IS Chapter 169

The way Yun Xiangxi spoke made Ye Zhuo confused. He and Yun Xiangxi should have had nothing to say to each other.

But things he didn’t understand were never something he dwelled on.

Ye Zhuo casually said, “What do you mean by that?”

The perfunctory tone was obvious to anyone. Anyone who had seen Ye Zhuo knew that he was just making conversation to pass the time, while actually observing Yun Xiangxi’s cultivation level.

Ye Zhuo was indeed observing.

The entire realm of humans and immortals had been turned upside down. Yun Xiangxi, having come to the human realm, didn’t need to experience hardships. He still possessed the cultivation level of the immortal realm, and behind him were the Heavenly Dao and immortal spirits of the immortal realm.

Naturally, this level was higher than Ye Zhuo’s. Naturally, his spiritual power was also deeper than Ye Zhuo’s.

It was like a disciple in the Immortal Sect seeing a senior in the Tribulation Transcendence stage during the Foundation Establishment stage, unable to truly comprehend what kind of realm it was, let alone draw a sword and face them.

Yet, Ye Zhuo seemed eager to draw his sword. The people on the ground looked at each other in dismay.

In truth, Ye Zhuo was watching with great interest. He was also curious to know the differences between the immortal realm’s cultivation level and the human realm’s, and the differences between immortal swords and human swords.

Three hundred and sixty stances, one thousand eight hundred moves. What sword required cultivation in the immortal realm that couldn’t be cultivated in the human realm? Human swords had two edges. Did immortal swords have one thousand eight hundred? If that were the case, it would indeed be worth a trip.

Yun Xiangxi was also looking at him.

Ye Zhuo casually asked him what he meant by that, but Yun Xiangxi seemed to genuinely consider it before replying, “Not having seen how you cultivated to achieve today’s sword is quite a regret.”

Ye Zhuo suddenly smiled. So he thought his sword was not bad.

As for anything else, it couldn’t leave much of an impression on Yun Xiangxi’s mind.

“Then, if,” he looked into Yun Xiangxi’s eyes, “my sword resembles you greatly, or conversely, hates you very much?”

Yun Xiangxi: “I would be very disappointed.”

“I see,” Ye Zhuo said.

After all these years, he still understood Yun Xiangxi very well.

Just now, he had seen the countless celestial deities making way for Yun Xiangxi, as if Yun Xiangxi had also become the Number One Sword Under Heaven in the immortal realm, unable to find a worthy opponent.

In this world, the only things Yun Xiangxi cared about were Yun Xiangzhuo and the sword. And the two were essentially the same thing.

“Then you should remember,” Ye Zhuo said, “what I said to you before you ascended.”

Yun Xiangxi looked at him, his eyes actually containing a quiet gentleness.

This kind of expression wasn’t unfamiliar to Ye Zhuo. In many moments at the beginning of his life, when he held his sword and looked up, it seemed like he saw such a pair of eyes.

“I remember,” Yun Xiangxi said, “that’s why I’ve been waiting.”

Should he say, “Sorry to keep you waiting?” Twenty years was probably a long time in the immortal realm. Ye Zhuo calmly said, “My name is Ye Zhuo.”

“Where’s your sword?”

“No Self.”

“Good,” Yun Xiangxi said, “I understand.”

He added, “You once said you would kill me. Is that why you summoned me today?”

Ye Zhuo softly said, “Or else?”

Yun Xiangxi continued to look at him, just like every time he was about to teach him swordsmanship. Then Yun Xiangxi slightly nodded and said, “Then let’s give it a try.”

Ye Zhuo: “It’s not a try.”

Yun Xiangxi frowned slightly. Xiangzhuo seemed completely different. Oh, he said, he’s called Ye Zhuo now.

“Everything is a try,” Yun Xiangxi said.

Ye Zhuo could feel Yun Xiangxi’s gaze on him. It took some effort for him to see Yun Xiangxi’s cultivation level, but Yun Xiangxi could probably see through him with a single glance. Sure enough, the next moment, he saw Yun Xiangxi raise his hand, a point of sword intent like a cold light gathering on his finger.

This single action caused the celestial deities in the sky to suddenly stir. In an instant, several streams of light shot out, and it seemed like countless wills descended, telling Yun Xiangxi not to do this, but it was all in vain. Yun Xiangxi’s expression remained calm as he looked at Ye Zhuo’s cultivation level and pointed his finger towards his own brow.

Before a duel between sword cultivators, such an action was nothing more than suppressing one’s own cultivation level to have a fair fight. But that point of cold light was extraordinary. Coming from Yun Xiangxi, it meant he was about to abolish his own cultivation level.

“No need,” Ye Zhuo said.

The next moment, he joined his fingers together, and a drop of blood from his fingertip smeared across the carvings of Salo sacred wood on the sword sheath.

With this action, an exceptionally terrifying and solemn aura suddenly emerged from him like a cluster of ghostly fire.

Then, scarlet, eerie Pattern, lines quietly spread across his skin.

Fire ignited behind him.

The Red Lotus Fire, at first glance, was just a touch of ghostly red, but after that one glance, it burst into flames, instantly filling the western sky.

Within the raging fire was an indescribable and immense object, like a rotating wheel, moving in succession.

As they began to move, the aura on Ye Zhuo’s body suddenly changed.

Like the blooming of a red lotus. Layers upon layers of flames unfurled. Ye Zhuo’s cultivation level also rose layer by layer.

The insights of his cultivation level flooded into his sea of consciousness like a tidal wave. For a moment, Ye Zhuo remembered the Sumeru Buddha Realm.

He remembered the Scripture Repository. He remembered his master.

It was a bizarre and fragmented memory. The billions of Buddhist teachings in the Scripture Repository swirled around him, their light elusive, appearing and disappearing in his eyes. Some of them, his master insisted he learn to master, while others were just for broadening his knowledge.

Suddenly, he saw an exceptionally glaring pattern within them. It was an exceptionally crimson, exceptionally cold lotus flower.

“What is this?” he heard himself ask.

The solemn countenance of the Kadampa Flower Master slowly looked at him. Then, Ye Zhuo heard her voice.

West Sea.

Lian’s family head stood alone on the lotus boat. Above his head were the bizarre and fragmented scenes of the immortal and human realms. His sister’s child was dueling with his sister’s husband. A father-killing-son, son-killing-father drama, even more ridiculous, such scenes had already played out twenty years ago.

Flowers bloomed and fell again, like a revolving wheel of curses that would never stop turning. His sister’s lotus of life had already withered.

He pushed the punt pole through the last patch of lotus leaves and looked into the depths of the life pool, towards the suddenly spreading, blinding radiance.

It was that half-open glass red lotus. The moment the blood-red flames ignited in the sky, the outermost petal of the lotus suddenly and slowly unfolded outwards.

In the Cold Pool, Li Yuan gently closed his fingers. In his hand, the lotus petal of life suddenly burst forth with dazzling light. It was impossible to say whether the light of the lotus of life or the karmic fire burning behind the man in the sky was more blinding.

Li Yuan just silently looked at Ye Zhuo in the very center of the raging fire. Scarlet lines faintly emerged, already spreading up the man’s neck. It was a startling beauty. The light illuminated his vision, like an excessively magnificent illusory dream. Li Yuan remembered the scene when he met the Kadampa Flower Master for the second time in the Cloud Firmament Celestial Palace.

When he finally repeated Ye Zhuo’s words, telling the Master: Ye Zhuo said he would be wrong to the end.

When the Master was enraged, it was like the eighteen levels of hell turning upside down, the mountain of knives collapsing, and the sea of fire surging. Li Yuan felt like he had died many times.

But when that anger finally subsided, the Master spoke words that were completely unrelated to Ye Zhuo.

“Return to the Sumeru Buddha Realm with me,” the Master’s voice was dignified and cold, “Don’t ask about worldly affairs, focus on cultivating.”

He said, “I won’t go.”

“I will pass on to you the supreme Dharma, which can grant you endless life.”

He said, “I won’t learn it.”

“Attain the compassionate body, slay the demons of the ten directions, and eliminate all suffering in the world.”

He said, “I am unwilling.”

The Master shouted, “Sinful creature! You are also stubbornly deluded, and for what reason!”

“Perhaps I really can slay the demons of the ten directions, but I can no longer slay the demon in my heart,” he said, “Perhaps I can tell myself that I should eliminate all suffering in the world, but I can no longer eliminate the greed, hatred, and delusion in my heart.”

“In this life, I have only one thought in my heart, to live together with him in life, and to die together with him in death.”

“What a sinful creature, following him, you haven’t learned anything good, but you’ve learned all the bad,” the Master sneered, “Today, you will learn it whether you want to or not.”

The next moment, the Master raised his palm and struck towards his sea of consciousness. Thousands of Buddhist teachings poured into his mind like a vast ocean. In that instant, it seemed like his soul had returned to heaven and earth. Li Yuan could only recall the dazzling light rising and falling in waves. He was in a sea of dazzling light, and every light spot in sight was the Master’s supreme secret, the Sumeru Buddha Realm’s supreme Dharma.

Li Yuan didn’t recognize any of them. Regarding Buddhist teachings, he only recognized those that Ye Zhuo knew, so he searched.

Until he walked deeper and deeper into that light, and everything in his life had already become like a dream, he suddenly felt a moment of bone-chilling coldness. He looked over and saw only a solitary blood lotus silently emerging and disappearing amidst layers upon layers of light. It was surrounded by an exceptionally secluded light flame that seemed capable of destroying everything. He had once drawn that pattern on paper and searched for it day and night in the books in the Abyss Sea Palace.

Li Yuan heard his own voice at that time. He reached out and held up that lotus, asking the Master, “What is this?”

Now, at this very moment, he held Ye Zhuo’s lotus of life, feeling the same aura emerging from it. He gently and attentively looked up at Ye Zhuo’s figure high in the sky.

At that moment, Ye Zhuo had already drawn his sword. A line of ghostly red flames wrapped around the sword.

At the same time, at the same moment, in the ears of Ye Zhuo and Li Yuan, their own voices rang out.

“What is this?”

Then, it was the Kadampa Flower Master’s solemn and calm voice.

“All five aggregates are empty.”

He was also capable of achieving a realm higher than the human realm.

The Heavenly Dao issued a crisp sound like shattering glass. Ye Zhuo had already forcibly raised his cultivation level beyond the limit of the Heavenly Dao, continuing to go higher, its realm severe and decisive, its height boundless. The flames engulfed him, like a dazzling firework releasing its most brilliant radiance.

He didn’t want to go up. He wanted the people above to come down and find him.

He also didn’t want Yun Xiangxi to lower his cultivation level to come down and find him. He would go up, he would come to the immortal realm.

His sword had already been drawn, it was the most ordinary sword. It was the most fierce sword, causing heaven and earth to lose their color.

The first sword, the Sword Slaying Stance.

The overwhelming firelight was reflected on Yun Xiangxi’s face. Even this person, who was as cold as an eternal glacier, seemed to be stained with a trace of madness by the dazzling blood light.

He looked at that line of sword edge that seemed to question the ultimate meaning of the sword path and actually smiled.

“It should be like this,” he said.

The next moment, a blizzard suddenly rose. Yun Xiangxi raised his sword vertically.

According to the old custom of Illusory Sword Villa, the sword for killing people should be drawn like this.