My Journey to Immortality Begins with Hunting
Chapter 280 – Beyond Ultimate Skills Lies the Divine; The Holy Tree Temple’s Defeat Is Overwhelming - Part 2

Chapter 280 – Beyond Ultimate Skills Lies the Divine; The Holy Tree Temple’s Defeat Is Overwhelming - Part 2

An hour later.

Ping'an collapsed to his knees, drenched in sweat, limbs shaking, every muscle twitching like a frantic heartbeat.

Li Yuan looked down, voice cold. “You still couldn’t force me out of the circle. I let you attack for so long. Now...” He paused, unsheathing his blade once more. “It’s my turn.”

He gazed at his son, wrapped his fingers around the hilt, and said softly, “Listen.”

Li Yuan flipped his hand; the blade’s tip still touched the floor, yet without another visible motion the blade began to thrum—starting low, rising in pitch, then screaming at a razor’s edge. The air boiled with it. Every table, chair, and teacup in the chamber bounced like beans on a drumhead.

BOOM! The scabbard, still resting on the ground, shattered into splinters under that terrible force, revealing the naked steel within.

Steel shivered, air shivered, and light itself seemed to quiver. Standing here felt like standing at the epicenter of an earthquake, a nameless dread burrowing into the heart.

The blade flashed...an eerie, silver‑white streak.

SCREECH! The edge cried out like a mad demon.

Li Yuan’s black hair whipped about him; the air around his body dimmed, as though an unlit shadow cloaked him. The move was still City Toppler, yet no longer the same skill. Through years of refining his own path, he had forged it into something terrifying.

Master level was the ceiling for ordinary skills. By blending every insight gained from ordinary skills and seizing every scrap of fortune, one could open a path to creating an ultimate skill. To go even further than that was to create a divine skill—and this was such a stroke.

Others might surpass Li Yuan in cultivation, but they could never reproduce this slash. Their roads, however brilliant, were roads first blazed by others. Li Yuan, by contrast, stood atop a peak of his own making, forever thinking only of how to raise the mountain beneath his feet.

There was no road in the sky; to reach the sky, one must refuse to walk. And Li Yuan had never walked—for the simple reason that no road lay before him.

In the long march of years, the blade simply revealed itself.

To him, though, it was an ordinary slash; one small vignette among the endless vistas he meant to witness. He had never bothered to name it.

He took a single step. Like rolling black smoke he blurred through the air, and the tip of the blade rested against Ping'an’s neck.

That metallic demon’s scream rasped in the boy’s ear.

Death waited in the next heartbeat.

Terror struck so hard that Ping'an forgot this was only a father‑and‑son match. Instinct froze him; he could not move, could not even think. Only when Li Yuan withdrew the blade did his whole body begin to shake as though on a sieve. He pitched forward, eyes wide, cold sweat streaming down past his brows. It stung, but it appeared as if he had forgotten how to blink.

Li Yuan crouched, wiped the sweat away, propped him up. “Hey.”

“...” Ping'an remained blank.

Li Yuan ruffled his hair, called to him a few more times. After a long while the boy’s unfocused pupils regained their light. He sucked in huge breaths and sat in the darkness, head bowed; no one knew what thoughts churned inside.

Li Yuan, unhurried, began sweeping the shattered furniture and crockery into a dustpan. Not a mark marred the walls or floor. The power of that slash had stayed entirely within.

When he finished, he seated himself on the floor beneath a skylight. Moonlight spilled through; banks of cloud hinted at coming rain.

Now that Li Yuan understood the routes for breaking into sixth and fifth rank, he knew his son’s only chance to keep advancing was to remain within Holy Tree Temple and follow its path. This was the destiny of anyone born with innate shadow blood. He respected Ping'an’s choice, but he would not let the boy run off to die. Ping'an had never tasted real defeat; it was time for a proper lesson.

If the boy passed this test, he could stay at Holy Tree Temple. If not, Li Yuan would knock him out and carry him away. Tonight was merely homework. Should Ping'an fail even now to pull himself together, the plan remained unchanged.

Li Yuan was patient, so he waited in silence.

Two sticks of incense later, Ping'an sprang to his feet, the light back in his eyes.

“Feeling better?” Li Yuan asked.

“I’m going home to figure out how to break your blade,” Ping'an answered solemnly.

Li Yuan teased, “Going to cry to your master for help?”

“I’ll figure it out myself,” Ping'an growled.

Switching to a calm tone, Li Yuan said, “Tell your master you’ll be staying at home for a while.”

“Sure!” Ping'an paused, then asked, “That strike just now. Does it have a name?”

“No.” Li Yuan chuckled. “Why? Does it need a name?”

“No name at all?”

“Hmm, ah. I suppose I’ll give it one now.” He grinned. “Bullshit Slash. Remember this, your World’s Greatest Sword just lost to the Bullshit Slash.”

“To hell with that!” Ping'an spat the word and stormed off, legs still trembling as he reached the door and pushed it open like a man who’d narrowly escaped death.

Li Yuan watched the boy’s back with a conflicted gaze, unsure whether to hope the lesson had sparked resolve or forced him to abandon the dream altogether.

Outdoors, rain blurred the world. Green leaves, red blossoms, the sacred vines inside the third gate...all hissed together in a night‑rain symphony.

Head lowered, Ping'an faced the white‑robed woman whose presence filled the courtyard. “Master, may I stay here for a while?”

Gu Xuejian paused, glancing at Li Yuan emerging behind him.

“I’m getting old,” Li Yuan said. “Want to teach the boy a few things.”

“I felt that slash even from a distance,” Gu Xuejian replied.

“Just City Toppler, you’ve seen it before. A seventh rank skill, nothing special.”

Gu Xuejian sighed, then looked at her disciple’s still‑quivering muscles and the streaks of white in Li Yuan’s hair. “Ping'an’s had it too easy. A father’s hand is what he needs.” She patted the boy’s shoulder. “I’ll be back in a month.”

“Understood!” Ping'an clenched his fists, eyes burning with new resolve.

Father and son walked her to the gate and were surprised to find a carriage parked nearby, someone inside sneaking glances their way.

Spies, in the third gate? And right at the Jing estate? Li Yuan raised an eyebrow.

“Ignore it,” Gu Xuejian said coldly.

“Someone you know?” Li Yuan asked.

“Just a little vixen.”

“A vixen?” Li Yuan blinked.

“More like a snot‑nose,” Ping'an snorted.

Gu Xuejian shot him a look. “Keep your distance from her.”

Back on familiar turf, Ping'an’s confidence was fully restored. “I will, Master.”

Watching, Li Yuan realized his son already had a world of his own—one where neither he nor Xue Ning figured much beyond father and mother. Nothing more.

Gu Xuejian opened an oil‑paper umbrella and stepped into the rain. Reaching the carriage, she cleared her throat with icy force.

A pretty girl in a green dress hopped down into the downpour, no umbrella, and bowed. “Greetings, Deputy Gu.”

“Hasn’t Liu Luzhi taught you any manners?” Gu Xuejian’s voice sharpened. “The Liu Clan’s treason is fact. As the traitor’s daughter, how dare you come near the Holy Tree Temple’s future?”

The girl lowered her head, then gathered courage. “But...not everyone in the Liu Clan is a traitor. I-I never—”

“Hah, still just a child,” Gu Xuejian cut her off. “Next time ask your master Liu Luzhi first. You snuck out, didn’t you?”

The girl shrank, ready to protest, but Gu Xuejian was already walking away.

From afar she cast a nervous glance at Li Yuan, seemed about to approach, hesitated, then darted back into the carriage. Wheels squealed, carving pale arcs through the wet street, and hurried off.

Li Yuan eyed his son. “Friend of yours?”

“Just an old tag‑along,” Ping'an said breezily. “Used to cry all the time. Now, well...”

Smack! Li Yuan bopped him on the head. “Stop pretending like you didn’t cry all the time when you were little.”

“I’m different!” Ping'an protested.

“How so?”

“I’m Heaven’s favored. I was born—”

Smack! Another bopping. “Heaven’s favored? That how you see yourself?”

“Not me...everyone else sees me that way,” Ping'an retorted, apparently forgetting how he had been on his knees moments before.

Li Yuan merely nodded. Gu Xuejian spoils him like a doting mother, he thought.

“Go wash up and rest.”

Back inside, Cui Huayin and Yao Jue were waiting. Li Yuan pulled Ping'an over, made him greet Cui Huayin and Yao Jue , then sent him to bed.

When the room was empty, Cui Huayin brushed a fingertip across the new white at Li Yuan’s temples, softness flickering in her eyes. “You’re already an amazing weaponsmith,” she whispered. “Don’t keep throwing your life at the grindstone...”

Li Yuan turned his head, avoiding her gaze. Watching the wavering red candle‑flame, he finally murmured, “I still want to seek the Dao.”

“But you’ve already grown white at the temples...,” Cui Huayin said, her voice softer than he had ever heard it. “Tell me, how old are you really?”

A sixth rank martial artist should never go grey unless death was drawing near.

“...” Li Yuan gave no answer.

“Listen.” She steadied her tone. “In this life I’ve married twice. The first was an emperor, yet we never shared a bridal chamber, so you are the only man who has truly been mine. After you, I’ll have no other.”

Li Yuan smiled faintly and drew her into his arms. Her slender hand slipped beneath his robe.

The night passed as nights between them always did.