Chapter 235: One Punch

“Master, is something bothering you?” Ming Xingyun asked, her large doe eyes staring at Tianyi innocently.Tianyi didn’t answer his disciple and just looked around. His eyes trailed the garden of the side palace he had been allocated. Moments earlier, he had been advising Ming Xingyun’s cultivation of the Nine-Five Scripture but stopped midway when he felt a chilling sensation creeping up his spine.Tears glimmered at the edge of Ming Xingyun’s eyes as she looked down. “Is it because I’m too stupid? You gave me the Nine-Five Scripture, but I can’t cultivate it at all. I’m sorry. Please don’t leave me.”“Wait, that’s not it, Xingyun,” Tianyi quickly said. “The Nine-Five Scripture is not suited for you, but you can cultivate to build a good foundation.”He also had a headache concerning Ming Xingyun’s awkward situation. Almost all the cultivation method Tianyi knew was either too low-level or could not easily be passed on without his disciple becoming a member of the Buzhou Immortal Sect. In his plans, they would’ve already returned to the sect, but the soul cultivator who possessed his Emperor-Uncle’s soul put a stop to that.Tianyi didn’t explain the grave situation to Ming Xingyun or Yayun. One was still a qi gathering pupil, and the other was a mortal with the barest qualifications to cultivate. Telling either of them will only worry them without any real benefits.Ming Xingyun stopped her tears as she felt Tianyi’s hand on her hand. She looked at Tianyi’s gentle expression.“If you really want to cultivate, I can teach you the Earth Book of the Five Element Method now, but you have to make sure not to break through in a hurry. Unlike the one back at the sect, this is a simplified version.” Tianyi comforted. “So don’t cry anymore, okay?”“Mm!” Ming Xingyun nodded and quickly wiped her unshed tears using the sleeves of her robe. The little girl’s eyes then drifted towards Tianyi’s other hand that was hanging on his side. “Master, what’s that?”“What’s what?” Tianyi asked as he stared at where Ming Xingyun was pointed. His face when he saw what was hanging off his hand. It was a spider-like beast with a spherical crystal abdomen that seemed to contain the starry sky within.“SPIDER!” Tianyi screamed and flung his arm as hard and fast as he could.Daoyi’s spiritual beast, Shuijing, was a Dreamsilk Weaver Beast, a rare beast only mentioned in the Buzhou Immortal Sect’s records. Despite its tiny size, just enough to fill out a palm, Shuijing was capable of tearing a soul nourishing grandmaster apart with her legs.However, Tianyi was special. His very existence could be called a singularity, an anomaly among anomalies. His very body was a whole cosmos in the process of compression, and any careless strikes would result in disaster. Strikes, say like flinging his arm as fast as he can.BAAAAAAMMMMMM!!!!!!!The aftershocks from the wind pressure of Tianyi’s swipe could not be described in any other way than calamitous. It appeared as if someone had compressed a tornado into a single sword slash and swung it. The tiles were uprooted, and there was a long fissure starting near Tianyi and stretching as far as the eye could see.It was as if there was an invisible line from where Tianyi stood. Anything that blocked the way of his swing was crushed, leaving nothing in its wake. From the palace walls, the artificial mountains in the imperial garden, and even the clouds seemed to have sliced in two.What did Tianyi say in light of his destruction? “Whoops…”The disaster caused by Tianyi could not be hidden at all. You’d have to be locked in an isolation chamber not to notice the damage Tianyi caused. Thankfully, the barrier Ba Shifang had set up beforehand mitigated the damage somewhat, but not all of it.Tianyi had to pacify the eunuch who was sent to inquire as to what exactly occurred. Tianyi only said that he was practicing a technique that went out of control and didn’t say anything else. The eunuch could only be satisfied with that response, not that he dared to condemn Tianyi in any way and left.Thankfully, Ming Yayun was on the other side of Tianyi’s swing, so aside from a few scratches from the turbulence, she was fine. Ming Xingyun was much the same. Although she was much closer to Tianyi, she was not in the direct line of effect in addition to her Condensed Mountain Physique, she also only had a few scratches.After Ba Shifang erected a new formation, Tianyi scratched his head as he saw the half-ruined palace. His group of four didn’t need a whole palace, so what was left was sufficient for Tianyi and them to live in, but he was frowning because of another matter. “Ah, I probably killed a few people accidentally.”Tianyi wasn’t a person who killed for no reason. Even those he wanted to kill underwent a strict round of elimination before he decided to take action. Generally, the requirements were whether his targets wanted to kill or harm those close to him. So, he was quite a bit discomforted by the number of deaths by his hands earlier.The deaths of the innocent people only weighed a little bit on Tianyi’s mind. After all, the people who died had little to no relationship to him. What stunned Tianyi was the realization of how much power he held within his body. Just a little mishap at the wrong place could cause an extinction event.Okay, so that was an exaggeration, but the point still stands. Any casual mishaps from Tianyi could kill thousands, perhaps even hundreds of thousands, at the wrong place.Unknown to Tianyi, the possessed Xi Emperor, Jiang Chunye, and Hun Jusang were meticulously monitoring him due to his previous actions. They couldn’t help but ponder the meaning of Tianyi’s attack. Was it a probe or something else? If so, why now of all times? Was this attack the start of something?“I didn’t expect you to react like ‘that,’”“Daoyi?” Tianyi instantly recognized Daoyi’s distinctive voice. In his pondering, he had forgotten that the spider was Daoyi’s spiritual beast. He looked towards the voice and instantly froze.Shuijing was standing atop a giant rock created from Tianyi’s blunder. He also noticed the black calabash gourd attached to the damn bug by a string. However, what astounded Tianyi the most was the tiny silver Daoyi standing atop of the Dreamsilk Weaver Beast.“What happened to you?” Tianyi reflexively blurted out.Daoyi only sighed. “My good sister and that scion from the Nihility Sect.”Tianyi furrowed his brows as he brought Daoyi into the palace’s main hall, where Ba Shifang had used a treasure to seclude the room from prying eyes. After Ba Shifang left to take care of Ming Xingyun and Yayun, Tianyi asked exactly what happened to Daoyi.Daoyi had arrived months earlier than Tianyi, but she happened to encounter Jiang Chunye and Hun Jusang. From there, she explained how she was besieged by the two of them and trapped. Left with no option, Daoyi used the split soul she planned to create a clone or avatar with into her body, while her nascent soul was attached to the Liquorlight Gourd.From there, Daoyi continued to hide and investigate the matter. While hiding, she discovered that most of the Xi Emperor’s children and consorts had been planted with soul leeches. Soul leaches were soul lifeforms soul cultivators grew that could embed themselves into others to control the host. The controller could destroy the host’s soul with but a mere thought, so it was far more dangerous than physically controlling the host.Daoyi was able to attach a thread of Shuijing’s silk to most of the emperor’s children. Using this connection, she was able to infiltrate their dreams and, by extension, their souls, thanks to the Dreamsilk Weaver Beast’s innate ability, Dreamsilk. Dreamsilk allowed Shujing to invade the dreams of people connected to her by her silk and eat their dreams. Through this, Shuijing can strengthen herself and learn concepts by stealing the host’s comprehension.Tianyi couldn’t help but internally scream, ‘that’s broken!’ in his mind when he heard of this.Anyways, back to Daoyi’s explanation. Although Daoyi was unable to extract the soul leeches, she was still able to exert and control the hosts through Shujing’s silk and seal them at any time to prevent the soul cultivator from tampering or extinguishing their souls.“Why do I feel like I’m pretty much useless,” Tianyi couldn’t help but mutter. He had been here for months, unable to come up with a method to save his extended family, yet here comes Daoyi with all the solutions.“It’s all for naught if we can’t find a way to escape. Speaking of which, I noticed your arrival months ago, but I could contact you because you were in the palace. I finally found a chance to sneak, and well, you know what happened.” Daoyi said, looking at Tianyi’s hand that caused so much destruction.“You still have my immortal boat, right?” Tianyi asked.“Of course,” Daoyi replied from atop of Shuijing, which Tianyi was desperately ignoring by focusing on Daoyi’s nascent soul.“It has the function of fleeing at the speed of an immortal monarch if you use high-tier immortal stones. Its defenses should have been able to block the effect of the barrier. Why didn’t you try that to flee?” Tianyi asked.“Because I didn’t want to take the risk and allow everything on me to drop to Chunye’s hands. Besides, I don’t carry any immortal stones since they’re useless to me. Only you would carry them.” Daoyi bluntly said. “I think we should focus on the more important point. Do you think the Nihility Sect is the mastermind behind everything that is happening?”Daoyi also explained what happened at the Fu Dynasty and the appearance of the demon jiangshi, placing suspicion on the Nihility Sect. Tianyi also sunk into deep thought, but unlike Daoyi, who was wondering if the Nihility Sect had rebelled against the Buhzou Immortal Sect, Tianyi’s thought process was completely different.Seeing it from a different perspective, didn’t Jiang Chunye also fit the description of a protagonist, only female and not male? Along her journey, not only does she shame the family that abused her, but she also builds a reverse harem during her journey. Tianyi even suspected that Jiang Chunye seduced hun Jusang and the Nihility Sect had no part in this!Naturally, he didn’t voice out his thoughts. Unless you were a braindead fool like Bai Weiwei, who would risk their backing for mere love? “I know you can prevent the possessed people from being killed, but what about your body and Xi Ri? I know you are a soul cultivator, but losing your body is a big deal. Your potential might even be hampered.”“I’m not too worried. Worst-case scenario, I discard my body and my split soul. I’ll just separate another portion of my soul and create an avatar and then possess that avatar as my new body. Honestly, although I am weaker without my body, my soul is a bit unique. I can still cultivate in this form. In fact, I’ve comprehended quite a bit while I was stuck with only my soul.” Daoyi said with no tone of urgency.Tianyi felt his stomach cramp at Daoyi’s nonexistent worry. Hell, he was more worried for Daoyi than herself. He could only sigh and ask again, “Then about Xi Ri?”“I can’t sense the exact location, but it should be in a secret chamber under the imperial palace. My split soul locked my body so that it couldn’t be tampered with to prevent them from noticing the truth. From the few times my split soul unlocked the seal, she could see that Xi Ri was in a similar state. Both of us are sealed in a formation, and we can’t use qi or spiritual sense at all.” Daoyi said, giving Tianyi a headache.Scratching his head, Tianyi sighed again. “Then what can we do? I can’t exactly Leeroy Jenkins it and barge in to save both your split soul and Xi Ri, right?”“Right?” Tianyi asked again, seeing Daoyi in pondering.Daoyi sighed, “With how perverse your body is, you could contend with true immortals for quite a while. While you distract them, you could have someone save my split soul and Xi Ri. Then I could control those with the leach souls into the immortal boat and fly away.”“What about me?” Tianyi asked to point to himself, not hiding his irked feelings at all.“Well, it’s no use. We’re dealing with an immortal and not a remnant soul as you first thought. And I suspect that the Jade Cauldron or Nihility Sect has betrayed us since I can detect the presence of some venerables and possibly above, but I can’t be sure.” Daoyi sighed again. “If I had my body, we might have had a chance to succeed, but now we can’t. No matter how heaven-defying your clone is, he’s still in the Core Formation Realm. At most, he would be able to fend off a venerable for a short amount of time.”Tianyi stayed silent. His eyes moved frantically as he calculated the probability of success. “I know someone who is in the Nascent Soul Realm but has strength at least at the Transcending Mortality Realm that can help.”“Really, who?” Daoyi asked. When Tianyi explained it was her grandfather, Daoyi couldn’t help but sigh. “I never knew. I never once saw him while I lived there. He was constantly in secluded cultivation. If he were a disciple of a first-rate sect, his accomplishments would’ve equaled or surpassed yours.”Tianyi grunted in affirmation, unwilling to openly acknowledge that an old geezer was better than him.“If he participates, that greatly increases our chances of escaping. Although we can’t save the emperor, once we inform Master, she should have a method. But that still leaves out a question of how you’re going to escape. You can’t use qi at all, and I’m worried about your condition being discovered if you were captured.” Daoyi said.“Don’t worry about it. In terms of physique, I’m afraid I’m even stronger than most true immortals. I can run away,” Tianyi said as he patted his chest.“Run away? On your legs?” Daoyi said, skeptically lacing her words.“Well, I also have other trump cards,” Tianyi said as he pointed at his forehead where the red mark was.Daoyi sunk into silence before nodding. “If you’re sure. We still have to contact Senior Jiang to coordinate.”Her words revealed the distance she held towards the Jiang Family. She did not view them as her family much, if at all.“Can’t believe I’m doing this,” Tianyi said as he walked out of the side palace allocated to him. Next to him, there was a tiny sphere, and inside the sphere were nine floating islands.Space became a significant problem for the immortal boat. There were simply too many people to fit on his immortal boat, the one that could use immortal stones to exhibit the speed of an immortal monarch. Thankfully, Daoyi solved that problem or, at least, pointed towards a solution.Tianyi couldn’t control the Vast Heaven Islands, but what about Dandan? After all, Dandan shared similar origins to Tianyi and could possibly control the Vast Heaven Islands if he possessed the Realm Merge innate ability as well.When Dandan did indeed possess Realm Merge and could control the Vast Heaven Islands through that, Tianyi was struck speechless. He felt like a bride, who had diligently sewn her bridal gowns, only for someone else to wear it.‘Forget it, at least someone can use it now, and it won’t be collecting dust in the spatial ring,’ Tianyi had thought.But this wasn’t caused Tianyi to say those earlier words. He had already collected the Jiang Family into the Vast Heaven Islands, and Jiang Ziya was already cooperating with Daoyi to gather all the imperial family. No, what caused Tianyi to say those words was the fact that Shuijing was hiding in his robes!He had vehemently rejected the idea, arguing that Shuijing should hide in the Vast Heaven Islands, but Daoyi rejected his rejection. Shuijing was Daoyi’s medium linking her to Tianyi’s extended family that were and were not controlled by soul leaches. If Shuijing were inside the Vast Heaven Islands, then Daoyi would not be able to control them. Thus Tianyi had to cope with a giant-ass spider in his clothes.Because Shuijing was hiding in his clothes, Tianyi’s expression was extremely stiff, making him seem severe…or constipated, but he preferred the former.“Stop!” As Tianyi entered the core of the imperial palace, the Immortal Dragon Palace, two guards armed with copper armor barred his way. It took a moment for them to recognize Tianyi, but their expression only turned more severe. One of them was even hostile. “Even if you’re Sword Empress Xi’s son, you cannot enter here. If you walk forward one more step, don’t blame us for punishing you!”Tianyi stopped and partially opened the Truth-Seeking Eye. The red dot turned golden while two wisps of flame remained red. Once the eye was opened, Tianyi could detect the cultivation of the two guards. ‘I can sense that their soul is slowly disintegrating. They must be earth immortals. Daoyi was right. There are hidden experts above the Unity Realm.’The guard, with the hostile expression, sneered. “That’s right, be a good little boy and go away.”The corners of Tianyi’s lips twitched. ‘Do you think I stopped because I was scared of you two?’Tianyi took another step and only a single step. It was a blatant provocation to the two guards. “Boy, do you know what you’re doing?”“What, that I’m provoking two false immortals?” Tianyi asked. His expression was leisurely, and he even narrowed his eyes as if he was enjoying a world-class massage.Both of the two guards’ expressions turned frosty. Earth immortal hated being called false immortals because it reminded them that they failed the Immortal Ascension Heavenly Tribulation and were forever without hope of immortality. An earth immortal’s soul slowly dissipated and was absorbed by the world, preventing them from entering the cycle of reincarnation.“Hmpf, do you think that you can take us on just because you mastered that technique?” The hostile guard said. He had linked Tianyi’s confidence to Tianyi’s blunder and the excuse given.Tianyi just wagged his finger. “Come and find out.”“You asked for it. After I’m done with you, the Sword Empress won’t even find a remnant soul!” The hostile guard shouted and then opened his mouth as wide as possible.Under Tianyi’s disgusted eyes, he inserted his hand into his throat and pulled out a bronze saber. The saber gleamed with saber intent, each ray seemingly wanting to split everything it came in contact with. “Before you die, I’ll illuminate you as to who it was that killed you! Listen well, with a saber in hand. I crushed all my rivals and geniuses of my generation. Those defeated by me call me Sabercrusher!”“Still the words of a failed mutt,” Tianyi replied with a sneer.Earth Immortal Sabercrusher’s eyes filled with killing intent. He didn’t say any more meaningless words and condensed all the saber intent on the edge of his bronze saber. With a leap, he charged at Tianyi, saber in midswing.Tianyi also reared his fist back. He didn’t plan on unsheathing his sword just yet. For now, he wanted to test the durability of his physical body, so he planned to meet Sabercrusher’s attack head-on. Despite this, he didn’t lower his guard, and his fully opened third eye was analyzing Sabercrusher’s attack nonstop.“Hah!” Tianyi shouted as he released a punch. It was just a simple punch, but it was a perfect punch using all the force in Tianyi’s body. The brute force and speed behind it could not be estimated. Even before clashing against the saber, a sonic boom was unleashed from the sheer speed.BOOOOMMM!Tianyi’s eyes widened in shock as he witnessed the aftermath of his attack. Sabercrusher’s saber was broken in half, and his right half completely disappeared, revealing his leaking entrails and bone whites. Blood spurted out of his mouth as his expression was a near copy of Tianyi’s, but for different reasons.