In actuality, the Gong Prime Clan had a few elites worthy of the astralking title, but as they weren’t an archclan, they were only allowed to grant one such title anyway. Astralking Gongsu was the younger brother of Sovereign Starfeather.
“What place is it?” Tianming curiously asked.
“You’ll see it when you’re there,” Shengui said with a chuckle. “I’m sure you’ll love it.”
Tianming felt a sudden chill. All he wanted was a single divine hazard sword ki that suited his Fienddragon Blood Transience. What in the world did they have in store for him? Since the Gong Prime Clan controlled the Violetcloud Swordsea, Tianming was free to take anything from it unobstructed.
The two of them flew through the humongous city and over the clouds above. Then, Shengui unlocked a few defensive formations and unveiled a brilliant sea of divine hazards. It was so large that Tianming couldn’t see the end of it. He even thought that Shengui had truly brought him to a real sea. It looked beautiful at first glance, with its many colors, but beneath it was the violent nova source. Should one fall into it, it would be like falling into a fusion formation. Divine hazards were, after all, pure manifestations of nova sources.
The Violetcloud Swordsea resembled a sea of lava with all kinds of divine hazards of differing elements, their chaotic interactions constantly causing booming explosions that propelled all types of divine hazards into the air. “The eighteen layers of the Sworddragon Ocean Purgatory probably aren’t even a tenth as wide as this….” Such was the might of a truly powerful sect. All divine hazards that manifested all across the imperium’s territory were brought here.
“Come here,” Shengui said, leading the way. Not long after, they arrived at the center of this great sea where the interactions were the most violent. Tianming felt a little uneasy because of the sheer endless vastness of the violent sea underneath him.
“It’s right below here,” Shengui said, winking. “Want to try going down?”
“What’re you being so mysterious about? It can’t be grade-eight divine hazard sword ki, right?”
“Just go down and take a look.” Shengui kept the mysterious smile on his face, making Tianming feel even more cautious about the whole thing.
“Dammit, I’m not afraid even if it really is grade-eight sword ki down there.” Though he said that, assimilating grade-seven sword ki had almost brought him to the brink of death. As for grade-eight ones, they were the highest grade that nova source worlds could manifest. Even for a faction as powerful as the Violetcloud Imperium, they probably wouldn’t have many of them.
Tianming knew that Shengui and the rest wouldn’t harm him, so he went down without worry. With grade-seven sword ki protecting his body, his resistance was incredibly high. Not to mention, he had the Greenspark Tower to heal him up. Shengui followed him down into the storm of rampaging divine hazards.
“It’s actually so deep?!” Tianming’s expression turned wilder and wilder.
“We’re only halfway down, you know. You can’t be scared already, right?” said the old man. Though he seemed frail, his skin was actually tough enough to endure the environment here, just like the shell of a tortoise; even though they were deep enough for grade-six divine hazards to surround them, he was completely fine. The deeper they went, the more powerful the divine hazards became, all of which had complete divine ordered patterns. Even something as simple as a ball of lightning would be able to completely char someone.
“We’re almost there. It’s the king of all divine hazards in the Violetcloud Swordsea!”
“King?” This was definitely no simple thing. Tianming still wondered what in the world he would be made to endure as Shengui pulled him down even further. By now, there were already a lot of grade-seven sword ki strands around them that would be a good fit for Blood Transience. Eventually, they reached the bottom.
“We’re here!” Shengui gathered astralforce in his hands and pushed apart the divine hazards around them, revealing a huge object before them.
“This is… a tree?” Tianming didn’t know what to make of the treelike divine hazard ahead of him. All of the other divine hazards in this sea were mobile and volatile, yet this tree was completely still. It looked like a sculpture of a tree formed from icy black spikes, each of them shaped like a sword. In other words, it was a tree of black swords made of ice! Its trunk and branches were larger swords, while the twigs were smaller ones. Even its leaves looked like daggers. Tianming would have thought that it was just a sculpture if Shengui hadn’t explained it to him. In fact, ice sculptures would easily be melted and disintegrated in a sea of divine hazards.
“Are these really divine hazards? Divine hazard sword ki strands?” he asked in disbelief.
“That’s right. It’s called the Frozen Glasstree, a solid manifestation of powerful grade-eight divine hazard sword ki strands! It’s the king of all the divine hazards in this sea!”
Tianming was quite confused, as it differed too much from the sword ki he had seen till now.
“As for how powerful it is, try to assimilate a single leaf from it,” Shengui said. No explanation could beat personal experience.
Tianming nodded and approached it, noticing that he didn’t feel any backlash no matter how close he got. It was clear that all the power was sealed within the ice. He could see the grade-eight divine patterns spread throughout the leaves and the rest of the tree when he was close enough. “Let’s try to pick one leaf.”
He looked around and found a black dagger of ice that seemed to glisten. He gripped it and it felt like normal ice, except for the warmth coming from beneath its surface. It felt like he had frozen up at first, but his fingers looked charred as if they’d been burned. He gave the leaf a twist and, before he could react, the leaf melted into liquid form and turned into countless spikes that burrowed into his palm.
