The elder, clad in obsidian armor, furrowed his brow, a glint of sharp light flickering in his eyes. First, his gaze lingered upon the spectral Yellow Springs sprawling across the heavens, dwelling there for a heartbeat. Then, it fell upon the ethereal sword-qi of the Sword Saint, Ling Tianhou.

This time, his eyes blazed with an intense light, locking onto the sword-qi with unwavering focus. He inhaled deeply.

“This Yellow Springs, fashioned from the Dao, possesses power, yes, but it is merely a pale imitation, its threat hollow.

But this sword-qi… this sword-qi is potent… exceedingly potent! The wielder of such a blade must be a peerless master, his cultivation, I wager, has reached the third realm of Shattered Nirvana!”

Wang Lin had unveiled his twin skills – the Dao-infused Yellow Springs and the Sword Saint’s qi – not to engage in battle, but to intimidate.

Wang Lin had regained his clarity, the maddening influence of the Ascension Fruit suppressed. Reason now reigned. He knew this elder was beyond his current capabilities, let alone the unknown entity lurking within the black tower.

The elder’s gaze detached from the sword-qi, settling upon Wang Lin, and he fell silent.

An eerie stillness descended, broken only by the murmuring flow of the Yellow Springs in the firmament, its sound rippling outwards.

Suddenly, a colossal wave of divine sense erupted from the tower behind the armored elder.

“From whence did you learn that palm technique?!” The divine sense crashed like thunder, reverberating with overwhelming force.

The earth cracked and splintered beneath the onslaught, but the force halted ten paces before Wang Lin.

Wang Lin’s eyes narrowed. He recognized the voice, the very voice that had inflicted countless wounds upon him during his journey, injuries he had barely survived thanks to his mastery of Annihilation and Slaughter.

“I learned it from the Immortal Realm!” Wang Lin declared, his voice resonating with firm resolve.

“The Immortal Realm… Aye, he did venture there, long ago…” The vast divine sense murmured to itself, lost in contemplation.

Wang Lin retreated a step, sweat beading on his brow. No longer swayed by the Ascension Fruit, he felt a chill run down his spine.

“Seize him! Alive!” the divine sense commanded, before retracting into the tower, vanishing once more.

Without hesitation, the obsidian-clad elder surged forward, a lightning strike of motion aimed directly at Wang Lin. With his late-stage Ascendant Soul cultivation, he hung suspended in the air, forming seals with his hands, chanting in a low voice: “Wind!”

The word unleashed a tempest, a gale born from nothingness, tearing through the land. The earth shattered, and countless shards of rock were swept up into the maelstrom, hurtling towards Wang Lin.

Wang Lin’s face darkened. He retreated several steps, raising his right hand towards the heavens. The Dao-infused Yellow Springs obeyed, cascading down like a raging river, a yellow deluge sweeping forth.

The tempest met the Yellow Springs and faltered. The relentless power of Reincarnation tore at it, relentlessly drawing it into the churning river of souls.

“A youth who has already grasped his own Dao… Truly remarkable!” the elder remarked in a level tone. He formed another hand seal, pointing to the heavens. “Thunder!”

At his command, the sky was consumed by a storm, a black canvas marred by grotesque, monstrous faces etched into the swirling clouds.

As the word left his lips, the sky rent open with a deafening roar, and a bolt of black lightning descended, writhing and crackling with world-shattering force.

Wang Lin’s expression shifted to alarm. Without a moment’s hesitation, he raised his left little finger, locking his eyes upon the incoming lightning, and extended it!

“Yellow Springs Finger!”

He dared not treat this lightning art lightly. Situ Nan had once warned him that within the realms of cultivators, lightning arts were the most difficult to master. Only those with true, divine power could even attempt to wield them.

For lightning was the wrath of the Heavens, the power of the Heavens, and mortals were not meant to command it!

At the touch of his finger, the Yellow Springs roiled, the entire river surging in response to Wang Lin’s will. The river flowed backwards, a reversed torrent of reincarnation, aimed directly at the descending black lightning!

A catastrophic roar echoed through the heavens as the Yellow Springs began to crumble. But the black lightning, too, began to dissipate. Finally, after the Yellow Springs had suffered a third of its mass being obliterated, the lightning vanished!

“A worthy manifestation of the Dao!” The obsidian-clad elder sneered, and with another point of his right hand, he commanded: “Rain!”

The clouds contracted, and drops of black rain began to descend, each drop a poisoned arrow hurtling towards Wang Lin.

“Late-stage Ascendant Soul cultivation… Truly, it is beyond my current power to withstand. But to kill me? That will not be so simple!” Wang Lin’s eyes flashed, and with a stomp of his foot, he plunged directly into the Yellow Springs!

He became the Yellow Springs, the Yellow Springs became him. He was the Dao, he was the River!

The Yellow Springs, a third of its essence consumed, surged in response to Wang Lin’s immersion, forming a colossal wave that roared across the ground, transforming into a serpentine dragon in the blink of an eye!

Wang Lin stood at the dragon’s head, commanding its power.

The dragon’s head lifted, unleashing a primal roar. The roar of the Yellow Springs, the roar of Wang Lin’s defiant Dao, the roar of Wang Lin’s voice as he challenged the heavens.

Under the force of that roar, the falling black rain faltered, shattered into fragments, dissolving into wisps of black energy. In an instant, the sky was filled with a miasma of malevolent black smoke.

“A worthy manifestation of the Dao, but alas, your Dao is as nothing to me! I may not have a Dao of my own, but this armor, this obsidian armor, *it* has its own Dao!” The elder remained impassive, his face unmoved. With a cold laugh, he spread his arms wide, soaring higher into the heavens. He roared: “Wind!”

The tempest returned, howling and raging, coalescing into a swirling vortex in the sky. This was a vortex of wind, and its creation pulled the black smoke from the sky into its hungry maw. “Rain!” the elder commanded once more. Drops of black rain materialized within the vortex, each drop condensing into a droplet of pure demonic energy, dripping with corrupting power. “Thunder!”

A deafening thunderclap. Within the clouds, another bolt of black lightning crackled into existence. Even as it formed, tendrils of black electricity snaked and danced through the surrounding raindrops, weaving a deadly web across the sky.

This chapter is not over, please click on the next page to continue reading!

If you like Renegade Immortal, please bookmark it: (novelonl.com) Renegade Immortal 20 Novels Network has the fastest update speed on the entire network.

“Electricity!” the elder roared, his voice drowning out even the thunder! The black lightning, the rain, even the swirling vortex itself, descended with the speed of lightning, towards the earth!

Wang Lin looked up. This battle, he knew, would be the most significant he had ever faced. A battle unlike any other!
To challenge a late-stage Ascendant with the strength of an early one was folly, a path to certain doom, unless a miracle, a thing of defying the very heavens, should appear. Wang Lin understood this perfectly, for he possessed just such a wonder.

The sword-essence of the Ascendant Sovereign, Ling Tianhou – that was his salvation.

With a flick of his wrist, Wang Lin summoned the Soul Banner. A torrent of a hundred million vengeful spirits erupted forth, yet they did not soar to the heavens. Instead, they plunged headlong into the Yellow Springs.

“Ten thousand souls, united within the Yellow Springs!” he thought, his mind ablaze. “Fueled by the Ascendant Fruit, I once forced the Dao of the Yellow Springs into being. Now, with clarity of mind, I can forge the very Soul of the Springs!” The countless souls merged, coalescing into a single entity – the Yellow Springs Soul.

Empowered with a soul, the Yellow Springs trembled as the tempest of wind, rain, and lightning descended. Wang Lin, standing within the churning depths, scattered his nascent soul, weaving his will into its essence. A primal roar echoed from his very being as the river of the dead surged forth from the earth, unbound.

Now possessing a soul, the Yellow Springs moved with sentience, becoming a serpentine dragon of ochre, roaring to devour the celestial storm. Simultaneously, thirteen thousand strands of pure killing intent erupted from Wang Lin’s brow, embedding themselves within the dragon’s form, infusing it with a terrifying aura of slaughter.

This was the true Yellow Springs of Wang Lin, imbued with thirteen thousand strands of killing intent, a hundred million souls, and the very essence of his life’s journey.

The amalgamation surged forward, a force of nature unleashed, colliding with the elder’s descending tempest.

This was a battle of titans.

Black lightning crackled, raindrops seared with arcane power, and wind-vortexes amplified the storm. They met the Yellow Springs head-on. The heavens screamed as the earth trembled, fissures splitting the land in a chaotic dance.

The entire Ancient Battlefield seemed to shudder, as if rent asunder. The sky above shattered into fragments of light and shadow.

It was a battle of Heaven and Earth.

As the ground buckled, a multitude of rogue souls, too strong to be refined by the Tiger’s Roar, were cast aloft. Wang Lin’s eyes glinted. With a sharp flick, the Soul Banner unfurled into a sky-devouring tapestry of darkness. Countless souls were drawn within, transforming into tendrils of black miasma that surged into the heart of the Yellow Springs.

Amidst the earth-shattering chaos, the elder, clad in black armor, cast a baleful gaze upon Wang Lin. He shook his head. “This tempest,” he boomed, “is the weakest of my spells. Now, you shall witness the Dao etched upon my armor!”

“The Demonic Dao!”

The elder ran a hand across his breastplate. The dark armor writhed, and black demonic energy poured forth, coalescing into a scythe radiating an infernal aura.

The demonic energy within the scythe was potent, seeming to hold a power beyond the natural order. As it materialized, fissures ripped through the surrounding space, collapsing into nothingness.

The scythe wavered between the ethereal and the real, emitting a sinister crackling sound as it shifted.

The elder’s face contorted in agony, as if enduring unimaginable torment. From his brow, the horned demonic shade that had burrowed within him emerged, its expression mirroring the elder’s pain, but in reverse – it was utterly ecstatic.

The demonic shade fully emerged, dissolving into a wisp of black smoke that infused the scythe. In that instant, the blade seemed to awaken, and flashed towards Wang Lin.

Above, the Yellow Springs clashed with the tempest, the clash echoing across the heavens. Below, the demonic scythe hurtled toward Wang Lin, leaving a trail of hellfire in its wake.

Wang Lin’s gaze sharpened. He raised his right hand, and upon his fingertip, the sword-essence of the Ascendant Sovereign, Ling Tianhou, coalesced.

Ling Tianhou, master of the sword, who had carved four lesser heavens and forged them into four divine blades, was a name spoken in the same breath as Tian Yunzi. His sword-essence held unimaginable power.