The First Immortal of Destiny

Mingpeng also had a Storage Treasure on him, but together with the vast majority of spiritual items in its storage space, it was destroyed under the terrifying onslaught of the Soul Generals Array!

Only some mines of extraordinarily hard material were left, scattered here and there across the battlefield.

Shen Mo summoned one Demon Soul General after another to gather these scattered spiritual materials and put them all into the Sword Zone.

As for the human-skin magic robe left behind by this great demon, Shen Mo burned it into ashes with Pure Yang Fire, then gathered the ashes and buried them, raising a grave mound for it... after all, most of the human skin used to refine this robe came from Human Cultivators, including the remain of Cheng Qianbao; now they could be considered to have entered the earth in peace.

After tidying up the battlefield, Shen Mo activated the Cloud Thunder Wing, summoned wind, rain, thunder, and lightning, and turned into a fleeting shadow flying toward the Hundred Beasts Forest.

At present, the Jade Verdant Cave Dungeon had completely merged into the Outer Realm; it was open and boundless on all sides, with no spatial barriers isolating it. Shen Mo did not even need to leave through the spatial rift at the entrance.

The terrain around the Jadeite Pool had also undergone earth-shaking changes.

There was now an additional dangerous region nearby, filled with immortal and mortal ruins and a large number of Spells and Prohibitions, but there were far too many Evil Insects that had died on this land; it would definitely not become a Cultivation Blessed Land, but would instead turn into an evil place that ceaselessly gave birth to insect-type Demons!

The Formless Realm great demon Mingpeng was dead, and the Demon forces of Five Dragon Mountain were left leaderless.

By rights, Red Flame Sect together with cultivators and alien experts outside the sect ought to seize this opportunity to sweep away the great and small Demons in this mountain.

However, the celestial artifact Taihua Mirror had clearly also encountered a problem;

having lost the protection of the Mirror Realm, the risks of launching large-scale slaughter would inevitably soar along with it, so Shen Mo decided to first pull back the sect’s strength until the Taihua Mirror returned to normal!

Passing through the Hundred Beasts Forest, he put the cultivators and alien experts stationed at the base into the Sword Zone, and then returned to the South Slope Demon Burial Field.

Outside the base’s big array, Shen Mo saw the figure of Chen Mengze.

She had originally planned to return to Jade Spring Mountain in a few days to go into seclusion and attempt to break through to the late-stage Golden Core Realm.

In the end, before she had even left Five Dragon Mountain, something went wrong with the Taihua Mirror, making it hard to use the Mirror Realm for travel; worried that something might happen to Shen Mo at Jade Verdant Cave, she simply postponed her plans!

"I’ve never seen you so unsettled in your mood; even the immortal charm and qi machine on your body are somewhat turbid. Are you injured?"

Chen Mengze keenly sensed that Shen Mo was a little unusual and could not help asking in concern.

Shen Mo opened the Sword Zone, released the personnel garrisoned in the Hundred Beasts Forest, Lv Xiangtai and the others, and instructed his disciples to properly settle and take care of the pigtail-braided girl; afterwards, he found a quiet place nearby and recounted to Chen Mengze what had happened in Jade Verdant Cave.

After listening to Shen Mo’s account, Chen Mengze waved her slender hand, summoned a veil of thin cold smoke, and transformed it into a soft, fluffy cloud of mist.

She beckoned Shen Mo to sit, then knelt in front of him, pulled his upper body into her embrace, her jade-like fingers combing gently through Shen Mo’s hair as she softly comforted him: "This is not your fault. From the moment Jade Verdant Cave was chosen by a Demon True Immortal as bait, their tragic outcome was already decided!"

"Even if you had pulled Green Cloud Cave back to your side and used the Fairyland to take them all away, you still couldn’t have avoided this end. At most, the creatures within the Fairyland would have replaced the Taihua Mirror in suffering this calamity."

The cool, icy aura emanating from Chen Mengze greatly eased the vexation in Shen Mo’s heart. He nodded slightly and said in a muffled voice, "How could I not know this? It’s just that it feels like I’ve gone back to that year when the Soaring Serpent devoured more than half of Qing State, when billions of creatures suffered calamity, and I was just as powerless."

"But at that time, I did not personally witness the Soaring Serpent’s slaughter. Moreover, when that Demon devoured a small heaven and earth, it might not have treated those billions of creatures as Cultivation Resources; perhaps it refined them into its cave paradise, and the mortals and cultivators swallowed might still have had a chance to live."

"Yet within the Jade Verdant Cave Dungeon, nearly eight hundred million immortal and mortal humans died tragically right before my eyes. The shock of this was completely different from the former and nearly caused my Path Heart to shatter..."

"Senior Sister, you need not worry too much. Although this matter has troubled me, it can no longer ruin my state of mind; it will only further steel my resolve to cultivate to Immortality, to seek great Carefree freedom and great ease!"

The Immortal Path Shen Mo pursued had never changed much.

To enjoy longevity, no longer worn down by time;

to roam the cosmos, unimpeded by space;

to possess supreme might, able to support him in acting according to his own heart, rather than as before, when he wished to save the creatures of Jade Verdant Cave yet lacked the strength!

"Mm!"

Chen Mengze knew well that in both Cultivation Realm and comprehension of the Immortal Path she was far inferior to Shen Mo; having learned that his Path Heart was unscathed, she did not say more.

She simply held Shen Mo like this, quietly enjoying the caress of the clear wind and the drifting white clouds!

Just then—

Above Five Dragon Mountain and even the entire Corpse Mountain Range, the winds and clouds suddenly surged; the sun and moon lost their light, and all that met the eye was boundless, mysterious light.

Vaguely, two terrifying figures could be seen confronting each other high above in the Ninth Heaven!

"Could it be that the decisive battle between the two True Immortals has erupted ahead of time?" Shen Mo broke free from Chen Mengze’s arms and jerked his head up, looking toward the sky.

Having gone through the events at Jade Verdant Cave, he could not help thinking much.

To Jade Spring Fairy, the Taihua Mirror was her Lifebound Magical Artifact; now that it had been corroded and Corrupt by billions of Evil Insects, she naturally could not sit idly by.

As for Hallow Venerable, although he had not fully subdued the demons and monsters of the Corpse Mountain Range, he had already gathered quite a few powerful beings. Now that the Taihua Mirror had been plotted against by his sacrificial slaughter of hundreds of millions of mortal Human Cultivators in Jade Verdant Cave, leaving Jade Spring Fairy one celestial artifact short and greatly weakening her strength, this was precisely the best time for him to make a move!

Just as Shen Mo had surmised, the two Immortal figures in the Ninth Heaven only confronted each other for a moment before they ferociously began to fight.

He stood side by side with Chen Mengze, staring unblinkingly at the changes in the sky;

even in the Immortal Realm, battles at the True Immortal level were Extremely Rare; when fighting, they would inevitably verify their respective Immortal Paths, leaving lingering echoes. If one could penetrate the secrets within, one would gain immense benefits, no less than having two Immortals personally preach the Dao!

However, Shen Mo’s Realm was ultimately still a bit low, not to mention Chen Mengze, who had yet to even build the Divine Bridge; the two of them found it hard to truly comprehend the profundities of a Magic Duel between two Immortals.

Yet from what they could see and sense, they could still tell that these two Immortals were fighting with extreme ferocity!

Throughout the region of the Corpse Mountain Range, nature’s spiritual energy began to boil, being completely drawn away in a very short time, forming an overall environment akin to a Spiritless Land; the space around the two figures was similarly affected by two ultimate powers, becoming twisted and bizarre.

The vistas of sun, moon, and Stars appeared and vanished; sunlight, moonlight, and starlight all became chaotically disordered, as though torn by some invisible force.

Phenomena grander and more terrifying than lightning and thunder filled the Ninth Heaven; profound and far-reaching Dao sounds rolled down like thunder, and streaks of Immortal light of indescribable colors illuminated the entire world!