Volume 4, Chapter 27 – Backlash

“Careful.”

Xu Shu led him out the north gate and suddenly pressed a hand to his shoulder in warning.

Both of them halted sharply and looked up toward the alley. Sure enough, they saw a flatbed stall parked there, loaded with round objects. At first glance, it looked like a watermelon stand.

And the pollution was working on them at the same time.

Liu Yong clearly felt Xu Shu’s body tremble, even his steps grew unsteady.

Before he could wonder about it and turn to check on Xu Shu, a wave of dizziness crashed over him too.

It felt as if something were invading his thoughts, and at the same time a strange hunger rose in his mouth, a craving to eat something to ease it.

So hot…

The weather is so hot…

What should you eat in summer again… watermelon?

Those round things over there, that looks like a watermelon stall, doesn’t it?

Their eyes went hazy as they walked up to the stall. Xu Shu picked up one of the round things from the flatbed and asked, “How much?”

“Five tongbao coins.” The stall owner sat on the side rail of the flatbed, a bamboo hat on his head, a hoarse voice coming from underneath.

“Too expensive. One coin.”

“This is top-grade stock, honored customer. We never haggle at our stall.”

To Liu Yong’s ears it was just a bargaining argument. He felt muddleheaded and had picked up one of the round things himself.

Without thinking, he brought it up under his nose. A rich reek of blood hit him, and his mouth flooded with saliva beyond his control. He wanted nothing more than to crack it open and bury his face in it.

Just then, the scabbard at his waist, the two iron-blade swords sheathed together, sent a surge of heat into him.

Jolted by that heat, Liu Yong’s eyes flew wide. It was as if all his emotions were blasted apart in a single instant. Not only the hunger welling up now, even the most basic human feelings of joy, anger, sorrow, and happiness were stripped away.

In that fleeting moment, his gaze went utterly cold. He flung what he held at the stall owner and, at the same time, drew the iron sword from its sheath.

Clang——

The sound cracked like thunder out of a clear sky. Xu Shu was jolted awake by the blast just in time to see the thrown “fruit” split open in the stall owner’s hand.

Half of it rolled to the ground, revealing black hair and a twisted human face inside, along with dark and white pulp-like fluids seeping out below.

Rеαⅾ oո KatReαⅾіnɡCafе

That was no watermelon at all… it was a human head.

Horrified that even with all his caution he had still fallen for it, Xu Shu looked up just in time to see Liu Yong standing with both hands on the sword, his face set in a calm that did not seem human. With one stroke, he chopped the stall owner’s head clean off.

Thud!

The head rolled away, the bamboo hat falling askew and revealing it crawling with maggots.

“Path of Ruthlessness?” Rotten flesh slid off the head, the bare teeth grinding together as it somehow spoke. “What bad luck… running into some madman who doesn’t feel desire or emotion!”

Liu Yong, though, had only had the strength for that one swing. Now his body suddenly locked up, humanity flooding back in. He felt utterly dazed by everything that had just happened.

What is this…

Who am I… where am I?

“Die!”

A streak of blood-red soul-flame dropped before his eyes, like a tearing sword-light splitting the night sky. Liu Yong had no time at all to react.

Crash!

Xu Shu shouldered into him, shoving him aside by force. His own longsword came out in a flash of white, wrapped in Qi-force that swept the soul-flame away. With a roar, he hacked the stall owner’s body into a mess with several strokes.

Dead, just like that?

It felt a bit too easy. Xu Shu instinctively did not believe it.

Sure enough. He had just started forward to inspect the remains when the heap of rotten meat exploded, splattering corpse-pulp and writhing maggots all over the wall and ground. Only a single blossom of blood-red soul-flame remained, drifting away like a ghost-light.

“Where do you think you are going, fiend!”

Xu Shu could not help shouting. He stepped forward, then turned back to look at Liu Yong.

Liu Yong was looking at him too, completely blank.

“Junior brother…” Xu Shu almost sagged with exasperation.

“Forget it, forget it… just come with me!”

He grabbed Liu Yong and took off in pursuit of the fleeing soul-flame while pulling out his phone, calling to report the situation.

Crack!

Reαⅾ οn KatRеаⅾіnɡCаfе

At the same time, in a side room of a nearby resettlement building, a clay figurine suddenly shattered, making the Daoist meditating under the incense table jerk his eyes open in shock.

“Path of Ruthlessness!”

“Since when did the Bai clan get mixed up with those lunatics?”

Crack!

Bang, bang!

It was like a chain reaction. Once the first clay figurine shattered, the others lined up on the incense table suddenly burst apart in unison. That meant that the Demon Pools the Daoist had painstakingly laid out had slipped from his control and no longer responded to his pull.

“A thousand years gone, and this main world grows stranger by the day!”

The Daoist let out a weird squawk, flung himself toward the door, and was about to bolt. On his way out, he still managed to snatch up a jade pendant and send his voice into it.

“There’s something wrong in Zhennan! Stop the deployment!”

A soft voice soon replied from the pendant. “The young mistress said, since we have been discovered, we may as well scatter all the Demon Pools at once.”

“Are you insane?” The Daoist turned ashen. “This path is already crooked and off the proper way. If order collapses too far and the backlash comes, how are we supposed to withstand it?”

“You need not worry about that. It is not as if you will be cut out of the benefits. What are you fretting over?”

I am fretting over you?

I am fretting that the backlash will kill you lot and Immortal Venerable Ningyuan will blame me!

Grinding his teeth, the Daoist seriously suspected that Ning Haiyun had been possessed by some lurking Void Demon on her way in.

Enough!

Once I finish this job, this Daoist is running far, far away!

Only a fool would keep getting dragged into this mess!

Eyes bloodshot, the Daoist vaulted over the courtyard wall and shot along the pitch-black alleyway. As he flew, his hands formed a seal and a blossom of blood-red soul-flame burst from his fingertips.

Look closely and you could see blurry human shapes flickering in the flame. As the Daoist chanted under his breath, the soul-flame turned into a blood-red fire lotus that exploded with a boom. He himself slipped through the petals and rushed around the corner.

He knew which way the wind blew. At a time like this, the skies were under strict watch. Anyone who flew up was a fool begging for death.

I will find a dark corner to lie low in, wait for things to quiet down over there, then slip back to the Illusory Heavens!

With that in mind, the Daoist darted around the corner. The next instant his face changed and he froze, twisting his body aside to dodge a vertical cleaving strike.

Rеαⅾ oո КαtReaԁіոɡСаfе

Looking up, he saw a stately woman in a long purple palace dress hovering in the air, a splendid Yu sword in hand, cold eyes glancing down at him.

“Xiang Xian?” The Daoist bared his teeth in a grin and clasped his fists. “This poor Daoist is ‘Soul-Leading Immortal’ Jia Xu. Why not show some mercy, Daoist friend? Jia here will surely repay you handsomely in the future.”

Xiang Xian said nothing. Her figure blurred, and five sword shadows fell in unison, forcing Jia Xu to dodge left and right, cursing bitterly in his heart.

How can you do this job and not check your target’s background?

He knew Xiang Xian held a high position in the Shenming Sword Dao. Normally, someone like her would never find his hiding place this quickly. That left only one possibility. He had been sold out by Ning Haiyun.

He did not know how she had done it, but one way or another she had drawn the enemy here. There might even be that “Shenming Immortal Venerable” behind her.

At the thought that an Immortal Venerable might already be watching him from the shadows, Jia Xu felt his limbs go cold and every hair stand on end. In his heart he cursed Ning Haiyun and the others to high heaven.

What kind of noble young lady, my foot!

All you know how to do is break the rules. May lightning strike you where you stand, you aren’t even human!

Elsewhere, in one of the urban clusters at the foot of Shenming Mountain, on the third floor of a roadside inn, Ning Haiyun was at the most critical point of her cultivation.

Listen closely and the corridor outside the rooms was full of strange groans. They came from people already deeply polluted by warped cognition, shoving and squeezing each other out of their rooms, pushing one another in zombie-like slow motion as they stared hungrily at each other’s heads.

Since she could not walk the path of “Natural Interference,” she could only take the risk and pile up numbers and sharpness instead.

Essence and qi surged from the top of Ning Haiyun’s head like wolf-smoke. A flower of vital essence slowly opened above her.

“Young mistress!” Cui’er hurriedly handed over one bottle of medicine after another, which Ning Haiyun swallowed in order, using the drug power to forcibly condense a second flower above her head. That flower represented Ning Haiyun’s cultivation in the Dao-Void Methods.

Then came the third flower, the most important of all. She had to invert the rules of order, condense the Dao-path into a Divine Pool.

Boom!

Thunder rumbled outside the window. It was as if even the will of heaven and earth was enraged, condemning such an act.

But Ning Haiyun no longer cared.

The arrow was nocked and had to be loosed. She could not let this chance slip by.

Only by becoming an Immortal Venerable would she have the nerve to fight her elder brothers for power. Otherwise, the end awaiting her would be worse than that of blood food. Because her “blood was too close,” her clan would pen her up, turning her into their furnace cauldron and toy.

My future will not be like that.

Driving her soul power, focusing her will to the utmost, Ning Haiyun suddenly raised her head and spat a mouthful of fresh blood, using it to form the bud of the Divine Pool flower above her.

Reаⅾ oո KαtReаdiոɡCαfe

Now.

She swiftly drew out a small white jade bottle and tipped it. Countless blood-red soul-flames drifted out. She seized them all and poured them into the Divine Pool flower as nourishment for it to take shape.

It was somewhat a shortcut. After breaking through, she would likely suffer terrible backlash, but so what.

If I do not succeed, I die.

Once I break through and recover my strength, I will go suppress that Bai Zhixing.

By then the Path of Qi will be mine as well… even Father will not be able to push me down again.

The Divine Pool flower grew ever more condensed and substantial.

Joy appeared on Ning Haiyun’s face.

Was it going to work?

Hum——

Suddenly, an invisible ripple spread out. All of Ning Haiyun’s cultivation vanished at once, as if she had never possessed it at all.

Bang!

Under that impact, the Divine Pool flower was torn apart in midair. A jagged crack in the void burst open just a few centimeters above her head. Everything in the room began to be sucked into it at high speed, including the other two flowers above Ning Haiyun’s head. They were all swallowed whole by the crack, leaving no trace behind.

“No—!”

Ning Haiyun let out a scream, coughing blood as she collapsed, limp.

Why…!

What was that just now!

Lifting her head with boundless hatred, she stared in horror at the window, where she saw that some time ago, a white-haired woman in a dark robe had appeared there.

“So this is a Divine Pool.”

The woman stared at the rapidly shrinking crack in the void, curiosity in her eyes.

“So it is something this fragile.”

“It does not even come close to what I have been studying.”