Free Web NovelChapter 264: Chapter 153: The Scenery Above the Clouds
The All-Purpose Talisman’s power was best expressed through various Blessing and Curse Talismans. They could be used in unpredictable ways based on one’s thoughts. With his body now completely refined into a Spirit Body and driven by his Primordial Spirit, Wang Ping could use a poisoned Blessing Talisman to kill an entry-level cultivator without a sound.
Against a Second Realm Cultivator of the same attribute, Wang Ping could even prevent them from using Wood Spirit Qi. Against other Second Realm Cultivators, he could suppress them, rendering them useless in battle by cutting them off from their innate attribute.
In short, a Third Realm existence, whether in consciousness or body, had completely transcended the conventional state and the shackles of flesh and blood. As long as one wasn’t too careless, facing a Second Realm Cultivator was basically a complete rout.
This was something Wang Ping had never imagined before. He was also secretly glad that he had always been cautious and had never rashly plotted against a Third Realm Cultivator.
"Harvest!"
Wang Ping pointed a finger, and an All-Purpose Talisman sank into the garden. The Spirit Wood and Spirit Grass within emitted a faint curtain of light, then grew several inches at a visible rate.
’I still can’t violate certain rules. All Magic must operate within the laws of energy.’
Wang Ping stood atop a Spirit Wood Tree, sensing the process of the garden’s Spirit Wood and Spirit Grass growing according to his thoughts. Though his power was now godlike, the Magic he used still could not be purely conceptual; he couldn’t achieve the kind of power a Lord possessed.
"Do you want to be unbound by the rules?"
Yu Lian asked curiously. Before Wang Ping could reply, she continued, "Even a Lord can’t do that, can they? Only the mysterious Fifth Realm might be able to break free from the rules, just a little."
Wang Ping remained silent. After thinking for a long while, his body rose silently into the clouds. He then used his Primordial Spirit to sense every blade of grass and every tree in each region of Qianmu Temple, as well as every living being upon them.
"You want to go see what’s above the clouds?" Yu Lian read Wang Ping’s mind.
"Yes. You stay here. I’ll be right back." Wang Ping retracted his Primordial Spirit Consciousness and looked up at the vast sky above.
Yu Lian obediently flew up from Wang Ping’s body and transformed into her true form. "I sense that the Inspiration Realm above is extremely chaotic. You absolutely must not stay there for too long."
"Don’t worry, I know what I’m doing."
After speaking, Wang Ping’s figure submerged into the Wood Spirit Qi. In the blink of an eye, he passed through the clouds. He glanced at the boundless sea of clouds above, then plunged headfirst into the fringes of outer space.
First, there was silence.
But the silence lasted only for a moment before the clamor of the Inspiration Realm began to surface. Countless roaming Spiritual Creatures darted back and forth in Wang Ping’s vision like illusions. They truly were like illusions, because they would suddenly vanish and then reappear in a different location.
’Teleportation? Or spatial jumps?’
Wang Ping’s Primordial Spirit Consciousness emerged. The Spell in his hand changed rapidly, and a Sword Talisman appeared before him. It sliced through the void of the real world, severing one of the Spiritual Creatures from the Inspiration Realm. The talisman then flew back to Wang Ping, gripping the creature’s strange head.
’It really is a pure energy body, similar to a Primordial Spirit. How are you all formed? Or where do you come from?’ Wang Ping gazed into deep space, then frowned. From here, he could see that most of deep space was pitch black, with only a few small areas twinkling with light.
Then, he looked down at his feet. The planet’s cloud layer was dense, so dense that even his Primordial Spirit Consciousness couldn’t penetrate it. Then, Wang Ping involuntarily looked towards the moon.
Like the Spiritual Creatures of the Inspiration Realm, the moon gave Wang Ping a dreamlike feeling. He instinctively ascended again. After a few breaths, he suddenly felt a powerful pulling force. He then felt both his physical body and consciousness plummeting downward.
But Wang Ping wasn’t overly nervous or afraid. He calmly observed the position he had just ascended from. In the Inspiration Realm there, countless Spiritual Creatures were still hopping about like illusions, and there seemed to be no barrier preventing them from entering space.
Looking at those Spiritual Creatures, he couldn’t help but think, ’So, to leave this planet, one must shed the shackles of the physical body? Or are there other conditions?’
A dozen or so breaths later, his body fell onto the cloud layer. He saw Yu Lian waiting for him. As she flew towards him, he had already passed through the clouds and saw the beautiful mountains and rivers below.
"What a beautiful landscape painting."
As Wang Ping sighed in admiration, his consciousness drifted, and his body gently hovered in mid-air. freewebnøvel.com
Yu Lian stopped beside Wang Ping, circled him twice, and asked, "How was it?"
Wang Ping was about to answer but was momentarily at a loss for words. He stared at the distant horizon, considering for a long while before saying, "Above the clouds is like an ocean in a storm, and this land is but a single green boat on that vast ocean."
Yu Lian’s eyes widened as she stared at Wang Ping. After a long pause, she managed to squeeze out, "I’d prefer the stormy ocean."
"..."
"Alright, alright, I get what you mean."
Yu Lian shrank down and rested on Wang Ping’s shoulder. Reading his thoughts, she said, "This world only has five thousand years of recorded history. What it was like before that, and the secrets above the clouds... perhaps only the Demon Race and the True Monarchs hold the answers."
"The Demon Race has most likely lost its heritage as well."
Wang Ping now understood why some cultivators were so obsessed with exploring ancient ruins. Perhaps they simply wanted to unravel the world’s secrets. As he spoke, he descended onto the Mountain Peak Dojo.
"Care for a cup of tea?"
Yu Lian made a move to go to the Inner Courtyard for this year’s spring tea, but she stopped abruptly after flying only twenty feet. She first looked back at Wang Ping, then joined him in gazing toward the northwest.
The northwest was quiet, the weather still clear and pleasant.
But cultivators with sufficiently strong spiritual senses had already discovered the earth was trembling. The transmitted Spiritual Qi fluctuations could be clearly felt even thousands of miles away in the south.
...
「Northwest of Zhongzhou.」
The Xia Dynasty, Shangning Road.
This place was most famous for Shangning Lake. It had once been praised as the "Celestial Pool" by Lieyang True Monarch, the Sect Leader of the True Yang Sect. The lake connected to the Nong River, which flowed through the Three Shangjing Roads, and also reached the vast mountains of the Northwest Snowfield.
To the naked eye of an ordinary person, the great lake was practically a boundless sea. Thus, the locals also called it the Green Sea.
At this very moment, on the southern side of this beautiful great lake, the endless waves were actually boiling. Countless fish and shrimp turned white in the scalding water and floated to the surface. They washed ashore with the waves, but no one was there to collect them.
Because the nearby land had already been turned to scorched earth. In a neighboring town, a great fire covered every corner, and countless white bones were burning...
In life, they had seemed to be living their own peaceful days. In a teahouse, a storyteller appeared to be at a thrilling part of his tale, with some people even applauding in approval. On the street, pedestrians in front of stalls were either hurrying on their way or lingering to bargain.
The fire had been sudden and terrifying, claiming their lives in a mere instant.
A boom like a war drum suddenly exploded above the town. An immense, unknowable power descended from the sky, and the town and the area for several li around it were instantly turned to dust!
In that moment, all traces of the town and its people were completely erased.
The sky...
The searing heat seemed to ignite the clouds, as if the sun itself had suddenly descended upon the world, scorching everything it saw. Scattered flames turned the earth into a wasteland.
Between the flames, countless heavy pressures fell from above the clouds, punching holes in the inferno. A colossal tower, glowing with an earthy yellow halo, zipped through the fire at extreme speed, entangled in a fight with a figure made entirely of flame.
Following a furious roar that sounded like a dragon’s cry, the surface of the lake, hundreds of li wide, began to heave. The sky-blotting lake water surged upward, revealing a churning jiao-dragon, hundreds of feet long, within its depths.
The instant the flames and lake water collided, the resulting steam covered the entire surrounding land. The high temperature left all living creatures with nowhere to hide. Hundreds of li away, the innocent people fleeing for their lives turned red and bloated at a visible rate before collapsing to the ground.
"May the Buddha be merciful!"
A Buddhist chant rang out. A stream of golden light sliced through the spreading steam and then shot toward the jiao-dragon in the massive waves, carrying a tearing force. freeweɓnovēl.coɱ
A sound like colliding metal rang out as the space-tearing golden light slammed into a giant pillar of ice that had appeared out of thin air.
The situation was now clear: four Third Realm Cultivators were fighting!
And they were from four different factions.
This battle was different from the time Wang Ping had helped besiege Si Ran, where specialists had been assigned to contain the fallout and prevent it from affecting other areas. This was a head-on clash, and the aftershocks of the battle had practically engulfed an entire prefecture.
Moreover, the battlefield wasn’t limited to this one spot. Some Second Realm Cultivators who had escaped the battle’s range saw their destroyed Dao Fields and, driven mad, began attacking other cultivators they were already at odds with.
When the Pacification Envoy and Patrol Envoy from the Shangning Road Daoist Scripture Hall arrived on the scene, they were unable to intervene. They could only use the Tokens they carried to contact headquarters.
Half an hour later, the Pacification Envoys from the nearby Lin Chuan Road and Zhushan Road Daoist Scripture Halls arrived one after another.
The three of them struggled with the decision for a long time but ultimately did not act.
Because if they were to make a move, even to stop the fighting, they might end up destroying Shangning Lake completely.
After all, the world wasn’t truly in chaos yet. If they destroyed such an important water source, the condemnation of the people would be enough to drown them.
However, with the three of them watching from the side, the four fighting Third Realm Cultivators couldn’t use their full power. After a short while, they stopped.
「Thousands of li away in Liuzhou Prefecture.」
On a watchtower beside the main encampment of the Left Army, south of the Court’s garrison, Zhang Xinghuai said with a regretful look, "What a pity. It would have been more interesting if they had managed to kill one of them."
"If that had happened, I’m afraid not even one in ten of the people in the Northwest would have survived!"
A worried voice spoke up from beside him. It was one of the Chiefs the Wang Family had dispatched to the Northwest, a man named Wang Lian. He looked to be in his forties and lacked the bloodthirsty aura of a general. Instead, he had the benevolent feel of a Confucian scholar.
"Don’t you worry," Zhang Xinghuai replied with a chuckle. "There are people who care more about the common folk of this world than you do."
