Chapter 74 – Purge the Mountains, Suppress the Seas, One Saber, One Instant
The sound of the sky shattering drowned out the thunder. At that moment, it was as if the tide had flowed into the sky, which had turned into a sea of molten lava. Four fire dragons emerged from the sea, their mouths open to reveal their teeth, their whiskers burning, their azure bodies spewing radiance like the sun and moon! Their bellies were marked with patterns like clouds and water; as the water rose, the flames descended. The dragon shadows writhed and coiled, arriving in a flash of lightning.
The four cardinal directions were completely blocked. Above, a giant palm slowly pressed down. Zuo Liangshi was like a swallow trapped in a cage, about to be crushed.
The swallow spun!
Slicing with all blades, the Mo Saber spun back like a golden moon.
Dragon horns were severed, dragon eyes were pierced, and dragon heads were shredded. Zuo Liangshi spun once in the air, and the four fire dragons were minced into a rain of fire that fell upon the earth. And he, bathed in this rain, ascended, his momentum not decreasing but increasing, like an arrow shot towards the heavens, released after the winch had been tightened to its limit, carrying the sound of the wind.
The Mo Saber burned with dragon flame and dragon blood, leaving a long, crimson trail beside Zuo Liangshi.
Closer! Closer!
He was actually charging towards the giant palm that blotted out the sky! He insisted on waiting until the distance between them was but a hair’s breadth before launching his attack. At such a close range, the full dominance of the Mo Saber could be unleashed. The enemy had no chance to dodge, and he himself had no room to retreat.
The Mo Saber, having drunk its fill of dragon blood, was twisting, roaring, and brewing a world-shocking strike.
The giant palm suddenly clenched into a fist. Zuo Liangshi’s figure disappeared within that sky-blotting palm, vanished from everyone’s sight. Everyone’s heart leaped into their throats. Elder Tao Rong in the ruins took a sharp step forward, and Lou Jiang on the city wall shot to his feet.
“Pavilion…”
The rest of the shout was drowned in the light of the saber.
First, a bright line appeared on the gauntlet of flowing magma. Then, a dazzling golden light burst forth from it, shooting straight up like a soaring dragon! A thousand meters in an instant! Flesh and blood like rocky islands, along with shattered pieces of armor, exploded in all directions, dyeing the sea a vast expanse of red.
One strike!
The hand of the ancient god Gu Yu, reaching from beyond the heavens, disintegrated!
Zuo Liangshi floated high in the sky.
The Mo Saber in his hand sang without end, a joyous sound. Zuo Liangshi had hidden his light for too long, so long that the Mo Saber had barely been truly unsheathed in all the years it had followed him, until today! Today, the blade took on a bewitching blood-red color, proof that it had drunk the blood of a god!
One strike, one instant. An instant that shocked the world.
Elder Tao Rong’s steps towards the sky froze, Lou Jiang’s cry of alarm was stuck in his throat, and the pupils of countless Mountain Sea Pavilion disciples were illuminated by that single strike. The nine cities of Zhunan fell silent for a breath under this strike, and after the silence came a tsunami of cheers. Amidst the cheers, many disciples found tears streaming down their faces without even realizing it.
How many years?
For how many years had they been mocked for not having a proper sect master? For how many years had they envied the disciples of other sects who had a sect master famous throughout the Twelve Continents? For how many years had they heard of so many concessions?
They had been disheartened, discouraged, and disappointed.
Until today, they finally knew that their Pavilion Master was not a spineless coward, much less a coward who dared not protect them. After today, they could finally stand tall and tell everyone loudly: they too had a Pavilion Master who could protect his disciples with his own strength!
Who, like the mountains and seas, could single-handedly fight a high god?
“How dare you!”
The Red Emperor Gu Yu’s furious roar resounded through the sky, causing the qi and blood of everyone on the ground to churn, their vision turning black.
“What is there not to dare!”
Zuo Liangshi laughed loudly, his laughter rolling like thunder.
In his youth, he had been a rebel who traveled the rivers and mountains. In his middle age, he had walked on thin ice, hiding his true self in all matters. There had not been a single moment of glory. Only now did his brilliance shine through, his arrogance so great it could cover the four seas and sweep the eight wildernesses. For the past six hundred years, his name was not on the Heavenly Pride Rankings; for the next ten thousand years, his name would be carved in the books of legends.
Mountain Sea Pavilion! The Zuo family!
Zuo Liangshi!
The sea of blood churned, heaven and earth filled with killing intent.
Gu Yu was truly moved to kill.
Whether it was to prevent that curse from coming true or not, he had to turn this arrogant ant into dust… An ant! A mere ant dared to overstep and offend its superior! The disintegrated flesh and blood froze in the air, gathered, and regenerated. Although it quickly became whole again, a hideous saber scar remained on his hand, a scar that did not disappear with the arm’s recovery.
He made a grasping motion in the void.
Everyone felt a sudden darkness. Between heaven and earth, the only light left was the dark red glow seeping through the broken dome of the sky, as if all light had been sucked into it. The roaring thunder that had filled the world was drawn out like silver silkworm threads, converging in the red palm to form a Dragon Fang Spear. Purple lightning crackled on the spear, the result of countless lightning bolts compressed to their absolute limit.
An unprecedented giant purple spear, a thousand meters long, its head a ferocious dragon fang.
In the nine cities of Zhunan, on all the pavilions and gate-towers, the bronze Wind-Vane Birds simultaneously sparked with fine purple light. The metal weapons in the hands and at the waists of all the Mountain Sea Pavilion disciples vibrated and hummed. Everyone’s face was simultaneously illuminated a deathly pale. This spear, just the after-breath it carried was so astonishing, one dared not imagine how terrifying it would be if the spear’s edge were to descend completely unimpeded.
Zuo Liangshi faced the spear’s edge.
Half his body in white, half in blood, he stood alone against the thousand-meter-long bolt of incandescent lightning.
The Red Emperor bent his arm, the Dragon Fang Spear poised, its fang ferocious, capable of shattering rivers and mountains. In his rage, he had already disregarded his earlier promise to “only take the South Star Candle.” No one would doubt that if Zuo Liangshi failed to block this spear, the millions of citizens and cultivators of Zhunan’s nine cities would be turned to charcoal in an instant.
Before this spear, Zuo Liangshi’s figure was as insignificant as an ant.
Could he block it? Could he withstand it?
Zuo Liangshi finally switched from a one-handed grip to a two-handed one. He closed his eyes. The black lacquer on the saber’s body peeled away bit by bit, revealing the bronze color underneath. The blade gradually turned a steely blue-green, the same color as the countless Zuo family skeletons in the Black Tortoise’s shell, as if it were a saber forged from the bronze bones of countless Zuo family members.
The saber’s cry was like a roar.
A thousand, ten thousand people roaring as one.
Faintly, countless overlapping bronze-colored figures appeared behind Zuo Liangshi. They were nothing but skeletons, their features no longer discernible, yet every one of them raised their heads and roared at the Red Emperor who had torn the sky asunder.
More than half the blade had turned to bronze.
The Dragon Fang was thrown.
Purple lightning and furious thunder poured down, aiming straight for Zuo Liangshi’s head.
Zuo Liangshi did not move.
One after another, bronze-colored phantoms rushed out from behind him, roaring as they met the descending spear of lightning and thunder. It was a fang reaching out from beyond the heavens. Shatter! Shatter! Shatter! The layers of phantoms shattered one after another, the one behind collapsing almost as soon as the one before it broke.
An instant!
Countless phantoms overlapped, blocking the Dragon Fang from beyond the heavens for an instant!
The spear’s light was inches away.
Most of Zuo Liangshi’s clothes had been shredded, and the flesh on his chest had begun to crack under the spear’s pressure. Yet he still did not move. The entire blade had turned to bronze, with only the very edge remaining.
Clang— Clang clang—
Two bell chimes, from some unknown source, drifted through the void.
Two clear figures appeared before him, a man and a woman. The man wore a crane-feather cloak, the woman a silk dress. When these two figures appeared, Lou Jiang on the ground trembled all over, tears streaming down his face.
“Father! Mother!”
He madly tried to rush towards the sky, but after taking just one step, he stumbled and fell to his knees.
“Zuo, you crooked merchant, Hexuan will help you one last time!”
Lou Hexuan met the spear’s light and shattered into a shower of crane feathers.
“Sixteen years apart has been like a long dream. Liangshi, farewell.”
Qing Meixue smiled faintly and rose gracefully, a stream of flying snow and light.
“My husband, wait for me.”
The lightning struck down.
Zuo Liangshi opened his eyes.
He struck!
It was as if it were one strike, yet also as if it were ten million strikes.
The Dragon Fang shattered, the hilt shattered, the ring shattered, the thousand-meter-long shaft—nine hundred, eight hundred, seven hundred, six hundred… shattered! The moment the spear’s handle shattered, the dispersed lightning exploded, filling the entire sky, becoming the most brilliant and largest qionghua flower in all of history, a hundred years exchanged for a single instant. Zuo Liangshi leaped up, stepping on the distorted remnants of space left by the shattering heavenly fang, step by step, ascending to the heavens. The light of his saber followed closely, climbing higher and higher, farther and farther.
He was going to ascend to the cosmos, to slay the hand that had stepped out of the five elements and then reached back into them.
The Red Emperor was furious, repeatedly gathering one purple lightning Dragon Fang long spear after another, only to have them shattered by him time and again. The gathered long spears became more and more dispersed, until finally, the bronze Mo Saber once again struck the hand of the ancient god that had reached into the mortal realm. This time, Gu Yu was horrified to discover that he could no longer gather the flesh and blood that had been shattered by him; that flesh and blood had been completely annihilated.
“The sun and moon do not linger, heaven and earth are high and thick!”
“The soaring serpent turns to dust, gods and ghosts to rotting flesh!”
Zuo Liangshi sang loudly, the bronze glowing like a brand, he himself like a bright flame.
And there truly was fire.
Flames erupted from his body. He was like a burning south candle, a rising sun.
“The white deer is hard to herd, the year crane hard to follow!”
“To grow old is to die—”
He swung his saber again, and Gu Yu’s shoulder guard turned to dust. He leaped high, his saber slashing beyond the heavens.
“Do not grieve for the high tower!”
The roar of clashing metal echoed between heaven and earth, an extremely terrifying and sharp sound, as if two equally hard pieces of metal were scraping against each other in everyone’s mind, making their brains feel as if they would splatter. After that sound came the furious roar of the Red Emperor Gu Yu, a roar that could not hide his fear.
In his haste, he had raised a true divine artifact to block Zuo Liangshi’s strike.
Even so, Zuo Liangshi’s strike still left a scar that stretched diagonally across his entire face, a wound to his divine body that would not heal for thousands of years. Since his birth in the primordial chaos, this was the first time he had suffered such a humiliation, which enraged him as much as it terrified him.
That curse…
It had come true.
He wanted to strike again, to completely extinguish this terrifying spark, but his left arm was completely shattered, his divine body wounded, and he was no longer able to tear open the sky of the mortal realm. On the contrary, after one strike, Zuo Liangshi, bleeding from all seven orifices, coughed while raising his saber, looking as if he was about to cross the celestial gap and fight again.
For the first time since the primordial chaos, Gu Yu felt fear.
Ying Zhong, Meng Shuangqing… all the traitors of the Mountain Sea Pavilion could not believe their eyes. The sky twisted like a crumpled cloth. The gap disappeared.
The Red Emperor, Gu Yu.
Had retreated in defeat.
“How is this possible? How is this possible?!”
Ying Zhong muttered like a madman. That Zuo Liangshi who only knew how to smooth things over, that useless Zuo Liangshi, that spineless Zuo Liangshi, how could he have done this! Fake! Fake! Everything before his eyes was fake!
Zuo Liangshi was like a shooting star.
He fell straight down.
The moment he fell, the traitors like Ying Zhong and Meng Shuangqing, and the Pavilion Elders of the Mountain Sea Pavilion, rushed out almost simultaneously.
“Die!”
Black mist exploded from Ying Zhong’s body, his hair crown shattering. In an instant, he fell to evil, transforming into a demon! He surpassed everyone, the first to meet Zuo Liangshi, the sword in his hand like a rainbow piercing the sun.
Crack.
Almost everyone behind him froze for a moment, a thought flashing through their minds: Whose weapon broke?
The next moment, a figure was sent flying backward.
“Ying Zhong, for trafficking the people of the continent, selling forbidden artifacts, stealing and occupying the great cauldrons, colluding with the Great Wilderness, and betraying our Mountain Sea Pavilion.”
Zuo Liangshi, holding his Mo Saber, broke through the barrier, his clothes tattered, half his face covered in blood.
“Your crime deserves—”
The heart-protecting mirror that Ying Zhong had hastily summoned shattered.
The saber light crisscrossed.
“Execution!”