1760 A Blessing in Disguise

The Saint Qi in Zhang Ruochen's body rushed uncontrollably out of his pores and were consumed by the lotus flower.

"How is this possible?"

Zhang Ruochen unleashed his full strength, trying to break free from the vortex. Yet, the lotus' devouring force grew even stronger and basically held him down. He was unable to pull his fingers away.

A moment later, all of Zhang Ruochen's Saint Qi had been absorbed.

He thought that the lotus would stop there, but to Zhang Ruochen's despair, it did not. Instead, it began to absorb his blood, spiritual strength, Saint Soul, and Saint Precepts.

"I have survived so many life-and-death battles, I will not end up being nutrients... for a lotus flower, will I?"

Zhang Ruochen only felt a bone-chilling pain strike him, and even his iron will did not make the pain easier to bear. His body trembled, and a terrible scream was about to come out of his mouth.

The Nine-heavens Maiden, Luo Xu, and the rest noticed that something was not right and immediately rushed to the statue's head.

However, when they were about a dozen feet away from Zhang Ruochen's position, the lotus shook slightly, and a white circle of light blasted out, sweeping all of them away like mosquitoes.

"Is this another trap set by the Heavenly Realm?"

"Look, Zhang Ruochen..."

Both the cultivators from the Kunlun Realm and Heavenly Realm looked up at the top of the Buddha's head. Some were elated, some were saddened, while some were confused.

Above the Buddha's head, next to the lotus.

Zhang Ruochen's body became desiccated as if his body was just a layer of skin over his bones. Even his hair became white, and his body showed no signs of life.

The heir of Saint Monk Xumi had actually fallen inside Xumi Dojo, and such a ridiculous thing just had to happen in front of everyone.

The Saints Kings of the Heavenly Realm were ecstatic. They never expected such a thing to happen; it was as if the heavens were helping them.

"Zhang Ruochen died just like that?" Shang Ziyan found it unbelievable.

In the past, he had used, god knows, how many methods and lost how many elites but still failed to get rid of Zhang Ruochen. Yet, Zhang Ruochen was ultimately killed by a lotus.

A Six-step Saint King said, "Master Ziyan, since Zhang Ruochen is dead, we should use this opportunity to break into Xumi Dojo and rescue the Saint Kings who are being held captive in the temple. Then, we can destroy the Kunlun Realm."

Shang Ziyan's eyes were still fixed on the top of the Buddha statue, and he nodded gently. "Since the heavens are standing with us, naturally, this battle must play out."

Soon after, the sound of battle roared to life.

The Saint Kings of the Heavenly Realm rushed into Xumi Dojo continuously.

Zhang Ruochen had a great influence over the cultivators of the Kunlun Realm.

Aside from a handful of cultivators, most of them admired Zhang Ruochen from the bottom of their hearts and felt that he was the Kunlun Realm's premier hero. Even after he left Kunlun, he still fought for them.

As long he was there, everyone was confident.

The moment he died in Xumi Dojo, the cultivators of the Kunlun Realm felt demoralized as if something had gone missing. It was like they had lost their pillar.

Within Xumi Dojo, the number of Kunlun cultivators were less than a hundred, and there were at least three to four hundred foes from the Heavenly Realm, with most of them in the Saint King rank. Even under Equality, their personal combat abilities were more than enough to overwhelm Kunlun.

The battle had just begun, but it already heralded a one-sided slaughter.

...

Zhang Ruochen's consciousness slowly came back to him.

A white world before him. He had no body and took the form of shapeless sentience that floated in the void.

"Even though I'm dead, my consciousness is still around. Have I turned into a ghost? No... a ghost should consist of a soul. Where is my soul?"

In fact, a ghost was the soul of a dead ordinary creature, the "battle soul" of a dead martial cultivator, or the "Saint Soul" of a dead Sainthood cultivator.

"Am I just a blob of consciousness?"

Zhang Ruochen was plagued with new doubts. His Saint Soul had already been absorbed by the lotus, so how had his consciousness been preserved?

One needs to know that only the gods could preserve fragments of their consciousness after they lost their corporeal form, and their consciousness would wander between the heavens and Earth for eternity. Living beings could then communicate with the fragments of the gods' consciousness through rituals.

A god's fragments of consciousness could only have the power to affect the material world by absorbing blood, incense, and faith from the rituals.

Zhang Ruochen's consciousness constantly changed direction as he looked for an exit to return to Xumi Dojo. However, he noticed that the white world seemed to be endless, and no matter which direction he flew in, he could never reach the end.

Suddenly, Zhang Ruochen felt a fluctuation in his soul power.

The soul power was very familiar to him, and it was undoubtedly his own.

"Could a shred of my Saint Soul have been preserved and not been absorbed by the lotus?" Zhang Ruochen was overjoyed.

As long as a shred of his Saint Soul was preserved, no matter how weak it was, he could switch to ghost cultivation or take the body of another living being to return to the material world.

Zhang Ruochen's consciousness chased after that little shred of Saint Soul.

Gradually, Zhang Ruochen was surprised to find more and more Saint Souls appear around him, and all of them were his.

Thousands of Saint Soul fragments converged together and formed a soul shadow.

Immediately after, a second soul shadow formed.

Then, a third...

A fourth...

A fifth...

A sixth...

Six of Zhang Ruochen's Saint Souls stood in a circle and looked exactly the same as him.

"This..."

Zhang Ruochen found the whole thing incomprehensible, so he slowly flew over as his consciousness gradually merged with the six Saint Souls. A while later, the two sides were perfectly aligned.

"Retract."

Just like that, the six Saint Souls were reunited.

Zhang Ruochen opened up his hands and felt a huge surge of Saint Soul power. It was over ten times stronger than his previous Saint Soul.

Moreover, in the vast white world, there were still shreds of Saint Souls flying in and merging into his soul form, strengthening his own Saint Soul.

"Once the six Saint Souls merge into one, it is probably no weaker than a Nine-step Saint King's Saint Soul. Even when divided into six, the strength of a single Saint Soul is comparable to an Eight-step Saint King. Is this perhaps a blessing in disguise?"

By the time the Saint Soul fully condensed, rays of spirit power flew over to him.

The strength of his spirit power soon reached Level 57, and it was still increasing. It only stopped after it reached the peak of Level 57.

It is important to note that Zhang Ruochen's previous spiritual power was only at the base of Level 57.

The spiritual power of a cultivator at the beginning of Level 57 could only enable him or her to confront weaker beings in the Five-step Saint King realm.

Conversely, a cultivator who was at the peak of Level 57 would be able to fight against the stronger creatures in the Six-step Saint King realm.

The difference in spiritual power between one and the other was not as simple as a mere multiplicative force. It was like between Heaven and Earth.

Following the integration of his Saint Soul and spiritual power, Zhang Ruochen finally understood something.

It turned out that he was now inside the lotus, and after his Saint Soul and spiritual power poured into the lotus, they merged with it as well as left their imprints in it.

There was a mysterious and unknown power within the lotus. When Zhang Ruochen's Saint Soul and spiritual power wandered around inside the flower, they were strengthened by more than ten times.

The eyes of Zhang Ruochen's Saint Soul saw through the white mist and noticed lotus petals at the edge of the world.

Each petal was like a gorgeous starry sky, and there were a large number of Saint Path Precepts on the petals.

Whoosh...

The densely packed Saint Path Precepts rushed out from the petals toward Zhang Ruochen and revolved around his Saint Soul as they increased in number.

Previously, Zhang Ruochen had cultivated a total of 190,000 precepts of the Saint Path.

At that moment, the number of precepts around him exceeded 250,000 and continued to increase.

"I need about three hundred thousand precepts to have a chance to reach the Five-step Saint King rank. Maybe, I'm going to break through within the lotus itself?" Zhang Ruochen looked forward to it.

There was no doubt that the lotus was an incredible treasure.

If someone were to closely observe the green lotus seed between the Buddha statue's brows, they would notice it changing. It slowly turned dark while all of the light converged on the lotus above the Buddha statue's head.

The plants around the huge island gradually withered while every ounce of life force was gathered in the root of the lotus.

The lotus leaves on the lake's surface began to lose their luster and turned yellow.

It was just that the cultivators from both the Heavenly and Kunlun Realms were fighting desperately, so no one noticed anything.

Chi Wansui, Heaven-devourer Dragon, Gai Tianjiao, as well as the rest, led the Kunlun Realm cultivators, who had withdrawn from the illusion formation, and they fought their way into the dojo. They could only hold back the Heavenly Realm's Saint Kings when the two forces from the Kunlun Realm assembled.

However, the Heavenly Realm still had the absolute upper hand, so much so that the cultivators of the Kunlun Realm were being steadily pushed back.

Bam! Bam!!

Chi Wansui used a Realm Seal to confront Yutian, a powerful dragonkin of the Six-step Saint King realm. Now that their cultivation ranks had been suppressed to the same level, their flurry of exchanges was fierce and violent.

After dozens of blows, Chi Wansui's body was torn all over and bloodied. He then retreated to the bottom of the Buddha statue.

Opposite him, Yutian was even more severely wounded and vomiting blood.

However, Yutian immediately swallowed a sacred pill and escaped to the back to heal his wounds as two other Heavenly Realm Saint Kings charged toward Chi Wansui.

The same situation would constantly repeat within Xumi Dojo.

Once a Heavenly Realm Saint King was seriously injured, he or she would retreat to the rear to heal, but the cultivators of the Kunlun Realm had to fight on even when they were wounded. As such, they eventually perished on the battlefield.

A Kunlun Realm Saint's arms were cut off, and he pulled back to The Nine-heavens Maiden's side. "Your Highness, let us withdraw from the dojo. If we fight on like this, everyone will die here," he said in an imploring tone.

The Nine-heavens Maiden used her silver chef's knife to directly split a Heavenly Realm Saint King in half. Droplets of blood sprayed onto her face as she said with a cold gaze, "We have not found the treasure that Saint Monk Xumi left behind. How can we leave just like that?"

"But..."

"No buts. Even if we withdraw from the dojo, we will eventually need to face them in the Kunlun Realm. When that time comes, where can we run to? We will only have some right to speak once we find Saint Monk Xumi's treasure and bring it back to the Kunlun Realm. Otherwise, when the fighting starts, the Kunlun Realm's fate will be determined by either the Infernal Court[1] or the Celestial Court. By then, would we still have the right to call ourselves the masters of the Kunlun Realm?"

Suddenly, The Nine-heavens Maiden noticed a powerful aura approaching.

Bam! Bam!!

Chi Kunlun and Chi Kongyue both flew back in the distance. There was a neat sword mark on their abdomens, which almost cut them in two.

"Those two brats sure are strong. Their combined sword formation actually managed to block twenty-three of my strikes. Are you all truly Zhang Ruochen's progenies?"

Shang Ziyan carried his crimson blade and leisurely walked out.

[1] Previously translated as Hell