The double-bladed sword clashed against the solidified wall of darkness, but no matter how much of his power he sunk into his spiritual weapon, Qinghe couldn't break through. It seemed that this was the difference in the level of power between a deity and someone in eighth realm. This disparity seemed nigh insurmountable by sheer skill or strategies alone.

From behind Xie Xingye, several thick and rough-looking vine-like black appendages extended out, then abruptly shot towards Qinghe in concert.

Qinghe leapt up and tried to slice away a dark vine, only to find that he once again couldn't cut through it. His power was simply insufficient.

Understanding this, Qinghe's expression turned grim even as he focused on dodging the black vines. As expected, keeping a deity occupied for long was still difficult for him due to his cultivation being in a lower realm.

In that case, there was still that one thing he could do to gain a little edge…

While that bold idea flashed in Qinghe's mind, outside the Water Prison, Jing Shui was frowning hard in concentration.

His eyes seemed unfocused as he stood in place with a blank expression. His spiritual artifact, the golden fan, hovered in the air in front of him, fully open. Large amounts of spiritual energy flowed out of Jing Shui and into the fan before being distilled into the spiritual force required to cast and uphold the Water Prison.

Since this dome of water would have to be able to contain the stray attacks of a deity level being, Jing Shui had to focus completely on keeping the structure stabilized at all times while quickly regenerating any patches of water that were damaged when Xie Xingye's black vines knocked against the inside of the dome with force.

A few minutes after Jing Shui set up his Water Prison, Wu Xiao silently arrived at his beloved's side and drew a protective formation around them to keep the dwindling population of ghouls away.

Now that he had helped cast so many defensive barriers, Wu Xiao also had to constantly expend his spiritual energy to keep them up and running. Thankfully, his sect's disciples helped shoulder the burden from within the barriers, and so Wu Xiao had the time to come and accompany his lover.

His arms tenderly encircling his Ah-Shui from the rear, Wu Xiao took a deep breath and tried not to grimace at the throbbing pain of his internal injuries.

At a distance from them, Zhen YiLan had joined Liu Xue in fighting against the black dragon, aiming to keep it engaged so that it won't be able to join the deity while he was being stalled by Qinghe.

Once Zhen YiLan arrived, the disciples of the Golden Sun Sect were all sent away to aid in exterminating the ghouls or to get medical attention, since most of them were b.l.o.o.d.y and beaten, unable to stand up against the powerful dragon for long.

After ascertaining that the ghouls would soon be wiped out by the other disciples, Chen Xiande, along with the twins, also joined Zhen YiLan to keep the dragon in place. Though they really wanted to help Qinghe more directly, they also didn't want to disrupt whatever plans he had. All they could do was cast an occasional glance at the two battling figures inside the transparent water dome.

But what they saw through the curtain of water did not bode well for Qinghe.

Inside the giant dome, Qinghe was indeed not having an easy time. He had to simultaneously evade the attacks of those dark vines while also splitting his attention to keep track of Xie Xingye himself to make sure he wouldn't suddenly charge at him.

But despite all this, Qinghe remained calm and collected. After all, he was only testing the waters now. He would patiently bide his time until he saw an opening.

And Qinghe's chance came soon enough.

As one of the dark vines broke through yet another of his wind barriers, it whipped across Qinghe, tearing the front of his robe and the edges of his sleeves as he brought his hands up to protect his face.

Setting up another wind barrier around himself, Qinghe lowered his arms and looked down at the bloodstained front of his robe with dismay.

Several slices, some shallow and some deep, were scattered on his robe, their edges stained a telltale dark red.

Qinghe wondered if he could manage to get enough time to pop a blood replenis.h.i.+ng pill before he toppled over due to blood loss, or if he could somehow change his robes before they grew tattered enough to just slide off him in ribbons.

However, unexpectedly, the dark vines that had been hammering his barrier all this time abruptly halted.

Raising his head, Qinghe saw an expression of shock and disbelief spreading over Xie Xingye's face.

"Feng Qinghe… So it was that Feng after all…" he muttered to himself.

Though his reaction puzzled Qinghe, he did not give up this small window of opportunity

Suddenly putting on an explosive burst of speed, Qinghe rushed up to the stunned deity and slashed at his chest.

Rather than using his vines, Xie Xingye instinctively brought up his arm to s.h.i.+eld himself. But unlike with the vines, Qinghe's spiritual weapon easily managed to slice clean through his arm.

Trailing a spray of blood, the severed arm flew off to the side, leaving behind a stump that ended just below the elbow.

Grunting in pain, Xie Xingye staggered back. His arm quickly regenerated at a visible rate as newly formed bone began pus.h.i.+ng out while reddish muscles and bluish veins started wrapping around it.

Leaping back to put some distance between them, Qinghe placed the palm of his hand against his chest, feeling the ripped fabric of his robe that had gone soggy with blood under his hand.

With a small smile, Qinghe injected some power into his chest, his face whitening at the new wash of pain beginning to spread from within.

A delicate and intricate formation slowly came to life under Qinghe's palm, spanning the entirety of his chest. After flas.h.i.+ng once with bright silver, the formation slowly began to fade from outwards in, dissolving, and eventually disappearing.

Qinghe felt a searing blast of agony immediately burst inside his chest and dropped down to one knee.

Outside the water dome, Wu Xiao's back snapped straight in shock, his expression ghastly.

"That Xiao Feng… what did he just do!?" he spoke aloud in alarm.

Just now, he had felt the familiar connection he had with Qinghe's restrictions as its caster wavering and beginning to weaken. The constant stream of energy he had been spending to maintain the Soul Sealing spell on Qinghe's soul had suddenly rushed back into him, causing Wu Xiao to stagger at the sudden lightening of a burden he had been bearing for more than two decades.

This could only mean one thing―

Qinghe had used the key spell and had unraveled the restrictions around his soul.

With the restrictions removed, Qinghe's level instantly began soaring, unheeding of his body's capacity. His core protested at the pressure grinding over it due to this abrupt influx of power.

Gritting his teeth, Qinghe forcibly bore this all-consuming pain that felt as if every fiber of his being was splintering apart into miniscule pieces.

As moment after moment slowly ground along, the agony finally subsided. He immediately became aware of the bright rush of power flooding his body, overflowing through his spiritual pathways and pus.h.i.+ng his cultivation to break through level after level in swift flashes.

Quickly gathering his bearings, Qinghe forced his cultivation to stop just as it reached the realm of demiG.o.d. Any more and he would be restricted by the rules of this world. After all, he still remembered how his father had told him that if two deities unleashed their power at once, the world would be torn apart, so it would be prudent to restrain his level to that of a demiG.o.d.

When Qinghe finally opened his eyes, he saw that Xie Xingye was still standing at the same place, his arm already having regenerated while his face remained frozen in a mask of shock.

Seeing that Qinghe's gaze had focused on him, Xie Xingye snapped out of it enough to speak, "You, why do you look so much like her? It can't be…are you Chunyi and her husband's son?!"

Straightening up from the ground, Qinghe blinked in realization and looked down.

Sure enough, the most recent slash had torn into the part of his chest where he had plastered the appearance changing talisman under his clothes. Was that why the deity had halted in shock before? Because he recognized his facial features?

Interrupting this thoughtful silence, Xie Xingye burst out again, "Tell me! Feng Qinghe, are you Chunyi's son?!"

Qinghe slowly nodded. Since it seemed that the deity had already figured it out on his own, he saw no reason to hide it. "Yes, I do remember being told that my mother's name was Feng Chunyi, though I do not know how much I resemble her."

Hearing this, Xie Xingye barked out a hoa.r.s.e laugh as he observed, "By the way you speak, it seems like you haven't met your parents yet after falling down to this plane. How about this―Because you are Chunyi's son, I am willing to let you go if you decide to leave this world and go elsewhere. I might even let you take a few of your loved ones along with you. So won't you stop this meaningless fight with me and save yourself? I would hate to hurt Chunyi's son, but I will still not hesitate to do so if you keep standing in my way."

Qinghe did not even have to think about it before he answered, "I'm afraid I will have to decline your generosity."

Xie Xingye's smile turned rueful. "It seems that you've inherited your father's sense of justice. A pity."

After that, there were no more words left to be spoken.

The dark vines shot at Qinghe all at once even as Xie Xingye summoned a simple double-edged saber with a black hilt and charged towards him.

Qinghe quickly infused his spiritual artifact with his will, splitting it into two and molding it until it turned into a pair of identical, single-edged swords with curved blades.

Now that his level had increased to that of a demiG.o.d, Qinghe had a lot more spiritual energy at his command, though it also meant putting more undue strain on his core.

But right now, he couldn't afford to keep holding himself back anymore. Against the might of a deity, even giving it his all might not be enough.

With grim determination, Qinghe swept aside the vines with a powerful blast of wind and sped forward.

The two sides collided and waves of raw energy burst outward, battering the inside of the Water Prison and almost bringing it down.

The golden fan floating in front of Jing Shui trembled as if about to break.

Thankfully, Wu Xiao was able to send out his silver threads of spiritual power to reinforce the water dome in time, silver sigils and symbols layering over the transparent hemisphere of water like swirls of intricate embroidery.

Inside the Water Prison, Qinghe and Xie Xingye battled, the clashes of their powers making the sky tremble and the earth shake.

Wielding his dual swords while accompanied by his spiritually charged wind, Qinghe fought against Xie Xingye and held his ground this time.

Sometimes his swords slithered into the Xie Xingye's guard like snakes, sometimes they struck swift and hard like lightning. They whispered intangibly like the wind before slamming apart the opponent's defense like a sledgehammer.

Qinghe's style was inconsistent yet fluid, always changing, adapting, ever unpredictable like the direction of the wind.

His footwork was lighter than air, his toes barely touching the ground as he leapt and dodged, swerved and ducked, constantly in motion and slippery like an eel, always evading capture with the most elegant yet efficient moves, floating between those grasping black vines like smoke, untouchable.

Like a storm of blades, Qinghe sliced at Xie Xingye again and again, never giving him an opening to retaliate, leveraging his speed and precision against the not-as-skilled saber of his opponent.

From what he'd understood till now, Qinghe deduced that Xie Xingye must have been sealed in the Valley of the Terrified Dead a long time ago. This seal had only started to get undone thirty years ago due to the large-scale spiritual fluctuation caused due to Qinghe's fall, which was also when Xie Xingye had said that he had begun to awaken.

Which meant that until then, Xie Xingye must have been in a dormant state with his powers restrained.

Since this was the first time he seemed to have ventured out soon after he was able to escape the confines of the valley, Xie Xingye's state would be at its worst. Though this would have been the best chance to take him out, all the sects and their disciples were currently unprepared and lacked the coordination or a strategy strong enough to make it work. Qinghe could only delay it, pus.h.i.+ng his skills to the maximum to give time for the Grandmaster and his Sentinels to arrive and take over.

As focused on the battle as he was, Qinghe couldn't even afford to redirect the small amount of concentration required to make his emotions show on his face. His expression grew flat, his eyes glinting with icy sharpness, no warmth or mildness to be seen in his features.

As he kept fighting, Qinghe's spiritual senses were expanded to the maximum as he manipulated his spiritual force, directing it to clash against the deity's smoky vines that had begun to struggle against the Water Prison in an attempt to break out and attack the people outside.

On top of that, Qinghe's mind was constantly calculating, using both intelligence and instinct to observe the slight s.h.i.+fts in the deity's attention, the little unconscious twitches of muscle and the small movement of his eyes, compiling them all into information that would help him predict where the deity would strike next, be it physically or with his spiritual power.

Meanwhile, the other disciples who were fighting outside the Water Prison felt insuppressible amazement in their hearts.

After all, the person Qinghe had so dauntlessly taken on in a fight was a deity who'd once ascended! Not to mention the disciples, even an Elder or a sect master would at most only be able to exchange a few blows with a deity. And here this Feng Qinghe was in fact lasting so long and actually putting up a decent fight!

It was simply unbelievable!

And just looking at how calm he was being, the respect they already had for Qinghe bloomed into awe.

If they weren't still busy with eliminating the remaining ghouls, they would all sure as h.e.l.l be crowding around to watch with their eyes wide with wonder and their jaws stuck to the ground. It was simply a shame to miss this level of fighting!

With renewed vigor, the gathered disciples continued to hack into the ghouls.

Compared to a deity, what were these powerless ghouls? They could easily take care of these things and show that demonic deity the might of the righteous cultivators!

Thus, with their fighting spirit rekindled, the disciples fought harder.

On the other hand, things were not as glorious or easy for Qinghe as the watching disciples thought.

Even as he continued to battle, Qinghe knew that he couldn't win purely by spiritual or physical might alone against a deity who had once ascended, but he could use his mind and the precision he was so good at to make up for the gap.

But despite all this, his physical strength, which hadn't yet had a chance to increase due to the sudden rise in his realm, was already failing.

His body grew weaker with every blow and parry, his cultivation core struggling to keep up with the frantic outflow of spiritual energy as his meridians strained to constantly channel the ma.s.sive amount of power Qinghe was circulating through them. His demands of his body were too high and his physical strength couldn't be sustained.

He was slowly, painfully falling apart.

His core sent out waves of blunt agony. Blood churned in his stomach as it tried to force its way up to his lips. It felt like his bones were melting, every nerve ending sparking sharply with unfathomable pain. It was as if someone was pulling out his veins and blood vessels, reaching inside to crush his organs one by one, slowly, torturously. The excruciating agony was enough to dull one's consciousness and blur one's sight, but Qinghe still persevered.

Stopping now was not an option. He could only push himself past his limits and protect his own life at least at the cost of his core and physical health. It was not just his life that depended on it, the sects would fall too if he couldn't hold on until his father and his lover arrived to take over this battle against this demonic deity called Xie Xingye.

But even so, Qinghe desperately needed to rest his breaking body soon.

He was not willing to continue in this condition and risk it. His life was after all treasured by many people apart from him now, and he couldn't bear to disappoint them by disregarding himself to this degree.

And so, with a flick of his wrist, Qinghe took out a stack of talismans and flung it in front of him. The talismans floated up and swiftly arranged themselves into a neat barricade in the air, the characters glowing as they activated.

The blows and slashes of spiritual power the deity kept hurling his way, along with the offensives of the black vines, were temporarily blocked by the talismans. Qinghe finally let out a strained breath in relief.

The wall of paper would barely hold on for a few moments, but Qinghe really needed these few moments to rest his body that had been pushed far beyond its limits.

Holding the back of his hand against his too-pale lips, Qinghe tried to dampen the violence of the coughs that shuddered through him. Every cough that was pulled out of him seemed to rip through his organs as it came out, tearing at his already fragile innards. Turning to the side, he spat out a stream of blood that erupted inside his chest due to his incessant coughing.

Having been keeping an eye on Qinghe all this time, Chen Xiande and the twins grew pale at witnessing his weakened state.

"Don't just watch, go and a.s.sist your martial brother!" Zhen YiLan barked from the side.

The twins didn't need to be told twice as they dashed towards the gleaming dome of water.

Chen Xiande hesitated a bit, looking at his master with worry.

Huffing, Liu Xue rea.s.sured him from the side, "I'll make sure your precious master keeps breathing, so hurry and go. It doesn't look like Xiao He can last much longer."

And so, Chen Xiande also set out, running swiftly towards his junior brother.

Seeing that these disciples were heading towards Xie Xingye to gang up against him, the black dragon roared and jumped up to begin flying in their direction.

But before it could even unfurl its wings fully, Liu Xue leapt up and brought down the serrated edge of her semicircular saw onto the extended neck of the dragon.

With a loud clang, several of the hardy scales cracked as the dragon was pushed back down into the ground.

Taking this opportunity, Zhen YiLan swallowed the pain brought by his remaining injuries and summoned another fire construct.

A large, thick insect with long spider-like legs, its body covered in golden flames, appeared above the black dragon. Giant orangish wings shaped like that of a dragonfly fluttered delicately on the insect's back as a row of white spikes ran down the spine of its segmented golden carapace.

It's intricate wings abruptly stilling, the chimerical insect dropped right down onto the dragon's back, its spindly needle-thin legs piercing through the delicate membrane of the black dragon's wings, pinning it in place.

The dragon groaned at the stabbing pain tearing through the sensitive nerve endings in its wings.

Not letting go of this chance to take advantage of her immobilized opponent, Liu Xue struck the side of the dragon's neck again and again, the serrated edge of her spiritual weapon carving grooves into the thick and tough scales.

Restrained and occupied in this way, the dragon let out a mournful roar at being unable to aid the demonic deity as it thrashed and struggled in place helplessly.

Meanwhile, the twins reached the Water Prison and the Jing Shui who was standing just outside it.

Knowing that they wouldn't be able to enter the dome unless Jing Shui lowered it, the twins hurriedly called, "Senior Brother Jing, take down the Water Prison! Otherwise we won't be able to get to Senior Brother in time!"

But Jing Shui remained unresponsive, his face still blank, all his focus concentrated entirely on maintaining the dome of water with no attention to spare to comprehend what was going on around him.

Seeing this, Wu Xiao decided to intervene.

He lifted his arms and gently held his Ah-Shui's face between his hands, then using his fingers…he ruthlessly pinched and pulled at those soft cheeks.

"Ah-Shui, snap out of it right now and stop looking like a fish sleeping with its eyes open!"

The twins, "…"

Though they were glad that they weren't fed more dog food from their seniors, they still didn't know how to react to this weirdness.

Feeling the sting in his cheeks and the familiar voice yelling something infuriating near his ear, Jing Shui immediately lost his concentration, causing the Water Prison to waver.

"Wu Xiao, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d! What the h.e.l.l do you think you―"

"Ah-Shui," Wu Xiao called out to redirect his lover's attention. "Xiao Feng can't hold in there much longer. You need to lower the Water Prison and let people in to help."

Jing Shui blinked in surprise, then seeing that Qinghe's situation was indeed not good, he hurriedly lowered the water he was using to make up the dome and let it sink back into the ground.

With a snap, the hovering golden fan shut itself before dissolving into light.

Unwilling to wait any longer, the twins hurriedly rushed towards Qinghe.

Jing Shui wanted to see if he could help his friend too, but first…

"Wu Xiao, just when are you going to let go of my cheeks?" Jing Shui asked his lover in a toneless voice.

"Hm? Oh sorry," Wu Xiao apologized, then reluctantly let go of those soft cheeks. It wasn't his fault that they felt so good in his hands!

His eyes darkening, Jing Shui barely managed to stop himself from saying something sarcastic, then he sighed exasperatedly. "Wu Xiao, you stay here and rest. Don't think I didn't notice how bad your condition is. If you let yourself get hurt anymore, then don't think I will ever let you sleep near me again!"

With this effective threat made, Jing Shui also finally set off in Qinghe's direction, leaving behind a softly smiling Wu Xiao who could only shake his head at his beloved's way of showing care.

Just then, the wall of talismans that Qinghe had set up to defend himself finally shattered.