From a Zhengyi Taoist Child to a Master of All Laws

Chapter 663 Clash of Celestials
The great battle lasted a long time, with more and more terrifying and powerful auras arriving to surround and kill the celestial skeleton.

Li Yang was inside the Bagua Locking Spirit Furnace Formation when he felt the spiritual energy of the entire world suddenly stagnate. He knew that this was a terrifyingly powerful being setting up the formation to lock this space and prevent the celestial skeleton from escaping.

He peered through the thick fog and saw that the earth had cracked open, with molten lava billowing from the ground. Smoke and fire filled the air, and even space itself was distorted by the intense heat.

What kind of place is this? It's terrifying beyond belief. Li Yang saw unimaginable horrors splattering blood, the brilliant blood seemingly collapsing mountains and rivers, the entire sky filled with bloody light.
This was an earth-shattering battle. If it weren't for the supreme powerhouse setting up an array to suppress this vast mountain range and stabilize the space, it's hard to imagine how badly it would have been fought.

The celestial remains were still in the outside world, not hidden in a secret cave. Many earth immortals who heard the news went crazy, and the nine sects were equally tempted, with experts constantly joining the battle.

"Such powerful sword energy! This is an Earth Immortal from the Sword Tomb of the Nine Sects making a move!"

Li Yang was shocked. In the chaotic mist, a sword cry pierced the sky. A bright white sword light collided with the dark gold skeleton, and a fierce battle broke out, splashing up a lot of sparks. It was one of the few top masters who could leave a mark on the dark gold skeleton!

"Roar……"

Another roar shook the heavens and earth. A thousand-meter-long gluttonous beast appeared, its aura overwhelming mountains and rivers, possessing the imposing presence of a king. A burst of radiant light erupted from its mouth as it directly bit at the celestial skeleton.

However, in Li Yang's perception, this gluttonous beast was not a living creature; its interior was filled with strange rocks and stubborn iron, and a Taoist was sitting cross-legged in its mane.

"These are mechanical beasts from the Heavenly Mystery Hall of the Nine Sects! I didn't expect even the Heavenly Mystery Hall would come!"

Besides the gluttonous beast and the white sword light, there was also a mysterious man with white eyebrows and hair, holding four-colored banners, setting up an array to immobilize the celestial skeleton. He was extraordinary, somewhat resembling the Four Seasons Sect, and even gave Li Yang a sense of familiarity.

Li Yang was utterly shocked. He had underestimated the allure of a Celestial Immortal's skeleton to an Earth Immortal! With the addition of the Purgatory Valley, four of the nine sects now had Earth Immortal experts present, which was enough to shake the heavens and earth!

Besides these, there were several other Earth Immortals on the battlefield, whose identities Li Yang couldn't figure out.

After several days of stalemate, twelve Earth Immortals joined forces and managed to restrain the Celestial Immortal skeleton, creating a stalemate!
All the earth immortals believed that this skeleton held the secret to attaining celestial immortality.
The major cultivation holy lands believe that if they can refine this complete Celestial Immortal skeleton, their sects may gain another Celestial Immortal combatant! This Celestial Immortal skeleton is too extraordinary; their divine powers and immortal artifacts did not leave a single mark on it, as if it were cast from divine metal.

The cultivation techniques practiced by this celestial being's remains during their lifetime were definitely extraordinary! They were among the top combatants even among celestial beings!

With the twelve Earth Immortals working together, the golden shadow that seemed to support the sky was repeatedly suppressed, slowly shrinking from tens of thousands of meters to a size of a thousand meters.

As the celestial remains were gradually suppressed, Li Yang, who had been watching the battle for several days, frowned, his unease growing stronger.

Looking through the thick fog at the lifeless, empty eye sockets outside the celestial skeleton, Li Yang was startled. He vaguely knew that something was wrong!
This celestial skeleton is hiding its true nature!

Li Yang is now 100% certain that this old thing has its own consciousness! But at this moment it is pretending to be an ignorant dead thing, suppressed by twelve Earth Immortals, and is about to be refined.

Only two people knew about the strangeness of the Celestial Immortal's remains: Li Yang and Ling Guang. Right now, Ling Guang was probably calling people to Purgatory Valley, while Li Yang naturally couldn't go out to warn the Twelve Earth Immortals.

"What is this thing going to do? Is it going to cause a major upheaval?"

Realizing a certain possibility, Li Yang couldn't help but gasp.

The battle situation changed again. With the combined efforts of the twelve Earth Immortals, especially the three top Earth Immortals, the dark gold skeleton that had once covered the sky was finally suppressed to a normal size of two meters. It was stuck upside down in the soil and no longer had any divine power. Except for still emitting golden light, it was no different from the stubborn rocks in the mountains!

Just as Li Yang was wondering, the monstrous beast, over a thousand meters long and jet black, opened its massive black maw, emitting terrifying energy, and lunged at the white-robed man holding the four-colored flag beside it.

The brilliant, white sword light in the sky also struck, attacking the nearby Earth Immortal.

The melee has begun!

They all wanted to possess the celestial remains for themselves!

"You can fight all you want! But don't come any closer to me!"

Li Yang was startled, noticing the aftershocks of two Earth Immortals' supernatural powers approaching, and his expression changed drastically.

Now, the fire at the city gate has truly affected the fish in the moat. How could he have imagined that in just one week, the Nanming Crystal Mine would become such a terrifying place of trouble! Now, at this crucial moment of forging the sword, there's no way to even run away!
Fortunately, the twelve Earth Immortals were so engrossed in their work that their brains were practically spilling out, and none of them noticed the dense fog dozens of kilometers away.

This chaotic battle lasted for a full week, nearly affecting the formation several times. Li Yang's face turned pale, and he was taking three Fire Crow Pills a day instead of the usual three-day dose.
"Hurry, hurry!"

Li Yang's face was somewhat pale. Outside the formation, they were fighting to the death, but inside the formation, flames were raging. In the very center, the sword furnace was filled with clouds and mist, and various secret powers flowed on the Nanming Sword. It was clear that they had entered the final stage!
Outside the formation, the battle for the Celestial Immortal's remains seemed to be drawing to a close. Li Yang had been watching closely for the past half month, but his unease was growing stronger.

After nearly half a month of fighting, the original twelve Earth Immortals, plus those who arrived later, numbered about eighteen, but now only thirteen remained, all bearing injuries to varying degrees.

The final victor was the Taoist priest from Tianji Hall who controlled the Taotie mechanical beast. The white-robed man from the Four Seasons Sect had one of his four-colored banners bitten off, and his white robe was completely stained with blood. The bright white sword light in the Sword Tomb also dimmed. He was the most ferocious in this melee, and two Earth Immortals perished under his sword.

"No matter how much we fight over it, these celestial remains will still belong to me, Chi Mingzi!"

The Taoist priest controlling the gluttonous beast laughed wildly, manipulating it to bite into the celestial skeleton that was stuck in the ground.

Chi Mingzi is most skilled at creating puppets. If he obtains this skeleton, he is confident that he can refine a Celestial Immortal puppet. At that time, Chi Mingzi will be considered a Celestial Immortal giant!

Chi Mingzi licked his lips, while the giant black mouth of the Taotie beast spewed out a dark light. The twelve Earth Immortals around him gritted their teeth, but they were all seriously injured and powerless to fight anymore. They could only watch as Chi Mingzi took the treasure.

However, at that moment, a sudden change occurred! The previously lifeless celestial skeleton abruptly sat up, its bone claws growing larger, and with a gentle squeeze, it tore off half of the thousand-meter-long puppet beast.

Those were various divine metal materials as large as mountains, which were stuffed into the mouth of this dark gold skeleton. The bones, devoid of flesh and blood, ground together, making a teeth-grinding sound, and actually pulverized half of the Taotie's body, turning it into boundless divine light that surrounded it.

As he was chewing, the skeleton suddenly gave Akamiko a ghostly laugh!

What a horrifying scene this was! Chi Mingzi screamed, vomiting blood from the corner of his mouth: "This, this is not the remains of a celestial immortal! This is a sealed fallen immortal! He set up this trap to use us earth immortals as precious medicine!" He couldn't care less about the remaining half of his Taotie body. In the face of life and death, Chi Mingzi suddenly transformed into a beam of light and soared into the sky, but he was still a step too late. The skeleton forcibly tore off a leg and put it in its mouth to chew along with the divine metal ingredients.

"What era were you, senior? How could you make such a joke with us juniors?"

"All the Earth Immortals present here come from various sacred cultivation sites in the Realm of Ultimate Truth! Our sect also has Celestial Immortal Ancestors. If you go too far, my ancestor will stand up for us!"

One of the earth immortals was terrified and spoke up in fear, trying to invoke the Nine Sects to make the strange skeleton wary!

However, he was met with a bone claw. This earth immortal was already seriously injured, so how could he escape? Grabbed by the bone claw, his entire body was stuffed into the skull's mouth and chewed into bloody pulp!
Even its soul couldn't escape; it was ground to dust by those upper and lower teeth before it could even let out a scream.

With no hope left, the remaining ten Earth Immortals were terrified and fled on their swords without a second thought!
Previously, the combined strength of more than a dozen Earth Immortals could have suppressed this extremely weak skeleton, which had been sealed for countless years. However, now that all the Earth Immortals had fought to the death and were severely injured, and seeing such a horrifying scene, they dared not linger. They all used their supernatural abilities to escape for their lives.

At this point, the celestial skeleton could no longer be considered a skeleton. It had chewed and digested the bodies of the five earth immortals who had died on the battlefield. The originally empty skeleton slowly grew flesh and blood, as well as internal organs and meridians. Two fleshy lumps in the eye sockets wriggled and finally turned into a pair of golden divine eyes.

Those golden pupils, like a monarch of heaven and earth, fixed their gaze on the white-robed earth immortal of the Four Seasons Sect. With a boom, they leaped up from the ground and chased after the white-robed earth immortal.

The white-robed man's face was ashen; his features were contorted in the face of this life-or-death crisis. He roared at those behind him:

"Senior, do you really intend to exterminate them all?"

"As a celestial being, you have set up this trap to harm us! Even if you are a celestial being, you will still incur the wrath of the masses! The experts of the Nine Sects will take action, and no matter how fierce and powerful you are, you will ultimately be brought to your knees!"

However, just as the celestial skeleton was about to grab the white-robed man, a pair of somewhat rough, large hands suddenly reached out from the sky, a thousand meters in diameter, blotting out the sun, and pressed the celestial skeleton into the ground.
In an instant, the mountain collapsed, billowing dust and smoke. A middle-aged man clad in divine armor descended on a cloud of fire, looking down disdainfully into the valley below.

"Your aura is somewhat familiar, like someone I've known before, but it's been so long that I can't quite remember you."

"I have waited for half a month, and you are indeed strange!"

"Fellow Daoist, you have a connection with my Purgatory Valley. Please come and sit in my Purgatory Valley Puppet Room!"

The celestial skeleton, already taking on a human form, flew out from the collapsed mountain. The two fleshy spheres in its eye sockets, which had not yet grown eyelids, glanced at the middle-aged man in the sky wearing divine armor, and without hesitation fled in the opposite direction.

"Fellow Taoist, please stay!"

The middle-aged man, who seemed like a god, immediately transformed into a fiery cloud, chasing after the golden skeleton.

The series of unexpected events left even the fleeing Earth Immortal somewhat bewildered. Li Yang, who was watching all this through the thick fog from within the formation, was terrified and nearly fell from the sky.

"The Grand Elder of Purgatory Valley? When did he hide in the air?"

"Did he come for me? Or did Ling Guang tip him off and make him notice something was wrong?"

A thousand thoughts surged through Li Yang's mind in an instant. The middle-aged man wearing divine armor was none other than the Grand Elder, whom he had met twice in Purgatory Valley, a true Celestial Giant!

No one expected that he had arrived early and was silently observing everything until he was certain of the skeleton's strength before he made his move to capture it personally!
This was already considered a clash between two giants with the combat power of a Celestial Immortal. The Grand Elder of Purgatory Valley and that strange skeleton were extremely fast. With Li Yang's eyesight, he could not see the two of them in an instant, and could only feel the vibration of spiritual energy between heaven and earth.

Celestial Immortals, at that level they live as long as heaven and earth, every word and action carries the power of heaven and earth, and if they act recklessly, even an ordinary asteroid will be destroyed!

"It's the final push! Nanming Sword, if you don't hurry, we're really going to be wiped out!"

Li Yang gave a wry smile and, with trepidation, continued to increase the intensity of the fire. In an instant, the eight flames blazed once more, growing ever stronger, almost engulfing the Nanming Sword in the sword furnace, creating a hazy scene.

Li Yang's gaze remained fixed on the battlefield. Once the two terrifying figures left, the entire battlefield instantly became empty.

The original Purgatory Valley base had long been leveled, and the land was shattered and in ruins.

To Li Yang's relief, some of the surviving Earth Immortals were bold enough to follow, while others fled without looking back, clearly looking for a place to heal their wounds.

Amid Li Yang's unease, the mine remained quiet for several hours until nightfall, undisturbed by anyone.

Meanwhile, the Nanming Sword within the formation has reached its final moment!
Li Yang took a deep breath, his eyes bloodshot. Following the incantation of the sword control technique, he continuously formed hand seals in eight directions and cut his palms to allow his blood essence to merge with the Nanming Sword.

The Nanming Sword is Li Yang's natal magic sword. When it is stained with its master's blood, the entire sword body immediately trembles and moans, making a clanging sound!

Li Yang is sharpening the Southern Sea Sword with his own blood! At the same time, he is also inscribing his spirit upon it, truly becoming one with this deadly weapon. Once successful, even a celestial being or giant could not erase his mark from it.
"Your sword is extraordinary. It is formed by the interaction of the sun and moon energies and has absorbed countless immortal gold and divine materials. When it is born, it will cause a great commotion and may alarm some old things."

Just then, a slightly tired voice suddenly sounded from behind Li Yang. Li Yang's expression changed, and he almost twisted his meridians.

He quickly retreated, focusing his mind on guard, and activated the Golden Light Mantra and Earthly Fiend Divine Power. Li Yang was terrified and felt a sense of dread.

Less than a hundred meters behind him stood a gaunt man with a sallow complexion and a withered body, wearing a rusty suit of armor. His golden eyes exuded such a powerful aura that it was almost impossible to look directly at him.

"We meet again, little guy from Zuxing."

The thin man raised his head, seemingly smiling, though he looked so frail that a gust of wind could blow him over.

Li Yang's face was extremely ugly, and he couldn't manage a smile.

(End of this chapter)