Li Qingshan and Li Qingshan gazed at one another at the same time. They possessed the same figure and appearance, yet no one mistook them for the same person. They were as different as ice and fire.
They were both completely different from Li Qingshan before he separated into them. The black water of Ruin’s End and the tortures of hell had left a clear mark on both on them, leading to an irreversible divergence.
Coldness or frenzy, silence or roars, acceptance… or revenge!
Their eyes met and sparks flew.
One smiled away viciously as his killing intent flared. The other gripped three mountains silently.
The atmosphere in the Xuanwu arena suddenly changed as if they had returned to the horrific battlefield in the Demon domain. There was not a single direct disciple who dared to joke about this anymore.
Chao Tianjiao flew into a fury. “Bastard, who’d you call a bitch? Hold on, Origin Soul!?”
“Heh, yet you’re the one who answered!”
Li Qingshan repressed his killing intent and turned towards Chao Tianjiao. However, he thought inside, That’s not “my” gaze. In other words, there’s still going to be a battle!
But he failed to realise that ever since he returned from hell, his gaze had become much more sunken. His tattered robes danced in the wind, like a demonic tyrant.
The direct disciples were thrown into an uproar. “Origin Soul!”
It had only been three decades since Li Qingshan joined the sect. He went from a measly Soul Nascence cultivator, a formal disciple, to condensing a Yin Soul and a Yang Soul and becoming the first senior brother of the Myriad sect. To cultivators like them, the time he took was only equivalent to a few secluded cultivations.
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That was already unbelievable enough, yet now, he had actually taken another step forward, undergoing the sixth heavenly tribulation. He was basically challenging their understanding of the world. They even felt like their heads were thrown into chaos.
“Yeah, if he wasn’t an Origin Soul cultivator, how could he possess this aura? How could he contend against senior sister Chao? But how is this possible? Don’t tell me he’s the reincarnation of an almighty cultivator? Don’t tell me the Human realm also has a person chosen by the heavens?”
Even Chao Tianjiao found this unbelievable. She asked sternly, “Who are you?”
With her level of insight, she immediately recognised the tremendous difference between the two Li Qingshans. She could vaguely guess that Li Qingshan’s Yang Soul had lost control and experienced some kind of opportunity, actually undergoing the sixth heavenly tribulation and reaching Origin Soul.
This was not particularly rare in the cultivation community, but the consequences were often disastrous.
The question she asked was critical. If the Origin Soul Li Qingshan answered with a different name, then that meant he had completely severed his tie with his original self. In other words, there was the possibility of coexistence.
However, if his reply was still “Li Qingshan”, then a struggle to the death would be unavoidable. The sky did not have two suns. A kingdom did not have two lords. It was impossible for the world to have two Li Qingshans.
This damned brat, sacrificing your Yin Soul without any hesitation back then to deceive me. Now, you’re finally facing retribution, aren’t you?
She was rather conflicted. She had no idea whose side to stand on. If she just stood by and watched, the Li Qingshan below would definitely die.
The Li Qingshan on the ground heard that and murmured to himself, “Who am I?”
However, Li Qingshan in the sky laughed. The question was far too easy to answer. “I’m your granddaddy!”
The corner of Chao Tianjiao’s eye twitched. She suddenly laughed aloud. “Alright, fantastic! Originally, we agreed this time would be a duel to the death, but after ‘toying’ with you for all these years, I really couldn’t bring myself to kill you. Now, I don’t have to worry.”
She slowly drew a silver blade. The blade shimmered with stars, forming the seven stars of xuanwu. Light flowed like mercury, filled with an aura of coldness and harshness, like the autumn wind blowing away the fallen leaves, wave of cold after wave of cold.
In the sky, Li Qingshan strolled over with his hands behind his back with composure. “They all say to deal with internal issues before external, but I really won’t be satisfied unless I teach a woman like you a lesson first today!”
He could clearly recall all the “harassment” that occurred over the years, which left him fuming. He knew his other self was observing himself, and he knew Chao Tianjiao was not an opponent he could take down easily. If he could not win against her, then everything would become very troublesome.
However, he just wanted to show “himself” just who the real Li Qingshan was.
With a cold flash, Chao Tianjiao struck first.
Li Qingshan was split in half mid-air. He sneered. “Is that it?”
“Let’s see how many times you can be split!”
Chao Tianjiao retorted and swung her blade. Her movements were extremely slow, converting force into flexibility.
Her blade produced waves after waves of silver haze, clear like moonlight. The light touched everything and embraced everything, overlapping together. In an instant, who knew how many harsh blade aura of xuanwu she had condensed.
Li Qingshan raised an eyebrow. “This woman really hasn’t been wasting her time beyond the Nine Heavens!”
Under everyone’s watch, Li Qingshan was sliced apart layer by layer. Every single slice was so thin that it was transparent, such that they could clearly see his veins and bones, drifting apart gently in the air.
Chao Tianjiao did not become complacent at all. She was well aware that she had not landed a single strike on him so far. Instead, he had proactively separated his Origin Soul.
A sneer appeared on the surface of each cut of Li Qingshan, from the smallest cut through the tip of his finger to the largest cut through his chest. They said together, “Impressive bladesmanship, but it seems fucking useless!”
Everyone was dumbfounded by the eerie sight. Even in their worst nightmares, this would never appear.
“Useless? Then try this!”
Chao Tianjiao was solemn. She raised her blade high into the air, and it shimmered with light, condensing on the edge again and again, making it grow brighter and brighter. In the blink of an eye, it became so dazzling that no one could stare at it directly. It turned the entire Xuanwu arena into a world of silver.
Under the silver glow, all of the cuts seized up, losing their ability to float about.
Li Qingshan immediately felt like a mountain was weighing on him. The coldness rapidly invaded his Origin Soul as if he had returned to the glaciers of the Hell realm, except the coldness was far more destructive than the tortures of hell.
No matter how he transformed, it was all useless against this indiscriminate attack. It turned into a pure clash of power.
Chao Tianjiao was a Human Immortal, while he did not have a body. From a certain perspective, he was just a Ghost Immortal. Not only were his powers restrained, but he did not possess any advantage in terms of strength either.
If this continued, defeat was only a matter of time.
All of the cuts reassembled together, but they did not form a human figure, seeming as if he had gotten the order wrong when he panicked. It turned into a “monster” where every single component was composed of a person, yet it was also completely non-human.
And it seemed like in order to assemble it all together in a hurry, every piece grew recklessly, producing countless limbs and body parts. It became even stranger and more eerie, such that it was beyond description.
All of the direct disciples received a vicious mental blow. The more they tried to distinguish the parts clearly, the more painful and confused they became. They could not even shift their gazes away. They were drawn to it firmly.
The indescribable monster possessed countless faces that exhibited countless different expressions—laughter, fury, fear, mockery, guilt… There were countless fluctuating emotions, such that even they lost control, on the verge of suffering from cultivation deviation.
Even Chao Tianjiao’s blade trembled slightly. The silver glow dimmed too.
The indescribable monster possessed countless mouths on its body, producing indescribable sounds at her. Her mind was in a mess.
Li Qingshan suddenly embraced her gently from behind, whispering into her ear with a smile, “Don’t forget, I am your inner demon!”
