Chapter 90: Twin Swords Unite to Shock the Blood Demon

Mount of Ten Thousand Aspects was the dwelling place of a rogue cultivator from the demon path.

Among disciples of the demonic schools, rogue cultivators had it somewhat better than those raised within sects. Though they too were bound by blood oaths, above their heads there was only the vague, distant progenitor of the demon path, not the tangible threat of a sect like the Netherworld Sect. Yet once one entered the demonic path and cultivated turbid energy, it became exceedingly difficult to change course. In the future, they would inevitably clash with the people of the orthodox path. Like the Ghost Mother of Nine Spirits, who had once been stripped of her fleshly body by a master of the Way of Virtue. Without the shelter of a sect’s power, she had been unable for many years to rebuild her true form.

Of course, that applied only to the earliest rogue cultivators. Their disciples, having masters above them, had all such blood-oath leverage held in their teachers’ hands.

Still, the man of Mount Ten Thousand Aspects was far more subtle than the ten great demonic sects. He used the blood oath as an illusionary curse to befuddle his disciples, suppressing in their subconscious any thought of resistance. Whenever such thoughts arose, he secretly erased them with a spell. Thus his few disciples were remarkably useful; after being thoroughly indoctrinated, they would gladly risk their lives for him.

But no matter how willingly they risked everything, before absolute power they were nothing more than passing clouds.

Twenty-four precious pearls rose into the air. The vast, boundless sea churned violently, and dragon after dragon of water swam through the ocean. Each water dragon was formed from the Great Dao itself, a concentration of the might of a human immortal.

“Nine water dragons, and each one’s power is actually no weaker than mine?” Fear rose in the hearts of Jiang Chan and Zhang Shuyu of Mount Ten Thousand Aspects. The man called Qinghong on the opposite side had hardly made a move at all, merely driving his power to manifest the water dragons. Yet that presence alone had utterly suppressed the two of them.

“This is his Dao Fruit divine form!” The two sensed it at once, and around them too the power of the Dao Fruit was everywhere. Tides rose and fell, primal energy revolved, and under its influence their own magic power became ever more sluggish, increasingly unable to commune with heaven and earth. If this continued, the two of them would be completely drawn into Ji Feichen’s domain and ultimately torn apart by the water dragons.

Jiang Chan hurriedly said to his companion, “Neither our realm nor our cultivation can compare with his. Let us join forces and tear open a way out.”

His eyes turned into a pair of emerald pupils, and a layer of blue, pustule-like skin surfaced over his flesh.

“Moon Palace Cold Toad.”

Ji Feichen’s eyes sharpened, and with a wave of his hand he sent a flock of water dragons surging forth.

The Toad Palace pays homage to the Moon Toad. Clearly, Jiang Chan’s action meant he was fighting with everything he had!

In the blink of an eye, Jiang Chan transformed into a four-eyed toad more than a zhang tall. Its mouth gaped wide, a stench of blood and rot rushing forward; its crimson tongue, slick with mucus, shattered water dragons one after another, then it sprang high and pounced toward Ji Feichen.

But Ji Feichen’s cultivation was on par with Supreme One Nameless. He did not dare strike at Nameless; how could he possibly be Ji Feichen’s match?

Mist of blue clouds swirled around Ji Feichen, and blossoms of golden light neutralized the attacks. With a single finger, he sent a three-foot beam of radiance transforming into sword energy of wave and water to wrestle with the jade toad. Every gesture and movement was relaxed and unhurried, as though Jiang Chan were no threat at all.

Zhang Shuyu, fighting nearby, thought he had seized an opening and secretly flung out a scroll veiled in baleful haze. This was the “Ten Thousand Aspects Red Dust Chart” of Mount Ten Thousand Aspects. Mountain Hermit had told him to bring it in for self-defense, and incidentally to search for rare medicines and immortal herbs.

All forms in the world, the red dust tempers the heart. The Mount Ten Thousand Aspects lineage differed from the demonic schools’ more common body-cultivation methods; they placed greater emphasis on nurturing the mind and restraining intent, much like the Heavenly Heart Demon Sect, and mainly specialized in bewitching hearts and misleading living beings.

The chart unfurled, and within it appeared ten thousand miles of mountains and rivers, the clamor of the mortal world, endless mundane dust and foul energy, giving birth to the seven emotions and six desires as they shrouded the Dao Fruit, seeking to cancel out Ji Feichen’s control over heaven and earth.

The Dao Chart!

The man’s eyes flashed, and a vast Heavenly River rolled in. A heavenly diagram separated sun from moon and sorted the constellations. Within the jade halls of the palace, a godlike emperor captured sun and moon alike, filling the space with Dao energy and sweeping away every trace of mortal miasma.

This was a chart of the Great Dao. With a single faint radiance, the Red Dust Chart was suppressed beneath the Three Lights Divine Water by the Heavenly River.

Yin-yang dragon whiskers!

Ji Feichen pointed backhandedly, and two thin threads, one black and one white, condensed in his fingers before appearing beside Zhang Shuyu. Turning once above and below, they cut Zhang Shuyu into three pieces beneath the force of innate yin and yang qi.

In the blink of an eye another man had died. Jiang Chan’s body trembled, and the toad leapt and bounded away toward the distance.

Vast Sea and Bright Moon!

Ji Feichen urged the pearls, and twenty-four shafts of brilliance unfolded into eight gates, like rounds of bright moons rising above the sea and forcing Jiang Chan back once more.

Jiang Chan resumed human form. Ji Feichen strode toward him across the waves, while streams of water dragons surrounded him but did not attack.

“What do you want?”

“You cultivate the art of the ice soul in Toad Palace. I will give you a chance: show me the ice-soul thunder art of your Toad Palace before my eyes. If you can defeat me, I will spare your life for now.”

As he spoke, a white bolt of lightning appeared at Ji Feichen’s fingertip, so cold it seemed to freeze the air; frost and snowflakes already formed in the void.

“You want to compare thunder arts with me?” Jiang Chan’s expression shifted, as if he saw a chance. He immediately agreed, condensing a thunderous glow the size of a pellet with a secret Toad Palace method.

Silver lightning flickered restlessly, and the profound energy of extreme yin and cold froze the water dragons, bringing Ji Feichen’s boundless sea to a temporary halt.

“A good chance!” Joy filled Jiang Chan’s face as he hurled the ice-soul divine thunder in his hand. “Ice-Soul Cold Thunder, freeze all things!”

The thunder burst in the sea; waves and water dragons were frozen solid, and streaks of ice-soul annihilation light shot toward Ji Feichen. This was the pride of Toad Palace, a demonic radiance capable of freezing and killing all things.

Ji Feichen raised a finger. A white beam shot forth, clashing head-on with the ice-soul divine thunder. As for the demonic radiance, it was offset by the golden blossoms and azure clouds surrounding him.

Boom—

A thunderous explosion rang out in the sky. Snowflakes danced everywhere as the white mist of profound energy dispersed, and Jiang Chan had already lost sight of Ji Feichen. But he knew that a mere bolt of lightning could absolutely not kill “Loose Immortal Qinghong.”

So Jiang Chan turned into demonic radiance and fled into the distance, intending to escape before Ji Feichen could react.

Yet the moment his foot stepped out, a sound like shattering glass came from within his body. Starting from his arms, his body cracked bit by bit into ice shards.

Though the two thunder arts had just collided, and countless snowflakes had temporarily obscured Ji Feichen’s vision, a streak of cold light had already entered Jiang Chan’s body, destroying all life within him. As his body moved, it now fell apart in front of Ji Feichen like a block of ice.

“My ice-soul thunder art is no worse than Toad Palace’s.”

Ji Feichen revealed a satisfied smile. Then he suddenly looked up and saw a stretch of blood cloud slowly spreading there.

The ice fragments of Jiang Chan’s corpse, together with his blood essence, drifted in a daze toward the blood cloud.

“Blood Sea Earth Immortal?”

Ji Feichen looked around. Aside from Jiang Chan, the remains of the two disciples from Mount Ten Thousand Aspects were also steadily losing blood essence, eventually condensing into blood clouds and floating into that mass overhead.

“He wants to refine blood into the Dao?”

Without hesitation, Ji Feichen scattered Three Lights Divine Water, and the Heavenly River suppressed the blood clouds of the three dead men, refusing to let them fly away.

But the summoning force from that cloud bank only grew fiercer. In the end, Ji Feichen clenched his teeth and pointed to the sky. “Sun, moon, and starlight—come to me!”

The brilliance of the sun, moon, and stars in the firmament blazed dazzlingly, all descending into the water and transforming into even more Three Lights Divine Water to purify the blood cloud.

Purifying a single blood cloud was nothing, but such provocation drew the attention of the Earth Immortal’s divine sense from afar.

Number Fifty-Six sat upon a lotus throne, using the struggle between orthodox and demonic to draw the blood essence from the corpses and strengthen the Blood Sea. When the Blood Sea engulfed heaven and earth, that would be the moment he would taint the immortal mansion and complete his great work.

Ji Feichen’s purification of the blood cloud enraged him with humiliation. “Junior, you seek death!”

The Earth Immortal pointed a finger, and the billowing waves of the Blood Sea shot through the void. Heaven’s will grew hazy, and a wash of blood-red light once again struck at Ji Feichen’s Dao Fruit.

“Senior! Please make your move!”

Ji Feichen’s expression changed drastically, but he immediately regained composure. With one hand he set the Azure Cloud Subduing Devil Banner before his chest, and with the other he took up the peachwood sword, the mountain-sect treasure of the Clear Micro School.

Suddenly, a sword cry rang out. The peachwood sword severed of its own accord, golden and crimson light cleaving through the sky, and all the blood-waves and demonic qi shattered in the celestial radiance it released.

“Blood Sea fiend, taste my sword!”

Ji Feichen seized the momentum and, with all the cultivation of his lifetime, drove the peachwood sword’s evil-banishing divine power, slashing fiercely toward the blood cloud in the distance.

The Blood Sea Earth Immortal was still astonished that Ji Feichen had blocked the attack when sword energy suddenly came rushing at him. His eyes widened, and in front of him a phantom lotus blossom appeared on its own, blocking the sword energy.

“Such a trivial art, how could it—”

Before he could finish, another invisible strand of sword energy came shooting along the path of the evil-banishing sword qi. With a hiss it split the light-lotus apart, and then behind the evil-banishing sword qi arose two further sword intents.

Supreme One’s profound virtue, great image without form.

Yin-yang dragon whiskers, dividing and ordering the two primal forces.

The two kinds of sword intent were entirely different, yet derived from the same source, and they shot straight for the Earth Immortal’s eyes.

Because time was short, and because they were hidden behind the evil-banishing sword qi, Number Fifty-Six failed to notice them at first. But he reacted swiftly, and two petals from the blood lotus beneath him drifted out to neutralize the sword energy.

The sword was extinguished, the flowers perished, and a few strands of hair drifted down before his eyes.

The Earth Immortal rose abruptly, glaring toward the direction of Ji Feichen’s attack. Killing intent locked onto Ji Feichen, but in the end, as if wary of something, he did not truly strike.

“The mountain-sect treasure sword of the Clear Micro School is indeed extraordinary. To think those two juniors could hide sword energy within it to plot against me!”

Number Fifty-Six muttered to himself. “And Supreme One Nameless—his sword technique is even stronger than this rogue cultivator’s? These two coordinate with such tacit understanding. The direct disciple of Supreme One is indeed a great enemy of my Orthodox Dao.”

With the descendant of Supreme One Palace hidden in the shadows, the Earth Immortal did not wish to tear things open at this moment, and so he temporarily suppressed his rage.

The blood cloud’s ferocity in the sky was for the moment suppressed. Ji Feichen felt a measure of relief and cupped his hands toward the void. “Dao Brother, I presume you have long been guarding Senior Sister Li in the shadows. Might you come out for an audience?”

“Better to meet than not to meet.”

A deep, mellow voice sounded by Ji Feichen’s ear. “Fellow Daoist, the Clear Micro School is an authentic orthodox lineage whose inheritance should not be extinguished. I see that the sword in your hand concerns the inheritance of this place; I hope you will reconsider carefully.”

With that, Nameless truly vanished.

Ji Feichen studied the void and thought inwardly, “I observed him with my spirit essence just now, yet within the emptiness he dispersed without form, as though he were not a real person. Is this a Dao art of the Nonaction School or the Vast Void Dao?”

Putting the matter aside, Ji Feichen cleaned up the battlefield and then went to regroup with the orthodox disciples.

...

Outside the immortal mansion, Mountain Hermit of Mount Ten Thousand Aspects sensed that contact with the Red Dust Chart had been severed, and his expression changed violently. Moreover, he could feel that the two marks of the blood oath in his hands had already dissipated.

“Did Zhang Shuyu and the others die?”

He formed calculations with his fingers, but Qinghong had dragon scales shielding heaven’s secrets. To calculate Qinghong’s origins, one would first have to calculate the origins of the dragon scales. In the end, it came to nothing, and the heavenly secrets could not be discerned.

“But if I cannot calculate him, surely I can calculate others, can I not?”

Mountain Hermit had been standing guard at the gate all along; how many had entered, he could not say for certain. He would calculate their origins one by one, and whoever could be calculated would be cleared of suspicion.

In the end, only a few people, such as Qinghong of Supreme Micro Palace and Zheng Qiong of the Netherworld Sect, could not be traced. As for Huashan, although he had entered, he had disguised himself as Zhou Yaner’s identity, and so when Mountain Hermit calculated Zhou Yaner, Huashan slipped by unnoticed.

“Internal strife within the demonic path is one thing. But under the pressure of the orthodox path at this moment, the Netherworld Sect should not dare offend me. So it was someone from the orthodox path?”

By now the forces within the immortal mansion were becoming clearer, and outside it more and more immortals and demons were gathering. Both sides had already learned of the Blood Sea’s scheme, but each feared the other and dared not be the first to begin a great war.

Qin Wu of the High Firmament Palace had already arrived, bringing disciples of the High Firmament Palace to protect the primordial spirit of the Earth Immortal of the Clear Micro School, so that they would not be attacked by the Blood Sea Earth Immortal.

To be continued.