Chapter 86
Chapter 86
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: penny
Chapter: 86
Chapter Title: Origin Spirit Realm (3)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
The process of the Core Formation Ritual was simple.
Condense heaven and earth spiritual energy and spiritual power in the lower dantian.
A golden core would then form.
The Origin Spirit Ritual followed a roughly similar process.
Coalesce heaven and earth spiritual energy, spiritual power, and soul in the upper dantian.
Completing the origin spirit meant reaching the Origin Spirit Realm.
But there was one crucial difference.
The Origin Spirit Ritual required enduring the trials of heaven.
Lightning called the Heavenly Tribulation interfered with origin spirit formation.
And it grew increasingly ferocious as time passed.
Overcome the interference and form the origin spirit for success.
Become an Origin Spirit Realm cultivator at last.
Fail to endure the Heavenly Tribulation, and it ended in failure.
If lucky, one's cultivation regressed; most often, it meant instant death.
Nothing existed but heaven and oneself.
That was why it was described as proving one's worth.
The path to the Origin Spirit Realm was thus utterly solitary.
But for Seoran and Wi Jimok, things were slightly different.
What existed was heaven, oneself, and the opponent.
There was no leisure to leisurely form an origin spirit.
Each would desperately hinder the other.
A deathmatch amid the descending Heavenly Tribulation.
Both sides' skills had long surpassed mortal limits.
A single minor mistake could decide victory or defeat.
And the Heavenly Tribulation would only continue to strengthen.
To survive, one had to eliminate the opponent and condense the origin spirit as quickly as possible.
Midway surrender was impossible.
Only one could leave alive.
*****
Seoran and Wi Jimok, flung back by the exploding treasure bead, immediately mounted their flying artifacts.
As she soared, Seoran controlled the Doll Four Sisters.
To evacuate the golden core survivors far away.
Without physical bodies, they couldn't withstand the Heavenly Tribulation.
The Doll Four Sisters grabbed the nearby golden core survivors and hurled them out of the Heavenly Tribulation's range.
At the same time, a massive whirlwind engulfed the surroundings.
The mountaintop, cut off from the outside, sank into darkness.
And the Heavenly Tribulation struck.
Hundreds of lightning bolts cleaved through the darkness.
Seoran and Wi Jimok were struck by countless bolts before they could erect barriers.
They confronted agony such as they had never known.
One strike nearly shattered their consciousness.
It was no normal Heavenly Tribulation might.
It seemed an anomaly born from conducting the ritual together.
Reflexively, the two erected barriers.
The Heavenly Tribulation struck once more.
Seoran and Wi Jimok strained to maintain their barriers.
The intensified might was shocking.
Both instinctively realized.
Barriers alone could never hold for long.
At this rate, they would die not to each other, but to the Heavenly Tribulation.
The moment the third Heavenly Tribulation descended, Seoran struck first.
The Doll Four Sisters went berserk.
Circuits overloaded, heedless of consequences.
Inescapable invisible destructive beams rained down.
Wi Jimok's barrier, weakened from enduring the Heavenly Tribulation, shattered outright.
It reformed in an instant, but that was enough for the Doll Four Sisters.
The destructive beams shredded the defenseless Wi Jimok.
Wi Jimok, having completed his barrier, was already on the brink of death.
Both legs severed below the thighs, left shoulder and half his face gone.
A moment's delay in response would have meant instant death.
Wi Jimok desperately circulated his spiritual power.
The vines coiled around his right arm, the Tri-Fruit Wood Spirit, devoured vast wood-element spiritual power.
Then it burst its second fruit.
The Tri-Fruit Wood Spirit bore three fruits.
The first fruit's contents were seeds.
Parasitic on a cultivator, they absorbed spiritual power before exploding.
That single attack had killed half the joint pursuit squad.
The second fruit's contents were sap.
Its effect was super-regeneration, healing any fatal wound in moments.
It took nearly three hundred years for one fruit to ripen.
That was why the Tri-Fruit Gate had tenaciously prolonged the life of an Origin Spirit Realm old monster little more than a corpse.
They had awaited the fruit that would ripen decades later.
Of course, the Tri-Fruit Gate fell just before the harvest, and the treasure became Wi Jimok's.
Thanks to it, Wi Jimok returned from the jaws of death.
Wi Jimok immediately activated his artifact control spell.
Countless artifacts near the altar flew into the air.
Some brought from the Tri-Fruit Gate, others looted from slain cultivators.
Defensive artifacts enveloped Wi Jimok without gap.
They shattered one by one upon the Doll Four Sisters' destructive beams, losing their spirituality.
But their numbers were overwhelming.
Meanwhile, offensive artifacts attacked Seoran.
Fancy maneuvering weapons, gourd flasks spewing fire, bells bewitching the mind with sound.
Seoran immediately executed complex evasion maneuvers.
The Doll Four Sisters swiftly switched targets.
Struck by anti-air fire, the offensive artifacts plummeted.
It bought her time.
Seoran's bead necklace glowed.
The beads launched in all directions.
The 108 beads transformed into bizarre bricks, clustering around Seoran.
After transformation and assembly, the three-headed, six-armed colossal puppet, the Vajra Yaksha, spun its neck furiously.
Three heads and six eyes began their assault.
Chaotic beams disintegrated everything.
The Doll Four Sisters attacked Wi Jimok again.
Wi Jimok showered supreme talismans like a storm.
The Vajra Yaksha erected barriers and swam through the skies.
A barrier flickering perilously under destructive beams.
Talismans blanketing the dark heavens like a galaxy.
Thousands of lightning bolts falling from the sky.
In moments, countless clashes unfolded.
Artifacts and talismans were depleted; the Vajra Yaksha half-destroyed.
Seoran and Wi Jimok teetered on the edge.
Yet Wi Jimok held a slight advantage.
Seoran hadn't committed a fatal error.
The difference lay in aerial combat experience.
Wi Jimok had lived centuries longer than Seoran.
He survived brutal civil wars and slaughtered countless cultivators in real battles.
From mid-fight, he gained a faint edge.
Of course, Seoran rapidly adapted to the skies.
But she couldn't close the gap.
Wi Jimok allowed no reversal.
At last, the Vajra Yaksha ceased functioning.
The puppet already lacked durability.
It couldn't withstand the accumulated damage.
In that instant, Wi Jimok sensed it.
The path to victory lay open.
A clear checkmate.
Seoran and Wi Jimok's flight paths intertwined.
Seoran's retaliation cost Wi Jimok his regenerated left arm.
Wi Jimok's attack drove Seoran high into the sky.
The altar, Wi Jimok, Seoran, and the heavens aligned in a straight line.
Flesh traded for bone.
This was the checkmate Wi Jimok's foresight uncovered.
The pulse of heaven and earth spiritual energy, harbinger of the Heavenly Tribulation.
Seoran faced the ground, heaven at her back.
Wi Jimok faced the heavens, ground at his back.
Concentrate most of the Heavenly Tribulation on Seoran, then deliver the final blow—that was Wi Jimok's scheme.
Wi Jimok infused spiritual power into the Tri-Fruit Wood Spirit.
The third fruit's contents were thorns.
A stinger that could destroy a golden core in one strike.
Seoran also sensed the crisis.
The Doll Four Sisters aided her final strike.
Self-charging mechanisms at their limit drew in heaven and earth spiritual energy, converting it to spiritual power.
The vast power transmitted wholly to their master via wireless supply.
Seoran's golden core desperately controlled the spiritual power.
The surging power formed a massive golden sphere.
A force on the verge of slipping control.
Seoran pointed her right hand at Wi Jimok.
Wi Jimok pointed his right hand at Seoran.
And the Heavenly Tribulation plunged down.
*****
His father had cautioned Wi Jimok thus.
Go is a mental discipline; character matters more than skill.
His master had taught him.
Become a person before striving to be a sage.
His friend had praised him.
You could change the world.
Wi Jimok's consciousness surfaced.
Dark heavens and earth, a solitary golden sphere gleaming in the sky.
Wi Jimok grasped the situation in a flash.
He had been struck by the Heavenly Tribulation and lost consciousness for a moment.
Just before blacking out, the last sight he recalled.
Hundreds of lightning bolts plunging from the sky—the Heavenly Tribulation had clearly veered from Seoran.
It bent in an unnatural arc, striking not the sky-high Seoran, but Wi Jimok.
In the end, Wi Jimok missed his golden opportunity.
At last, the golden sphere stabilized.
Seoran's strike was coming.
All because of the suddenly refracted Heavenly Tribulation.
That became the dagger in the decisive moment.
Victory and defeat could no longer be reversed.
Death approached Wi Jimok.
With his keen mind, Wi Jimok realized.
No third party existed on the board.
Only the two players testing their skill.
His philosophy had mostly been correct.
But Wi Jimok was mistaken.
He was never a player.
Merely a go stone on the board.
Wi Jimok reviewed heaven's move.
In go, two players alternate placing stones.
Every move mattered.
Distinguish stones well, and you play go well.
Useless stones were dead stones.
Their life or death was irrelevant to the greater flow.
Vital stones were key stones.
Their survival directly decided win or loss.
Suddenly, the scene from his lapse in consciousness resurfaced.
His father's caution.
In hindsight, a warning against arrogance.
His master's teaching.
In hindsight, an exhortation to follow the natural way.
His friend's praise.
Talent to change even the world.
Wi Jimok finally beheld heaven's will.
The two Origin Spirit Realm old monsters were dead stones.
Stones heaven deemed unworthy of notice.
Even if they defied the natural way, they lacked the talent to change the world.
He, on the other hand, was a key stone.
From heaven's view, a stone that must die.
Born with world-changing talent, yet arrogant, defying the natural way.
Stones unworthy of killing.
Stones that must be killed.
And stones that must be spared.
Wi Jimok looked up at the heavens.
Seoran pointed at him.
Heaven embraced her.
A laugh escaped him unwittingly.
‘She seems chosen by heaven itself.’
Right then, a dazzling beam plunged onto Wi Jimok.
The light pillar linking heaven and earth shook the world.
With one strike, Seoran reduced Wi Jimok, the altar, and the mountain peak to dust.
Thus died the arrogant man.