After the Great Dao Died

At this very moment, Chen Lingxi took a step forward.

A dazzling brilliance of lightning suddenly lit up across his body.

He reached into the void and drew a lightning sword from the surging pale gold thunder light.

The blade was forged entirely of profoundly pure Weiji lightning. Dense thunder runes covered the metal, and as they flowed, an extremely overbearing lightning dao rhyme permeated the air.

At the same time, the Plundering Dragon Dao Platform spun madly!

The Thunder Prison Profound Root atop the Dao Platform trembled violently.

An indescribably majestic power of lightning erupted from within the Profound Root.

That lightning coiled around his body before transforming into myriad streaks of radiance that unfurled into the void.

Thunder Prison!

In this instant, he pushed the Thunder Prison Heaven Great Divine Ability to its absolute limit.

Wherever that lightning passed, an area a hundred li across was entirely reduced to a pure purgatory of thunder.

The sky was dyed a blazing gold, and the surrounding mountains were scorched with jagged scars!

Peering at this scene with her divine sense, Yu Jiangwei’s pupils abruptly shrank!

She clearly sensed that the Thunder Prison divine ability Chen Lingxi had just unleashed was the renowned Thunder Prison Heaven Great Divine Ability of the Great Xuanzhuo Realm!

This great divine ability was most commonly wielded by the cultivators of the Thunder Pool.

Yet the lightning dao rhyme contained within this Thunder Prison was completely different from any Thunder Pool cultivator she had ever seen use the Thunder Prison Heaven.

This lightning was far more primal, overbearing, and violent.

”Supreme Brilliance Extreme Jade Dao, Thunder Prison Heaven,” she muttered.

Hidden within the nearby void, a flash of astonishment also passed through the Golden Crown Demon Lord’s eyes.

”This is a great divine ability of pure slaughter!”

”Even among the myriad great divine abilities of the Thunder Pool, the Thunder Prison Heaven Great Divine Ability is widely recognized as one of the hardest to cultivate and one with the most overwhelming killing power.”

”Ordinary Thunder Pool disciples, even with the careful guidance of their elders and the aid of the lightning essence from the Thunder Pool secret realms, still require decades or even a century of bitter effort to cultivate the Thunder Prison Heaven to the minor mastery stage.”

”This Chen Lingxi has neither a master’s lineage nor deep foundations. He only just stepped into the Dao Foundation realm, yet he has already mastered such a difficult great divine ability?”

Far away, the wounded and hidden Liu Chengfeng frowned even more deeply.

As a sword cultivator, his perception of slaughter-oriented great divine abilities was far sharper than that of ordinary cultivators.

He clearly detected that the lightning dao rhyme radiating around Chen Lingxi was the purest aura of slaughter.

It was a True Intent of lightning that discarded everything else to pursue nothing but extreme killing power.

Amidst that surging pale gold thunder light, Chen Lingxi opened his eyes.

The twin clusters of lightning in his eyes burned madly, with countless fine thunder runes flowing deep within his pupils.

The Dao Origin inside his body surged frantically through this Thunder Prison like a torrential river. As the Dao Origin circulated, it tugged at the surrounding lightning.

With every breath he took, lightning was born; with every flow of his Dao Origin, lightning followed in tow.

In this moment, within the Thunder Prison, it was as if Chen Lingxi had become lightning itself.

Standing dead center in the sky-filling lightning, he looked like a Lord of the Thunder Prison walking straight out of the immemorial Thunder Pool!

It was completely different from the profound and wondrous intricacies of an ordinary Dao Foundation great divine ability.

The Thunder Prison Heaven, having just formed its Profound Root, possessed almost no profound dao rhyme augmentations, none of the purifying power of an immortal elucidating the dao, and none of the unfathomable mysteries of the Substitute Dao Body.

It had only one thing.

And that was the purest power of lightning slaughter. Beneath the shroud of the Thunder Prison, wherever the lightning struck, nothing was indestructible!

With this Thunder Prison great divine ability’s Profound Root newly formed, he intended to shatter ten thousand laws with absolute force!

A true lightning cultivator used lightning to tear through all things!

Whatever immortals elucidated the dao, whatever supreme principles of the Great Dao existed—in the face of this purest lightning slaughter, they all had to shatter and fall silent.

Absolute power subdues all finesse; a single bolt of lightning shatters ten thousand laws.

This was the Supreme Brilliance Extreme Jade Dao. This was the Thunder Prison Heaven.

Chen Lingxi unfurled the Thunder Prison and raised his hand in a sword strike!

The blade forged of Weiji lightning transformed in that instant into a dazzling sword light that swept across the vast sky!

Thunder-Wielding Heavenly King Sword!

As the sword swung out, the sky full of churning pale gold thunder light seemed to receive some kind of summons, frantically gathering into the sword light.

The sword light, originally only a zhang or so long, explosively expanded to a hundred zhang in length at this moment.

Dense thunder runes covered the sword light, and as they circulated, an earth-shattering roar of thunder violently exploded.

At the same time, he pushed the Thunder-Concealing Sword Scripture to its ultimate peak.

The Twelve Chimes of the Heavenly Drum burst forth!

Deafening blasts of thunder rang out as though a divine being were beating a heavenly drum, each chime stronger and faster than the last.

That thunderous sound layered over his sword momentum, making the already peerlessly sharp sword light even more overbearing and fierce.

Bai Lingze’s Sound-Elucidating Profound Light, striking with unstoppable momentum, was the first to crash into Chen Lingxi’s Thunder Prison.

The voice of the immortal elucidating the dao, reputed to be capable of purifying all living souls, abruptly stagnated the instant it touched the sky full of lightning.

The sonic waves that had been surging forward in overwhelming, overlapping layers seemed to crash into an invisible barrier of thunder, surprisingly grinding to a halt in the void.

After a stalemate of about half a breath, the outer layer of the Sound-Elucidating Profound Light began to disintegrate and scatter at a visible rate.

The profound and wondrous supreme principles contained within the immortal’s elucidating voice were like ice thrown into a furnace when faced with that purest lightning slaughter, evaporating piece by piece into nothingness.

Instead of retreating, Chen Lingxi advanced. Stepping through the dead center of the Thunder Prison, he slashed out with his lightning sword again.

With every swing of the blade, the lightning in the Thunder Prison grew a fraction more blazing, and the sword light became a fraction more overbearing.

And the sky-covering Sound-Elucidating Profound Light perished a fraction faster.

As the lightning sword light bloomed in the void, the overwhelming Sound-Elucidating Profound Light was actually forcibly cleaved open by Chen Lingxi, forming a massive rift.

Lightning churned within the rift, completely barricading Bai Lingze’s sonic waves of the immortal elucidating the dao and preventing them from advancing a single inch further.

Bai Lingze frowned, but he did not panic.

With a flick of his sleeve, the Immortal Elucidation Wondrous Fruit hovering behind him abruptly flared with an even more dazzling brilliance.

Wherever the light fell, the Sound-Elucidating Profound Light that Chen Lingxi had just cloven open actually began to stitch itself back together.

Like a severed river flowing back into one, it converged once more, transforming back into an overwhelming tide that bore down on the Thunder Prison.

At the same time, the hundreds of spiritual treasure bamboo arrows arrived less than a hundred zhang from Chen Lingxi.

The volley of bamboo arrows rained down in a dense, sky-blotting swarm.

Every single bamboo arrow harbored a terrifying piercing power.

Chen Lingxi coldly snorted. His left hand violently clenched the void, and he forcefully triggered the Heaven-Seizing Seal method!

The surging lightning Dao Origin in the Thunder Prison converged frantically into his palm like all rivers running into the sea. In the blink of an eye, it took the shape of a massive palm seal a hundred zhang across.

Wreathed in lightning and brimming with the slaughtering power of thunder, the palm seal smashed straight into the sky full of bamboo arrows.

With the Thunder Prison’s augmentation, even an ordinary divine ability would possess extraordinary might—let alone the Heaven-Seizing Seal divine ability, which Chen Lingxi had long since cultivated to the Wondrous State!

Rumble!

Lightning and azure light exploded as the hundred-zhang Heaven-Seizing Seal swatted the hundreds of bamboo arrows entirely off course.

The bamboo arrows shot haphazardly in all directions, slamming into the jagged rocks of the Ancestral Mountain with a string of earth-shaking booms, but not a single one could draw within a hundred zhang of Chen Lingxi.

Immediately following that, Chen Lingxi’s Longevity Bridge Divine Ability crashed out.

The sphere of light formed by the Profound Caging Method was forcibly shattered. The invisible cage cracked inch by inch under the impact of the lightning Dao Origin, dissolving into a sky full of light that faded into the void.

Bai Lingze finally frowned.

Three successive waves of his attacks...

The Sound-Elucidating Profound Light, the Profound Caging Method, and the spiritual treasure bamboo arrows—all of them had been completely and effortlessly broken by this man.

Yet onlookers didn’t know the truth.

At this moment, the Dao Origin surging around Chen Lingxi—engraved with Bai Lingze’s name from the Enemy-Slaughtering Spirit Wall—was circulating madly. Under the augmentation of the Cauldron Vessel’s mighty power, the might of the Thunder Prison Heaven skyrocketed.

It was as if the sky-filling lightning possessed its own sentience, surging on its own toward the weakest points of Bai Lingze’s divine abilities.

Standing dead center in the Thunder Prison, Chen Lingxi controlled the lightning as effortlessly as an arm commanding its fingers.

Bai Lingze’s expression had now turned extremely solemn.

His hands flickered continuously as profound seal incantations flew from his fingertips like a torrential downpour, sinking into the phantom of the immortal.

In that instant, the immortal phantom abruptly opened its eyes.

Those eyes were hollow and void, yet they inherently possessed a chilling majesty capable of suppressing eternity.

The phantom opened its mouth, and an even more magnificent wave of Sound-Elucidating Profound Light spewed forth, far more condensed and overbearing than before.

At the same time, Bai Lingze unleashed several more great divine abilities and arts in succession!

A jade-colored great seal, fully a hundred zhang across, plummeted from the sky. Carrying a terrifying power that could suppress all creation, it smashed straight toward Chen Lingxi’s head—this was the Que Star divine ability, [Watchtower Constellation Great Seal]!

Then, the immortal phantom suddenly began to chant. The song transformed into countless invisible silken threads of sonic waves that lashed toward Chen Lingxi from the void.

The threads appeared fragile but actually contained extremely overbearing binding power designed specifically to lock down the circulation of a cultivator’s internal Dao Origin. This was the profound art of the Immortal Elucidation Dao great divine ability, [Qi-Illuminating Song].

Eerie runes spawned out of thin air in the void, enveloping Chen Lingxi.

As those runes circulated, they shockingly caused Chen Lingxi’s Dao Origin to flow slower and slower.

This was the [Life-Sweeping Method]!

Bai Lingze poured out all his foundations, unleashing his divine abilities in unison. He intended to thoroughly suppress Chen Lingxi with this monstrous momentum.

However, the Thunder Prison was unfurled across the sky like a lightning fortress anchoring the void. No matter how wildly Bai Lingze bombarded it, it stood unmoving.

The Watchtower Constellation Great Seal smashed onto the Thunder Prison, but as the lightning churned, it ground all the runes on the great seal into dust.

The silken threads formed by the Qi-Illuminating Song were incinerated into nothingness by the purest killing power of lightning the moment they touched the Thunder Prison.

Although the runes of the Life-Sweeping Method could stagnate the circulation of Dao Origin, the Weiji lightning bred within the Thunder Prison Profound Root was far too overbearing. The bizarre runes lasted for less than half a breath within the Dao Origin before being thoroughly devoured by the lightning.

Standing atop the immortal phantom’s head, Bai Lingze looked down at the figure in black robes who still stood dead center in the Thunder Prison.

For this man to actually clash head-on with him without losing the upper hand—his profound foundations and the overbearing nature of his slaughtering power had far exceeded Bai Lingze’s initial expectations.

This was no longer the ant he had chased through Nanche Prefecture City until he had no path to heaven and no door into the earth.

Bai Lingze fell silent for a moment. Suddenly, the rhythm of the Dao Origin circulating around him abruptly shifted.

He lowered his head, glanced at Chen Lingxi, and slowly said, ”It seems ordinary methods can no longer deal with you.”

His tone remained unhurried, as though everything were still under his control.

He brought his hands together in the empty air. As his ten fingers flickered, they formed an extremely intricate seal incantation.

The immortal phantom, which had been sitting cross-legged, slowly stood up in this instant, causing the entire Ancestral Mountain to tremble violently.

Countless stars faintly flickered in the void, inhaling and exhaling an ancient, heart-palpitating dao rhyme.

Standing atop the immortal’s head, the Immortal Elucidation Dao dao rhyme around Bai Lingze’s body became thick to the extreme.

He looked like a true purifying immortal, wreathed in endless elucidating profound light, shining so brilliantly that no one could dare look directly at him.

”Chen Lingxi,” he said softly, his tone carrying a touch of emotion. ”To force me to sacrifice my own Dao Origin to this immortal avatar, you can be proud of yourself.”

Before his voice faded, he threw his arms wide open.

Behind him, the phantom of the immortal opened its mouth and elucidated the dao.

Chen Lingxi felt waves of indescribable, wondrous power surging toward his Sea of Consciousness.

Hearing the multitude of elucidating voices, a rush of profound comprehension suddenly filled Chen Lingxi’s mind, as if in the very next second his Profound Root would grow into a tree and bear wondrous fruit!

Then, he heard Bai Lingze’s voice.

The voice was extremely ethereal, as if drifting down from the farthest reaches of the heavens.

Yet the wondrous dao rhyme contained within that voice made Chen Lingxi involuntarily want to sink into it!

”The dao fruit is right here. You need only reach out and pluck it... Chen Lingxi, I am elucidating the dao to you myself. Can you attain the dao?” That voice echoed within his Sea of Consciousness, lingering continuously and refusing to dissipate.

Right at that moment, the Plundering Dragon Dao Platform spun madly. One ancient thunder rune after another surged from the Profound Root, forming an invisible barrier that securely shielded his Sea of Consciousness and physical body.

The voice of the immortal elucidating the dao receded like the tide.

Chen Lingxi abruptly opened his eyes.

He raised his head, looked at Bai Lingze standing atop the immortal’s head, and suddenly broke into a grin.

”The immortal elucidates the dao to me, yet it doesn’t align with my own dao. Your dao, Bai Lingze, is unworthy of me.”

The instant his voice fell, Chen Lingxi raised his right hand, his index finger pointing to the sky like a lightning pillar piercing the heavens.

And at the tip of that index finger, the sky full of surging Thunder Prison Heaven lightning had been compressed to the absolute extreme, transforming into a single drop of pale gold lightning liquid no larger than a grain of rice.

Though the liquid lightning was merely the size of a grain of rice, the slaughtering power contained within it had been condensed to an utterly terrifying degree.

He took a step forward and lightly tapped that finger in Bai Lingze’s direction.

Palace-Knocking Finger!

Augmented by the Thunder Prison Heaven!

The rice-sized droplet of liquid lightning shot out. Like a lightning comet surging up against the sky, it crashed toward the immortal phantom, carrying the terrifying power to destroy heaven and earth.

Wherever the liquid lightning passed, the void collapsed. The power of lightning permeated the air, incinerating all the elucidating profound light around the immortal phantom into nothingness.

The voice of the immortal elucidating the dao, which was originally capable of purifying all creation, instantly shattered inch by inch in the face of this purest lightning slaughter!

Bai Lingze’s pupils abruptly shrank!

Before he could even think, the immortal phantom beneath his feet raised both its palms. Wrapping itself in endless Sound-Elucidating Profound Light, it fiercely slammed its hands toward the drop of liquid lightning.

This palm contained the full might of Bai Lingze sacrificing his Dao Origin to the immortal. Even a Dao Foundation cultivator of the same realm clashing with it head-on would have their Dao Platform left trembling and their Profound Root damaged.

One palm and one finger violently collided in the void.

A swath of blazing white and a swath of lightning exploded at the point of collision between the immortal phantom’s palms and the liquid lightning.

All sound vanished at this moment. All creation between heaven and earth fell dead silent. There was only the silently expanding radiance that illuminated the entire Ancestral Mountain in a blinding, blazing white!

When the light faded, the sky above the Ancestral Mountain was in complete ruin.

The hundred-zhang-tall immortal phantom actually had both its palms pierced completely through by Chen Lingxi’s Palace-Knocking Finger, its massive body blasted back who knew how many miles by the strike.

Its elucidating profound light was now far dimmer, and the Immortal Elucidation Dao dao rhyme around its body was lethargic and weak.

On the other end, Chen Lingxi was not faring well either. His black robes were covered in scorch marks burned by the profound light.

But his eyes were still astonishingly bright.

Looking at the battered Chen Lingxi, a cold sneer flashed through Bai Lingze’s eyes.

”Having just formed your Profound Root, you are bound to run out of strength in a battle like this.”

His figure flickered as he transformed into a streak of jade-colored light, closing the distance.

That pale, jade-like hand surged with the terrifying power to suppress all creation as it viciously clawed toward Chen Lingxi’s head.

Once this palm landed, it would forcefully rip Chen Lingxi’s head right off!

The twin clusters of lightning in Chen Lingxi’s eyes suddenly burned madly.

He raised his right hand, pressing his index and middle fingers together like a sword.

The thunder chimes of the Twelve Chimes of the Heavenly Drum flickered at his fingertips. Earth-shattering blasts of thunder rang out as if a divine being were beating a heavenly drum, one after another, overlapping layer upon layer to form invisible chains of sonic waves that thoroughly locked down the void around Bai Lingze.

This sword was not meant for slaughter, but to trap the enemy.

’Achieving the Profound Root, wielding the Thunder Prison Heaven, refining the Weiji lightning, and birthing a profound art.’

’I am curious to see just how mighty this art truly is!’

Chen Lingxi’s thoughts surged!

The Thunder Prison Heaven frantically contracted at this moment. The sky-filling lightning that had originally shrouded a hundred li was compressed to its absolute limit in the blink of an eye.

All the lightning completely converged into the space of a zhang or so right in front of him, transforming into a Thunder Pool that was only a few chi square!

[Thunder Prison Heaven Immortal Smiting Thunder Pool]!

The immortal pivot lightning from the Storm Immortal Pivot could be seen churning within that immortal smiting thunder pool.

A chilling killing intent that pierced straight to the bone flooded out, blanketing the area.

The killing intent was so intense that even Bai Lingze involuntarily shrank his pupils.

But surrounded by sword light, Bai Lingze had already cut off all avenues of retreat and charged in for the kill; there was nowhere to dodge!

Thus, Bai Lingze’s tyrannical divine ability collided with the immortal smiting lightning!

In a flash!

The spiritual light on Bai Lingze’s body suddenly faded the very instant it touched the immortal smiting thunder pool.

The next second, Chen Lingxi slammed right into Bai Lingze’s chest like a humanoid lightning bolt.

Moving with his body as though it were a living creature, the immortal smiting thunder pool enveloped Bai Lingze’s entire being in that horrifying killing intent.

Lightning churned and Dao Origin clashed. Under the erosion of the lightning, the towering immortal phantom continually crumbled.

In his haste, Bai Lingze tried to trigger the Jade Platform Seal to protect himself, but the immortal smiting lightning was peerlessly overbearing; the Jade Platform phantom melted away the moment it appeared.

The immortal elucidating profound light around his body grew thinner and dimmer by the second.

His handsome, jade-like face was filled with disbelief and horror.

Right now, Chen Lingxi was incomparably terrifying, like a true Lord of the Thunder Prison.

Wreathed in immortal smiting lightning, he looked down at Bai Lingze, his lightning-burning eyes blazing like thunderous suns.

The Hymn of the Divine Being ringing in Bai Lingze’s ears was completely reduced to chaotic noise in the face of the Thunder Prison Heaven’s thunderclaps, stripped of even the slightest hint of profundity.

The immortal phantom was incinerated into nothingness inch by inch. A trickle of pale gold avatar essence leaked from the corner of Bai Lingze’s mouth, and the deep, vast Immortal Elucidation Dao dao rhyme around his body had wilted to the absolute extreme.

Bai Lingze lifted his head. His handsome, jade-like face no longer held a single trace of composure or arrogance.

He was a Dao Foundation genius of the Yutai Bai Family, the avatar of the Dao Foundation Great Consummation cultivator Bai Lingze—yet he had actually been defeated at the hands of a native of the Weiji Grotto-Heaven.

Bai Lingze took a deep breath, watching Chen Lingxi step closer and closer, that chilling killing intent completely locked onto him.

He suddenly grit his teeth, and his body violently convulsed!

His heavily battered avatar actually began to disintegrate on its own in that instant. Within it, his divine sense transformed into a streak of lightning, flashing with radiance.

Chen Lingxi frowned and subconsciously stepped back half a pace.

Bai Lingze was actually sacrificing all the remaining Dao Origin of this avatar in exchange for a single chance to escape.

The avatar transformed into a streak of jade-colored light, shooting up into the sky at an inconceivable speed and frantically fleeing toward the distant horizon.

Containing extremely pure Immortal Elucidation Dao Dao Origin, that flowing light was like a jade sword soaring up against the sky, cleaving a long rift through the sea of clouds in the firmament above.

In the void, there was a deathly stillness.

Sitting cross-legged on the Spiritual Pearl, Yu Jiangwei remained silent for a long time before finally, slowly shaking her head.

Standing beneath the Gold-Suppressing Cauldron, Zhao Duanxuan also fell completely silent for a moment.

And out in the void above the wilderness, treading upon the lightning that had yet to fully dissipate, Chen Lingxi cast a glance in the direction Bai Lingze had fled, and then flicked his finger!