Chapter 528: I Saw the Nightmare

　　In the Seventh Anima, Meng Hao’s power was completely unprecedented. His body was mighty, fearsome, and shocking. With wide shoulders and slender frame, he was almost three meters tall. It made him look completely like an Immortal Devil.

　　A fearsome aura erupted out from him, transforming into an invisible whirlpool that swept about, shaking everything. The Violet Sea churned and the sky dimmed.

　　The Tribulation clouds disappeared, having given birth to the human-shaped lightning bolt, which shot through mid-air toward Meng Hao. Meng Hao looked up at it, his hair whipping about. His appearance seemed to contain a force of attraction that no living thing could resist. He suddenly stamped his foot.

　　Boom!

　　The entire Violet Sea jumped up as a huge crater appeared in the water beneath Meng Hao, nearly three thousand meters wide. Seawater surged out in all directions as Meng Hao shot up.

　　His expression was cold, his eyes icy. In this moment, he was experiencing a completely unheard type of power as the battle prowess of sixty four great circle Nascent Souls coursed through him.

　　Such power could not even be compared to sixty four peak late Nascent Souls. As of now, he was thoroughly up above everything else… definitely rated as… the number one person under the Spirit Severing stage, among all Sects, all Clans, and all Chosen in the great lands of South Heaven.

　　In fact… you could say that he was halfway to Spirit Severing!

　　“Seven Animas combined. Seven Nascent Souls combined….” His expression was cold as he shot forward in attack. As he closed in on the human-shaped lightning bolt, he did not employ any Divine Abilities nor any magical techniques. It seemed as if every movement he made was with a deliberate and calculated. As they neared each other, Meng Hao lifted his hand and pointed a finger.

　　The pointing of the finger caused a huge roaring sound to be heard. The human-shaped lightning bolt looked as if it were being slammed by an incredible force. It was sent tumbling backward twenty or twenty-five meters, where it then exploded. Moments later, it reformed about thirty meters away, even more blurry than before.

　　At the same time, countless lightning bolts exploded on Meng Hao’s body, writhing about on his skin. Meng Hao suddenly laughed.

　　“That’s all you’ve got?” he said, killing intent glittering in his eyes. In the Seventh Anima, he had the power of sixty four great circle Nascent Souls; he was so powerful that this type of electricity couldn’t possibly hurt him.

　　Even as he spoke, the human-shaped lightning bolt reappeared off in the distance. Meng Hao began to move forward, and a rumbling sound could be heard as his body disappeared. When it reappeared, it was directly in front of the human-shaped lightning bolt. The speed with which he moved was incredible; it happened literally in the blink of an eye.

　　Meng Hao’s eyes were cold as he clenched his right hand into a fist and then slammed into into the chest of the human-shaped figure.

　　BAM!

　　The human-shaped lightning bolt’s body began began to explode. Before it completely shattered into pieces, however, its hand shot out claw-like to scrape viciously at Meng Hao’s chest.

　　The sound that was emitted sounded like metal crashing against metal. Meng Hao’s clothing was torn to shreds, and the claw ripped his skin. However, it couldn’t penetrate any further than that. All it could do was scratch him.

　　The human-shaped lightning bolt stared in shock. A booming could be heard as it completely exploded. Innumerable flashes of lightning roiled out. Thirty meters away, they once again congealed together.

　　Meng Hao didn’t even glance at this injury. To him, such a flesh wound was inconsequential. His body flickered and then disappeared. Moments later, he reappeared in the air above the human-shaped lightning bolt.

　　“Time to end this!” he said coolly as he hovered there in mid-air. He raised his hand up and then chopped it down.

　　Violet Qi Guillotine!

　　This was a simple magical technique which coalesced Violet Qi into an enormous curved blade, hundreds of meters long. As it chopped down, the human-shaped lightning bolt felt a sense of deadly crisis. Instantly, its body exploded out with the glow of lightning. The light then coalesced into an enormous lightning globe.

　　The instant the lightning globe appeared, the Violet Qi Guillotine sliced into it. In that moment, popping sounds could be heard from the lightning sphere, seemingly the roar of countless bolts of lightning. However… it was incapable of preventing itself from being chopped apart.

　　During the space of a few breaths, rumbling booms filled the air as the gigantic lightning sphere collapsed into pieces. Within was revealed the human-shaped lightning bolt, which was now so blurry it was almost transparent. Before it could even move, the Violet Qi Guillotine was upon it, slashing onto its body. A boom could be heard as the figure was cut directly in half!

　　Rumbling sounds echoed about as the human-shaped lightning bolt, having been cut in half, collapsed into pieces, transforming into a lightning-like glow that spread out in all directions and then faded.

　　By the time the human-shaped lightning bolt vanished, the Tribulation clouds up had long since dissipated, and the sky was now back to normal.

　　Meng Hao now returned from the Seventh Anima back to the First Anima. His face was a bit pale, and he looked extremely tired.

　　“The Seventh Anima really does a number on my body and longevity. I can’t stay in it for too long without injuring myself.” He descended down to the surface of the Violet Sea where he sat cross-legged to breathe deeply and restore his body.

　　“Compared to the Seventh Anima, the Sixth Anima is a bit less draining. The less Nascent Souls I combine, the less waste there is, and the more I can ignore it.

　　“So, these are my Seven Animas Soul Transformations!” His eyes shined with a bright light. Everything that had happened, the struggle with the Resurrection Lily, the battle against the Heavenly Tribulation, the creation of the Seven Animas Soul Transformations, were all testimony to the fact that he had stepped foot onto the path of a truly powerful expert.

　　“From now on, my travels in the great lands of South Heaven will be as boundless as the sea and sky. Meng Hao can go… anywhere he wants!” He looked up and toward the East, the direction of the Eastern Lands and the Great Tang.

　　His dream in the past had always been to travel to the Great Tang of the Eastern Lands, and he had never forgotten that.

　　At the moment, he was finally qualified to cross the Milky Way Sea and visit that very place.

　　Meng Hao’s heart suddenly quivered. His Divine Sense sank into the blood-colored mask and coalesced near the mastiff. He was pleasantly surprised to find that along with his own rise in Cultivation base, the mastiff was almost awake.

　　In fact, Meng Hao could tell that it wouldn’t be long before it would be able to leave the world of the blood-colored mask, and exist in the lands of South Heaven.

　　Meng Hao retracted his Divine Sense. Smiling, he took a deep breath and then closed his eyes to continue adjusting his Cultivation base. During the process of pacifying the Heavenly Tribulation, he actually had sustained some internal injuries.

　　For the past hundred years or more, the skies above the Western Desert had been dark and overcast. Now, perhaps because of the Heavenly Tribulation, they were now sunny and bright, for the first time in a very long time.

　　Light pierced through the clouds to fall onto the Violet Sea and down into its waters. The result was a scene of indescribable beauty. Meng Hao sat in the middle of all of it on the surface of the sea. His body was no longer fearsomely powerful. Instead, the air of a scholar once again emanated out from him. He sat there peacefully, his eyes closed.

　　In this moment, the entire world seemed beautiful and calm. Only the gently undulating waves could be seen moving….

　　Unfortunately, a few days later, some uninvited guests disturbed the tranquility.

　　There was a sedan chair carried by four black-robed men who looked somewhat distorted, as if they existed halfway between being illusory and real. The sedan chair’s curtains had long since been opened, and within could be seen a middle-aged man dressed in expensive clothing.

　　He was currently drinking some fine alcohol. Laying next to him was a withered corpse. The corpse was naked and looked old, as if it had just been dug out of a grave. If you looked closely, though, you could see that the desiccated corpse had once been a beautiful woman.

　　As of now, her life force had long since vanished. A fatal wound could be seen, a dark bruise on her neck. Her neck itself was twisted at an odd angle, making the entire picture a ghastly sight.

　　The person who had killed her was currently leaning up against her corpse, drinking fine alcohol and gently caressing her.

　　“How strange,” said the man. “The Miracle Lightning was obviously gathering in this area. It’s gone now, though, as of a few days ago. How come there doesn’t seem to be anything at all in the area?” This middle-aged man was none other than the man who had left the second outpost city that day, Huyan Qing. He was the only son of Spirit Severing Patriarch Huyan Yunming of the Heavenly Pursuit Tribe, one of the three major powers of the Heavenly Court Alliance!

　　Surrounding the sedan chair were seven old men, who followed along silently. Among the seven, the strongest was an old man named Wu, who was shockingly of the great circle of the Nascent Soul stage. A Cultivation base like that would make him an incredible power in any area. Even Spirit Severing Patriarchs would pay close attention to such a figure, and spare no effort to enlist their services.

　　Having heard the Huyan Qing’s words, the old men instantly began to chuckle and offer up words of encouragement.

　　“Young Master, there’s no need to be anxious. There are no living people in this part of the sea. If a precious treasure really did appear in the area, then it will belong to nobody except you.”

　　“That’s right. Besides, when we arrived, we checked the area and even set up spell formations. We could tell from a distance that the undulations of the Tribulation Lightning had vanished, and that was when we entered. We are certainly the first people to enter the area to investigate.”

　　The only person who didn’t speak was Sir Wu. He frowned as he looked around. He wasn’t sure why, but after entering this area, he seemed to have the jitters. It was as if this was an area of grave danger, as if some terrifying presence were lurking about.

　　The feeling was indistinct and mysterious. However, Sir Wu couldn’t stop thinking about it. Even as the group was proceeding along as normal, they all suddenly stopped.

　　All eyes came to fall on a young man off in the distance. He wore a green robe, and was sitting cross-legged on the surface of the water, meditating.

　　He looked like the type of person who would bring harm to neither humans nor animals. He seemed clean and peaceful, and exuded the air of a scholar as he sat there cross-legged and unmoving.

　　It was impossible to clearly see the level of his Cultivation base. At first glance it was of the early Nascent Soul stage, but upon closer inspection it seemed to be of the mid Nascent Soul stage. After that, it jumped to the late Nascent Soul stage; for a moment it even seemed as if it might be at the great circle!

　　The sight of it instantly caused Sir Wu to be on guard. In fact, looking at Meng Hao caused him to feel as if a needle were pricking the back of his neck. The feeling caused his eyes to glow.

　　For some reason, he had the feeling that there was something not quite right about this person.

　　The other six Nascent Soul Cultivators were all surprised and wore serious expressions. For a strange Cultivator to suddenly appear in a bizarre place like this was something that would obviously cause them to be cautious.

　　—–

　　Note from Er Gen: I really like the title of this chapter. There is absolutely no hipster or “fake” feeling about it. It makes me think of a Korean movie I saw once.

　　The name of that movie was I Saw the Devil.

　　I originally planned to call the chapter I Saw Meng Hao but… in the end I called it I Saw the Nightmare.