Imperial Cultivation

Chapter 1370 - 1366: Perception

The ravaged valley was in complete chaos.

The houses had collapsed; only the palaces had survived the calamity, standing alone in proud solitude.

In the vast valley, apart from these nine palaces, there was nothing else taller than one meter.

The lush trees were gone, the brocade-like flowers gone as well, as if they had never existed.

They had turned to dust and mixed with the rubble of the houses, leaving not the slightest trace behind.

The experts of the Flower God Sect lay on the ground, their life or death uncertain, or sat cross-legged, regulating their breathing and treating their injuries.

Moans, howls, miserable screams, curses, high and low, filled the air without ceasing.

When their Heart and Spirit collapsed, they could not control themselves and let out all kinds of strange sounds.

Zhu Lingyun shook his head.

The backlash of this Array was more powerful than he had imagined.

There was no such scene recorded in the Donghuan Saint Technique.

Zhou Tianji, Mo Huaiyuan and the other eight had already been reduced to dust.

In the entire valley, there were another eighty-two Flower God Sect Disciples who had fallen under the backlash.

Strangely, the two young girls seen earlier had actually survived and were not killed.

And the eighty-two dead Flower God Sect Disciples were all middle-aged, all with peak Cultivation.

Adding Zhou Tianji and the other eight, a total of eighty-one top experts had died.

The Flower God Sect had suffered what could be called a devastating blow to its Primordial Energy.

By contrast, those younger people whose Cultivation was somewhat weaker did not die.

This power of backlash slew the strong and spared the weak.

Like cutting wheat by swinging high, cutting the tall and sparing the short.

With a slight analysis he understood the mystery.

This backlash force was pure yet chaotic; the Flower God Sect experts had fused with this power, borrowing from it and it from them. Its chaos, in turn, stirred the mental method of the Flower God Sect Disciples into disorder.

The higher one’s Cultivation, the more severe the disorder, the less they could endure, and in the end they died.

In the chaotic valley, Chu Liezhao appeared noiselessly, and no one noticed.

He appeared directly inside one of the great halls and took out the Haoyang Demon-suppressing Mirror.

Under Super Sense, the insides and outsides of the nine solitary, proudly standing great halls were as clear as day.

Exactly how many people were in each hall, which hall had no one at all, empty and deserted, were all known to him.

The Haoyang Demon-suppressing Mirror flashed once.

Several streaks of Seven-Colored Light that were rushing toward the Void above suddenly slowed, halted abruptly, then all turned and rushed this way.

When eight streaks of Seven-Colored Light drilled into the mirror, Chu Liezhao drew out a Light Gate and stepped into it, vanishing without a trace.

The Seven-Colored Light entered, he departed; between the two there was almost no gap at all; the transition was perfectly smooth.

"Who?"

With an angry roar, an old man with crane-white hair and a childlike face floated out of the central great hall.

The old man charged toward the great hall where Chu Liezhao had been; with a "bang" he crashed through the doors.

The hall was empty, nothing inside.

The old man shouted sharply, "Men, surround it!"

"Yes, Sect Hierarch!"

Dozens of middle-aged men emerged from the other halls, mixed with more than fifty young men.

Included among them were the two young girls from before.

They rushed to the front of the hall in a wave of anger and quickly surrounded it from all directions, above and below, sealing it so tightly that not even a bird could get close. He

The old man turned and strode back in long steps; after leaving that hall, he came to the central hall.

Zhu Lingyun could already see him arrive before a cabinet in the northeast corner of the hall.

This cabinet only reached his waist, two meters long and one meter wide, thickly coated in purple lacquer, with a heavy luster and an excellent texture.

He pressed his palm on the top of the cabinet; soft light overflowed from his palm and seeped into the cabinet.

"Pak!"

The cabinet opened, and a Purple Box leapt out.

The Purple Box was one foot square; all six faces were engraved in intaglio with patterns, as intricate as a great cluster of fresh flowers.

He pressed the middle fingers of both hands to either side of the Purple Box; when the patterns lit up, the lid popped open with a "bang."

Inside lay a section of flower branch.

A stem carved from Jade, petals carved from White Jade, and leaves carved from yellow jade.

Placing the Purple Box on the cabinet, he clasped his hands in front of his chest and bowed deeply to this White Jade Flower.

Then bowed again.

In total, he bowed nine times.

His expression grew more and more solemn, his eyes more and more brilliantly piercing.

A fierce warning rose in Zhu Lingyun’s heart; several Flying Knives shot out.

He, however, drew out a Light Gate and disappeared.

The Flying Knives skimmed along the ground; some sank into the floor tiles, some into a well, some into the stone walls.

Through the Flying Knives, he saw the situation of that old man with crane-white hair and a childlike face.

The view through the Flying Knives was distorted and unclear.

The old man slowly picked up that jade flower and raised it above his head.

The vision through the Flying Knives distorted even more, to the point that the old man could hardly be seen.

Only a mass of twisted light and shadow could be seen; one could not tell what the old man was doing.

Suddenly, a white light shot out from above the old man’s head.

In the instant the white light streaked across, it expanded to fill the entire valley.

Every Disciple in the valley was enveloped by the white light, without exception, including the old man himself.

The white light quickly drilled into their bodies, and in an instant, whether they had been gravely wounded and near death or only lightly injured, they all stood straight up, restored to their original state.

All injuries were completely healed.

Among the Flying Knives, two suddenly shattered with soft popping sounds, and the force along the Void surged toward Chu Zhiyuan.

Chu Zhiyuan sensed danger yet did not move; he sat calmly in the great hall of the Heaven-Reaching Sect.

"Bang, bang, bang, bang..."

Outside the great hall of the Heaven-Reaching Sect, gentle white light swelled up, forming a round Soft Light Shield that enveloped the interior and exterior of the hall.

Chu Zhiyuan revealed a smile.

This, after all, was the very meaning of the Heaven-Reaching Sect’s existence—to isolate the power of a Spirit Venerable.

The power unleashed by the White Jade Flower was similar to the level of a Spirit Venerable.

In an instant it could revive the dead and regrow flesh on bones; in an instant it could crush one’s spirit, and could even strike across the Void, ignoring the barriers of heaven and earth.

If this was not the power of a Spirit Venerable, what was it?

He rose and left the hall, leaping lightly onto the ridge of the hall’s roof and stepping onto the chiwen at the end of the main ridge, drawing close to watch the clash between the Soft Light Shield and the invisible force.

The shield was only about three meters from him, so close it felt within arm’s reach.

A fist-sized, crystal-clear rose was constantly pushing forward, trying to bore through the transparent shield.

The transparent shield looked thin, as if it might be broken at any moment, yet it was incomparably resilient and could not be broken no matter what.

Observing this crystal-clear rose at such close range, he could feel the vast and magnificent power contained within it.

He took two steps forward, almost pressing himself against the shield.

The Heaven-Reaching Order in his bosom lit up.

The transparent shield suddenly split off a cluster of soft light, which enveloped him.

He stretched out his hand and gently reached toward the Crystal Rose outside the shield.

The transparent shield that enveloped him and the shield that enveloped the Heaven-Reaching Sect were one and the same, allowing his hand to extend beyond the shield.

There was still a layer of soft light covering the outside of his palm.

The Crystal Rose suddenly shot toward his palm, its light flaring.

The soft light collided with it.

Chu Zhiyuan felt a tyrannical power surging toward him, making him involuntarily want to be flung away.

His feet remained firmly planted on the chiwen; the surging power flowed down along the main ridge and was absorbed by the great hall.

He carefully felt out this violent power, while the soft light clinging to the outside of his palm gradually drew back.

The distance between him and the Crystal Rose grew ever shorter.

The power he felt from it became ever more formidable, while he himself seemed like an ant at the foot of a towering peak.

This inexplicable sense of shame and insignificance was a kind of self-protection.

His intuition was warning him not to actually touch this Crystal Rose, or his life would be in danger.

Power so close to the Spirit Venerable Realm was, for him, brimming with both peril and temptation.

He longed to reach out and touch this Crystal Rose, to personally feel the power of the Spirit Venerable Realm.

To see exactly how far he was from a Spirit Venerable, and how much longer he would need to train.

To analyze just how strong a Spirit Venerable’s power truly was, and how one could become this strong.

Only by understanding more clearly could one have a solid grasp in Cultivation, and tread with firmer steps.

The distance between his hand and the Crystal Rose grew ever smaller, and the soft light around his fingers grew ever thinner.

Yet at the instant before he was about to touch the Crystal Rose, rationality still made him withdraw his fingers, dodging as the Crystal Rose lunged forward.

"Bang, bang, bang, bang..."

One Flying Knife after another shot from his sleeve, slipped out of the Soft Light Shield, and sped toward the Crystal Rose.

They shattered the instant they touched it.

They turned to powder and scattered down in a fine drizzle.

Chu Zhiyuan’s face was pale.

A wisp of his intent was attached to each Flying Knife, along with a wisp of Spiritual Sense, allowing him to clearly feel the power contained within the Crystal Rose.

The Crystal Rose kept shattering the Flying Knives, and also grinding his Spiritual Sense to pieces.

It was like a hammer pounding on his skull.

His pale face, however, showed a smile.

So this was the power of the Spirit Venerable Realm!