novelraw Chapter 476: Gagagaga
Chapter 476: Gagagaga
A gray-white world without a hint of color and heavy with suffocating silence stretched in every direction.
Yu Zhao looked down at her hand. Her skin remained pale, yet seemed drained of life, faintly translucent. She tried to circulate spiritual power and found only emptiness within, not even the slightest ripple. Unexpectedly, she felt no discomfort. Instead, there was a tranquil certainty, as if everything lay neatly within her grasp.
She stood thinking a moment, then opened her palm. A cluster of many-colored light whirled and shone above her hand. Testing, she flicked out a thread of the whitest light, pale to the point of nothingness.
An image of herself appeared opposite her.
Yu Zhao caught sight of that face and faltered for a heartbeat. It was her, yet not her—eyes dead-still, features expressionless, not blank so much as indifferent, as if nothing under heaven were worth her notice. It was ruthlessness refined to an extreme.
“This is… my Ruthless Dao incarnation,” she murmured, a flash of understanding in her gaze.
She did not stop. With another sweep she cast out a ribbon of mist-gray light.
It blossomed midair into a second self, beautiful to the extreme, a smile in the brows, a soft halo around her body as if she might dissolve into the void at any time.
Yu Zhao recognized her at once. This was her Illusion Dao incarnation.
Her eyes fell to the two lights still resting in her palm. One was black and white intermingled yet sharply distinct, the mark of the Path of Reincarnation. The other was a golden glow woven from countless fine runes, representing the Dao of Formations.“So that is how it is,” Yu Zhao breathed. She now understood how to fight with Dao intent.
At the same time, the outside world erupted. Staring upward at a narrow image projected in the sky—the Four-Void Mirror—everyone watched the scene of Yu Zhao and her two Dao-intent incarnations.
Each will that entered the Four Voids Realm displayed differently. Some kept their own appearance. Others manifested as objects. For example, Elder Tie Shan’s two body-cultivator disciples appeared as a pair of unbreakable boulders. Some could split off an incarnation or two. But the multi-aspect display Yu Zhao had unveiled was something none of them had ever seen.
At first, gazes had clustered on Lu Jiu Yuan, Du Wu Xiang, and the other obvious contenders for first place. Only when someone noticed how different Yu Zhao was did the tide of attention swing her way.
“How can she possess four Dao intents at once,” someone cried.
“Who is she? Why have we never seen her in Bifang Realm,” another asked.
“Can anyone tell which four she has comprehended,” people whispered.
Listening to the murmurs, Ancestor Sui Bian held his head high, chest swelling with pride. Old Black Daoist beside him nearly dropped his jaw. He jabbed Sui Bian hard in the ribs and hissed: “Sui Bian, tell me honestly. Is Yu Zhao truly a disciple of your Five Elements Dao Sect? You did not go to some hidden clan and abduct their carefully raised young patriarch under that handsome face of yours, did you?”
Ancestor Sui Bian’s brows knitted in displeasure: “What nonsense are you spouting, Old Black Daoist. Yu Zhao is ours, a disciple of Five Elements Dao Sect, nailed-down truth. Even if you are jealous, do not slander my character.”
Old Black Daoist flushed and forced a laugh, though disbelief still tugged at him. He had once ascended from the cultivation world to the Middle Thousand World—testament to rare talent. He had arrived burning with ambition, swearing to make a name that shook the realms, only for reality to grind down his edges. A proud son of heaven in the lower world became, here in the Middle Thousand World, one more face in a crowded sea. Competition was savage; experts were as common as clouds; genius was not in short supply. In a thousand years he had seen prodigies pass like fish in a river, and few could stir him anymore.
Yet Yu Zhao, who like him had come from the cultivation world, had done it. He raked a hand through hair like dry weeds, tasting an indescribable blend of emotions—joy, excitement, and a thin, undeniable thread of… wistfulness. He was old.
Before he could sink too far, a duck-like cackle snapped him back.
“Quack-quack-quack-quack,” Ancestor Sui Bian laughed with hands on hips until his eyes narrowed to slits, his abrupt noise drawing many glances. The Seeking Dao Lord of Qingxu Sect looked over as well, a faint line marring his brow. So that woman was the outside aid invited by Lingyin Sect. It seemed Lingyin Sect would again claim a place in the top ten.
Inside the Four Voids Realm, once Yu Zhao understood how to wield Dao intent, she recalled her two incarnations and turned her attention outward. A gray-white domain should have been laid bare at a glance, yet a dense fog veiled the margins, blurring the far distance. She was about to pick a direction at random when the haze thinned under her gaze and peeled back, revealing clarity a thousand li away.
She could make out streaks of shadow in the empty world—will-bodies of the disciples taking part in the trial.
“So this is…” she thought, then clarity burned away the doubt. Since leaving the Land of Divine Remains, her eyes had seen many things that others could not. She had assumed this Divine Ability only functioned when she was in her true body. Unexpectedly, her will-body carried it as well. That meant the source of this power was not her cultivation base, but something deeper.
She pressed down her surprise and let her sight pierce the veils until it settled on a giant more than ten zhang tall. “Let us start with you,” she said.
Boom, boom, boom, the ground quaked and winds howled as titanic footprints gouged the earth one after another. A lone figure stumbled, head down, scrambling to dodge.
“Hahaha, interesting, very interesting,” Chu Po Tian laughed, toying with an ant as he stamped wherever he pleased. Watching the tiny figure darting between his legs, his laughter grew wilder.
“Chu Po Tian, once I get out of here, it will be you and me to the death,” the man being toyed with raged, flinging down a threat.
“Just you,” Chu Po Tian sneered, lifting his massive foot and slamming it down.
With a thunderous crash the ground caved in, a vast pit yawning open. The cultivator below was flung by the shockwave, hammered to the ground. His figure flickered in and out, on the verge of collapse.
“Stand up, trash,” Chu Po Tian jeered.
The cultivator tried to rise, but each time he moved, Chu Po Tian took a single step forward. Under the brutal tremors he had no power to resist and could only be knocked flat again and again. Only when the man had no strength left did Chu Po Tian bare his teeth in a grin, lift his foot high, and stomp down.
A huge shadow swallowed the cultivator whole.
Thud.