Chapter 1486 - Heavenly Dao's Backlash

Everything beneath heaven and earth had its counter, and Liu Wuxie dared to clash with the Vine Demons because his laws suppressed them. Fighting the Dark Evil Emperor and the others had never been this easy, since they were humans with countless mythical arts at their disposal.

Flames surged until they covered the entire sky, like heavenly fire raining down. Rain was common, but no one had ever seen fire fall from the heavens.

The Astral Sea gradually became a sea of flames, and the Vine Demons had nowhere to run as the flames rippling outward like waves surrounded them.

"Liu Wuxie, you deserve to die! Damn you!" If the Vine Demons had known this would happen, they would never have acted against him from the very beginning.

Even the Ghost Vine Demon began to regret it, but it could do nothing. The moment Liu Wuxie chose to strike, he had no intention of stopping.

Liu Wuxie's combat strength already rivaled cultivators at the seventh- or eighth-level Earth Immortal Realm, and with suppression through laws, he could even fight experts at the ninth-level Earth Immortal Realm.

The demonic chains multiplied as if they wanted to tear the sky apart, while boundless flames poured down, turning the entire Astral Sea into a world of fire. Liu Wuxie looked as though he wanted to destroy the Astral Sea outright.

Xiao Rou awakened at that moment and heard her companions' cries for mercy.

"Master, many of the Vine Demons are innocent. The Ghost Vine Demon forced them to come, and they're willing to submit to you," Xiao Rou said.

Many Vine Demons had acted only because the Ghost Vine Demon had compelled them, leaving them no choice.

"You dare betray me?!" Liu Wuxie's eyes turned cold, and his murderous intent crashed down on Xiao Rou. Since she had chosen to follow him, she needed to support him completely, and he would not tolerate wavering or divided loyalties.

The Vine Demons were innocent, but they had sealed their fate the moment they decided to move against him.

Xiao Rou jolted and immediately dropped to her knees.

"I was wrong!" Xiao Rou finally recognized her mistake. Then, she closed her eyes and focused on cultivation, as she couldn't watch the slaughter of the Vine Demons.

In the blink of an eye, Vine Demons fell in great swathes as even space fragments began to burn. Vines carpeting the ground withered and vanished, turning into dead wood.

"Liu Wuxie, we beg you! Xiao Rou is of our lineage, and she has already submitted to you. We're willing to submit as well!" The ones pleading belonged to Xiao Rou's lineage.

Dozens of Vine Demons knelt, and Liu Wuxie looked at them with indifferent eyes.

"Get lost!" Liu Wuxie swept his hand, and a powerful wave sent those Vine Demons flying away.

Seeing her lineage escape danger, tears slid down Xiao Rou's cheeks, and gratitude filled her heart.

Liu Wuxie wielded the carrot-and-stick tactic to perfection. He reprimanded Xiao Rou first, and then he spared her lineage to secure her absolute obedience.

After letting that portion go, the remaining Vine Demons had nothing to do with Xiao Rou, and Liu Wuxie continued his slaughter without restraint.

The flames intensified, and the Sky Devouring Divine Cauldron covered half the sky as it began to feast wildly. Terrifying energy poured into it, and Liu Wuxie's Great Five Elemental Mythical Art advanced rapidly.

The Ghost Vine Demon raged, but its attacks proved completely useless against Liu Wuxie.

Liu Wuxie's physique already rivaled experts at the high levels of the Earth Immortal Realm, and the Divine Heavenly Feather Robe further negated what little could threaten him.

From the very start, Liu Wuxie was already undefeated.

"Great Darkness Mythical Art!" Liu Wuxie roared.

His three senior brothers fought a bitter battle. Sun Xiao released a cluster of golden radiance around them to keep Vine Demons from closing in, while Tong Shan and Yin Ying fought side by side.

The two moved with a strong rapport, and their combined sword technique could even rival experts at the ninth-level Earth Immortal Realm.

As the reincarnation of a Buddha, Tong Shan cultivated differently from ordinary humans.

When the Great Darkness Mythical Art descended, the Vine Demons lost their sight.

"Heretic Blade, it's your turn now," Liu Wuxie said, and he began his massacre. He had used flames early to erode their strength, and now he used darkness to strip away their senses.

At his command, the Heretic Blade shot out like a comet and vanished, shuttling through the darkness to harvest the lives of Vine Demons who could no longer sense anything.

One Vine Demon after another died. In the span of a single breath, Liu Wuxie wiped out countless Vine Demons. The Heretic Blade now rivaled the high levels of the Earth Immortal Realm, and its power had become terrifying.

When the darkness receded, a considerable portion of the Vine Demons had already vanished, and the survivors froze in shock at what Liu Wuxie had done.

"Run! Run quickly!" Panic finally erupted, and the Vine Demons fled without sparing a thought for the Ghost Vine Demon. Many had more than half their bodies burned away, and even if they escaped, their origin would be damaged, meaning recovery would take an extremely long time.

"Ghost Bugs!" the Ghost Vine Demon roared and unleashed rumbling black mist toward Liu Wuxie.

Even though Liu Wuxie held the lowest cultivation among the four, he was the most dangerous person on the battlefield.

The swarm of Ghost Bugs surged toward Liu Wuxie like fog, closing in around him.

"Junior Brother, watch out!" Sun Xiao shouted. The Ghost Bugs were too dangerous, and even the three of them did not dare touch them lightly.

"Sky Devouring Divine Cauldron, swallow them up!" Liu Wuxie had been waiting for this exact moment. Once he eliminated the Ghost Bugs, the Ghost Vine Demon would never be able to stir up trouble again.

A powerful suction force erupted, devouring the black fog in one sweep. The Ghost Vine Demon finally panicked, turning into a vine and shooting into the distance.

"Where do you think you're going?" Liu Wuxie said. He would never let the Ghost Vine Demon escape. With the Dark Evil Emperor and the others dead, he had no reason to spare it.

The Dragon-Grasping Hand appeared as countless dragon claws manifested in mid-air and locked onto the fleeing vine. No matter how it tried to escape, the dragon's claws pursued it relentlessly.

The claws seized the vine, hoisted it into the air, and dragged it up.

"Heretic Blade!" Liu Wuxie shouted, and the Heretic Blade flew out and cut the Ghost Vine Demon in half.

With the Ghost Vine Demon dead, the remaining Vine Demons immediately surrendered, no longer daring to fight.

Liu Wuxie's three senior brothers continued harvesting the lives of the Vine Demon. Aside from a small portion that managed to flee, ninety percent of the Vine Demons in the Astral Sea were eradicated.

From then on, cultivators no longer needed to fear Vine Demon ambushes. As for the wood-attribute energy Liu Wuxie had absorbed, it pushed Xiao Rou's cultivation to saturation.

If she wanted to make a breakthrough into the Heaven Gaze Realm, she needed comprehension, as only those who had glimpsed a wisp of heavenly dao could step into that realm.

Without that glimpse, one could cultivate for hundreds of thousands of years, but it wouldn't be enough for them to make a breakthrough.

When the battle ended, the four grouped up.

Tong Shan had suffered injuries, and Sun Xiao immediately treated him.

After tidying up, the four set off once more. They crossed the Astral Sea, entered the starry sky, and began their return to the Indigo Bamboo Astral Domain.

Tong Shan and Yin Ying had been wandering the Outer Astral Spacetime for more than a year. Upon their return, they felt as if the entire world had changed. They had never expected so much to happen in the Indigo Bamboo Astral Domain in just over a year, and their junior brother's appearance had reshaped everything.

Five days later, the four returned to the Indigo Bamboo Astral Domain from the Outer Astral Spacetime. They used teleportation arrays along the way and arrived at Mount Dragon City, returning to the Heavenly Dragon Sect.

Liu Wuxie had planned to return to the Heavenly Dao Society first, but worry for Elder Jian forced him to head back to the lesser realm.

Even now, he still didn't know whether Elder Jian was alive, as the man had suffered grievous injuries for his sake.

When the four returned to the Heavenly Dragon Sect, Hua Feiyu learned of their return immediately.

"Greetings, Master," the four said as they entered the pavilion.

"Come, have a seat," Hua Feiyu replied. His complexion looked pale, and he seemed weak, as though he had expended a tremendous amount of energy.

"Master, what happened to you? You look terrible," Yin Ying asked. Only a year had passed since they last met, yet Hua Feiyu looked significantly older.

"I'm fine," Hua Feiyu waved it off, and then a pleased smile rose when he looked at his four disciples.

"Master, where is Elder Jian now?" Liu Wuxie asked, worry clear on his face.

"Elder Jian is fine for now. I reconstructed his body, and he won't die, but he'll need a long time to recover," Hua Feiyu said, telling Liu Wuxie not to shoulder the burden. He didn't reveal how long it would take. It could take one hundred years, one thousand, or perhaps ten thousand.

Hua Feiyu's face remained pale, and he had clearly paid a heavy price to reconstruct Elder Jian's body.

"The Lingqiong Clan! I won't let them go," Liu Wuxie said through clenched teeth.

Until now, his schemes were aimed at the Grand Unity Sect and the Divine Alchemy Sect. The Lingqiong Clan had remained watertight, and he hadn't found a hole to expose. However, if no hole existed, he would simply carve one, and if wits weren't enough, he would rely on brute force.

To deal with the Lingqiong Clan, he could only use strength. With his current level of power, however, shaking such a massive clan wouldn't be easy, especially when they had Quasi-Immortal Realm experts.

"Wuxie, don't be impulsive. What the Lingqiong Clan did was wrong, and they're living in fear now. They have already suffered the heavenly dao's punishment," Hua Feiyu said, signaling for him to calm down.

This was not the time to clash with the Lingqiong Clan.

"The heavenly dao's punishment?" Sun Xiao and the others asked, completely baffled, because they didn't understand what Liu Wuxie and Hua Feiyu were talking about.

The Lingqiong Clan had violated the heavenly dao by forcibly opening the Path of Fate, and Liu Wuxie had already guessed that they would suffer backlash. Even so, he meant to eradicate them, not merely watch them endure punishment.

At that moment, the Lingqiong Clan truly lay under a shroud of gloom. Ever since Lingqiong Yu and the other two returned from the River of Fate, they had brought cursed energy back with them, and it began spreading through the clan. Members started rotting for no reason, festering sores blooming across their bodies.

News had already spread through the Heavenly Dragon Sect, but few people knew what the Lingqiong Clan had actually experienced.

Liu Wuxie wouldn't speak of it, and Hua Feiyu naturally wouldn't mention it either, because Elder Jian's deployment had been carried out entirely in secret.

"The once-in-a-century Indigo Bamboo Astral Domain auction is about to begin. Prepare yourselves. Every sect has received invitations, and they should invite the Heavenly Dao Society as well," Hua Feiyu said, holding Liu Wuxie back from taking revenge on the Lingqiong Clan for the time being.

The Spirit Sealing Institute stayed busy calculating more details about the coming calamity.

After Han Feizi brought back the Heavenly Scale Copper Coins and proved their value, their power of divination grew stronger by the day. The institute operated at full capacity around Han Feizi and Elder Han, trying to calculate the calamity as precisely as possible.

Hua Feiyu's priority was Liu Wuxie's safety, ensuring he wouldn't die before the calamity arrived.

"The auction is a grand event where countless ancient treasures will show up," Yin Ying said, her eyes bright. They were still young, and none of them was born when the last auction took place.

Logically, the Heavenly Dao Society wasn't supposed to be qualified to attend an event of this level, but their pills had swept through the Indigo Bamboo Astral Domain over the past month.