Wait, How Did My Digital Girlfriend Become a Sword Immortal? Chapter 857: One Axe to Split the Heavens

…

Lingxiao Palace in the Upper Realm.

"Crack."

A sharp, clear breaking noise rang out.

Within the hushed hall, silent like a grave, that sound exploded like thunderclap, slamming into the ears of every immortal official.

Every immortal whipped their heads toward the source.

There, hovering above the hall's center—the Myriad Realms Thunder Pool Mirror for watching and ruling over heavenly thunder tribulations— a massive crack now tore straight through its middle.

And right under that crack.

The decree plaque belonging to the Thunder Ministry's lord, the Nine Heavens’ Responding Origin Thunder Voice Universal Purifying Venerable One—

lay shattered.

"The Venerable One… has fallen?!"

The quivering voice of an immortal official broke the heavy quiet.

Gasps of shock followed in waves.

The Thunder Ministry Venerable One served as the ultimate enforcer of celestial executions, a peak powerhouse whose cultivation pierced the skies!

Even just a mere will-projection from him could dominate every enemy in the mortal world.

Yet now.

He perished.

His actual body got slain by someone from the Lower Realm—a mere mortal.

Not a single bone left; both body and soul wiped out completely.

This defied all reason.

Regardless of a mortal's advanced cultivation, how could they wound an Upper Realm immortal?

No matter a mortal weapon's sharpness, how could it destroy an immortal's true spirit?

A destroyed true spirit meant no path to reincarnation.

The Universal Purifying Venerable One vanished forever.

Only a fresh Thunder Purifying Immortal Venerable could eventually replace him.

"Silence."

From behind the beaded curtain, the Haotian Emperor's steady voice rang out, laced with a cold edge that sent shivers through all immortals.

He stood up gradually, advanced, and the pearl curtain concealing his regal visage drew aside by itself.

The Haotian Emperor positioned himself in front of the fractured Thunder Pool Mirror.

His stare bored through the mirror's split, sliced past the churning tribulation clouds, and fixed upon that blood-soaked half-demon, half-immortal figure from the Lower Realm, gripping a corroded axe.

"Interesting."

Within the Haotian Emperor's gaze, stars and suns seemed to ignite and extinguish.

"Half-demon, half-immortal, carrying the Ancestral Dragon's presence."

"Could this young man… be the leftover descendant of that ancient serpent?"

Those words caused every immortal present to pale dramatically.

Ancestral Dragon.

The Human Emperor who once rallied a whole empire to defy the heavens and cut off the gods' tributes.

Even in death, he lingered as a Dragon Soul forever clashing against them—the deepest forbidden curse haunting the Celestial Court for ten millennia.

"No."

Right then, a white-haired elder immortal clutching a whisk broom furrowed his brow and spoke, "Your Majesty, an Ancestral Dragon descendant would carry the weight of ten-thousand-year karmic bonds. Yet this youth…"

The elder's eyes gleamed as he examined Chen Huaian intently.

"He appears spotless."

"Hardly any gray mist, free of karmic links."

"He resembles an… unnatural outlier, beyond this world's five elements, unbound by the six realms of rebirth."

The Haotian Emperor fell quiet.

An Ancestral Dragon heir free from causal chains?

Impossible.

Unless… some hidden power had upended the entire game from the very beginning.

"Regardless of his identity."

The Haotian Emperor's eyes abruptly iced over, instantly freezing the whole Lingxiao Hall.

"If he dares to chop open the heavens."

"I will teach him just how lofty... this sky really stands."

"All heed my command."

The Haotian Emperor lifted his hand. A seal radiating chaotic ancient energy—the Heavenly Emperor Seal—gradually materialized in his grasp.

"Draw from the primordial origins of the thirty-three heavens to empower the thunder tribulation."

"Spare no expense."

"Annihilate him for me."

…

Lower Realm, atop the floating peak's summit.

The heavens shifted once more.

The clouds Chen Huaian had punched apart earlier now surged back, wilder, more frantic, more ruthless than before.

This round brought no purple lightning, no dark Yin Thunder.

Instead, an unprecedented lightning—a gray thunder.

It exuded an aura of utter stillness, corruption, withering.

Soundless, lightless, akin to the final breath as the universe's era draws to a close.

—The Five Great Elements’ Extinction Divine Thunder.

This marked pure obliteration from the Heavenly Dao.

The doomsday blow compelled from Lingxiao Hall, fusing the primordial forces of the thirty-three heavens.

"Rumble—!!!"

The tribulation clouds shrank and coalesced into a colossal gray Thunder Eye, stretching across tens of thousands of miles.

No feelings stirred in that eye.

Just a fragment of the Haotian Emperor's own supreme intent descended—sufficient to pulverize all existence.

"Kneel."

Two simple words.

Crushed down from the celestial dome.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Instantly, the void encircling the floating peak caved in, the earth plummeting a hundred zhang.

Chen Huaian's frame crashed heavily; his kneecaps screamed beneath the crushing burden.

The crushing pressure proved immense, forcing his freshly reforged half-demon half-immortal physique to quiver and start fracturing.

Yet he clenched his teeth and refused to kneel.

He drove the axe shaft into the debris like a spike, anchoring himself amid the devastation.

"Is this… your limit?"

Chen Huaian raised his head.

Across that face streaked with blood, no trace of fear appeared—only a soul-chilling madness.

"Come on!!"

"Let me see what tricks you old dogs hiding in the sky can still pull!!"

Boom!

As though provoked to fury, the gray Thunder Eye hurled a gray lightning bolt without any prior sign.

Sizzle—sizzle—

The bolt didn't merely lash out; resembling a massive gray serpent, it wound itself snugly around Chen Huaian.

It eroded him.

It melted him away.

Beneath that gray thunder, the golden dragon tattoos on his skin rapidly faded; the true-immortal body he had only just forged began liquefying like melting wax.

Flesh melted off, revealing bare white bones.

Pain.

A agony that stabbed into the soul.

Still, Chen Huaian laughed.

"Heh… hahaha…"

"Good… good stuff…"

He put up no fight. On the contrary, he parted his gum-baring mouth and chomped fiercely into the gray thunderbolt!

Heavenly Demon Art refines and devours the world.

Whatever the substance—first swallow it and savor the flavor!

Madness.

That single word filled the thoughts of the immortals and gods beholding the spectacle.

He was devouring the tribulation!

He regarded the Haotian Emperor’s apocalyptic thunder as ultimate fodder to forge his body!

"Let it… refine me!!!"

Chen Huaian bellowed. The unbreakable will of the Ancestral Dragon within him blended flawlessly with the Heavenly Demon Art's predatory hunger.

The gray thunder rampaged through his insides, annihilating all in its path, only to be instantly reshaped by that tyrannical vital force in the following moment.

Shatter to reconstruct.

Collapse to ascend.

Each wave of ruin planted the foundation for an even mightier revival.

Slowly but surely.

The previously faded golden dragon patterns started to evolve.

Into that golden hue, a thread of gray infused with destructive essence gradually seeped.

He was absorbing the Heavenly Dao.

He was turning the heavens' might into his personal strength.

…

Lingxiao Hall.

Haotian Emperor's face finally shifted.

"This youth… cannot be left!"

He smashed the Heavenly Emperor Seal with full force.

Boom!!!

Over the Lower Realm, the enormous gray Thunder Eye blanketing the skies fully dilated.

A horrifying light beam, potent enough to obliterate a whole province, gathered at its core.

This strike wasn't a test or torment.

It aimed for total—annihilation.

…

Summit of the floating peak.

Chen Huaian sensed the ominous pulse from above, one that could incinerate him to nothing.

He understood.

The climactic instant had arrived.

The energy surging in him had hit the threshold the Lower Realm could endure.

In the Cangyun Realm, he would have achieved Feathered Transformation and soared to the heavens by now.

The Earth Star's world laws were holding him back, blocking his immortality and ultimate evolution.

He cast his eyes down to the Kuangtian Axe gripped in his hands. All rust had peeled off long ago; golden lightning arcs flickered along the gleaming edge, with immortal spirit qi gathering at the hilt.

It hungered fiercely.

It had gathered sufficient might.

"Fine, then this Venerable One will give you a hand!"

Chen Huaian loosened his locked jaws, allowing the leftover gray thunder to flow through his form before funneling into the Kuangtian Axe.

At that instant, he appeared drenched in blood, tattered.

The Black Scales Sword had shattered into fragments ages ago.

Just his eyes stayed intact.

Eyes blazing with terror, like twin blazing suns ignited inside.

"This sky…"

Chen Huaian gradually lifted the Kuangtian Axe.

Thunderlight overflowed from its blade; turbulent clouds churned around the axe like ancient mists.

Compared to the dazzling immortal treasures wielded by the celestials overhead, it appeared plain, almost ridiculous.

But right then.

In Chen Huaian's grasp, the axe awakened to life.

It quivered.

It craved.

It recalled the primordial dawn, when a titan seized it and thundered into the endless void.

—"Though I become mountains and rivers, I will split open a world… for these beings!"

It recalled the bygone era when a Human Emperor brandished it against floods and celestial judgments, vowing fiercely.

—"If Heaven sends tribulation, I will punish Heaven! If mountains and rivers block the way, I will… cleave the mountains!"

It recalled the oath sworn by an emperor millennia past, as he thrust toward the firmament.

—"If I die, I will become the Dragon Soul, protect the Chinese lands, and never bow to Heaven!"

Three swings.

One for existence, one for endurance, one for honor.

Now.

This marked the fourth.

"…It has blinded us for too long."

Chen Huaian murmured softly.

In the next instant.

In the instant right before the world-erasing beam could descend.

He stirred.

Hands clamped on the axe haft, feet smashing into the earth, channeling all his power, every trace of resolve, every spark of rebellion into that last desperate blow—

Toward the world-erasing Thunder Eye.

Toward the immortals looming in Lingxiao above.

Toward the ten-thousand-year wheel of reincarnation.

He swung the axe.

…

The heavens plunged into silence.

No glow.

No clamor.

Not even a quiver of energy.

The beam that could erase a whole province got pierced by that swing, like a mere mirage, as the axe sliced cleanly past.

That axe didn't chop thunder.

It rent the divide.

Ssshh——

A soft ripping noise.

Like paper torn straight apart.

From the massive Thunder Eye overhead, a jet-black, abyssal rift gazing into boundless void suddenly ripped open across the celestial dome.

It widened.

Upward, shredding the tribulation clouds.

Shredding the Thunder Eye.

Shredding the emptiness.

Shredding… the Gate of Heaven.

Beneath the dazed, terrified stares of all immortals and mortals gathered,

that rift stretched to the horizon, bisecting the entire sky into two neat halves!

—The firmament was torn asunder.

This lone swing severed the barrier between Upper and Lower Realms enduring ten thousand years.

It clove the immense gulf dubbed "the divide between immortal and mortal."

Rumble—!!!

A gale exploded.

This time winds howled from below to the heights.

The foul qi piled in Lower Realm tombs—once scorned by immortals as fiendish deluges—burst forth at last.

They bellowed, they celebrated, flooding the new gash into the Upper Realm!

It was the Lower Realm's reprisal.

It was humanity's revenge.

Lingxiao Hall quaked; Yaochi's waters surged wildly.

The thirty-three heavens, formerly spotless and sacred, now mirrored clear water splashed with ink, swiftly tainted by this mortal "smoke-and-fire" vigor.

…

Lower Realm.

The axe within Chen Huaian's grip crumbled.

The Kuangtian Axe bearing ultimate will finished its ultimate task and dissolved into rust specks borne away by the breeze.

Only the stark axe haft lingered in Chen Huaian's clutch.

He squeezed tighter, stared up at the colossal fissure, the fractured Thunder Eye, the hazy Jade Palaces and Towers peeking through the debris.

"The road is open."

Chen Huaian strode ahead.

One step summoned thunder-forged void underfoot.

The lingering tribulation lightning, yet to fade, surged obediently toward the haft he wielded.

A tempest of thunder enshrouded him.

Myriad destructive laws twisted together, compacted, and remolded around the haft!

Slowly.

At the haft's end,

a blade forged wholly from tribulation lightning gradually emerged.

Not mere lightning, but essence of destructive laws.

It forged into a sacred sword infused with Lower Realm's heaven-earth principles, steeped in endless immortal blood, devouring the Heavenly Dao's mandate.

Chen Huaian rose step by step.

Each stride bridged a thousand zhang.

Aura surged stronger per step.

Torn robes, half fiend half divine.

Unsteady gait, firm as a monolith.

As he hit the fissure's rim, the wrecked Gate of Heaven,

his presence shifted entirely.

Beyond mortal bounds.

Beyond simple cultivation.

A surge to higher existence, supreme transcendence over all beings.

No celestial melodies heralding.

No golden lotuses sprouting from soil.

No decree from the Celestial Court.

Chen Huaian there incarnated the Dao.

Chen Huaian there was an Immortal.

Slaughter any who bar the way.

I am—a true immortal!

…

Gusts ravaged the Gate's wreckage.

Chen Huaian aligned with the Upper Realm.

Forward, Lingxiao Treasure Hall descended into turmoil, fouled by turbid qi.

Behind, the Nine Provinces of mortals thundered cheers, rousing to life.

He hefted the divine sword leaking thunder sap.

Deliberately he hoisted it.

Its edge no longer pointed to mortal soil.

It targeted the Heavenly Palace's core, the sovereign's gaze brimming shock and terror.

A bloodied grin tugged Chen Huaian's lips.

His words stayed low.

Yet like celestial decree, they boomed through the thirty-three heavens.

"Hah! This sky…"

"This Venerable One has come up!"

…