Wait, How Did My Digital Girlfriend Become a Sword Immortal? Chapter 856.23: The Heavenly Coffin

Chen Huaian quietly observed Bi Yue Wu, whose gaze overflowed with killing intent.

In the face of the immortal's unveiled menace with his dagger drawn, he displayed no fear, made no effort to escape, and kept his breathing perfectly steady.

His gaze stayed serene like an ancient well without bottom, mirroring Bi Yue Wu's savage and avaricious expression.

"Immortal Elder, why rush so?" Chen Huaian smoothed his somewhat rumpled sleeve, speaking in a tone as casual as chatting with a longtime acquaintance. "Since This Venerable One has claimed these seven fragmented scriptures, escape is impossible for me. Yet, the Nine Heavens Refining Profound Array remains unfinished."

He lifted his hand, gesturing toward the dark ceiling above. "Up there awaits one more."

"What?"

Bi Yue Wu's brows furrowed as he traced Chen Huaian's pointing finger.

Rumble——

As though verifying Chen Huaian's statement.

Concealed gears in the palace unleashed a harsh scraping noise that set teeth on edge, causing the grand ceiling to part slowly outward.

The once-enclosed chamber was abruptly assaulted by ferocious winds. From the stormy depths where dark clouds churned and lightning serpents raged, a grander and more hazardous floating mountain than the prior seven descended gradually, enveloped in myriad thunderbolts.

Underneath that suspended peak stretched a celestial staircase of ten thousand white jade steps.

Encircling those stone stairs, nine dragons carved from yellow jade, forged from the rampant Earth Veins Dragon Qi, writhed and bellowed amid the cloud sea, appearing and vanishing, radiating a fearsome aura nearing that of a True Immortal.

"Earth Veins Dragon Qi?!"

Bi Yue Wu's pupils shrank abruptly.

His key task in descending to the Lower Realm had been to quell the outburst of Earth Veins Dragon Qi here and mend the seal.

He'd assumed the Dragon Qi dispersed across the array, explaining its absence from his sight.

Never did he expect this ferocious Earth Veins Dragon Qi to converge around this ultimate floating peak.

"A superior spectacle lies higher up." Chen Huaian eyed the steadily settling floating peak and remarked coolly, "If Immortal Elder craves additional treasures, why not join This Venerable One for this last stretch. At that moment, whatever you seek will be offered up willingly."

Doubt and hesitation flickered in Bi Yue Wu's eyes.

He glanced at the turbulent nine streams of Dragon Qi, then at Chen Huaian's utterly composed visage.

This Earth Veins Dragon Qi posed extreme peril. Absent this mortal to lead, who could foresee the deadly Restrictions ahead.

Moreover, this mortal stood right before him—could he truly vanish?

A nagging sense of wrongness clung to Chen Huaian in his mind.

Yet linking a simple mortal Sword Cultivator to the Nine Heavens Refining Profound Array prized by Celestial God Clan powers seemed absurd.

"Very well." Bi Yue Wu sneered, placing his right hand on the Array Disk, poised yet untriggered. "This Venerable One grants you a brief extension. Proceed!"

Chen Huaian pivoted, giving a faint head shake to Zhang Yibai and the pair beside him.

"Remain here. Avoid any rash actions."

With those words, he fell silent, striding toward the myriad-step white jade stairs linking to the final floating peak.

Bi Yue Wu trailed right after. Though his vision had dulled, his Divine Sense clung firmly to Chen Huaian's every motion.

One step.

Chen Huaian mounted the initial stone stair.

ROAR——!!!

The cloud ocean surged wildly. The nine hidden yellow jade dragons, seemingly incensed, exploded into rage without warning.

One colossal dragon bellowed while plunging, its enormous head shrouded in apocalyptic thunder, smashing savagely at the duo on the stairs!

"Danger!"

Terror gripped Bi Yue Wu. This Dragon Qi's might dwarfed the earlier bronze statues and divine flames several fold!

He urgently called forth his sole immortal treasure, the Array Disk, striving to fend off this worldly cataclysm.

But the ensuing scene nearly popped his eyes from their sockets.

That ferocious Earth Veins Yellow Dragon, upon nearing three feet of Chen Huaian, behaved as if beholding a touring sovereign. Awe akin to a human's gleamed in its savage eyes. Its huge form contorted sharply mid-flight, the winds it whipped failing to disturb even one hair on Chen Huaian.

It skirted past Chen Huaian.

Then, its bottled rage and lightning erupted fully, crashing straight onto Bi Yue Wu trailing in its wake!

"ROAR!!!"

"Pfft——!!"

Zero doubt lingered.

Bi Yue Wu flew like a pest struck by a flyswatter. His guardian immortal glow shattered at once, his form hurled against the white jade stairs by the Dragon Qi, blood gushing from his mouth.

"Why?!!"

Disheveled and wailing, Bi Yue Wu cried out in agony. "Why spare you?!"

Chen Huaian, ahead, offered no reply, sparing not a backward glance.

Hands behind his back, he advanced leisurely through thunder and Dragon Qi potent enough to obliterate a True Immortal.

With every stride, the roiling thunder sea around him cleaved apart, forming a passage.

Each Earth Veins Dragon Qi lunging at him prostrated and droned submissively nearby, as though saluting this heaven-ascending figure.

Why?

Chen Huaian lifted his eyes to the thunder-choked black skies.

Because clutched in his arms was the unbreakable spine of seven generations of righteous forebears bold enough to draw heaven's bloody tears!

This Nine Dragons Locking Heaven imprisoned deities, safeguarding mankind.

To that primordial Earth Veins Dragon Qi, the bearer of the seven torn scriptures, wielding god-slaying resolve, stood as the rightful lord of these nine lands and waters.

As for you, Bi Yue Wu...

Even perched atop the Nine Heavens, even deeming yourself a True Immortal.

To these defiant dragon spirits that trailed the Ancestral Dragon against the firmament and the Human Emperor in flood-taming...

You rank as a mere snarling cur at the Celestial God Clan's threshold—a spineless mutt that grovels and fawns!

As a rabid hound, how dare you yap before a genuine dragon?!

Dragons spare their lords, devouring only—minions!

...

Within the lightning-filled skies and Dragon Qi tumult, that white-robed silhouette exuded a detachment beyond all mortal ties.

By contrast, Bi Yue Wu.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

The other eight mighty dragons, finding a target, denied him respite, assailing him relentlessly in sequence.

Lightning rained down, dragon talons raked like hooks.

"Ahhh! Chen Huaian! You deceived me!!"

Bi Yue Wu's shrieks echoed without cease. The Array Disk's glow in his grasp faded, his injuries baring bone.

He sought retreat, yet thunder sealed his path; he yearned to press on, but Dragon Qi loomed like an unbreachable barrier, trapping him utterly.

No ascent to skies, no burrow into earth.

Like a frenzied, broken-backed stray, he tumbled and evaded on the stairs, channeling his life's cultivation to parry strikes that wholly bypassed Chen Huaian.

"I won't yield! I'm an immortal! A True Immortal!!"

"You drove me to this... you forced my hand!!"

Bi Yue Wu's bellows soon vanished beneath the thunderous din.

Meanwhile, Chen Huaian had leveraged the storm's fury to scale the ten thousand steps, arriving at the floating peak's summit.

No opulent hall awaited here, merely a time-eroded precipice.

At the precipice's brink, under ceaseless thunder, stood solely an axe, a jade slip, and a coffin.

An unadorned, ink-black coffin, lidless.

It rested solitary at heaven and earth's core, crafted from enigmatic dark timber, exuding an archaic, enigmatic deathly presence.

Its blackness so absolute, devouring nearby light, noise, even Divine Sense.

Beside it, the corroded Mountain-Splitting Axe lodged askew in the soil, and the hovering ancient jade slip's soft luminescence appeared trivial, mere specks amid vastness.

Rumble——

Chen Huaian looked skyward, beholding at last the authentic form of this "Nine Heavens Refining Profound Array."

What seal was this?

This was outright "parasitism" across endless eons!

Though the coffin's occupant remained obscured, an overwhelming flood of primordial Spiritual Energy poured ceaselessly, stifling in scope.

This power lingered, firmly contained.

Vast chains thick as barrels, laced with lightning, resembled ravenous roots burrowed deep into the ebony coffin.

They quivered, they drained, wrenching every stray energy thread from within.

These chains stretched into the void above, weaving a sky-obscuring black web.

Dimly discernible, the web's nine termini aligned precisely with today's nine Wells of Heaven.

Thus it unfolded...

Heaven and earth as crucible, the Refining Profound Array as grindstone, methodically wringing the final essence from the coffin's inmate.

Employing this to amass Spiritual Energy in Wells of Heaven, to foster Celestial Jade Marrow's genesis.

Facing such monumental brutality, a chill raced to Chen Huaian's scalp.

Is this the Celestial God Clan's way?

Not just slaying you, but fertilizing with your remains, extracting to the utmost.

Then... who lay within this coffin?

Mythic luminaries flickered in Chen Huaian's thoughts, rejected sequentially.

In this falsified chronicle amid warring powers.

Who could tell if those fabled immortals and deities were humanity's stalwart bleeders or Celestial God Clan's tail-waggers.

Breath held, steps weighted, he approached the ink-dark colossal coffin steadily.

Nearer.

The coffin's radiating dread did not thrust him away; rather, it imparted lifeless calm and serenity.

Chen Huaian rested hands on the coffin's freezing rim, bent forward gradually, and peered past the twisting root-chains into its profoundest depths.

First to catch his eye: a gleam of white.

Amid boundless dark and storm, that figure's dark jade white robe gleamed pristine, dustless. Millennia left no mark; even hem clouds stood vivid, as if freshly donned today.

His eyes trailed lower, to the hands.

Folded across the belly, skin translucent like jade.

Fingers lithe, faint golden vessels beneath undried skin still pulsed gently.

He lived.

He merely... slumbered.

Chen Huaian's pulse thundered uncontrollably, throat parched.

He quelled the flight urge fiercely, eyes tracing collar clouds upward, inch by inch.

Neck.

Jaw.

Nose bridge.

When that sleeping visage fully unveiled before Chen Huaian's eyes.

BOOM——!

Thunder detonated straight in his psyche.

All thunder, gale, dragon cries vanished then.

The world crumbled, stilled in that gaze.

...