destroyer – he could only await his own demise.
A small sphere of light appeared on the Xuanlin Holy Man’s forehead, much like a tiny round mirror.
This mirror sparkled with reflections and resembled the Sun’s light shining down on everything in the world.
The Great Void Treasure Mirror of the Heavens!
The light reflecting from the mirror was like Heaven’s eye watching the world with indifference and without any emotion. Yet, it seemed to hold everything and dictate everything.
It was like the unconditional and boundless love of the heavens for all beings underneath, yet it was also emotionless as it observed every living being in silence.
Under this divinely gaze, everything seemed to be watched by a divine force and nothing dared to make a move.
All the chaotic elements – fire, earth, water and air – that were rolling around gradually became fixated and frozen in place under this divine gaze.
Lin Feng’s facial expression remained unchanged. He flashed a faint smile and changed a spell in his right hand. A formless and colorless hurricane suddenly swept up the earth all around.
The Four Appearances Heaven Cleaving Script. Wind. The Universal Light and Holy Wind.
"The vastness of the world is but an instant, and in in a single flash of light a thousand years has past." Following Lin Feng’s slow chant, the scene in the void began to change once again. The Great Void Treasure Mirror of the Heavens’ divine light suddenly disappeared into nothingness, and Lin Feng’s Heaven and Earth Destroyer’s chaotic elements began to surge around once again.
This was not because Lin Feng overcame the Xuanlin Holy Man’s Great Void Treasure Mirror of the Heavens by force. It was simply because his Universal Light and Holy Wind spell reversed that instance of time and rendered the Great Void Treasure Mirror of the Heavens spell back into nothingness.
The chaotic swelling of the turbulence was like the apocalypse of the earth as everything flooded towards Yu Xintao.
The Xuanlin Holy Man shook his head faintly as his left hand changed a stance and cast another spell. In an instant, boundless spell power erupted and rippled forth.
A spell of the Great Void sect, the Chronograph Reversal.
Under the direction of the Xuanlin Holy Man’s mana, the space all around him began to churn and spin as everything suddenly reverted back to its original state – back to when the power of the Great Void Treasure Mirror of the Heavens fixated the four empirical elements in place.
The power of the Chronograph Reversal negated the effects of Lin Feng’s Universal Light and Holy Wind spell. This spell was apparently the perfect counter to the Universal Light and Holy Wind spell.
In a shortest of moments, the elements of the earth spiraled and transformed and everybody watch on with stunning excitement.
Lin Feng and the Xuanlin Holy Man had already clashed with each other multiple times in a span of time when normal people could not even react. Both parties unleashed higher order mantras and neither was willing to compromise for the other.
At this exact moment, both Lin Feng and the Xuanlin Holy Man changed stances and took new measures.
The Xuanlin Holy Man’s left eye suddenly erupted with brilliant colors, and a transparent jewel with a million-edges flew out from within. Uncountable rays of divine light enveloped Yu Xintao in an instant and masked him atop the layers of space in the sky.
The layers stacked over each other and transformed into innumerable mirror-planes. Yu Xintao seemed to exist in every mirror surface, and real could not be distinguished from illusion as the mutability was far too complex.
This was his personal magic item, the Thousand-Edge Flowing Radiance Mirror. He combined its power with space-time to create planes that integrated reality and illusion. Every instance was real, but in the next moment it also became an illusion.
Faced with this new spell, Lin Feng waved his hands once again and a giant purple banner with flashes of the seven colors of the rainbow flew up into the sky.
Beside the purple banner was a huge black stele, and the words "Eternal Night" were engraved on the surface of this stone.
The Xuanlin Holy Man frowned upon witnessing this. "The Eternal Night Demonic Stele of the Night Demon Sect? This magic treasure has been lost for millennia."
"Hold on. Could it be that this magic item was discovered by the Golden Roc and the Qiong Qi, and was used as material to set up the Nine Luminaries Heaven-Crushing Formation, and ended up in yours hands in the Cloud Forest World?"
Lin Feng smiled but did not respond to his question. He continued to channel his mana but the Eternal Night Demonic Stele did not seem to react. Nothing appeared to be happening, but a gargantuan pulverizing force that felt like it could cause the entire world to descend into hibernation permeated the surroundings.
Heaven and Earth seemed to darken. Nothing could be heard and there was no light either, space could no longer be perceived and the passage of time could no longer be felt.
The world seemed to have descended into a state of eternal night and darkness, devoid of all sources of light and everything slipped into never-ending slumber.
The powers of the Eternal Night Demonic Stele negated the mutable transformations of the Thousand-Edge Flowing Radiance Mirror. Even though it could not completely suppress the mirror itself, it still managed to force the mirror to redirect all its power to protect itself, and it had no choice but to lete Yu Xintao out of its protection.
The moment Yu Xintao showed himself, the giant purple banner swaying in the sky began to spiral and threatened to whisk Yu Xintao away with its powerful suction.
The Xuanlin Holy Man’s expression turned a little more serious. His right eye erupted into another burst of brilliant light as a set of stone stairs flew out from within. This was another powerful magic item and it resembled a stairway to heaven. Yu Xintao landed on top of it, and was instantly about to rocket into the sky.
An immense force that could turn the world upside down carried Yu Xintao away from the suction of the giant purple banner.
Lin Feng remarked plainly. "Your magic treasures are good. I can’t help but wonder – just how many do you have?"
As he spoke, a ray of light flashed out from between his eyes. The Flaming Dragon Celestial Armor transformed into a ray of flowing light – there was no need for a wearer, and the Flaming Dragon Celestial Armor blasted across the sky and crashed on top of the stone stairs.
The flight of stone stairs trembled violently and Yu Xintao immediately crashed down.
The Xuanlin Holy Man was about to cast another spell to rescue Yu Xintao, but Lin Feng intercepted him. It was this tiny moment of hindrance that gave the rainbow-colored Purple Banner time to unleash its suction power and immediately sucked Yu Xintao inside.
Between flashes of purple light, Yu Xintao howled in agony as he released his black ice crystal-like immortal soul avatar in a last-ditch attempt to resist – but to no ultimate avail.
Uncountable numbers of glyphs and runes were cast into the black ice crystal as they formed something of a picture that became solidly imprinted upon Yu Xintao’s immortal soul avatar.
The Celestial Sword Elder, the Thunderclouds Holy Man and Shi Zongyue were all taken back. "This is…"
The Xuanlin Holy Man glared at Lin Feng’s giant purple banner. "You imprisoned his immortal soul?"
Lin Feng grabbed the Giant Purple Banner and shook it ever so lightly. Light shadows flickered on the banner’s surface as Yu Xintao’s figure appeared. He seemed to be in intense agony, but was unable to resist at all.
"Protect the power of the human world of cultivation, eh?" Lin Feng said plainly. "No problem. I will take into account that it wasn’t easy for him to attain the immortal soul and so I shall keep him alive. However, the death sentence can be lifted but his guilt cannot be acquitted. He has disturbed and messed with the Celestial Sect of Wonders three times in total, and he will get what’s coming for him."
"I will not mess with him and neither will I torture him. I will not re-forge his immortal soul either. Even though he’s up in my Heavenly Gods-Sealing Banner, he will still be able to absorb the spiritual energy of the world and continue cultivating."
"If the Divine Lands and the Barren Expanses are to clash violently in the future, I will send him to the front lines to redeem himself. He will determine his own fate."
Lin Feng’s eyes turned towards the Xuanlin Holy Man as he said quietly, "Under my watch, I will give him a chance and let him live."
The female cultivator beside the Xuanlin Holy Man said rather gloomily, "Imprisoning another’s immortal soul may keep him alive, and he may still continue cultivating, but he will no longer have any form of freedom or autonomy, and his life will be in your hands. What difference is that from death?"
"He might as well be dead. You…"
She said no more. An action such as this was typically seen only amongst demonic sects. However, because she was just retorted with Pang Jie’s actions with the same line of accusation, she could not really use the same argument.
Lin Feng’s expression was casual as ever. "This magic item has been completed for a long time now. Yu Xintao is the first person to land himself on the banner. I live by my golden rule: If you don’t disturb me I will not disturb you. His fate is purely of his own doing."
"If you do not wish me to imprison his immortal soul, that’s okay as well. I can always just take his life."
During the Heavenly Cart Peak Sword Conference, even though Lin Feng sliced Xin Longsheng’s avatar in two and imprisoned the Shaoyang and the Grand Moon swords, he did not kill anybody and let the Mount Shu Sword Sect return in peace.
However, he displayed another act of firmness today. Everybody could not help but think back to the battle of Mount Kunlun a year ago when he mercilessly defeated and killed the Heavenly Wind Holy Man and incarcerated the Golden Crow Grand Sage.
The Xuanlin Holy Man stared straight at Lin Feng. The bountiful emotions in his eyes gradually subsided and eventually returned to a state of composure. It felt as if all things under the world would be ultimately laid to ruin as the mana surrounding his body grew ever vaster.
At this moment, a streak of cloud energy cascaded from the sky and instantly enveloped him and the female cultivator beside him.
A voice came out from the clouds. "That’s enough for today."
The Xuanlin Holy Man’s vision changed a little. The complex emotions resurfaced once again and he glanced at Lin Feng one last time before he let himself get carried away by the rolling clouds.
The clouds meandered and spiraled and the two of them were back on Mount Baiyun in no time.
"Senior." The Xuanlin Holy Man greeted respectfully towards the voice in the clouds. An immense surge of willpower came forth from the cloud energy, much like the God of the world that was omnipresent, omniscient and was so vast that this entity could not be detected.
"Xuanlin, you have been hasty."
As a member of the Great Void Sect’s Supreme Elder Council, the immortal soul third level Xuanlin Holy Man bent forward with respect. "You are right, sir."
"The conservative faction has also been hasty," that willpower continued to speak. "You have let the Celestial Sect of Wonders hinder our progress, and you also let them clean up the scene. Yet it did not occur to any of you that there’s a time and place for everything."
The voice paused momentarily and resonated once again. "The Xuanlin Holy Man shall report this issue with the leader of the Yu Family to Shi Tianyi."
The Xuanlin Holy Man stumbled before Lin Feng and was unable to protect Yu Xintao. This was already a great humiliation, and now he was tasked to report this incident to Shi Tianyi – his embarrassment was never going to end.
However, he did not hesitate at all and nodded his head in acknowledgment. "I am accountable."
When Shi Tianyi received the news, his expression did not change at all and he simply closed his eyes in silence. After a long moment, he opened his eyes and his four pupils sparkled as he spoke.
"Senior Elder, can you please make preparations for me – I wish to enter the Void Battleground."
The Void Battleground was considered something of a place of no return for many people. However, everything had an exception. The Great Void Sect devised a way to enter the Void Battleground freely, but the opportunity was rare and precious. It was so rare that every disciple of the Great Void Sect could only enter the Void Battleground once in his entire lifetime.
"The Void Battleground has a magic treasure that can improve my battle prowess."