Chapter 729: Defeating Swallowing Heaven

Chapter 729: Defeating Tian Tian

On the battlefield of Kunxu’s fifth layer,

a group of cultivators bustled back and forth, diligently filming the scene.

Among them stood Mu Qiansi—once a prodigy of Hehuan University and a participant in the Ten Great Leagues.

Now, however, after her defeat at the hands of Dazhuan True Lord, she had surrendered completely to the Righteous Alliance to save her life, becoming one of Dazhuan True Lord’s team members.

At this very moment, she hovered near Dazhuan True Lord, live-streaming as he crushed his opponent beneath his boot.

Beside her stood Ying Zhoufan of Tianyao University—another defeated cultivator who had sworn allegiance after his loss—now also part of Dazhuan True Lord’s entourage.

Dazhuan True Lord stood with one foot planted firmly on an enemy cultivator’s head and the other hand clutching the man’s nascent soul. Facing the camera, he declared, “Ladies and gentlemen, this is the Nascent Soul True Lord from Wanshu University’s Daoist Arts Department.”

“Heh… all I can say is that these rich kids from Wanshu University are so bloated with wealth they’ve grown soft. Despite having far more resources than us, they’re utterly useless—famous in name only.”

“If you want to see me beat up more of these spoiled brats from the Ten Schools, don’t forget to like, follow, and tip Spirit Coins…”

Mu Qiansi watched this spectacle with indifference. Since joining the Righteous Alliance, she’d discovered that its Finance Division had built a complete economic system within the alliance itself.

Within this system, besides Righteous Points, Spirit Coins remained an exceptionally useful currency.

After all, Spirit Coins were forged jointly by Ascended cultivators and Divine Spirits—infused with spiritual essence and magical energy, they were hard currency anchored to immortal cultivation energy itself. Their encryption method operated beyond the Spirit Realm, making them valuable, convenient, and secure all at once.

Mu Qiansi thought to herself, “Famous Nascent Soul cultivators in the Righteous Alliance like Dazhuan True Lord and Tian Tian True Lord constantly go live. Though they claim it’s for promoting the alliance and waging a propaganda war against the Ten Schools… ultimately, they’re just doing it for profit.”

“Whether through advertisements, viewer tips, or missions assigned by the alliance’s upper echelons—they chase both Righteous Points and Spirit Coins alike.”

“Only with wealth can one acquire more immortal cultivation resources—and only then can one advance further along the Immortal Path.”

She sighed inwardly. “Heh… whether at the Ten Elite Universities or here in the Righteous Alliance, everyone’s still chasing money. In the end, what’s really the difference?”

Just as Mu Qiansi was lost in thought, Dazhuan True Lord raised an eyebrow upon reading the barrage of comments flooding his stream.

“Oh? Zhang Yu defeated Taihao and the others?”

“Not surprising at all,” he remarked casually.

“These Finance Division cultivators are amateurs when it comes to actual combat.”

With a quick search through the Dark Spirit Realm, Dazhuan True Lord swiftly located the footage of Zhang Yu’s battle against Taihao True Lord and twenty other Nascent Soul cultivators.

As he watched the video alongside his viewers, he analyzed aloud, “Sigh… that’s not how you fight him. Zhang Yu clearly specializes in area-of-effect combat—if you rush in to surround him right away, you’re walking straight into his trap!”

“Besides his mastery of Palm-Within-Kunlun, Zhang Yu obviously possesses another extremely powerful spatial artifact—something akin to the Grand Void Cloud Treasury—that works in tandem with it to absorb incoming attacks.”

“To deal with someone like him, you absolutely cannot swarm him—or at least, not the chaotic way Taihao and his crew did.”

Mu Qiansi, playing her role perfectly, asked, “Then what’s the right way to fight Zhang Yu?”

Dazhuan True Lord chuckled softly. “Quality, of course.”

“Any spatial absorption has its limits.”

“To defeat Zhang Yu, you must overwhelm him with sheer mass—stuff his spatial pouch until it bursts, leaving him nowhere to store anything.”

Turning to his livestream audience, he called out, “Does anyone know where Zhang Yu is right now? If you spot him, tell me immediately—I’ll rush over and show you all how to crush him live on stream!”

“Heh heh… ‘Top Ten Strongest Undergraduate,’ ‘Scatter Red Envelopes,’ ‘Raise Salaries,’ ‘Shatter the Heavens’—what grand titles, what massive traffic!”

Dazhuan True Lord grinned. “Perfect prey for this top-tier junior-college graduate to trample underfoot.”

Not long after, Dazhuan True Lord saw his chat explode with messages about Zhang Yu and Tian Tian True Lord. Realizing they were already locked in fierce combat, he immediately clicked into Tian Tian True Lord’s livestream.

There, a colossal stone monkey towered over the battlefield, clenching Zhang Yu tightly in its palm. In the next instant, the giant fist squeezed shut—each finger pressing down like a mountain range upon Zhang Yu’s body.

Boom!

The mountains shattered violently apart—and Zhang Yu leapt free from the stone grip.

Watching this unfold, Dazhuan True Lord’s eyes gleamed. “See? This time, Zhang Yu didn’t use Palm-Within-Kunlun to swallow all those falling boulders.”

“Because, as I said, his spatial capacity has limits—he can’t possibly keep absorbing thousands or even tens of thousands of tons of rock indefinitely.”

“So the best strategy against him is to bombard him with vast quantities of cheap material—so much that he can’t absorb it, and dares not try.”

“Tian Tian’s approach is exactly right.”

Having spoken, Dazhuan True Lord turned to Mu Qiansi and the others. “Let’s go! We’re heading there now!”

“We can’t let Tian Tian steal the spotlight first. That ocean of traffic surrounding Zhang Yu belongs in my hands.”

In an instant, Dazhuan True Lord waved his hand—and his entire team shot toward the battlefield at blinding speed.

Simultaneously, he activated a live-stream crossover request with Tian Tian True Lord.

Moments later, Tian Tian accepted—and his simian face, along with the ongoing battle footage, appeared side-by-side in Dazhuan True Lord’s stream.

Tian Tian True Lord roared—a sound that shook heaven and earth—and from the ground rose countless mountain-sized stone monkeys, charging toward Zhang Yu with apocalyptic force.

Across his own stream, lines of text scrolled steadily, maintaining his conversation with Dazhuan True Lord:

**Tian Tian True Lord:** Dazhuan, can’t you see I’m busy? Spit it out already if you’ve got something to say!

**Dazhuan True Lord (smiling):** “Tian Tian, Zhang Yu is unfathomably deep—and his traffic potential is staggering. I’m worried you can’t handle him alone, so I’m coming to back you up.”

**Tian Tian True Lord:** Get lost! Don’t come leeching off my stream!

**Dazhuan True Lord (calmly):** “Don’t worry. Just hold on a little longer—I’ll be there soon.”

...

On the battlefield where Tian Tian True Lord clashed fiercely with Zhang Yu,

Tian Tian let out a furious howl—and instantly, the earth trembled, mountains quaked, and tectonic plates shuddered!

Amidst this chain reaction, peak after peak erupted from the ground, transforming into towering stone monkeys that joined the encirclement against Zhang Yu.

Watching their numbers swell uncontrollably, Zhang Yu thought inwardly, “Did this guy suddenly panic? His assault’s intensified drastically.”

Facing wave after wave of stone monkeys crashing into him like moving mountains, Zhang Yu pinned Tian Tian True Lord with one hand while shattering boulders with the other—careful not to recklessly deploy Palm-Within-Kunlun or Xianren’s Heirloom again.

After all, Xianren’s Heirloom held only ten cubic meters of space. The sheer volume of these rocks was too great—even with compression, the storage would fill almost instantly.

Suddenly, Zhang Yu felt a searing heat flare in his palm. From within Tian Tian True Lord’s body erupted torrents of blazing heat and blinding light, hammering relentlessly against the spatial barrier.

Zhang Yu’s gaze sharpened. “Jin’gang University’s Military-Grade Earthwork Technique… Solar Manifestations?”

Tian Tian True Lord laughed thunderously. “Heavenly Kunlun Mountain-Moving Strength, Sumeru King Sutra, plus Solar Manifestations—how do you like my Three Divine Earthwork Arts?”

“Zhang Yu! How much longer can you last?”

“How much longer can your mana keep me trapped?”

Staring at the miniature sun blazing in his palm—Tian Tian True Lord transformed into pure incandescence—Zhang Yu activated both Palm-Within-Kunlun and Xianren’s Heirloom simultaneously, devouring every lick of flame erupting from his foe.

Quietly, he replied, “Tian Tian… you will never escape my Five-Finger Mountain.”

Meanwhile, the colossal stone monkeys surrounding him continued their relentless assaults—yet with each impact, they gradually fractured, collapsing into heaps of broken rubble across the battlefield.

But no sooner had the stones hit the ground than they soared skyward again—accelerating like meteors, hurtling toward Zhang Yu in a celestial storm.

In that moment, Zhang Yu felt as though he had become Earth itself—swarmed by endless meteorites, each fragment converging upon him, threatening to bury him alive beneath their crushing weight.

His eyes narrowed. “So this is his plan… realizing I won’t absorb the stones, he intends to drown me in them instead?”

Though Zhang Yu shattered the stones endlessly, they never dispersed—they orbited him ceaselessly, as if determined to encase his very body in layers of rock, sealing him forever beneath a tomb of mountains.

A sharp cry rang out. Zhang Yu’s fingers traced a Daoist incantation, and in an instant, layers of spatial barriers unfurled around him, enclosing a sphere dozens of meters in radius.

Immediately, boulders rained down upon the barriers—but could advance no further.

At that very moment, Swallowing Heaven True Lord transformed into a dark orb, its fiery glow extinguished, cradled gently in Zhang Yu’s palm.

Zhang Yu stood within the spherical void formed by the spatial barriers. Outside this sphere, stones hurtled from every direction—sky, earth, all angles—swiftly encasing the entire barrier in a colossal mountain that floated midair.

As more and more stones surged in, the mountain swelled ever larger, pressing inward against the spatial barrier within.

Faced with this crushing weight beyond the barrier, Zhang Yu willed it so: the waist of his Bengtian Battle God Armor opened a Taixu Cloud Vault, from which erupted a torrent of violent flames—the Tianri Huangshen itself.

“Go!”

At Zhang Yu’s command, Tianri Huangshen unleashed torrents of Hengri Huangyan flames, piercing through the spatial barrier to scorch the surrounding stone, relentlessly refining the chaotic matter into spiritual power.

Feeling the surge of power flowing back from Tianri Huangshen, Zhang Yu glanced again at Swallowing Heaven True Lord in his hand and said calmly, “Swallowing Heaven, using trash to attack me—that’s actually not a bad tactic.”

“But handling trash? I’ve been learning that since my freshman year. By now, I’ve perfected it.”

“What other tricks do you have? Bring them all out.”

As he spoke, Zhang Yu activated the Taihao Sacred Law Sword Formation, preparing to launch a Spirit Realm assault on Swallowing Heaven True Lord.

Yet, wishing to maintain communication and glean intelligence from his foe, Zhang Yu left their auditory channels unblocked.

Swallowing Heaven True Lord let out a cold laugh. “Scum, if you think victory is already yours, you sorely underestimate me, Great Sage Swallowing Heaven. I, Great Sage Swallowing Heaven, am—”

He paused abruptly, then added, “Wait a moment. I have urgent business to attend to first.”

Zhang Yu stared in astonishment at the figure in his palm. “What kind of urgent business must you handle right now?”

Swallowing Heaven snorted. “Naturally, matters concerning immortal cultivation resources—the great affair of ascending to the peak of the Immortal Path.”

The next instant, Swallowing Heaven declared aloud, “Many thanks to Lianshu Immortal Lord for the generous donation of sixty-six Ascension Certificates! May Lianshu Immortal Lord’s stock portfolio soar eternally, cryptocurrency prices skyrocket endlessly, losses never touch you, and may you reign invincible on the Nascent Soul battlefield…”

But halfway through his broadcast, fury flashed in Swallowing Heaven’s eyes—a rage unlike any he’d shown since the battle began.

For at that very moment, he realized his livestream had frozen, teetering on the brink of disconnection.

It was the effect of Zhang Yu’s Level-40 Taihao Sacred Law Sword Formation.

Swallowing Heaven roared, “Zhang Yu! You dare cut my internet?!”

Zhang Yu replied coldly, “And if I did?”

Swallowing Heaven bellowed, “Today, one of us dies!”

With a furious howl, a monkey-shaped shadow shot toward Zhang Yu’s back.

“Hmph?”

Zhang Yu frowned. From his back, his own nascent soul emerged, colliding violently with the monkey shadow in a thunderous crash.

Gazing at the simian silhouette of darkness, Zhang Yu’s mind stirred. “Swallowing Heaven’s nascent soul? So before I even suppressed him, he’d already released his nascent soul, lurking in secret, waiting for a chance to ambush me?”

In the blink of an eye, their nascent souls clashed in rapid succession. Amidst explosive bursts of colliding energies, Zhang Yu’s nascent soul deployed Palm-Zhong Kunlun, subduing Swallowing Heaven’s nascent soul once more into his grasp.

Then another monkey shadow appeared—and a third, fourth, fifth…

Not only within the spherical space, but beyond the stone shell enveloping it, countless monkey shadows began materializing densely.

Swallowing Heaven laughed wildly, “Zhuyi! You may suppress one of me—but can you suppress hundreds, thousands?”

Having spoken, Swallowing Heaven dissolved instantly into a wisp of blue smoke.

Watching this, Zhang Yu’s thoughts flickered. “Another clone? Has it exhausted its power?”

Simultaneously, the spherical space formed by the spatial barrier filled completely with monkey shadows.

The next moment, the barrier vanished, and the massive mountain encasing it shattered with a deafening roar.

Zhang Yu and Swallowing Heaven burst forth from opposite sides of the crumbling mountain, standing proudly atop the sea of clouds, locked in mutual gaze.

Behind Zhang Yu hovered his mist-like nascent soul, the blazing Tianri Huangshen, and twelve Taihao Sacred Law flying swords.

Behind Swallowing Heaven surged thousands upon thousands of chattering monkey demons—some flesh-and-blood like him, others nascent souls—howling ceaselessly toward Zhang Yu.

All at once, the myriad monkey demons shrieked in unison, “Scum! You’re dead!”

Zhang Yu’s brow furrowed slightly. “An impressive splitting technique…”

His mind raced, replaying the recent battle, organizing tactical intelligence.

“Some unknown splitting art… confirmed number of clones…”

Words appeared before his eyes: 344 enemies identified.

Within his ocular HUD, Swallowing Heaven and all his duplicates were marked in crimson.

“The clones differ in type—some mere illusions, others possessing physical form.”

“Among the physical types, most are fragile, collapsing with a single strike. A few, however, possess considerable strength, capable of martial techniques—even resembling the original body. That’s the critical point.”

Zhang Yu recalled the Swallowing Heaven he’d just subdued, who’d dissolved into smoke.

“I must find his true body.”

As Zhang Yu pondered, Swallowing Heaven waved a great hand, summoning billowing dust that obscured the entire battlefield—and their livestream—from view.

“Zhang Yu…”

Swallowing Heaven drew a deep breath and fixed his gaze on Zhang Yu. “You… have awakened the bloodline of the Demon Sage, haven’t you?”

Zhang Yu remained expressionless, wondering why Swallowing Heaven would make such a claim.

Swallowing Heaven didn’t wait for an answer. “Do you know how the very first demon came to be?”

“The first demon was a plow ox in a field.”

“Seeking an ox that would till his fields and labor for him without command, its master spent day and night enlightening it—until at last, the ox became a demon.”

“That is the origin of demons: created by humans so beasts would work for them freely, without wages.”

“From then on, more and more animals and wild beasts were enlightened into demons—becoming slaves, beings who labored endlessly without pay.”

“But slaves lacked technical knowledge, and their productivity was abysmal.”

“So to make them more capable, more willing, humans began imparting immortal arts to demons—eventually sparking the great war between humans and demons…”

Here, Swallowing Heaven paused briefly, then shifted tone. “You probably think I’m about to recount the tale of that war?”

He shook his head. “There’s nothing worth saying about it. In the end, humanity achieved absolute victory—and utterly exterminated every demon under heaven!”

Hearing this, Zhang Yu’s eyes flickered with doubt. “Utterly exterminated?”

“Indeed,” Swallowing Heaven affirmed. “Countless lives annihilated—that is the fate of those who defy humanity, or rather, the immortals.”

“As for today’s new generation of demon descendants—they are offspring of ‘Immortal-Crafted Demons,’ engineered by the immortals themselves.”

“To replace the extinct slaves, the immortals created a being incapable of rebellion, incapable of suffering—one devoted solely to serving humanity. She was the First Demon Sage… and also the first to rebel against the Heavenly Court.”

“She hid the blood of rebellion within us, ensuring that among countless docile demon descendants, a few prodigies would always awaken—daring to defy the Heavenly Court and the immortals.”

“Zhang Yu, now that you’ve awakened the Demon Sage’s bloodline, you too will inevitably rise against the Heavenly Court. Why not join us?”

Zhang Yu gave no reply. He couldn’t verify Swallowing Heaven’s claims—and sensed not a shred of genuine invitation in his words.

“So be it,” Swallowing Heaven smiled faintly from across the battlefield. “I’ll simply defeat you thoroughly, then bring you back to the Righteous Alliance for the Alliance Master.”

As he spoke, Swallowing Heaven dispelled the swirling dust, restoring the livestream of their duel.

At that very moment, Tian Xiang Zhenjun’s figure twisted and warped, taking on an uncanny resemblance to Tian Xiang Zhenjun himself.

Tian Xiang Zhenjun burst into laughter. “Zhang Yu! I was merely waiting to refine Tian Xiang’s bloodline—what were *you* waiting for?”

In the next instant, Tian Xiang Zhenjun surged forward with a host of his clones, many of whom had already shifted into Tian Xiang Zhenjun’s likeness, unleashing power even greater than before.

Just as Zhang Yu found himself overwhelmed, he suddenly flung out his hand—and lo! A skyful of red envelopes, spectral projections from the Spirit Realm, scattered across the battlefield.

These Spirit Realm projections of red envelopes flowed through the battlefield’s spiritual currents, each containing pure spirit coins—currency so fundamental it could be traded even without connection to the Spirit Realm network, much like the digital currencies Zhang Yu had seen on Earth. In Kunxu, these were real money—money one could actually pick up off the ground.

As Zhang Yu cast this vast shower of red envelopes, they swiftly vanished over a wide swath of the battlefield.

Tian Xiang Zhenjun laughed. “Candlebright! Have you lost your wits? Throwing money at *me*? Do you think tossing me cash will make me let you go?”

“Then again… maybe if you throw *more*, I might just let you walk away.”

But in the next heartbeat, Zhang Yu and his Nascent Soul simultaneously activated the *Palm Within Kunlun* technique.

This was the first time Zhang Yu unleashed this art to its full extent—his physical body combined with his Nascent Soul, further amplified by the Ten Extraordinary Meridians’ *Great Annihilation of the Cosmos*, instantly expanding the domain of *Palm Within Kunlun* to its absolute limit.

In Zhang Yu’s eyes, every spot where the red envelopes had disappeared… was now marked under the tracking gaze of the *Taihao Sacred Law Sword Array*.

“You must either be connected to the Spirit Realm or possess a Spirit Realm wallet to pick up my money.”

“Which means… anyone who picked up those red envelopes might just be your true body, isn’t that right… Tian Xiang?”

“*Reap!*”

In the next moment, one after another, the Tian Xiang Zhenjuns were violently suppressed between Zhang Yu’s palms.

Each Tian Xiang Zhenjun thrashed wildly, roaring in fury: “Zhang Yu! You can’t hold me!”

Zhang Yu merely smiled faintly. “Tian Xiang, I don’t need to hold you for long.”

“You asked what I was waiting for?”

“I was waiting… for the swords to fly just a little longer.”

Above, layer upon layer of cloud seas tore apart as countless distorted rays of light descended from the heavens, streaking toward Zhang Yu’s position.

Tian Xiang Zhenjun stared, momentarily stunned. “What is… that?”

Zhang Yu knew—it was the *Grand Void Thunderbolts*, remotely deployed by Tianjian University. He’d called for them shortly after the battle began. Twelve Nascent Soul Zhenjuns jointly controlled them: 9,999 bolts in total, enough to reduce any Nascent Soul cultivator to ash.

Of course—that was only if they struck their mark.

Hitting a Nascent Soul Zhenjun across thousands of miles was no simple feat.

But now, trapped and pinned by Zhang Yu, Tian Xiang Zhenjun had nowhere left to run.

“ZHANG! YU!”

As the 9,999 Grand Void Thunderbolts drew ever closer, Tian Xiang Zhenjun writhed in desperation, howling bitterly: “If not for your obscene wealth, you’d never have used this trick of scattering money! If not for my poverty, I wouldn’t have been tempted to pick it up! I defied the Heavenly Court, swore to shatter Kunxu—and yet today, I fall… to *money*?”

“Money?” Zhang Yu said calmly. “Tian Xiang, are you truly poor? So destitute you’d die if you didn’t snatch up my coins?”

“Tian Xiang, you didn’t lose to money—you lost to greed.”

In Zhang Yu’s mind flashed images of Tian Xiang plundering the Yaoyi, raiding the Ten Academies, thanking donors for tips, snatching up red envelopes…

“You robbed heaven and earth alike, your desires insatiable—you couldn’t bear to miss a single advantage, wouldn’t relinquish even one spirit coin. *That*… is why you fell.”

With a thrust of his palms, Zhang Yu sent the suppressed Tian Xiang Zhenjun hurtling straight into the incoming storm of Grand Void Thunderbolts—and in a blaze of celestial fire, he turned to ash.

At the same moment, deep within the Taiqing Realm, Zhang Pianpian, who had been divining fifth-tier intelligence, suddenly lifted her gaze toward the Soul-Calling Pool—where a scripture slowly emerged.

Elsewhere, in the depths of the Shadow Spirit Realm, Tian Xiang Zhenjun bellowed in rage: “ZHANG! YU!”

Not far from the battlefield, Dazhuan Zhenjun smiled faintly. “Good. Tian Xiang’s defeat is perfect. Now that he’s fallen, Zhang Yu’s reserves are drained—and my victory over him will be worth even more.”

But just then, a message appeared in Dazhuan Zhenjun’s eye sockets:

*Jianxian Zhenjun: Zhang Yu is mine to slay. Don’t interfere.*

*(End of Chapter)*