Immortal Paladin

Chapter 473 460 Random Encounter

460 Random Encounter

While I no longer possessed the convenience of Castling through my Manasouls, I still retained access to Egress. That alone gave us a reasonable margin of safety in splitting up. The Mighty Duck was more than capable of acting as a fixed endpoint for the spell, and I had taught Alice the same technique.

Back in LLO, support-class players frequently used Egress to evacuate parties from disastrous dungeon runs. They would resurrect their allies at the Church, neatly avoiding the harsher penalties of death. During the Civil War of the Grand Ascension Empire and its eventual annexation, the spell gained popularity among the Night Blades. It allowed operatives to extract critical intelligence and ensure survival even in catastrophic missions. Later, during the Hollowed World War, it became indispensable to the Guardians when the Holy Ascension Empire faced near-annihilation from both internal sabotage and external invasion, thanks to the Heavenly Temple and my delightful counterpart. In the current era of the Hollowed World, Egress had reached an entirely new level of ubiquity across all professions. Players found it amusing that certain NPCs could essentially fast travel. In truth, it was an overpowered logistical tool that enabled civilizations to expand rapidly while remaining cohesive across vast distances.

Even so, none of that solved my immediate problem.

"But man, this sure is boring," I muttered.

We traveled through the void on Alice's bicorn, cutting across cosmic distances. Occasionally a nebula flared in brilliant color, or a distant star pulsed with unusual intensity, or we glimpsed drifting celestial debris from forgotten catastrophes. At first, it had been awe-inspiring. After several hours, it began to feel repetitive.

Alice, who sat upright as she guided the bicorn through the vacuum with steady confidence, asked casually, "Do you want to take a break?"

I was seated behind her, one arm loosely around her waist for balance. "It would not make much difference," I replied.

The bicorn snorted in infernal. "As expected of you, human. You possess a weak heart."

It was still strange to me that Alice could ride the creature at all. The bicorn had once been deeply attuned to Alice's vampiric corruption, but Alice was no longer a vampire. Was there still something lingering within Alice? Or perhaps the old lore applied here as well, some archaic rule about purity and contracts that I preferred not to analyze too closely. My thoughts drifted somewhere inappropriate before I forcefully redirected them.

I answered the bicorn in infernal, my tone sharp. "If my heart is weak, then yours must already be dust—"

Alice suddenly wobbled as the bicorn jerked violently.

"Hah," the bicorn scoffed. "A fine creature like me has no need for your approval."

The next instant, it bucked.

I was launched cleanly off its back into open space.

For a split second, I tumbled through the vacuum, the stars spinning around me in a disorienting blur. Then instinct took over. I reoriented my body and activated Zealot's Stride, stabilizing myself mid-flight as golden energy flared briefly beneath my feet.

I hovered there, staring at the offended infernal horse.

"Stupid horse," I muttered, brushing imaginary dust off my sleeve as I propelled myself back toward them. "No charm at all…"

The ambush came without warning.

I reacted on instinct, tearing a fragment of the Dark Veil from my reserve and reshaping it into a towering shield just as a madman descended on me with an axe. The impact rang out across the vacuum, force rippling through my arm.

He had a furious face and bulging arms, veins standing out like cords as he roared, "I AM CAI HU! YOUR BOUNTY SHALL BE MINE!"

Of course it would not take long for bounty hunters to show up.

I kept my breathing steady. I only had a single layer of immortality, a pathetic Level One by Greater Universe standards. One clean mistake and I would actually die. That was inconvenient.

Still, reshaping the Dark Veil had become second nature to me. After countless uses of a Holy Spirit's innate conjuration ability, transforming the material into whatever weapon I required was trivial. This would serve as a decent litmus test. How did I fare against the baseline of the Greater Universe?

Let us start simple.

"Frost Smite."

The shield liquefied and elongated into a spear mid-clash. I thrust forward. The tip pierced into Cai Hu's torso, and a surge of freezing energy erupted outward, spreading crystalline frost across his body.

He blinked in surprise, clearly not expecting the defensive construct to morph into a piercing weapon.

Alice's voice brushed my mind through Qi Speech. "Do you need help? I sense others observing. Likely his allies."

"Stand by," I replied calmly.

Cai Hu roared, spiritual pressure igniting like a furnace. The frost cracked and evaporated under waves of blazing qi. He unleashed a technique drenched in violent heat, the air around him distorting with raw aggression.

I released the spear and activated Zealot's Stride, shifting backward in a burst of golden light.

Cai Hu sneered. "Fool! You abandoned your weapon—"

He stopped mid-taunt.

A skeleton now stood before him, bony fingers wrapped around the spear still embedded in his torso.

Ezekiel.

One of the most delightful features of Ezekiel was scalability. He could be mass-produced.

"Summon: Holy Spirit."

Within my Divine Zone, multiple Ezekiels manifested around Cai Hu in flashes of pale radiance. Each wielded a shard of the Dark Veil shaped into a spear, stabbing at his body all at once.

Cai Hu roared and swept his axe in a brutal arc. Several summons shattered instantly, dissolving into motes of light. He pivoted, fury locking onto me as he carved through more of them with savage efficiency.

I frowned slightly.

I could not perceive the number of immortality layers within him. That was irritating. Every Ascended Soul I had encountered in the Hollowed World had been transparent about their level. Here, however, there was an additional cultivation component obscuring the data. Something unique to the Greater Universe. Perhaps a technique tied to the Six Realms, or something dating back to Meng Po's generation that even Hei Mao had only partially understood.

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Even with the Ophanim active, I could not get a clean read.

That alone made this encounter very interesting.

"Demonic Asura Path: Three-Armed War God!"

Red qi exploded behind Cai Hu, condensing into a spectral third arm. He reached into a pocket dimension and drew out a halberd for the manifested limb, while his original hands wielded axe and hammer. He slammed the weapons together, sparks and shockwaves rippling outward.

"No one has lasted more than three moves against me in this form!" he boasted. "Pathetic human, you do not even understand the concept of laws you are flaunting with that single layer of immortality. Let me educate you. I am Level Twenty-Four of the Ascended Soul! You must kill me twenty-four times to erase me, and even that is no guarantee! You need an Immortal Art to meaningfully damage my existence! I only need to behead you once!"

His eyes burned with manic delight.

"Quake in fear, human! I shall take mercy and make it painless!"

It was almost amusing how confidently he labeled me as "human."

If only he knew.

With everything I had learned about myself, that word had become increasingly inaccurate. Between the Source, the Legacies, the Hollow Star, and whatever strange synthesis I had become, I was closer to an alien than a mortal man. If I ever wandered into the Supreme Heart's territory, I might blend in better than expected.

That thought was for the distant future.

I glanced sideways at Alice. She hovered beside me atop her bicorn, looking thoroughly unimpressed. "David," she said lazily, "this is taking too long."

I sighed. "How do I even explain it to him?"

The strongest Ascended Soul I had fought in a straight confrontation was Yuan Shen at Level Forty-Seven. Yuan Shun and my counterpart did not count. Their strength stemmed primarily from the Paladin Legacy, with only a thin layer of traditional cultivation woven in. Yuan Shen, however, had been a true cultivator. He possessed multiple Immortal Arts and decades of ruthless experience.

He had only lost because I had the Hollow Star.

Even then, he also wielded the Dark Veil at the time, which balanced the scales somewhat. The true reason for his defeat was his greed. He wanted my body, unaware that the cheat code known as the Source made that ambition suicidal. After learning more from Feng Wei and piecing together Ru Qiu's history, I had come to understand just how obscenely broken the Source really was.

My perception of the Greater Universe had shifted drastically. It did not help that in the Hollowed World I kept brushing against existences as vast as the Supreme Void and as cunning as the Yellow Emperor. Compared to them, this Level Twenty-Four bounty hunter felt loud rather than terrifying.

"Do you want me to handle it?" Alice asked.

Cai Hu roared, "Women have no place—"

Divine Qi exploded outward from me in a single decisive motion.

My Silver Steel appeared in my hand, summoned instantly from my pocket dimension. I stepped forward and unleashed War Smite. The strike was so sudden that Cai Hu failed to react in time. Within my Divine Zone, anticipation became difficult for opponents. As long as he remained inside my radius, I could deploy skills and spells with minimal telegraphing.

A massive gash tore across his chest.

He was sent hurtling backward and crashed onto a nearby moon with a thunderous impact that fractured its surface. Dust and debris spiraled outward into the vacuum.

He looked up at me, fury replaced with dawning fear. "H-How?"

Through the Ophanim, I glimpsed it clearly this time. One layer of his immortality peeled away, dissolving into the cosmos.

I steadied my grip on my longsword.

"Immortal Art: Godslayer."

Between Ascended Souls, true death was notoriously difficult to achieve. Their resilience bordered on absurdity. Cultivators frequently attempted to kill one another regardless, often seeking to plunder fragments of immortality in the process. Yet there existed a threshold that separated ordinary techniques from true apex power.

Immortal Arts.

They were the dividing line between mediocrity and supremacy.

A radiant arc cleaved through space as I unleashed Godslayer at full force. The moon beneath Cai Hu split cleanly in half, the shockwave rippling outward in a blinding crescent of light. Unable to mount a proper defense in time, he lost five layers of immortality in a single strike.

His arrogance shattered.

He tried to flee.

The shard of Dark Veil still embedded in his body responded to my will, liquefying and reforming into chains that coiled around his limbs and torso, locking him in place.

I raised my voice deliberately, projecting it across the void where several other Ascended Souls lurked unseen, observing and waiting for an opportunity.

"Let this be a lesson," I declared. "Watch."

I swung again.

And again.

Each strike consumed quintessence at a frightening rate. My single layer of immortality fueled the Immortal Art recklessly, pushing it beyond what a Level One Ascended Soul should logically manage. Radiant slashes carved through Cai Hu's existence itself, severing layer after layer.

His screams dwindled.

By the fourth additional swing, there was nothing left.

No body.

No soul.

No lingering defiance.

Cai Hu, Level Twenty-Four Ascended Soul, ceased to exist.

The void fell silent.

I lowered my sword slowly, letting the last traces of divine light fade.

"No one insults my woman."

My rather fiery demonstration had the intended effect.

Most of the watching presences scattered immediately. Through the faint tremors in space and fluctuations in qi, I felt them withdrawing at alarming speed. Still, a few threads of attention lingered at the edges of perception. Those were the cautious ones. The patient ones.

That could become troublesome.

I returned Silver Steel to my pocket dimension and exhaled slowly. With a thought, I summoned back the fragments of Dark Veil that had bound Cai Hu. The inky substance flowed through the void like liquid shadow before gathering in my palm. I reshaped it into a longbow.

"I asked nicely," I muttered, more aggrieved than angry.

Alice extended her hand toward me. A crimson arrow formed from her blood, condensed through an Immortal Art. It pulsed with layered curses so intricate that even I felt a flicker of discomfort when I examined them through the Ophanim. I recognized several patterns. My counterpart had used variations of those same curses.

She had grown stronger.

I nocked the arrow and drew the string.

"Immortal Art: Godslayer."

I released.

The arrow vanished in a streak of divine radiance and reappeared within a distant cluster of nebulous clouds. A scream echoed through the void as an Ascended Soul was forced out of stealth, clutching at a wound that burned with layered curse and annihilating force.

He had clearly not expected to be seen through so easily.

Alice handed me another arrow, her lips curling into a faintly sadistic smile. "How romantic," she said lightly. "Hunting with my dear man."

I could not help the faint twitch at the corner of my mouth.

I fired again.

And again.

Each shot forced another hidden observer to break concealment and flee in panic. Some attempted spatial shifts. Others cloaked themselves deeper. None of it mattered. The combination of Ophanim, Godslayer, and blood-bound curses was simply unfair.

Within moments, the surrounding void was empty.

I reabsorbed the Dark Veil bow into my robes and considered the implications. "Our location will likely be reported to the Celestial Circle soon. Any ideas?"

Alice grew thoughtful. After a moment, she looked at me. "Summon your Ezekiels for me. Perhaps… a hundred."

That was not a small number, but I obliged.

A surge of Divine Qi radiated outward as one hundred holy skeletons manifested around us, their forms assembling from pale light and structured will. They hovered in disciplined formation, awaiting command.

If I still possessed the Human Path's shapeshifting ability, I could have altered their appearances myself and scattered them to erase our tracks. It would have been an effective diversion tactic.

Alice seemed to have reached the same conclusion.

"Is this how you do it?" she asked softly.

Her blood qi shot outward, lancing into each Ezekiel in turn. For a brief moment, a temporary Blood Pact formed between her and every single summon. The network of connections flickered like a web of crimson threads.

She inhaled and invoked, "Human Path. Transform."

I blinked.

Each Ezekiel's skeletal frame shifted, flesh forming over bone, features sculpting themselves into my exact likeness. Within seconds, a hundred Da Weis hovered in the void, each radiating a faint echo of my aura.

I had not expected that.

It appeared that when her vampirism had been cleansed, she had not simply lost power. She had gained something else in exchange.

I looked at my duplicates and gave the order. "You know what to do. Go."

They dispersed in evenly spaced trajectories, each heading toward a different vector across the starfield. Their movements were deliberate, convincing, and infused with enough of my presence to confuse most forms of tracking.

Alice watched them scatter with quiet satisfaction. "How is your level now?"

"Still Level One," I replied dryly.

I had not been able to pilfer Cai Hu's immortality. Godslayer was too absolute. As an offensive Immortal Art, it did not carefully harvest. It erased and scattered the layers of immortality it touched. It made me sigh in all honesty.

"My attack was so strong that it dispersed his layers of immortality into the universe. I doubt there was anything left coherent enough to claim."

I paused, glancing toward the direction where Cai Hu had once existed.

"Hopefully he reflects on his mistakes and reincarnates properly," I added.

Given the fragmented state of the Underworld and its questionable management, I was not optimistic.