Bai Wensheng hesitated. People had once valued a million supreme-grade spirit stones, but those days were gone. Now that he had stepped into the Heaven Profound Realm, he could amass that kind of wealth with ease. That made Ji Yuzhen's offer meaningless.
"Sorry, but I refuse," Bai Wensheng said, shaking his head with calm finality.
No one looked surprised, not even Ji Yuzhen, who had anticipated the answer. Everyone knew that no amount of spirit stones could match the worth of a heaven-spirit artifact. The two belonged to entirely different leagues.
Whether Bai Wensheng accepted meant nothing—Ji Yuzhen only wanted to make his stance clear.
"Ji Yuzhen knows how to put on a show," Liu Wuxie muttered.
Ji Yuzhen had anticipated Bai Wensheng's refusal. He had calculated the offer to look generous, intending to make Bai Wensheng appear petty or spineless if he accepted.
"In that case, we can only settle this with strength," Ji Yuzhen said.
By refusing, Bai Wensheng shut down any chance for compromise—the clash became inevitable.
"Then let's fight!" Bai Wensheng shouted, but instead of striking, he dashed toward the war blade, aiming to seize it first.
"Bai Wensheng, shameless as ever. What good would it do you even if you got it?" Ji Yuzhen sneered, making no move to stop him.
The moment Bai Wensheng touched the war blade, a violent surge of Heaven Profound Realm law erupted. This wasn't a mere heaven-spirit artifact—it had once surpassed that level, but heavy damage had diminished it.
Bai Wensheng's face contorted. He staggered back, stunned that he couldn't subdue the war blade. And this assumed the weapon had no artifact spirit. If it had remained intact, not even a high-level Heaven Profound Realm cultivator could have claimed it.
He stood frozen in awkward silence. Ji Yuzhen had deliberately given him a chance, which made his failure even more glaring.
"I refuse to believe I can't subdue it!" Bai Wensheng roared. He unleashed a fiercer aura, several times heavier than before, pressing it down on the war blade like a crushing mountain.
Under that intense pressure, the weapon's resistance began to wane.
"I gave you your chance, and you still don't know your place!" Ji Yuzhen snapped, patience gone. He dove like a hawk and slammed his palm toward Bai Wensheng.
He had held back until now. Bai Wensheng had no excuse for pushing things after his failure.
"You've crossed the line, Ji Yuzhen!" Bai Wensheng shouted, countering with his palm strike.
Their clash unleashed a monstrous shockwave, sweeping outward like a rampaging storm. The shockwave tore through the already devastated land, leaving it in utter desolation.
The few natives who hadn't fled froze in place, their eyes wide as they watched the battle unfold. Though they had lived here for generations, none of them had witnessed anything . If they lived through this, they would tell tales of this battle for generations, of cultivators who fought like gods.
Their palms clashed, and the impact blasted Ji Yuzhen and Bai Wensheng apart, hurling them in opposite directions.
A massive clearing opened between them, scorched from the clash. The artifact's emanating laws shielded the altar cradling the war blade, leaving it untouched.
Ji Yuzhen and Bai Wensheng landed from the sky. Their strength balanced perfectly—neither side gained the upper hand. In the Heaven Profound Realm, only overwhelming power could decide the victor.
The surrounding cultivators had already retreated, wary of being caught in the shockwaves. None dared draw near. As always, mortals suffered when immortals clashed, and being nearby meant certain death.
"Heretic Blade, what are the odds you can take control of the war blade?" Liu Wuxie asked through their spiritual link.
The Heretic Blade quivered with eagerness, yearning to break free from Liu Wuxie's hand and merge with the war blade.
A sliver of Liu Wuxie's soul bound the Heretic Blade to him. After devouring dragon bones, the spirit had taken the form of a divine dragon.
It had ascended to the level of a dao artifact—on par with, if not beyond, an earth-spirit artifact. The spirit possessed its intelligence.
Because the war blade lacked a spirit, whoever entered first could seize dominion.
But the move was risky; a backlash could annihilate the Heretic Blade's spirit instantly. That outcome would reduce the weapon to scrap metal and destroy the spirit.
Because of their soul link, any harm to the blade would rebound onto Liu Wuxie.
Even so, the reward outweighed the danger. No matter the damage, the war blade was a heaven-spirit artifact—far superior to any earth-spirit weapon.
More importantly, the laws sealed within it were crucial. If Liu Wuxie could claim them, he might break through to the third level of the Earth Profound Realm.
The emergence of the heavenly coffin had already pushed the Central Plains' strength to a new level.
The Heretic Blade trembled again, signaling its response. Through their link, Liu Wuxie understood—it had about a fifty percent chance of success.
The odds weren't great, but they weren't hopeless either. Opportunity and risk always walked hand-in-hand. If he missed this chance, who knew when he would see another heaven-spirit artifact?
"We're risking it," Liu Wuxie decided without hesitation.
Even if it failed, he could start again and forge a new blade, given time and resources.
The battle still raged in the air, its intensity driving ordinary cultivators away. But Liu Wuxie was no ordinary cultivator. He relied on his Ghost Eye to step into the real world and used spiritual runes from his internal world to conceal his presence completely.
Liu Wuxie vanished, his presence erased without a ripple.
A few nearby cultivators blinked, puzzled by the space where Liu Wuxie had stood moments ago.
"Weird... where'd that guy go?" one of them muttered.
But the thought passed quickly. They shook their heads and dismissed it, figuring Liu Wuxie had left on his own. This wasn't a place for someone in the Earth Profound Realm, not with cultivators at the Heaven Profound Realm already present.
Dozens of meters from the war blade, Liu Wuxie halted. Nothing stood between him and exposure—one more step, and Ji Yuzhen or Bai Wensheng would spot him.
"Heretic Blade, it's up to you now," Liu Wuxie signaled softly.
A divine dragon burst from the Heretic Blade and surged forward, burrowing into the war blade without a sound.
It happened in a blink. Ji Yuzhen and Bai Wensheng, locked in their clash, noticed nothing and remained completely unaware that no one else stood within several hundred meters of them.
No one guessed Liu Wuxie was using Ghost Eye, an ability that revealed a world hidden from others. While the others battled inside an illusion, Liu Wuxie slipped through the spiritual array like mist, remaining completely invisible.
Inside the heavenly coffin's spiritual space, Liu Wuxie no longer acted as a participant but as the master. He had trapped the others in a game they didn't know they were playing—they had become unwitting participants.
After the artifact spirit slipped inside, Liu Wuxie silently backtracked.
"Hey, where did you go earlier?" the same cultivator asked when Liu Wuxie reappeared.
"I went to relieve myself," Liu Wuxie answered with an innocent smile.
Attention soon shifted back to the battlefield.
Ji Yuzhen unleashed a sword strike that ripped through the air, space distorting with every arc.
Bai Wensheng, slightly weaker in combat strength, kept retreating. Though they had exchanged tens of thousands of moves, neither man dared go all out. Both feared that a hidden third party would take advantage of the moment they weakened.
Meanwhile, Liu Wuxie split off a strand of his divine sense to monitor the Heretic Blade's artifact spirit. Once it entered the war blade, it felt as though it had stepped into a vast, boundless world.
The war blade's internal space stretched endlessly, like a miniature replica of the heavenly coffin.
Heaven-spirit artifacts typically contained internal worlds of their own.
The artifact spirit's goal was to locate the war blade's spiritual array and seize control of its core. Though the task sounded simple, it proved anything but. Liu Wuxie hadn't crafted this blade, and most of its inner domain was alien to him.
Anyone else would've buckled under this challenge, but Liu Wuxie had forged immortal artifacts before. A mere heaven-spirit artifact didn't intimidate him.
Even though damage had crippled the war blade and destroyed its original artifact spirit, no ordinary person could hope to subdue it.
The war blade erupted with a powerful aura, trying to expel the Heretic Blade's artifact spirit.
The Heaven Profound Realm's boundless laws descended like a crashing tide. The divine dragon's phantom recoiled backward from the clash, and the impact shook Liu Wuxie's soul sea, leaving him feeling nauseous.
The Heretic Blade quivered in the desolate world. If anything harmed the artifact spirit, the blade would suffer.
Liu Wuxie's eyes gleamed with sharp intent.
The divine dragon's phantom roared, releasing a surge of dragon aura that swept through the war blade's inner world.
"A heaven-spirit artifact dares defy an Immortal Emperor's will?" the phantom growled.
The divine dragon released a wisp of Immortal Emperor will, which condensed into a mighty gale and swept through the space.
The pressure shattered the oppressive Heaven Profound Realm laws, and nothing nearby could withstand it.
The divine dragon surged forward, hunting the war blade's spiritual array without pause. Time ran short as Ji Yuzhen and Bai Wensheng approached the climax of their battle.
Bai Wensheng had only recently stepped into the Heaven Profound Realm, while Ji Yuzhen had already battled experts of that level even before breaking through.
Ji Yuzhen unleashed another thunderous strike, and his sword blast hurled Bai Wensheng ten thousand meters backward.
"You're no match for me, Bai Wensheng. Back down," Ji Yuzhen said as he calmly sheathed his blade.
Even Bai Wensheng realized that continuing the fight meant nothing. If Ji Yuzhen had gone all out, he would have ended him.
Bai Wensheng had drawn on nearly eighty percent of his strength, while Ji Yuzhen revealed only half of his own.
Bai Wensheng clenched his fists but said nothing, his gaze locked on the war blade with bitter resignation.
Ji Yuzhen turned and walked toward it. If he managed to strip the Heaven Profound Realm's laws from this heaven-spirit artifact and fuse them with his sword, his combat strength would soar.
Inside the war blade, the artifact spirit surged with fresh urgency. After half a minute, Liu Wuxie finally noticed a clue—no ordinary blacksmith could have produced this craftsmanship.
The weapon's creator had forged it using the Jadecloud Thunderlight Array, a technique that surpassed the mundane.