First Immortal of the Sword

Yuan Linning cultivated one of Meng Po Palace’s loftiest inheritances, the Heavenchill Netherworld Flame Sutra.
She’d mastered the top-notch power of Netherworld Iceflames, and even a casual attack could encase living things and entire landscapes in ice.

After proving her Dao and becoming an Emperor, she was called the Iceflame Netherworld Empress.

Cui Jingyan and the old blind man were both alarmed.

This was the power of the Imperial Realm!

Just one attack, yet she seemed like a deity in control of the entire landscape and all its facets, emanating limitless power.

Just as the blade of light was about to descend—

Bang!

The dense layer of frost covering Su Yi burst apart.

Practically simultaneously, Abstruse Celestial rose through the air, like the river of heaven flowing in reverse.
It just barely managed to block the descending snowy light.

Crunch!

The three-foot light blade split down the middle.

Su Yi’s indomitable sword qi struck like an angry dragon overturning the seas.
The nearby landscape rumbled, recovering from its frozen state.

As if a sword dancing throughout the landscape had broken ten thousand feet of ice!

This scene left both Cui Jingyan and the old blind man stunned.

 Lu Changqing was wide-eyed and tongue-tied.
An Emperor’s attack could easily obliterate any Spiritual Revolution cultivator around, yet now, Su Yi had neutralized it!

Even Yuan Linning couldn’t help but be moved.

She hadn’t held back; that attack represented her true power.
Sure, she hadn’t pushed herself to the very limit, but that attack was still beyond what any Spirit Dao cultivator should have been able to take!

Yet Su Yi had blocked it.

He didn’t dodge, nor did he get hurt.
One slash, and he miraculously survived!

This seemed unquestionably unbelievable.

Whoosh~

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Snow-white icy mists permeated heaven and earth.

Su Yi stepped into the air, waved his sword, and attacked Yuan Linning.

His momentum was fierce and prideful, and his clothes fluttered around him.
He seemed like an immortal of the sword soaring through the skies.
Although he was clearly only in the Spiritual Incarnation Realm, his momentum made heaven and earth tremble!

Whoosh!

His slash seemed to overturn the skies.
Boundless, immeasurable sword light illuminated the landscape like the light of dawn, so bright, it was difficult to open one’s eyes.

“What terrifying attainments in the Dao of the Sword!”

Yuan Linning’s pupils constricted, and the look on her beautiful face shifted.
She almost dared not believe her eyes.

Such sword force seemed far beyond what a Spiritual Incarnation Realm cultivator should have been capable of.
She was an Empress, yet even she felt a prickling pain on her skin!

“Suppress!” Yuan Linning’s hands formed seals.

A hundred-foot lotus of icy flames suddenly surged into being.
As it resolved, cold, dark, fiery light descended.

The River of Forgetfulness Soul Deliverance Technique!

This was one of Meng Po Palace’s nine great legacies.
When used, it could intimidate the soul and suppress the mind, and it was rife with murderous power.

When it landed, even a light blow would severely injure the soul.
A heavier blow would destroy a target’s mind, reducing them to a puppet, little more than a walking corpse!

However——

When the sword qi landed, the hundred-foot iceflame lotus trembled violently, and its petals burst like firecrackers.
In the end, it split, crumbled into bits, and fell like rain. 

Boom!

The skies were in turmoil.
Smoke and misty light ran rampant.

The old blind man and Cui Jingyan were rooted to the spot, their astonishment too great to put into words.

After all, no matter how heaven-defying Su Yi had been before, he was at most invincible within the Spirit Dao.

This was different; even Yuan Linning, an Empress, couldn’t block his sword qi, not even with her various secret abilities!

This was simply shocking and unheard of!

Boom!

Sword qi struck as if overturning the heavens.
It broke through Yuan Linning’s attempts to block, then continued ahead, its power undiminished.

Yuan Linning was instantly solemn.
She stretched out her hand and hit the air, calling upon the full extent of her power before managing to shatter the sword qi.
It dispersed just three feet in front of her.

However, Su Yi gave her no time to catch her breath before he attacked once more.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

Streaks of sword qi swept through the air, some as wonderfully bright as the misty light of dawn, others as boundless as the starry skies pouring down on the world below.

The full extent of Su Yi’s cultivation base was on display in each and every slash.

His will to fight boiled over as if he’d been set ablaze.

Rumble! Boom!

Heaven and earth were shrouded in darkness, and the sun and moon lost their light.
The nearby trees, grasses, and boulders had long since been reduced to powder, and sword intent swept through the skies, creating massive chasms in the earth.

In the face of such an onslaught, how could Yuan Linning dare hold back? She attacked with everything she had!

Icy Yin flames filled the space around her slender figure.
With every movement, she displayed all manner of profound and inscrutable wondrous techniques with practiced ease.

Against power like that, even other Imperial experts wouldn’t dare to take her lightly, much less those beneath the Imperial level.

A grand battle erupted.

There was an enormous disparity between the combatants; they were two full realms apart.

Someone who didn’t know better would surely have thought this an entirely unsuspenseful battle.
They would have been certain of Yuan Linning’s victory.

However, as unbelievable as it seemed——

Yuan Linning had been suppressed right from the start!

It didn’t matter how many miraculous methods she used.
Su Yi’s terrifying sword intent crushed them all.
Even when she used her full power, she couldn’t reverse the situation.

On the contrary, as the battle raged on, she was continuously suppressed!

“This…”

Lu Changqing’s eyes widened, and his mind buzzed.

Everyone beneath the Imperial level was like an ant.

Throughout history, practically none beneath the Imperial Level had ever crossed this seemingly insurmountable chasm to contend with Emperors!

Lu Changqing still remembered that, several years ago, an extremely monstrous Spiritual Revolution cultivator had appeared in the Yellow Springs Palace.
His name was Xun Zimo.

Once, during a grand battle, several hostile factions’ Profound Illumination Emperors chased him with the intent to kill, only for him to escape with his lie.
When news got out, it shook the entire Netherworld.

Everyone praised Xun Zimo’s heaven-defying cultivation.
After all, he was only a Spiritual Revolution Realm cultivator, yet he’d escaped from Emperors alive.
Almost none beneath the heavens could have achieved that.

Yet now, this Spiritual Incarnation teenager of the Azure Continent wasn’t just fighting an Empress; he was suppressing her!

This was far too terrifying!

The Spiritual Incarnation and Profound Illumination Realms were two great realms apart, but more than that, they were of two different Daos.
This was an enormous disparity.

Contending with an Imperial expert was already unbelievable.
If word spread, it would surely shake the Netherworld; such a feat would have been dazzling in any era.

But Su Yi wasn’t just contending with his opponent; he was suppressing her!

This completely overturned Lu Changqing’s perception of reality.
He almost dared not believe it was happening!

It was to the point that, despite having overcome his fair share of wind and rain, Lu Changqing was unwittingly rooted to the spot, completely dumbstruck.

Mere moments later.

Yuan Linning took out a snow-white weaver’s shuttle.

This was her Natal Dao Treasure, the Thousand Illusions Spirit Shuttle.
It was made with thirty thousand catties of River of Forgetfulness Ice Crystals mixed with three hundred or so rare divine materials.
Her master, Second High Elder Feng Chi, had refined it personally.
Its power far surpassed other Dao Weapons.

Even rarer, it could suppress both Yin and Yang souls and restrict the spirit.
Its killing power was astonishing too.
It had accompanied her in battle all this time, and she’d slain countless foes with it.

And indeed, when Yuan Linning took out this treasure, she turned things around.
She was no longer as thoroughly suppressed as before.

But in the blink of an eye, whatever small advantage she’d reclaimed was gone; Su Yi had whittled it away completely.

Yuan Linning felt stretched thin and overpowered! Su Yi was just too domineering; he attacked like the wind or a sudden downpour.
Every slash was faster and stronger than the one before.
His combat prowess was so terrifying that the standards of the Spirit Dao were insufficient to describe him.

“Impossible! How could he possibly be this strong!?” Shock coursed through Yuan Linning’s heart, and the look on her beautiful face shifted.
She felt as if her understanding of cultivating the Grand Dao had been dealt a massive shock.

As an Empress, her knowledge and experience were naturally far from ordinary. But even if you’d hit her over the head, she could never have imagined that a Spiritual Incarnation cultivator would be able to overpower an Empress like her in a head-on confrontation relying on nothing but his own strength!

If word got out, she feared no one would believe it.

Clang!!

Suddenly, the sound of an impact shook the heavens.

A single slash sent the Thousand Illusions Spirit Shuttle flying.
The slash continued ahead, its power undiminished as it slammed into Yuan Linning.

The Iceflame Netherworld Emperor staggered backward and almost fell from the sky.

Shit! Yuan Linning’s expression shifted dramatically.
Her mental state was in upheaval, giving Su Yi an opening to exploit.

Kch!

Sword rain swept forth, densely blanketing everything in all directions.
That forceful, indomitable killing power cut the surrounding skies into countless pieces.

Yuan Linning clashed with it, almost on instinct. 

In the end, although she blocked this terrifying blow, her Daoist robes were ripped open, revealing the snow-white skin below, as well as a shocking, bleeding wound.

This left her furious, but more than that, astonished.

Don’t tell me I’m really going to lose to a Spiritual Incarnation cultivator!?

But it was then that—

Clang!

Su Yi stopped one hundred feet away and put Abstruse Celestial.
He shook his head.
“You’ve yet to condense a complete Law of the Profound Dao, so you’re ultimately not a real Empress yet.
With your abilities, even if we continue fighting, there’s no way you can turn this around.”

He’d already completely understood her abilities.
She was, at best, comparable to the eighth combat spirit of the fourth layer of the Divine Cave of the River of Forgetfulness.

Before last night, fighting her would have been a struggle, and he couldn’t have avoided injuries.

But while overcoming yesterday’s trial, he’d tempered his cultivation base many times over, undergoing all manner of subtle transformations.

Were he to challenge the fourth layer’s trial again, he could easily take down the eighth and ninth combat spirits of will!

Heaven and earth were still in upheaval, and smoke and misty light still permeated the air.

When Su Yi spoke and put away his sword, both his allies and Lu Changqing were utterly dazed.

It seemed the utterly enraged, utterly alarmed Yuan Linning couldn’t bear this blow; her hands and feet quivered uncontrollable, but she otherwise froze in place.

Her beautiful face was ashen, and she looked dazed and disconsolate!

A Spiritual Incarnation Realm young man had forced her into this state.
To an Empress, such a blow was far too great.

Going by the calendar of the Azure Continent, this was the twenty-seventh day of the fifth lunar month.

It was also the second day since Su Yi’s return to the Netherworld, the day he defeated Empress Yuan Linning three thousand miles from Naihe Divine Mountain!