Chapter 1258: "Crescent Moon" Dao Artifact

Chapter 1258: "Crescent Moon" Dao Artifact

"Your name is Xu Qing, is it not?"

Within the chaotic battlefield, above twisted, turbulent waves, an abstract scroll lay nearly indiscernible.

This scroll unfurled, its black and white swirling within, radiating peerless might, while stray forces seeped downward across the battlefield, leaving death in their wake.

In the fray, the armies of cultivators and deities surged like countless rivers of dust, roaring ceaselessly.

Blood hung thick in the air; corpses lay strewn.

A sight to shatter the soul!

The tearing of starry skies, the collapse of time and space, added further peril to this already disordered carnage.

This cosmos seemed unable to endure!

Amidst the great chaos, the Jade-Faced True God, clad in golden armor, his purple hair flowing, his beauty verging on the demonic, advanced while speaking.

His divine voice echoed, clear as crystal around Xu Qing who raced in the distance. In an instant, it became a straight, shocking gash that split the starry sky before Xu Qing.

Xu Qing’s eyes sharpened, fierce light flashing. With a hand seal, his Immortal Embryo erupted—forces of metal, wood, water, earth, time, and space swirling around it like meteors.

His own form multiplied, echoes of time, space, and parallel realms bursting forth.

Converging, his body lunged forward.

Thunderous roars instantly drowned all sound.

Crashing into the gash before him, he pierced through—lightning flashed, the gash dimmed!

His figure surged forth.

At the Quasi-Immortal Initial Stage, he could battle a Divine Platform Peak expert; now at Quasi-Immortal Middle Stage, though his combat prowess still could not bridge the chasm between Divine Platform and True God, he had earned the right to resist.

Emerging, his face paled slightly, yet his speed increased.

"The battlefield is chaos. Even returning to the cultivator army means remaining locked in slaughter. So… I must escape this battlefield, leave this region."

Xu Qing resolved within, yet… after bursting through that gash, no matter how swift he flew, the Jade-Faced True God pursued like marrow in bone, twisting through the void.

Closing the distance rapidly, the True God raised his hand again, a second long gash tearing the void, blocking Xu Qing’s path.

Then a third, fourth, fifth…

Ninety-nine gashes in all appeared, encircling Xu Qing from all directions, rending the space where he stood, isolating him within a thousand wounds.

The might of a True God thus revealed its terrifying strength.

Then, the Jade-Faced True God’s right hand clenched abruptly.

Instantly, the ninety-nine gashes intercepting Xu Qing writhed to life, detaching from the starry backdrop, becoming threads.

They surged toward Xu Qing!

Where they passed, sealing power, cutting force, and the crushing aura of True Godhood erupted fully.

Straight for Xu Qing!

In this deadly moment, Xu Qing’s pupils contracted. Had he met this foe elsewhere, he might have fought freely.

But this battlefield’s chaos held too many variables; being stalled was most perilous.

As for his trump card, though he possessed the Sovereign Immortal Dao Artifact, its power was immense. Using it once, even with fate’s pull, would leave him weakened.

So within this chaos, he would not wield it unless absolutely necessary.

Thus, in this perilous instant, Xu Qing’s gaze flashed. His right hand seized the void, grasping the unconscious Star-Eyed Goddess he had taken.

He used the goddess to block the surging gashes before him.

This sight made the Jade-Faced True God’s eyes narrow sharply.

His raised right hand hesitated involuntarily.

The gashes hurtling toward Xu Qing likewise faltered.

Seizing this fleeting moment, Xu Qing erupted with renewed speed, his multiplied form starkly evident—countless alternate times and spaces forming around him.

At the cost of shattering, he burst through the encirclement in an instant.

Weaving through the battlefield, he sped across region after region.

Behind him, the Jade-Faced True God’s face gleamed with golden light, his resolve firm.

Even if the goddess died, she could be revived. If he hesitated further, Xu Qing would exploit this, leaving him utterly vulnerable.

"Very well!"

The Jade-Faced True God spoke calmly, stepping forward across the battlefield. His voice echoed once more around Xu Qing.

"Do you know why it is I who came for this exchange?"

"The more chaotic the battlefield, the richer my divine essence becomes."

The Jade-Faced True God spoke with calm.

These words struck Xu Qing as he raced, his expression darkening. The foe had no need to speak, yet persistently sent words—before and now.

This speech felt deliberate.

"Related to divine authority?"

As Xu Qing pondered this, sudden peril exploded within his heart.

He noticed that though the Jade-Faced True God remained distant, golden threads now materialized around him after the words.

Resembling the earlier gashes, yet subtly different.

What made Xu Qing’s pupils contract most was how these golden threads suddenly scattered—not targeting him, but the floating corpses of deities and cultivators nearby.

Instantly, nearly every thread ensnared a shattered corpse. Thousands of golden threads, thousands of corpses.

Then… each corpse linked to a thread trembled, eyes snapping open, emitting golden light.

Their state mirrored exactly the five human cultivators the Jade-Faced True God had absorbed moments prior.

Xu Qing’s face darkened—he instantly recognized them as divine puppets!

"This is His divine authority!"

"Thoughts woven into threads, threads binding puppets. Where they lead, deities and cultivators alike become His marionettes."

Xu Qing frowned. Such divine power clearly wielded greater might upon this battlefield.

Now, the corpses, revived in an instant, all rose, converging on Xu Qing from every direction.

Though not at full strength, they retained fragments of power. Combined with their sheer numbers, the destructive force was staggering.

Xu Qing retreated swiftly, unleashing temporal storms amid the chaos to block the corpses. He stepped onto a skull-shaped meteor.

But the moment his foot landed, golden patterns flared across the meteor’s surface. It writhed rapidly, features emerging as if alive.

The meteor itself had become a puppet!

It opened its maw wide, spewing a curse-laden mist.

Yet the instant it touched Xu Qing, he, borrowing the Mud Fox’s power, released his own divine curses, colliding instantly with the mist.

Silence. Stillness. The entire meteorite surface collapsed soundlessly, instantly scattering as dust.

Yet this delay brought the surrounding corpses closer, while the distant Jade-Faced True God grew unmistakably clear.

Xu Qing’s face darkened. He sensed the terrifying curse within the other, and gained deeper insight into the strangeness of this divine authority.

"All things may become puppets?"

With a flick of his wrist, an iron skewer shot forth, sweeping with lethal force. A bell’s chime echoed instantly, freezing many corpses mid-lunge, impaling others.

He himself paused not a moment, activating secret arts to accelerate his flight.

From afar, his robes snapped like battle flags in the turbulent currents. Wherever he passed, star-remnants and corpses flared gold, then stirred to life.

They surged forward relentlessly, wave upon wave.

"Mud fox!"

Witnessing this, Xu Qing roared inwardly. Instantly, the mud fox opened its spirit, becoming Xu Qing’s celestial conduit. Xu Qing then barked a command.

His voice became divine sound.

The divine art: Seized Voice!

This battlefield favored the Jade-Faced True God—but for Xu Qing’s Seized Voice art… it was equally suited.

Thus, in that instant, Xu Qing’s Voice Authority erupted. Divine sounds birthed ancient sigils, sprouting from every source of noise around him.

The battlefield’s roar became his sound. The cries of slaughter became his sound. The shrieks of death became his sound.

These divine sounds rose like a tidal wave, forming intricate mantras that coiled toward all corpses—and the pursuing Jade-Faced True God behind.

This startled the True God, whose eyes flashed with sudden wonder.

"Knows divine arts?"

Muttering, He raised a hand. More golden threads materialized from the void, piercing Xu Qing’s mantra-weave, transforming them… into puppets too!

Then He shot forward, chasing Xu Qing!

Yet this pursuit brimmed with unforeseen hazards.

The dense clashes of armies, the chaotic sweeps from Sovereigns and Immortal Lords—each threatened their speed, even their lives.

Now, a lateral surge from a Sovereign struck Xu Qing despite the distance. He spat blood, his spirit shuddering.

Even the Jade-Faced Deity had to dodge aside.

Thus, Xu Qing and the Jade-Faced True God flew in tandem, locked in distant combat while weaving through the battlefield.

Countless star-remnants and divine/corpse bodies floated within the fray. Some Xu Qing deliberately shattered with silent gestures, crumbling into cosmic dust.

The indestructible remnants instantly became the Jade-Faced True God’s puppets, lunging toward Xu Qing.

As this continued, the gap between them inevitably narrowed.

Simultaneously, a sight chilled Xu Qing’s spirit.

In the distance, another True God strode toward him.

Fortunately, an Immortal Lord from the cultivators’ side intercepted it moments later.

Still, Xu Qing’s sense of peril intensified. Scanning the chaos, he fixed his gaze on one spot. Resolve hardened in his eyes.

His body halted abruptly. No longer fleeing, he stood firm, spirit gathered, right hand pressed to his brow.

His soul resonated, transmitting a thought.

"Crescent!"

A sliver of moonlight flickered upon Xu Qing’s forehead.

He summoned… the Immortal Lord’s sacred artifact drawn by the True Lord’s fortune!

As he called, countless parallel timelines bloomed around him. Within each, a version of himself raised a finger to his brow.

Voices spoke as one.

"Crescent!!"

With echoes across fractured time, within the battlefield’s present moment, a crimson crescent blade emerged from Xu Qing’s lunar mark—piercing the starry vault itself!

Resembling a shard of claw torn from some vast being’s bone, its surface crawled with billionfold capillaries finer than hair.

Each vein pulsed with starlight from different eras.

Some carried ancient, vanished violet star-marrow; others, primordial sea-soaked emerald cinnabar. At its core, the main channel throbbed with gelatinous Fifth Stellar Ring cosmic backdrop!

Horrifying!

As it manifested, an eerie crimson light—embodying death, embodying bloodshed—engulfed the area.

Within its reach, stellar fragments, meteorites, and corpses melted, stained crimson…

As if bleeding tears.

Nearby, the Jade-Faced True God, now closing in, watched this spectacle. For the first time, His spirit quaked violently.