Zhanxian (Immortal Executioner)

Yang Chen naturally didn’t know about what had happened at the near firmament treasure palace, but the enormous achievement score still made him leap high with fright. On his achievement ring, a long string of zeroes made it clear that the magnitude of his current achievement score was very high. But within the range of what the ring could display were only a line of zeroes, and no other numbers.

If anyone else saw it, they would definitely believe that Yang Chen was someone without any achievement. Only Yang Chen himself knew what kind of immense figure this string of zeroes represented. The reason why there were no other numbers was simply because it was too long, and couldn’t display more.

Since the Queen Mother of the West had already passed away, the old heavenly court no longer had any chance of regaining their authority. Yang Chen had nothing else to do at the Immortal Executioner Stage.

Placing the vicious blade on its stand, Yang Chen returned to the little room. After planning and resting, he took off the celestial executioners garb prepared for him in the Immortal Executioner Stage, changing into the mundane clothing he wore when he arrived, putting everything in order. Forcefully constraining the churning and joy in his heart, he firmly walked towards the gate of the Immortal Executioner Stage.

If one was polluted with the blood or flesh of an immortal in the Immortal Executioner Stage, or touched something the shouldn’t be touched, the great gate of the Immortal Executioner Stage would disappear automatically. But Yang Chen had always been very careful, and even now the great gate still towered in its place, without the slightest change.

Under the Jade Emperor’s explicit order, the supervising official could draw on the strength of the entire heavenly court to use the Dream Play great formation once in order to draw an executioner from the mortal world. Once chose, unless the executioner died within the Immortal Executioner Stage, there was no way to select another. Since Yang Chen hadn’t died, the Immortal Executioner Stage’s prohibition wouldn’t be activated to notify the heavenly court’s officials.

The Jade Emperor was already dead, and for the moment there would be no new immortals entering the Immortal Executioner Stage. Yang Chen knew about this, after he had ascended and entered the Heavenly Court, he had never heard of anyone being executed.

Walking over to the portal, he turned his head and looked at the Immortal Executioner Stage, looked at that vicious blade, the corner of his mouth showed a smile, then he stepped through the gate with large strides.

The scene before his eyes changed with blinding speed, suddenly turning dark. Yang Chen focused at the distance, but he was still in his broken house, and it was still night. He just didn’t know how much time had passed in the mortal world.

When Yang Chen appeared, the weather was originally early winter, but everyone in the county town seemed to tremble and couldn’t help pulling their bedclothes closer, as if feeling a bone chilling cold. Rats and ants burrowing underground also suddenly stopped moving at that moment. The entire town was still like a ghost town.

A lot of people in the prison suddenly woke up, starting to shiver uncontrollably from cold, as if the god of death was already at their side, and a few cowards even collapsed.

On a distant mountaintop, a woman whose body was like the white jade of a fairy suddenly looked in this direction, frowning, muttering to herself: “Such a great killing intent, just how many souls as this monster extinguished?” Her figure flashed, already gone from her previous place.

There were also some others who noticed this direction in a few other directions. The old just looked, but a lot of people immediately flew off. Their cultivation was high and low, unevenly matched.

Yang Chen finally noticed something was wrong. In the Immortal Executioner Stage, this killing aura and killing intent was nothing, but in the immortal world it was enough to drive people insane. If he didn’t quickly settle the issue of the killing intent before he met some cultivating fellows and his luck was good, they might realize he was an executioner and not care further, but if his luck was bad, they might immediately cut him up with their flying swords to eliminate evil and defend the Dao.

With his former temperament cultivation, this bit of killing intent was nothing. But Yang Chen hadn’t anticipated that the killing intent from killing immortals would be revealed, it really was something of a miscalculation.

Three Purities Secret, Yang Chen suddenly recalled what the Grand Supreme Elderly Lord said, the Three Purities Secret could refine killing intent into divine consciousness, that was simply a life saving treasure in this situation. No wonder the Elderly Lord would say he’d use it very soon.

Yang Chen didn’t dare be neglectful, hastily reciting what the Elderly Lord taught him about the Three Purities Secret, starting to slowly comprehend the mysteries within it. After a long while, Yang Chen sat down in meditation, and started to cultivate it according to the methods of the Three Purities Secret’s first level. The Three Purities Secret had altogether nine levels, and even with Yang Chen’s more than ten thousand years of experience in cultivating, he could still only do it step by step.

Yang Chen’s temperament cultivation was already at the level of a great primary golden immortal since his rebirth, and despite this being the first time he practiced it, he still instantly entered the condition for cultivating, without self or others.

After six hours, Yang Chen woke from his practicing. Letting loose a long breath, Yang Chen began to slowly inspect the changes in his body.

The Three Purities Secret was the key to the Grand Supreme Elderly Lord’s turning one qi into three purities, only, it could only raise divine consciousness, and not magical power. Yang Chen was long since aware of this, but as he practiced, he was still shocked at the changes in his divine consciousness.

Originally Yang Chen’s body was born mortal, and without cultivating any arts, he was naturally without any divine consciousness or magical power, just the empty ten thousand years of cultivation experience and temperament cultivation. But with the first time cultivating the Three Purities Secret now, his divine consciousness had immediately risen a large chunk, so much that it had even caught up to when he successfully cultivated almost to the foundation building stage. The result was outstanding, simply stupefying.

Even Yang Chen himself hadn’t anticipated such an outstanding result, and in bewildered he even started doubting his own judgement. But very quickly he noticed the blood cloud that had already grown a lot thinner, and accepted the facts.

Absorbing killing intent, turning it into divine consciousness, it turned out that interesting. Yang Chen determined that, as long as he cultivated for another few days, this overflowing killing intent would be completely absorbed, no longer with any need to worry about this killing aura.

The sky was already bright, and Yang Chen left the house and pushed open the gate to the courtyard, thinking to go see how much time had passed. However, with a glance he discovered that nothing seemed to have change, exactly the same as before he left. There was no change in the street scenery, nor even any change in the people, those neighbours still looked at him extremely cautiously, afraid to provoke his attention.

“What date is it?” Yang Chen directly pulled over a neighbour to ask. But he hadn’t anticipated that this simple touch would immediately scare that neighbour enough that he didn’t dare move, squeezing out two words after his teeth chattering and body trembling for a long time: “The…… fifth!”

Yang Chen let go, and that neighbour frantically crawled and ran into the distance as if he had just received a general pardon, not even daring to turn his head. The cold intent of Yang Chen’s body made people move far away with their hearts alarmed.

“The fifth!” Yang Chen stared blankly, not even one day had passed, everything that happened, could it have been a huge dream? Absorbing all that life essence, was it all an illusion?

“Impossible!” Yang Chen shouted inwardly. Even though he had only heard about it in his previous life, he could be certain that there would be no beheadings in nothing physically entered the Immortal Executioner Stage.

When he stepped out from the Immortal Executioner Stage, it had been his real body, and not just a thought. Moreover, if he was only a thought within the Immortal Executioner Stage, it would be impossible for him to be the opponent of the vicious blade.

And Yang Cheng had the greatest proof, the discerning eye of the Grand Supreme Elderly Lord. Even completely without magical power when entering the Immortal Executioner Stage, the elder’s eyes still weren’t lacking to the extent that he couldn’t tell apart a real body and a consciousness entity. Since he said his body’s aptitude was extremely good, that absolutely wasn’t a lie.

Turning around, Yang Chen closed himself into his little courtyard, walked over to the millstone, and fished out that five colored stone. By just touching it, the five colored stone released a great brilliance, the five colored light extremely dazzling. This also made Yang Chen let loose a breath, everything that had happened, none of it was a waste.

The killing intent was still very dense, before killing people today, Yang Chen still had the chance to refine it a bit more. Thinking of this, Yang Chen immediately returned to his room, sitting cross legged with his palms and soles of his feet facing the sky, and began to practice the Three Purities Secret once again.

He still had to execute people at three quarters past eleven, so Yang Chen only cultivated for two hours in the morning before stopping. The blood cloud had weakened a bit, but it was still thicker than old devil Yi’s back then. Fortunately this blood cloud could only be seen by cultivators with magical power, ordinary people would only feel a heartfelt terror, and nothing else. Common people fearing executioners seemed to be a common thing in the mortal world, and wouldn’t cause any great panic.

Hastily killing a few dozen people, Yang Chen was warned by that seemingly dodging little minor official that he would be executing minister Sun’s whole family of three hundred people tomorrow. He might be tired, so he should prepare early. Yang Chen was unconcerned, and hurried back to his house with large strides to start cultivating.

This time Yang Chen cultivated the whole time from three in the afternoon to seven in the morning the next day. Right now Yang Chen was scrambling for time, he had to completely absorb his killing intent before those devil exterminating, Dao protecting people dared come here.

Yang Chen had also planned the choice of this county seat far in advance. This was where the distance to any cultivator sect was the greatest, and even experts on flying swords would take at least two days to get here. This was enough to let Yang Chen suppress his killing intent to the level of ordinary people.

The Three Purities Secret was worthy of being the Elderly Lord’s trump card, when all was said and done, Yang Chen only practiced it the third time, and no more than eight hours in a stretch, and it was still only the first level, but with the third time he practiced, Yang Chen’s divine consciousness was already enough to study the changes within his body.

The red cloud on the surface of his body rushed madly into Yang Chen as if pulled by some huge gravitational force, and after a short series of changes, it joined the formidable ranks of a large army of divine consciousness. So much that Yang Chen could even clearly sense the slight chill of the blood cloud flowing within him.

The more formidable his divine consciousness, the faster the absorption speed, forming a positive reinforcement spiral. But Yang Chen still couldn’t be relieved, because the absorption speed was still a bit slow compared to the density of the blood cloud. Compared to the joy over his divine consciousness, Yang Chen was even more concerned about how to deal with puritanical cultivators.

Yang Chen had never thought that he would possess divine consciousness so unsuited to his magical power, before he even had a trace of magical power. By his experience, his present divine consciousness was already equivalent to when he was at the foundation building stage in his previous life. Using weights of silver to compare it, then he was like an ordinary person who had suddenly received several tens of thousands of tael of silver, enough to squander for a lifetime.

Faintly, it was as if his formidable divine consciousness wanted to split into two pieces, which made Yang Chen feel strange. Such an indication, according to the records of the Three Purities Secret, should be the omen of the divine consciousness splitting. Since it was one qi becoming three purities, then the divine consciousness would naturally ultimately split into three pieces. However, that was at least something that would happen above the yuanying stage, at the dacheng stage, how could something like this happen when he had just started to practice it?

What Yang Chen didn’t know was that divine consciousness splitting was related to magical power, and would appear after the divine consciousness was one realm higher than the magical power. Yang Chen’s current condition was that he didn’t have a trace of magical power, but his divine consciousness was already at the level of an initial stage foundation builder, which as it happens met the conditions.

However, indications for splitting of divine consciousness was clearly the peak of the first level of practice, he could already practice the second level art.

The final purpose was for one qi to become three purities, this required splitting into three parts. Now that he already had the signs of splitting, Yang Chen naturally wouldn’t halt it and continued practicing. Simply, after completing this round of practice, Yang Chen naturally switched the Three Purities Secret’s first layer art to the second layer art.

Entering the second layer, Yang Chen immediately felt vigor like a swallowing whale. The blood cloud surrounding him rushed into his body as if it was suddenly engulfed in a powerful storm. The absorption speed was at least twice as fast.

Yang Chen almost became drunk on the unrestrained feeling, and his divine consciousness rose sharply at the same time. The blood cloud also swiftly weakened, and in a short few hours, Yang Chen had already absorbed almost seventy percent of the killing intent. The thick blood cloud had grown faint, as if already weakened to the level of old devil Yi back then, all that remained was a thin red curtain. And this faint red curtain also dissipated within it.

At the same time as Yang Chen sat quietly practicing, in the distance in all directions, several people were just controlling flying swords to fly, their target astonishingly Yang Chen’s location.

“Yi?”One white dressed young girl among them dashed out an expression of surprise. The bloody killing intent over there had actually swiftly weakened in a short few hours, could it be some unknowable unforeseen event had taken place there?

“Humph!” Looking in that direction, the frosty expression on white dressed young woman’s face didn’t warm in the slightest: “No matter who you are, daring to be create such a killing calamity, even if you flee to the ends of the world, I’ll still find you to protect the Dao!”

Yang Chen didn’t seem to be aware of any of this. Having just stopped practicing, he was racking his brains to remember a person he had an impression of. It seemed that person had been saved on the execution ground back then, and afterwards been taken to a sect to cultivate, afterwards becoming the pride of a generation. That person’s surname was Sun, reportedly from the family of officials, and her grandfather seemed to have been a Chao minister.

Coincidentally, the family Yang Chen was to execute turned out to be a family of officials, that also had a government minister surnamed Sun.