The days in the sword prison were extremely hard to endure, like a fish that was not fully cooked in boiling oil.
Chen Xia started counting how many sea beast eyeballs he had eaten.
But there was no result.
After all, would anyone really remember this?
Chen Xia only knew that most of the nearby sea beasts had become cyclops, and now the method of bleeding sea beasts no longer worked.
They had all become smarter.
It was just that occasionally some sea beasts whose eyeballs had been gouged out by Chen Xia would come over specifically to spit at him, to express their anger.
Spit if you want, Chen Xia didn’t really care, as long as they didn't catch him.
Otherwise, he would definitely gouge out their other eye too.
He now sat in the square prison cell, his tattered blue clothes had become a blood robe from being stained with too much blood, hanging on his body, adding a bit of grimness.
The heavy shackles covered with many spell formations could no longer restrict him at all now, just like the leather ropes used to tie up a lion, mainly for decorative effect.
What could stop Chen Xia was still this square sword prison. According to Chen Xia's estimate, at least a peak Heavenly Bridge realm powerhouse would be needed to destroy this sword prison.
He could not do it, far from enough.
Chen Xia did not spend the points given by the system, but saved them up instead, using them as a timer.
Now there were 70 points saved up, plus the 29 points added to his mana at the beginning, that was close to 100 years.
"Phew." Chen Xia let out a short sigh, feeling that the past 100 years had been really boring. He now somewhat understood how Sun Wukong felt being crushed under a mountain for 500 years.
He could empathize with that.
Nearby, the turbulent waters rushed, and the one-eyed sea beast swam over quickly, opening its mouth wide from a distance, with saliva swirling in its throat.
Chen Xia leaned his head on his hand helplessly and glanced at it.
Bang.
Before the saliva could be spit out.
The sea beast's body turned into bloody foam and dissipated into the seawater.
The old fisherman's aged body walked out of the pitch-black sea towards Chen Xia and smiled lightly.
"It's been decades since we last met."
Chen Xia still leaned his head on his hand, listless, "Yeah."
He had no interest in the old fisherman. The only time he was interested was when he cut the old fisherman's lifespan every few years.
Chen Xia had a mindset that he wouldn't cut the old fisherman's lifespan regularly every five years, as it was too regular, which was likely to make the old fisherman suspicious.
He cut it irregularly in five, six, seven years randomly. By the way, there were now more candidates for Chen Xia's life-swapping, including Third Elder.
However, he didn't deliberately go to swap lives, just occasionally swapped once in a while.
After all, Third Elder was too weak. Chen Xia could directly slay him head-on, so there was no need to drag it out.
Swapping lives was purely venting anger.
"How is your cultivation going?" The old fisherman asked cordially, like all mentors caring for their disciples.
Chen Xia still wished it could be like this, but it was impossible. He replied listlessly,
"Stuck, can't go up or down."
The old fisherman hurriedly frowned, "You must not go down. With your current cultivation, you should be at the half-step Inverse Sea Realm, right?"
"Almost back to the peak of the Heavenly Bridge Realm." Chen Xia opened his mouth listlessly.
"What's going on?" The old fisherman knitted his brows tightly. He was extremely worried about Chen Xia's cultivation, as it concerned the future of Blue Sky Sword Sea.
"Without the enlightening chess and enlightening tea, dropping two or three realms is normal." Chen Xia replied as such, while changing to prop his head with the other hand.
"I see, I see." The old fisherman hurriedly smiled and took out Chen Xia's chess set and teacup, teapot, and tea leaves from his bosom.
"Master knows you need these two treasures to break through realms, so I brought them specially."
"Thank you, Master." Chen Xia's flat expression finally showed some excitement, and he decided not to cut the old fisherman's lifespan for the next ten years.
Yeah, cut Third Elder's instead.
This was the second time the old fisherman had come to visit him, and also the last time in five hundred years.
From now on, Chen Xia's only companion.
Would be the pitch-black seawater, unable to see light, and no sound, like a lifeless tomb.
He was the living dead within it.
Burying himself with sword intent.
The 130th year.
The White Emperor descended upon Blue Sky Sword Sea once again. This time, the probe was more direct, using the true meaning of the Great Dao as his hand, directly probing into Blue Sky Sword Sea.
Under the beautiful name of helping Blue Sky Sword Sea clean up its door and sweep out the antiques from tens of thousands of years ago.
Everyone knew what these antiques referred to, and they couldn't help but be shocked by the White Emperor's audacity.
A quasi-emperor already dared to say such words to a former emperor.
But apart from shock, they could do nothing more, only staring blankly as the White Emperor's giant hand probed into Blue Sky Sword Sea, into that piece of sky in the firmament.
The first to stop him was the old fisherman. With his quasi-sage body ten thousand zhang tall, he stood between heaven and earth and struck horizontally at the White Emperor's giant hand.
The void shattered into drizzling fragments, like rain falling.
The old fisherman's horizontal strike only lasted for three breaths. The gap between a quasi-sage and a quasi-emperor was simply too big. Even sages were far from comparable to quasi-emperors.
Only great sages had the qualification to make a move.
This time, the Sword Venerable Emperor within the Sword Sea did not make a move. Perhaps his lifespan had diminished too much that he no longer had the qualification to act.
The old fisherman's quasi-sage true body was slapped into smithereens, falling onto the colossal sword, half-dead.
What truly blocked the White Emperor was Blue Sky Sword Sea’s current headmaster, who was also Blue Sky Sword Sea’s only sage at present. He activated the Grand Sect-Protecting Formation, empowered by the entire Blue Sky Sword Sea’s sword force, and resisted the White Emperor’s offensive.
At the same time, the colossal sword suspended in the center began emitting light.
"If you don't retreat now, even if my Blue Sky Sword Sea perished tens of thousands of years ago, I will still completely sever your fate to become an emperor!"
After the headmaster shouted this sentence, there was no more sound from the sky. Only after a long while did a sentence float over ethereally from the endless starry sky.
"Then this Emperor will just wait for your Blue Sky Sword Sea to shatter before coming to take the immortal sword!"
"A quasi-emperor dares to proclaim himself emperor. If my Blue Sky Sword Sea was in its heyday, your kind of quasi-emperor would be handled in just two strikes of the immortal sword!"
The headmaster disdainfully retorted, not giving an inch.
Laughter also came from the voice in the starry sky.
"Slay me? You should first properly think about how to survive the upcoming retribution!"
Since Blue Sky Sword Sea had produced an emperor, it would definitely face retribution in the future, unless it could produce another emperor to stabilize the situation.
But that was somewhat improbable now. Blue Sky Sword Sea no longer had the elixir to extend an emperor's lifespan.
Because this Star Region had entered its declining period. The emperors produced in the past had drained this Star Region's fortune and fate.
This was also why it was difficult for this Star Region to produce emperors now. After the retribution, it might take another two to three great eras before emperors could emerge in this Star Region again.
As for the emperor seedlings in Blue Sky Sword Sea, they could only become emperors in other Star Regions or Realms.
Without an emperor to lead, all words sounded so ridiculous now.
When the White Emperor departed, he casually waved his hand and annihilated a nearby life planet into fine dust, to vent his anger.
The headmaster of Blue Sky Sword Sea lowered his head, his gaze constantly shifting between two places.
He was weighing his options.
The aging hegemon, or the invincible prodigy?