Chapter 1565 - Birth of Immortal Runes

Liu Wuxie's fist force spread like a curtain of annihilation, wiping out everything in its path. Apart from the lower region, a silent blast cleared the surrounding reefs completely.

The ordinary sea demons crouched along the shoreline, sensing the danger, and scrambled back toward the sea, but they moved too slowly. Liu Wuxie's fist force swept out like a thunderbolt, bored into their bodies, and ended their lives in an instant.

In the blink of an eye, sea demons died in swaths, and thousands of corpses floated atop the surrounding sea in a spectacular scene. The sea demons didn't possess particularly high cultivation, yet it remained rare for a single punch to wreak such devastation.

"Not bad! I can now contend against experts at the lower levels of the Heaven Gaze Realm with my physique alone," Liu Wuxie remarked, withdrawing his fist with a faint smile. With various mythical arts layered on top, he could easily slay cultivators at the fifth-level Heaven Gaze Realm.

The Sky Devouring Divine Cauldron flew out and refined every sea demon, and boundless water-attribute energy streamed into the desolate world.

"Next, I will refine the Heretic Blade now," Liu Wuxie said. The Heavenly Deity Monument had already reached the level of a quasi-immortal artifact, so he didn't need to refine it at all. He only needed to gather enough immortal runes to promote it into an immortal artifact.

However, the Heretic Blade remained an earth-immortal artifact. If he could elevate it to the level of Heaven Gaze Realm, it would become crucial for the battles ahead.

Liu Wuxie took out mountains of blacksmithing materials he had accumulated from slaying the Black Crow Clan's chieftain, Li Huang, and the others. He threw every useless item straight into the Sky Devouring Divine Cauldron, leaving only the essence behind.

The Heretic Blade hovered before Liu Wuxie and exhaled a terrifying breath, releasing a crimson blade ray that hung upside down in the sky. That crimson blade ray stretched far enough to be seen from a great distance.

Liu Wuxie couldn't refine a weapon inside the Heavenly Deity Monument, or the two would reject each other. He began forming seals, and rare artifact runes rose to hover around the Heretic Blade until they gradually wrapped around it.

Thousands of materials floated in front of Liu Wuxie and danced to the rhythm of his palms as they shattered apart. When he executed Ghost Pupil, he watched the impurities of each material peel away and get extracted.

The Phoenix Rune Meteoric Iron proved the hardest to refine, since its toughness was absurd, and it even carried a strand of phoenix rune within. That strand alone made the Phoenix Rune Meteoric Iron priceless.

Time slipped away without his notice. It was only later that Liu Wuxie realized he had remained on the island for two entire days.

During that time, the Nalan Clan pressured the Skyward Gate to surrender him. The Skyward Gate, however, announced to the public that Liu Wuxie had already left.

Cultivators across the Spirit Martial Astral Domain began hunting Liu Wuxie as the bounty offered by the Nalan Clan kept climbing. Even cultivators at the pinnacle of the Heaven Gaze Realm joined the search. If they found Liu Wuxie, they would gain five million astral crystals, a ninth-grade spiritual pill, and various other treasures.

In just a few days, the bounty on Liu Wuxie had surged from one million to five million astral crystals. The Nalan Clan had truly gone mad, and everyone scoured every inch of land for any trace of Liu Wuxie.

The Grand Unity Sect sealed off the route back to the Indigo Bamboo Astral Domain. The Heavenly Dragon Sect also sent reinforcements to find a way to rescue Liu Wuxie, and the two sects clashed multiple times along the border between the two astral domains.

Those battles raged from day into night, yet neither side gained any true advantage. An astral domain that had remained peaceful for hundreds of thousands of years began to stir at last, and it all began because of Liu Wuxie.

The Heavenly Dao Society continued developing steadily, while the Divine Alchemy Sect dispatched an envoy to the Laman Astral Domain to pursue cooperation with the Immortal Slaughter Palace.

......

"Since Liu Wuxie isn't in the Spirit Martial Astral Domain, could he have gone to the Thousand Islands Sea Region?" an expert from the Nalan Clan asked.

Inside the main hall, the upper echelons of the Nalan Clan sat in solemn silence. They had already deployed their clan's full forces, yet they still couldn't find any trace of Liu Wuxie in the Spirit Martial Astral Domain. If Liu Wuxie slipped back into the Indigo Bamboo Astral Domain, killing him would only become even harder.

One side of the Three Realm Sea Region bordered the oceanic clan, and Liu Wuxie couldn't possibly go there. Any human who ventured in recklessly would only get themselves killed. They had already searched the inland region thoroughly, leaving only the direction of the Thousand Islands Sea Region. Countless islands scattered across that region, tangled with all kinds of powers, and if Liu Wuxie had vanished into that maze, finding him would become difficult for anyone.

"Daddy, let me take people to the Thousand Islands Sea Region to search for him," a young woman said, volunteering to lead the search into the Thousand Islands Sea Region.

She wasn't an ordinary person; she was the daughter of the Nalan Clan's patriarch, Nalan Qiuhe. She had reached the seventh-level Heaven Gaze Realm, and her father had personally nurtured her since childhood. Even at her young age, she had already handled many affairs for the Nalan Clan, and even her three elder brothers couldn't compare to her.

"Let a few elders accompany you," the Nalan Clan's patriarch said after a brief ponder. He treated this as a golden chance to temper Nalan Qiuhe. The Thousand Islands Sea Region was complicated, and even if she failed to find Liu Wuxie, she could still treat the trip as training.

"Thank you, daddy!" Nalan Qiuhe said, her face bright with excitement. She had wanted to go out for a long time, yet she never had the chance.

......

Liu Wuxie knew none of that, because he had immersed himself completely in forging the Heretic Blade. The Heretic Blade began to change as it lengthened and grew slimmer, carrying the edge of a sword along with the dominance of a blade.

As the saying goes, all daos in the world would converge into one. After absorbing thousands of materials, the Heretic Blade released a boundless pressure that frightened every sea demon within a radius of thirty thousand miles.

Only the Phoenix Rune Meteoric Iron remained, and once it fused into the Heretic Blade, the blade would ascend in grade.

Up in the sky, the crimson blade ray still hung without fading, and it could be seen clearly from vast distances away. Many passing cultivators became drawn to it, convinced that a treasure had been born.

That reaction came as no surprise. The surroundings consisted of a vast ocean with no cover at all. Even an ordinary beam of light could attract attention there, let alone a crimson blade ray.

Liu Wuxie had no choice but to accelerate the forging of the Heretic Blade. In the next breath, thunder rumbled as thunderclouds converged from all directions.

"This is strange. The Heretic Blade had already received the recognition of the heavens, and why is there another tribulation?" Liu Wuxie asked with a frown, because it made no sense to him.

Liu Wuxie narrowed his eyes as realization struck. "Could it be...?"

When his divine sense slipped into the Heretic Blade, he saw a crimson immortal rune taking shape. Only the birth of an immortal artifact would draw a tribulation at creation, and the birth of an immortal rune left Liu Wuxie in disbelief.

It meant that if he continued upgrading the Heretic Blade, it would eventually reach the level of an immortal artifact in the future.

Even across the Indigo Bamboo Astral Domain, immortal artifacts were pitifully rare. Countless years had passed since another immortal artifact had been born within the four astral domains.

After all, immortal runes were far too difficult to form, and materials meant for forging immortal artifacts were far too rare. Only materials that contained immortal runes could forge immortal artifacts.

Liu Wuxie moved his hands faster, and an immortal rune appeared in his palm to help the Heretic Blade awaken more quickly. An artifact carrying immortal runes would naturally become more lethal.

The thunderclouds thickened as they gathered above the island, and the crimson blade ray split the clouds into two.

"Prepare to merge!"

The Phoenix Rune Meteoric Iron turned into a streak of light and shot straight into the Heretic Blade.

In that instant, the sky darkened as power erupted from within the Heretic Blade and swept outward. The distant ocean exploded, and seawater surged away in all directions. As the sea pulled back, the island seemed to grow even larger.

Then the water came crashing back even faster, carrying an overwhelming force that threatened to drown the entire island. A wave that reached over three hundred meters swallowed the island, looking as though it could tear through the sky. If that wave slammed down, the refinement of the Heretic Blade would fail.

With a loud buzz, a crimson divine dragon burst from the Heretic Blade, coiled above the island, and surged toward the sky. It commanded rain and water as the roaring sea began to spin.

The sight shocked everyone who witnessed it. No one would believe that a cultivator at the Earth Immortal Realm could cause such a phenomenon. Seawater reaching three hundred feet formed multiple pillars like a massive whirlpool and surged toward the heavens.

A flock of low-level seabirds flew across the sky and got devoured on the spot, shredded by sheer force. A vortex alone could easily kill cultivators at the lower levels of the Heaven Gaze Realm.

When those whirlpools reached the sky, they exploded and rained back down in a torrential downpour. At that exact moment, the Phoenix Rune Meteoric Iron finished fusing with the Heretic Blade. The instant they merged, the surrounding space began to collapse, unable to withstand the power unleashed by the Heretic Blade.

With a loud explosion, a thick thunderbolt descended from the sky and struck the Heretic Blade. If the immortal rune wanted to stabilize, it needed the tempering of a tribulation. The refinement would only succeed if it endured forty-nine thunderbolts.

One thunderbolt after another crashed down while seawater rained from the sky. Liu Wuxie activated the Divine Heavenly Feather Robe and kept the seawater at bay. The entire island turned into an ocean, and only the area around Liu Wuxie remained intact.

Seawater receded rapidly, flowing back into the ocean as calm returned, leaving only the tribulation behind. Each time a thunderbolt fell, it carried devastating might.

The immortal rune flickered, then split and formed a second rune. As more immortal runes emerged, the Heretic Blade’s chances of advancing into an immortal artifact in the future increased significantly.

At this point, Liu Wuxie could no longer assist the Heretic Blade. The blade had to rely on itself to split as many immortal runes as possible.

Right then, whooshing sounds tore through the sky as cultivators rushed over from more than three hundred thousand miles away, drawn by the crimson blade ray.

"Immortal runes! So many immortal runes!" the cultivators rushing over exclaimed as they clearly saw traces of immortal runes shifting through the sky.

Whenever a thunderbolt struck, the immortal runes split again. They went from one to two, two to four, four to eight, and onward. That terrifying count of immortal runes formed a spectacle that made the heart tremble.

Liu Wuxie drew a portion of those immortal runes and injected them into the Heavenly Deity Monument. If the Heavenly Deity Monument absorbed enough immortal runes, it could also be upgraded into an immortal artifact.

There were too many immortal runes. Liu Wuxie even stripped a few away and fused them into his body. With immortal runes reinforcing him, the vast true essence in the desolate world began converting into immortal energy. Soon, immortal energy surpassed true essence in sheer quantity.

The aura the Heretic Blade released climbed higher and higher, approaching a quasi-immortal artifact without limit. Once the immortal runes reached a hundred, their number finally stopped increasing.

Forty thunderbolts had already descended, leaving only nine. Those final nine were also the most crucial ones.

Liu Wuxie took a deep breath, then swiped his finger through the air to craft an even larger immortal rune and inject it into the Heretic Blade as an anchor.