Chapter 1 Osaka Castle Falls

Above Osaka Castle, a sword light cleaved down, splitting the ancient city in two!

Mountains crumbled and the earth cracked, the city collapsed, and Toyotomi Hideyoshi was nearly killed by the strike. Fortunately, Xu Fu rescued him in time. After the collapse of Osaka Castle, only the foundations remained, and waves of Buddhist light rose from the ruins as Xu Fu chanted Buddhist scriptures!

The predecessor of Osaka Castle was Ishiyama Hongan-ji, a temple established by the Jodo Shinshu sect of Japanese Buddhism. How could a temple not have a grand defensive formation? However, after Ishiyama Hongan-ji was demolished, the formation was hidden underground. The Toyotomi clan, led by Toyotomi Hideyoshi, held sway within and around Osaka Castle, making it seem safer than even Kyoto, where the Emperor resided.

After all, many daimyo were aware that the divine Emperor Jinmu, who had been gradually manifesting and even openly appearing in Japan for nearly a century, was currently in Osaka, not Kyoto.

This rendered the current Emperor a mere figurehead. The current Emperor Goyozei's younger brother, Prince Tomohito, was even Toyotomi Hideyoshi's adopted son. This relationship meant that Toyotomi Hideyoshi was the true power holder of this era, both overtly and covertly; the Emperor was just a decoration.

However, at this moment, Xu Fu was somewhat relieved that the useless current Emperor still resided in Kyoto and not here. Otherwise, with that mortal body, there would have been no way to survive that sword strike!

In any case, no matter how useless the Emperor was, he was still a symbol of the country and, for Xu Fu, an important medium for completing his Divine Kingdom. If he had been killed by Ji Xiang's sword, it would have been a great injustice.

The second sword came swinging!

Another sword light descended. This time, the Buddhist formation activated, and vast Buddhist power formed a heavenly barrier, diverting the force of the blow in all directions!

But even so, it still caused the earth to rumble and shake!

Around Osaka Castle were many castle towns, with a population of over one hundred thousand! The sounds of terrified screams and fleeing footsteps filled the air as many people stared in horror at the celestial figure appearing in the sky, along with the merit and virtue halo!

Toyotomi Hideyoshi was still in shock. He was intimately familiar with the two sword strikes, but he had never imagined a sword could attack him in such a way!

"Indeed, that sword should never have been released! We only let Yagyu Munenori take this divine sword because we considered taking Korea as quickly as possible. This divine sword, passed down from ancient times, can cleave mountains and seas with a single strike, even more fearsome than the Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi!"

Hideyoshi was filled with regret!

Xu Fu looked towards the heavenly gate!

The calamitous power on Oyamatsumi was being transformed and stripped away by the Heavenly Opening Yellow Path Celestial Venerable, turning into a large amount of disappearing merit. This brought about the collapse of the ghost god itself, since calamity was Oyamatsumi's supreme authority since being worshiped in ancient times, with the ability to kill half the population of the world in a single month. In any country of this human realm, he was an unparalleled god of disaster!

However, the four Celestial Venerables had been slumbering in the depths of the Yellow Springs for too long. If it hadn't been for Ji Xiang's arrival, they would have completely dissipated in another hundred years, without leaving behind a trace of power. Now that they had been restored and nurtured, the Heavenly Opening Yellow Path Celestial Venerable's spirit tablet wouldn't let go of a treasure like the Great Calamity that had been delivered to its door!

Within the inner world, the Heavenly Opening Yellow Path Celestial Venerable's spirit tablet shone brighter and brighter!

The merit and virtue halo descended, submerging Ji Xiang in a sea of clouds. Toyotomi Hideyoshi, seeing that Ji Xiang had made two strikes without a third, was about to avenge the two strikes when Xu Fu grabbed him.

"Merit is the power derived from the Heavenly Dao, the response of the world's Yin and Yang, good and evil, to practitioners. If you go forward now, the power within you will trigger the merit and virtue halo to attack, and what will follow is the attention of the Heavenly Dao!"

Toyotomi Hideyoshi was puzzled, "What Heavenly Dao are you talking about! This is Japan!"

Xu Fu chuckled, "The so-called Heavenly Dao refers to the highest part of the invisible force in the world. Therefore, we do not know its name but forcibly call it Dao. You can call it whatever you want. This power sustains the world and has different names on different lands. Since ancient times, whether it is East or West, South or North, all nations under heaven have a concept of destiny."

"Even those Western nations are the same. The so-called revival and decline are all manifestations of the rise and fall of a nation's fortune, and what brings about all of this is the Heavenly Dao we speak of."

"You are now supported by the people of the world, including the dead, their resentment, their lives, their souls, their wishes, all have their respective destinations, becoming the source of power for the ghost god path. How much sin do you carry on your body? You also deserve to be stained with merit?"

"Even I am not worthy. So if you go up, you will die. The path of ghost gods is inherently wary of merit, and our spells are all related to poison and harm, while the power of merit is most effective against poison and harm!"

"However, there are still things that can be done."

Xu Fu then stretched out a hand!

The entire sky trembled!

"Although this vast cloud of merit cannot be used by me, its accumulation can be used elsewhere, such as... after finding a way to refine it, we can put a layer of merit golden light on our army's soldiers. That is the true way to kill without incurring karma!"

"Even if it is heavenly retribution, there is no way to punish! Those who are covered in the light of merit are permitted by the Heavenly Dao to kill."

Toyotomi Hideyoshi was very surprised, "It can even be used like this?"

Xu Fu chuckled, "In the era of my Qin Dynasty, there was no concept of merit. The power descending from the Heavenly Dao would respond to the changes in people's hearts and appear in the world in different forms. At that time, the various schools of thought were still very prosperous, the Confucian school's rites of heaven, the Mohist school's ghosts of heaven, the Taoist school's fortune of heaven...."

"From that time until now, two thousand years have passed. I have studied more phenomena that can touch the Heavenly Dao than those in the inner mountains and rivers! Now merit cannot be used like this, but when I refine it, it can be used like this!"

Having said that, he showed his "determination" to obtain Ji Xiang!

"Moreover, the target we wanted to lure has now really set foot on our territory. Isn't that a good thing if he comes uninvited!"

"There is no need to send a large army to Korea anymore."

"It will be all right if we kill him here. Although the Ming Dynasty has increased its military strength, and our country has lost a large number of immortals and generals, once this Heavenly Devil dies, we can at least take back half of the remaining Korean territory."

"And since this Heavenly Devil has set foot on my land, there is absolutely no way he can go back alive!"

Heaven and earth shook, constantly fluctuating, the sea of clouds churned, and the mountains and rivers boiled! Everything in this world came alive at this moment!

Breathing gathered into wind and thunder, and the water in the rivers transformed into billions of clouds circulating around the world!

"Moving Qi, the deeper it is, the more it accumulates; the more it accumulates, the more it extends; the more it extends, the lower it goes; the lower it goes, the more it settles; the more it settles, the more it solidifies; the more it solidifies, the more it sprouts; the more it sprouts, the more it grows; the more it grows, the more it recedes; the more it recedes, the more it becomes Heaven."

"How many times does Heaven pound from above? How many times does Earth pound from below? Follow it and live; go against it and die."

At the same time.

The halo of merit and virtue disappeared, all swallowed by Ji Xiang. The spirit tablet in his inner world shone with golden light. Ji Xiang felt that the pain produced by the solar refinement of his body became somewhat insignificant.

Merit can lead to immortality, and what is achieved by taking immortal pills is Danxiang Xian (Pill Manifestation Immortal), but... there has never been a Danxiang Xian who condensed such a large amount of merit before becoming an immortal!

"Hmm? The celestial phenomena... are shaking."

Ji Xiang looked up at the sky, sword in hand.

The Qi of this world began to gather and boil, even the national prestige of Japan was in operation. The sound was louder than thunder from a large drum, as mighty and vast as a storm surge.

This was the power of a pseudo-immortal.

If you do not step into his territory, he is powerless against you, but if you take the initiative to step into his territory, he can do whatever he wants to you!

"He didn't use the power of the ghost god path, does he know that I uprooted the source of the ghost god path in the Yellow Springs?"

"Or is he afraid of the demon-subduing power of the Jade Purity Hidden Book?"

"However, no matter which point it is, the choice made at this time is extremely correct. And this Qi that covers the entire sky, permeates the entire earth, and rolls in the entire rivers and seas... this should be the means of a pre-Qin Qi Refiner."

The people of the pre-Qin era did not follow the path of later generations, did not cultivate the path of Jindan Earth Immortals, but directly grasped the fundamental Qi between heaven and earth, but this required extremely high talent.

It is precisely because Qi Refiners are rare and Jindan Earth Immortals are numerous that the so-called path of cultivation is only called a path when more people walk it. The laws of later generations will continue to improve, allowing more people with slightly worse or without much talent to walk, originally people with poor talent will become stronger, and people with high talent will become even stronger.

But the ancient methods were too powerful and obscure, so they were lost in the changes of dynasties, which is very normal.

Later generations have more talent than their predecessors, so they can create cultivation paths for more people to take. But the methods of the predecessors were simpler and more violent than the methods of the later generations.

There are no skills, all changes, do not require spells, do not require scriptures, do not require divine incantations, do not require talismans!

Rely only on "One Qi!"

Ji Xiang saw that the sky was tilting down towards him!

He laughed heartily!

The illusory forms of the Four Sages of the North Pole, the Four Celestial Venerables, and the Ten Directions Divine Kings appeared one after another on his body!

Their momentum was magnificent and vast, spanning the six directions and suppressing the eight wildernesses, boundless and boundless!

Xu Fu and Toyotomi Hideyoshi were stunned when they saw Ji Xiang soaring into the sky after the halo of merit and virtue disappeared, with the images of several heavenly gods appearing on his body.

"What are those things? A person can only have the image of one heavenly god, but what appeared on his body..."

"Come to think of it, it's been strange from the beginning!"

Before Toyotomi Hideyoshi could finish his question, Xu Fu's pupils shrank at this moment, interrupting him abruptly, and opening his mouth with a tone of disbelief and speculation:

"The divine position that this Heavenly Devil has mastered should be that of the Marshal Tian Peng."

"But later he became this Heavenly Opening Yellow Path Celestial Venerable. I thought it was because he had given up the divine position of Marshal Tian Peng and re-received the Celestial Venerable position. This Celestial Venerable position fell into the Yellow Springs, and even I don't know its location. This Heavenly Devil's Qi entered the Yellow Springs, took away the Celestial Venerable spirit tablet, but now that I think about it, it doesn't seem right."

"The Celestial Venerable power that killed the Great God of Yellow Springs was not the Heavenly Opening Yellow Path Celestial Venerable's!"

Xu Fu's eyes were fixed on Ji Xiang.

The face of the Celestial Venerable image on Ji Xiang's body was still that of a young man, but his clothes had become the Dharma garments worn by Celestial Venerables, but because of the Frankenstein-like gorgeousness, Xu Fu did not understand it at first glance, and only now did he discover the problem.

This is not the clothing of one Celestial Venerable!

This is the image of all four Celestial Venerables!

And the Celestial Venerable who killed the Great God of Yellow Springs was precisely the most important one in the image that Ji Xiang had transformed into!

"It's... the Celestial Venerable of Vast Deliverance and Submergence!"

"How could one person master the spirit tablets of four Celestial Venerables? Could it be that the Heavenly Devil has a different physique from us mortals?"

Xu Fu could only think like this at this time.

Perhaps, things that come from the heavens should have extraordinary and unique qualities.

"But it's still not enough. These four Celestial Venerables probably don't have much power anymore. I don't believe that in my land, this attack that overturns the heavens and the earth, with all the Qi between heaven and earth used by me, we pre-Qin people cannot be compared to you Jindan fellows!"

"Even if you are a Heavenly Devil and cultivate the art of Earth Immortals, what is the use of an Earth Immortal when this world is no longer on your side! Even if you become a True Immortal at this time, you will definitely not be able to save your life in my country."

Although pseudo-immortals are not True Immortals, they have long been stronger than ordinary True Immortals under the support of thousands of years, not to mention the bonus of the territory, the national prestige of a country, the national fortune of a country, all the wishes, all of this is mastered by the pseudo-immortals, no True Immortal can withstand the power gathered by a country with a population of over ten million, this vast national fortune is enough to directly kill a True Immortal!

After all, after becoming an immortal, the strength of the immortal's own primordial spirit is only equivalent to the wishes of the people!

How could it withstand the impact of tens of millions of people!

Toyotomi Hideyoshi had never seen Xu Fu's methods like this, so he could only sigh, "It seems that this Heavenly Devil is really strong. Although I don't know why he has the image of several heavenly gods, only this kind of strength can kill Yao Bikuni."

"Now I can feel relieved about the matter of Yao Bikuni."

Toyotomi Hideyoshi had previously been surprised by Yao Bikuni's death, but now he completely understood. Not to mention killing Yao Bikuni, with these dozen or so images of heavenly gods, beating her in turns with their fists could hammer Yao Bikuni into a bursting meatball.

Perhaps... like Xu Fu now, he wanted to use all the Qi between heaven and earth to drown the other party, and the other party might have used the divine power of those heavenly gods to drown Yao Bikuni alive.

Gods kill Buddhas, heavens destroy gods, all of this will come to an end...

...Right?!

The look of joy on Toyotomi Hideyoshi's face instantly froze. He originally thought he would see the result of the other party being crushed to death by the Qi of heaven and earth, but the things that were happening before his eyes made him dumbfounded.

Xu Fu was stunned, staring intently, his expression equally astonished and shaken!

Heaven and earth, merged together, condensed into one point.

On Ji Xiang's body, the images of thousands of heavenly gods also condensed into one!

The ultimate strike of the convergence of heaven and earth, the overturning technique that has been operating all Qi since the pre-Qin era... stopped!

Rumble!

The sky made a heavy roar, and those vast Qi gathered together, with continuous dark clouds stretching for tens of thousands of miles!

It was difficult to descend!

"Holding up the sky... But... This..."

"Why do I see such an absurd scene in my eyes."

Xu Fu also murmured to himself, incredulously.

He is a pseudo-immortal.

He uses pre-Qin techniques.

This is the absolute power of a heavenly strike. Not to mention a Heavenly Devil from the lower realm who has not ascended to immortality, even a flying immortal whose whole body's blood has been refined into green Qi and has reached the extreme of the immortal path would not dare to say that he can take this strike!

"My spells are definitely not inferior to those of the Tang Dynasty! The population of the world has increased, and thousands of years have accumulated. A thousand years ago, I used this technique to knock down a flying immortal! A thousand years later, I can't even take down a Heavenly Devil! How is this possible!"

"Holding up the sky with one hand!"

Ji Xiang was standing in the sky at this time!

The dark clouds of the entire sky were pressing on that palm like the sea. A person stood under the vast, tens of thousands of miles of gloomy clouds, and that dark sky could no longer descend even half a point!

"The matter of holding up the sky cannot be done by one person alone. Of course, I can't block the technique of knocking down immortals."

"It's not me who blocked this strike."

Ji Xiang looked down at the world, looked at Xu Fu, and then raised his chin slightly, signaling Xu Fu to look higher into the sky.

Only then did Xu Fu see that in those dark clouds, a huge heavenly gate had appeared at some point. The heavenly gate was facing Ji Xiang's palm, so it looked like Ji Xiang was holding up the sky.

But that heavenly gate was definitely not his means!

"Did you see it? Then take a good look."

"I dare not casually invite the next move. It's just that the threat of you pseudo-immortals is too great, so there's no other way."

Ji Xiang's face suddenly became as gloomy as the deep sea, and that heavenly gate slowly opened!

Then, it suddenly swelled, turning into a thousand miles in size, covering the entire Osaka Castle.

Something was about to come out.

Xu Fu looked at the heavenly gate, and then saw a gap open in the heavenly gate, and Ji Xiang soared into the air, giving up holding up the sky and entering the heavenly gate.

But the dark clouds of the Wanli era did not roar down, but began to separate.

"This... is... what's going on?"

Toyotomi Hideyoshi looked at the dark clouds that had not yet shown their power, but were held up by that Heavenly Devil, and were now even beginning to collapse. It could be clearly seen that two kinds of Qi were separating, abandoning each other and leaving.

Clear Qi floated up to become the sky, and turbid Qi descended to become the earth.

A white jade hand appeared in the heavenly gate that was thousands of miles in size.

Xu Fu's face, in an instant, became terrified!

"Celestial Worthy of the Primordial Beginning!"