Volume 4, Chapter 76 – Panic

Bai Xiang’s attention had drifted for just a moment when the Jade Spirit sent a warning into her mind. A stream-like mass of soul energy had latched onto her sleeve. She immediately cast a sidelong glance toward that corner and caught sight of a wisp of translucent gray-white airflow. Its shape was none other than Shenquan’s snake body.

So three out of the four have come. They have practically all gathered for me?

The little soul-snake had originally been trying to slip quietly into Bai Xiang’s robes, likely planning some underhanded scheme. But the instant it looked up, it met a pair of golden eyes. Its entire soul-body trembled, and the heart-piercing pain of its soul seal being destroyed earlier surged back into memory.

There was no room for hesitation now. Shenquan hovered far above in the sky, ruthlessness rising in his heart, and chanted aloud, “In the bitter sea of mortal dust there is no release. Entering the Dao, the divine pool comes to nothing. If one seeks true transcendence and great freedom, one must first cast off this body. Shed!”

With a hum, the little soul-snake collapsed in an instant. In the next moment, it exploded like a bomb that had detonated a soul domain, sending out ring after ring of translucent pale gray spiritual ripples. The blast sent people reeling everywhere. Countless passersby within a radius of a thousand meters had their souls shaken loose, drifting out with blank, stunned expressions.

What is this…

Caught in the tremor so suddenly, and right at the center of the blast, Bai Xiang’s face also split open into a soul-form identical to her physical features. For a moment, it looked as though multiple Bai Xiangs were overlapping within the same space, yet none of them could be fully separated from her.

“Zhu Canghai!” Shenquan roared from the air.

“I know!” Zhu Canghai had been selectively spared by this soul-shedding move and was completely unaffected. Knowing this was a rare chance, he immediately poured every ounce of strength in his body into the Jinque Sword, drove down with his legs, and pulled every tendon taut. With a thunderous shout, the broad blade scraped a dazzling shower of sparks off the Tianxuan Sword, then performed a burst of extreme acceleration over an unbelievably short distance. With terrifying speed, it slashed down across Bai Xiang’s shoulder and drove her whole body into the ground.

“He Xian!” Zhu Canghai kept shouting as he held Bai Xiang down. “What the hell are you waiting for?”

He Xian had already taken a moment to recover on the side and had more or less caught his breath. Even before Zhu Canghai yelled, he had begun forming seals and chanting under his breath, scattering stream after stream of shadow-arrows into the soulless bodies lying across the ground. One after another, they were twisted into his face and his shadow, then transformed again into shadow-arrows and shot toward the center in a concentrated barrage.

Even then, Shenquan did not stop. From high above, he flung out a square white jade seal shot through with threads of blood. It swept up all the souls that had been shaken out of their bodies and devoured them in an instant, then slammed into the ground with overwhelming force and pressure. Its target was Bai Xiang’s forehead.

Boom!!!

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All three methods landed together. In an instant, earth and dust erupted where she stood. Within the white curtain of light, the ground could be seen splitting apart, then crumbling bit by bit into fine grains of sand. Pillars of white light streaked with black shot backward out of the fissures, and for a moment the entire world lost its color.

Even Zhu Canghai, with his accomplished body cultivation, was left dazed after taking the aftershock at close range. His body tossed back and forth like a lone skiff in a storm. Only after being hurled back more than a hundred meters did he finally flip and steady himself, landing on one knee and gouging a long mark into the ground.

What happened to her?

He did not even have time to check his own injuries before lifting his head to stare at the center of the explosion, desperate to see what had become of the white-haired woman.

Back then, He Xian, Shenquan, and I made our way through the Void World by relying on the complement of soul, arts, and body. My Heavy-Speed, He Xian’s Shadow-Spirit Clone Arrows, and Shenquan’s Bitter Wheel Rebirth Seal might each count for no more than modest accomplishment on their own, but once we join forces and our Three Flowers complement each other, even a far stronger Venerable would suffer. At the very least, one physical body-form would have to be destroyed.

Whether that woman has ties to the Sacred Court or not, whether she has a holy weapon protecting her or not, under my Heavy-Speed suppression, she took all three attacks head-on… This time, she should be dead, shouldn’t she?

Time moved with agonizing slowness.

Zhu Canghai had no idea how many seconds passed. He only saw the white glow gradually die down, letting the bloody light of the sky appear again. The eastern street junction that had stood there before was now completely gone from the earth. Vast numbers of towers, buildings, people, and beasts seemed to have vanished in the blast. All that remained was an irregular crater stretching for a thousand meters, and inside it there seemed to be nothing left but dust and powder.

“Is she gone?” He Xian drifted down slowly beside Zhu Canghai, glanced at him with tension, and kept his attention fixed on the bottom of the pit.

Zhu Canghai said nothing. He only looked up at Shenquan in the sky. With his excellent eyesight, he could see at once that Shenquan’s brows were still tightly furrowed, with not the slightest trace of joy on his face.

The sight made Zhu Canghai’s heart sink.

Shenquan specializes in soul arts. His spiritual perception is sharper than ours. If he’s wearing that expression, then does that not mean her aura is still there? She actually kept her physical body under that combined strike? She did not even have to abandon this form and be reborn elsewhere?

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Rustle…

At that moment, earth stirred at the bottom of the crater, and an arm suddenly reached out.

That arm was wrapped in a tattered black silk glove. The torn sections exposed skin as white and lustrous as jade. It gripped the edge and hauled the body up until it sat upright in the crater.

Seeing that sight, the three Immortal Venerables watching from the side all changed color drastically, to the point that they almost thought they were seeing an illusion.

It really was Bai Xiang.

She clawed her way out of the dirt, drew up one knee, and slowly stood. As she moved, clumps of dirt and dust trickled from her body and hair. Then she brushed the dust off herself.

She looked a little disheveled, certainly. Her hair had come loose. The sleeve on her right arm, together with the tight battle garment beneath it, had been shredded, exposing her smooth shoulder and white arm. Even the front of her upper clothing had fallen loose and hung around her waist like a skirt, leaving only the tight undergarment binding her chest.

But from the way she moved, from the way she stood, the harm she had suffered was extremely limited.

Oh, both shoulders are dislocated.

Her right wrist and right knee are bent out of place.

But injuries like these were far too mild compared to what they had expected.

For a moment, the three of them looked almost frightened, frozen in place and unable to move. They could only stare as Bai Xiang brushed off the dust, then raised her twisted right arm before her eyes.

A soul-ability activated. The severed hand, which had been hanging on by only a layer of skin, slowly straightened back into place like rubber.

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The broken bones throughout her body shifted back into position.

The damage to her internal organs was repaired directly.

Her body rapidly returned to normal. Then she tore the ruined sleeve off her left arm, lifted a hand, and drew the Tianxuan Sword back to her grasp.

“Well struck.”

As she savored the fading salty taste of blood in her mouth, Bai Xiang’s voice carried a rare trace of excitement and anticipation.

“Do you have any other tricks?”

“Use them all.”

“Let me have a look.”

“…” He Xian was the first of the three to recover. He slowly shook his head while backing away. After a few steps, he suddenly turned and shot into the air, then burst apart into streams of shadow-arrows and fled in seven or eight different directions at once.

Zhu Canghai’s mouth twitched violently as well. He turned, picked one stream of shadow-arrows, and leapt away after it. Shenquan in the sky fled with him, neither of them daring to spare Bai Xiang a second glance.

They had been completely terrified by what Bai Xiang had shown them. They did not dare continue fighting her.

The faint smile on Bai Xiang’s face vanished at once, replaced by deep disappointment.

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I did not even bring my life-bound Dao sword. I already went easy on you.

If you run from even this level of battle, how do you deserve to walk the same path of longevity as I do?

Boom! The earth pit shook violently once more. Bai Xiang chased after them with steps twice as fast as Zhu Canghai’s, each footfall blowing out another huge crater and cloud of dust beneath her.

Boom!!!

On the final step, her body shot forward. Her right arm drew the Tianxuan Sword in beneath her chest, sighting on Zhu Canghai’s position. She drove up with her right shoulder and brought the blade down in a Mountain-Crash Strike.

Zhu Canghai felt his qi-presence lock onto him. Running, he changed expression and glanced back. The sight only deepened the terror on his face. In a panic, he raised his sword above his head to block and jumped half into the air, trying to reduce the resistance.

Zheng!

The two swords met, but the sound that rang out was more like the roar of a great bronze bell.

Midway through, Bai Xiang altered the cut into a flat strike. She turned the sword sideways and pressed the broad face of the Tianxuan Sword down onto the edge of the Jinque Sword, deliberately increasing the contact area. The two edges of the Tianxuan Sword pressed deeper and deeper into the metal blade, tighter and tighter, until with a crack it snapped the sword in two, then the flat of the blade slammed into Zhu Canghai’s chest.

Zhu Canghai did not even have time to scream. His body was swatted away like a baseball.

Bai Xiang did not chase him for the moment. She kicked off the ground again and rose, bringing down a mountain-splitting strike at Shenquan.