Eternal Swordmaster
Chapter 458 - 452 Breakthrough 1

Chapter 458: Chapter 452 Breakthrough 1

The gap in strength between Lin Xin and the Joyous God wasn’t actually that large; if they really faced off, Lin Xin would still be significantly weaker.

But the ultimate result was, he used a massive number of soul creature bugs to grasp intelligence, transmitted the Joyous God’s route to his enemy, the slaving Ha Tribe, and then utilized the Ha Tribe to severely damage the Joyous God.

Afterward, he took action personally, picking up an easy victory.

It was just a light injury that completely stripped the Joyous God of the power to resist.

"Illusionary Light Tribe... it’s a pity I still have matters to attend to, I can’t stay in the Outer Regions for long. Otherwise, if I could visit your tribal lands, the rewards I might gain would likely far exceed my expectations..."

The wounds on Lin Xin’s body had already perfectly healed.

He walked up to the Joyous God. Looking down at him from above, his eyes filled with greed, desire, satisfaction, and madness.

All sorts of twisted and dangerous things were present, but precisely the emotions that a normal creature should have were absent.

"Kill me, and what will you gain? There is no need for us to be opponents. We even share common enemies that need to be faced," the Joyous God was still trying to calmly persuade Lin Xin, attempting to secure a chance at life for himself.

"Indeed, there is no standing opposition," Lin Xin said with a slight smile.

He suddenly stretched out his hand to grasp the ball of blue light at the Joyous God’s head.

Phut!!

At the same time, with a speed almost too fast to be described as a blink of an eye, the Joyous God’s arms, coated with intense blue lights, struck Lin Xin’s chest and abdomen.

His palms, as though piercing tofu, passed through Lin Xin’s body without the slightest obstacle.

"Die!!" Lin Xin, however, did not care in the slightest and clenched his hand fiercely.

In silent devastation, the Joyous God’s head exploded outright, turning into blue specks of light that slowly faded away.

His body slumped to the ground and was immediately enveloped and devoured by a swarm of bugs that surged forth.

Lin Xin closed his eyes, shaking off the Joyous God’s arms. He had known all along that the Joyous God still retained the strength for one last strike; he merely pretended to be careless and let him succeed.

But likewise, he had used this opportunity to quickly resolve the battle.

The outcome was indeed as he had predicted.

The Joyous God was dead, and a continuous stream of memory fragments, along with an immense and terrifying amount of essential blood, madly flooded into his body through mysterious channels.

Huuh...

A howling wind kicked up, causing his red hair to fly wildly to the right.

The Joyous God’s memory fragments continued to pour in, with countless types of Taoist intents and Soul Domains flashing before his eyes. With time to digest, he would soon be able to absorb a large variety of different Taoist intents.

Being one of the ninety-nine gods, the Joyous God had lived for over five thousand years and naturally was not so easily killed off completely.

According to the memory fragments intercepted by the Lord’s Mark.

The Joyous God’s death would soon result in him being reborn in the Illusionary Light Fairy Pool. He would only lose the cultivation accumulation of the last hundred years.

But Lin Xin cared not for the essential blood of the cultivation accumulation obtained by killing him; he valued the acquired memory fragments more.

Moreover, had he not used the Moon Silkworm’s avatar to control the swarm and the Sword Array, he might not have been able to free his hands to hunt down the Joyous God directly.

Countless memory fragments swiftly surged in.

Understanding regarding the Soul Domain also flowed into his mind, and what amused Lin Xin the most was that among the Human Race cultivators, the Joyous God was considered a Great Cultivator with a relatively advanced standing among those at the Yuan Jing level.

Such a level among the ninety-nine gods was considered formidable.

These foreign tribes, unlike the Human Race with their huge disparities in strength, had cultivations that varied little within the same level, and due to innate advantages, they possessed numerous strong and powerful individuals.

Therefore, within the memory fragments of the Joyous God, he was regarded as an extremely strong expert of the Illusionary Light Tribe, one of the leaders, and like him, the tribe had at least fifty or more members of comparable strength.

"Interesting, this kind of tribe is completely different from the Human Race. High experts of the same level have little disparity in strength and are adept in using formations. It’s more of an equal status."

Lin Xin realized in his heart.

By now, he, too, had not noticed that with each night of immense pain and torment, his disposition had subtly shifted from its originally balanced and peaceful nature to one that was somewhat extreme and unrestrained.

Piece by piece, the memory fragments began to be accessed, and soon he came across information about the establishment of protective Soul Domains.

Indeed, like the cultivators of the Human Race, the Joyous God’s establishment of the Soul Domain also combined a great number of different Taoist intents, woven together to form a world of his own rules.

This aspect was somewhat similar to the conditions for achieving the Yuan Dou Demonic Technique. The only difference lay in the components that made up the Soul Domain.

But what satisfied Lin Xin most was that building the Soul Domain required thousands of completely different types of Taoist intent.

It seemed that bringing together a thousand hearts was likely the minimum standard necessary to construct a Soul Domain, whether it was the previously mentioned Yuan Dou Demonic Technique or the Joyous God’s protective Soul Domain. It was all the same.

Picking up the remains of the Joyous God’s corpse, he leapt up, enveloped by the swarm and transformed into a gust of foul wind, returning toward the Void Ship.

**********************

Three days later... on the Void Ship, at night.

Two Lin Xins sat opposite each other, both showing expressions of pain on their faces.

Compared to initially needing self-mutilation to suppress the agony, he had improved a lot by now, at least being able to sit upright on the deck.

Innumerable insects fluttered around the deck, shrouding the sky in darkness.

In the center stood a blood-red longsword, its blade extending through the deck, spreading faint lines like trickles of blood.

With the accumulation of the Joyous God’s Soul Domain Taoist intent, Lin Xin hadn’t slept for three days, fully separating out over eight hundred kinds of strange Taoist intents he had not encountered before and comprehended each one.

Since many were already learned within the fragments of the Joyous God’s memory, he found them easier to grasp.

Taoist intent was something that could leverage various natural forces, produce many magical and variable effects, and had numerous strange efficacies.

But compared with the Soul Domain, Taoist intent was more like an embryonic form of the Soul Domain.

The distinctive feature of the Soul Domain was that, below it, one need not fear group battles. Only those who had also comprehended the Soul Domain could confront it.

Perhaps throughout history, there had been some incredibly talented individuals who could oppose Yuan Jing Cultivators without being at the Yuan Jing level themselves.

But each of those was the product of numerous coincidences and opportunities creating a qualitative change, thus achieving such an effect by chance.

Some were born from extremely powerful Divine Beast bloodlines with innate divine abilities.

Others were powerful magical treasures created by chance from countless heavenly materials and earthly treasures.

And there were those who seized the creation of heaven and earth and penetrated the Yin Yang of all things to comprehend special secret techniques for fatal strikes.

Recorded in the history of the Underworld for tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of years, there were only a handful of people from the Human Race who achieved such accomplishments.

"The Soul Domain, the Yuan Jing, willpower leverages the universe’s natural forces, forming a semi-closed, self-sufficient world.... It seems this is the mystery of the Soul Domain," Lin Xin pondered inwardly as his understanding of the Taoist intents grew.

Yuan Dou Demonic Technique simply gave him a method to construct a Soul Domain, like a recipe, telling you what kind of materials you needed, in what quantity, and how to combine them to achieve the desired effect.

The fifth layer of Yuan Dou Demonic Technique involved using demonic pills and Demonic Qi as materials, with the Cultivation Technique at the core, to construct a Soul Domain completely your own.

With the materials at hand, only by understanding how to construct it without collapse could one select the type of construction, on the premise that it could be successfully built.

And what type to construct depended on the decision of the builder.

Lin Xin was also considering what kind of Soul Domain he should construct.

He originally planned to focus on enhancing attributes. Although he had the complete inheritance of Yuan Dou Demonic Technique, it was optional; an enhancement would be good, but it wasn’t an issue if there wasn’t one.

His rush to this place was just to obtain what the Red Leaf Sword Master had mentioned, something that could help his own physique.

So far, it seemed the item he should take was the Evil God’s Divine Weapon.

"With my attribute system as the core, and the Demonic Arts as a secondary or deceptive measure. The attribute system has enough speed, strength, recovery, resistance, and also the perception of danger, the concealment of aura, almost a very comprehensive and perfect overall structure. So what aspect do I need to supplement?"

Sitting on the deck, Lin Xin looked at his Moon Silkworm clone, quickly thinking. In extreme pain, his understanding greatly improved, and his thinking speed far outstripped that of an ordinary person, reaching the level of a true top genius.

The answer emerged swiftly.

"Actually, I just need to completely negate the suppression of my body’s rules by other Yuan Jing Soul Domains, to truly unleash the strength of my body’s attributes," Lin Xin realized more and more clearly.

Up until now, he had to use most of his body’s strength and speed to resist the suppression of the rules within the Yuan Jing Soul Domain.

Having no Soul Domain of his own, he could only opt for the most foolish method, which was to forcibly resist the pressure of the rules and take violent action.

As a result, the true strength he could exert was less than three or four out of ten.

If he could completely cancel out the suppression of the Soul Domain’s rules and fully unleash the terror of his body’s attributes, Lin Xin’s strength could instantly increase by more than twice!

Having tentatively decided what the main type of Soul Domain he needed to construct, Lin Xin began to slowly weave his own Soul Domain using the consolidated demonic pills and Demonic Qi.

He sat cross-legged on the deck, his lips slightly parted. Beads of black demonic pills emanated black aura, constantly floating out of his mouth, orbiting him, and whirling about.

The Yuan Dou Demonic Technique was very clear about the weaving of the Soul Domain.

The difficulty lay in finding the core, first establishing a perfect small cycle that could be self-sufficient.

This was relatively easy for Lin Xin, who had learned about natural environments on Earth in his past life. Combined with the sharp increase in his understanding due to the pain, he constructed the main elements and Five Elements circulation framework in less than half an hour.

Then came deciding what type of Taoist intent to focus on.

"To eliminate rules, to negate the rules of all other Yuan Jing Soul Domains, this main Taoist intent system should be based on the constant transformations of elemental Qi. That way, I can transform into a type that restrains whatever Soul Domain I face."

But Lin Xin quickly had another thought.

"No, such a Soul Domain is too targeted toward individuals. It would be troublesome if I encountered a group attack. It wouldn’t be very useful. Therefore, I could use the solidity of the Soul Domain’s rules to compress the other’s Soul Domain rules."