Volume 4, Chapter 37 – The Arrival

Around dinnertime, a neatly compiled experimental report was personally delivered into Bai Xiang’s hands by Han Yuanfeng.

Han Yuanfeng could already be considered one of her own. He too was a Red Dust Daoist, and he knew all too well what the Red Dust Dao arts were really like. Back then, when he’d said he valued Bai Xiang’s talent and potential and wanted to invest in her early, she would have believed it—but now…

He snuck a glance at Bai Xiang seated in the main seat.

Either the Dao Lord wanted to deepen ties with someone from Shenming, or those ties had already been deepened.

“Pure-World God…” Bai Xiang finished reading the report and frowned slightly, but said nothing. She simply thanked Han Yuanfeng politely for his contributions during this period, then rose to see him out.

After that, she stood at the hall doors in long contemplation, then summoned Hu Hu, whom she’d been ordering around every day lately, and told her to go down into the city below and invite Sun Yaoming over.

Sun Yaoming had only arrived today. He hadn’t even had time to be shuffled into a guest room at the mountain gate before he was summoned by Bai Xiang in the middle of the night. He thought there must be something else she wanted to discuss with him, so he hurriedly straightened his clothes, carried his sword on his back, and came over, bowing deeply beneath the main seat.

“Envoy Sun, have you heard the thunder this morning?” Bai Xiang sat upright in a dark robe embroidered with golden patterns, her tone precise and meticulous.

Sun Yaoming said quickly, “I did hear of it…”

He’d even heard that it had been this very person before him who’d crossed hands with someone. But because he hadn’t yet arrived in Zhen’nan at the time, he had no idea what exactly had happened. In his heart, he had indeed suspected whether Bai Xiang had already fought with certain envoys from the Upper Realm.

“You should know Cui Yuanhao, Envoy Sun.” Bai Xiang took the Tianxuan Sword, scabbard and all, from beside her, and drew it with a clear clang right in front of Sun Yaoming. “…And as for this sword, I imagine Envoy Sun can also say a few words about it.”

“The Tianxuan Sword!” Sun Yaoming was a little dazed at first, but only when he clearly saw the shape of the guard did his expression change drastically, waves crashing in his heart.

It was actually the Tianxuan Sword? This Lord Bai had actually been able to defeat Immortal Venerable Cui, wielding a human-path sacred armament, and even seize the Tianxuan Sword?

What level of combat strength was that?

Reаԁ οո KatRеαⅾіոɡСαfe

It was far more outrageous than what his master had estimated!

After losing his composure for a while, Sun Yaoming finally remembered that Bai Xiang was still waiting for his answer. He hurriedly bowed again and said in a solemn voice, “In reply to Lord Bai, Cui Yuanhao is precisely that ‘Immortal Venerable Hanrong’ I previously mentioned to you. This man is by nature proud, highly skilled in the mutual transformation of yin and yang, in the birth of flame from extreme cold. This… this time ‘inviting’ you, Lord Bai, to have him lead the team is in fact reasonable. But I did not expect Lord Zhang to even bestow the ‘Tianxuan Sword’ upon him as well. This really… breaks precedent!”

After a detailed talk, Bai Xiang learned more of the particulars.

Tianfu Mountain was indeed a human organization, but its structure was far more loose than that of the Demon Court.

From a certain perspective, Tianfu Mountain was basically a loose alliance modeled after the Demon Court’s mechanisms.

At its very top, it was ruled and controlled by Immortal Venerable Xuanli, Zhang Dai. “Lord” was the broad honorific used for this sort of leader figure. Beneath Zhang Dai, there were additionally several hundred cave lords and several dozen seat-holders.

Because these people were constantly on the move or in seclusion and out of contact, the exact numbers were unclear. Normally, the mountain gate’s restraints on them weren’t that strict. Just as Sun Yaoming had said before, as long as they completed their assigned mission quotas, they could arrange the rest of their time as they pleased.

Only when more serious and formal assignments were issued would Tianfu Mountain pick one person from among the seat-holders to become a “Dao Enforcer.” Their identity was similar in nature to the Demon Court Heaven-Patrol; the meaning of “Dao Enforcer” could be extended as “this Dao’s executor,” and in a certain sense they could already represent the will of the Lord.

Not to mention, Zhang Dai had also bestowed the human-path sacred armament he’d forged, the Tianxuan Sword, further solidifying the Dao Enforcer’s authority.

So that was how it was.

Bai Xiang recalled again how Cui Yuanhao had boasted in front of her.

Turns out it hadn’t been pure bragging; to some extent, he really had been able to represent Tianfu Mountain.

“The Tianxuan Sword is not a top-tier sacred armament, but its power is still nothing to scoff at!” Sun Yaoming was still sunk in shock, unable to pull himself out, staring blankly at Bai Xiang on the seat. “For Lord Bai to be able to fight and win against it… this really is just as my master said. Lord Bai is one who was born bearing great fortune!”

Bai Xiang had no interest in listening to his flattery and asked him directly, “Since that is your Lord’s intention, and he even gave him the treasured sword, what sort of impact will my actions have within your ranks?”

Reаⅾ οո KаtRеadіոɡСafе

“In the short term, there won’t be any impact.” Sun Yaoming answered with certainty. “I must let Lord Bai know… Lord Zhang is not absolutely supreme within the mountain’s dojos. And with the Demon Court’s deterrence on top of that, they wouldn’t dare stir up a huge commotion to retaliate.”

So that meant she didn’t have to give the Tianxuan Sword back.

Bai Xiang asked again, “You and your master are also under Tianfu Mountain’s protection. If that Zhang Dai deduces that you two were involved and moves to harm your master, what then?”

Sun Yaoming smiled. “Human cultivators cultivating in the Upper Realm are like rootless duckweed, tossed about in the wind and rain. Most people find some backing, stay there for a few decades, then either fall out with them or flee a purge, and afterward have to wander again, repeating the process over and over.”

What he meant was: Tianfu Mountain was probably just one way station on the road of his and his master’s lives. They weren’t about to abandon their principles for the sake of one affiliation.

The other layer of meaning was even clearer. Having seen how formidable Bai Xiang was, realizing she too was someone who could genuinely live up to the title of “Lord,” shielding others from wind and rain, and with the temptation of the Path of Qi on top of that, Sun Yaoming was taking it on himself to represent his master and defect.

Once Bai Xiang had made sense of that, she instead wasn’t in a rush to discuss cooperation with Sun Yaoming. She went on to ask him many things about the Upper Realm, focusing in particular on “Blood-Soul Heaven,” and on “whether there existed supreme powers outside of the Demon Court.”

On the surface, it looked like she’d already received plenty of memories from the Void People, so asking these things again was redundant—but in truth, it wasn’t.

The Upper Realm was too big a concept.

Too big, too fragmented.

Think about it—every so many years, a Void Tribulation descended, scraping away civilization from the primary world plane like a squeegee on glass, ripping away pieces of space and ground to form Illusory Realms. That process had already looped how many times?

Again and again, with so many fragments, they really did scatter through the void like shards of broken glass. Many cultivators living in them might not be able to visit all the Illusory Realms even in an entire lifetime, and their range of knowledge and experience was even more likely to be fractured.

So asking around more was still necessary.

Reαⅾ on КаtRеаԁiոɡСafе

“Blood-Soul Heaven.” Sun Yaoming frowned. “A group of utterly vicious fiends. Their aims are too extreme—even the Demon Court dislikes their existence.”

That much Bai Xiang already knew.

Although both upheld a demon-ruled order, the Demon Court at least tried to maintain order in the Upper Realm, and at the very least did not advocate mutual slaughter between demons and humans.

But Blood-Soul Heaven… they insisted that the human race was nothing but blood-food for demons, and within them gathered countless insane demonfolk.

There were even rumors in the Upper Realm that Blood-Soul Heaven’s upper echelons were no longer just upholding a demon-ruled world, but had gone a step further in embracing Loss of Order, directly trading with Void Demons.

“As for other powers,” Sun Yaoming thought for a moment, then slowly shook his head. “They aren’t qualified to be listed alongside these.”

“What if you divided them by culture or script?” Bai Xiang asked again.

“There’d be way too many then!” Sun Yaoming’s eyes went wide. “Plenty of Illusory Realms have been developing on their own for hundreds or thousands of years. Their culture, writing, language all mutating completely is perfectly normal. Even after places like that are brought into the Upper Realm’s sphere of control, it still takes a long time before they can truly mesh. There are just too many such places!”

It was that troublesome?

Bai Xiang frowned.

So she simply changed tactics, and directly recited several verses of the hymns from the religious education in Aurora’s memories—the original text, not English.

“It sounds a bit like one of the ancient tongues of the human race.” Sun Yaoming couldn’t be sure either. “But this is not my field of expertise. I may have to disappoint Lord Bai…”

This had been a rather whimsical line of inquiry to begin with, so Bai Xiang didn’t insist on finding an answer right away. She let Sun Yaoming go and fell into solitary thought.

Those hymn originals came from a Western religious classic, the Augu Holy Canon, which recorded myths of the Augu gods on earth.

Rеαⅾ оո КаtRеаԁіnɡCafе

When a Void Tribulation scrapes the ground, it can’t be just scraping the east and not the west. In theory, then, the Augu gods described in that book really might exist.

Ancient humans, ancient demons—

Both were possible.

And in Hannah’s lizardfolk body flowed ancient demon blood.

Ancient demons… as far as she remembered, it had always been Blood-Soul Heaven that tried to revive ancient demons, hadn’t it?

Judging by the Demon Court’s style, they shouldn’t be the ones sending out things like divine-lineage demons. That strain of divine-lineage demons, plus their earlier infiltration of Starwater Company to create the “Tyrant Warriors,” all of that should have been Blood-Soul Heaven’s plotting.

If you added their infiltration and control of the federal nations on top of that, why did it feel like, in the current main world, Blood-Soul Heaven’s influence was bigger than the Demon Court’s…

Just as Bai Xiang was deep in thought, her heart suddenly clenched. Light flashed in her eyes as she looked upward through the obstruction of the buildings, and the Jade Spirit, following the Taishang sense, was screaming warnings.

“I am a Heaven-Patrol of the Sacred Court.”

A condensed voice pierced straight through the void into her ears.

“Bai Xiang of Shenming.”

“Please come out so we may talk.”