First Immortal of the Sword

Chapter 1809 - The Qingyi Fire Peach Tree

Before long, Jing Cheng took the lead. He and Jing Hongyu shot through the distant Dragon’s Gate. The two of them disappeared in the blink of an eye.

When the others saw this, they hurriedly followed.

“Xi Ning, I’m looking forward to seeing you in the ruins of the Dragon Palace,” said Qing Xiao. He coldly swept his gaze over Xi Ning, then led Jin Zhuliu, Gongyang Yu, and the others through the Dragon’s Gate.

Before long, only Su Yi, Xi Ning, and Fan Zhui remained.

Suddenly, Xi Ning asked, “Fellow Daoist, don’t you think that this expedition into the ruins of the Dragon Palace seems like a meticulously placed death trap?”

Su Yi nodded. “Everyone has ulterior motives, and we’re all vying for the good fortune left in the ruins. Fierce, brutal conflict is inevitable.”

He paused, his gaze deep and inscrutable, and looked at the Dragon’s Gate. “I’m sure everyone else is keenly aware of that, too. If someone really did lay a trap in advance, well, the Giant Whale Spirit Race are by far the biggest suspects.”

“In any event, you must be careful,” said Xi Ning.

Su Yi smiled. “You too.”

As they conversed, they passed through the Dragon’s Gate. Now, all of the participants had entered the ruins of the Dragon Palace. Nôv(el)B\\jnn

Immediately after they passed through the portal, the entire stretch of heaven and earth transformed.

Layers folded spatial power surged forth, like layers of waves, enveloping the towering Dragon’s Gate completely.

Everything quickly returned to normal. The boundless skies hung over the churning waves. There was no sign that the Dragon’s Gate had ever appeared here.

But then, murky gray light surged forth, outlining a book in the air. It silently opened, revealing a blank page.

A line of text appeared. “The curtains have opened, and the show has begun. Cause and effect have interwoven, and life and death will be determined amidst fire and blood.

“It’s up to me to write the ending of this tale!”

Kcch!

A familiar scene appeared. Countless tears appeared on the page, looking almost as if they’d been burned.

“Dammit! That anomaly not subject to the laws of cause and effect has appeared again! Why is this happening?

“I don’t care who you are! I’ll catch you!”

Before long, the seemingly infuriated text was erased, and a new line of text appeared.

“The ending of this tale... is mine to witness!”

Only now did the burnt marks on the page disappear.

Then, the mysterious tome transformed into a beam of gray light and vanished into thin air.

Shortly after, a little boat shrouded in Chaos Energy appeared over the horizon and silently approached the place where the Dragon’s Gate had stood mere moments prior.

The boat was only about ten feet long, and it was completely shrouded in dense, fog-like chaos energy.

An indistinct human silhouette stood at the head of the ship, but try as one might), it was impossible to see him through the mist.

The ship paused here briefly, as if searching for something. Shortly after, it shot into the distance and vanished once more.

...

The outer perimeter of the ruins of the Dragon Palace.

A stretch of ransacked peaks rose and fell. Everything was the deep crimson of blood, as if a rain of blood had drenched the landscape, staining the desolate mountains a permanent shade of red.

A strange tree grew on a bloodsoaked cliffside.

It was only about ten feet tall, with a bronze hue. Its leafless branches were swathed in red clouds, and a bright red single fire peach grew from its topmost branch.

The peach wasn’t big, only about the size of a fist, but it blazed like a miniature sun, and a rain of red light poured from its surface. It was indistinct, but it almost seemed as if the peach were breathing. It was continuously absorbing the crimson mist from throughout the surrounding area!

When Su Yi saw the tree in the distance, he couldn’t help but exclaim, “A Qingyi Fire Peach Tree?”

The tree was only about ten feet tall. That might not have seemed like much, but in truth, that was a shocking figure!

This was because Qingyi Fire Peach Trees only grew a single inch once every ten thousand years!

And they only bloomed and bore fruit after growing to three feet tall. In other words, Qingyi Fire Peach Trees had to grow for at least three hundred thousand years before they bore fruit!

But this tree was about ten feet tall! Su Yi didn’t even need to think to know that it had been born at least a million years ago, during the Primeval Era!

“Is my luck really so good?” whispered Su Yi.

He’d only just entered the ruins of the Dragon Palace, but he’d reappeared here, in this battered, blood-red landscape. He hadn’t even begun his search when he saw the Qingyi Fire Peach Tree in the distance.

His luck was so good that he almost felt as if meat pies were falling out of the sky.

It wasn’t that Su Yi hadn’t seen treasures before, but that Qingyi Fire Peach Trees were far too rare. Prior to the Age of Fallen Immortals, even Great Realm experts saw them as precious treasures that could only be happened upon by chance!

Wang Ye had only ever seen Qingyi Fire Peach Trees in ancient records. They said that the fruits contained the source energy of Qingyi Divine Fire. They could help Great Realm experts temper their Immortal Laws, and they could even help Great Unity Stage experts condense Great Realm Fire Sources!

The fundamental goal of Great Unity Realm cultivation was to condense a Grand Dao Fire Source. The Fire Source was like an eternal flame, as lasting as the Grand Dao itself!

The existence of Great Realm Fire Sources enabled Great Unity Stage cultivators to create their own Grand Dao Hidden Realms!

The Qingyi Divine Fire contained within the fruit of the Qingyi Fire Peach Tree was unquestionably a first-rate Great Realm Fire Source!

This was why Su Yi was so surprised to see this treasure the moment he entered the ruins.

As Su Yi pondered, he vanished, then reappeared closer to the tree.

The Laws of the ruins of the Dragon Palace really are different from the outside world. They’re far too thick and fierce. Such power of heaven and earth suppressed all beneath the Immortal King level. No one beneath the Miracle Realm could possibly fly here!

No wonder Jing Cheng said that Immortal Lords and under would face certain doom here. They couldn’t even contend with the power of the Laws here.

Su Yi approached the tree, his gait neither fast nor slow.

He could sense how strange and distinctive the Laws here were. Even with his early-stage Miracle Realm cultivation base, when he flew, he felt as if he were forcing his way through the mud.

This was the suppression of the Laws of Heaven and Earth!

That aside, the Laws here contained an extraordinarily strange, destructive presence similar to the Epoch Laws controlled by deities.

This told Su Yi that Jing Cheng was right; were those above the Great Martial Stage to come here, that strange destructive power would inevitably attack them!

Even Great Martial Stage experts had to proceed with the utmost caution to prevent the strange “power of heaven” from attacking them.

According to Xi Ning, the Dragon’s Gate leading into the ruins was placed here by an ancestral figure of the Dragon Palace. That means that one of their forebears was a god, and as a god, he or she must have mastered some kind of Epoch Law!

Assuming that’s indeed the case, it’s actually not all that strange for an unusual destructive power to exist within the Dragon Palace’s Laws of heaven and earth.

The divine misfortune that had existed since the Age of Fallen Immortals was, ultimately, the combined power of the gods’ Epoch Laws!

By the same token, the strange power within the Laws of the Dragon Palace was, itself, a kind of divine misfortune. The two were just that similar! Both were the product of Epoch Laws!

It seems I’ll have to be careful. The Dragon Palace had a god-level ancestor to oversee things, but they still met with destruction during the Primeval Era. It’s obvious how extraordinary the disaster that befell them was, thought Su Yi.

As he pondered, he continued toward the tree, and soon, he’d reached the cliff it grew upon. Nothing happened along the way.

But when Su Yi was just a few hundred feet away from the Qingyi Fire Peach Tree, he abruptly stopped in place, and his brow furrowed.

There was no danger! There wasn’t even anything ferocious lurking in the surrounding area, nor any particularly noteworthy disaster lying in wait.

This was far too out of the ordinary!

Good fortune and peril always went hand in hand. The rarer the treasure, the more terrifying the disaster accompanying it.

Yet now, even after drawing close to the Qingyi Fire Peach Tree, Su Yi sensed no danger at all. It just didn’t seem real.

Boom!

Suddenly, an enormous explosion went off like a thunderclap, and an arrow swathed in stingingly bright lightning shot through the sky. It appeared behind Su Yi and descended ruthlessly upon him.

Whoosh!

Su Yi shifted through the air, moving further away.

The arrow slammed into the cliffside, collapsing it. Even the Qingyi Fire Peach Tree fell.

At that moment, someone appeared out of nowhere, elusive as a ghost, and plucked the tree out of the air.

It was a long-robed man with graying temples.

Once he’d seized the Qingyi Fire Peach Tree, he instantly dashed into the distance, then whipped around, faced Su Yi, and grinned. “Sorry, but this precious treasure of heaven and earth belongs to us!”

Su Yi could tell at a glance that the long-robed man was a peak Immortal King of the Ba Serpent Spirit Race!

“Li Xuanjun, this is the nature of struggles for good fortune. We found this treasure first, so no matter how unwilling you might feel, you can only accept it.”

Meanwhile, an elderly archer in gray robes appeared in another direction. He gripped a bronze bow.

He was the one who’d shot that arrow and tried to assassinate Su Yi earlier.

When Su Yi dodged, the man in long robes seized the opportunity to swipe the Qingyi Fire Peach. Their cooperation was incomparably smooth.

“Let’s go,” laughed the man in long robes. He beckoned to the old man, then turned to leave.

“Wait,” said Su Yi. “Don’t you think there’s a problem with the Qingyi Fire Peach Tree?”

The long-robed man was briefly stunned, but then, he couldn’t help but burst into laughter. “Seems to me that you're the one with the problem! Enough. We were after good fortune. We have no desire to come into conflict with you, so heed my warning and don’t pester us!”

He and the old man in gray were already shooting into the distance.

But before they’d gotten far, something unexpected happened!

The long-robed man was just about to put the Qingyi Fire Peach Tree away when blood-red fog surged out of the tree and enveloped the long-robed man completely.

‘Hurry! Hurry up and save me!!” A desperate shriek escaped the long-robed man’s lips. “An evil spirit is trying to possess me!! No—!”

He struggled with all his might, baring his fangs and waving his hands as if trying to break free of something. His face was as hideously contorted as a malevolent spirit’s.

The elderly archer was horrified, and his hair stood on end. He in no way dared to go to his companion’s aid. On the contrary, he fled into the distance.

“See? I told you there was a problem,” said Su Yi. His sigh was tinged with pity as he appeared out of nowhere not far away.