Volume 3, Chapter 21 – Creation

Once she was sure there was nothing else in the vast estate worth taking, Bai Xiang ignored the piles of bones heaped in the corners and brought Dr. Hannah back to the reception hall.

After walking out the main gate, she had Dr. Hannah stand by the treeline to watch over the brocade-wrapped bundle, while she herself rose into midair through the reeking crimson blood-cloud, Feixiang Heaven in her right hand, her left hand pinching into a sword seal.

That seal wasn’t for show. It was the result of her recent progress in studying the path of qi—when driving her body to output qi-force, the seal could slightly improve the efficiency of its circulation, further boosting the power of her strikes.

Bai Xiang was now at a level equivalent to the Core realm on the path of qi and no longer took any Divine Fetus immortals in the world seriously. So of course, she wasn’t squeezing herself this hard for the sake of an enemy, but to honor that tacit understanding she’d reached with Lu Niezhi.

You give me convenience, straightforwardly grant me my troop-deployment writs.

Whatever your motive is, I’ll repay you with a boon here and now, and put an end to your problem of massed troops!

Crash…!

With her eyes tightly shut, powerful currents of qi surged at high speed through Bai Xiang’s body. After being coordinated and apportioned by the Core in her inner body-scape, they all converged into the heart meridian of her right arm, then spread down that meridian to her right hand, pouring in full into Feixiang Heaven.

Ring…

As more and more qi-force poured into the sword, Feixiang Heaven let out a series of sword cries. The blood-cloud and blood-mist swirling around Bai Xiang, tainted with pollution, were instantly shaken back more than a meter, leaving a clear space in the air above.

Only after she had prepared for a good dozen breaths did Bai Xiang open her eyes. In that moment, the gold of her pupils was several times brighter than usual, and if one looked closely, one could faintly see threads of blazing-gold lightning coiling within. Her entire qi presence, driven by the qi-force, swelled outward, stirring up a current of air around her that set robe and white hair billowing with no wind.

Rumble, rumble, rumble…

Dark clouds rapidly gathered in the sky. One moment it was still a vast pale gray; the next, heaven and earth were dim, and streaks of violet-blue lightning-snakes slithered and rolled within the heavy black clouds, converging at extreme speed, brewing something even more terrifying.

“What a powerful sword intent!”

The tent flap of the command tent lifted. Lu Niezhi and Zheng Xuliang stepped out shoulder to shoulder and, seeing the churning thunderclouds overhead, both were startled, unable to help voicing their awe.

“General, how can she be this strong?”

Zheng Xuliang stared, eyes wide, at the bolts of lightning lashing down, feeling his throat go dry and tight. One thought filled his mind: good thing I didn’t ask to ‘spar’ with her at the start!

Son of a… is this what a Divine Fetus immortal is like?

Why did she feel even more outrageous than the Divine Fetus immortals he’d seen before—and not just a little more outrageous?

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“You ask me, who am I supposed to ask?” Lu Niezhi snapped back at him, then looked in amazement toward the distant blood-cloud. “In terms of bearing, I’d say no one in recent generations can compare to this girl. Not even Chu Weiping in his youth looked like this!”

“Then, General,” Zheng Xuliang said, as if a thought had suddenly struck him, “do you think she might be doing this on purpose for us to see? To scare us, so we don’t provoke her?”

“We’re not worthy of that.” Lu Niezhi shook his head.

He and Zheng Xuliang were both Purple Core masters; that realm was impressive enough. But in front of a mountains-and-rivers-ranked earth master—a Divine Fetus immortal—they probably weren’t even worth a single sword stroke.

So this wasn’t meant to cow us, but to send a message through us… so more people will tremble beneath this heavenly might.

Crack!

A bolt of lightning streaked across the sky, briefly illuminating another small road amid the distant mountains. A convoy of military off-road vehicles was currently driving there; the lead car had already slowed down, and what they saw ahead was quickly relayed to the vehicles in back.

“Master Wei.” A servant in a fur coat, having received the report, turned to look back. “They say thunderclouds suddenly gathered up ahead. It might be a thunderstorm. Should we stop and rest for a bit?”

“Thunderstorm…”

The man in the back seat knitted his brows together, almost unconsciously furrowing them into a knot. With a sigh, he said, “Always something tripping me up right when we’re almost there.”

“Then what do you say, sir?”

“Rest, then rest.” The man stroked his goatee and tilted his chin up impatiently. “Don’t ask me about every little thing. What if I were asleep? Would you wake me up for this too?”

“Oh—yes, sir!”

With that, the convoy came to a complete halt. Some people took the chance to get out and stretch their legs, pointing ahead and discussing it among themselves. None of them had any idea why there would be such a massive bank of thunderclouds here.

Thunderclouds in winter… even if it was already the third month, that still didn’t seem normal.

At the same time, Bai Xiang’s figure in the sky was climbing higher and higher—higher and higher… until she completely left the range covered by the blood-cloud marsh, standing hundreds of meters up in the air.

Whoosh!

She raised her hand and tossed Feixiang Heaven up toward the heavens. The long sword flipped once and then dove straight down.

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At the same moment, as if chasing after the sword’s guidance, a colossal bolt of lightning over thirty meters thick suddenly dropped from the gathered storm clouds, striking Feixiang Heaven in midair. Following the tip of the sword, it formed a gigantic thunder-sword in the air and drove it viciously down into the blood-cloud marsh!

Hwaaa——!!!

Dazzling lightning lit up the faces of everyone who witnessed this scene. They stared, slack-jawed, shocked, stunned, and overwhelmed, staring to confirm and reconfirm… that there really was such an immense bolt of lightning, piercing from heaven to earth, exploding the blood-cloud below in one stroke!

What was that?

Lu Niezhi’s whole face was briefly lit stark white, and now he too began to feel grateful—grateful for his own timidity and caution!

As the sparks scattered, they revealed the raging water below, and the Prince’s Manor estate built along the Jing River.

Feixiang Heaven gleamed silver as it flew back up from below and slipped neatly into the sheath at Bai Xiang’s waist.

In that instant, she stood proudly suspended in midair. The dark clouds above her slowly dispersed, and the sunlight that poured down covered her and everything on the land below. Everyone who saw this clearly had the scene seared deep into their memory.

“Chan Master Wenluo once observed the Five Dragons of Heavenly Water method to Enter the Dao and said, ‘Wind dragons and cloud dragons all feed on the qi dragons of the earth, and the qi dragons in turn are born from water dragons,’ thus realizing the cycle of Heaven’s Dao—and, by a series of seeming accidents, achieved great Creation.”

“Now I use the water vapor of the Jing River to break the encirclement of the blood-cloud. This sword is not mine alone, but the joint aid of sky-water circulation.”

At this point, Bai Xiang’s mood brightened as well. Gazing at the flowing water below, she said softly, “This sword, then, will be called ‘Creation Qi Tribulation.’”

A Qi Tribulation rather than a heavenly tribulation or a lightning tribulation, because this sword had no fixed form. Its outward Aspect would differ depending on the environment.

With that, the karmic debt was settled.

Bai Xiang had no intention of seeing Lu Niezhi and the others again. After one last glance at the tree-lined path to the north, she descended, took Dr. Hannah with her, and left directly.

The younger generation is terrifying…

On the banks of the Jing River, Tao Muyun stood on a jutting cliff and watched her figure disappear. Only now did the rigid muscles of his whole body relax, firing off the first nerve impulse he’d had since the thunder started.

He’d nearly popped his eyes right out of his head…

With a sword move like that, no wonder she had such confidence.

Still, this move was a bit slow from initiation to strike. And looking at the thick water vapor saturating heaven and earth, it seemed she’d only been able to use it by borrowing the power of the Jing River?

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Mm. If anyone asks, this old Daoist had better keep quiet…

Half an hour later.

Not long after Bai Xiang left, Lu Niezhi sent troops to occupy the Prince’s Manor estate in full. They searched every corner of the manor; aside from a pile of corpses, they found virtually nothing.

But Lu Niezhi didn’t mind. Anyone who used their head could tell that by the time the army marched in, the people inside had already fled with whatever they could carry. Whatever data was in those machine banks could wait for specialists to handle. His only job was to take possession—even seizing an empty shell carried heavy symbolic weight.

“General.”

Zheng Xuliang suddenly came over to find him. “A group just arrived from outside, saying they’ve brought word from Yujing’s Yong’an Manor. How should we handle them?”

Yong’an Manor?

Wasn’t that the little princess’s residence?

Lu Niezhi waved his hand. “Quick, invite them in!”

After a short while, that goateed “Master Wei” approached the gate of the Prince’s Manor with servants supporting him on either side.

Lu Niezhi and Zheng Xuliang waited to receive him at the entrance. As soon as he saw the man, Lu Niezhi stepped forward and cupped his hands. “This must be Steward Wei? You’re here because… the little princess has a craving for Jing River fish?”

“There are naturally people dedicated to serving her in such things~” Wei Xian waved a hand. “Lord Lu, it wasn’t easy for me to make this trip, so I’ll get straight to the point and skip the small talk.”

Lu Niezhi’s expression immediately turned solemn, adopting the posture of someone all ears.

“It’s like this.” Wei Xian nodded. “My lady the princess heard of that Miss Xiang’s deeds and greatly admires her bearing—especially after hearing of the tragedy back then, and then calculating that she would come to seek out Lord Lu to investigate this guilty manor together. So she specially dispatched me here to wait and invite her to Yong’an Manor as a guest.”

“This…” Lu Niezhi frowned. “Daoist Master Bai is a Divine Fetus immortal and has already gone to such trouble over Maozhou. I’m afraid she might not be able to spare the time.”

?

A big question mark popped up over Wei Xian’s head. He thought, that’s something for Bai Xiang’s own people to say if anyone, since when is it your place to worry about that?

Are you sick or something?

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“If she refuses, that’s fine too.”

By now, Wei Xian was starting to feel annoyed. Twisting his goatee, he leaned in close and lowered his voice. “You know what I mean, Lord Lu… It’s not that we really need her to come as a guest. What we need is ‘sincerity.’ For example, drawing two or three tubes of her blood.”

Lu Niezhi’s brows twitched nonstop as he listened.

Beside him, Zheng Xuliang was fidgeting like he had fleas, unable to stand still, shifting from foot to foot.

“Lord Lu?” Wei Xian frowned. “When it came to your appointment as Teaching Inspector, the princess spoke well on your behalf. For something this minor, you ought to help us out…”

“Steward Wei.” Lu Niezhi sighed. “How about this—Steward Wei, come with me.”

He took Wei Xian along the courtyard wall to the side of the Prince’s Manor estate that faced the water.

Huh?

Wei Xian froze.

By rights, this should have been a row of courtyards built along the cliff. Why were they all collapsed? And why was there a long, narrow crack running down the cliff face?

“That’s a sword mark,” Lu Niezhi said.

“Ah?” Wei Xian blinked again, then quickly shook his head. “Impossible. That’s a sword mark?”

“It is.” Lu Niezhi raised his brows, his expression tinged with something like pity. “Steward Wei must have seen that lightning strike just now.”

“To tell you the truth, the one who did this… was none other than the Shenming Bai Xiang.”

Ah!

A thunderclap went off in Wei Xian’s mind. Thinking back to the big talk he’d been spouting just now, his legs gave out, and he dropped straight to his knees, sitting back on his heels and staring up at the sky. Even with two people trying to support him, they couldn’t get him back up.

But there was no trace of anything left in the heavens.

After the blood-cloud dispersed, only a sweep of clear blue remained. Wei Xian saw nothing—just heard the Jing River’s waters continually washing over the sword mark, issuing a soft, steady rushing sound.