Immortal Paladin

There were two perfectly reasonable explanations for why I had chosen to go alone.

One was to give Alice a break. She would never admit it openly, but the regression in certain aspects of her power was real. Pushing her into another high-risk confrontation so soon would have been irresponsible.

The other reason—

“Huh?”

I slowed mid-stride.

“Ru Qiu, you chased me all the way out here? Come on, it was just a joke.”

We had already crossed a considerable distance from the reconstructed city. The ruins were no longer visible, and the qi signatures of our group had long faded into the background noise of the Underworld.

Ru Qiu hovered a short distance behind me, robes fluttering faintly in the void-like atmosphere.

“You noticed, didn’t you?” he asked calmly.

Of course he had.

The second reason I wanted to be alone was to have a private conversation with the peeping tom who had been observing us since we left the Hollowed World.

It spoke volumes that Ru Qiu had caught on as well. Even without the Ophanim, his instincts were sharp.

With the Ophanim active, concealment was nearly impossible. Most entities in the universe could not hide from me for long. I had tolerated the observer thus far because nine times out of ten, any direct confrontation would have ended in our deaths.

Resurrection was not a true solution. Yes, I could arrange delayed revival layered with deceptive techniques, enough to mislead even discerning entities, but that was contingency, not strategy.

Why confront him now?

Because the Ophanim had shown me a narrow path at a crossroads, one in which this so-called peeping tom could be turned from threat into utility.

“Conquest,” I said evenly, projecting my voice into the surrounding emptiness. “Let us make a deal. Show yourself.”

The space around us tightened instantly.

A presence descended.

The pressure was unmistakable.

A Ruler of Laws.

Darkness peeled back like rotten fabric, and a silhouette pried itself from the void. He emerged slowly, as though reality itself were reluctant to host him.

He was withered and frail, no larger than a mortal man, yet the decay emanating from him felt planetary in scale. His bald head glistened faintly. Necrotic flesh sagged from his bones. His teeth were yellowed and uneven. His bloodshot eyes were sunken and jaundiced, staring out from a face that seemed perpetually mid-rot.

His spine bent unnaturally. Each breath rattled like broken glass scraping across stone. When he coughed, the sound carried disease within it. Dark robes clung to his form, smeared with filth and layered with crawling curses that wriggled like maggots in the seams of reality.

He smiled.

It was thin and ruinous.

“Impressive,” he rasped. “O Da Wei, tell me… how long have you known?”

“Since the moment we left the Hollowed World,” I answered without hesitation. “You have been surveilling it from the outside for quite some time. The fact that you sent a proxy clone to interfere in my world’s war suggests considerable investment. I do not know your full motive, but I imagine it aligns closely with Aixin’s.”

Projecting a fragment of oneself into a world that rejected your existence so violently could not have been trivial. If it were easy, Aixin would have simply spawned another proxy to continue harassing me.

That alone suggested limits.

Of course, I could not assume weakness.

Even diminished, Conquest was still a monster at the level of a Ruler of Laws. A god.

Yet my confidence in facing him now had never been stronger.

“This is what will happen,” I said calmly. “We will negotiate a deal. One that advances both your objective and mine.”

Conquest let out a rasping laugh, each cough laced with pestilence.

“A negotiation,” he said, “is only possible when both parties stand on equal footing.”

I met his jaundiced gaze and deliberately allowed my arrogance to surface.

“Yes,” I replied coldly. “A bacterium like you would never amount to anything beside me, a Supreme Being. Should you not feel honored that I am granting you my attention at all?”

Before any negotiation could begin, I needed leverage.

The most reliable way to raise one’s value in a universe ruled by violence was simple.

Overwhelm the other party.

There was no delusion in my mind that I could kill Conquest. A Ruler of Laws was not something I could erase so casually. However, I did not need to kill him.

I only needed to make him afraid.

If my bluff failed, I would die.

Still, if there was one thing I possessed in greater abundance than most, it was extra lives.

“Tell me, Conquest,” I asked evenly, “do you know what it feels like to become… dust?”

I was still refining the method. Using it without truly dying was delicate. However, for what I intended, it would suffice.

“Arrogant words from an arrogant—”

“Exalted Renewal.”

I activated it before he could finish.

The world convulsed.

Power detonated from within me, burning through my meridians, igniting my quintessence. It was a suicidal spell, one that multiplied my strength at the cost of my own existence. It allowed me to cross the gulf between major realms.

When I was not yet an Ascended Soul, I had used it to defeat Aixin.

I had nearly died for real that time.

Decaying arrows materialized around us in a dense halo and shot toward me from every direction.

Ru Qiu moved instantly.

Dark flames roared outward, swallowing the arrows before they could pierce my flesh.

“I can buy you time,” he said calmly. “Immortal Art: Defying the Heaven’s Decree.”

An eclipse manifested above him, blotting out starlight despite the absence of any true sun. The phenomenon distorted causality in the surrounding region, as if Heaven itself had been forced to pause and reconsider.

Conquest ignored him.

An ivory bow formed in his hand, sculpted from layered bone and humming with plague-ridden law. He surged forward with terrifying speed.

“You underestimate me, worm.”

“At least you are not a fool,” I replied.

“Starshroud, awaken.”

My robes erupted into armor. The Dark Veil unfurled behind me as a flowing cape, stars shimmering across its surface like a living cosmos.

Plague arrows spawned at point-blank range and slammed into my chest and shoulders. Curses crawled across my armor, attempting to burrow inward.

“Cleanse.”

Starshroud devoured the corruption, feeding on the damage and converting it into luminous resilience.

I drew Silver Steel and met him head-on.

He used the bow as a staff, striking with brutal precision. I parried.

Even in the vacuum, I could smell the rot. It was the scent of civilizations collapsing into pestilence.

“I am the law that governs Conquest,” he rasped. “And Conquest is my name.”

Three strikes came in rapid succession.

I deflected them all.

The Ophanim traced the branching futures, feeding me the most optimal reactions in real time. To an outside observer, it would have seemed like foresight.

However, every clash corroded my arm. Necrosis spread along my skin where our weapons met, flesh blackening beneath the armor.

“Good sword,” he sneered, clearly holding back his strength with the intent of preserving me. “Most would have rusted—”

He never finished.

Ru Qiu appeared above him and planted a foot directly into his face, slamming him downward. Conquest crashed into a massive asteroid fragment, reducing it to shards.

Ru Qiu descended lightly.

“Forgot about me?” he said. “Do you remember how I kicked you around in the Hollowed World?”

The debris settled.

Conquest sat within a crater as though it were a throne, posture relaxed, one elbow resting on his knee.

“Ah. The Heavenly Demon,” he said lazily. “A fallen Supreme. I vaguely recall you. Unfortunately, you are not worth my attention.”

His jaundiced gaze sharpened.

“Pestilence is my sobriquet, and its law my curse. However, my true name is Conquest. I have conquered you.”

I sensed it an instant too late.

An arrow materialized mid-flight.

It pierced Ru Qiu’s chest.

Red blossoms erupted from the wound, spectral flowers blooming outward as if fed by his life.

His face drained of color immediately.

He swayed.

“Law of Death,” Conquest whispered.

Ru Qiu’s body crumbled, slowly reduced to dust.

The red flowers blooming from his chest withered instantly as his form disintegrated into drifting ash. The eclipse above him shattered like fractured glass, dissolving into nothingness.

It was the first time I had fought a true Ruler of Laws.

Surprises were to be expected.

The only problem was that I had already seen this outcome.

When I pushed the Ophanim to its limits, I approached something dangerously close to omniscience within a confined scope. The moment Conquest invoked the Law of Death, I had seen the branch where Ru Qiu fell.

I had also seen the branch where he did not stay dead.

“I will not kill you,” Conquest declared as he floated toward me, bone bow resting casually in his hand. “The Law of Death is merely one of many great authorities I wield. It is a law my siblings understand intimately. If you intend to stand against them, you must first devise countermeasures—”

“I dislike your tone,” I interrupted coldly. “I asked you a question earlier. Do you know what it feels like to become… dust?”

“I do,” came Ru Qiu’s voice.

Conquest’s head turned a fraction too late.

Ru Qiu stood behind him, whole once more, the eclipse reforming above him in silent defiance.

“Burn.”

His arm pierced through Conquest’s chest.

Dark flames erupted outward, consuming the frail body in a violent explosion of demonic fire.

Earlier, before any of this began, I had layered Divine Word: Raise upon Ru Qiu with Spell Resonance woven subtly into his existence. The Law of Death was not an ordinary killing technique. It carried finality within it. Left unchecked, it could have severed him permanently.

However, Ru Qiu had once been a Supreme Vessel.

He had fought beings far beyond his own realm and survived through audacity and cunning. The moment Conquest’s Law began eroding him from within, Ru Qiu had imploded his own dark flames, annihilating himself preemptively and creating the illusion that Conquest’s authority had succeeded.

He died by his own hand a fraction of a second before Death could claim him.

The Ophanim had shown me the sequence.

Because Ru Qiu moved one step ahead, I could move two.

“Radiant Dawn.”

Golden brilliance enveloped me, saturating my limbs and weapon with amplified divinity. My next strike would not merely wound. It would declare judgment.

I extended my senses, following the ripple of law where Conquest would reform.

“There.”

“Heavenly Punishment.”

I unleashed the Ultimate Skill through my Divine Zone.

A colossal golden blade erupted from within the space Conquest occupied, bursting outward from the inside as though reality itself had condemned him. His form materialized just in time to be split apart by incandescent judgment.

He died again.

Fragments of necrotic flesh and law scattered like embers.

I did not relax.

I was deeply curious about the mechanics of immortality at the level of a Ruler of Laws. Ascended Souls possessed layered immortality. One had to peel those layers away, often through Immortal Arts, to truly end them.

But a Ruler of Laws was different.

They were not merely powerful individuals.

They were embodiments of laws.

“Do you truly believe,” his voice echoed from every direction at once, “that you can stand against my might?”

The surrounding space thickened.

Rot crept along distant debris. Invisible currents shifted.

“I am with the universe,” the voice continued. “A concept manifested. Personified authority. My power is incomprehensible to beings such as you.”

If he had possessed a physical mouth at that moment, I would have punched the monologue out of it.

He was not entirely wrong.

I could feel him everywhere. In the drifting dust. In the corrosion nibbling at the edges of matter. In the faint entropy that gnawed at structure. Conquest was not confined to a single body.

He was diffused.

I steadied my breathing and raised Silver Steel.

“Do you truly think that means anything?” I asked calmly.

The Ophanim burned brighter behind my eyes.

Concepts could be challenged.

After all, I was no longer merely a man either.

“Immortal Art: Godslayer.”

I swung.

The blade did not merely cut flesh. It tore through abstraction. The shimmering veil of concept that Conquest had diffused himself into ruptured under the authority of the Immortal Art. I seized that fracture and dragged him back into tangible existence.

A massive gash split across his chest.

Rot spilled like smoke.

Ru Qiu stepped forward, dark flames coiling around his arm. “Let me handle him. This is my best opportunity to uncover my supremacy trait—”

“No,” I said, voice hard as steel. “He is mine.”

Conquest’s jaundiced eyes widened slightly.

Understanding dawned.

Even now, even diminished and unseated, I was still fundamentally a Supreme Being.

“Before you stands the Supreme Bearer,” I declared, my voice reverberating through the fractured vacuum. “A herald from another world. A sympathizer of the weak. Tell me, Conquest… do you know what it feels like to become dust?”

I vanished.

Flash Step surged through my Divine Zone, collapsing the distance between us into irrelevance.

“Holy Aura.”

Radiant gold engulfed me.

“Designate Holy Enemy.”

A crimson inverted cross flared into existence above his head, branding him.

“Holy Wrath.”

Blue radiance shaped like luminous feathers erupted around me, amplifying my next strike specifically against the marked enemy.

“Divine Smite.”

Silver Steel descended.

He was cleaved diagonally in half, his ivory bow releasing an arrow in the final fraction of a second.

“Law of Death—”

“That does not work,” I interrupted coldly as the authority washed over me and failed to take hold. “I possess immunity against instant death.”

I had never felt such satisfaction in stating that fact.

Conquest regenerated and tried to create distance from me.

“Zealot’s Stride.”

I chased after him, and shifted my aura mid-motion when I finally reached him.

“War Aura.”

My presence thickened with violent momentum.

“War Smite.”

The blow sent him hurtling backward, body distorting from the impact. Before he could stabilize, I triggered another War Smite remotely through the Divine Zone, activating the knockback in reverse and dragging him violently back toward me.

“Holy Sword.”

Radiance engulfed Silver Steel as I cut through him again, splitting him cleanly in two.

Both halves tried to flee in opposite directions.

“You are not going anywhere.”

“Divine Mandate of Proximity.”

The evolved Ultimate Skill manifested as a blazing golden chain that snapped into existence, binding both fragments to me. No matter how they moved, the distance between us was forcibly maintained.

Conquest dispelled one half and consolidated himself, forming anew with a hiss of frustration.

“Arrows of Underworld’s Curse.”

A storm of plague-ridden arrows descended upon me.

Exalted Renewal continued its exponential escalation within my body. With every passing second, my resistances rose in tandem. The curses struck, crawled, and then withered uselessly against my aura.

They no longer worked.

It was a disastrously unfavorable matchup for him.

“This is inconceivable!” Conquest shrieked.

I yanked the golden chain and pulled him directly into my grasp. Divine Might surged through my arm as I wrapped my hand around his throat.

I returned Silver Steel to my pocket dimension.

The Dark Veil flowed outward, reshaping into chains that bound his limbs and torso, pinning him in place.

“Pain is a teacher,” I said quietly. “And I am pain.”

“Divine Smite.”

My fist drove through his skull, bursting out the other side in an explosion of golden light.

He regenerated instantly, laws and immortality knitting his ruined head back together.

“Let me go—”

Another Divine Smite obliterated his face again, divine energy burning through necrotic tissue.

My Divine Qi was especially harmful to him. The Paladin Legacy amplified every strike, its attributes antithetical to his pestilent nature.

“What do you want?” he screamed as his features reformed only to be shattered again. “Release me!”

I punched through his head once more.

“If you continue,” he rasped desperately, “you will die!”

Exalted Renewal was indeed consuming me. My lifespan was burning like oil in a furnace.

I smiled.

“Not really,” I replied cryptically.

The Ophanim burned brilliantly behind my eyes.

I had already seen how this would end.

I repeated the deed again and again.

Divine Smite.

Regeneration.

Divine Smite.

Regeneration.

Each cycle carved deeper into Conquest’s composure. I did not stop. I did not slow. Exalted Renewal devoured my existence without restraint, but that hardly mattered. I had already accounted for the cost.

Eventually, my body began to unravel.

Light seeped from my pores. My limbs fragmented into motes. My vision dissolved into brilliance as Exalted Renewal reached its terminal threshold.

I perished.

Conquest threw his head back and laughed, the sound raw and ragged.

“Ha ha ha ha! You madman! It is finally over!”

He floated there, panting, necrotic flesh twitching as it stabilized.

Then he turned toward Ru Qiu.

“I will take my time with you after everything Da Wei put me through,” he said, irritation bleeding into his tone. “How troublesome. I intended to use him, but he just had to die like that—”

“I am alive, though?” I said.

Conquest froze.

The already pale hue of his rotting skin drained further into something almost translucent.

“H-how?” he stammered. “I saw you die!”

Yes.

In an alternate reality, I let him experience.

One of my favorite combinations as of late was the fusion of Divine Possession and Ophanim. By allowing the target to witness a carefully selected fragment of a possible future, I could carve an illusion so precise it was indistinguishable from reality. It was not mere hallucination. It was a projected timeline, layered over the present with surgical precision.

The technique still required refinement, but I had already used it to deceive my counterpart, someone with exceptionally high resistance to mental interference. That success alone testified to its potency.

Conquest had never stood a chance.

“Do you know what it feels like to become dust?” I asked softly.

He flinched at my words.

“Exalted Renewal.”

Reality reset from his perspective.

Again.

And again.

And again.

Each iteration, I became more efficient. My strikes were cleaner. My timing sharper. My torment more deliberate. I trimmed unnecessary theatrics and refined the trauma into something distilled and surgical.

The only constant across the loops was Ru Qiu’s behavior. His lines, his movements, and his confusion remained stable because I anchored him outside the primary illusion. Everything else unfolded within the carved alternate reality I fed to Conquest.

To him, it was real.

To him, he fought.

To him, he killed me.

To him, I resurrected.

To him, I asked the same question.

Over and over.

Outside the illusion, Conquest hovered motionless, eyes unfocused, body trembling slightly. He was trapped in a cascading sequence of futures, each one ending with him reduced to dust under my hands.

I might have underestimated just how catastrophically bad this matchup was for him.

Ru Qiu stared at the frozen Ruler of Laws, then at me.

“Would you mind enlightening me as to what is happening?” he asked slowly.

I shrugged.

“Casting PTSD.”

He looked genuinely scandalized.

I raised both hands defensively.

“It will probably be fine,” I said. “I am only traumatizing a conceptual embodiment of conquest. It builds character.”