Chapter 1771 - It’s That Sword!

After a moment’s silence, the man in gray finally suppressed his discomfort and said, “No one in the Church of the Exquisite Goddess, our leader included, can converse with the divine venerate!”

As he spoke, he moved his battered, bloodied body with great difficulty and gazed at the ninety-foot goddess statue with fanatical piety. “No one in this world is qualified to speak to the gods!”

Su Yi’s brow furrowed. “Then how do you make contact with your 'Exquisite Divine Venerate?'”

“When the Exquisite Divine Venerate issues orders, a miracle manifests over her statue, passing on her orders, which the leader announces to the rest of the sect," said the man in gray. “After we’ve completed the Divine Venerate’s missions, all we have to do is prostrate ourselves in worship and deliver our report. Our voices will naturally reach her.”

He suddenly grinned at Su Yi, his eyes flashing with resentment. “That means that she heard our conversation, and she knows everything you’ve done!”

He seemed delighted and smug, as if his plans had reached fruition. Rather, he knew he wasn’t getting out of this one alive, and he was willing to converse with Su Yi purely to drag things out. He wanted Su Yi to face the Exquisite Divine Venerate’s retribution!

But to his disappointment, Su Yi didn’t panic. On the contrary, he snickered.

His inexplicable laughter was like a sharp knife burying itself in the gray-robed man’s chest, and he found it immensely humiliating, too. He roared, “You’re still laughing, even now? A deity has set her sights on you. No matter who you are, you’re doomed to die an unsightly death!”

Su Yi ignored him.

He walked up to the ninety-foot goddess statue, then looked at the white bone lamp on the offering table and whispered, “My name is Su Yi. I’m the person so you called ‘gods’ have been searching for, and over the years, I’ve killed many of your emissaries. I already have an idea of why you’re so afraid of reincarnation.”

Su Yi!?

The man in gray felt his mind buzz. He felt as if he’d been struck by lightning. He finally realized who this was, and his expression changed dramatically.

It’s him! The reincarnation of the Eternal Night Immortal Sovereign!!

Su Yi’s voice continued, resounding throughout the Hall of Worship.

“I know you’ve set your sights on me, and I know what you’re after.”

Amidst the lamplight, the sneer on Su Yi’s handsome face flickered in and out of view. “The masses are ignorant. They think you’re as lofty as the heavens themselves, but I’m different. I’ve never even feared the heavens, much less the likes of you.”

Here, Su Yi slowly looked up and gazed at the ninety-foot statue. He continued calmly, “One day, I’ll shatter your Divine Thrones, strip you of your Godheads, and watch as you ‘lofty and superior beings’ are plunged back into the dust of mundanity!”

Goosebumps rose on the gray-robed man’s skin.

Blasphemy! He’s blatantly blaspheming against the gods! And even threatening them!

Su Yi swung his sleeves, and the ninety-foot goddess statue split, then crumbled into tiny fragments, leaving the floor covered in dust.

The man in gray jumped, overcome with horror.

How dare he!? Don’t tell me he really isn’t afraid of divine retribution!?

Moments later, his eyes bulged. Su Yi was reaching for the White Bone Divine Lamp!

The fool’s actually throwing his life away...

The man in gray was so stunned that all of his anger vanished into thin air, replaced by undisguised eagerness and anticipation.

The White Bone Divine Lamp was full of terrifying divine power. Not even Great Realm experts would dare to touch it!

If they did, they’d inevitably find themselves afflicted by divine tribulations!

Just as the man in gray thought, when Su Yi’s fingertips made contact with the lamp, a blood-red power of divine tribulation burst from within it, like densely packed blood-red tentacles. They stretched out like mad, instantly covering Su Yi’s entire arm, and they didn’t stop there. The tentacles rapidly spread to the rest of his body.

Haha! He’s finished! It’s true what they say! He really brought this on himself!

The man in gray went mad with delight.

But then, Su Yi chuckled, and a profound, inscrutable light surged around his tall, upright figure. The blood-red power of divine tribulation shattered and crumbled into dust, inch by inch.

The man in gray was completely dumbstruck, rooted to the spot.

How is this... How is this possible!?

Boom!

The White Bone Divine Lamp trembled violently, then erupted. A terrifying divine tribulation burst forth like flood waters.

But none of this affected Su Yi in the slightest. When he activated the power of reincarnation, he ground the divine tribulation away with ease.

Then, he grabbed hold of the White Bone Divine Lamp!

The lamp was crafted from a mysterious, unknown skeletal hand. It was only about a foot tall, but it seemed as heavy as a divine mountain. The candle was shaped like a blooming flower, and it was made of thick layers of blood-colored wax.

When Su Yi held the lamp in his palm, the blood-red wax suddenly churned, transforming into a strange vortex, as if a blood-red eye were slowly opening. It was an imposing sight.

Boom!

A strange and taboo invisible power charged into Su Yi’s sea of consciousness, dealing his soul a heavy blow.

𝐟𝐫𝕖𝗲𝘄𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝕧𝐞𝚕.𝕔𝕠𝐦

An icy, dignified shout resounded throughout Su Yi’s sea of consciousness. “Who are you? How dare you destroy this lofty one’s treasures!?”

Blood-colored mists churned and condensed into an ethereal figure. She had three heads, six arms, and the lower body of a serpent. Each of her six hands carried a black sun.

The charming, beautiful face on her central head was full of murderous intent.

This was the Exquisite Divine Venerate!

Rather, this was an imprint of will she’d left within her treasure. But although she was merely an imprint of will, Su Yi felt rending agony in his soul. The goddess’s terrifying power shook his soul so badly that he felt it might explode.

Su Yi circulated the power of reincarnation without the slightest hesitation, then drew on the Sword of the Nine Hells.

Clang!!

The boundless humming of a sword reverberated throughout his sea of consciousness.

The long-dormant Sword of the Nine Hells awakened, and indescribable, unsurpassed power swept through Su Yi’s sea of consciousness.

“That sword... It’s you!” the Exquisite Divine Venerate cried out. Her voice was full of undisguisable shock and disbelief.

Boom!!

Before her voice had even finished echoing through the air, the Exquisite Divine Goddess’s figure exploded.

Su Yi’s churning sea of consciousness gradually returned to stillness. His face was a bit pallid.

It was just the power the Exquisite Divine Venerate left in the White Bone Divine Lamp, but it was incomparably tyrannical and terrifying! If he hadn’t responded in time and drawn on the Sword of the Nine Hells, his soul would have been badly damaged!

But to Su Yi, that didn’t matter at all.

What really surprised him was that the Exquisite Divine Venerate had recognized the Sword of the Nine Hells, and by extension, him!

Su Yi suddenly recalled what that emissary of the Dipankara Buddha of the Past had told him. Two of his past lives had perished at the hands of the gods!

The mysterious Luo Yao had confirmed this atop the River of Spacetime, and she called him her “Daoist Brother.” Now, the Exquisite Goddess’s infuriated words were unquestionably further proof that in his past lives, he’d waged war against gods!

But which of my two lives were killed by the gods?

Su Yi couldn’t even begin to guess. The Sword of the Nine Hells had five chains left, each sealing the Dao Imprint of one of his past lives. He knew a little about his fifth incarnation, but it really wasn’t much, and as for the others, he had no idea whatsoever.

Li Fuyou was the most mysterious and transcendent sword cultivator of the Primeval Era. He’d trained four Sword Sovereigns, and he’d left all of the Daoist canons he’d accumulated over the years deep in the Eastern Sea, on Spiritual Desolation Mountain.

The Combat Soul Puppet, Lei Ze, was also Li Fuyou’s work. The one who’d recorded the secrets of achieving divinity on the golden beast skin, Luo Changning, was one of Li Fuyou’s four disciples. Furthermore, according to the sword-bearing ape, Li Fuyou left the Immortal Realm during the Primeval Era and ventured into the River of Epochs.

Li Fuyou’s accomplishments had been lost to the river of history, becoming no more than fleeting rumors.

Apart from him, there were still four divine chains and four Dao Imprints left on the Sword of the Nine Hells. Su Yi had no way of knowing which of them had died at the hands of the gods.

Crunch!

The White Bone Divine Lamp shattered like glass, startling Su Yi out of his contemplation.

“You aren’t dead? Why aren’t you afraid of divine tribulation? No, that’s impossible. That lamp was given to us by the Exquisite Divine Venerate. It’s a forbidden object of our church. How could it have broken?” the man in gray cried out with frantic panic and despair.

“Don’t be afraid. Do me a little favor, and I won’t kill you,” Su Yi said gently as he approached the man in gray.

He waved his sleeves, and eight bloody heads tumbled to the ground.

All of them belonged to Immortal Kings of the Church of the Exquisite Goddess. Su Yi had silently hunted them down and gathered their heads.

The man in gray shook from head to toe. He almost broke down. He only now realized that the eight libationers watching over the sect had all already met grisly ends!

“Deliver this message and these heads to your leader,” said Su Yi. He took out a sealed message and passed it to the man in gray. “He’ll know what to do once he’s read it.”

With that, he brushed off his clothes and left.

It was only after seeing Su Yi fade from view that the man in gray dared believe he’d escaped this disaster alive. He couldn’t help but breathe in ragged gasps.

But when he looked at the eight bloody heads on the floor, he suddenly felt as if the air he was breathing was full of blood, and he almost vomited.

Death was terrifying. Even among mighty Immortal Kings, who could truly face death with equanimity?

......

Outside Chessboard Mountain.

When Qi Fufeng and the Zhuyou Great Peng saw Su Yi return, they sighed in relief.

“Your Excellency, have you resolved your business here?” Qi Fufeng couldn’t help but ask.

“Stupid! Do you really need to ask? When the Eternal Night Immortal Sovereign marches into battle, he never loses!” sneered the Zhuyou Great Peng.

The bird then obsequiously approached and offered Su Yi a jug of wine. “You aren’t tired, are you, Your Excellency? How about we rest for a while first?”

The bootlicking was so blatant that Qi Fufeng couldn’t help but shake his head in disbelief.

“Come on, let’s go back to the White Reed Province.” Su Yi accepted the jug of wine and drank with relish before continuing. “What happens next depends on the six immortal factions’ attitudes.”

The group set off for the White Reed Province that very night.

That same night, an envoy from the Church of the Exquisite Goddess urgently left the holy grounds with eight bloody heads and Su Yi’s message.

Their leader was still at the Church of the Pure One!