Wait, How Did My Digital Girlfriend Become a Sword Immortal? Chapter 590: Elder Cangwu

Chapter 590: Elder Cangwu

…

Three cultivators charged into the hall.

All of them looked like old men. The leader had white hair and beard, a ruddy complexion—he genuinely carried a certain immortal-like bearing. He looked like the type of elder ancestor figure from a righteous sect you'd see on television.

But in Chen Huaian's eyes,

this old man was entangled in karmic debt, carrying countless remnant souls and causes on his back.

Not a good man.

Still, it was understandable.

If someone had gone so far as to build a Dao stage in the mortal realm, they were bound to be doing something shameful.

His arm had been severed and his combat power had plummeted.

He had never been a match for Li Qingran, and now he was scarcely holding on.

He was about to be defeated, about to be cut down by Li Qingran’s sword.

“I said, stop!”

The old man roared. He tried to mobilize his True Essence to stop Li Qingran, but suddenly found his entire True Essence like a stagnant pool—he could not move it at all.

Li Qingran had already closed in on the fallen Lingxiao Zhenren. She thrust her sword—cold light exploded—and it pierced through Lingxiao Zhenren’s neck.

Lingxiao Zhenren’s body died violently. His Nascent Soul shot out and flew toward the outside of the hall.

Although Li Qingran was powerful, she could not intercept a Nascent Soul yet.

She immediately gave chase, increasingly anxious as she saw Lingxiao Daoist about to escape.

The next moment the Nascent Soul let out a cry as it slammed into a transparent wall.

It was a hard collision.

Lingxiao Daoist’s Nascent Soul clutched its head and fell from midair, rolling across the floor.

Li Qingran knew her master must have prepared this in advance. Warmth filled her heart, but she didn’t waste the opportunity. With a wrist flick, the Su Xian Sword swept out a beam of sword light that instantly swallowed Lingxiao Daoist’s Nascent Soul. R̃ᴀɴ𝙤ＢЁṢ

With a wail,

Lingxiao Daoist was dead beyond redemption.

The instant his Nascent Soul dispersed, the entire Golden Pavilion trembled slightly.

The heavy clouds that had hung in the sky began to slowly dissipate, and a few long-missed rays of sunlight broke through. In a nearby village, several long-sick elders suddenly felt a surge of vitality; fields that had been withered yellow seemed to revive somewhat.

These subtle changes might go unnoticed by ordinary people, but to Chen Huaian they were glaringly obvious.

Lingxiao Daoist had used the Southern Dynasty’s national fortune as cultivation consumables; now that he had died and his Dao dissipated, that national fortune naturally fed back.

“You dare kill my disciple?!” The white-haired elder’s face changed drastically. “Who are you people?!”

At this moment, the sham of immortal composure vanished from his face.

Only a mixture of rage and an almost imperceptible fear remained.

He stared fixedly at Chen Huaian, his voice shaking with forced calm and a hint of desperate hope: “I am the Sect Master of Yunyan Sect—Elder Cangwu! Fellow Daoist, your cultivation reaches the heavens; why make a mortal enmity with my Yunyan Sect over such trivial earthly pests? Lingxiao may have been unfair in his deeds, but he does not deserve death! Let this matter drop—my sect is willing to offer precious treasures to turn swords into peace. How about it?”

The two cultivators who had accompanied Elder Cangwu were dumbfounded.

They knew that Elder Cangwu normally would not speak so softly.

Particularly since an inner disciple had just been slain—who was the man in black with the azure robe and white hair who showed no clear cultivation?!

They did not know how bitter Elder Cangwu felt inside.

The higher the cultivation, the more one could perceive.

This dignified Void Fusion Realm powerhouse felt his vast True Essence suppressed as if by a mountain—immovable!

The source of the suppression was the black-clothed sword cultivator standing now—ethereal, unfathomable.

He could not see through Chen Huaian's cultivation, only that the other was like a bottomless ancient well or a boundless starry sky; simply standing there made his very soul tremble.

Reconciliation was the only way out he could think of.

Escape?

His True Essence was sealed—unless he tore off the mask and fought to the death…

Hearing this, Chen Huaian didn’t even lift an eyelid, as if Elder Cangwu didn’t exist in front of him.

He stepped forward and in an instant arrived beside Li Qingran, pressing close to pass a thread of True Essence into her.

Only now had Li Qingran just sheathed her sword; her breath still rippled.

This strand of True Essence steadied her aura, restoring her True Essence to peak state.

“Qingran, the little pest is dead. There’s a bigger pest left.”

Chen Huaian patted Li Qingran’s head. His tone was as casual as discussing the weather: “This one, however, is the real pest. I’ll hand him to you to kill!”

His voice was low but clearly cut through the bloodstained air in the hall and Elder Cangwu’s panic, reaching Li Qingran’s ears.

“Yes, Master!” Li Qingran could feel the gap between herself and Elder Cangwu, but she felt no fear.

With her master at her side, she feared nothing!

Chen Huaian said no more. He lazily raised his right hand, fingers spread as if gesturing at nothing, and pressed faintly in Elder Cangwu’s direction.

An invisible binding force—like countless invisible chains born of the world’s primordial laws—instantly wrapped around Elder Cangwu’s dantian, sea of qi, and all his meridians!

This was meant to completely seal and suppress his cultivation, knocking him down from Void Fusion.

As a master, his duty was to protect his disciple, but he would not stunt her growth.

So he would place Elder Cangwu under Nascent Soul suppression—he believed Li Qingran could defeat him.

“No—!” Elder Cangwu’s soul panicked. The binding force had not yet fully taken hold, but he already felt apocalyptic doom.

He had no doubt that if fully sealed, he would be at Li Qingran’s mercy—her sword intent could easily destroy a Nascent Soul.

At the brink of death, survival instinct overwhelmed fear.

Elder Cangwu’s eyes burst with a final madness and viciousness.

He bit his tongue hard, spitting blood. Hands formed seals as he shouted:

“Dragon veins of the nations, impart your qi! With my soul I summon the ancestral spirits! The grievances of ten thousand people, the weight of mountains and rivers—become my strength! Rise!!!”

Boom—!!!

The entire Golden Pavilion—no, the whole Southern Dynasty capital, even the entire Southern Dynasty territory—seemed to convulse violently at that instant.

Nearby small states began to tremble as well, as if earth dragons were rolling over.

A roar, ancient and vast as primeval times yet seemingly infused with the hearts of millions, exploded from the depths of the earth!

Visible to the eye, a pillar-like, robust dragon-shaped fortune of pure golden light burst up from beneath the palace, shattering through the Golden Pavilion’s dome in an instant.

Where the golden light passed, bricks and tiles silently vanished, revealing a sky whose colors had suddenly shifted.

The dragon image was no illusion—scales glittered, whiskers bristled, its dragon eyes burned with the flames of a dynasty’s rise and fall, radiating majestic might that could suppress mountains and command the people.

Centered on Elder Cangwu, countless spectral images of rivers and mountains, cities and villages rapidly surfaced, expanded, and spun.

It was a projection of the Southern Dynasty’s vast realm.

Rushing rivers, towering mountains, ancient cities, crisscrossing fields…

Countless lights overlaid and intertwined, compressing the weight and existence of the nation into this confined space.

Space groaned under the burden; light twisted, and the laws themselves seemed to fray.

Li Qingran stared at the cataclysmic phenomenon and drew a cold breath.

Even knowing her master was at her side, facing such terrifying power she still felt immense pressure.

Liu Cuie was worse off—she clutched a half-broken pillar, face pale, trembling all over, mouth agape and speechless, not even able to cry.

But the next moment the vision suddenly changed.

Thick, viscous dark-red bloodlight surged, instantly filling the entire hall and pouring frantically outward.

Within the bloodlight, countless twisted and agonized remnant souls’ faces surfaced, screaming and struggling—farmers wailing, desperate women, stillborn infants, soldiers slain in battle…

These were the karmic debts borne from his plundering of nations’ fortunes and the slaughter of living beings.

The viscous bloodlight seemed alive, writhing and devouring light, giving off a nauseating metallic sweetness and despair, and it began to stain the golden dragon’s fortune.

The golden dragon turned into a depraved dragon.

It roared, carrying endless karmic weight and filth, like a reversing river of the underworld, rushing crazily and recklessly into Elder Cangwu’s decaying body.

His body was instantly submerged in blackness; only a vague human outline remained.

At the same time, his aura climbed step by step, almost instantly reaching the peak of Void Fusion, a mere step from Great Ascension.

“It's all your fault!”

A pale, withered finger reached from the black mist, venomously pointing at Chen Huaian and Li Qingran.

“If not for you, I wouldn't have been forced to accelerate the dragon vein’s power and suffer karmic backlash…”

“I only needed a thousand years of convalescence to completely refine the nations’ dragon veins and thus ascend to Great Ascension!”

“Now, everything is ruined!”

Elder Cangwu howled, his surrounding space corroded by filthy karmic power, forming unstable void rifts that flowed with chilling killing intent.

His pressure was extreme, filled with boundless resentment and destruction.

The Golden Pavilion in front of him cracked inch by inch and had become a ruin.

Elder Cangwu now looked like a fiend crawling out of a sea of blood; even the demon cultivators of Cangyun Realm would have to salute him as big brother.

“Now, you will die for me!”

Elder Cangwu laughed wildly, eyes burning with madness.

He felt the surging force within his body and thought he saw hope again.

Even if he must force it and bear karmic backlash, at least now he had cultivation close to Great Ascension!

Facing Elder Cangwu’s roar, Chen Huaian only frowned slightly.

“Noise!”

The hand he had been pressing in the air gently pushed down.

There was no earth-shattering explosion, no dazzling clashing light, no violent law-level confrontation.

It was as if he simply brushed a dust-specked willow leaf away.

Sss—

A faint sound, as subtle as a candle sputtering out.

The majestic dragon fortune that had pierced heaven and earth was like a popped illusion; it instantly collapsed into a rain of glowing embers and silently vanished.

The spinning, weighty projections of rivers and mountains and cities were like sand paintings wiped away; in a moment they dissipated.

The terrifying pressure and torrent of resentful karma that could corrode a Dao heart were cut off as if their source had been severed.

Elder Cangwu’s power and aura deflated like a punctured balloon, instantly drained dry.

The body that had swollen from the injected power shriveled rapidly, more decrepit than before, face left with stupefaction and disbelief.

“This… how is this possible…” Elder Cangwu widened his eyes, lips trembling.

He had just mobilized the dragon veins of multiple nations!

That was a terrifying force that could approach Great Ascension!

Yet before this man it was so easily neutralized?

No—it hadn’t been neutralized. It had been crushed.

Like a human stepping on an ant.

“Who… who are you…” Amid the dust-choked ruins, only Elder Cangwu’s voice could be heard as he collapsed to his knees.

His True Essence, together with the national fortune he had just borrowed—power capable of shaking heaven and earth—was now crushed cleanly, completely, and decisively by an absolute force he could neither comprehend nor resist, leaving him with only Nascent Soul cultivation.

Chen Huaian withdrew his hand as if he had merely done something trivial; not even the hem of his clothes moved.

He looked at Li Qingran, sword in hand, his voice calm with a trace of barely noticeable fondness.

“Go, Qingran…”

“Kill him.”

…