Chapter 977: Daosource Three Skies and Ten Arbiters
Lu Yin’s eyes narrowed. He could clearly see the sword’s path, but he was unable to evade it. This sword was moving at a speed that far surpassed what his body could achieve; it was way, way too fast. It was also possible that Lu Yin had been slowed, but regardless of what had happened, he would not be able to evade this sword under normal circumstances.
He waved his right hand as Zhi Yi’s sword approached him, activating the Yu Secret Art. The Vitality Qi sword was slightly diverted to the side, and it missed. The void was slashed open as the earth and sky were split in twain.
Lu Yin had managed to dodge the sword and the many dangers that it presented, and in response, he raised a hand. He grabbed a hold of the sword hilt formed from Vitality Qi and activated the Yu Secret Art. One Hundred Stacks traveled along the sword and towards Zhi Yi, who suddenly released the sword. However, she was still a step too slow, as the towering force had injured her finger. Although she did not bleed, her index and middle fingers were clearly crooked and broken.
Lu Yin quickly retreated, but there was an excited look on his face. He had finally found a hope of defeating Zhi Yi. This woman’s abilities were inexplicable with her unrivaled defense and crafty attacks, not to mention her bizarre sword technique. She was truly superior to Nan Yanfei in every way. No matter what methods Lu Yin tried to use to resist this woman, he had not been able to figure out anyway to injure her.
However, everybody had their own weaknesses. He had taken a risk to test the waters just now, but sure enough, this woman’s physical body was not very strong. As long as that formless barrier was breached, he could theoretically use the Overlaying Stacks Path to defeat her.
In the distance, Zhi Yi looked at her right hand before looking up at Lu Yin. “You have some nerve! You actually dared to approach me without even breaking through the Sky Dipper. Ever since I became one of the Daosource Three Skies, aside from the other two, you are the first person to have injured me.
“Also, you dodged my sword with a secret technique. You don’t just have one secret technique. Just what kind of person are you?”
Lu Yin’s lips curled up. “You aren’t invincible.”
Zhi Yi raised her head. “Of course not. I can tell you quite openly that I’m not adept at physical defense. As long as you can break through this Sky Dipper, you can use that secret technique to fight with me. Unfortunately, you’ll never be able to break through the Sky Dipper.”
In the distance, Hua Xiao kept staring at Zhi Yi, trying to come up with a way to break through her defensive barrier. However, he could not come up with anything.
Starsibyl was also staring at Zhi Yi and trying to think of a way to break through the Sky Dipper, but she was equally clueless.
She could use her methods of divination to even delay Imprinters, but Zhi Yi’s Sky Dipper made her completely unrivaled here.
“That’s enough playing around. You have two secret techniques as well as the ability to resist Vitality Qi—you’re extremely interesting. I won’t kill you, but I’ll take you back to the Daosource Sect. Maybe we’ll be able to find a method to advance Vitality Qi even further with you.” After speaking, the formless barrier around Zhi Yi’s body expanded, and the next instant, it enveloped Lu Yin. It formed a massive barrier, though a part of it continued to protect Zhi Yi’s body.
Lu Yin frowned, and he raised a leg in an attempt to tear through the void and escape from the barrier’s area, only to discover that he could not escape. The barrier had completely cut him off from the outside space. Unless he could break through the barrier, he would not be able to leave.
The next moment, the formless barrier suddenly started to shrink. Lu Yin pressed both of his hands against it and unleashed a full-powered One Hundred Stacks in an attempt to break through it only to fail again.
“You can’t breach the Sky Dipper. Come with me,” Zhi Yi coldly ordered as the barrier continued to shrink.
Lu Yin felt like he was being compressed as the formless barrier continued to close in on him, forcefully moving him closer to Zhi Yi. As he drew near, if there wasn’t a portion of the Sky Dipper protecting her body, then Lu Yin would have been excited to engage her in melee combat. Unfortunately, the Sky Dipper around her body was impenetrable, and he felt an increasingly strong sense of danger as he approached her.
Zhi Yi was now no more than ten meters away from Lu Yin. This was a very dangerous range for Lu Yin as she could severely injure him near instantly with her strength.
In the distance, Starsibyl’s eyes continuously flitted about.
Lu Yin slammed palm after palm against the barrier, but he was still inexorably dragged over toward Zhi Yi.
It looked like Lu Yin had been caught in her palm without any way to escape or resist.
“Tell me everything I want to know, and I can avoid killing you. In fact, I can even allow you to join our Sixth Mainland’s Daosource Sect where you will become a servant under me,” Zhi Yi spoke coldly as she watched Lu Yin approach her. The Vitality Qi formed itself into a sword once again, and it flickered with strange lights even as the void shattered around the blade.
She had only formed a single sword before, but at this moment, she formed countless swords.
Lu Yin could use the Yu Secret Art to divert one sword, but he could not divert countless swords. It was just like how Nightking Zhenwu had overpowered the secret technique when Lu Yin had tried to use it against him. At this moment, Lu Yin could only think to use Truesight to weaken Zhi Yi’s sword technique, but suddenly, off in the distance, the sky that had been filled with lightning changed as an indescribable pressure descended upon the battlefield. The sky had collapsed.
Zhi Yi’s countless swords suddenly changed directions and stabbed behind her. At the same time, a formless strength gathered in the void and gradually formed the image of a man with closed eyes. His hands slowly opened, and in doing so, they formed phantom images that froze within the void. Finally, the man pressed his palms together, which just so happened to catch Zhi Yi’s Vitality Qi sword right between his palms. The terrifying sword technique had been overcome so casually.
Lu Yin was shocked. Was this… a domain?
In the distance, a figure tore out of the void and emerged. His eyes were closed, but he still moved to perfectly face Zhi Yi. With the man’s appearance, the image of the man with his palms pressed together vanished, along with Zhi Yi’s Vitality Qi sword.
Starsibyl stared at the new arrival in amazement. He was one of the Ten Arbiters: Unseen Light.
Among the Ten Arbiters, there was only one person who always kept their eyes closed. According to some rumors, he did not need his eyes, and according to others, his battle technique had caused him to lose his sight. However, there were also other ones claiming that when he opened his eyes, both heaven and earth as well as the sun and moon would lose their light. Regardless, there were many legends and rumors concerning Unseen Light, and many people were curious about his name, Unseen Light. It did not sound like a name. However, he indeed did go by Unseen Light. It was just like how his eyes were always tightly closed and how he could never see the light.
The Ten Arbiters’ Unseen Light had arrived.
None of the Ten Arbiters were people to be underestimated. The Realmlings and the Ten Arbiters had equal statuses and were considered to have similar strengths. Zhi Yi was someone who stood above the Realmlings, but that did not necessarily mean that she also stood above the Ten Arbiters.
Unseen Light was a mysterious person, even by the standards of the Ten Arbiters.
“I’ve long since heard of the Daosource Three Skies’ reputation, and now, I finally have the honor of meeting one.” Unseen Light slowly stepped out from the void as he moved to face Zhi Yi. Although he could not see, when one’s domain reached this level, seeing or not seeing with one’s eyes did not make that much of a difference.
Zhi Yi had a bizarre expression on her face. “Arbiter Unseen Light, I’ve heard many things about you. Just now, was that your domain?”
“Indeed,” Unseen Light calmly replied.
Zhi Yi marvelled at it. “To be able to cultivate a domain to such a level, you deserve my admiration.”
Unseen Light’s lips curled upwards. “Just admiration? How about having one of the Daosource Three Skies give me some advice?”
“Very well,” Zhi Yi replied quite directly. At this moment, she was almost entirely certain that Unseen Light was the one who had impersonated her; aside from the Fifth Mainland’s Ten Arbiters, who else would dare to do such a thing? However, how had this man obtained a Lifesource token? Additionally, that behavior did not really seem to match his personality, but in her mind, there was no one else who could have done that aside from Unseen Light.
“Dodge!” Starsibyl suddenly shouted.
A cold radiance exploded in front of Lu Yin’s eyes as Zhi Yi formed another sword from Vitality Qi. She immediately slashed out with it in a backhanded strike, as if she was trying to behead Lu Yin, and it was clear that she was trying to severely injure him. Lu Yin hastened to use the Yu Secret Art to divert the sword, and its cold light shifted. However, a second sword closely followed behind the first. This time, an overwhelming domain suddenly swept out, and regardless of whether it was Zhi Yi or Lu Yin, they both felt as though they had been mired in a deep swamp.
Unseen Light’s forcefield enlarged his phantom image a hundredfold. As he raised his hand, the 100-meter tall image mirrored his movements. Then, it slapped down at Zhi Yi, including even Lu Yin within the range of the attack.
Lu Yin cursed, and he wanted to escape. However, he was still trapped within the barrier.
Zhi Yi raised a hand, and the Vitality Qi formed a visible, giant palm print that clashed with Unseen Light’s domain.
The void shattered with a sound reminiscent of a sudden thunderclap. As a giant bolt of lightning streaked by, the sky was filled with spatial cracks. As for Lu Yin, he was struck by both people’s attacks, and he fell into the sea as a result. When Unseen Light’s palm and domain descended, Zhi Yi had removed the formless barrier trapping Lu Yin, resulting in him being struck before he could prepare himself.
At this moment, he experienced what Nan Yanfei had gone through before: the chill of the sea. Fortunately, Lu Yin had broken through to the Cruiser realm, and with his powerful physique, he had not been severely injured by the two attacks. Without it, he would have been in a miserable state if he had been caught up in even the aftershock of the attacks.
When he looked up, Lu Yin could see two immeasurable powers colliding with each other above the sea. Unseen Light’s forcefield took the form of a 100-meter tall phantom image while Zhi Yi’s Vitality Qi could take any form that she desired. Watching the two fight was like watching two giants battling against each other. Whether it was Unseen Light’s domain or Zhi Yi’s Vitality Qi, ordinary cultivators could not withstand either of them.
Even if it was only the aftershocks that swept through the battlefield, it still caused agony for millions of people. Unseen Light’s domain suppressed the cultivators while Zhi Yi’s Vitality Qi transformed them into dust. Each was more terrifying than the other.
Starsibyl and Hua Xiao had both retreated, as this was not a battle that they could participate in.
The Ten Arbiters were extremely powerful, but everyone had considered the Ten Arbiters and the Realmlings as equals while the Daosource Three Skies had always been held above all others.
However, Lu Yin had long since been suspicious of this. The Ten Arbiters were known to have more victories than defeats against the Realmlings. Thus, did that imply that those victorious Ten Arbiters were powerful enough to challenge the Sixth Mainland’s Daosource Three Skies? Could some of them be standing on an even higher level?
In the past, Earth had possessed seven Sky rank powerhouses, and they had been known as the Seven Sages. Of those people, they had been classified into two groups: the Three Highsages and the Four Sages. Although both groups had been a part of the Seven Sages, there had been an immense difference in the two’s strength. In that case, then what about the Ten Arbiters? Was there a similar differentiation between those ten people? Could it simply be that outsiders were not aware of this distinction? Or, perhaps, could the Ten Arbiters actually not have sparred among themselves before?
Lu Yin hid on the seabed as he watched the battle between the two peerless experts of the younger generation take place.
Unfortunately, if not for the suppression of the cosmic phenomenon, the battle between the two would have been even more impressive.
The sea raged, and Unseen Light’s domain clashed with Zhi Yi’s Vitality Qi for more than ten minutes without showing any signs of falling behind.
When observing the whole battlefield, the entire sea seemed to have become the two’s personal fighting arena.
The fight between these two was nothing fancy; one relied on his domain and the other her Vitality Qi. As the collateral damage mounted, millions of cultivators were forced to leave the battlefield and wait at the sides for the result of this battle.
It was extremely rare to see a domain that had been cultivated to the level of Unseen Light’s. At least, in the many decades that Zhi Yi had spent cultivating, she had never encountered such a person.
The Vitality Qi that she cultivated was considered a top-tier power even within the Sixth Mainland, and not many were able to cultivate it even within the Sixth Mainland’s Daosource Sect. Everyone who had managed to successfully cultivate Vitality Qi was a peerless genius, and this was what she had relied on to obtain her position as one of the Daosource Three Skies. But on this day, her Vitality Qi was actually blocked by someone’s domain.
Nobody would believe such a thing if word of this battle spread, and Zhi Yi had similarly never imagined that there would come a day when her Vitality Qi would be blocked by a domain.
Although, Unseen Light was not the only person who had blocked her Vitality Qi today. Zhi Yi looked down at the sea, as the man down there had managed to essentially ignore her Vitality Qi, which meant that there was something strange about his constitution.
No matter what, it remained a fact that her Vitality Qi could not break through Unseen Light’s domain. At the very least, when under the suppression of the cosmic phenomenon that prevented anyone from exhibiting a power level greater than 200,000, Zhi Yi could not do so. When her thoughts reached that point, she suddenly stopped using her Vitality Qi, and instead, she charged straight for Unseen Light. She intended to rely on her Sky Dipper and sword technique to cut Unseen Light apart.