Volume 3, Chapter 108 – Submission (Two-in-One)

At the bottom of the Blackrock Abyss, towering black-flare stone gates were set into the rock wall, layered in a half-enclosing ring that wrapped a city against the cliff face. Black crystal demon cultivators came and went through the great gates, or clustered outside them in noisy discussion.

“Have you heard, have you heard? Things just keep falling down from above…”

“I know. Sounds like something happened up there?”

“Is it humans from the main world?”

“Just blood-food. Must be some other Demon Kingdom. I bet it’s that Liluo Aquatic Clan that’s fought their way in.”

“Then calling us together is to face a common enemy… but if even the Sacred Envoys have no way to deal with it, what good is it for us to gather like this?”

“No idea… let’s wait for the Sacred Envoys to show up and see…”

The demon cultivators murmured to each other in low voices, all sorts of unease plain on their faces.

This was the truest reflection of how Bai Xiang had seen through the demonfolk of this realm. A significant portion of the Blackrock Demon Kingdom’s external fighting strength had to be counted on the Black Crystal Demon Pool and the Black Crystal curse. Strip those away, and for all their own abilities, their self-defense and combat power were actually quite limited.

The problem was that the so-called black crystal curse had no effect on Bai Xiang. The last thing she feared was invasive pollution from outside, especially the kind that showed itself so blatantly, as if afraid others would not notice it had taken hold.

At the same time, six figures had gathered atop the gate tower on the city wall, looking down at the scene below. Each of them was entirely made of black crystal, their appearances and builds suggesting some male and some female.

“Judging from the rubble and broken brick falling down, the losses up there must be terrible.”

“The Liluo Aquatic Clan would never have that kind of strength. They follow a reclusive way. Until the dust settles, they do not show themselves.”

“Then is this the work of Black Heaven? We have no conflict with it. Why go to all this trouble against us?”

These black crystal Rock Envoys could not read the situation either. They only had a vague feeling that calamity was looming, unease surging in the depths of their hearts.

It was very simple. The power above, when gathered, came to nearly ten Rock Envoys on guard. Add in the Saint Crystal Pavilion warriors assigned to each fortress city as forces directly under the Rock Envoys, and if an enemy could cut straight through all of that, they absolutely had the strength to threaten the whole of Blackflare City.

“Hu Yan.” A female-shaped crystal being spoke, asking, “You are the one on duty in the lowest level. When you came up, did the Sacred Venerable give any instructions?”

“None.” Another male-shaped crystal being shook his head at once. “The Sacred Venerable said nothing at all.”

“The Sacred Venerable does not care.” A tall, thin crystal being sneered. “Since the Sacred Venerable descended, it has never suffered a loss. Even if it provokes some powerful enemy it cannot defeat, it can just hide deeper inside and sell us out to the enemy.”

“Shifeng, mind your tongue.”

“Am I wrong? We were created by the Sacred Venerable to help it harvest more ‘value.’ If not for that, it would have eaten us first.”

The Rock Envoys all clung to their own views and bickered, no one giving way. It nearly came to blows right there on the gate tower.

Clatter-clatter…

Just then, another shower of broken tiles and bricks wrapped in ash came down from the sky, pattering across Blackflare City.

All the black crystal demon cultivators paused their argument for the moment. Dodging the dust as they squinted up, they all widened their eyes halfway, watching as a slender black shadow slipped out of the falling smoke and stopped in midair, looking down on them.

It was Bai Xiang. Hanging there in the air above, staring down into the rocky chasm, she could clearly feel how different the surrounding rock walls were from those in the upper levels.

Most obviously, there was almost no true soil left here. What clung to the rock surface was a layer of black mud formed from black crystal powder. Beneath the black mud, the rock felt far more highly crystallized than above, and every few meters she could see some bizarre rock-born creature tearing free of the cliff itself to hang half out like a sculpture. Looking out, it was an ocean of black crystal sculptures.

At the same time, she felt a powerful repulsion. Not in a physical sense, but a warning on the level of soul and Taishang sensing, telling her that something existed below. That thing was constantly emitting some influence, constantly polluting her bodily health.

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So this was the source of the black crystal curse, the black crystal pollution.

Bai Xiang thought it over for a moment and understood. She had already seen some of these images in the memories of her “spoils,” so at the moment she did not look like a clueless intruder at all. Instead, she looked quite at ease and familiar as she glanced at those Rock Envoys and asked, “Will you kill yourselves, or shall I help you?”

Spoken like that, she truly sounded unbearably lofty.

The Rock Envoys were furious at once. All six drew weapons and came at Bai Xiang from six directions, planning to join forces and keep her here.

However much they quarrelled in normal times, they were still rivals, but with a powerful enemy in front of them, they understood this much at least.

“Die!”

Six people wielded six weapons. The female crystal being used a black crystal sword, the one called Hu Yan used a broadsword, the tall, thin Shifeng used a spear, and the other three came in with paired maces, a long-handled hammer, and a giant shield, a faint battle formation forming between them.

“Oh?”

Bai Xiang was mildly surprised. She casually slashed at the nearest opponent, wanting to feel the weight of this battle formation.

The nearest one was the female crystal being. She shouted “Stone Aegis,” and the crystal being with the giant shield instantly swapped places with her in midair, that person bringing the shield up to meet Bai Xiang.

Bai Xiang’s eyes narrowed. Her wrist flicked, and the blood-red blade blurred as she swung. It was like it suddenly went from slow to fast, and before anyone could react, it had already lashed across the giant shield.

Bang.

Clatter-clatter…

“Stone Aegis?!” The others could not help crying out.

In their eyes, the blood-colored arc of the blade carved a sharply curved angle through the air, the point of that angle striking dead center on the shield. One blow shattered it, and the “Stone Aegis” hiding behind it was likewise sliced in two, life spent as the body dropped into the abyss.

“Demon woman, I’ll die with you!”

The female crystal being’s eyes turned blood-red at once. She no longer cared about keeping the formation intact. Black crystal sword in hand, she rushed at Bai Xiang like she meant to die together with her.

“Hongjing, get back!”

The other crystal beings called out, but it was too late. They realized the enemy was far too strong for any of them to face alone. If they lost Hongjing as well, their own odds were grim. They could only grit their teeth and chase after Hongjing, charging in together to surround Bai Xiang.

Yet just as the encirclement was about to form, the female crystal being called Hongjing suddenly spun in midair and changed direction. Her body twisted through a full turn, then plunged straight down toward the bottom of the abyss.

“Hongjing, you—?”

We swallowed our pride for the greater good to join forces, and you just sell us out like that?

“Wretch!” the crystal being Shifeng roared, swinging his spear around as he tried to chase after the fleeing woman.

But it was already too late. Halfway through his turn, he felt as if the spear had been nailed in place, unable to move at all. His stiff neck creaked as he slowly turned his head, seeing the spearhead caught in Bai Xiang’s hand, her cold gold eyes looking down at him.

Without warning, Bai Xiang tightened her grip on the spearhead with her left hand. Her right arm swung the sword in a full arc, the edge cutting into Shifeng’s forehead and cleaving him in two with one stroke.

In the very next instant, she drew the black crystal spear from Shifeng’s corpse. First she raised a leg and kicked the broadsword blade in Hu Yan’s hands. The force at her toes shattered the edge, then carried on to slam into his chest and send him flying. After that, she reversed the spear in her left hand and swept it behind her like a whip cracking down from above, smashing toward the mace user.

The crystal being with the paired maces saw this and gaped, managing only to turn his downward smash into a diagonal block. The next moment, he felt a force he could not resist crash through the defense formed by his maces and arms. The stroke broke his weapons and hammered squarely into his chest.

Pfff—

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He spat a huge mouthful of liquid in midair, black crystal fragments mixed within. His eyes, full of shock and fear, flicked once toward Bai Xiang, then cracks spread from his chest in all directions. He came apart and shattered on the way down.

“Exalted Immortal, stay your hand!”

Seeing this, the hammer user who had not yet swung, and Hu Yan who had barely kept his life, shouted in unison, “We are willing to surrender. Please spare us, Exalted Immortal!”

Three dead and one fled in a single exchange. With a gap like this, what on earth were they still fighting for?

If the difference in level was this huge, refusing to surrender was nothing but going up there to die.

“No need,” Bai Xiang said, with no intention of stopping.

She did not have to lose anything.

Information?

She could just kill these monsters and ask their souls later, and it would be the same.

The remaining two crystal beings heard this and felt as if a chill from the deepest nether hells had surged into their hearts. The hammer user gave a roar and swung at Bai Xiang, while Hu Yan yanked himself from a crack in the rocks and bolted downward in panic.

Bai Xiang locked onto the fleeing enemy with her gaze, tossing Feixiang Heaven toward the hammer. As the sword sliced through the hammerhead and its wielder, she dove after Hu Yan.

“Ah… aaaah!”

Hu Yan turned in midair and howled, but Bai Xiang flipped over, brought her leg down like an axe blade, and cleaved him straight down the middle. The terror on his face froze there.

Bang.

Bai Xiang landed steady. A beat later, Hu Yan’s remains crashed down behind her and shattered to pieces.

Another round of screams and explosions came from above. Rock dust and ash rained down in a steady hiss and clatter.

Feixiang Heaven had reused its previous “formula.” After killing the hammer user, it had flown off to find Blackflare City and, copying what it had done before, sliced the city apart.

“Naughty.”

The blood-edged sword streaked down. Bai Xiang grabbed the hilt and gently flicked the blade with her fingers.

Vmmm…

The blade sang softly, a faint aggrieved note in its tone.

“From now on, wait for my word before you kill,” Bai Xiang said, shaking her head. “Do not let it happen again.”

She had not intended to destroy Blackflare City entirely.

She had suspected that, as the black crystal stronghold closest to the bottom of the chasm, Blackflare City might be keeping “Saint Stone Envoys” that had not yet been devoured by the Black Crystal Sacred Venerable.

There might well have been innocents among them. Killing all of them outright would not have felt right.

But judging by the remnant soul memories Feixiang Heaven had carried back, there had been no Saint Stone Envoys in Blackflare City at all. The last batch had already been sent down to the bottom of the abyss as offerings to the Black Crystal Sacred Venerable. The little troublesome sword had not really committed needless slaughter.

That figured.

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Bai Xiang absorbed the wealth of information and combined it with her own experience to piece the story together.

Because the previous batch of Saint Stone Envoys had long since been used up, and they had gone so long without finding suitable candidates for conversion, Steward Cai had been willing to let them bring her into the Demon Kingdom.

The Black Crystal Sacred Venerable seemed desperate to increase its strength, perhaps hoping to gamble on the coming opening of the passage and go contend for hegemony in the main world.

At that thought, Bai Xiang could not help being a little curious. She was not sure what exactly these so-called Sacred Venerables and mighty beings were.

In Xuan Yi’s telling, in ancient times there had been no distinction between demon and human. Only after the Void Calamity cut things apart had different traits gradually emerged.

Yet he had also said that at that point in time, all living beings on earth still worshiped certain mighty ones, called “immortals and gods,” likely the prototypes of many deities in myth.

She had thought they were all native beings born of this world, but with the example of the Black Crystal Sacred Venerable before her, Bai Xiang was no longer so sure.

Was it possible that those mighty beings were outsiders as well?

The universe was immeasurably vast. Might not those severed Illusory Realms be connected to other times and spaces, drawing in powerful entities from elsewhere?

After thinking it over, Bai Xiang chose not to chase the thought further for now.

She tested the ground under her feet, then looked around at the environment of the bottom layer, finding that almost everything was wrapped in black mud. That black mud seemed alive, softening and pulling back wherever she moved.

The heaven and earth power felt more concentrated too, even richer than outside in the main world.

Bai Xiang raised her sword and walked forward, relying on Taishang sensing to scan out a long stone tunnel ahead that led downward. She followed the steps inside as they spiraled lower, and halfway down she faintly heard screams.

“No… no, no!”

“Revered Mother, no… I came to protect you… no, you cannot eat me… aaah!”

The scream drew out and then cut off.

At that moment, Bai Xiang stepped out of the tunnel, arriving at a wide stone cavern below. In its center lay a colossal meteorite, sunk deep into the ground. The fleeing Hongjing’s body was already half absorbed into the meteorite’s surface, her long hair of crystal hanging down with her head as it drooped. She seemed to have lost all life.

The meteorite’s devouring did not stop with her death.

In Bai Xiang’s eyes, the process only sped up. It took less than a second to draw Hongjing’s upper body in as well. Then a brilliant purple-black radiance flared out from within it, like countless razor-edged sword auras cutting across time and space toward Bai Xiang.

Bai Xiang did not move at all. She let the rays pass through her and strike the rock wall, making not the slightest sound.

“All you know are cheap tricks.”

Her voice echoed through the cavern as she walked forward step by step.

“Your own defenses seem rather lacking.”

“No wonder you have to spawn those things to guard you.”

The meteorite flashed with frantic crystal-violet light. Even Bai Xiang’s Taishang sensing was in full alarm, warning that some high-energy radiation was corroding her body.

It did not matter.

She held her inner body-scape firm, her soul-abilities locking her state in place. No pollution or erosion could touch her. The strongest weapon this thing had simply did not work on her.

Hmm…

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She lifted one foot and stepped onto the meteorite’s surface, and the pure, highly crystallized black crystal within dimmed all at once. It was as if it were expressing fear. Bai Xiang found the thing a bit dull-witted.

It really did not seem to have full intelligence.

In the remnant soul memories she had absorbed, the various Rock Envoys might be enemies and rivals, dreaming of devouring each other to grow stronger, but when it came to the Black Crystal Sacred Venerable, their so-called Revered Mother, they were all outwardly respectful while quietly flattering and deceiving it behind its back.

Because it was stupid.

When you could not see through intelligent thought, even the strongest pollution was useless.

“Open your soul.”

Bai Xiang tried giving it a command.

“Offer your true spirit to me.”

That was the method she had learned from the memories of the Rock Envoys. They had used the same trick to recruit subordinates.

The moment the words left her lips, the flickering light turned even more frantic, clearly very displeased with her demand.

Oh?

Bai Xiang’s answer was to swing her arm in a full arc. She combined the Mountain-Colliding Stance with Taishang sensing, her blade drinking in the dense power filling the cavern as it fell and biting into the meteorite’s surface with a crack.

!!!

The crystal inside the meteorite flared with a flood of violet light, then gradually dimmed, shifting bit by bit to blue that shone gently over Bai Xiang.

Bai Xiang said nothing. She had already stated her terms. It was not her turn to speak.

After a moment, the thing finally caved under the pressure. Its surface shuddered, and shards of crystal clattered away in a cascade, revealing a huge, pure deep-purple crystal within, like an enormous piece of amber with a giant ancient tree sealed inside.

Ting…

A speck of deep violet light drifted out of the crystal and floated down to Bai Xiang.

Now that was better.

Satisfied enough with its attitude, Bai Xiang reached out and caught the mote of light, beginning to refine the true spirit contained within.

At the same time, Jingwu Village received another group of uninvited guests.

A band of monks appeared abruptly on the sculpture square. Far from being shocked by the destruction all around, they looked forward with respect shining in their eyes, their gazes landing on Hua Li in the distance.

“Seems she has already gone down.”

Hua Li nodded lightly, his face cold.

“Come on.”

“We need to move quickly as well.”