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Chapter 91 : Liu Yao: The Revitalization of Fuyao Sect

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Yet, at the end of it all, it was naught more than an ordinary bird. How could it withstand the True Fire of Samadhi?

Shui Keng’s back suddenly straightened. “That’s not right. What it spat out wasn’t fire — it was a yao core!”

The huge hawk’s mouthful of furious flame had been earth-shaking, but its own conclusion was not the slightest bit impressive. It raised its head and let out a miserable shriek. The flesh all over its body was sucked dry in a snap, rapidly shriveling up, and due to the frame of its large skeleton that stubbornly refused to shrink, its skin cracked apart while it still lived.

Upon another look, the bird’s bones that were exposed to the outside had already turned to stone, cleanly splitting away from its skin. They were dark and dull in color and lustre, giving off the morbid qi of death, and densely engraved with charms on their surfaces — it wasn’t completely dead yet, but had already gone stiff.

Its two long wings could not be retracted. It crashed heavily upon the ground, dead with its eyes open.

These hawks were akin to climbing cacti, blooming brilliantly only one such a time in their lives. They had poured all of their vitality into smelting an inner core, then had forged ahead in the name of justice, rushing to send themselves into death in quick succession.

Even though they were only animals of no higher thoughts, did they not know how to cling to life?

There were always some points in time where the world made one feel that authority was absolute.

The corner of Shui Keng’s eye fiercely twitched. Those feathers fluttering down painfully stung her eyes.

The second she moved, however, Li Yun shouted at her. “What are you being impulsive for?! Sit down!”

All of a sudden, she felt an immense wave of isolation. She thought for a moment; why couldn’t she call upon rain to clear all these villains away? She thought for a different moment; if she actually was that powerful, everyone would fear her, and it seemed like nothing good would come of that. She would either be like her fourth senior, turning into a villain herself, or she would be like that Island Master Gu that she already had no more memory of, inciting everyone else to want to harm her.

She had traveled through the human world for over a hundred years, and for the first time in her life, her heart became listless.

The corner of Xuan Huang’s mouth ticked up. “Very good. Open the array.”

Before he even finished speaking, a loud noise was heard, and the landscape changed in color.

The entirety of Tai Yin’s sky appeared to get covered in black banners, like dense clouds slowly spreading outwards. Several large mountains rumbled as they rose up nearby, their summits packed full with people raising black flags. Simultaneously, they stamped their feet and yelled loudly, resembling an army that had descended from the sky, making people too afraid to look directly at them for a second.

The hawks hovered close together beneath the billowing banners, and, after a time, slowly parted into what appeared to be two sides, while the flags over everyone’s heads withdrew. A massive mirror encased them instead; its likenesses were indistinct in the sky, as if it was reflecting all the land within it. Even the fuzzy images of humans were projected onto it like mirages.

A beam of light suddenly shot out of the mirror’s surface, directly enveloping the whole Ten-Party Array in it.

“I heard the demonic dragon went in there?” Xuan Huang asked indifferently. “The Ten-Party Array has been sealed, so he may not come out anymore… come, set up the Skeletonizing Array. In no more than forty-nine days, regardless of whether he’s a demonic dragon or demonic fenghuang, he’ll be made into a pill.”

You Liang looked aghast. “Uncle Xuan Huang, my Senior Brother Wu is still inside. By our sect’s rules, you cannot kill those of the same sect without the Sect Leader’s orders. You—“

Xuan Huang gave him an aloof smile. “Ah, nephew… you’re not a bit incorrect. Since it’s known, come over now and pay respects to your new Sect Leader, all of you — Wu Changtian is incompetent in his work and has leaked the divine secrets of our celestial divination, so he should be punished for his crimes!”

You Liang staggered a step backwards, looking incredulously at his group of former sectmates.

No longer putting this minor sword cultivator into his sights, Xuan Huang cupped his hands arrogantly. “Do not fear, everyone. We have come today to eliminate demons and defend the Dao, which has nothing to do with our fellow Daoists. However, for the sake of preventing accidental injury, we also ask that all unrelated persons remain seated where they are and don’t move. Otherwise…”

He laughed quietly, straightened out his sleeves, and directed his avaricious eyes towards the Ten-Party Array. “What are you all still lazing around for?”

Several cultivators immediately stepped forth from behind him, each of them holding a token of command. After their tokens arrived on location, the thick fog outside of the Array was suddenly incited into roiling, the two remaining candles outside of it fiercely swaying.

Li Yun, who had just stopped Shui Keng from being impulsive, was now unable to sit still.

However, he still had time for action to be bought. An extremely powerful wave of spiritual consciousness brazenly covered the entire Array, then forcibly disconnected the tokens from its workings.

Xuan Huang’s expression changed. “The Celestial Divination Bureau is on a case! Who dares bar our way?!”

A plate of the eight trigrams, stained with blood, flew up, expanded in midair to be a hundred times bigger, then revolved rapidly. All the token-holding cultivators were flung away.

The plate was directly blocking the front of the Array, practically publicizing a challenge towards the Bureau. For a moment, all who had elected to sit were alarmed, and everyone’s gazes concentrated onto one area; the ailing-ghost-esque Tang Zhen quietly coughed twice, stood up, then clasped his hands with a bow towards Xuan Huang. “Fellow Daoist, the blood oath has been made, witnessed by the Heavens and the Earth. If you force it to break like this, they will suffer tenfold backlash. You may truly be worthy of commendation for eliminating demons and defending the Dao, but what about the lives of your innocent siblings?”

Right then, everyone realized that the Bureau had been neatly divided into two factions. One faction was the people Xuan Huang had brought, while the other came to agree to stand behind Tang Zhen — they were the ones that had made the blood oath with the demonic cultivators. Rivers clearly separated the two waves of people, and they watched each other in preparation to fight amongst themselves at any time.

“What do you think you are?” Xuan Huang asked angrily.

Tang Zhen’s expression was unchanged. “Excuse my shamefulness. I am an insignificant, nameless pawn that isn’t worth mentioning.”

The other sneered. “I see that you have a dark shadow lingering about you, which rather seems to be the grace of a ghost cultivator. You’re definitely not anyone good! Take them all down!”

With that order, the crow-like Bureau cultivators grouped up, and the huge hawks screamed as they came down from the sky at the same time.

Since Tang Zhen had taken the lead, the cultivators that Xuan Huang’s people had pressured at the onset reacted at once. Someone unknown took it upon themselves to shout, “Pah! You lot held the order of ‘demon elimination’, then baited us into coming together here with intimidation and promises in the name of defending the Dao — that was clearly just an excuse to get rid of us in one swoop!”

The crowd became restless. Regardless of whether they were on the righteous or demonic path, none of them were idiots; these newcomers had arrived here so aggressively, they obviously had ill intent.

A stiff smile appeared on Xuan Huang’s face. “As you all refuse to take a drink of respect, you’ll have to have a drink of defeat…”

He looked up and let out a long whistle. The huge array that encased all of Tai Yin suddenly showed its might. Uncountable clay golems rose out of the ground — blades did not hurt them, and them falling in pieces to the ground would immediately spawn a new one, which would throw themselves at the cultivators on-scene. At the same time, the hawks in the air came down like rain with no sense of self-preservation, and the cultivators that tried to get higher were rigidly forced to the ground.

The people of the Bureau, already divided in twain, warred desperately in this place, seizing their fates from each other.

Outside of the firmly-sealed Ten-Party Array, those two candles were akin to enclosed lanterns inside a violent storm; flickering rapidly, yet ultimately never going out.

Witnessing this scenario, Li Yun knew that nothing good was going to happen no matter how this went. He collected the Stone Seed, then whispered to Shui Keng, “Those are mortal birds, but they still have yao cores. With how much power you inherited from the Yao King, can you make them go turncoat?”

She spoke no nonsense, her true form of a Red Crane appearing, and then a divine, flaming bird soared up to the sky, resembling the lucky omen of setting sunlight. Her fenghuang ancestry immediately shone bright, with no room for doubt; even though her yao skeleton was not complete, she failed to exhibit even a smidgen of yao power, and was always getting chased and beaten by humans, she had an exceptional advantage when it came to undeveloped yao cultivators.

The crane cried out thrice. The large hawks, who had been disregarding their own safety, heard her, following which their formation gradually fell into disarray. They presently circled down to the ground, one by one, then slowly calmed down as they surrounded the crane’s side. The charms for hostile qi carved into their bones seemed to be temporarily dispelled by the good omen.

The cultivators that had been held back were promptly able to breathe, and the battlefield soon went from the ground to the skies.

Xuan Huang had been startled by the great yao’s sky-filling presence. He hopped off of his flying horse and rushed over to Shui Keng himself.

The hawks had switched sides quite thoroughly, rising en masse to attack him.

Amidst this chaos, Li Yun jumped onto Shui Keng’s back and stood there like a pillar from the sea. “Go a bit higher. I’ve definitely seen this array technique before… just a bit higher, and I’ll be able to calculate its eye.”

She flew higher and higher. He got a panoramic view of these people that covered the mountains, madly calculating this array within an array.

He himself had never expected that there would come a day where the youth that had once been scared weak-kneed by a couple of tiny rat spirits in Yao Valley would be forced to be so collected.

On the ground, Nian Dada did all he could to tear his gaze away from the two candles. He didn’t want to mull over which two people were left right now.

He wiped his face, raised his sword, and faced off against a Bureau cultivator that had rushed at him with three successive strikes, staggering in retreat over and over again. All sorts of weapons were getting tossed about all over the place, and he couldn’t tell if they were the enemy’s or his side’s. With his cultivation base, he could only cover his head and scuttle away like a rat in this chaotic situation.

All of a sudden, he was shielded by a big palm fan. It deflected the several streaks of sword qi attempting to attack him, propped over his head like a protective umbrella. He turned his head to see his rotund father making a hand gesture in seriousness — several fans were flying and flipping up and down at his urging, defending all of the Mingming Valley cultivators with them.

The ever-cheerful face of Nian Mingming was unexpectedly solemn, his potbelly protruding. He shot a glance at the exceptionally eye-catching Shui Keng up in the sky. “Son, since you’ve already paid respects to the Fuyao Sect, return to their side now.”

Nian Dada couldn’t wrap his head around his words. “What?”

“Go, now!” his father shouted.

He could not comprehend what his dad was getting at. Right as he had just taken a hesitant step, his entire self abruptly rose into the air the next moment, and he was fanned over ten zhang away by the man’s fan.

He rolled outwards while grunting, coming down with a face full of dirt and almost running into someone’s foot. He raised his head — it was You Liang, of the Celestial Divination Bureau!

Nian Dada jumped in fright, crawling to get a bit farther from him. Just when he wanted to howl for his father, the situation suddenly took a steep turn.

Xuan Huang was seen to roar in anger. Dozens of the hawks exploded and died at the same exact time before him. Shui Keng automatically drew back. At right that moment, a hand reached out of the nine-dragon carriage that had not moved all this time.

The hand was pale and unblemished, eye-stinging gold embroidered onto its rolled-up cuff, a palm-sized token of command within it.

“This has dragged on for too long,” the one inside said softly. “I fear that changes will be made to the Ten-Party Array, so let’s make this battle quick.”

Once he was done speaking, a bundle of light suddenly shot out of the token, possessing a highly penetrating force that appeared to pierce through hundreds of thousands of years of nights — and hundreds of people on-scene became violent without warning. Upon closer examination, they were all from various major sects…

Black Turtle Hall had six. White Tiger Estate had three… including Zhuang Nanxi, who had been actively gunning for Cheng Qian on the Immortal Binding Platform. Mulan Mountain probably had over eight. There were some more in major sects, some in minor sects, and even some amongst the demonic cultivators. These people had different ages, different cultivation bases, and attire that was further out of line with their actions, yet they obeyed the mysterious token at the exact same time, swinging their swords to decapitate their own sectmates.

No one had been on guard against these former sectmates. For a minute, each of the sects had blood turn into rivers flowing out of them, everyone shocked stupid.

They were the Celestial Divination Bureau. They were everywhere. They had a reputation as the hand that held the world aloft.

Nian Dada helplessly witnessed a rarely-seen elder of Mingming Valley stab a spear into Nian Mingming’s abdomen.

Countless charms on the spear’s shaft exploded. He didn’t even get to see the final expression on his father’s face.

Maintaining his crawling position, he was dumbstruck.

You Liang followed his line of sight over. “Are… are all of them insane?” he whispered in disbelief.

The group of giant hawks were slaughtered by Xuan Huang in the blink of an eye. Shui Keng lost her last barrier.

Xuan Huang’s eyes glared over at her maliciously. He looked sinister, his entire body covered in blood — for a moment, it was unclear as to who was the actual demon.

Shui Keng’s crane form was trembling minutely. Li Yun knew that she was afraid, and slowly drew his own decorative sword out of himself at last.

Still, he ultimately did not have a primordial spirit.

“Second senior,” Shui Keng’s spiritual consciousness came through, “our eldest gave me the internal core of a Yao King…”

Faking calmness, he cut her off. “Don’t joke around. A hundred-year-old Red Crane is no more than a chick that hasn’t grown all its feathers in. Forget about digesting it; merely swallowing that three-thousand-year-old core will be enough to make you blow up and die… ah, you yaos. Even though you live for a long time, you grow up too slowly.”

“What do we do, then?” she asked, sounding like she was crying.

“I’ll have a go.” He licked his rough and dried lips. “Xiao Qian and our eldest step in in every fight. It’s finally my turn.”

“But you won’t be able to beat him.”

He bust out laughing. “Why are you so chatty, sis? If I die, don’t be afraid to get ugly. Turn into a sparrow, use the chaos to hide in the crowd, and they might not catch you.”

Saying so, he took a deep breath, then jumped off of her back. His scabbard flew him through the air, the sword he held shining as clean as if it had never seen blood.

Xuan Huang had long noticed that he had no primordial spirit, so he didn’t take him seriously at all. A shake of his sleeve metamorphosed a ji, which dashed towards him ablaze.

Li Yun bellowed, his sword like a rainbow — Peng Journeys Thousands of Li, a youth swimming.

He was not an expert at swordplay. The first thing brought to his mind during this danger was the very first form their Master had hand-taught him on Fuyao Mountain.

“Master, what is swordwill?”

“Ah, swordwill. To put it simply, when you practice this form, your heart will feel something — what did you feel?”

“I feel like I’m about to start flying. I want to go out and see what’s outside… Master, when are you taking us down the mountain to play? Oh, right, I want to see what’s behind the mountain, too… ouch.”

“Don’t always be thinking to run off to the cave back there and cause trouble! How many times has this teacher told you? Stupid kid, why do you never listen…”

Before Li Yun’s sword arrived, its swordwind had already met the ji’s fire without surrender, pouncing on the flames like a gale slicing open burning sunset clouds. All of the unorganized true qi in his inner sanctum condensed a little, the sanctum of immortality opened, his qi sea began to change, and his primordial spirit came into its fledgling formation. It seemed like something had suddenly awakened in his heart, the world and everybody and everything in it slowing for a beat…

The sword collided with the ji at last.

It was no match for it, breaking into three chunks, yet its leftover swordwill was like a waft of unruly wind. It whizzed as it broke away from those blunt edges made of ordinary metal, free as it swept out, the fire unable to impede its progress.

Xuan Huang suffered a scare. Not having the time to dodge for a second, a half-cun-long wound was slashed across his face.

Meanwhile, Li Yun’s entire person canted backwards from the ji’s collision, falling straight down off of the now-powerless scabbard. The Red Crane caught him with a hurried cry, flapping her wings with all of her effort to fly far away.

There was a sharp pain in his chest, yet he felt elated for reasons he didn’t understand. Hah. So long as you’re not afraid of pain or getting injured, fighting with your all is actually pretty fun, he thought.

While he thought of this, he took out a handful of talismans from his lapels. With a casual look before him, he poured his true essence into them, then whipped them out towards the sky. Seeing this, the relentlessly-pursuing Xuan Huang instinctually used the ji to swat them, only for them to quickly turn into fine powder right in front of him, then explode into untold numbers of potbellied grasshoppers that were on fire. One after the other, they threw themselves at him with no fear of death, resulting in a grasshopper rain.

These objects were specially used for dealing with those of great power; the stronger one was, the more they would break the talismans into even smaller pieces, and thus make even more grasshoppers come out.

Such was Second Lord Li’s signature.

The Ninth

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