Chapter 71 – Immortals and Mortals Protect Each Other, Never Forsaking, Never Abandoning
“You bald donkey, isn’t that just stating the obvious?” Half-Diviner subconsciously looked up. “Where would so many divine soldiers descending from heaven come from—”
A scarlet saber fell from the sky!
The water of the massive Yinglong Pond was sliced open vertically. The blade carried a monstrously bloody aura, its edge a bone-chilling cold. Within a single day, the group had witnessed the unsheathing of this terrifying weapon for the second time. The long saber descended faster than their eyes could track, leaving a crimson line in the water that lingered for a long time.
The approaching Dragon Fish and the silver light rising from the depths of the pond all froze in place.
The scarlet saber pinned the first Dragon Fish by the skull, but the killing aura from its blade plunged straight down, slaughtering the other two Dragon Fish at the bottom of the pond in the same instant. Monk Budu, who witnessed this strike firsthand, felt an involuntary shudder run through him just from the proximity of its killing intent, as if he too had been cleaved open from the top of his head.
“Form is emptiness, emptiness is form!” Monk Budu immediately raised his hands high. “Amitabha! This humble monk is a man of the cloth!”
He raised his hands so quickly that he flung the unconscious Chou Bodeng off his back.
The red-robed youth fell backward, his black hair fanning out in the water. The faint silver glow from the Dragon Fish skeletons illuminated his pale face. The young man strode past Monk Budu and the others, catching the sinking Chou Bodeng. Dark red mist unfurled from the edges of his black sleeves.
“Which ghost or god did he just kill to get here…”
Lu Jing muttered.
It was no wonder he thought so. Blood was continuously seeping from Shi Wuluo’s black clothes, and it was impossible to tell if it was his own, someone else’s, or both. The sheer amount, enough to dye the entire pond red, made one suspect he had carved a path through a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood to get here.
Monk Budu maintained his hands-up posture, cold sweat pouring down like a waterfall.
Never mind which deity met their doom, this benefactor looks like he’s about to silence witnesses! This Yinglong Pond doesn’t lead to some sea spring, it leads straight to the Underworld…
Shi Wuluo suddenly looked up.
Monk Budu thought, My life is over!
Something was thrown at him. Monk Budu instinctively raised a hand to block it, but the object felt exceptionally familiar. Taking a closer look, he saw it was his string of Bodhi Clarity Beads. Looking down again, he saw black mist roiling within the bloody haze in the pond. Shi Wuluo, holding Chou Bodeng, stood on a faintly glowing Dragon Fish and sank rapidly into the depths of the Yinglong Pond.
Black and red flowed over their bodies, as if all of one person’s past colors were painted by the other’s hand, as if one person’s life was composed entirely of the other.
“What… what does he mean by this?” Half-Diviner asked. “Is he taking Elder Chou into the Wind Cavern himself?”
Lou Jiang’s brow twitched.
Under normal circumstances, no matter how unfathomably powerful this mysterious young man was, Lou Jiang would definitely investigate how he knew the secrets of the Mountain Sea Pavilion. But with more pressing matters at hand, he could only take a risk and trust that, for Chou Bodeng’s sake, he wouldn’t do anything to endanger the Clear Continent’s survival.
The moment the two completely sank into the darkness, the pond water began to boil, suddenly surging upward and pushing them out.
When he was slammed against the culvert’s cold iron gate by the gushing water, Lou Jiang grabbed the gate with one hand and fumbled for the mechanism with the other.
Kacha. The cold iron gate rose. Lou Jiang was the first to scramble out, then he pulled Lu Jing out, followed closely by Monk Budu and Half-Diviner. As their feet touched the ground, Monk Budu and Half-Diviner let out a collective “Wow!” of amazement. In the time they had spent messing around in the Yinglong Pond, the Mountain Sea Pavilion’s Golden Feather Diagram had fully unfurled.
Amidst the raging storm and darkened sky, Zhunan was more brilliant than ever before!
Every street lit up, the ground a sheet of gold, as if ten-thousand-year-old magma had erupted from beneath the earth and was now flowing through the entire city. In the face of this golden radiance, the filth and evil spirits crumbled and retreated. Disciples of the Mountain Sea Pavilion, wearing the cloaks of their respective divisions, strode forward, brandishing their sabers and swords as they fought their way through street after street.
Rainwater splashed up from their steps like sparks.
“They look so majestic!”
Lu Jing instantly relaxed, thinking to himself that this was the Mountain Sea Pavilion, after all—the wealthiest immortal sect in the world! What were a few strange birds and specters? They just had to wipe them all out. But when he turned his head, he saw Lou Jiang’s pale and anxious face. Lu Jing paused, and just as he was about to ask what was wrong, he heard a colossal crash from above, like the sky itself was shattering.
He looked up, his pupils contracting abruptly.
The White Jade Umbrella that covered more than half of Azure Flower City had cracked down the middle. Lightning struck down through the opening, and in the searing white light, a dozen city blocks were submerged.
High in the sky, Ying Zhong retracted his saber.
A sword light grazed his cheek, missing its mark.
While fending off the lightning, he had suddenly struck at Tang Pianyi’s life-bound weapon, and Tang Pianyi had thrown her flying sword at him at almost the same time. That flying sword should have hit him, but it had gone wide—at the instant Tang Pianyi threw it, a Gilded Phoenix-Winged Trident had pierced her heart from behind.
“Traitor!”
Tang Pianyi twisted her head, staring daggers at a withered Pavilion Elder behind her, her phoenix eyes seeming to spit fire.
“To think that even you are a traitor!”
A cold, sinister smile touched Ying Zhong’s lips. “Pianyi, oh Pianyi, since I knew my own actions were too suspicious, why would I be foolish enough to carry out the assassination myself?” He looked up and shouted to Zuo Liangshi in the distance, “Pavilion Master, please don’t take offense at my past transgressions!”
Tang Pianyi curled her fingers into a claw as a dark light gathered between them.
The tip of a spear emerged from her chest, its crescent-shaped side blades churning through most of her torso. With a flick of his wrist, Pavilion Elder Wen retrieved the Gilded Phoenix-Winged Trident.
A silver staff blocked his path.
Zuo Liangshi slowly withdrew his hand.
He watched impassively as Tang Pianyi’s body fell from the sky, a muscle in his face twitching violently.
Tang Pianyi was one of the few Pavilion Elders he could trust, and also one of the few who knew parts of tonight’s plan. According to the plan, her target was Ying Zhong, which was why she had deliberately provoked him at the beginning, so he would lock onto her when he defected.
But both Tang Pianyi and he had made a fatal mistake. All along, Ying Zhong had acted the most aggressively among all the suspects, almost blatantly displaying his animosity. In reality, Ying Zhong was by no means a hot-tempered or easily angered person. He had long been aware of his own suspiciousness, and had even cultivated that suspicion deliberately.
“You’ve been preparing for… a very long time.”
Zuo Liangshi said softly, his pupils reflecting lightning and bloody fire.
Betrayal! Betrayal! Betrayal!
Roars and bellows echoed in the sky as one Pavilion Elder after another drew their blades. Amidst the clash of metal, the defensive shield formed by the elders’ various artifacts shattered in an instant. No one dared to fight alongside anyone else, because no one knew when the person next to them would suddenly turn their blade.
“Liangshi, there’s no smoke without fire,” the Moon Mother said with a charming smile. “If not for the full cooperation of your Mountain Sea Pavilion, how could we have come this far so smoothly?”
“You’re right.”
Zuo Liangshi nodded slowly. He quickly composed himself from the shock of Tang Pianyi’s death, not even flinching at the bloody battle raging between the Pavilion Elders.
His white robes whipped in the wind, his features soft and handsome. The Moon Mother stared at his face, and for a moment, she felt as if the man standing before her was still that jade-like young master who had suddenly appeared on the desolate Vicious Plow Earth-Mound… so young, so dashing, claiming he would travel the rivers and mountains of the Twelve Continents to find the truth behind all absurdity.
“Liangshi,” the Moon Mother asked softly, “don’t you want to know the truth of everything more than anyone? Come with me, and I’ll tell you. I promise, once you know the truth, you won’t regret your choice… Your Zuo family, just like my sister and I, were all deceived by that person. Guarding the mountains and suppressing the seas was never your responsibility!”
“You’re wrong,” Zuo Liangshi smiled. “Guarding the mountains and suppressing the seas was never a responsibility forced upon the Zuo family. It’s something the Zuo family has always done willingly.”
The Moon Mother sighed.
“You, of all people, are warm on the outside but cold on the inside,” she said faintly. Her figure flickered, and in an instant, she was in front of Zuo Liangshi, striking at his chest with her palm.
“Pavilion Master!”
The few Pavilion Elders who had been protecting him were now separated by traitors in different locations, and they cried out in alarm.
In the brief exchange just now, they had already experienced the Moon Mother’s strangeness and terror. As expected of an ancient god who once resided in Cloud City, she faced a dozen Pavilion Elders at once with casual ease. The elders even felt that she wasn’t truly serious, playing with them from start to finish like a hawk toying with its prey.
The dark clouds overhead swirled rapidly, and a sea of lightning illuminated both their faces at once.
About 150 kilometers from the Zhunan city boundary, the surface of the Cangming Sea churned with black miasma. Old Heavenly Craftsman, encased in Heavenly Soldier Blood Armor, stood like a giant of the Kuafu Clan on a reef in the sea. As the Moon Mother struck Zuo Liangshi tens of thousands of meters in the air, he half-bent over and let out a low growl, “Old Ghost Jun!”
Jun Changwei, carrying his Gold-Inlaid Saber, shifted his stance, about to soar into the sky.
“A duel is fairer one-on-one, don’t you think?”
A gentle, smiling voice sounded out.
A fiery light erupted from the black miasma. Mister Xi, holding a teal-colored long spear with a ghastly cyan flame burning at its tip, stood opposite Old Heavenly Craftsman. Armor of a similar style to Old Heavenly Craftsman’s, but grayish-green, quickly materialized on his body.
“The Pavilion Master and the Moon Mother are having a rare reunion. Mister Jun, it’s best not to disturb them,” Mister Xi said with a smile. “Nephew, has Uncle-Master Song been well recently?”
Old Heavenly Craftsman gripped his twin axes and watched him coldly.
Metal clashed, yet it produced a bronze-like boom. Jun Changwei, who should have been high in the sky assisting Zuo Liangshi, landed back where he started, spinning his Gold-Inlaid Saber horizontally. A black shadow landed nearby a moment later. Meiniang, her hair tied up high, held a Willow Leaf Saber in each hand, her eyebrows long and dark as ink.
“Meiniang, you’re right on time,” Mister Xi said gently.
“I dare not disobey the master’s orders,” Meiniang said, her eyes lowered to the tip of her saber.
“Meiniang, won’t you introduce yourself to the two elders of the immortal sects?” Mister Xi chuckled.
“A lowly person like myself, how could I dare defile the ears of the immortal elders with my humble name?”
A strange black flame erupted from the Willow Leaf Sabers in Meiniang’s hands. The flames flickered unpredictably, at one moment resembling a demon ghost, the next a fierce beast, and the next a seductive demoness.
“To be able to contain the Great Desolation Fire Seed as a mortal, you are the only one I have ever met,” Jun Changwei said faintly, shaking the residual fire from his Gold-Inlaid Saber. “Had I met you twenty years earlier, I would have certainly persuaded you to join an immortal sect.”
“An immortal sect?”
Meiniang spun her Willow Leaf Sabers and sneered.
“Wu Mei doesn’t have that kind of fate.”
The miasma surged like a tide, flowing past the four of them. Within the fog, countless grey, blurry figures surrounded them from a distance, as if this were an ancient ritual and they were waiting for the sacrifice about to be born. Mister Xi’s forearm suddenly vibrated, and a ghastly cyan flame transformed into a shooting dragon’s shadow, pouncing towards Old Heavenly Craftsman.
The dragon’s roar rumbled.
That was the first City God to be forcefully refined three thousand years ago—an Azure Dragon.
Old Heavenly Craftsman leaped into the air, his giant axes drawing two world-cleaving arcs in the dim light, crisscrossing as they chopped at the dragon’s head. At the same time, Meiniang and Jun Changwei swung their sabers at each other. Each clash kicked up waves a hundred meters high, and the light from their weapons intermittently illuminated the sea for hundreds of kilometers around.
There was no night more suited for a bloody battle. All violence, all conspiracies, all hatred would be drowned by the wind, rain, and lightning.
***
The defensive shield held up by the Pavilion Elders shattered, and lightning once again submerged the nine cities of Zhunan.
The moment Elder Tang Pianyi fell in battle, Lou Jiang turned without hesitation and ran to the top of Zhunan’s city wall. Just as he steadied himself on the wall, his face instantly turned deathly pale. In the wind and rain, disciples of the Mountain Sea Pavilion, clad in silver cloaks, fell one after another, like a flock of swallows suddenly losing the strength in their wings.
“…Mother was right.”
Lu Jing, who had followed him up the wall, muttered.
The disciples of the Yinglong Division’s secondary branch and the fishermen outside Zhunan City usually drew their water from the Yinglong Pond, but the pond had been poisoned with Tu Xu Seed. Tu Xu Seed was a toxic herb, colorless and odorless, and its effects were extremely fast. It had no effect on high-level cultivators and little effect on mortals, only causing a temporary weakness in cultivators below the Soul-Fixing stage, with no after-effects. That was why Lu Shiyi, who was constantly scolded by his older brother as a child, would always throw the stuff into his brother’s tea, trying to get back at him for the beatings.
…Shiyi, you must remember, even the most inconspicuous plant can be fatal if used at the right time.
A long time ago, a woman sat by the window, placing a hand on his head, her voice uncharacteristically serious.
Tu Xu Seed indeed wouldn’t directly threaten a person’s life, but now the Great Wilderness was expanding, and the Mountain Sea Pavilion was fighting for its survival. The disciples of the Yinglong Division’s secondary branch, who were protecting the million fishermen in the Tranquil Sea, were weakened at such a critical moment. Zhunan’s outermost line of defense had thus vanished into thin air.
The Tranquil Sea was no longer tranquil.
Vicious waves crashed one after another.
Among the waves were Sea Yakshas holding steel spears, Drowning Ghosts with green faces and long fangs, half-human half-serpent Sui Monsters, and fish-like crocodile Tiger-Jiaos… The City Boundary that was supposed to keep them out had been breached. They piled on top of each other, forming cresting waves of varying heights, jostling and swarming towards the mortal city.
The Moon Mother was right.
This was indeed an act of revenge. All the demon ghosts and evil spirits once driven out of the Raging Sea by cultivators had sharpened their fangs and claws and were launching a counterattack against the mortal realm. Only blood, only white bones, only wails of agony could soothe their millennia of resentment.
Compared to the Gu-Carving Vultures and Filth Demons attacking Zhunan City, their strength was not high, which was why the disciples of the Yinglong Division’s secondary branch could slay and resist them. But that was relative. To mortals, they were nightmares, catastrophes, natural disasters!
Cries and screams echoed over the Tranquil Sea.
Behind them were towering, smooth city walls; before them were layers upon layers of demon ghosts. Though the Tranquil Sea was vast, there was no escape.
“Climb up! All of you, climb up!”
Lou Jiang ran frantically along the city wall, throwing down ropes as he went. Lu Jing followed closely behind him, firmly tying each rope to the battlements.
Monk Budu and Half-Diviner leaped down from the high wall, charging into the endless tide of demons and ghosts. The Bodhi Clarity Beads swept out swaths of golden light, clearing area after area of the sea, only to have them quickly filled by new scales and fangs. The dark pearls of the Star-Pushing Plate were turned again and again, causing claws that were about to tear into innocent children to retreat time after time.
The demon ghosts were endless, the waves unceasing. The nine cities of Zhunan stretched for five hundred kilometers. They were as insignificant as ants.
How many could they save? One in ten thousand? One in a hundred million?
They didn’t know.
They just ran with all their might.
Half-Diviner’s once handsome face now looked no better than a vicious ghost’s, his orifices bleeding profusely. His vision was a blur of dark red, a buzzing in his ears, his meridians on the verge of snapping, and his brain felt like it was churning. His already tattered Daoist robe was now reduced to unrecognizable strips of cloth.
“The bald donkey was right…” Half-Diviner kicked away a Tiger-Jiao that was trying to bite him, half-laughing, half-crying. “One must be detached from life and death!”
But being eaten alive by a Tiger-Jiao covered in metallic scales was just too unfitting for someone with his reputation for infallible predictions!
Alas, at least his death would relieve his master of a five-million-coin debt… It was better to die owing someone money than to die being owed money.
A jumble of thoughts flashed through his mind as Half-Diviner pitched forward. A Tiger-Jiao opened its mouth wide, exceptionally pleased with this head that had delivered itself to its doorstep.
“Beast!”
A thunderous shout rang out. The sound of something whistling past his face, and an oar slammed with full force onto the Tiger-Jiao’s open mouth.
The oar shattered, and the Tiger-Jiao was forced to snap its mouth shut.
An old hand grabbed Half-Diviner’s shoulder and threw him back into a boat cabin.
Half-Diviner was startled. Could it be that Master foresaw my life was in danger and arrived in the nick of time?
He joyfully shook his dizzy head with all his might and forced his eyes open. In his blood-smeared vision, he saw a dark, old, and rugged face—a complete stranger.
An ordinary old fisherman who should have been fleeing for his life.
Half-Diviner was stunned.
“When I was riding the waves back in the day, you lot were just eggs!” the old fisherman poled his boat, and the small vessel shot forward like an arrow, slipping between two intersecting Tiger-Jiaos. He shouted at the top of his lungs, a terrifying ferocity appearing on his aged face. “Afraid of you—”
The sea surged, and a bone trident came flying through the air.
The old fisherman collapsed with a thud, blood splattering onto Half-Diviner’s face.
The world spun.
“Fuck your Great Wilderness!”
He wiped the blood from his face, stared blankly at it for a moment, then suddenly leaped up, roaring hysterically.
On the city wall, Lu Jing stared blankly at the sea surface, which was brightly illuminated.
A thousand boats, ten thousand ships, shuttling back and forth like weavers’ shuttles.
Mortals.
Just mortal fishermen from Zhunan, rowing their boats through the breaking waves. Relying on the seamanship they had honed in treacherous winds and vicious waves, they rescued one Mountain Sea Pavilion disciple after another from under the fangs of the demon ghosts. They were truly flesh and blood; when a tide of demons surged, they died by the hundreds, by the thousands.
Immortals. Immortals and mortals.
Immortals and mortals protect each other, never forsaking, never abandoning.
Someone began to sing loudly amidst the howling wind and roaring sea.
“Zhunan has a sea, how many cups deep is the sea?”
“The sea is two cups deep, one to drink and one to fill.”
“Zhunan has a mountain, how many bells high is the mountain?”
“The mountain is two bells high, one to wake and one to sleep.”
“…”
First one person sang, then a hundred, then a thousand, then tens of thousands. It was the song of the Zhunan fishermen. They sang as they rowed against the demon tide, their voices rough and bold. It was just a raging tide, just some specters, just some wilderness miasma. A hundred years in the mortal world was but two cups of wine—one to drink, one to fill. What did life or death matter!
“I’ve lived a full life!”
The old fisherman from the Hu family threw a Mountain Sea Pavilion disciple onto another intact boat, then stood at the stern with his pole as a giant wave stirred up by a Sea Yaksha crashed down upon him.
“A full life!”