Volume 3, Chapter 121 – Emerging from the Abyss

After cutting down the immediate threat to the Shenming Dojo, Bai Xiang still refused to stop and rest. She did not even have the leisure to fly back up and exchange a few words with her friends and family. In the next moment, she once more stepped on sword qi and shot into the sky, following the memories she had taken from the demonfolk to rush toward several other Illusory Realm nodes in the Circuit City.

Up above, Zhu Ying, Shen Xuelan and the others had only just come out of the secret tunnel. Seeing the dojo’s mountain gate in complete ruin, they hurried to join in helping and rescuing the wounded.

Bai Shengju stood at the courtyard’s main gate, having watched Bai Xiang’s every move from start to finish. Now, as he saw her once more turn into a streak of rainbow light and leave, he was reminded of the day many years ago when he had brought a baby girl back from Yinling Temple, and could not help but feel a thousand emotions surge through his heart again.

“Sis—”

In the clamor, Bai Leying turned her head to look at her second sister. “Xiang’er-jie, she… she should already be stronger than the Sword Lord now, right?”

Bai Leying had never seen the Sword Lord, but the methods Bai Xiang had just displayed, the scene of those tribulation lotuses across the heavens all turning into a sea of thunder at once, had been far too shocking. She figured that even if the Sword Lord himself were here, he would be no more than this. All of a sudden, it felt to her like every crisis had evaporated, and her whole person turned lively and bright again.

“Don’t talk nonsense!” Bai Zhuqing instinctively wanted to agree, but in the end she knew more than her sister and held a trace of worry in her heart. Reaching out, she pinched her younger sister’s cheek. “You’re not allowed to say that sort of thing outside again.”

She still wanted to say more, when she saw Xiang Xian, who had been lying down, roll over and get up, straighten her robes, and head out.

“Master?” Bai Zhuqing hurriedly chased after her. “Master! Where are you going?”

“Xiang’er has cut off the enemy’s main offensive direction.” Xiang Xian’s voice was very low. “The Shenwu Immortal Dynasty… what we just faced was definitely not their full strength. I have to go help her. How could I let her face it alone?”

Bai Zhuqing followed beside Xiang Xian all the way forward, stealing a sidelong, envious glance at her.

“You want to come too?” Xiang Xian saw through her thoughts in a single look. Her pale face squeezed out a smile. “That sword-orb art of yours is indeed not bad.”

“When you can use the Splitting-Light method to make it divide into an even number, the next time we run into something this dangerous, I promise I’ll bring you along.”

With that, her steps suddenly sped up. In a flash, she passed through the disciples ahead of them and walked over to where Han Yinshuang and the father and son of the Kong clan were waiting.

“I’m going to reinforce Dao Lord Bai.” Her gaze locked on the three of them. “Daoist Friend Han will come with me. The two of you, please rest here in the circuit and help guard this place.”

As soon as her words fell, the treasured fan and treasured sword that had been infused with demonic power flew back to her once more, then fell respectively into the hands of Kong Tianbao and Kong An.

In a moment of life and death they had not run or abandoned them, but had fought to the death to hold out until Bai Xiang’s return. The two of them had already proven their character, and Xiang Xian was willing to trust them.

Kong Tianbao and Kong An exchanged a glance, then cupped their hands toward her with their weapons in hand. “Please go, Peak Lord Xiang. We will not let the demonfolk invade.”

With a nod, Xiang Xian and Han Yinshuang rose into the air one after the other, chasing along the trail of qi Dao Lord Bai had left as she flew.

The Zhen’nan Circuit could not compare in scale to the Chilong Circuit. In no time they had flown from the main peak across half the city, and from the heights of the sky they could look down and see vast stretches of scattered blood clouds. Beneath the clouds were large and small giant craters, with deep sword marks crisscrossing sparsely over the cratered ground.

“Dao Lord Bai’s movements are too fast!” Han Yinshuang could not help but sigh.

Both of them could tell that beneath these blood clouds were all Illusory Realm nodes the Shenwu Immortal Dynasty had arranged in advance throughout the city.

For now they did not know how it had been done, but it had to have been carried out in secret during that first invasion. It was just that at the time, everyone’s main focus had been on the enemy forces themselves, and they had never noticed these arrangements.

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“There.” Xiang Xian spoke, and her figure began to drop rapidly.

This was the outskirts of the Zhen’nan Circuit. Here, thick blood clouds and blood mist heaved and gathered in great swathes. From time to time, explosions and howling could be heard from within. By the time the two of them landed, the battle was already basically over.

When the blood clouds had mostly scattered and they could see the scene laid bare below, Han Yinshuang’s pupils instantly contracted. Even Xiang Xian, usually so composed, could not help but twitch her eyelids.

Blood was everywhere.

Countless demonfolk, some displaying their ferocious true forms, some maintaining human bodies clad in armor, had most of their bodies turned into sludge-like blood-mud, smeared all over the ground in a sticky layer, dyeing this whole stretch of streets and houses completely red.

At the center of the carnage, Bai Xiang stood barefoot in the blood slurry. In her right hand she gripped Feixiang Heaven; her left hand was clamped around the crude neck of a demon commander. Just then there was a sharp crack as she broke it, and she lifted her head to look over.

A cold wind happened to blow her white hair aside, revealing a face beautiful enough without any need for the “Illusory God” to enhance it. It should have been a picture full of poetry, yet under the backdrop of the scene it appeared excessively eerie, carrying a kind of strange, demonic beauty.

“Master.” Bai Xiang drew in her murderous aura and called softly to Xiang Xian.

“Do you have an idea?” Xiang Xian knew her temperament. She glanced at the demon general Bai Xiang had tossed aside like trash, then raised her head to meet Bai Xiang’s eyes.

“The main passage is actually the blood abyss.” Bai Xiang voiced her guess. “I plan to go take a look over there.”

The blood sea and the blood abyss were like a system of overpasses, broad, rough, and leading everywhere. Compared to that, these nodes were just little alleyways. The Shenwu Immortal Dynasty could no longer send their main forces through to the Zhen’nan Circuit, which left them only one option: descend directly through the blood abyss.

If so, then the pressure over on the Qiyun Circuit would definitely surge. With the thought of eradicating evil down to the roots, cutting it off and wiping it out completely, Bai Xiang planned to go over again and suppress and kill every demon she saw.

“Fine.” Xiang Xian raised her head to look southeast.

“You take the lead, we’ll follow.”

Looking at Xiang Xian, warmth flowed through Bai Xiang’s heart.

She had just opened her mouth to agree, when she heard a rustling all around. Out of the night stepped one refugee after another, candles and incense in their hands, kneeling to Bai Xiang.

They had not seen the whole of the earlier phenomena, but they had clearly seen each tribulation lotus blooming in the night sky, and the sea of thunder exploding overhead.

Most of these people had come from the Chilong Circuit. In their flight, they had lost things more or less along the way. The fear for the future weighing on their hearts did come first, but hatred was buried deep beneath it.

If it were not for being powerless, who would be willing to forgo vengeance against the demonfolk?

They had known Bai Xiang from before, had once seen her as the pride of Chilong. The gratitude of being saved, mixed with the fierce joy of vengeance, was enough to drive them to such an act.

Han Yinshuang and Xiang Xian were both somewhat moved by the sight.

This was the modern age now.

Among common folk there was still admiration for the strong, but for so many people to spontaneously kneel and treat someone as a god to be worshiped, that was not something easily done.

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Facing this scene, Bai Xiang was stiff for a moment at first.

Very soon, though, she gave the crowd a swordsman’s salute, then, under all their gazes, her figure slowly rose into the air again, stepping once more on sword qi as she flew off.

…

Time passed.

On the Blood Abyss Plain, Zhao Dongyan’s face was dark as he stared at the group of people walking out of the crater, out of that thick to the extreme purple-black smoke, momentarily at a loss for what to say.

“What happened?” Striding over in haste, he glared at the orange-robed Daoist in the lead and snapped, “National Preceptor He, why did you all come out from this side?”

“You think I wanted to?” The orange-robed Daoist’s eyelids twitched. “Those other passages have all been cut off. It’s I who should be asking you, Zhao Dongyan, what on earth is going on with the arrangements here?”

“Wang Changhe took this matter over. You can’t pin it on me!” Zhao Dongyan flicked his sleeves and kept sweeping his gaze over the crowd, discovering that there was a trace of fear on every face, like quails that had just escaped from the claws of a raptor, dumb and motionless.

Such a state was unusual for well-trained Dao soldiers, but Zhao Dongyan knew exactly why.

Because this route through the blood abyss was never meant for sapient beings.

All living things, whether demon or human, were sapient beings. When sapient beings passed through an Illusory Realm, there was a certain chance of attracting void demons, and the larger the Illusory Realm passage, the higher that chance. This was precisely why the Shenwu Immortal Dynasty needed to open so many small-node pathways: only then would the chance of encountering void demons be lower, allowing them to preserve their forces to the greatest extent.

“How bad is it?” There was no point in saying anything else now. Zhao Dongyan looked to National Preceptor He again. “How many people died?”

“A third.” National Preceptor He’s eyelids gave a twitch. He lowered his voice as much as he could. “I even saw a big one as we left. I don’t know what it was.”

A big one?

Zhao Dongyan’s face changed again. “Then His Highness won’t be coming, will he?”

National Preceptor He shook his head. “I fear he’s already on his way.”

On the way? And coming through the blood abyss as well?

Zhao Dongyan’s heart pounded violently in his chest. His reason told him this was madness.

They were not lunatics like those of Blood-Soul Heaven, tinkering with vicious phenomena such as the blood sea.

At the beginning, when they had made that deal with Yao Qingyuan, and let him divert the blood sea here to open up a spring, it had only been so that the pressure from the blood sea’s power would squeeze the passage wider, thereby creating the blood abyss and making it easier for them to open more nodes on that basis.

According to the plan, they were supposed to use the blood abyss to pollute demon beasts and create chaos, then, in one go, smash open the passages shaken by the blood abyss and descend through the Maozhou nodes.

If not for that, how could Maozhou have been given such a high strategic value in the plan?

It was not only because that Dao Lord of Shenming might be connected to The Xuan Emperor Scripture. Maozhou’s special terrain in and of itself was also a key factor.

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They had prepared contingency plans for the blood abyss running out of control as well. If they could not quickly seal it off after succeeding, once that thing went wild and dragged void demons into the primary world, they would be forced to rely on Maozhou’s defenses.

They were never supposed to be doing what they were doing now, leading troops to descend through the blood abyss in person.

“It is dangerous, but His Highness will not give up.” National Preceptor He shook his head. “Shenwu Heaven does not have many days left. Staying there is waiting for death.”

That was true.

Zhao Dongyan and all the black-robed figures within earshot fell silent.

The next great upheaval they had foreseen was about to arrive. It would not be long before Shenwu Heaven was cut into fragments by the void calamity.

Retreat?

There was nowhere for them to retreat to.

From ancient times to now, through I-don’t-know-how-many billions of years, who could say how many Illusory Realm fragments had been cut off, preserving civilization like Shenwu Heaven, all desperately craving to return to the primary world.

Others?

Others had their own plans, schemes laid out for hundreds and thousands of years, and territories they had long set their sights on.

Even with Maozhou, this one piece of land, they could not guarantee that they alone were coveting it. If they missed this opportunity, where would they go to find another home?

So they could not retreat. They must not retreat.

The efforts of generation after generation would not be in vain. The sacrifices of generation after generation would not be in vain.

The Shenwu Immortal Dynasty had to descend here.

All of a sudden, the black mists in the blood abyss roiled violently, like black flames burning and twisting in a mad dance. Under everyone’s gaze, a large flying boat, tattered and broken with only its front half remaining, burst out from within.

The flying boat emerged and immediately tilted headfirst, its bow slamming into the plain and coming apart on impact. From within, a crowd of people scrambled out, among them a handsome young man being shielded from behind by a yellow-robed Daoist.

“Your Highness!”

National Preceptor He and Zhao Dongyan recognized the newcomer and had just started forward to greet him when, in the next instant, they caught sight of another grotesque thing bursting out of the black fog over the blood abyss.

Looking closely, it seemed to be a huge, slender hand.

Its whole body was pitch-black, without any color at all, so deep it seemed able to swallow every ray of light including their gaze itself. From the hand extended eight claw-like fingers, and the strangest thing of all was the elbow joint, which was crookedly split into two, making for an arm with three segments that reached out to grab.

Everyone cried out in shock as the giant hand clawed toward the outside of the blood abyss. From its palm, a violent suction erupted, sweeping up several dozen unlucky souls, and then, with a slurp, it shrank back into the depths.

“Your Highness!”

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“Your Highness!”

Only then did they have the leisure to go over and greet the young man and the yellow-robed Daoist.

“I am unhurt.” The handsome youth slowly shook his head, his expression grave as he looked around. His eyes immediately found Zhao Dongyan. “Protector Zhao.”

“Your Highness.” Zhao Dongyan lowered his shoulders slightly.

“All the nodes in Maozhou have been wiped out. What was the cause of this?”

This…

Zhao Dongyan’s brows drooped. This was a question he truly could not answer.

“And Wang Changhe?” the youth asked again.

Zhao Dongyan could only shake his head. “There has been no word from him. I fear… it does not bode well.”

“There was nothing over there that could threaten him.” The yellow-robed Daoist suddenly spoke up. “Could he also have run into something filthy?”

The moment these words were spoken, the handsome youth’s brows furrowed.

“If that’s the case, the difficulty of cleaning up Maozhou afterward will double.” He sighed, then turned to look at the yellow-robed Daoist. “National Preceptor.”

“Your Highness.”

“We urgently need to open up more nodes. I must ask the National Preceptor to continue to exert himself.”

“Your Highness flatters me.” The Daoist smiled. “It’s just that cultivation work inevitably takes its toll. Your Highness will have to allow me to eat some people.”

The youth nodded. “Then the Qiyun Circuit will be yours. I trust you can feast to your heart’s content.”

While they were here discussing their plans, Zhao Dongyan’s brows remained tightly furrowed, his heart full of worry.

Illusory Realm nodes were currently the safest routes for passage. The chance of void demons appearing in Maozhou was very low.

But if it wasn’t a void demon, what else could it be?

Harboring his doubts, he happened to look up toward the horizon.

Vaguely, it seemed a streak of white light was splitting open the dark clouds, slashing down in this direction.