Immortal Paladin

Divine Mandate of Proximity rumbled outward from me like a quiet roar, forming a radiant dome that swallowed the ruined residence and the sky above. Everything inside the golden boundary bent to my will. If they dared pull away from me, their strength would crumble under the weight of forced proximity.

I vanished from where I stood, reappearing an arm’s breadth in front of Tan Jin through Zealot’s Stride. My palm crashed down in a War Smite, shattering the air with a blunt snap. She crossed her arms in front of her and met the blow head-on. Her body didn’t budge. Thick roots and ancient vines erupted from her feet, anchoring her like a beast planted into the earth itself.

“You talk big,” Tan Jin said, pushing back against my palm. “But is this really it?”

A faint shimmer slithered along her arm. Her aura traced my skin like a knife disguised as mist. Lines of shallow cuts opened along my hand, tearing the flow of my power. My Divine Sense sharpened, and her cultivation revealed itself fully into an Ascended Soul, Level 16. That realm alone wasn’t surprising. What was unexpected was that she felt heavier and more dangerous than Jia Sen, who wielded an Immortal Art and higher levels.

Before I could adjust, a thousand thin blades of aura stripped my right arm. Flesh, bone, and qi defense vanished in a burst, scattering to dust.

“Blessed Regeneration.”

My arm reformed in a heartbeat, and I seized her by the throat with the newly grown hand while casting Halo of Restriction. Using Qi Speech, I spoke straight into her mind.

“They plan to open a Hell’s Gate in Phoenix City if you don’t cooperate. Is that how they are coercing you? Do you even realize they intend to activate it during the Rising Phoenix Tournament? You’ll lose a city, thousands will die, and the Martial Alliance’s reputation will sink into the mud.”

Her voice rasped through my grip. “Do you think I have a choice?”

There was a sudden shift of air and a faint ripple.

My vision flipped.

My head spun upward, and my body dropped from my sight. It was headless, yet its hand still locked around Tan Jin’s neck. Standing behind the corpse was a scar-ridden swordsman with wild red hair. His presence pulsed unmistakably that of a Martial Saint.

“No secret talking,” he said, lifting my severed head by the hair. “Name’s Yi Pou. Nice to meet you.”

My gaze drifted upward toward the sky, where four other Martial Saints watched with bored amusement. Something in me twisted. Yi Pou frowned.

“I don’t like the look in your eyes. Don’t bother with the rest of them—”

I blinked.

I reappeared in my true body with a snap of light. The soulless shell took my human soul, reclaiming awareness. My palm was still on Tan Jin’s throat, and the halos of the Halo of Restriction pulsed violently around her body. breaking, re-forming, and breaking again, forming a chain of tightening luminous rings. The skill cycled faster than she could escape.

Yi Pou, meanwhile, was missing his head. A fresh one sprouted from his shoulders as he resurrected. He scowled. “That hurt. Tan Jin, you look pathetic right now.”

“If you know any better, then help me,” remarked Tan Jin.

“How about you sleep for now?” I said calmly.

“Divine Word: Rest.”

Her resistance melted. Her eyes grew heavy. She slumped into unconsciousness in my grip.

Yi Pou growled. “I’m going to kill—”

The severed head he was holding erupted. The fifteen Manasouls I’d hidden inside ignited one by one. I forced the qi and mana inside them to fuse, birthing a surge of volatile quintessence. I unleashed all three Ultimate Skills at once.

“Heavenly Punishment.”

A colossal golden sword burst from the head, cleaving upward with apocalyptic force.

“Judgment Severance.”

A cross-shaped rift tore open behind Yi Pou, devouring all aura, light, and sound that touched its edges.

“Final Adjudication.”

An enormous celestial scale manifested in the sky, tilting with divine weight. Burning chains shot outward, wrapping the world in scorching brilliance as they struck down at Yi Pou and the Martial Saints above.

All three Ultimate Skills detonated together, fifteen Manasouls, five fueling each spell, amplifying their destructive power until the sky looked on the verge of collapsing.

The world drowned in gold.

I exhaled, stepping forward as the remnants of divine light flickered around me. I stared at the Martial Saints hovering above the ruined forest, their expressions caught between fury and disbelief.

“Well?” I asked, voice steady. “Are you going to introduce yourselves, too?”

“Don’t write me off too early, greenhorn,” a voice rasped behind me. 

It was Yi Pou.

“Asura Hell: Annihilation.”

I twisted, raising my left arm and slamming it out in a Shield Bash. Instead of deflecting him, the force of his strike sent me hurling across the ruined clearing. My Divine Sense flared. He had lost one layer of immortality, dropping to Level 14. Only one. I had expected at least two.

Above us, the other Martial Saints deflected the chains of Final Adjudication with ease. Their movements were sharp, their killing intent cold and disciplined. Something, however, was off.

There should have been five of them.

Only four occupied the sky.

A quiet realization crawled into my chest an instant before the pain.

I lowered my gaze. A dagger jutted from my sternum.

“Assassination Art: Blooming Death,” a soft voice murmured in my ear. Black thorns erupted from the wound, racing through my torso like vines hungry for blood.

Spell Resonance triggered reflexively.

“Divine Word: Raise.”

My body resurrected on the spot, bursting into golden light. I lunged with a Thunderous Smite, but the assassin had already vanished into the folds of space.

“You are mine!” Yi Pou bellowed. He swung his blade, aura exploding outward. “Asura Hell: Devastation!”

I crossed my arms to block, but my left arm failed to respond. A sharp crack echoed. My entire left arm dissolved into ash, the lingering effect of his earlier Annihilation. I grimaced. I had underestimated them more than I thought.

Still, I wasn’t the only one with lingering tricks.

The backlash of my delayed reflection technique was activated. Yi Pou froze mid-swing. In the next heartbeat, both his arms burst open, one evaporating into ash, the other shredding apart in jagged ribbons of flesh, mirroring the damage Tan Jin had inflicted on me earlier.

His scream cut through the air.

“I will kill you!”

I merely activated an Immortal Art.

“Immortal Art: Godslayer.”

I exhaled, channeling my quintessence until it roared in my veins.

“Thunderous Smite.”

Soulsunderer materialized in my hand, a single-edged greatsword humming with divine might. I swung it back, preparing for a full execution, but the ground suddenly erupted. Roots and vines lashed around my limbs like living chains.

Tan Jin appeared beside me, panting, dirt and blood on her arms. Somehow, she had shaken off the sleep command. “Chang Su! Dodge! He’s after you!”

The warning came too late.

My shadow bulged. A woman burst forth, silent and deadly. Her dagger aimed straight for my throat. I had sensed her hiding, and yes, I’ve been aiming for her since the beginning.

“Shapeshifting ability…”

My body shrank instantly. Bones compressed, limbs shortened, muscles tightened. In a blink, I became a small child. The vines gripping me loosened as their restraint no longer matched my new size. I slipped free, lunged forward, and crashed straight into the assassin mid-strike.

She died in an instant.

But death was not enough.

Ascended Souls could resurrect endlessly as long as they had layers of immortality left. I wasn’t about to give her the chance to regroup.

“Divine Possession.”

My Human Soul surged into her body as it reformed, yanking me into the core of her spirit.

A storm of memories swallowed me.

I saw a little girl clutching a torn doll while the Martial Alliance collected the bodies of her village. I saw her kneeling in a crowded orphanage, begging for clothes, dreaming of becoming a seamstress who embroidered myths onto silk. I saw her dragged into assassination training because she was quiet, obedient, and talented. I saw her slit throats for elders who praised her with cold nods. I saw her confront monstrous beings from the Heavenly Temple, always deployed alone like a disposable knife.

Strangely, memories of the Heavenly Master were missing.

She resisted the Divine Possession, of course. Her will lashed at me in panic and fury. But dying and resurrecting had left her shaken, and Divine Possession wrapped around her spirit before she could steady herself.

When the visions ended, I returned to myself.

My hand hovered over her unconscious form. Her breathing was faint. Her aura trembled like a wounded beast.

“…I pity you,” I whispered.

I meant it.

The last chains of Final Adjudication snapped, releasing the remaining Martial Saints from its grasp. Their auras flared sharply the moment they were free. Anger, caution, and genuine killing intent rolled through the air in waves. Finally, they were taking me seriously. That was good. If I didn’t thin their numbers now, I’d be facing all six at once.

“Castling.”

The world inverted. Space folded. My main body switched places with Chang Su’s resurrected form. Instead of me being caught in Tan Jin’s tightening roots and vines, she took the hit. They didn’t know she was already under Divine Possession. I had to use that ignorance well.

A shout tore across the battlefield.

“I am Wei Ruogang, face me!”

The spearman appeared at my right in a swirl of frost. “One Spear Frost Peak!”

Cold radiated from his thrust, imbued with elemental essence. If it touched me, my speed would suffer. I stepped away, Flash Step carrying me forward in a sharp blur.

“You aren’t running, boy!” another voice boomed. A bald madman leapt down with a great cudgel hoisted over his shoulder. “Face Lai Huan, the mountain crusher! Mountain Crushing Force!”

“Zealot’s Stride.”

Golden light burst beneath my feet. I zigzagged under his crashing cudgel as it split the ground into jagged spikes. Dust and stone erupted behind me when a thin old man materialized at my flank, sword already swinging.

I raised my blade and parried once, twice, and thrice. He pressed harshly, but I wasn’t interested in him. I only needed a single opening.

Because up ahead, standing alone, was Yi Pou.

His arms were still ruined, hanging limp and bloodied. The reflected damage had torn him apart, and even after resurrection, they hadn’t knit back together yet. That made him the easiest target.

The old man gasped as I abruptly let his sword strike land across my ribs.

He didn’t understand, but he would.

The reflected damage surged out from me in an invisible ripple, shredding his torso and sending him staggering back. I didn’t stay to watch. I combined Flash Step, Zealot’s Stride, and Divine Speed until my vision tunneled and the world stretched thin around me.

I appeared before Yi Pou like a storm.

My blade fell. Heavenly Punishment flared. His head left his neck in a clean arc.

“Be careful of the blue motes around him!” the old swordsman shouted raggedly. “He can unleash powerful—”

Too late.

Every step I had taken before reaching Yi Pou had planted a Manasoul into the ground. Seven Manasouls pulsed beneath us, and each of the Martial Saints had one clinging to their aura.

The world detonated.

Seven Judgment Severance rifts burst open, great golden cross-shaped tears in reality. And from the spearman and Lai Huan’s positions, Heavenly Punishment erupted like spears of divine lightning.

Their formation collapsed instantly. With so many rifts gnawing at the surroundings, channeling techniques would be nearly impossible.

Yi Pou resurrected with a snarl.

His head rolled again the moment he stood, another release of reflected damage from the sword cuts I’d taken earlier.

He resurrected a third time. A fourth. Each time, his head fell before he could restore his arms.

On the fifth resurrection, an unexpected storm of arrows pierced through the golden dome of my Divine Mandate of Proximity, rattling the air like rain hitting steel. Someone strong stood outside the boundary, a peak archer of terrifying precision. They didn’t understand that inside the dome, their attacks would suffer crippling disadvantages.

Perfect.

I took out one of my warbows.

I drew.

I released.

Hundreds of arrows laced with Heavenly Punishment streaked outward like golden comets. In the distance, massive golden pillars erupted into existence, shaking the treeline and splintering mountainsides. When the barrage finally stopped, I could no longer sense the archer at all.

Either dead… or too injured to continue.

Yi Pou resurrected yet again. His mouth opened.

“You… monster—”

He didn’t finish.

Another delayed reflected slash, this one from the old swordsman’s earlier strike, ripped through his neck.

The final wave of Judgment Severance settled, leaving the battlefield carved into ribbons of smoldering golden cracks. Yi Pou’s corpse lay motionless at last. He wouldn’t be resurrecting again.

Ahead of me stood the old swordsman, the spearman Wei Ruogang, the bald cudgel wielder’s fading ashes, and Tan Jin breathing harder now, her aura coiled around her like thorns.

The old man stepped forward, face lined with age and anger. “I am Ding Xuefang. State your name, warrior!”

“A dead man doesn’t need to know.”

While Chang Su remained trapped in Tan Jin’s technique, I had already pushed Exalted Renewal through Chang Su’s body, reinforcing her just enough for what would come next and indirectly expending her soul in the process. My Divine Spark was threatened a bit by this roundabout and dangerous application of the skill, but I’d make it work somehow.

I raised a hand toward her, unleashing Chang Su’s skill at the cost of her life.

“Thousand Flowers of Death.”

Chang Su’s body bloomed.

A tremendous garden of bramble thorns, obsidian petals, and billowing pollen exploded outward. Her technique tore apart Tan Jin’s vines as if they were thread. The ground ruptured for hundreds of meters. The spearman and cudgel man were shredded first, resurrecting only to die again as the technique rolled over them in relentless waves.

Tan Jin slipped free, retreating behind a wall of roots. Ding Xuefang grabbed Wei Ruogang by the collar and fled the expanding storm. The cudgel man, too slow to escape, dissolved into powder as his final layer of immortality burned away.

When the flowers finally stopped blooming, only drifting petals remained.

I appeared in front of Chang Su.

“Rest in peace,” I told her gently. “I hope your next life is kinder.”

Her eyes softened, her expression briefly peaceful, and then her body collapsed into ash as the forced Exalted Renewal unraveled.

Wei Ruogang fell to his knees, trembling as the ashes scattered.

“The new generation…” he whispered. “Truly a terrifying sight. With your might alone, you could dominate the heavens! P–please, allow me to serve you!”

Ding Xuefang spat. “You shameless coward, traitor!”

“I’m not interested,” I replied, reaching into my pocket dimension and drawing Silver Steel, a sacred blade that purified both wielder and foe. Its edge hummed in greeting.

My gaze shifted to Tan Jin.

“Let’s finish this. I’m willing to forgive you, Tan Jin. Allow you a place to amend yourself. So show me your resolve.”

Wei Ruogang suddenly shouted, voice cracking, “What!? You’ll take her but not me? Is it lust? Did I misjudge—”

His words choked off.

Roots burst violently from his flesh, threading through bone and qi alike as she ripped control away from him in a single motion.

She faced me calmly. “It’s much easier to restrain an immortal than kill one.”

Ding Xuefang tried to run.

He didn’t get far.

I Flash-Stepped behind him, seized his head with one hand, and slammed him into the shattered earth. The ground cratered beneath the impact.

“You have nowhere else to go, old man,” I said coldly. “Give up.”

Suddenly.

A tremor rolled through the world.

An immense, crushing pressure erupted from every direction. The air turned red. The sky cracked. Far in the distance, tearing open space like a wound, an enormous Hell’s Gate slowly unfurled, its infernal glow spreading across the horizon.

The true disaster had arrived.