Aspiring to the Immortal Path

Chapter 885: Combination (1)

Rather than on his enemies, Tang Jie used Split-Second Youth on himself.

After using Split-Second Youth, Tang Jie used Nearby Horizon to appear next to a distant cultivator. There was a blur, and then his head was separated from the rest of his body. At this moment, he was still alive, his rising head still wondering how his opponent could be so fast as a hand swung toward him at an absurd speed, pulverizing his body and annihilating his life force. This cultivator wasn't an Earth Immortal and lacked the undying attributes of that level, so he died, slain so quickly that it left everyone else in disbelief.

A moment later, Tang Jie blinked again, appearing behind another retreating cultivator. This cultivator instinctively sensed Tang Jie's pursuit and hastily put up a barrier. As a Violet Palace cultivator, he could apply a barrier with a thought, but before the barrier could rise, he felt a pain in his back, saw a hand penetrating through his body, grasping a still-beating heart. Is that my heart? the cultivator wondered in shock. He didn't even have time to wonder how Tang Jie could attack faster than he could think before an explosion ripped through his body.

Blood rained over the world within the Mountain River State Diagram.

Yiyi pursed her lips. "They're not even coming in intact now."

Tang Jie continued to hunt the fleeing cultivators.

Using Split-Second Youth on himself accelerated Tang Jie to an absurd level, and the Sovereign Blade in his hand became like the reaper's scythe, taking lives as it unleashed golden wave after golden wave of energy.

The several dozen cultivators had scattered in all directions in their bid to escape, but none of them were able to evade Tang Jie. Tang Jie could be seen everywhere, and those who ran the fastest were the first to be targeted by him. But whenever he had a choice, Tang Jie would choose to prioritize the people of the Heaven's Equal Sect and Stellar Net Gate.

This wasn't because he hated the human cultivators more, but rather because if the people from these two sects escaped, information on him would leak, and the two sects would never let him go. As for the demon cultivators, nobody would believe what they said, or even give them a chance to talk before they were slain. Thus, Tang Jie was more willing to let them go.

At this moment, Tang Jie was truly invincible. He himself had not imagined that using Split-Second Youth and Nearby Horizon together would be this powerful.

Before, Tang Jie would use his Dao Arts one by one, never at the same time.

But this trip into the Immortal Emperor's tomb had given a big boost to Tang Jie's Dao Will. Not only had he entered the Dao of Space, he had gained a deeper understanding of the essence of the Great Dao, which allowed him to use two Dao Arts at the same time.

Of course, he was only a novice at this, so he could only use two Dao Arts that were of the same category, like Space and Time, or Yin Yang and Five Elements. Still, this represented an enormous boost in strength.

Tang Jie was able to reach an unimaginable level of speed with the Dao Arts of Space and Time working together, moving around like a streak of light. He could be attacking a Heaven's Equal Sect cultivator, kicking a Stellar Net Gate cultivator, beheading a demon cultivator, and then ramming into another cultivator all in the same second. All of his moves were brimming with ferocity, seemingly simple yet imbued with immense lethality. It was rather like Feng Buzhi's "Catch the Wind, Seize the Moon", except thousands of times faster.

He was a one-man net, catching everyone present.

Such a terrifying fighting style chilled the hearts of the cultivators, but just when they were all about to despair, Tang Jie's lightning-fast body suddenly stopped, and besides that, his black hair now had many streaks of white.

After a moment of surprise, everyone realized what had happened and shouted in glee, "So he was also at his limits!"

"He's out of energy!"

"Kill!"

The cultivators cheered.

Tang Jie truly was out of energy.

He had already been running low on Space power, and this repeated use had squeezed him dry, and he didn't even want to talk about Time power. Split-Second Youth was powerful, but using it to accelerate oneself also meant that he had accelerated himself through the river of time, which was another way of consuming life force. Tang Jie had already used a lot of life force to save his original body, and he was fortunate that the Remote Antiquity serpent had let him recover a little. But the serpent had mostly helped with his cultivation, and the help it had provided to his lifespan was limited.

A Soul Projection cultivator, barring special circumstances, normally had a lifespan of five thousand years. In reality, most cultivators didn't get this far, because cultivators were frequently involved in battles. Luo Hanzhen was a classic example of someone who had been worn down by so many battles that he could only wait to become Returned Remnants. And through his earlier battles, Tang Jie had run down his four thousand years of lifespan to less than one thousand years. Thus, when he used Split-Second Youth on himself, he worsened the situation, resulting in these visible signs of aging.

Tang Jie didn't care. Lifespan could be lost, but it could also be restored. Just rising to the next level and becoming an Earth Immortal could extend his lifespan and reverse his aging. Thus, so long as he could beat these people and use them to enrich himself, some lifespan posed no problem.

In that frenzied Space–Time dance just now, Tang Jie had killed seventeen or eighteen Soul Projection cultivators and prevented the rest from escaping.

These were Soul Projection cultivators!

Without any sort of schemes, Tang Jie had cut down almost twenty Soul Projection cultivators like they were vegetables. This alone was enough for him to say that he was invincible among his peers.

But for Tang Jie, this clearly wasn't enough.

As the cultivators rushed at him, Tang Jie smiled. "That's exactly what I wanted you to do!"

An explosion of five-colored light erupted from his body, threads of light weaving themselves into a majestic palace complex: the Infinite Palace! This time, though, Tang Jie wasn't using the Infinite Palace for defense, but to kill. The lights of the Five Elements didn't harden the buildings, instead expanding the complex and letting the cultivators rush in. Only when all of the cultivators had entered did it go from illusion to reality. At a glance, it appeared somewhat like the Court of Myriad Domains, but this was simply something Tang Jie had done to amuse himself after studying the structure of the court.

The cultivators found themselves in a maze of buildings, but not a single other person in sight. As they were wondering what was going on, the surrounding plants suddenly hurled themselves at them.

Fortunately, these were all Violet Palace experts who didn't fear some traps. Still, this made them realize what their situation was: "Be careful! There's a formation here!"

Winds howled, thunder boomed, and a ghostly fog rose up: the Stellar Net Astral Demon Formation!

As this formation emerged, Tang Jie's laughter resounded through the palace, and the cultivators saw Tang Jies appearing in all directions.

Reflections of Floating Life.

The combination of Yin Yang and Five Elements Dao Arts had appeared. To be honest, Tang Jie didn't understand what the result would be, but he wanted to try.

A moment later, countless Tang Jies began to attack the cultivators.

"Just a formation and some illusory clones! Watch me destroy them all!" a cultivator roared, throwing out a wave of golden light. These golden lights were actually countless golden cicadas, each one the size of a fist and with a stinger on their tail that contained a powerful toxin. These golden cicadas were a rare mutant that was resistant to most spell arts. By sending them out, the cultivator intended to fight numbers with numbers.

As a Dao Art, Reflections of Floating Life emphasized more of its ability to resist illusion detection than power. In normal circumstances, these cicadas would have countered Reflections of Floating Life. Its greatest weakness had always been large-scale spell arts. But the situation was somewhat different this time.

As the cicadas flew out, the countless Tang Jies suddenly flew off to the side and disappeared. Having lost their targets, the cicadas aimlessly buzzed around. Meanwhile, countless waves of saber and sword energy emerged from various buildings—Tang Jie's clones were hiding themselves in the formation and launching attacks from their hiding spots.

At the same time, the formation began to unleash its own power, combining with the attacks from the clones to unleash a terrifying offensive. The cicadas were the first target, the storm of spell arts tearing them apart, their so-called resistance to spell arts instantly turning into a joke.

This wasn't anything odd. Even a defensive Dao Art like the Infinite Palace could be broken down by eleven ordinary finger strikes, so how could some little cicadas be able to truly resist spell arts? In this world, quantity had always been extremely significant, and unless the gap was just too big, it was impossible to ignore the power of numbers. In normal circumstances, this gap had to be at least two major realms.

The cicadas were just little killers raised by a Violet Palace expert, so they were naturally unfit for this situation. As a result, they were torn apart, breaking that poor cultivator's heart.

But this wasn't the end of it. A greater storm of spell arts swept toward the cultivators, and they had no choice but to focus everything they had on defense.

But while this storm was fierce, it wasn't especially lethal, and the combined power of the cultivators was enough to hold it off. But at this moment, a sword flashed, upon which a cultivator was cut in half. Without caring whether this cultivator had survived or not, the attacker retreated. Alarmed, the cultivators attacked Tang Jie, but this Tang Jie instantly blew up in a puff of smoke—it was a clone. Yet the person who had attacked just now was definitely the real person. Tang Jie had somehow managed to switch between the real person and the clone.

Meanwhile, another storm of spell arts was approaching, and one Tang Jie clone after another attacked, threatening to drown the cultivators.

This was a direct confrontation this time, but everyone realized that the power Tang Jie displayed was no less terrifying.