Chapter 172: The Earthly Fiend Wood Calamity

Inside Ge Qian's dantian, the human pill slowly revolved. The dark yellow primordial pill was plump and smooth, with profound runes flowing across its surface. Inscribed upon it were the thirteen sword qi of the seven emotions and six desires.

The lust sword qi exuded an intoxicating ambiguity; a faint red light flickered, involuntarily causing one's body to grow feverish, blood to surge wildly, and ending in sudden, violent death.

The sound sword qi resembled a thousand illusory demonic melodies; upon hearing it, one would fall into a fantastical realm from which they could not extricate themselves, ultimately reducing them to a puppet-like walking corpse.

The scent sword qi was like a beautiful crape myrtle flower, with a pistil as sharp as a needle. Anyone who smelled it would instantly grow drowsy, dizzy, and suffer a toxic, fatal collapse.

The taste sword qi, once unleashed, sealed off a person's sense of taste, rendering them unable to distinguish right from wrong, friend from foe, and plunging their mind into total collapse.

The touch sword qi severed all of the opponent's senses, plunging their reactions into sluggishness.

The dharma sword qi could pierce through all dharmas under heaven; there was nothing it could not pierce.

The joy sword qi caused a person to know only exuberant jubilation, forgetting their very self, and sinking into a fatal abyss of happiness.

The anger sword qi drove people into a blinding fury that attacked the heart with raging fire, causing them to die of intense anxiety.

The sorrow sword qi plunged a person into utter despair, weeping bitterly, and driving them to a depressive end.

The fear sword qi filled individuals with terror and panic, leaving them in a state of restless dread.

The love sword qi was a selfless, boundless devotion that knew only giving without taking, willing to surrender everything and die a martyr for love.

The evil sword qi represented boundless depravity, overflowing with malice, causing one to completely lose themselves.

The desire sword qi stimulated bottomless, insatiable desires, burning away one's life force until death.

The thirteen strands of sword qi felt as tangible as reality, roaming and leaping atop the human pill.

Ge Qian opened his mouth and spat out the human pill. With a single point of his finger, the mighty and steadfast thirteen wills of the mortal realm converged from the great unknown and merged into the thirteen strands of sword qi.

It was as if the thirteen strands of sword qi had been granted entirely new lives, transforming into thirteen human faces with distinct expressions: sight, sound, scent, taste, touch, dharma; joy, anger, sorrow, fear, love, evil, and desire. Each expression was vividly rendered to the absolute extreme.

Ge Qian executed an incantation gesture, causing the thirteen sword qi faces to merge back into the human pill. He swallowed it down into his dantian, where it orbited and chased the Asura pill, both pills revolving around each other as they slowly nurtured and refined one another.

Just at that moment, a handsome young man materialized before Ge Qian. He smiled faintly at Ge Qian and said, "To be able to cultivate the Six Paths Sword Technique to the point of condensing two pills is enough to command my utmost respect. We have met once before, do you remember?"

Ge Qian's gaze turned sharp as he replied, "I remember. You are that mighty expert of the late Void Transformation stage. The entity you have brought here is merely a wisp of a split soul, am I right?"

"Astute eyes! Although I am merely a wisp of a split soul, I can manipulate a portion of this array's might. As long as you tell me the cultivation method of the Six Paths Sword Technique, we shall be friends. Otherwise, I will have no choice but to trap you within, leaving you unable to extricate yourself until you finally go mad and perish!" Han Li's split soul spoke fluently and with calm poise, maintaining the posture of one who held everything under complete control.

Ge Qian nodded and said, "Human calculations cannot surpass the heavens. I never imagined that someone would dare to meddle during a breakthrough right in front of a God Refinement stage cultivator. However, you forgot one thing: a split soul is a part of the divine soul. If it is injured, it will also inflict heavy damage upon the true body. Since that is the case, I shall exterminate you!"

With that, a colossal phantom materialized behind Ge Qian. Standing twenty zhang tall with three heads and six arms, it was as majestic and unyielding as a mountain. Its body was covered in scales the size of fists, wreathed in runes and coursing with countless flashes of lightning.

Of its three heads, the central one was identical to Ge Qian, while the two flanking heads possessed only outlines without facial features. Its entire aura was immensely formidable, and countless bolts of lightning and whirlwinds circulated across its Wings of Dimension. The phantom solidified considerably, and the six Asura arms grew even thicker and more ferocious.

The moment it appeared, the lightning-wreathed Wings of Dimension on its back expanded to thirty zhang in width and whipped violently toward Han Li's split soul.

The entire void erupted with deafening "bangs," creating a flattened spatial pocket isolated from the mortal realm, self-contained and completely severed from the outside world.

Trapped within this space, Han Li's complexion twisted wildly. He could sense that he had completely lost connection with the array, and he never imagined that Ge Qian would possess the King of the Six Paths.

He barked harshly, "Stop! I withdraw. Do not harm me, or else my true body will kill you! He is in the late Void Transformation stage, and moreover, the Supreme Elder of the Asura Gate. Spare yourselves from bringing a devastating catastrophe upon your Heavenly Star Sect!"

Ge Qian let out a cold snort. "Even if I spare you today, you would not let the matter rest. I know your kind all too well—relying on a shred of strength to bully cultivators everywhere for your own benefit. If I let this chance slip today, such an opportunity will never come again. Go to die!"

The updates on the "Listening Tide Pavilion" were the fastest. With a final point of his finger, a strand of desire sword qi broke through the void, transforming into a seductive face brimming with insatiable desire, flashing a faint smile at Han Li's split soul.

The split soul instantly ignited with the raging fire of greedy desires, burning itself down to ashes and vanishing entirely between heaven and earth.

Ge Qian reached out and employed the "Fated for Three Lifetimes" technique to lock onto the signature aura of the split soul, unleashing the "Infinite Tribulation Waves" directly toward Han Li's true body to strike at his primordial spirit.

Standing behind Fierce Sword, Han Li's face abruptly drained of all color, turning deathly pale. A mouthful of fresh blood rushed up to his throat, but through sheer force of will, he managed to swallow it back down.

At that exact moment, the primordial spirit within his sea of consciousness was struck by a thunderbolt of lightning. Though his primordial spirit was powerful, he had been completely caught off guard. Letting out a miserable shriek, he collapsed to the ground and vomited a mouthful of thick, congealed vital blood.

Two-tenths of his primordial spirit had been cleanly hacked away; without several decades, it would likely prove impossible to recover.

It filled him with a bone-deep hatred, cursing Ge Qian viciously in his heart and swearing to tear him limb from limb.

Fierce Sword turned around in bewilderment and asked, "Han Li, what is wrong with you?"

Han Li scrambled back to his feet in utter disarray, forcing an awkward smile and answering honestly, "Thank you for your concern, Sect Master. I was listening too intently to the seniors expounding upon the Daoist arts and nearly suffered a deviation in my cultivation. It is nothing serious; a bit of rest and I will be fine."

"I see. Pay attention to your mental state and properly recuperate," Fierce Sword nodded and said.

"Understood, Sect Master, this disciple will remember it," Han Li replied, though in his heart he was desperate to charge into the grand array right now and slaughter Ge Qian.

Yet he dared not. If he enraged the Sorcerer-Demon King, the other party could flick a finger and kill him a hundred times over. He could only endure, praying that Ge Qian would make another move so he could seize an excuse to strike him down.

Having finished dealing with Han Li, Ge Qian chanted an esoteric and obscure incantation. The primordial wills of the seven emotions and six desires belonging to the mortal realm, located deep within the endless void, began to writhe, appearing immensely excited.

Ge Qian reached out and executed the "Draining the Pond to Catch the Fish" technique, extracting the mortal realm's will of the seven emotions and six desires and driving it into the body of the King of the Six Paths.

The King of the Six Paths sat cross-legged, enveloped within a cocoon of baleful light, slowly refining the primordial will of the seven emotions and six desires from the mortal realm.

The mortal realm was the lowest-tier realm among the three realms, yet it possessed a primordial will no whit inferior to those of the other two realms.

After all, the three realms had originally been a single entity before finally splitting apart.

Suddenly, an overwhelming sense of life-and-death crisis enveloped his heart. From deep beneath the earth, a surge of vibrant, verdant wood elemental spiritual energy surged directly into Ge Qian's body. He felt every part of his physical form stiffen and turn woody, transforming him into an immobile wooden stake.

Ge Qian was secretly startled, realizing this was the Earthly Fiend Wood Tribulation. Such a tribulation was exceedingly rare, generally targeting exceptional cultivators who defied the heavens, combining the Earthly Fiend energy with wood spiritual energy surging from underground to turn the cultivator into a lifeless piece of wood before burning them utterly to ashes.