Chapter 107

These idiotic yao cultivators. The brains of their real bodies were only the size of a bean, and there would only be one thing that they could pack into them in their lifetimes.

They weren’t like humans, where love and hate filled the chest up full, everything ever-changing never enough to make use of. A heart could never be idle, as once it was, it would morph, becoming entirely different in the blink of an eye.

Han Yuan’s demonic dragon body was pushed to its limit by Bian Xu’s incessantly-onslaughting Sacrifice, his flesh beginning to implode inside him. At that very moment, as if to share in his suffering, his own bifurcated soul hurled insults at him.

“You’re one to talk, you know,” the heart demon mocked. “At the end of last month, you were making a fuss about wanting to kill everyone in the world. And now? This month’s moon hasn’t yet gotten full, yet once you heard that you hadn’t been expelled from the sect, you turned into a sage concerned about this world. Tch… your face changes more regularly than a woman’s period flows. The demonic dragon’s flair has been flushed out by your unpredictable cycle.”

“If any month’s ‘cycle’ could flush you out with it, I’ll find a place to go be a monk in, and pray to the Buddha plus be vegetarian all my life…” Han Yuan answered. “Fucking take over for me for a minute! I can’t hold up anymore!”

The heart demon snorted, then actually did take over as he had asked.

In this short moment, the boundary between his two souls started to become not-so-clear.

Tang Zhen unfeelingly tossed the bird’s body to the side — along with his own corpse that had been silent within Da Xue Mountain for many years, still cherishing that bright red father — like he was trashing refuse from over the years.

He took back his hand that had been scalded by his own puppet charm, eyes filled with murderous machinations as he looked at Shui Keng. “How annoying.”

Immediately after that, he decisively abandoned this puppet-charm-injured ghost, and his primordial spirit pouring into the infinite surrounding ghosts at the same time. All of them — horror-stricken and of every age and gender — widened their eyes simultaneously, each having the identical look in their eyes that was dense with paranoia. They presented before everyone like the grotesque scenery of a nightmare.

Li Yun was the first to recognize the danger here. He immediately rushed over to the yet-unaware Shui Keng on his sword, grabbed the Red Crane’s slender bird leg, then dragged her to one side in midair like a swinging bag. At the same time, he opened up the Bag of Hoarding he held, quickly took out handfuls handful of something, and tossed it out several times in a row, resembling a goddess scattering flowers.

Before that series of actions completed, the ghost that had been closest to Shui Keng blew up, still enough to brush past here — if it hadn’t been for Li Yun’s quick reaction, she would not have died in the explosion, but the puppet charm on her that could only block one fatal injury would have been neutralized.

Tang Zhen had completely face-turned, rebuffing his past self in such a determined manner.

The self-destructed ghost also happened to blow up what Li Yun had thrown into the sky. For a time, a mess of innumerable, colorful potions and talismans flew all over the place. Large grasshoppers made of paper fell like rain in tandem, swirling up into a whirlwind like a plague of locusts passing through. A huge army of multi-sized insects valiantly cut into the ghost ranks; they had nearly no attacking power, but they were enough to disrupt the senses.

Within that interval, a bottle of Petrifying Water spilled in its entirety onto Han Yuan, and the demonic dragon’s body that was soon about to be torn apart temporarily turned into sturdy, crackless rock that resembled a city wall.

Han Yuan suddenly felt cold from head to toe, unable to move at all. “Which side are you on, Li Yun?!” he roared, steam coming out of every orifice. “If you can’t help, whatever, but can you not make a mess?!”

Li Yun was towing Shui Keng along in his escape. “I’m helping you hold up for a while! Why are you yelling?”

“Stone cracks, too! What the hell were you thinking, you bastard?!”

Even with that said, Li Yun was a little self-proud. “Haha, don’t you worry. That Petrifying Water was made out of heavenly mountain rock, which is definitely tougher than you are.”

Why was he still hawking his crap?!

“What the fuck am I supposed to do if I can’t change back? Fill in a seat as ‘Giant Worm Mountain’ for Shu from now on?!”

Li Yun sighed, face full of worries. “Gods’ sake, little brother. Just get over it, will you? You were about to be chopped into a bunch of little pieces. That you can live at all is pretty great, yet you still have the nerve to care about what material you’re made out of… ah, how awful!”

Tang Zhen was seen to sweep out his sleeve in rage. A wave of eerie ghost qi spread out, and all the grasshoppers hopping about in the sky kicked out their legs and fell, littering the ground with a pitter-patter.

Suddenly, Shui Keng forcibly broke free from Li Yun’s hand, spreading her wings at an inconceivable speed and rushing for one side of the mountaintop. Her size increased explosively, bones all over her body making horrible sounds, form getting acutely stretched out in an instant, tail feathers elongating over ten zhang out. In the blink of an eye, she shot into the figure of a fully-grown Red Crane.

She landed upon cut-off mountain rock like an ancient, divine bird descended, her endless flames whirling upwards with the wind, turning into a silhouette in the gloomy sky that looked like it came out of hard-to-articulate folklore.

Li Yun was dumbstruck for a second. Then, he remembered that yao core with other three thousand years in it, and a chill went from his palms to his heart. “Han Tan! What did you do?!”

Shui Keng had no attention to spare him. The Yao King’s inner core seemed to be about to swell her up into a ball, her bones and muscles getting lengthened without limit. Her immature, half-yao body felt like every cut of it was suffering the pain of being skinned. She wanted nothing more than to lay down and roll herself into a mudball.

Wind and thunder surged in the sky, containing power, intending to strike this little bird that didn’t know the weight of her own barely-there cultivation to death.

Her eldest brother giving her that core had obviously been him treating her as a human being. If a human had a hundred years of life experience, they would expectedly know the severity of things, but he hadn’t anticipated that with her human skin peeled off, she was still a rampaging, senseless bird by nature.

The very second a thunderclap came, she had already started to regret her own moment of impulse, thinking to herself, I was too hasty… I might be about to die.

She had believed that she would be in pain and fear, but in reality, she wasn’t. Inside ardent fire and thunder cries, she seemed to sight the corpse of that little bird yao. I should have died long ago, really. If it weren’t for my mom guarding me when I was born, if it weren’t for our martial grandfather’s soul suppressing things by lucky chance when I hatched, if it weren’t for my Master and brothers protecting me for so many years… I would have either become a mad and cruel villain like Tang Zhen, or I would have died long ago.

She felt that her being able to live peacefully to this day had really just been good luck, and it was enough for her.

Thus, she jumped into Sacrifice’s effect that Han Yuan was blocking.

The overbearing strength of the technique roiled. Paired with the thunder, the Red Crane, and her raging flames, this looked like a scene left behind from the old era. The multitude of ghosts went unanimously still for some unknown reason, as if this scene was evoking memories from the distant past.

All of a sudden, the near-death puppet charm on Shui Keng’s neck exploded with a strong burst of light, heroically bearing the blow. The countless exquisite notches on the talisman had an eye-searing brilliance, looking like someone had once entrusted their most tortuously-hidden emotions inside it.

Tang Zhen felt something seem to crack within his heart that had been deathly still for many years, indicating that the puppet charm connected to him had come to the end of its life.

His emotions had been cut away long ago, and yet a trifling talisman he had left in old times had still loyally done its duty, blocking a catastrophe that should have killed a relative its owner no longer acknowledged.

Shui Keng felt like she had charged through a narrow road full of suffering, or experiencing the process of her hatching once again.

A gasp of damp air suddenly poured into her lungs, her limbs and bones extending to their limits straightaway. The three-thousand-year-old core of the only Yao King that had ever passed of old age in history spun neatly in her inner sanctum. The Red Crane lifted her head to the sky and let out a long cry, spreading out her wings that were just starting to grow long like she was going to vanish the sun and the clouds.

While she screamed, all the ominous ghosts couldn’t help but make a path for this fenghuang-Hou Yi. True Fire of Samadhi burst forth, wanting to burn away all the unclean things of the human realm. A huge ring of fire fell inside the array Han Yuan encased, constantly nibbling away at the massive destructive force of Bian Xu’s Sacrifice.

Tang Zhen’s temporary bewilderment gradually faded from the faces of the ghosts, black qi starting to stir in his eyes again. “My relationship with the Fuyao Sect is quite deep. It’s a friendship, really,” the ghosts said at the same time, creepily. “I didn’t want to take the lives of you juniors, but since you insist upon courting death…”

Tang Zhen, encircled by thousands of ghosts, raised his arms. Countless strings of black qi poured out from the landscape, giving one the illusion that the world itself stored infinite filth, the slightest bit of wind stirring up grass then able to raise massive waves.

This contamination of demonic qi made Han Yuan suck in a deep breath. His own qi that had since calmed down now instantly flowed onto the demonic dragon’s half-petrified face, his eyes permeating with an unspeakably terrifying blood-red.

He barely managed to suppress that instinct, struggling to return to calmness. “All of you, get away! Now!”

The gigantic momentum of this demonic qi was so dreadful, even Li yun had a moment of actually believing Tang Zhen’s words.

Was the karmic effect of a million resentful souls actually responding to him?

Could it be that an incomprehensible force actually way helping this devil succeed, with no regard for right and wrong?

Where had Heaven’s law gone, then?

Tang Zhen laughed crisply. “Do you all really believed that your strong and wise grandfather was strangled to death by the Four Sages merely because he accidentally qi deviated? There are so many demonic cultivators in the world. Why were they never seen hunting them down one by one? I’ll tell you why Tong Ru’s sin was unforgivable: it’s because Fuyao Mountain subdues the Valley of the Heart Demon that the pure qi and demonic qi of the world are able to balance each other out. That ‘Wish-Granting Stone’ was made from many heart demons, and had been subdued on the Tower of No Regrets; after he selfishly stole and released it, how many wars and famines have happened? How many powerful people have qi deviated? All were beget by the implicit influence of the Valley’s seal being lifted these hundred years… speaking of which, demonic dragon. That your cultivation base could be refined to this extent after a mere century can be considered you benefitting from your forebear’s foundation.”

“You bullshitter—“

Li Yun started, but then the primordial spirit sword that had been quiet for so long was suddenly dyed with a faint swordlight. Sensing the blade’s new movements, as soon as he looked down, hot tears nearly rimmed his eyes on the spot, and he suddenly felt like he had a leg to stand on again.

He didn’t hesitate to release the sword, shouting at You Liang, who was tangled up with a swarm of ghosts. “You, sword cultivator! Take it!”

You Liang grabbed the sword as he heard that. With how powerful Enter the Sheath’s swordwill was, he nearly felt like he had peeped into a great realm the second he touched it — letting out a shout, he tenaciously swept the sword out, sweeping away a large stretch of ghosts blocking the way in front of him, leaving nothing behind.

Tang Zhen jumped in fright, backing up in a panic. You Liang’s improvement in equipment let him raise his sword and make a path in chase. By the time the sword was completed soaked by the demonic qi and dimmed from stress, the majority of the ghosts unable to get away had been purged.

The look in Tang Zhen’s eyes changed a couple of times. He stared malicious at the young sword cultivator not too far away, but his mouth spoke to Yan Zhengming and Cheng Qian. “You were able to get out of the Sea of Beiming… but what use does that have?”

You Liang’s pupils shrunk.

Tang Zhen raised his level palms, many ghosts emerging from his palm. He looked at the sword that had already lost its verve in contempt. “Can you catch up? Can you kill them all?”

Reason told that Yan Zhengming and Cheng Qian indeed would not be able to catch up.

Only when hurrying on the road did the land look so endlessly vast.

Yan Zhengming’s brow scrunched up tight. “Damn. Li Yun just used that primordial spirit sword on him.”

“There is a way, but I don’t know if it can be done,” Cheng Qian said. “Swordflight wouldn’t be able to keep up, anyways. It would pretty much be treating a dead horse like it’s a live one.”

“Wh—“

Cheng Qian speedily reached up to tug on the Sect Leader Seal on his neck. “The Valley of the Heart Demon, remember? One of the reasons for Fuyao Mountain’s existence is to suppress it. There has to be a passage to get to the Valley through the Seal. We’ll walk from there.”

Yan Zhengming couldn’t understand his reasoning. “Walk the Valley? What do you mean? Isn’t it in back of the mountain?”

“It’s only sealed in the back mountain, when there’s actually nowhere it isn’t. Wherever there are humans, there are desires, and there are passages to the get to the Valley. This is an unfrequented region, but Black Tortoise Hall’s demonic qi hasn’t yet dissipated. Open up the Seal and try it out; whether it works or doesn’t will depend on fate.”

Knowing that he was limited by the prohibition and couldn’t say details, Yan Zhengming didn’t inquire as to how he knew this, believing him unconditionally and using his spiritual consciousness to open the Seal.

In a second’s time, the two of them saw only black before them, familiar darkness streaming over. Enveloped in the residual heart demon qi of the ice fields, the vanished from their places.

Cheng Qian’s awareness was briefly lost, but quickly recovered. Someone was holding him in the darkness, a faint light shining next to him — he didn’t need to see to know that that was his senior’s batch of night pearls.

The Valley of the Heart Demon seemed different from the last time they had been here. The demonic qi lingering within it was so thick, it was practically suffocating, arousing all the negative emotions of those that walked it.

Yan Zhengming’s heart skipped a beat. Sword cultivators were accompanied by compelling violent tendencies all their lives, thus forever making them more liable to suffer from these influences. He forced his mind to settle. “What’s going on, here?”

Cheng Qian’s heart sank, and he talked as he walked. “You remember how Tong Ru got the Wish-Granting Stone out of the Tower of No Regrets? He was qi deviating at the time, but he wasn’t totally mad, since he had made sure to seal the Valley back up after he took the Stone. Unfortunately, without that pivotal rock, the seal was definitely not as strong as it had been at its conception, and we just-so-happened to tear a hole in it when we broke the Demon Extermination Array.”

In spite of Yan Zhengming’s heart getting incessantly agitated by the Valley, he still wasn’t stupid, reacting immediately at this. “I thought that we’d be fine as long as we got out of there! So, Tang Zhen knew as much at the time… and instead of notifying me, he secretly extracted the demonic qi of the Valley when he was house at Fuyao Mountain? Right… I was the one that invited him over. How could I lead a wolf right into my house like that?”

His rate of speech got faster and faster, speaking to the point of impatience. Nearly unable to restrain the fire in his heart, he grabbed Cheng Qian’s arm, fingers almost pinching his skin; with nowhere to vent his irritability that filled him with annoyance, a faint sigil was almost seen between his brows. “Damn it! You’re not allowed to leave my line of sight!”

Cheng Qian’s core had entered the Dao. Even if his mental state had been sent into turmoil by Hear the Universe’s inheritance, he was slightly more stable that him. Presently not caring to lower himself to the level of his senior that was in rabid dog mode, he inwardly recited the Scripture of Serenity as he answered, “If he hadn’t deliberately showing some of his intentions during Han Yuan’s hearing, and Shang Wan’nian hadn’t brought up that I’d been hit with soul-painting, who would be on guard against an old friend? Calm down. To go straight to Fuyao’s back mountain from here, we’ll need the Seal’s support.”

Yan Zhengming breathed in deeply, then abruptly pushed the Seal in his hand out. The crowd of dotted stars inside the Seal suddenly showed up, making it look like the entire splendid silver river of the sky was spread throughout the Valley, momentarily quelling all the surrounding commotion.

His mind that was heating up cooled some. It was only now that he discovered that he had already torn up Cheng Qian’s sleeve; thankfully, cultivators had body-protecting true essence, and Cheng Qian himself was much more durable than clothing.

He dryly coughed, slightly awkward. “I… um…”

“You sword cultivators are innately ill, blowing up with one little spark. I know,” Cheng Qian picked up. “You don’t need to explain. Finding the exit soon is important.”

Laughing in embarrassment, Yan Zhengming routinely pressed his own spiritual consciousness into the Seal, speedily scouting for everything related to the Valley.

However, the Seal’s information was much too complicated. The consciousnesses of Sect Leaders past were all resonating with him while issuing uneasiness here, causing him to be unable to make heads or tails of anything.

At the same time, in Shuzhong’s mountains, Tang Zhen sent his ghost army shrieking down. The forbidden technique left by Bian Xu rose unexpectedly, forcing Shui Keng’s True Fire to one side.

In this critical juncture, Han Yuan’s body suddenly flashed. He was, after all, the demonic dragon, only one step away from being Lord Beiming — even if Ninth Chain-er Li Yun had also entered the realm of the primordial spirit, it was not so easy for the Petrifying Water to hold the other down for long.

The potion’s effect was gradually declining, and if it the petrification was dissolved right now, Han Yuan would inevitably be assaulted by Sacrifice.

At long last, he quit wrestling with literal material issues. “I can’t hold on! Li Yun, throw another bottle!”

“I don’t have any!” the other shouted desperately.

After his shout, he shut his eyes that wanted to cry, but held no tears. Shit… will you still be able to catch up, big brother?

As the petrification on Han Yuan’s body began to recede, the more and more that unstoppable forbidden technique tore him apart with increased intensity, blood trails appearing between each of his scales.

While Yan Zhengming’s consciousness was getting beaten black and blue in the Sect Leader Seal, the eight-trigrams plate representing the blood oath suddenly flashed on his hand. The oath had been sighed by Fuyao with Shang Wan’nian, but Han Yuan was the main body of it; he naturally didn’t have the ability to break it, so this could only mean that he was about to go see his ancestors.

Yan Zhengming broke out in a full cold sweat, but only the senses of Sect Leaders were able to come into the Seal. He couldn’t ask Cheng Qian for help if he wanted to.

At right that moment, Tong Ru, who he had possessed several times before while in the Seal, suddenly appeared before him. Unlike previous times, he had the delusion that Tong Ru didn’t look like a mirage or a memory, but a real person he could see.

Tong Ru’s remnant consciousness beckoned to him, and he automatically followed.

He saw Tong Ru pass through countless doorways, countless consciousnesses that extended out to the horizon like smoke, wordlessly bringing him to a large door with a peerlessly distinct red mark, which was identical to the Demon Elimination Seal Wu Changtian had blackmailed him with.

This entrance was concealed, a gap split down its middle. The endless flow of demonic qi from the Valley was escaping through here. Tong Ru stopped in his tracks, nodded at Yan Zhengming, and shortly vanished where he stood.

Yan Zhengming carefully reached, then gently pushed along the crack.

He promptly drew his consciousness back from the Seal, then witnessed clouds swirling in the air. The innumerable stars revealed from the Seal were being sucked into a huge vortex, getting completely wiped out in no more than a moment as a black doorway appeared in front of him and Cheng Qian.

He was ecstatic. “Here it is! Let’s go!”

They barged through the large gate, with Yan Zhengming simultaneously bringing down Fuyao’s mountain-sealing order in his capacity as its leader, making the entire mountain reappear.

In Shuzhong, Han Yuan had completely turned back from stone into flesh. He felt like he was being stuck to the ground by uncountable needles. Nowhere on him didn’t hurt, and the pain was so bad, he went numb, unable to keep from thinking, I’m at least a primordial spirit cultivator. If I die, will my spirit return to my home, too?

Fuyao Mountain was getting inundated with a layer of indescribable demonic qi. The eight-trigram plate on Yan Zhengming’s hand was flashing with increasing frequency. They flew right past numerous woods and stone steps, and before their bodies yet arrive, a sword strike came hacking down from the air, obliterating the guest house and courtyard Tang Zhen had been staying in. The courtyard’s interior resemble water accumulated after rain, with a thick layer of dark, insolubly stagnant clouds precipitating. The heavy bluestone slabs of it were cut away by Yan Zhengming’s strikes, exposing a big chunk of rock beneath — the cold-outside, warm-inside of the Ice-hearted Fire of Zhaoyang.

Inside it was a corpse whose chest was shining on and off, as if packed with a tiny flame — Tang Zhen had actually hidden his true body of the Soul-Devouring Lamp in Liu Lang’s corpse!

Shuzhong: Sacrifice was stimulated by the demonic qi, viciously busting through Shui Keng’s ring of fire. Flame-red plumage scattered down, resembling a rain of cotton. Ghosts were all over the place. The demonic dragon’s sharp claws were carving straight into the center of the earth; Han Yuan realized that he could no longer quarrel with him, the two separate egos within him having, at some unknown point in time, merged into one.

Fuyao’s summit: Shuang Ren, shrouded in frosty sword qi, headed straight for the Ice-hearted Fire/ Subtlety’s swordwill poured itself straight into the heart of the large stone via the crack, firmly breaking off a corner of it and making an opening. Liu Lang’s corpse, upon noticing that its protective barrier had been pried open, spasmed in terror, then turned into a puff of black wind, wanting to flee.

“Xiao Qian, stand back!”

Yan Zhengming’s sword came over, its already-presenting Enter the Sheath like a rotten branch suddenly exposed its hidden edge.

A blade of frost of fourteen provinces, the entire mountain shook for it…