The tree spirit Qi released by the Divine Sky-connecting Tree was called Qi of the Divine Tree. It contained an extremely pure vital energy with extreme restraining power over the energy of death and evil.
In just a moment, the Qi of the Divine Tree had permeated the entire Lord Ming’s Sword Vault Palace and entered the bodies of every cultivator.
The curse on those whose cultivation base was higher was quickly expelled, for they already had a certain resistance to the curse.
However, the condition of those with weaker cultivation bases was not looking good. The curse had infiltrated into their souls and was almost impartible.
Luckily for them, Zhang Ruochen had connected with the Divine Sky-connecting Tree just in time. He could not immediately cast out the curse from their bodies, but he had at least kept the curse under control, pulling those who were on the brink of death back to life.
“This is a creepy curse. Even the Divine Sky-connecting Tree is having a hard time containing it. There are still many Zhengyu cultivators who haven’t gotten the curse expelled. Fairy, we need your help now.” Zhang Ruochen looked at Ji Fanxin with a serious expression.
There was only a handful of them who could remove the curse with their own strength. Zhang Ruochen, Ji Fanxin, and Bao Lie were the ones.
With his powerful cultivation base, Bao Lie forced the Power of Curse out of his body. Yet he could not be of help at this moment.
But Ji Fanxi was different. Zhang Ruochen could see that she had the ability to deal with this curse.
“First, gather those who can’t remove the curse in one place.” Ji Fanxin nodded.
“Got it. Just a moment,” Zhang Ruochen quickly answered.
He immediately connected with the Divine Sky-connecting Tree again, then using the Qi of the Divine Tree, he gathered those who were still infested with the curse into one place.
The situation was urgent, and any delay was a second too long. Otherwise, even with the Qi of the Divine Tree’s suppression, there was no guarantee that someone would not die from the curse.
The Divine Sky-connecting Tree could not help it—it had not matured yet. Had it been, it would have driven out the curse in the blink of an eye.
On the Whitebone Mountain outside Lord Ming’s Sword Vault Palace, the shenzis, princes, and princesses of the Immortal Vampires had gathered. Immortal Ming was also there, standing on the white bone platform, focusing his attention on the Ancient Divine Sigils.
Despite the Ancient Divine Sigils of Lord Ming’s Sword Vault Palace having suffered serious damage, it was still mysterious and hard to crack.
“There must be chaos inside Lord Ming’s Sword Vault Palace right now. I wonder how many of them will still be alive when we finally go inside.” Prince Yun guffawed.
“I am afraid that everything will die by then. The curse of Immortal Ming was not something the immortals could withstand.” The long-faced princess smirked.
“A strange force inside Lord Ming’s Sword Vault Palace could weaken my curse. Besides, I have just released a small amount of Power of Curse, which is not too strong. But even then, it should be potent enough to kill half of the living things in Lord Ming’s Sword Vault Palace, and the rest will suffer from the curse, their strengths weakening,” said Immortal Ming.
Immortal Ming was apparently confident of his Power of Curse. With his Path’s Anterior-level cultivation base, few below the Supreme Saint rank could withstand his curse.
Lord Ming’s Sword Vault Palace was mysterious, but the Zhengyu Clan was inconsequential. There might not be even one Precept-Domain fighter in the Zhengyu Clan, let alone Heaven’s Reach-realm and Path’s Anterior fighters. What made them think they could resist him?
It was because of this that Immortal Ming had never considered the Zhengyu Clan his worthy opponent. As soon as he defeated the Ancient Divine Sigils, they would be like a lamb to the slaughter.
Seeing Immortal Ming’s confidence, a strange look flashed in Xie Wenxin’s eyes, as if he had thought of something but kept it to himself.
The priority now was to defeat the Ancient Divine Sigils. Only then they could enter Lord Ming’s Sword Vault Palace. The rest of the things were not important.
As long as Immortal Ming could help them achieve this goal, he could do whatever he wanted.
Inside Lord Ming’s Sword Vault Palace, with Zhang Ruochen and Ji Fanxin joining hands, and after much difficulty, they finally drove out the curse from everyone’s body.
The Qi of the Divine Tree had contained the black air of the curse that had infiltrated into Lord Ming’s Sword Vault Palace to prevent it from causing any harm again.
At first, Zhang Ruochen was thinking of refining this black air of the curse, but the Divine Sky-connecting Tree stopped him. A study should be conducted on the curse to find an antidote so that if the same thing happened again, they would not go into a panic.
“Many powerful figures of the Immortal Vampires are outside now. the Ancient Divine Sigils that protected Lord Ming’s Sword Vault Palace will not hold up for long. The situation is getting critical now. I need to conduct closed-door cultivation and attain Nine-Step Saint Kinghood. Hope I will make it on time.” After diffusing the curse crisis, Zhang Ruochen decided to do a closed-door cultivation session immediately.
With no more delay, he brought the things he had prepared in advance and entered the cold volcano where he would have an intensive cultivation session to prepare for the imminent battle.
With the Godstones he had collected, he activated the Sundial. That was good for ten years of cultivation and for him to make the Nine-Step Saint Kinghood breakthrough.
Entering the cold volcano with him were Xiang Chunan, Murong Yue, Ji Fanxin, Awesome the Little Taoist, Bao Xinghun, Shi Ren, several disciples of aptitude from the Zhengyu Clan, and Demi Saint, as well as Saint beings, from the Qiankun Realm. Ten years should be long enough for them to push their cultivation base to a higher level.
Bao Lie was not among them. His cultivation base and strength had reached a ceiling. It was not going to make a difference to his strength with closed-door cultivation.
Besides, the situation in Lord Ming’s Sword Vault Palace was so bad that he needed to hold down the fort, in case there was an unexpected event.
Zhang Ruochen did not trust Luo Yi, whom he had always been suspicious of. This guy getting close to them was definitely up to something.
He had been keeping an eye on Luo Yi since the beginning. Of course, he would not invite Luo Yi at this time.
Before entering cultivation, he had requested Bao Lie’s help in monitoring Luo Yi, just in case.
With Bao Lie’s strength, Luo Yi could not have caused much trouble, no matter how Luo Yi tried.
Of course, Bao Lie had another mission: to guard the cold volcano where they were having closed-door cultivation so no one could intrude into the place.
As the Sundial was activated, the Power of Time covered an area of a 200-yard radius. Within this area, they would practice cultivation. A year inside here would only equate to a day in the outside world.
Luckily that the Sundial had a larger effective range. Otherwise, with so many people practicing cultivation at the same time, some of them might fall outside its effective range.
Zhang Ruochen was sitting cross-legged under the Sundial. He took out the Ancient Abyssal Blade. There was one more purpose of this closed-door cultivation: to help the sword spirit of the Ancient Abyssal Blade to forge a body, for which he had prepared the materials.
He had prepared the best grade of materials for this purpose, for which he had put in a lot of effort.
With the unique environment of Lord Ming’s Sword Vault Palace, the resulting body would surely be perfect and powerful.
As soon as the Ancient Abyssal Blade’s spirit formed a body, its power would rise tremendously, and correspondingly, his strength would also balloon.
At this stage, he was doing all he could to boost his strength. Only then he could protect Lord Ming’s Sword Vault Palace.
Something suddenly came to Zhang Ruochen’s mind. Oh, perhaps I can request help from someone at the Sword Sanctum to embed the Violet Godstone into the hilt of the Ancient Abyssal Blade.
He immediately called Lu Huaiyu over. At present, Lu Huaiyu’s sword-smithing skill was the best in the business at the Sword Sanctum.
Lu Huaiyu took the Violet Godstone in his hand and carefully studied it.
As a sword-smithing grandmaster, he could not have been more familiar with the various materials in heaven and earth.
“I can’t guarantee if it will work. But I can try. It is a shame that the sacred altar has been removed, and Grandpa is no more here. Otherwise, this job would have been a piece of cake.”
Back then, using the power of the sacred altar, Lu Yuanzhi could even restore a broken Ancient Abyssal Blade. Embedding a Godstone on it should not have been a challenge.
Only a sword-smithing grandmaster like Lu Huaiyu had the ability to even try.
After handing the Ancient Abyssal Blade and Violet Godstone to Lu Huaiyu, Zhang Ruochen sat back down with his legs crossed.
Just like before, his six Saint Souls appeared, and each cultivated a different method of the path.
The advantages of having six Saint Souls were apparent this time.
Equipped with twelve ten thousandths of the Canon of Truth, his speed in comprehending the precept was far superior to other cultivators.
Because of having the Canon of Truth, he could still grasp the Path of Truth and cultivated more Precepts of Truth, even though he was not in the Celestial Domain of Truth.
If he wanted to break into the Nine-Step Saint Kinghood, he would need at least six to seven million precepts in his body. This was an immense challenge. One would need a long time to accumulate such an amount of precepts unless the person was incredibly lucky.
This especially increased the level of difficulty as he was cultivating two types of ancient paths.
Even with the help of the Imperial Artifact of Precept, Canon of Truth, servant of Saint Monk Xumi, and ancient sacred herbs, Zhang Ruochen was not confident of attaining Nine-Step Saint Kinghood in ten years.
But he had no choice but to make it happen. Otherwise, he could not fight the coming battle.
The immense pressure was just the catalyst to bring out all his potential.
Lucky for him; he had come prepared and had all the cultivation resources he needed ready. All he hoped was for the Immortal Vampires to give him ten days.
Just like Zhang Ruochen, the others were using every minute to the fullest in practicing cultivation. Strength was the only guarantee for their lives.
Even people like Ji Fanxin were wasting no time. After all, she had not attained the pre-Supreme Saint rank where she could claim dominance.
While Zhang Ruochen and others were in the closed-door cultivation inside Lord Ming’s Sword Vault Palace, Immortal Ming and the Immortal Vampire cultivators were working overtime to crack the Ancient Divine Sigils, which were gradually disintegrating but no one knew when it would crumble completely.
Apparently, Zhang Ruochen and others were quickly running out of time.
