Paragon of Sin

"What an amusing trick, but...I can see your soul, Little Mortal. There's no hiding that."

Sage Springfield's words rang like thunderous booms within Wei Wuyin's Sea of Consciousness, reverberating through his bones, impacting his blood, and smashing against his beating heart.

ROAR!

Kratos' Astral Form unleashed a bellowing roar that dispelled the foreign spiritual power assailing Wei Wuyin's physical body. Rampant Draconic Void Starforce with Little Defiant's solar energy circulated with precision and purpose, and Wei Wuyin regained a sense of his mobility as his Infinite Void Wings grew to forty meters, flourished with a twist of his body, and allowed him to disperse the power that sent him violently flying.

"..."

Spiritual light incessantly suffused Wei Wuyin's silver irises and granted his dark, dragon-like pupils a ferocious glint. Every syllable of Sage Springfield was laced with a spiritual spell and spiritual power. The wondrous nature of his attacks left Wei Wuyin in an embarrassingly passive state as he tried to acclimate to such esoteric means.

As for sensing his Existential Mortal Framework of his Soul and True Soul, he was able to verify an extraordinarily exquisite power of those who've reached an enlightened state as a Sage-Soul Perception. This type of sensory power was renowned as legendary due to being a fundamental differentiation between the Mystic Ascendant Realm and Resonant Soul Realm.

The marvelous ability of Soul Perception bestowed innumerable benefits to cultivation, especially while observing the Laws or executing fabled Ascension Soul Arts that drew on the powers of the Laws. It was more apt to say 'resonate' with the Laws.

Verifying this power, Wei Wuyin immediately struck out a few methods of attack, but he couldn't outright eliminate them all. Not yet. Within a tenth of a breath, Wei Wuyin drew upon his Alpha Origin Starforce and gathered the principles of the wood element, rapidly healing his damaged body and expelling the foreign spiritual strength attached to various parts of his body, like a tree abandoning a sickened portion of its body.

Within that period of time, Wei Wuyin's scales rapidly regenerated alongside his flesh and bone.

This method was equally as exquisite and tapped into fundamental principles of the Law of Wood, a tiny portion of what the Law of Origin governed. He stretched his tense body as layers upon layers of spiritual defenses were conjured both externally and internally, and a faint boom resounded throughout the Dark Void.

However, while Wei Wuyin was experiencing and simultaneously executing a type of adjustment, Sage Springfield was naturally extremely shaken by his discoveries of Wei Wuyin's Existential Framework and various abilities. Moreover, it wasn't just once!

Wei Wuyin having an ungodly physical body that could fight against Overlord Tigerheart as a mortal wasn't too unbelievable. Within his knowledge, alternative paths of cultivation existed and not everything relied on the soul. For example, Wei Wuyin's bloodline aura was that of the dragon race, and its purity was exceedingly high, likely coming from a legendary True Dragon or its descendent somehow.

He was aware of the Onestar Galaxy's legendary Jiaolong who had origins linked to True Dragons, and it was said that it had touched upon the realms of the Immortal Dao. Given its remarkable strength and existence, it was entirely possible for someone to acquire a drop of its blood essence to cultivate a hybrid method and be bestowed Sage-level strength. He wasn't ignorant or naive enough to believe that eccentric and unfathomable methods like this wouldn't exist, even if the granting of such strength was temporary.

He was fairly open-minded and a large reason for this was his cultivation as an Enlightened Sage!

Shockingly, Sage Springfield's guess was remarkably accurate in terms of its origins. If all else was dated back, the Horned-Firmament Dragon Anu had the faintest of the faintest of faintest bloodline origins of the Jiaolong which was refined by an ungodly amount of unrefined lifeforce to obscene levels of purity, eliminating all the inferior portions and leaving only the True Dragon essence blood. This was used to inevitably establish Wei Wuyin's Mark of Myth and Kratos.

However, all that aside, Wei Wuyin's absurd physical Strength alongside his mortal soul wasn't what shook him, but the faint aura of six different laws circulating his soul's aura.

Six!

SIX!

He couldn't begin to fathom how. This was even more outrageous given that Wei Wuyin's Soul Aura placed him just barely above a hundred years old with his natural cultivation base at the Star Core Phase, the Ninth Stage of the Astral Core Realm, and the final stage of the Mortal Dao!

The more he learned after observing closer, the greater his shock became. Wei Wuyin had just drawn upon an indescribably profound law, and he didn't know whether it was the Law of Wood or something else entirely, simply because he, too, had grasped the Law of Wood yet a faint sense of inferiority emerged within his soul at the mere sight.

Sage Springfield's eyes darted slowly to his left and right as he tried to observe his surroundings. It was his vigilance that made him unwilling to take the initiative. If several other Sages were lying in wait for an opportunity, he could suffer injuries within a split second of inattentiveness or distraction.

This allowed Wei Wuyin to regather himself, buying him much-needed time to adjust and time that someone as skilled as Sage Springfield would have never initially given his opponent, regardless of their abnormality. Whether Wei Wuyin cultivated a unique de-aging soul method or he somehow isolated his soul, sealing it in stasis, while he had another consciousness such as a Spirit of Dao cultivated in his place, whatever it was mattered not to him, and only Wei Wuyin's strength was relevant.

Unfortunately, even with Soul Perception, it wasn't absolute, and those who knew they would fight against an Enlightened Sage would definitely have countermeasures if they sought to ambush or launch a sneak attack against them. A Resonant Soul Realm expert once lost their life due to three others at the same cultivation stage and level launching an immaculately planned sneak attack by disguising their soul auras and using geological advantages. He refused to follow the same route.

Absolutely refused!

Wei Wuyin steadied his breathing as he gazed at Sage Springfield, his eyes surging with palpable killing intent. The space around him for tens of thousands of miles was roused into a frenzy, and Sage Springfield turned his gaze and perception to observe.

Celestial Eyes of Spiritual Divinity:

EYE OF ILLUSION!

Sage Springfield found himself in a dark, endless world. There was no light, no sound, and no signs of life. He couldn't feel his breath on his lips or the pounding of his powerful heart in his chest. All of his physical senses left him. He only knew that he was moving.

Step. Step. Step.

He was moving forward.

'Where am I?'

It was desolate.

'Who am I?'

It was empty.

'Am I dead?!'

It was Hell.

Wei Wuyin's mind replicated his Second Calamity with extreme precision, emulating every last ounce of emotion he felt as he traversed the dark plains of that hellscape. Those emotions assailed Sage Springfield without mercy. He intended to have Sage Springfield experience the depths of despair while traveling endlessly with this escalating feeling of dread and endlessness.

Of course, Wei Wuyin intended to end his life long before then while he was trapped in this illusion and send him on his way to actual Hell! With the index and forefinger of his right hand outstretched, Omega Saber Light flourished. He lifted his foot as his Draconic Void Starforce circulated to execute Void Shift.

'Another trick?'

"What?" Wei Wuyin's eyes widened uncontrollably as an indescribable power manifested within. His eyes instantly grew violently bloodshot and irritated, and then began to pulse and expand within microseconds. Soon, they grew too large for his skull and began faintly deforming his facial features.

SPLURGH!!!

His Celestial Eyes of Spiritual Divinity EXPLODED!

Like squishing a bug, his eyes released a disgusting squelching sound before erupting in a gush of silvery blood! He reeled as he hurriedly erected layers upon layers of Astral Wards defensively, using his Infinite Void Wings to take off in any direction while rapidly changing directions without doubt or coherence, evading any attacks haphazardly, and holding his two bloody sockets with two hands.

Wei Wuyin's Celestial Eyes had been destroyed and without it, he was unable to sense the unfathomable aura of mysticism with any tangible clarity! If Sage Springfield attacked at this moment, it would be no different than him and his attacks were invisible and soundless!

The Eye of Illusion...FAILED!

"Such an interesting spell of yours. I almost lost myself for a moment there," Sage Springfield remarked. Every syllable kept assailing Wei Wuyin with the terrifying spiritual power of a Sage and his Astral Wards rippled intensely despite his rapid evasive maneuvers.

Sage Springfield was astonished by Wei Wuyin's tactics. Unfortunately...

"My True Soul has awakened. If you wish to draw me into an illusion, it can't just affect my mind. It has to affect my True Soul, otherwise, it's no different than trying to deceive someone who's blind with visual illusions. You're clearly inexperienced in combat of this level." Sage Springfield remarked as his horsetail whisk's hairs began to subtly retract from the three dimensions of space.

His expression was a little confused. 'No other Sages?' He couldn't determine whether his searches were genuine or if he was being deceived by an exceptionally powerful concealment array that could hide from a high-level Heavenly Treasure.

Could it be a Resonant Soul Realm expert in hiding?

The thought arrived and dissipated. If it was a cultivator at the Resonant Soul Realm, there was no need to hide and attack him. He might as well suffer his life right now. There was an insurmountable difference between Enlightened Sages and those beyond the Mystic Ascendant Realm, like the difference between a Mortal and an Ascended being. It might be even more exaggerated as even a Heavenly Treasure wouldn't be enough to surmount this difference, requiring a Supreme Heavenly Treasure or an entire galaxy that a Sage was willing to detonate in mutual destruction.

He had neither.

Cultivation was difficult and each subsequent stage and realm was accompanied by an improvement of fundamental power and means that often was profoundly beyond those beneath that power.

'Then is he just...alone?' The very thought felt baffling to him as he observed the struggling and fleeing Wei Wuyin who lost his exceptional eyes. It was evident that without those eyes, this Mortal Soul having Dragon-Hybrid was at a severe disadvantage.

He decided to double and triple-check before moving an inch or making another move.

Meanwhile, Wei Wuyin kept flying as if he had lost all sense of direction and calm. However, his eyes had long since regrown and the glint within them exuded an unfathomable serenity. The Eye of Immortality was not for show.

His sporadic and panicky movements were contrasted heavily by his thoughts: 'The Eye of Illusion didn't work either. Should I go with an all-out offensive and use the Profound Void Art: Eyes of Fated Avoidance to find the right path? No. He's a Sage and will be able to affect things such as The World and notice the discrepancy. If I used it and he altered it slightly or viewed it somehow, I'd just be killing myself sooner.

'How troublesome.' If Wei Wuyin was at the Mystic Ascendant Realm and grasped the Temporal-type Way of Mysticism, he could prevent any potential intrusions with absolute certainty, but the faint chance of his Eyes of Fated Avoidance backfiring was enough to shelf the art.

Sage Springfield was not Highlord Bluecloud, and he had never tested this art on other high-level Mystic Ascendants, so it wasn't entirely refined or reliable.

As if knowing his decision, the Mortal Dao exuded a faint quiver of relief while the Mystic Dao was mostly silent. Wei Wuyin's Stellar-Paragon Physique innately resonated with those responses, and he knew that he had made the right choice.

Slowly, his means were shrinking.

"Tch," King's voice resounded within his mind.

"I know. I know. Let me just do a few things first," Wei Wuyin realized that his physical strength wasn't optimal given its simplicity highlighted by subterfuge that was negated by Sage Springfield's Soul Perception. He didn't have any means to hide his True Soul's aura.

"Let's try this," Wei Wuyin suddenly halted his sporadic dodges and stabilized in the Dark Void, now a few million miles away from Sage Springfield. Behind him was the very distant Sky Heart Galaxy, and before him was devastated space and the endless Dark Void of Void-Blank Space between galaxies. Sage Springfield hovered quietly as he seemed to be executing a series of Spiritual Spells while utilizing his horsetail whisk, a high-level Heavenly Treasure!

Wei Wuyin took a deep breath as the void was sucked into his throat, and with an incomparably ferocious roar, a sound that resembled the sundering of heavens and the burning of worlds, a deluge of Void Flames was born!

They raced toward Sage Springfield!