Aspiring to the Immortal Path

The battle was over.

The battle had come quickly and ended quickly. Time-wise, it had only taken ten-some seconds in all.

If not for all the devastation it had caused, one might have taken everything that had happened for a dream.

While the battle had been extremely short, the consequences were severe.

Tang Jie's original body had died on the spot, and the corpse had been pulled through the gates of the Nether Domain. From a certain perspective, Tang Jie was dead, and all that was alive was an avatar that had cultivated to a rather high level.

The just-matured Yellow Court World had taken an unprecedented blow.

Numerous Wuxing had died, and of the ten-some Violet Palace cultivators, nearly a thousand Celestial Heart cultivators, and hundreds of thousands of other cultivators, only a scant few of the highest remained. The rest had all been slain!

This was a world-destroying apocalypse for the Yellow Court World. Whether or not the creatures of the domain could reemerge, and if the Wuxing would still be the same, were things that even Tang Jie wasn't sure of. This would require time and the world itself to nurture!

The Yellow Court World's singular continent had been broken into several parts, and the endless sea had flowed in, slowly pushing the land apart and separating them.

The thought of the Gold Immortal's might made all of them shiver.

Boundless Gold Immortals deserved their reputation as supreme existences.

As for Tang Jie, he had actually lost the least.

Once that Gold Immortal's hand had disappeared, all Dao power had been restored, and Tang Jie regained his powers. Xu Miaoran had also survived. Husband and wife embraced each other, fear still in their eyes.

After a while, Xu Miaoran said, "Is it okay that the original body entered the Nether Domain?"

She still didn't know that the original body was utterly dead.

After some thought, Tang Jie decided to keep this a secret, so he said, "Life and death are decided by Fate, and there is no point in fretting over it. Besides, isn't there also Little Three?"

The composed and confident look in his eyes caused Xu Miaoran to calm down.

They turned to the distant mountain, from which weeping could be heard.

A vast mountain range had been reduced to a single mountain.

Using all of his strength, Huang Wuji had just barely managed to protect the mountain on which the Star Radiant Gate resided.

But the Star Radiant Gate basically had only the mountain left. The buildings and spirit fields had all been destroyed, and even some people who hadn't been on the mountain had died terrible deaths.

A vast mountain range had become a wasteland and all the buildings had been turned to dust, leaving only devastation and ruin.

The formation wall that the Star Radiant Gate had been building for nearly a hundred years had been obliterated by the aftershocks of the battle within just a single day. All it had taken was the blast from a shockwave to wipe out everything.

Huang Wuji silently mourned the ruins.

A sect with an Earth Immortal had actually been used as bait! And then it had sustained grave losses on top of that, so he was understandably suffering from some shell shock.

He was utterly bereft of the calm and graceful manner of the past.

When Tang Jie saw him, he felt very ashamed.

He flew over to Huang Wuji.

"What are you here for?" Several Star Radiant Gate True Lords angrily glared at him. Although they knew that they were no match for him, that this was a person who could take the blow of a Gold Immortal and was probably even stronger than their ancestor, they still unyieldingly glared at him in fury.

Tang Jie wasn't angry, understanding that they had a reason for their hatred.

In the end, all of this was because of him.

Thus, he got straight to the point. "Reverend, this was a trap."

Huang Wuji looked at him. "What? You think this old man was in on it?"

Tang Jie shook his head. "Of course not. I'm only saying that it was the Heaven's Equal Sect that laid the trap, and all of us are victims. The Star Radiant Gate paid in blood, but that makes it all the more necessary to remain rational, or else someone can exploit this opening."

After some thought, Huang Wuji nodded. "I understand. After all, we killed someone from the Heaven's Equal Sect. When doing this, I knew that trouble would come to find me eventually. But given the Heaven's Equal Sect's domineering ways, if given another choice, the old man would still have killed them."

Tang Jie smiled. "Yes. Although we killed the people of those two sects, it was because they wanted to kill us. Since we felt no shame about our actions, there's no need for regret."n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

Although these words were somewhat repetitive, this was primarily to ensure that they shared the same viewpoint. After all the tragedies that had occurred, Tang Jie first needed to ensure that they were still on the same side and that the problems had arisen because of their enemy and not because of him. This ensured that their minds were united, for if there was enmity between them, there was no hope of staying friends.

After getting this acknowledgement, Tang Jie said, "Regardless, we have to resolve the problem. Since that Gold Immortal from the Heaven's Equal Sect failed to kill me, they will definitely try again. I can't remain here and must leave at once."

Huang Wuji nodded in understanding.

"But if I leave, what about the Star Radiant Gate? In today's battle, not only did I suffer unprecedented damage, the Heaven's Equal Sect also confirmed your relationship with me. Now that you've lost your value as bait, won't you simply be destroyed?"

Huang Wuji shuddered.

Tang Jie had voiced exactly what was worrying him.

Tang Jie could tell from his expression that he was right, so he said, "I'm afraid there's only one way out."

"And what is that?" Huang Wuji asked.

"Go to the Rosecloud Domain!" Tang Jie answered. "Even if this place won't accept you, there are places out there that will. No matter how long the reach of the Heaven's Equal Sect, it can't cover the entire Great Stellar Chiliocosm. If you develop somewhere else, things might even turn out for the better."

"'Develop somewhere else'?" Huang Wuji said in shock.

It wasn't that he hadn't thought of this before, but such things were easier said than done. And it could also be considered betraying one's homeland to run away from problems.

Moreover, not only would they have to deal with new people and places, the Vast Wilderness Continent was the biggest continent of them all. Any other place could only be smaller.

As said before, the level of the world decided the prospects of the cultivator, and size had a direct relationship to level. The Yellow Court World had only been able to raise a single Earth Immortal despite all of Tang Jie's investment, while the Rosecloud Domain's upper limit was True Immortal. Only a place like the Vast Wilderness World could produce so many Immortal Platform experts, even Gold Immortals and Saint Immortals.

To go from the Vast Wilderness Continent to the Rosecloud Domain was like going from the big city to the countryside. Who could accept it? And for Huang Wuji, this limited his development even more. He wasn't even able to become a True Immortal in the Vast Wilderness Continent, so what hope did he have in the Rosecloud Domain?

But he had to deal with the cruel reality before him, and there was seemingly no better option than giving up on this place. For this reason, he was hesitant.

Tang Jie saw what he was thinking and whispered to him, "The Rosecloud Domain is fighting a cultivator war."

"What?" Huang Wuji trembled.

He stared at Tang Jie, who nodded in confirmation.

"Who started it?" Huang Wuji asked.

This was a very professional question. The cultivation world operated on the rule of the strong, and this was even more true for cultivator wars. Thus, he was actually asking which side was stronger.

"We did. The Rosecloud Domain has one True Immortal and five Earth Immortals if you don't count me."

"And the target?"

"No True Immortals, and four Earth Immortals."

"Then it should be fine. But if my Star Radiant Gate goes, wouldn't we be taking someone else's place?"

"That's why you have to go now so that you can get a place for yourself," Tang Jie answered.

What had happened with the Wandering Palace told Tang Jie that forcefully partitioning territory could easily cause internal conflict. But if the Star Radiant Gate joined in the cultivator war and took some territory of the Blood River Domain for themselves, what had happened with the Wandering Palace would not repeat itself. For the Rosecloud Domain, it was perfectly fine to have another ally that could hasten the end of the war. If they could smoothly seize one domain, the Rosecloud Domain would grow much stronger, and then they could conquer more domains and grow stronger and stronger.

Thus, they would happily welcome the entry of the Star Radiant Gate.

As for the Star Radiant Gate, since the Rosecloud Domain had only one True Immortal sect, it meant that they would have a rather high status if they went over. Over there, they could be a major sect second only to the Basking Moon Sect, whereas here, they were struggling to breathe.

Huang Wuji and the leaders of the Star Radiant Gate quickly realized that this was an opportunity and decided to migrate.

The Heaven's Equal Sect wouldn't give them much time, so the Star Radiant Gate immediately set about packing their things. Fortunately, cultivators lived simple lives and just needed to stuff their possessions into Mustard Seed Bags. Besides that, Tang Jie also had the Mountain River State Diagram to take in everything, which made the journey even faster—the Yellow Court World was in a desolate state and needed people to work on it. Since they were free anyway, he might as well have them do some reconstruction.

Of course, there were also those unwilling to leave, and Huang Wuji permitted them to go elsewhere.

Tang Jie whisked away the Star Radiant Gate and flew off to the Five Origins Estate and its teleportation formation. With Nearby Horizon, this trip was extremely short.

Meanwhile, on the Nether River.

A huge mass of flesh was slowly floating through the air.

Like a giant ship, it flew off into the horizon.

Far in the distance was a towering mountain of bones, and at the peak of this mountain was a majestic palace of bones.