Chapter 1915 - A Taboo Divine Tribulation, the Graveyard of the Gods

Su Yi hovered in the air, covered in wounds.

He was severely injured. A waterfall of blood gushed from his wounds, and even his long hair was stained red.

Over the past two months, he’d experienced no less than ten life-or-death grand battles!

Every time, he was dancing on the edge of a knife. It was perilous to the extreme, and startling to the extreme.

In the eyes of outsiders, he was both the former sole ruler of the Immortal Realm, the legendary Eternal Night Immortal Sovereign, and Sovereign Venerate Su, the most acclaimed expert of the present-day Immortal Realm, the one who’d defeated a throng of powerful foes at the Immortal Peach Assembly.

To his enemies, he was also the Heretic Reincarnator, the ones the gods did not tolerate. His heaven-defying strength was enough to threaten even unrivaled divine children.

But no one knew how many bloody life-or-death battles he’d overcome in his pursuit of the Grand Dao, or how much loneliness he’d endured.

From the moment he started this lifetime’s cultivation, he was focused on the sword. He was incomparably stringent in his cultivation, and he’d never once wavered. In pursuit of greater breakthroughs, he could disregard life and death, victory and defeat. He was doing so now!

The divine wraiths were terrifying. Were anyone else beneath the god level to have come here, they’d have been doomed. Especially the lady divine wraith Su Yi was currently locked in fierce combat with. She was so strong she seemed downright invincible, far stronger than any enemy Su Yi had faced in this lifetime.

But Su Yi never once shrunk back. His heart was like the sharp, unbreakable edge of a sword. No matter his injuries, and no matter the peril, it never wavered.

Sword cultivators forged boldly ahead. They would rather die than submit!

Even if they died in battle, sword cultivators never shrunk back in terror!

In this lifetime, Su Yi had earned numerous accolades and drawn widespread attention, but he’d never cared about any of that. Empty titles, nothing more. They were as immaterial as the passing clouds, unworthy of mentioning. Thus, he’d always referred to himself simply as a sword cultivator.

This wasn’t modesty, nor was he putting on an act.

The way he saw it, his was the path of the sword. Whether he became an immortal or a god was beside the point. Throughout the entire process, he was still just a sword cultivator in pursuit of the Grand Dao. He cultivated his sword heart and sought the Dao of the Sword. Only that, and nothing else!

The battle raged on. Su Yi had long since forgotten himself. He was wholeheartedly immersed in combat. No matter how dire his injuries, his momentum only intensified; his will to fight had caught completely ablaze.

He’d rather burn himself to ash before he’d extinguish his own flame!

Suddenly... the wraith retreated!

It happened in a flash. Shockingly, she hid herself within that broken ring and vanished.

The sudden loss of his opponent left Su Yi stunned. His blazing eyes and boulder-like heart suddenly shifted slightly.

A moment later, he seemed to sense something. He gazed up at the dome of heaven.

He wasn’t sure when, but it had changed dramatically. An unbelievable scene appeared before him——

The firmament had originally been completely empty, but now, dense, dark tribulation clouds had gathered there, covering more than half the sky, like dense ink congealed in place. Deep within the tribulation clouds, taboo, golden lightning surged like churning floodwaters, but they were completely silent.

Throughout this world leftover from the last epoch, wisps of the gray aura of the Epoch Tribulation flew in from all sides and gathered within the clouds, as if something were calling them.

The originally strange, taboo tribulation clouds now had the additional, calamitous aura of an Epoch Tribulation!

This scene had formed in complete silence, yet it was terrifying to behold.

Su Yi instantly emerged from his complete immersion in battle, but even after regaining his mental clarity, he wasn’t afraid. On the contrary, he looked relieved, as if a massive weight had lifted from his shoulders, and his eyes shone with delight.

“This... is my tribulation?” Su Yi could no longer suppress the urge to laugh.

His injuries couldn’t have been any worse, and his cultivation and life force had all but dried up. He might topple at a moment’s notice.

But his smile was bright and pure!

Who said he couldn’t break through in a place devoid of the Laws of the Immortal Dao? Who said the lingering influence of the Epoch Tribulation would prevent him from proving his Dao?

When he wholeheartedly focused on cleaving through every obstacle in his path, he naturally found a way.

Sword cultivators ought to have the determination to triumph over the heavens!

Su Yi stood in the air and gazed into the dome of heaven.

Is that divine wraith hiding from my imminent tribulation? It seems this tribulation is far greater than any other I’ve faced...

This grand tribulation really was strange and terrifying. Shockingly, it gathered and fused with the lingering power of the Epoch Tribulation, and mysterious, unknown golden light appeared deep within the clouds!

Nothing like this had appeared during past breakthroughs.

The catastrophe that befell the last Epoch fused into my Great Unity Grand Tribulation of this epoch. The old and new intermingled and fused. It seemed highly likely that, despite the Immortal Realm’s long history, no such tribulation had taken place before.

What of my fifth incarnation, Li Fuyou? Did he ever face anything like this? And where did this tribulation come from, anyway?

Questions filled Su Yi’s heart until suddenly, his eyes narrowed. Deep within the tribulation clouds, something else unexpected happened: countless illusory figures appeared amidst the golden lightning.

They were like corpses adrift in a river, rising and falling within the golden electric radiance. They were ethereal and indistinct, but their auras were extraordinarily terrifying. Even just gazing upon them from afar made Su Yi’s heart palpitate, and his scalp went numb.

The illusory figures seemed as lofty as deities, but they were obviously already dead. All that remained of them were the imprints floating in the tribulation clouds’ golden lightning.

Does that mean the golden lightning slaughtered all those gods?

Su Yi’s heart shook.

If so, that’s horrifying!

Clang!

The Sword of the Nine Hells had lain dormant all this time, but now, it seemed to sense something, and it immediately whooshed into the air!

Boom!

Boundless sword force swept outward. Immediately after, Li Fuyou floated into view.

He gazed into the dome of heaven with obvious surprise and whispered, “Strange. This is a tribulation mighty enough to destroy even gods. How could it have appeared for a Great Realm expert...?”

Su Yi was just about to explain when...

Boom!

The strange, calamitous, grand tribulation erupted. Deep within the churning clouds, countless streaks of golden electric light shot forth.

Those illusory, indistinct figures seemed to come to life, and all of them charged out of the clouds.

Ten, a hundred, a thousand... Their ranks stretched as far as the eye could see, like an army of gods and Buddhas!

The sight was enough to make even Su Yi gasp.

Did I... really invite this Great Unity Grand Tribulation?

Clang——!

The Sword of the Nine Hells let out a boundless hum and soared into the dome of heaven with Li Fuyou.

“Go!” Li Fuyou swept his sleeves through the air, and the Sword of the Nine Hells shot forth.

Sword qi extended three hundred thousand feet, cleaving through the sky and stirring up the tribulation clouds. Over a hundred terrifying, godlike figures were cleaved in two at the waist.

Then, the sword qi rose with unstoppable momentum!

Su Yi squinted and took it all in, all the while thinking,

One day, I’ll surpass Li Fuyou, too! Where my sword points, even gods shall lose their heads!

Su Yi dared say with certainty that Li Fuyou had slain numerous gods before. Even though he’d died at the hands of the gods, at his peak, he was far beyond ordinary deities.

Li Fuyou was cold, indifferent, and detached, almost entirely emotionless. On the River of Epochs, they called him the Swordmaster of Spiritual Desolation!

At the Immortal Peach Assembly, he destroyed Divine Venerate Eternal Sands’ avatar of will with a swing of his sleeves, sneering and calling him “an ant trying to shake a tree.”

Now, when Su Yi watched Li Fuyou’s Dao Imprint attack once more, this time to resist this calamitous and strange tribulation, his heart filled with admiration, astonishment, and longing. But more than that, he was determined to surpass his fifth incarnation!

As the old saying goes, “Don’t lament your inability to meet the ancients. Lament that they never got to see your madness for themselves!”

Boom!

Deep within the dome of heaven, Li Fuyou wielded the Sword of the Nine Hells and fought his way into the clouds, waging fierce warfare against the illusory, godlike figures. The tribulation clouds churned, and thunder boomed. Explosive, calamitous power swept out like a maelstrom of destruction. The entire world trembled and swayed on its axis.

Countless years after the Epoch Tribulation destroyed it, this forsaken ground, a ruin of the prior epoch, saw yet another vision of the apocalypse.

Su Yi stood in the air, eyes narrowed, and watched. He wanted to commit every last detail to memory. He wanted to remember this tribulation mighty enough to snuff out even the gods!

At the same time, deep within the tribulation clouds, across an endless expanse of time and space, a group of gods watched this all play out.

A seemingly young Daoist standing on a wooden sword.

A woman seated on a Vermillion Bird, stirring up endless divine flames.

A monk standing on a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood, holding a Buddhist kingdom aloft in the palm of his hand.

...and numerous others, dozens in total. Their faces were familiar; Su Yi had seen them during prior tribulations, too. They’d domineeringly tried to interfere from across endless time and space, and they’d even tried to seize the Sword of the Nine Hells!

But in the end, all of them left in defeat.

This time, they appeared once more, but this time, they stood across an endless expanse of time and space. None dared act lightly.

All of their expressions were full of irrepressible bewilderment.

“How... did that heretic manage to trigger a taboo grand tribulation sufficient to threaten even gods?” one of them whispered, his voice shaking the starry void. As the soundwaves spread, they made even the spacetime barriers tremble.

“I suspect that sea of golden lightning is one of the Eight Taboo Divine Tribulations of legend, the Graveyard of the Gods. They say it can bury even deities,” someone said solemnly.

“The power of reincarnation alone could not have provoked this tribulation. I suspect that Li Fuyou’s reincarnation touched on some kind of taboo, and that that’s what led to this tribulation!”

“Could it have something to do with the Spirit Martial Epoch?”

“I'm not sure. Perhaps only those existences who’ve touched on the fundamental nature of the epochs’ natural order could discern the truth.”

...The gods watched from afar, conversing amongst themselves, but none of them could see through this incomparably strange tribulation or what caused it.

The way they saw it, this tribulation should never have appeared for a Great Realm cultivator. It shouldn’t even have appeared for a god. Thus, they were overcome with surprise and confusion!