Aspiring to the Immortal Path

Chapter 420: Battle to the Death

They all looked at each other, not daring to speak. The disciples at the front even slowed down, clearly wanting to wait for more people to catch up.

Tang Jie’s battle with those four had wasted a lot of time, during which others had caught up, but this hesitation caused the distance to gradually grow again.

At this moment, a person shot out from the rear like a lightning bolt, moving so quickly that he surpassed all the other disciples.

“Senior Brother Fan! Senior Fan Tiande!” The Beast Refining Gate disciples cheered when they saw this man.

This Fan Tiande was at the Cognitive Creation Tier, but he wasn’t that Cognitive Creation cultivator that had been reported to the Basking Moon Sect.

In truth, the Beast Refining Gate had sent more than twenty such Cognitive Creation Tier cultivators, all of them stationed at different locations.

In order to control the entire island, the Beast Refining Gate had distributed its strength such that the weaker forces were on the outside while the stronger forces were more inland. This allowed them to better coordinate their forces.

Hundred Refinement and Nine Revolutions cultivators were stationed on the perimeter. Their true purpose was to discover and delay.

Cognitive Creation and peak Mortal Shedding cultivators were stationed in the middle layer. Their mission was to go off in pursuit the moment they received word. As for the three Celestial Heart True Persons, they held the fort in the center with a small number of genius disciples.

But when the news concerning Joymount Island arrived, two of the three True Persons immediately left to seek out the exact location of the Beast Garden, leaving only one True Person behind. After all, compared to the suppressing stele, the Beast Garden was more important.

Fan Tiande was the Cognitive Creation cultivator closest to Tang Jie. Although he was rather far away, he was much faster than disciples at Nine Revolutions or Hundred Refinement. Moreover, the two battles had managed to slow down Tang Jie somewhat, so Fan Tiande had managed to catch up.

As Fan Tiande pursued without stopping, someone shouted, “Senior Brother Fan, be careful! Tang Jie has already killed five senior brothers!”

“I saw it!” Fan Tiande waved a hand, and a golden-winged eagle landed on his shoulder. Although his person had yet to arrive at the time, through the eagle, he had seen everything that had happened.

As he charged forward, he shouted, “While Tang Jie is fierce, he is injured. From this, we can see that four opponents at the same time is his limit, so there’s nothing to be afraid of. I’ll go and take him on while the rest of you catch up. No mistakes!”

Fan Tiande had once fought against five Nine Revolutions disciples.

With this record, one could estimate that Tang Jie was weaker than him.

This was understandable. No matter how many tricks Tang Jie had, he was still only at the Nine Revolutions Period, and he was now injured. There was no reason for him to be a match for Fan Tiande, and that wasn’t even mentioning his reinforcements.

Fan Tiande’s current strategy was actually rather similar to those of the groups that had preceded him, all of them based on the current situation. If there were no mishaps, his conclusions should have been correct. And now that Tang Jie was injured, Fan Tiande was even more certain that Tang Jie wasn’t hiding anything more.

But in reality, they had never understood what sort of person Tang Jie was.

The pursuer was like a howling gale, tearing through the world and swiftly closing the distance with Tang Jie.

Fan Tiande roared, “Tang Jie, let your death compensate for the deaths of my brothers!”

He waved his hand, and that golden eagle on his shoulder fired a lightning bolt at Tang Jie.

His Thunder Eagle could be used for both scouting and combat. The power of its lightning bolt was immense, but when it hit Tang Jie, it was like a pebble. There was a burst of lightning, but there was no effect on Tang Jie.

Fan Tiande wasn’t surprised by this. He had seen this happen right before Bai Yue’s death, so he was just testing things out again. Seeing that lightning was ineffective, he called back his eagle and grunted, “Since you don’t fear lightning, what about fire?”

He waved his hand, and a red bull appeared in front of him.

The moment this bull appeared, it spat a gout of flame at Tang Jie, turning a good chunk of the sky into a fiery cloud.

Tang Jie did not dare to underestimate this blaze, and he quickly fired off ten-some palm blasts.

The palm blasts were imbued with an azure gale that blew back the flames.

Fan Tiande was in no rush. He said with a laugh, “So it works, huh? Then I’ll stop standing on ceremony. Snake and mouse, go!”

He waved his hand again, producing a long fire snake and a large fire mouse.

These three fiend beasts all had the Fire attribute, and with their powers combined, they set the heavens aflame and engulfed Tang Jie.

Tang Jie’s body erupted with light as he used the Aquagel Shroud and Formless Golden Body to resist the flames.

Fan Tiande laughed. “While your Formless Golden Body is as tough as steel, my Inferno Heaven Flames can melt this metal! Break for me! Break! Break!”

With each shout, the flames grew stronger, a ceaseless torrent that forced Tang Jie to retreat.

Fan Tiande was right that everything in the world had its counter. The Formless Golden Body was powerful, but it also had things it feared: Fire-type attacks. Similarly, while the Chaoswind Step allowed for instant movement in a certain area, it was powerless against this all-encompassing sea of fire.

Although this wasn’t enough to kill him, he could no longer ignore his opponent’s attacks. One could say that the two greatest advantages Tang Jie had had in his one-versus-four had been neutralized by Fan Tiande’s sea of fire.

Fan Tiande shouted, “Tiger Howl Punch!”

With a mighty roar, Fan Tiande punched, a tiger emerging from his right hand and charging at Tang Jie. Just as Tang Jie was about to block, Fan Tiande’s arm paused, and then he shouted, “Thirteen strikes!”

He instantly made thirteen punches in a row, creating thirteen tiger phantoms.

Tang Jie didn’t expect Fan Tiande’s attacks to come so quickly. He used the Heartbreak Saber to block three tigers and the Chaoswind Step to evade six, but the remaining four slammed into his body, causing him to throw up blood as he was thrown back.

Fan Tiande laughed. “What do you think? How do my thirteen strikes compare to your eighteen sky blades?”

Tang Jie grunted, “Let’s try it out first.”

He pushed his hands forward, and the Heavenly Cloud Blades flew through the air.

Fan Tiande laughed as he jumped up and launched consecutive attacks against the eighteen Heavenly Blades: “Nineteen strikes!”

Eighteen fist blasts scattered the Heavenly Blades, and the last fist blast made use of the gap in spell arts to strike Tang Jie in the chest, pushing Tang Jie back again. But this time, his own face paled. It was clear that those nineteen strikes had been quite the burden on him.

After all, Tang Jie was using a spell art while he was using a fist technique. Fist techniques were naturally disadvantaged when used against spell arts.

Even so, Fan Tiande still smugly laughed. “You’re nothing much. Your Formless Golden Body is countered, your Chaoswind Step rendered ineffective, and your sky blades stopped. Let me see what else you have!”

“What about this?” Tang Jie threw out a golden light: the golden dagger.

Fan Tiande laughed and assumed a strange posture: “Cut!”

Two giant crab claws appeared and clamped around the golden dagger, rendering it immobile.

While the golden dagger was sharp, the Great Stellar Chiliocosm had borne witness to all kinds of attacks. The major sects had seen this sort of attack that relied on unusual sharpness many times before and had long ago researched a method to counter it.

These crab claws were an art relic meant specifically for dealing with this sort of spell art.

His counter having worked, Fan Tiande laughed, “I already know of this trick! You think it can do anything to me?”

Tang Jie cocked his head. “What about this?”

He waved his right hand, and that golden dagger held between the claws instantly turned into numerous golden needles.

“This… How?” Fan Tiande was stunned.

Although Tang Jie had also transformed the golden dagger when killing the first person, it had only been for an instant, and it had been blocked by that person’s body. Thus, Fan Tiande did not know that the golden dagger had the ability to transform, nor that it could transform so drastically.

The golden needles barraged Fan Tiande, taking him by surprise, but he still reacted rather quickly, his hands quickly forming a spell. His body accelerated at an unreasonable rate, and he just barely managed to dodge most of the needles.

But some of the needles managed to penetrate through his body, creating several bloody holes.

“Cognitive Creation Tier!” Tang Jie grunted.

The Mortal Shedding Realm had three major tiers: Hundred Refinement, Nine Revolutions, and Cognitive Creation. They corresponded to the body, heart, and will.

Hundred Refinement and Nine Revolutions improved one’s defensive and recovery abilities. Once one finished cultivating them, the cultivator would obtain an inhuman body that could not be wounded by normal weapons, thus increasing their survivability. But cultivating the Spirit Will was different. As it involved the mind, upon attaining this level, cultivators could more quickly and stably cast spell arts.

If one had to give the exact numbers, then at the same level of proficiency, a Cognitive Creation Tier cultivator could cast spells 50% faster than a Nine Revolutions Tier cultivator.

This meant that a Cognitive Creation Tier cultivator could cast three spells in the time it took a Nine Revolutions Tier cultivator to cast two. And in the Thousand Passions Sect, which was known for fast casting, it might even be twice as fast.

The Beast Refining Gate naturally couldn’t reach this level, but this was still a Cognitive Creation Tier Spirit Master. His reaction was much faster than that of his junior brothers, so he managed to dodge Tang Jie’s lethal strike.

But Fan Tiande was shaken by what he had experienced, fear taking root in his mind. He angrily roared, “Bastard! Lava Flame Fist!”

He first grabbed at the flames, causing flames to curl around his arm, and then he gathered the flames into a giant fist and launched it at Tang Jie.

This Lava Flame Fist wasn’t to be underestimated, and as it exploded against Tang Jie’s body in a brilliant burst of flame, it scorched his entire body black.

This was another property of the Cognitive Creation Tier. Once a cultivator attained a Spirit Will, their mind would go from formless to formed, which allowed Fan Tiande to merge his own power with that of his refined beast for a terrifying combination attack.

Thus, for Beast Refining Gate disciples, what was most important about the Spirit Will wasn’t that it turned the cultivator into a spell-casting firing platform, but that it allowed combination attacks with one’s refined beast.

Fan Tiande’s flame fist turned into a giant hand that made to grab Tang Jie. “Hurry up and turn yourself in!”

Tang Jie snorted when he saw that hand of flames. A light shone from his forehead as a vertical eye slowly opened.

Fan Tiande was taken aback by this sight, during which Tang Jie raised his hand and thrust a finger at the flame hand.

He lightly thrust his finger right at the center of the giant flame hand, which caused the hand to instantly disperse like a punctured balloon.

“No! How is that possible?” Fan Tiande howled in shock.

The giant flame hand was made from a fusion of spell arts, so it had its own critical node. Tang Jie’s finger had struck this critical node, which had caused Fan Tiande’s spell art to fall apart.

The Dao of Insight!

This was the direction Tang Jie had been working toward ever since he had grasped the Dao of Insight. As time passed and his understanding of Insight deepened, his abilities grew stronger.

And now that Feng Hongluan had exposed him, Tang Jie gradually lost his reason to keep hiding it. Thus, in some key battles, he could use this Insight ability.

And only through repeated use could one grow familiar with and master an ability.

The undoing of his spell art had a rather severe effect on Fan Tiande.

His head was thrown back as he vomited blood and howled in pain.

But he was still an elite of the Beast Refining Gate. Even when heavily injured, Fan Tiande swiftly reacted, putting his hands together and shouting, “Heaven Scorpion, go!”

A large black scorpion appeared in front of him.

A fourth fiend beast!

Unlike his junior brothers, Fan Tiande had already cultivated his Myriad Beast Union Mantra to the fourth level, so he could control four fiend beasts at once. But the more beasts one controlled, the greater the mental burden would be. Thus, the Beast Refining Gate disciples tended to see what their opponents were capable of and then release the appropriate fiend beast.

This scorpion was the fiend beast that Fan Tiande was most proud of and most skilled with.

The moment the scorpion appeared, Fan Tiande cried out, “Heaven Scorpion Hand!”

His right hand curled into a hook while the scorpion raised its tail. Arm and tail assumed the same posture, and then they drew close together and seemingly merged, the five fingers turning into a hook.

Tang Jie was startled by this. A moment later, Fan Tiande’s hand extended, that hooked hand seemingly piercing through space, appearing right in front of Tang Jie and stabbing at his throat.

Tang Jie wanted to activate the Chaoswind Step, but to his surprise, he found that he couldn’t activate it.

The Heaven Scorpion Hand was a spell art with spatial effects, so when it was being used, it would lock down the opponent. Although this lock was extremely weak and lasted for a very brief time, it meant that Tang Jie couldn’t immediately dodge.

As that hooked hand approached, Tang Jie felt a chill in his heart, like an immense danger was approaching.

Casting everything aside, he put all of his strength into leaning his body back and squatting down.

At the same time, Fan Tiande’s Heaven Scorpion Hand struck Tang Jie. As Tang Jie had contorted himself away, the hooked hand failed to strike Tang Jie in the throat, getting him in the lower chin instead, and at a reduced power.

Even so, the moment the Heaven Scorpion Hand touched Tang Jie, Tang Jie felt like something sharp was stabbing into his chin. The moment he felt pain, he immediately felt dizzy.

Poison!

The Heaven Scorpion Hand had brought together Fan Tiande and the fiend scorpion, transmitting the fiend scorpion’s poison to Tang Jie’s body. Worst of all was that Fan Tiande had raised this scorpion for many years, and its poison was far more fierce than normal. Even Tang Jie, with his Jewel Body and his Nine Revolutions body, couldn’t endure the poison, his vision blurring. He hastily took an antidote, but the poison was so fierce that it refused to be expelled for the moment.

Fan Tiande smugly laughed. “Still want to live after taking my Heaven Scorpion Hand? Die for me!”

He waved his hand, and the scorpion disappeared, only to be replaced by a large bear.

This was the rotation tactic the Beast Refining Gate was so skilled in. While Fan Tiande’s scorpion was fierce, it had fragile defenses and limited venom. Once its venom was injected, it could not be used for some time. Thus, he switched it out in order to maintain his combat strength.

The moment this bear appeared, it swatted a large paw at Tang Jie, sending Tang Jie flying like he was a ball.

Fan Tiande laughed. He even stopped releasing fiend fire, ordering the bear to frenziedly attack and beat Tang Jie to death.

In the sky, Tang Jie’s body was all mangled and torn open from the battering of the bear paws, and he threw up mouthful after mouthful of black blood.

Fan Tiande shouted, “What sort of dogshit Basking Moon genius is this? Didn’t I, Fan Tiande, still easily take him down? If the difference in tier could be so easily overcome, what would even be the point of cultivating? Die!”

He threw a Tiger Howl Punch at Tang Jie’s head.

Just as he was about to hit Tang Jie, Tang Jie suddenly raised his head, an icy look in his eyes.

He had seemed too weak to keep fighting, but now he extended his hand and caught Fan Tiande’s steely fist. Fan Tiande discovered that Tang Jie was pushing back his fist.

“You…” Fan Tiande looked at Tang Jie in shock. Hadn’t he been rendered powerless by the venom?

And then he saw that streak of black blood at the corner of Tang Jie’s mouth and understood.

Damn it! This bastard was letting the bear beat on him, throwing up blood to expel the poison!

The Heaven Scorpion Hand had struck him in the chin, near the mouth, and then the bear’s beating had set his blood energy into turmoil, allowing him to use the attacks to throw up mouthful after mouthful of poisoned blood.

Although there was still some venom left in him, it was nothing his constitution couldn’t handle.

Fan Tiande had used this combo of scorpion and bear numerous times, and no one had ever adapted as Tang Jie had. More importantly, one had to be capable of fighting back, or else one would have died to the bear before the poison was removed.

Realizing his miscalculation, Fan Tiande immediately knew that he was in trouble.

Tang Jie grabbed Fan Tiande’s arm with his right hand and thrust his left hand at Fan Tiande’s chest. But rather than attacking, he was sending something on his hand into Fan Tiande’s body.

A Mindseizer!

Fan Tiande immediately felt dizzy, his entire body freezing.

Tang Jie let Fan Tiande go and then stabbed him in the belly with the Heartbreak Saber. He pulled, hooking out a part of his intestines.

He stabbed again and pulled again.

He stabbed and stabbed again, just like how Fan Tiande had battered him with the bear.

After several stabs, Fan Tiande’s body was full of holes.

“Aaagh!” As Tang Jie was pulling out his saber for the eighth time, Fan Tiande suddenly howled in pain. He had finally broken free of the Mindseizer, and the sensation of pain exploded in his mind.

Fan Tiande was filled with fear. He didn’t know what sort of secret art Tang Jie had used, somehow seizing his soul. All of his arrogance vanished, and he finally started to think about retreating.

The Heartbreak Saber stabbed at Fan Tiande again.

Fan Tiande hastily put up a barrier, at the same time casting aside his dignity as a senior brother and shouting, “Hurry up and save me!”

His battle against Tang Jie had lasted longer than Tang Jie’s two previous battles put together, so the pursuing disciples were now extremely close.

Fan Tiande no longer wanted to kill Tang Jie, only for his junior brothers to catch up quickly.

Tang Jie snorted and took out some seeds from his Mustard Seed Bag, scattering them in front of him.

Sowing beans into soldiers!

These bean soldiers that would even dare to attack and bite at True Persons emerged and charged forward.

Tang Jie had spent the last two years planting and harvesting beans, but as they were one-time-use items, Tang Jie was not willing to recklessly use them.

But to kill Fan Tiande, Tang Jie was finally willing to use them.

Several hundred bean soldiers charged forward to intercept the Beast Refining Gate disciples. These disciples realized that not only could they not rescue Fan Tiande, they had entered into a bitter battle themselves.

These bean soldiers had astonishing strength, and were capable of killing anyone who didn’t take them seriously.

Fan Tiande was aghast. He hadn’t expected Tang Jie to have this trump card. He hastily formed signs with his hands and pointed at his fiend beast, shouting, “Sacrifice!”

This fiend beast let out a soundless wail of sorrow, and then it flopped over and died. A rainbow light emerged from the corpse and entered Fan Tiande’s body, and Fan Tiande’s gruesome injuries began to recover.

Fan Tiande laughed. “Tang Jie, do you think my Beast Refining Gate’s disciples are that easy to kill? Even if you can stop my reinforcements, if I fight with all my might, how can you kill me?”

The corner of Tang Jie’s mouth twitched, but he said nothing and flicked his left hand. Another black streak shot toward Fan Tiande.

Another Mindseizer!

“This…” Fan Tiande hadn’t expected this move from Tang Jie, and he was instantly frozen.

Tang Jie rushed up and continued to stab Fan Tiande.

He didn’t use the golden dagger to take his head, instead constantly stabbing him, renewing the injuries that Fan Tiande had healed using his fiend beast and even worsening them.

When Fan Tiande awoke from the Mindseizer again, Tang Jie sent him another Mindseizer.

And then he kept stabbing.

The Beast Refining Gate disciples, held off by the bean soldiers, could only watch as Tang Jie grabbed Fan Tiande by the neck and kept stabbing…

Only when Fan Tiande’s body was so mangled that it was completely unrecognizable did Tang Jie finally let go.

And then Fan Tiande dropped from the sky.

Taking his belongings, Tang Jie smirked and said, “Idiot.”

This word was spoken in a garbled fashion. If one looked carefully, one would notice that Tang Jie’s tongue was swollen.

The poison had not been completely ineffective.

By now, the bean soldiers had sustained terrible losses.

While there were many bean soldiers, there were also many Beast Refining Gate disciples. Moreover, as people from one of the six major sects, they were talented individuals selected from the cream of the crop. Otherwise, there was no way someone as strong as Tang Jie would be having such a hard time dealing with them.

But those Beast Refining Gate disciples had also sustained injuries from the bean soldiers. One of them had even had their nose bitten off by a bean soldier.

Tang Jie knew just how formidable the teeth of these little guys were.

Just when he was thinking about killing a few more people before leaving, he heard a furious roar in the distance: “Cease your insolence and die!”

A beam of sword energy shot out of the distance, making straight for Tang Jie’s face.

Aghast, Tang Jie raised the Heartbreak Saber to block with all his power.

The sword energy clashed with the saber energy in a dazzling explosion. A moment later, the sword energy exploded into countless smaller sword rays that struck Tang Jie, causing him to throw up blood and peppering his body with small holes.

Tang Jie knew that this wasn’t good, so he immediately turned around and dived into the ocean.

The battles are getting messier and messier. Such is the price for trying to beat someone stronger than you.