The spiritual artifact used by this cultivator in the late Kongming Realm was an axe. Paired with his cultivation of the Way of Strength, an axe strike was enough to put even Bai Shengyi, whose physical body had been tempered by heavenly lightning to be sufficiently tough, in a difficult position.
"Cough, cough..."
Bai Shengyi wiped the blood from the corner of her lips, her eyes fixed on the glint of cold light produced by the collision between the Heavenly Origin Sword and the axe. She raised her hand, and the Reincarnation Brush appeared in her palm.
"You have many divine artifacts, but do you still have the strength to wield them?" Tang Qiao curved her lips, as if she had already seen the end of Bai Shengyi's life.
As long as Bai Shengyi died, Yue Jun would be able to rest in peace.
In front of Tang Qiao, the Dream-Holding Vine and the Sui Xing Divine Fire firmly guarded Bai Shengyi, but this also caused the spiritual energy within Bai Shengyi to be rapidly depleted. Within a few breaths, she was already at the end of her rope.
She had only just ascended, and facing a cultivator in the Kongming Realm was still a struggle.
"You'll know soon enough whether I do or not," Bai Shengyi said calmly and suddenly slapped the cultivator in the late Kongming Realm.
Seeing this, the cultivator sneered, "Overestimating yourself!"
He raised his hand to meet Bai Shengyi's palm head-on, but then he heard Tang Qiao anxiously shout, "Nineteen, retreat! Her palm is poisoned!"
Nineteen glanced and saw that Bai Shengyi's hand was covered in a patch of red powder. Without a moment's hesitation, he immediately turned to retreat. This retreat exposed his back to Bai Shengyi.
Bai Shengyi's gaze turned cold. The characters written by the Reincarnation Brush had taken shape—
"Ice and Snow, Boundless."
Suddenly, the temperature plummeted.
A cold wind swept in, and vast ice and snow began to freeze inch by inch from the soles of their feet to the tips of their hair. What was most bizarre was that as the ice and snow spread, their life force seemed to be drained away.
The two cultivators entangled with Wen Bùtíng and Old Man Zhang, who were merely brushed by the wind, turned pale and quickly retreated. Nineteen and Tang Qiao, who were directly facing the wind and snow, had their hair turn white in an instant.
"Damn it!" Tang Qiao's killing intent surged, and a flicker of rage erupted in her calm eyes, "I still underestimated you."
With the enhancement of divine artifacts and the rules of time, this piece of land had unknowingly become an opponent to Bai Shengyi.
Bai Shengyi spat out more than ten mouthfuls of blood. Her dantian and sea of consciousness felt a needle-like, dense pain. She had no doubt that if she were not already in the form of an immortal, she would have collapsed on the ground by now.
She propped herself up with the Reincarnation Brush, barely able to stand, and curved her lips into a shallow smile, "Beautiful Fairy, you see, you cannot kill me, and I cannot do anything to you. How about we stop here today?"
Despite her words, the severe cold and cruel ice and snow showed no signs of weakening; in fact, they became even more ferocious than before.
"Shengyi! Are you crazy? Are you playing with your life?" The Reincarnation Brush was the first to sense the turmoil within Bai Shengyi's sea of consciousness and wished it could bang its shaft against Bai Shengyi's head!
Why did this master never give it a moment's peace! At this moment, she was madly extracting her spiritual power and mixing it with her divine sense, externalizing it into ice and snow attacks.
Was this how divine sense was supposed to be used!
However, what made the Reincarnation Brush even more terrified was that in the next instant, it realized that Bai Shengyi was sacrificing her own lifespan to gain spiritual power.
"You... Where did you learn this forbidden art!" The Reincarnation Brush itself was on the verge of going mad. It had been with Bai Shengyi all these years, and Bai Shengyi had never encountered anything like this!
It completely forgot that although it followed Bai Shengyi, it was not always conscious.
"Tang Qiao will not let me go," blood gushed out again. Bai Shengyi calmly wiped it away, analyzing her situation. "I don't want to let her leave either. Moreover, if this drags on, Old Man Zhang and Wen Bùtíng might leave first, and then my pressure will be even greater. It's better to seize this opportunity and make a big move..."
As she spoke, she took out a red porcelain bottle from her embrace. Inside was a dark green pill, almost blue-green, exuding a distinctly wild aura. As soon as it was poured out, the pill's skin cracked, emitting a violent and fierce medicinal fragrance.
"You're going to eat this?" The Reincarnation Brush's voice suddenly rose.
This was the pill Bai Shengyi had prepared for herself to withstand the tribulation of ascension after entering the Mahayana realm. Seeing the specialized red bottle for the medicine, it was evident that this pill was different from the ones Bai Shengyi had given to Old Man Zhang.
The medicinal properties of this pill were extremely potent, with no other effect than to mobilize all the spiritual energy and life force within the body without restraint, raising her cultivation.
Bai Shengyi had prepared this pill for her tribulation, but she hadn't even taken it during the tribulation. Now, she had taken it out.
Watching Bai Shengyi swallow the pill without blinking, the Reincarnation Brush felt that Bai Shengyi had truly gone mad!
"Don't be afraid, Little Reincarnation, it's just a small risk." Bai Shengyi's tone was still as nonchalant as ever, but her eyes blazed with a determined wildness.
Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. If she really let Tang Qiao go, Tang Qiao would definitely come back.
Thinking of this, Bai Shengyi brandished the Heavenly Origin Sword and slashed down, her fighting spirit sharp, "Since the beautiful fairy is unwilling to let me go, then continue fighting with me!"
"Boom!"
The sword light carried thunder and fierce flames.
Tang Qiao's whip, merely a Saint-grade spiritual artifact, finally could not hold on and shattered into powder. But she couldn't afford to care, as she was so shocked she was speechless: "You..."
Hadn't she just been in the mid-stage of the Spiritual Manifestation Realm? How did she suddenly reach the Kongming Realm?
Why didn't the advancement in cultivation trigger heavenly lightning?
It was Nineteen next to her who saw it at once. "She used some secret technique to forcibly improve her cultivation. Lady Tang Qiao, she can't hold on for long."
"Kill her!" Tang Qiao said sternly.
If at first, she had genuinely wanted to avenge Yue Jun, then by now, she felt a sense of pressure emanating from Bai Shengyi.
That kind of terrifying potential for progress was enough to make her heart tremble, and a subtle yet undeniable sense of being suppressed.
"Heh, come on!"
Bai Shengyi let out a cold laugh and raised her sword, charging towards Nineteen.
The improvement in her cultivation had clearly narrowed the gap between her and Nineteen. Bai Shengyi no longer had to dodge in a flustered manner due to the suppression of realms. Her sharp and unrestrained moves allowed her to fight Nineteen to a draw; no, she even had the spare energy to deal with Tang Qiao, who occasionally crossed the defensive line of the Dream-Holding Vine and its kin.
The more the battle progressed, the tighter Tang Qiao's lips became.
She watched as Bai Shengyi ruthlessly sacrificed an arm to sever Nineteen's other arm, losing an arm herself but not caring, and then stabbed Nineteen again, directly forcing Nineteen to lose all fighting capability; she watched Bai Shengyi's soaring fighting spirit, which slaughtered gods and kicked Buddhas, and realized that even with her and Nineteen's combined efforts, they couldn't suppress her. She finally began to panic.
Tang Qiao bit her lip and sternly shouted, "Gate of the Underworld!"
With a roar, a gate that looked somewhat familiar to Bai Shengyi appeared before her. Before Bai Shengyi could recall where she had seen this gate, it suddenly opened, stirring up a whirlwind and attempting to pull her in!
"Little Friend Bai!"
"Fellow Daoist Bai!"
Old Man Zhang and Wen Bùtíng watched from afar, wanting to help but unwilling to use their full strength, they could only watch helplessly as Bai Shengyi's figure was blown away—
Then, suddenly, a figure rapidly swept past. Bai Shengyi was caught by the waist and leaped, landing back on the ground.
"A Si?" Bai Shengyi looked at the newcomer in astonishment.