Chapter 133: The Concealment of Clumsiness and Skill

In an instant, the heavenly river inverted, and the waters of the Jade Pool poured down three thousand miles, rushing mightily from the ninth heaven. The entire universe rumbled with a din so loud it even pierced the Xuanzhou Outer Scene Grotto-heaven, reverberating into the neighboring grotto-heavens.

"Waters of the great river come from the skies!" Xu Zhong watched the heavenly water cascade down, his heart and mind instantly thrown into turmoil.

His sword, concealed within a sword pellet, rang out in a piercing resonance.

Xu Zhong imprinted this breathtaking scene deep within his pupils.

The image kept flashing and replaying in his eyes.

"This is a sword technique!" Xu Zhong analyzed the Dao rhyme, refining it into his own spell.

From all fourty-eight thousand pores of his body, brilliant sword qi burst forth. With every breath, the sword qi contracted and shifted like a viper flicking its tongue. The range of his swordsmanship expanded and extended, stretching to six thousand miles, then six thousand six hundred miles, before finally stopping, unable to grow any further.

This was because Xu Zhong's foundation had reached its limit.

Yet, with six thousand six hundred miles of commanding sword intent—capable of opening up yin and yang, cleaving floating clouds above, and severing the earthly bonds below—even an expert in the Vehicle-Riding realm would be instantly skewered by a single sword strike if they dared to underestimate him.

The sword qi spewed from his pores lingered around the center of his brow, transforming before the eyes into a miniature Jade Pool. It was crystal clear like dew, entwined with karmic calamity—neither entirely dark nor completely bright. Cyan light flickered like an imperial canopy, purple Qi came from the east like a soaring dragon, and golden light arrived from the west like a descending phoenix.

Xu Zhong pinched the sword pellet between his fingers, turning it over and over as he mused: "Let's call it the Jade Pool Sword Array!"

While Xu Zhong was gaining enlightenment of the Jade Pool Sword Array, the Dragon-Sparrow was undergoing its tribulation.

The heavens collapsed and the earth shattered as the heavenly river poured downward.

The karmic calamity was terrifying, every single strand wreathed with world-destroying might.

Cracks spiderwebbed across the Xuanzhou Outer Scene Grotto-heaven. Around it, fissures tore open, letting in chaotic, destructive gangwinds from the outer void that buffeted everything and pulverized all in their path.

The Dragon-Sparrow planted its rear firmly downward, suppressing this terrifying, world-shattering might.

Yet, karmic calamity continued to twine tightly around its body.

The great river scoured its physical form, seeping deep into flesh and blood. A chorus of cracking sounds echoed incessantly; the Dragon-Sparrow's body was disintegrating and perishing both inside and out. Everything within its form collapsed, reducing to fine powder.

Yet, out of the destruction, it re-condensed, piecing itself together into a golden, complete array of bodily apertures.

Following this initial annihilation, it was reborn once more.

Its body began to undergo a profound metamorphosis. At this moment, its bodily apertures were condensed with layers of halos, resembling twinkling stars.

Meanwhile, the outer scene was collapsing, its power being absorbed bit by bit by the Dragon-Sparrow.

Those forces connected with the starry apertures across its body, forming a faint, hazy canopy of heaven.

When its gaze lowered, the rudimentary forms of the sun and moon appeared upon that celestial canopy, encircled by the dual qi of yin and yang.

Yet this was merely illusory; under the tribulation lightning, it was being refined from falsehood into reality step by step.

The process of transforming the outer scene into the inner scene was also a tug-of-war consisting of the destruction and rebirth of the Dragon-Sparrow's physical body.

However, the power of the Jade Pool Thunder Tribulation did not stop there.

This long river scoured the Dragon-Sparrow's physical form, tracing its way into the mud-pellet palace, and thence pursuing the undying spiritual light, pulling these three elements into a single line.

At this very moment, the physical body, the soul, and the undying spiritual light were all undergoing the tribulation simultaneously.

Whenever the physical body or the soul collapsed, the Wood-Element Secret Store would gush forth with vitality, repairing the damage and maintaining their indestructibility.

The undying spiritual light, however, was entirely different.

The undying spiritual light remained unchanged and immovable, shaped primordially. It could only be attained through acquired cultivation or by harvesting the unperishing spiritual light of heaven and earth. It lacked the unique flexibility of the physical body and the soul; once shattered, it could never be repaired.

Prior to this, the Jade Pool Thunder Tribulation targeted the physical body, the Six-Yao Thunder Tribulation targeted the soul, and the Twelve-Storied-Pagoda Thunder Tribulation targeted the undying spiritual light. But the Jade Pool Thunder Tribulation fused all three into one.

The previous three thunder tribulations were singular and lacked focus, yet offered great flexibility in how one dealt with them.

In contrast, the Jade Pool Thunder Tribulation possessed absolute focus coupled with minimal operational flexibility.

Under a single bolt of tribulation lightning, all three faced the ordeal together.

The creature could not mobilize the power of its physical body or its soul to protect the undying spiritual light; it had to endure the onslaught physically.

With the undying spiritual light revolving, it blasted open the Gates of Creation.

These Gates of Creation numbered four in total—projections of the Gate of Xuanfen, concealing endless vitality and primordial breath within them.

The Dragon-Sparrow threw open the Gates of Creation, fishing out vitality and breath to keep the undying spiritual light from altering or perishing.

Rumbling sounds resounded.

The heavenly river thundered downward, its physical form locked in a relentless cycle of destruction and rebirth, hardening like steel tempered a thousand times.

Its physique began to expand continuously, devouring the external power of the outer scene.

This caused the illusory celestial canopy within its body to grow denser and sturdier.

Faintly, the Four Auspicious Divine Beasts emerged, suppressing the four quarters of its inner scene.

This power cycled back and forth, but in the next instant, it was shattered by the tribulation lightning crashing down from the Jade Pool.

And that heavenly river had now run dry.

This marked the end of one bolt of tribulation lightning, and the beginning of another.

Another dragon-headed deity standing beside the Jade Pool carved open another outlet at the pool's edge, causing yet another heavenly river to plunge from the sky.

The Dragon-Sparrow let out a muffled grunt as it introspected.

Within its physical body, it saw a streak of lightning stretching ten thousand miles—vast compared to its bodily universe. It pierced straight through the illusory inner scene within, puncturing everything in its path. Organs and apertures exploded with deafening roars, and gouts of blood gushed from every pore of its body.

Simultaneously, a matching bolt of thunder appeared within its outer scene world—equally ten thousand miles long and incomparably pure.

"It's the Void Divine Thunder!"

The Void Divine Thunder was born from within the Jade Pool Thunder Tribulation, specifically targeting both the inner and outer scenes of a cultivator.

At this moment, the Dragon-Sparrow's outer scene was battered, beginning to explode and collapse.

Tens of millions of stars fractured, while a boundless sun and a pure moon plunged from the sky.

"The Jade Pool Thunder Tribulation has shattered its yin and yang." Xu Zhong felt a sensation of extreme danger.

A human body bears yin while embracing yang, maintaining a delicate coordination between the two.

Should one lose yin and yang, life and death would be inverted, manifesting the razor-thin margin that separates existence from oblivion.

This was different from the state of life-and-death inversion Xu Zhong achieved when employing the Seven Mansions of the Xuanwu.

Xu Zhong's inversion was orderly and controlled; in a sense, yin and yang, life and death, remained balanced.

Yet the inversion currently manifesting on the Dragon-Sparrow was chaotic, disorderly, and unbalanced—a massive vulnerability.

When the narrow chasm between life and death manifested, the Void Divine Thunder found its point of entry.

From the Dragon-Sparrow's body, a long river suddenly leaped forth.

This river traversed past and future; the creature existed within it, yet its reflection lay in the past while its gaze peered into the distant future.

The Void Divine Thunder shifted subtly, exuding a powerful will. Taking the Dragon-Sparrow's present moment as its source and anchor, it traced the reflections of the past. Reversing the river of time, it surged upstream, appearing across countless pasts of the Dragon-Sparrow.

Almost simultaneously, the Dragon-Sparrow's various past incarnations sensed this destructive power and were shaken. Raising their heads to look up, they saw only an illusory blankness.

In the next moment, its past reflections were obliterated one by one.

Such was the might of the Void Divine Thunder.

It arrived without shadow and left without trace, capable of flowing upstream into the past.

In truth, the Void Divine Thunder lacked the intrinsic power to retrace the past.

The only reason it could manifest its might in the past was because the creature's yin and yang had been broken.

The only tribulation truly capable of tracing the past was the Three-Lifetimes Thunder Tribulation.

This was a tribulation one had to endure to attain the status of an innate deity.

It consisted of only three thunderbolts, corresponding to the present, the past, and the future respectively.

With the Dragon-Sparrow's yin and yang fractured, the river of time surged forth. Its past continually dissolved, rendering its present ethereal as well.

Faintly, its physical form hovered between reality and illusion.

The other Qi cultivators watching from the sidelines grew restless. Some even produced their own magical treasures, discussing among themselves how the spoils should be divided.

Xu Zhong, too, was bathed in the illumination of the Void Divine Thunder, but the golden elixir within him spun, holding fast to the primordial spark. With his yin and yang coordinated and revolving smoothly, he anchored his own state and bathed in the gentle stream.

What Xu Zhong experienced was merely a one-hundred-thousandth of a true Jade Pool Thunder Tribulation.

Within his physical body resided the Golden Elixir Dao Tree; any tribulation lightning striking his flesh was shattered by the tree's branches. Consequently, the Void Divine Thunder reversed direction, surging up through the Heavenly Gate, Baihui, and Yuzhen acupoints into the mud-pellet palace, tearing open the sea of chaos to strike straight at his soul.

Yet the layered seals existing within Xu Zhong's soul possessed a might far surpassing that of the Golden Elixir Dao Tree.

They effortlessly suppressed the Void Divine Thunder.

However, this bolt of divine thunder caused the Heavenly Dao Demonic Manifestation—which had been keeping its eyes open in silence—to blink and look again. Seeing that Xu Zhong's heaven, earth, and human souls remained intact, it closed its eyes once more, perhaps assuming Xu Zhong had already attained the inner scene realm so swiftly.

Watching this bolt of Void Divine Thunder dive into the sea of chaos, joy blossomed on his face: "I think I see it!"

That divine thunder illuminated the sea of chaos, revealing the passage leading into the mud-pellet palace.

"This time, I won't need to beg others to teach me the art of dragon-seeking and vein-locating."

Xu Zhong channeled the Rhinoceros-Heart Art, its luminous glow flashing to heighten his intellect.

He imprinted this Void Divine Thunder directly onto his golden elixir.

Because he already possessed the seed of divine thunder, his speed in mastering this Void Divine Thunder was astonishingly fast; in less than a quarter of an hour, he had fully grasped it.

The Void Divine Thunder pierced through the sea of chaos, illuminating the mud-pellet palace.

This was his very own art of dragon-seeking and vein-locating.

Just as Xu Zhong intended to strike with a sword to open up his mud-pellet palace, a glance out of the corner of his eye caught sight of the Dragon-Sparrow, and he became utterly transfixed.

He saw a bronze vessel materialize behind the Dragon-Sparrow.

From this bronze vessel hoisted a divine banner that resembled a sheet of human skin.

Inscribed upon that skin were countless runes, exuding an aura of profound mystery.

This bronze vessel was an ancient divine artifact. It soared out from the back of the creature's head, pressing down upon the river of time until its water level sank by three full zhang.

The river of time was inherently illusory, yet the bronze vessel was a physical entity.

As the physical object rested upon the illusory one, it actually caught a non-existent wind and set sail.

Xu Zhong watched in a daze, forgetting all about opening his mud-pellet palace.

"What is it trying to do?" These questions arose almost simultaneously in the minds of everyone beneath the heavenly tribulation and all the Qi cultivators watching from afar.

The moment he laid eyes on that bronze vessel, Xu Zhong muttered in a trance: "Its imbalance of yin and yang... was intentional! Its sole purpose was to manifest this river of time. But what on earth is it trying to achieve?"

Xu Zhong could not fathom it—until the creature extracted a portion of divine blood from its own heart.

This divine blood was unlike any ordinary fluid; it was the heart's blood of Xifeng Lie.

And this blood amounted to a full basin.

Steering the bronze vessel, it sailed toward the past, scattering the divine blood from its hands as it navigated the waters.

Xu Zhong's eyes widened in utter disbelief: "Is it trying to alter its own past?"

The past was unalterable, and this river of time was not the genuine river of time, but merely the reflection of the Dragon-Sparrow's life—its very foundation.

What it sought to alter was its own origin.

"It possesses two kinds of divine blood. Although they served as its aid in the beginning, as its cultivation grew deeper, this divine blood became a burden."

To achieve the status of an innate deity, one must become the unchanging and immovable "One" within the inner scene.

Yet because it was born with two bloodlines, it had become a "Two."

Xu Zhong hid beneath the Four-Image Divine Banner, surrounded by the Creation Sword Array.

At this stage, the Jade Pool Thunder Tribulation could no longer be evaded by merely relying on the Four-Image Divine Banner; it required the reinforcement of the sword array.

"So, it intentionally broke its own yin and yang during the Jade Pool Thunder Tribulation, all so that it could shed its bloodlines at this very realm, leaving only a single one, paving the way to become an innate deity?"

It could never allow something so detrimental to its ascension as an innate deity to linger into the inner scene realm.

Xu Zhong watched as its bronze vessel sailed ever deeper into the past, scattering more and more divine blood until the basin of heart's blood was nearly exhausted.

Yet Xu Zhong could discern no anticipated change in the Dragon-Sparrow.

In his imagination, the creature should have shed its dragon blood at this juncture to become purely a Vermilion Bird, or alternatively shed its Vermilion Bird blood to become purely a divine dragon.

Yet nothing whatsoever had changed about its form.

In the next instant, Xu Zhong's expression shifted drastically: "No, it isn't trying to cleanse its bloodline. It wants to integrate both bloodlines and forge an entirely new race of its own!"