First Immortal of the Sword

Chapter 2117 – The Path to Divinity, Seizing the Moment

Li Mu had been eliminated.

It came as a heavy blow. Even after he left the second divine tower, he struggled to come back to his senses.

He was completely despondent. A single, light, airy strike had suppressed him. His “supreme” power of the soul couldn’t take even a single hit!

This unquestionably came as far too great a shock. He almost had a mental breakdown!

How is this possible? How… How could his soul be this strong? Li Mu’s mind buzzed, and his heart was in turmoil.

Meanwhile, at the far end of the Path of the Ancient Gods, in the Abyssal Ruin, a thin man watched Li Mu’s defeat through the image reflected on a beast skin scroll.

He instantly sank into thought. He suddenly realized that he’d underestimated Su Yi. No, he’d underestimated how terrifying the power of reincarnation was.

He’s yet to achieve divinity, but he’s this strong? He must have undergone some sort of unbelievable transformation to be so starkly different from others of the same level.

And this difference is what gives him the confidence to explore the Path of the Ancient Gods alone! It’s just… What exactly caused this transformation?

The thin man sank into thought, but he couldn’t reach any conclusions. It was just as Su Yi had guessed earlier: his third incarnation didn’t know about the Hidden Summit Realm either.

Still, there was no denying that his third incarnation was terrifying. All he’d done was watch the battle, but he’d pieced together enough details to guess that Su Yi had undergone an unprecedented transformation!

After a while, the man laughed with a rare, uncharacteristic hint of eagerness. “Now it seems this might actually be interesting.”

He didn’t want Su Yi to be too weak! After all, Su Yi was one of that swordsman’s reincarnations, just like he was.

Su Yi’s performances in the City of the Beginning, Deification Star Sea, and Heaven’s End Divine Mountain didn’t mean anything to the thin man. All Su Yi had done was rely on the Epoch Spark to direct the Laws to solve the crisis at hand for him. It wasn’t even worth mentioning, let alone worthy of concern.

But now, Su Yi had revealed his own unique, mysterious, and heaven-defying strength. It was this that finally piqued his third incarnation’s interest.

This new incarnation, who controlled the power of reincarnation and the Epoch Spark, was stronger than he’d imagined.

……

Several minutes later, the boundless ringing of a bell emanated throughout the second divine tower. It rang nine times in total!

The whole tower rumbled, and a seemingly endless rain of sacred light fell.

Everyone throughout the Nine Great Celestial Trials was in uproar.

“He broke the record again!”

“That Su Yi person is far too terrifying. He only just broke the first tower’s record, becoming the strongest Great Profound Stage body refiner in history. Now, he’d broken the second tower’s record. That means he has the strongest soul of any Great Profound Stage cultivator in history, too!”

“My heavens! Where on earth did this monster come from?”

……A clamor of voices arose on all sides. Everyone’s minds buzzed, and their emotions were in turmoil. None could remain calm.

Witnessing one such miracle was already rare and all but unprecedented. Now, they’d witnessed two miracles in a row. Who could have remained calm after that?

It was just as the crowd anticipated. When Su Yi reached the top of the tower, he faced nine opponents once more. All of them had the strongest souls of any Great Profound Stage cultivator in their epoch of origin.

But in the face of Su Yi’s Hidden Summit Realm power, the nine of them were nothing at all!!

Chaos clouds churned atop the second divine tower, and nine arcs of mysterious light surged forth. This was the second divine tower’s reward, “soul source power.” It contained nine energies, each representing a different supreme soul origin power born of chaos.

Now, all nine powers fused into Su Yi’s sea of consciousness.

Boom!

His sea of consciousness churned as if about to explode. All manner of soul powers clashed, turning Su Yi’s sea of consciousness into the site of a fierce conflict. None of these powers could tolerate the others.

Su Yi endured the rending pain in his soul and sat down to meditate.

A full two hours passed before he completely fused these nine soul source powers into himself. His soul grew stronger in the process, reaching the pinnacle of the Hidden Summit Realm!

Moreover, his soul’s foundations had firmed up, and its latent potential was now incomparably rich.

Now, Su Yi finally dared say with certainty that his first incarnation had prepared the first three trials for his benefit.

The first trial let him temper his fleshly body to perfection, while the second trial let him temper his soul to perfection.

He didn’t even need to think to know that if he overcame the third trial, it would bring his cultivation base to the pinnacle of the Hidden Summit Realm, too.

Su Yi’s thoughts raced. But then, it makes sense. My first incarnation underwent rebirth to cultivate anew in search of a higher path. Now, I control the power of reincarnation and the Epoch Spark, and I’ve reached the Hidden Summit Realm. Soon, I’ll be able to start on a unique path to divinity all my own!

Everything my first incarnation left here for me will soon be mine!

The moment he shattered the Abundance of Heaven Chessboard in the Tower of Ancient Evils, he’d stepped onto a path starkly different from that of his first incarnation.

This was why he’d gotten the chance to acquire the Epoch Spark his first incarnation had left behind, and why he’d earned the River Lord’s approval and assistance in entering the Path of the Ancient Gods.

The Path of the Ancient Gods held many of his first incarnation’s other arrangements, all of them intended to help Su Yi prepare to prove his Dao and achieve divinity.

For example, traveling through the Deification Star Sea let the Epoch Spark continuously absorb and refine various Godheads. In doing so, its power evolved.

And the trials of the divine towers contained good fortune sufficient to transform Su Yi’s body and soul. They were now at the peak of the Hidden Summit Realm!

All of this had been given to him by his first incarnation!

His first incarnation had done this to help him achieve divinity and walk a path starkly different from his, a path of divinity none had ever walked before!

This realization filled Su Yi’s heart with emotion.

He was competing with himself! Ultimately, throughout his cultivation, he’d been in competition with his past selves, and that was true even now.

After all, if he hadn’t stepped onto a path starkly different from his first incarnation, he’d have wound up like Li Fuyou, unable to win the River Lord’s approval.

He naturally could never have acquired the Epoch Spark or entered the Path of the Ancient Gods then!

……

When Su Yi emerged from the second tower, there were countless people watching and waiting once more. Some of the onlookers couldn’t conceal their fervor or reverence, and many approached of their own accord to express their respect.

Others had complicated looks on their faces. There was jealousy, envy, frustration, and glumness.

After all, all of them were at the same level of cultivation, but the gap between them and Su Yi was like the distance between mud and clouds. Who could have accepted that with calm equanimity?

Su Yi responded just as he had before. He wasn’t at all concerned. He might have been involved in all the hubbub, but ultimately, the onlookers’ reactions were their own.

He just continued toward the third tower, entirely unperturbed. He was eager to see just what the nine opponents he’d encounter there would be like!

The third Celestial Trial was called “the Ceaseless Road.” The name came from the idea that learning was an endless process, and so too was pursuing the Dao.

This trial was therefore a test of challengers’ cultivation of the Grand Dao!

When Su Yi first entered the third tower, a scene similar to that of the first two towers unfolded.

These tests and trials might have been a challenge for just about any Great Profound Stage cultivator, but that didn’t include Su Yi. He crushed the third tower’s trials with unstoppable force, quickly arriving at the peak.

There, he encountered the third of the nine experts sent to defeat him, a man called Lu Kong. His cultivation of the Grand Dao was the strongest within his level of cultivation!

But the moment he laid eyes on Su Yi, Lu Kong sighed. “I can see it already. I’m going to lose, just like Jian Xingyun and Li Mu did.”

Su Yi couldn’t help but take another look at him. “Are you giving up?”

Lu Kong shook his head. “I’m going to give it my all. If you can stop me, I’ll walk away and leave.”

Su Yi nodded his agreement, and Lu Kong attacked.

He was indeed strong, not far off from Su Yi when he was in the Great Profound Stage.

Unfortunately for him, Su Yi wasn’t in the Great Profound Realm any longer.

He wasn’t exactly using his cultivation base to bully someone weaker, though; the Hidden Summit Realm was a secret level of cultivation that, in a sense, could be considered part of the Great Profound Realm.

In just one attack, Lu Kong lost!

The result left him briefly dazed, but in the end, he just smiled bitterly and sighed. “And here I thought I already appraised you highly. Now, it seems that I… didn’t understand your strength at all.”

With that, he straightforwardly admitted defeat and left of his own accord.

He might have seemed carefree, but Su Yi could clearly sense Lu Kong’s unwillingness and melancholy.

But when he thought about it, it made sense. Who could truly disregard victory and defeat? The more seriously someone took a competition, the harder it was for them to pretend nothing had happened after they were defeated.

Not long after Lu Kong left, nine opponents appeared atop the tower once more. All of them had the strongest powers of the Grand Dao of any Great Profound Stage cultivator in their epochs of origin.

They were so strong, it was unbelievable. Some could even have been called transgressors! They could cross multiple realms of cultivation to slay Limit Realm Mid-Rank Gods!

They broadened Su Yi’s horizons as he realized that there really had been others like him in bygone epochs, people with similarly heaven-defying cultivations within the Great Profound Stage.

Still, Su Yi defeated all nine of his opponents in the end.

The reward for the third trial quickly appeared before him: nine supreme powers of the Grand Dao born of chaos!

By the time Su Yi had fused them into his powers of the Grand Dao, his foundations in the Grand Dao had been tempered to unprecedented and irreplicable perfection.

Now, his fleshly body, soul, and cultivation had all reached the pinnacle of the Hidden Summit Realm!

Su Yi could clearly sense that he was like a blazing furnace. His cultivation base showed signs of an imminent breakthrough, and it was ready and eager to go.

But it was still missing a certain something.

It didn’t take long for Su Yi to figure out what it was. He wasn’t lacking in good fortune, nor did he need to cultivate bitterly in seclusion. What he needed was a chance to fully fuse the power of his body, soul, and Grand Dao!

And an opportunity like that only came in the throes of life-or-death combat!

Great terror lay between life and death.

But at the same time, tempering yourself in the face of death was the best way to excavate your latent potential!

Anyone else who’d overcome these three towers and acquired this good fortune could have proven their Dao and broken through already, but my path to divinity has only just begun…

Su Yi sighed. He was rueful, and a bit wistful. He’d been looking forward to this day, and preparing for it, for a long, long time.

Now, all he had to do was seize the moment!

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