Aspiring to the Immortal Path

Chapter 727: Counter-Schemed

Translated by: Hypersheep325

Edited by: Michyrr

One punch exploded the Blackwater Fiend Emperor's head like it was a watermelon.

But Tang Jie didn't stop, the Sovereign Blade flashing in his hand as he swung it into the Blackwater Fiend Emperor's body.

An existence like the Blackwater Fiend Emperor had all sorts of mystical spell arts and trump cards, so Tang Jie didn't dare to be careless, mercilessly attacking him even after blowing up his head.

Blackwater's body instantly dissolved into water and then started to reform. The saber's energy swept through his body, but it failed to stop his recovery. His head grew back, revealing Blackwater's scowling face.

"Silver Eyes!" the Blackwater Fiend Emperor shouted, his voice still garbled.

"I just knew you weren't that easy to kill," Tang Jie casually remarked. "As expected, flogging the corpse is the right way to do things!"

His avatar was already charging in, thrusting out a finger, the Deicide Flame bursting from its tip.

Tang Jie's ability to control the Deicide Flame was too limited to use it for killing the enemy, but it was perfect for destroying corpses. Anyway, this guy's entire body was poisonous, so there was little point in keeping his body.

Sure enough, the Deicide Flame caused the Blackwater Fiend Emperor to howl in pain.

This flame burned all things, so his poison was entirely useless and was easily burned away. His body shrank as he cried out in agony, unable to reform, let alone counterattack. Even though he could cast arts with a single thought, none of it mattered against Tang Jie.

Blackwater used all of his energy to summon a great storm, but Tang Jie simply took it as a light breeze.

As his life force rapidly withered and his power drained away, Blackwater finally realized that he had reached the end of the road.

He screeched, "I'll remember you two!"

A light shot out of his body toward the sky.

"You can't escape." Tang Jie extended his hand and grabbed that streak of light, which was none other than Blackwater's Divine Soul.

The avatar recalled the Deicide Flame and reached into Blackwater's body, pulling out his fiend pellet.

Tang Jie had taken him by surprise, so he hadn't had time to use the energy of his fiend pellet. This was a rare Fiend Emperor pellet that was still intact, so its value was on par with a low-level upper-grade divine treasure.

The avatar examined it and found that it hadn't been that damaged. Exhaling, he said, "Close, close. I almost cooked it."

Blackwater's Divine Soul struggled in the hand of the original body. "Just who are you people? Release me! I'm willing to serve you!"

In the end, he was no fool. He had finally realized that these weren't Silver Eyes and Thunder Blade.

"A rare intact Divine Soul," the original body sighed. "Although you didn't have many treasures, this soul is just as complete as that old serpent's."

"'Old serpent'?" Blackwater's Divine Soul was aghast.

The original body took out some Mindsoothing Lumber, which he had stolen from the Celestial Flame Pagoda's treasury all those years ago.

Thunder Blade's Divine Soul was in this block of wood, as this was the only kind of substance that could host a Divine Soul without it withering away.

As Tang Jie took out Thunder Blade's Divine Soul, Blackwater was rendered speechless. The Thunder Serpent sighed, "Blackwater, you're here too? I just knew it would be like this."

The two Divine Souls looked at each other, unable to say a word.

"Alright, you two can keep each other company, so you won't be too lonely. I'll try and get Aurora and Iron Blood to keep you company too." Tang Jie stuffed the two Divine Souls back into the Mindsoothing Lumber.

"Heehee, we now have two Divine Souls and two Fiend Emperor pellets." Yiyi clapped her hands as she flew over. Behind her was Er Hu.

"I pay my respects to Master." Er Hu bowed to Tang Jie, not forgetting to sneak a glance at the avatar.

Today, he finally understood that the existence in the side house had been his master's avatar.

Even more surprising was that this avatar had already entered Soul Transformation, and it seemed like Tang Jie's two bodies had killed three Fiend Emperors. This was an achievement without precedent in the last thousand years of humanity's history, and the entire power balance of the Verdant Cloud Domain would shift because of it.

From this day forward, humans would have more Violet Palace experts than the fiends!

Er Hu felt even greater admiration for Tang Jie.

"Mm." Tang Jie turned to him and said, "Er Hu, I had Yiyi bring you over because there's something I need you to do."

"Please speak, Master."

Tang Jie lightly said, "As you now know, I have the ability to transform. I've killed both Silver Eyes and Thunder Blade and transformed into them in order to control the fiend empires, letting me sow internal discord, weaken the fiends, and support the humans so that more survive. But I only have one avatar, so I can only act as two Fiend Emperors, not a third."

"Eh?" Er Hu was taken aback. "Master, you want me to turn into the third Fiend Emperor?"

"Indeed," Tang Jie replied. "After all, I still haven't emptied out Blackwater's treasury. No matter how powerful he was, he has to have had some treasures."

"……"

At that moment, Er Hu finally saw the side of Tang Jie he had never seen before.

Now that Tang Jie was no longer entangled by Fate or focused on the Heavenly Dao, he had seemingly gone back to his old self, much to Yiyi's amusement.

Seeing that Er Hu was dumbfounded, Tang Jie smiled and said, "I'm just teasing you. Aurora and Iron Blood are fighting up ahead. They've been fooled by a Demonic Will and have already lost themselves to their greed. We have to quickly stop them. Thus, I need you to transform into a Fiend Emperor and work with me to ambush them so we can capture them alive."

"'Capture them'?" Er Hu took note of this detail. "Not 'kill them'?"

Tang Jie replied, "A demon invasion is imminent. With such a powerful foe in front of us, a united front is better than internal conflict."

"Yes, your disciple understands," Er Hu solemnly replied.

"But before that, we still need to defeat them first so that they can listen to reason. Oh, Blackwater is a cunning and scheming fellow, so your personality isn't a good fit. You should be Silver Eyes."

Tang Jie tapped a finger on Er Hu's head, making him look like Silver Eyes. At the same time, his original body turned into Thunder Blade and his avatar became Blackwater.

The three looked at each other, and then the original body as Thunder Blade flew off, the avatar and Er Hu giving chase, making it seem like Silver Eyes and Blackwater were both trying to kill Thunder Blade.

The original body quickly returned to the fiend–demon battlefield.

The battlefield was complete chaos by now.

The three-headed dog spewing ice, fire, and lightning onto the battlefield was an Ifrit. Although it wasn't strong, its ferocity made it extremely difficult to deal with. There was also a bull-headed demon wreathed in black smoke and holding a chain, a Vexbull. They were a rather balanced variety of demon, having both physical strength and spell arts, and their chains could smash open barriers. Although they were individually still rather weak, when there were enough them, they represented a powerful force. In the Primordial Fog invasion, there were records of a Vexbull army using their numbers to drown out a small domain. As for those disciplined soldiers wearing black armor and visored helmets, and wielding spears, they were Demihuman soldiers. Demihuman soldiers were the descendants of humans who had been captured in the invasion and taken to the Primordial Fog Domain. These humans had been corrupted by the demonic energy of Primordial Fog, and most of them had lost all rationality and become slaves to the demons, capable of using demon armor...

Various kinds of demons were walking out of the spatial passage, and as the talisman loosened, more and more power was able to come through. This strengthened the Demonic Will, allowing it to influence the two Fiend Emperors even more.

They became more and more convinced that this was the Chaos Tower, a peerless treasure that could let them dominate the Great Stellar Chiliocosm if they took possession of it. As for those demons, they had come to stop them from taking this treasure, which was why they needed to be slain as quickly as possible.

This psychological influence pushed the fiends to fight even harder. Occasionally, another fiend would attack the Chaos Tower, attempting to take it for themselves. Of course, they didn't notice that the demons were putting up a rather feeble resistance. They were just charging in to die, barely trying to stop the fiends from taking the tower.

That talisman was quite formidable, most of it still sticking on despite having taken on thousands of attacks from the fiends. Those who could truly threaten the talisman, the two Fiend Emperors, were still fighting each other instead.

The Iron Blood Fiend Emperor was gradually losing ground to the Aurora Fiend Emperor's full-force assault.

Even though he was constantly swinging the Ironblood Saber and releasing the powerful wills within, the divine light of the Aurora Fiend Emperor's rainbow feathers came in wave after wave, almost jolting the saber out of the Iron Blood Fiend Emperor's hand.

The Iron Blood Fiend Emperor knew that this rainbow light was said to counter all treasures in the world. While the effect actually depended on one's cultivation level, this rainbow light truly did have some neutralizing effect on treasures.

The Aurora Fiend Emperor was already stronger than him, and the rainbow light countered his Ironblood Saber. If the Ironblood Saber weren't supported by the countless wills within it, it would have been sent flying long ago.

Aurora flitted around, releasing bursts of rainbow light that pushed Iron Blood back again and again.

At this moment, Tang Jie flew over and shouted, "Your Majesty Aurora, help me! Blackwater is working with Silver Eyes!"

Aurora looked over and snorted, "Silver Eyes, you've got guts, to come here!"

He had married off his daughter with the thought of recruiting one of the Fiend Emperors, and Silver Eyes was strong enough that with his help, he could have easily suppressed the other three Fiend Emperors. But to his surprise, Silver Eyes had quarreled with his daughter over another woman, and now, he was openly working with Blackwater to hunt down Thunder Blade. How could he not be angered by this?

Beating back Iron Blood with a burst of rainbow light, Aurora said, "You deal with Iron Blood. Leave these two to me!"

He flew toward Tang Jie.

Delighted, Tang Jie pulled out the Sovereign Blade, which was disguised as the Thunder Saber, and made as if he was about to attack Iron Blood. But as Aurora passed him, he unleashed a Devil Crushing Fist.

Boom!

The fist slammed into Aurora's body in a dazzling explosion of light.

But Tang Jie didn't see Aurora's body shatter, only countless streams of light scattering into the air as if he had punched a bubble.

This was…

Tang Jie was stunned, unease welling up in his heart.

Not good!

A rainbow palm emerged from the void, slightly pressing at Tang Jie's back.

This light push had Tang Jie tumbling through the air, howling in pain.

A person walked out of space—none other than the Aurora Fiend Emperor. He thrust out his palm two more times, sending blasts of energy at Tang Jie's avatar and Er Hu. "Reveal your true forms to this emperor!"