Chapter 241 - Slaughtering Death

It was basically impossible to absorb more than 80% of the Nirvana Life heavenly blessing, and it was more typical to absorb around 50%. Of course, this only applied to average sized blessings. Yaan’s blessing was so large, that the quantity he absorbed into his cultivation was less than a hundredth of a percent.

This meant that his calamity would seek to take away 10,000 times more than he gained during his heavenly blessing.

Would it even be possible to survive? Well, since the Fragment of Blood was helping him, perhaps there might be some sort of a chance…

Yaan didn’t notice the red-haired man glancing at him strangely. He knew that whilst Yaan had only managed to harvest a ‘small’ amount of life essence into his four cultivations, the amount that entered his dao soul was nothing insignificant at all.

As for what use this might have, nobody could say. After all, this had never happened before. Even the Primordial Sage was not omniscient, she could not predict the outcome of something that had not occurred even once since the beginning of the four planes.

Regardless, it was a fact that if Yaan failed to overcome his calamity with those two million drops of life essence, he would die. Only, how was he supposed to retain even one drop, when the calamity would attempt to take away 10,000 times more than he had to give?

Well, there was only one way; he needed to prevent the calamity from taking its fee.

And so, the Fragment of Blood began teaching Yaan two methods which could potentially provide him with a small chance of survival.

The first method, was the method that he would use to resist the initial impact of the calamity. If he was not prepared, that initial impact would instantly kill him, so he needed to learn how to defend himself against this impact.

The method was not specifically designed to defend against heavenly calamities, but was a spell which would allow Yaan to reduce the initial impact of the strike, causing the impact to be dispersed over a period of one tenth of a second. This might not sound like long, but with Yaan’s power, this was all he could manage, even after practising the spell for an entire six months.

The spell was called ‘spread impact’. It was an immortal spell, but an immortal spell which could be forcefully activated by Nirvana realm cultivators by combining their immortal stage dao comprehension with a sacrifice of their life essence.

Yaan only practised this spell several times. He prepared himself thoroughly and reflected on his previous mistakes each time. He was very careful when practising this spell, because each activation cost him 1,000 drops of life essence! And this was when activating the spell with its minimum strength, for its shortest period of one hundredth of a second.

When Yaan expanded this to one tenth of a second, the cost was ten times more. He still only used the spell at minimum strength, but it cost him 10,000 drops of life essence.

Unfortunately, the minimum level of spread impact would not suffice to resist the impact brought by his Nirvana Death heavenly calamity. In order to defend against the impact from a calamity of this magnitude, he would need to sacrifice at least 500,000 drops of life essence!

Even so, these minimum strength practise usages of the spell still depleted Yaan’s life essence. But, if he didn’t practise the spell a few times, using it in an actual life and death situation would be far too reckless.

It was an insanely costly spell, but the effect was extremely profound. Since it would even be able to disperse the impact from his overbearing heavenly calamity, it was clearly a strong method.

Yaan studied and practised this spell for six months. Then, for the following two years, he went on to practise the other spell which would hopefully get him through this.

The second spell could only be used by Nirvana realm cultivators, because its activation required a large amount of mortal life essence. Mortal life essence was not possessed by immortals, and was not possessed in sufficient quantities by those below the Nirvana realm.

The spell was called shield of life. It formed a shield of life essence around the user, defending them from any attack which was imbued with the power of death. It might sound strange to use life essence to directly resist the calamity, but…

The shield of life, depending on the level of its activation, could defend against death-filled attacks with a much greater effect compared to simply using life essence to resist directly. There were four stages to this spell. The 1st stage allowed the life essence channelled into the shield to resist against 10 times more deathly power, the 2nd stage increased this to 100 times, which increased to 1,000 times for the 3rd stage and 10,000 times for the 4th stage.

This meant that in theory, if Yaan mastered stage 4 of the shield of life, he could use his full two million drops of life essence to defend against an attack which had the power to destroy 20 billion drops…this would be enough to get him through his entire heavenly calamity!

Unfortunately, he first needed to use the spread impact spell, which would deplete his life essence by 500,000 drops right from the beginning.

Also, both of these methods required the person undergoing the calamity to maintain their cultivation in peak condition. If Yaan’s body was destroyed like Ga Shu’s had been back then, he would not be able to use any of these methods. If that really happened, he would certainly die.

In the end, even in the best case scenario, these two spells alone would not be enough to get him through the calamity.

Unfortunately, the best case scenario did not come about; Yaan failed to master the 4th stage of the shield of life spell. This was to be expected though, the shield of life spell was extremely profound…after practising this spell for two years, during which time he depleted his life essence by another 50,000 drops, he still only managed to master the 3rd stage!

This was actually very impressive, he had already exceeded the Fragment of Blood’s expectations. And in fact, after learning these life essence spells, Yaan could feel that he had gained a deeper understanding over the dao of life.

He already had a profound understanding over the dao of life and death, and due to his comprehension over slaughter, he had significant insight into the dao of death. Now, his dao of life comprehension was actually not that far away from his dao of death…but both daos were still a step away from reaching immortal stage comprehension, they would be of limited use in the coming calamity.

Yaan had expended 65,000 drops of life essence just to learn these two spells. If he relied solely on these spells, he would be able endure…for around half a second. If he had mastered the 4th stage of the shield of life spell, he would have been able to increase that time to six seconds, but the calamity lasted for nine seconds, so clearly, this still wouldn't be enough.

Regardless, Yaan never intended to rely entirely on these methods. He had his own means after all, he was not completely helpless.

There was his dao of illusions…

His dao of slaughter…

And his extremely powerful cultivation, which should be able to resist the calamity for some time without needing to rely on his life essence to begin with.

Yaan would use the spread impact spell, but the shield of life spell was something that he only planned to use once he was unable to continue resisting without damaging his cultivation. At that point, he would use the shield of life spell briefly, granting him the chance to heal over his injuries during the short period of respite.

That was one plan, of course. This was the more feasible plan…however, he would only go with this plan if his final six months of preparations failed to produce results.

The red-haired man was clearly enraged when Yaan turned down his further help. He believed that any method in his possession would be vastly superior compared to whatever Yaan could devise!

But Yaan had a strange idea…

In the past, Yaan had witnessed Ga Shu overcoming the Nirvana Death heavenly calamity. He had seen it, he had observed and analysed it.

That black cloud, the pillar of light, the dark winds and the dust, the droplets of death, the antithesis of life…

Yaan sat down silently. He meditated on his musings without interruption, until the day his heavenly calamity finally arrived.

Nobody wanted to get anywhere near this calamity. They would be implicated by the death aura from the calamity if they remained in the vicinity. Others would not be able to reduce the severity of the calamity, they would only suffer without being able to help at all. In the worst case scenario, they could even attract heavenly retribution upon themselves…of course, if they didn’t deliberately intervene, that was unlikely.

That said, when it came to the heavenly dao and its ploys, neither the Primordial Sage nor the red-haired giant would underestimate it.

Yaan watched calmly as the black cloud formed above him. Like the blessing, the calamity took a few minutes to fully take form, but this allowed Yaan to observe it properly. He even analysed the calamity with reveal truth as it grew larger and larger by the second.

After using reveal truth, Yaan showed a strange smile. He could already feel the terrifying aura of the seemingly endless black cloud up above, but he showed no fear, only a crazed anticipation.

As the Primordial Sage and the Fragment of Blood watched from afar, the sage spoke into the red-haired man’s mind directly.

“The heavenly dao has chosen to kill him with the calamity, not the tribulation.”

The red-haired giant nodded. This was actually somewhat of a relief…their major worry was that the heavenly dao would risk damaging its own heavenly balance in order to reduce the strength of Yaan’s heavenly calamity by as much as possible…following this, it would be able to use the skewered balance to inflict a terrifying immortal ascension tribulation upon Yaan like no other!

But in the end, the heavenly dao chose not to harm its heavenly balance. This was to be expected really, but there was always the chance that it would choose the other option.

Finally, the black cloud was fully formed.

The cloud was tens of thousands of miles in size, encompassing the entire original Bloody Totem Province, completely obscuring the starry sky from view. In fact, the cloud was so enormous that it actually stretched far beyond the starry sky…and yet, it was also extremely dense and compact, causing black fluid to rain down heavily. The black rain was caught up in a series of violent winds, eventually forming a terrifying black tornado, which shot towards Yaan after absorbing thousands of pillars of black light into itself.

Darkness covered the region for as far as the eye could see. This scene was like the polar opposite of the golden world created during Yaan’s heavenly blessing…

The moment the tornado reached Yaan, he used the spread impact spell. Like this, 500,000 drops of his mortal life essence were burned to ash, but at least he was able to endure the initial jarring impact of the calamity. According to the plan, next, he would-

“What…what is he doing?!” The red-haired man roared out in anger and shock.

He could see that Yaan had no intention of dodging! Instead, he looked like he was actually planning to attack the heavenly calamity itself! When he saw this, the red-haired giant felt enraged, because this was simply suicidal!

“So long as he does not attack the cloud above, he will not attract retribution.”

Hearing the Primordial Sage’s tranquil words, the red-haired man calmed down slightly. Still, he frowned, not understanding why Yaan was suddenly going against the original plan!

Well, the reason was simple; Yaan did not want to use that plan, he wanted to use his own. During the last six months, he was almost able to confirm that his own plan should be able to work.

After watching the formation of his heavenly calamity, he became more certain. He believed that he had a 50% chance of success! That might sound quite bad, but it was much better than his odds if he were to go with the first plan!

The tornado, fused with the dust, rain and rays of dark-light, all combined together, transforming into a spear of black lightning which struck towards Yaan with a speed so terrifying that it was nearly impossible to dodge, but Yaan did not dodge…instead, he actually attacked the tip of the lightning before it struck him!

He attacked with a sword, an illusory sword imbued with every aspect of his four cultivation paths, all of which were now infused with slaughter.

His body was instantly torn to shreds. His skin was ripped away, his bones cracked all over, his organs were pulverised to a paste, even his four cultivations were damaged severely!

At this point, he could not use the shield of life spell even if he wanted to…but he did not want to!

By taking on this damage, Yaan was actually able to fend off the lightning…no, he did not merely fend it off, he actually…slaughtered it!

He slaughtered death!

What became of slaughtered death?

It was because Yaan had found a possible answer to this question that he was willing to do something so crazy…

The answer was life aura! Upon slaughtering death, the result was the generation of life aura! Life aura which filled his body, life aura which healed his wounds and recovered his cultivation, life aura which replenished his lost life essence, then proceeded to fill his body endlessly!

Yaan laughed crazily, but he did not stop for a second. He was assaulted again and again by those black bolts of lightning, each of which was formed by the fusion of the various components of this deathly calamity. At the same time, the black rays of light continued to shine down on his body, depleting his life essence at a terrifying rate!

Whenever the light touched him, he lost body parts, his cultivation was damaged, his life essence was destroyed, and he was forced to burn away his own life essence in order to recover!

But at the same time, Yaan actively flew towards those black bolts of death lightning, attacking them head on! He slaughtered those lightning bolts and turned the black power of death into a grey power of slaughter, which eventually transformed into a blinding white light as he turned death into life!

The life aura, born from Yaan slaughtering death, was drawn towards him by a strange power. This was thanks to the slaughter essence within his core, which attracted all auras born from slaughter!

The absorbed life aura healed his core first, recovering his soul and restoring his vital slaughter force. It then spread out further, restoring his Qi, his blood, his body and his mind at the same time. Whenever his body reached its peak condition, the life aura simply continued to pour in, accumulating within him as life essence…

Life essence rapidly filled his body to the brim, before threatening to detonate his body due to overfilling. At this point, Yaan was once again able to locate that mysterious channel within him. He urged as much life essence as possible to flood through the channel, accumulating within his dao soul, seemingly without end.

All of this took time to describe, but remember, the Nirvana Death heavenly calamity only lasted for nine seconds.

In these nine seconds, Yaan was almost killed hundreds of times, but he was also restored to his peak condition hundreds of times. He lost and recovered his life essence hundreds of times, whilst he channelled the massive quantity of life aura and life essence towards dao soul continuously.

And then, abruptly and without warning, it was over.

The heavenly calamity lasted for exactly nine seconds, no matter how weak or strong it might be. Like the blessing, it took some time for such a huge calamity to fully form, but unlike the blessing, it vanished within mere moments.

Afterwards, Yaan was in bad condition, but after a few seconds, he recovered his body and his cultivations back to their peak.

By the end of Yaan’s heavenly calamity, he had 1.7 million drops of life essence contained within his four cultivations. His life essence fluctuated between two million drops and a few thousand drops throughout the calamity, and in the end, it was pure chance whether the calamity ended during one of his high or low points. He could have finished with just a few thousand drops, or even two million. In the end, this result was extremely good.

Actually, Yaan’s condition following his calamity was unique. Following the Nirvana Death heavenly calamity, all cultivators would be afflicted by heaven’s curse of death…but Yaan was not.

He slaughtered that curse of death, removing it from his life essence before it could take root.

The immortal ascension tribulation could be triggered by any Nirvana Death realm cultivator at any time. Such cultivators were normally afflicted by heaven’s curse of death, this was the reason for the realm being named ‘Nirvana Death’. With heaven’s curse of death lingering over them, they were usually forced to tackle the immortal ascension within a few days of passing their calamity.

Yaan was unique, he had so much time to prepare! Looking at it from one perspective, he now had 1.7 millions years of life span. If he wanted to, he could wait for another 1.7 million years until his life essence ran out. Like this, could actually spend 1.7 million years preparing for his immortal ascension tribulation!

But in reality, he could not. The heavenly dao was perfectly balanced, but Yaan’s actions in his calamity just now had completely skewered the normal balance of Nirvana.

The heavenly dao had purposefully increased the strength of his blessing, allowing it to strike Yaan with an equally powerful calamity…but Yaan did not simply face the calamity, he basically destroyed it, and he even used it to further strengthen himself!

To rectify this skewered balance, his immortal ascension tribulation would definitely become countless times more powerful! And in order to balance out the fact that Yaan was not afflicted by heaven’s curse of death, the tribulation would become stronger and stronger with every passing second that he waited…

Yaan already understood the concept of heavenly balance, so he was easily able to see through this. But, even without his deduction of this fact, he could feel a powerful danger which was growing stronger and stronger by the second. If he did not trigger his immortal ascension tribulation soon, this danger would grow beyond his capacity to handle.

He could not relax, and besides…

Yaan glanced at the Fragment of Blood, who stared back at him with palpable killing intent. Yaan’s display had shocked him, reminding him again of just how terrifying this being before him truly was.

‘This abomination cannot be underestimated…’ The red-haired man thought to himself as he kept his eyes locked on Yaan.

Yaan recalled his experience just now.

Until just now, he had only slaughtered life, bringing about death. But he now understood that he could also slaughter death, to bring about life…

Life and death were not opposites, they were simply two states within a cycle. Birth, was followed by life, was followed by dying, was followed by death, was followed by birth, and so on…

Yaan looked up, staring into the sky. As he stared at nothing in particularly, a golden vortex appeared within his eyes. He did not look dazed, but stared up at the sky, and in the midst of his comprehension over life and death…

He died.

Suddenly and without warning, Yaan simply slumped to the ground, dead.

“He entered Nirvana Rebirth! He actually chose to take on his immortal ascension tribulation without even taking a break, whilst he was in the middle of comprehending dao! Damnit…at the very least, he overcame the heavenly dao’s trap…the heavenly dao should not intervene too much in his tribulation, right?”

As the red-haired man shouted out in frustration, the Primordial Sage remained silent. It was a long while before she finally spoke, by which point, the red-haired man was beginning to feel uneasy.

“He did not attract retribution, but he gave back nothing during his calamity. He took from the blessing, then took again from the calamity, disrupting the heavenly balance. This tribulation will target his greatest weakness.”

The red-haired man’s expression turned gloomy.

“You're saying that the heavenly dao will attack his dao heart?”

“The heavenly dao cannot use methods beyond immortal ascension tribulations, it cannot attack his heart directly. However…it may not need to.”

The Primordial Sage looked as apathetic as ever. It was as if the changes in her plans, the successes and failures she encountered, simply meant nothing to her.

The red-haired man was the opposite. He could not tolerate it…he would not be able to accept it if Yaan died to a tribulation, and not to his own two hands!