Volume 4, Chapter 120 – Clearing the Field

Once one entered the Venerable ranks, access to the Venerable Net naturally came with it. Everyone present had seen Bai Xiang’s portrait on the Venerable Net rankings, and they recognized at once that she was the infamous “Immortal Venerable Shenming.”

“This would be… little sister Zhixing?”

It was Zhu Yunsheng’s first time seeing a woman with such allure in person. According to the dossier, Bai Xiang was only eighteen this year, and relying on his seniority, he began to run his mouth. “Well now… Brother Wang and I were just thinking of inviting little sister over for some fun. Who would have thought little sister would come on her own!”

“Come, come, take a seat!” he said excitedly, spreading his hands in invitation. “Watch Brother Wang and me finish a game…!”

Zhu Yunsheng did not notice in the least how terrified He Xian and Zhu Canghai looked after those words left his mouth.

Although they had already submitted to Bai Xiang, the fear they had suffered while fighting her was still branded into their hearts.

They had a psychological shadow around Bai Xiang. They really did not want to see her angry.

“Play a game?” Bai Xiang first narrowed her golden eyes, then shifted her gaze from Zhu Yunsheng’s face to Wang Xiu’s. The tall young man wore an expression of open amusement, and the way he looked at her was utterly unrestrained.

From what she sensed, the aura strength of the three people beside him was not much different from Zhu Canghai and He Xian.

In other words, the other side had gathered five Venerables here, and Wang Xiu had even received commentary on the Venerable Net saying that he was qualified to enter the top ten of the Heaven’s Pride List.

As for Zhu Yunsheng, thanks to the Jade Spirit, Bai Xiang also had some impression of him.

Ranked seventy-seventh on the Heaven’s Pride List, he was already close to thirty this year. Relying on his status as the chief heir of the Yuling Sect, he had done plenty of swaggering and bullying across the various seas of the Void Realm. But because he had always been good at reading the room, knowing whom he could provoke and whom he could not, and because his strength truly was enough to rank within the top hundred of the Heaven’s Pride List, he had never suffered any major disaster to this day.

The Heaven’s Pride List’s commentary on him said that Zhu Yunsheng was exceptionally skilled at refining “Yuling Marrow Threads,” and had extremely high attainments in the art of body control. He frequently preyed on beautiful mortals, male and female alike, infusing their bodies with “marrow threads” and refining them into slaves.

Bai Xiang’s golden eyes flicked toward the two graceful beauties beside him, and sure enough, she found that although the two women were beautiful, their expressions were wooden and lifeless, like dolls.

They were probably some poor souls from who-knew-where who had already fallen victim to this thief.

Guessing that the reason he had been sizing her up was probably because he was thinking about just that sort of thing, Bai Xiang felt there was no need to say another word to someone like him.

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She bent down, grabbed one corner of the chessboard, and before Wang Xiu and the others could react, smashed it hard into Zhu Yunsheng’s face.

Because Bai Xiang controlled her strength, the chessboard did not explode apart in midair.

But she had, after all, achieved quite a bit on the path of body cultivation. Not only had all three of her Origin Orifices been manifested and tempered, she had also opened more than sixty hidden orifices. Across both legs and both feet, six hidden meridians had reached the stage of [initial manifestation-tempering], while the three meridians in her right arm had reached [perfect manifestation-tempering].

As a result, the farther she drove her strength through the motion, the more ferocious the force became. By the end, even her arm together with the chessboard tore through the air, sending Zhu Yunsheng flying bodily out of the pavilion. Only once he was in midair did a muffled boom erupt.

Boom.

The soundwave kicked up a shockwave, and the entire pavilion shook.

“Bai Zhixing!” Wang Xiu was both startled and furious. He shot to his feet and immediately reached toward Bai Xiang.

At the same instant, the two graceful beauties’ expressions changed drastically as well, shifting from vacant to vicious. A pair of long, slender thrusting swords slid out from each of their sleeves, and they attacked Bai Xiang together with Wang Xiu.

Only the three loose Venerables following Wang Xiu reacted a bit more slowly. It was only when the soundwave spread and they saw that the situation had changed that they realized what was happening. They hurriedly sprang into motion, but instead of charging Bai Xiang, they went straight for Zhu Canghai and He Xian.

They still had confidence in Wang Xiu. In their view, the urgent matter was to cut off Bai Xiang’s two “accomplices.” First, three against two, they would eliminate the threat posed by Zhu Canghai and He Xian. Then they could turn back and assist Wang Xiu in surrounding Bai Xiang. No matter how formidable she was, she would not be able to stir up much.

Faced with the encirclement, Bai Xiang’s expression did not change in the slightest.

Wang Xiu suddenly felt that something was wrong.

He stared intently at Bai Xiang’s face, wanting to see panic and fear in her expression, in her eyes.

But there was no emotion in her eyes at all.

There was only emptiness. Only indifference.

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Those uncanny golden pupils seemed to contain some mysterious force. He felt time slow to a crawl in that instant. He could clearly see everything, but his body could not respond. All he could do was watch as everyone around him, himself included, seemed to enter a kind of slow-motion state, while Bai Xiang alone remained at a normal speed and casually drew the sword at her waist.

Buzz… Buzz…

Bai Xiang only drew Feixiang Heaven halfway before she shook her wrist and used the Vibration Art, blasting the wooden scabbard into splinters as an invisible vibration-tone spread from the blade.

In an instant, the vibration-tone covered a radius of a hundred meters, and it continued spreading farther and farther out. Every sentient being caught within its range, whether Wang Xiu or the beautiful puppet attendants, was forcibly made to halt the Dao-Void Methods circulating within the body. All of their Demonic Power and cultivation were sealed shut.

The feeling was utterly unbearable. Wang Xiu had accomplished something in body cultivation and could still hold on, but the two beauties had their circulation go awry in a single breath. Their movements twisted out of shape, blood sprayed from their mouths, and their bodies were immediately hurled away by the vibration wave.

In the process, all sound vanished completely.

Everything became like a deathly silent film.

In the slowed scene, one could only watch as the pavilion was blasted apart bit by bit, shattered… and even the hilltop itself was reduced to powder.

Then, from the flat ground, a brilliant azure bolt of lightning erupted.

The first streak of lightning was like the first spark of life carved out of chaos, vivid and teeming with vitality, sketching a blue tribulation lotus into being out of thin air.

Then came a second, a third…

By the time Wang Xiu and the others saw clearly what was happening in the heavens, and even Zhu Yunsheng, blood running down his head, glared upward in fury, all of them discovered in astonishment that at some unknown moment the sky had already filled with dark clouds. Bai Xiang, clad in white, sat cross-legged in the void. Behind her, there faintly appeared the shadow of a Buddha spanning heaven and earth. And across the entire sky bloomed thousands upon thousands of blue tribulation lotuses!

What was this!?

The three loose Venerables were aghast, and Zhu Yunsheng’s face was full of shock.

It was not just that they could not comprehend what was happening. Even Zhu Canghai and He Xian, who had thought they understood Bai Xiang’s strength, were deeply shaken.

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This was also the first time they had seen Bai Xiang’s self-created great divine ability sword formula: Forbidden-Method Tribulation Lotus!

When Bai Xiang had suppressed them before, it was because she had not brought her life-bound Dao sword, so she had relied more on brute bodily force. They had never imagined such a possibility… that had not even been her full strength!

By comparison, only Wang Xiu had expected something like this.

But… was this really how it was supposed to be?

Damn it, in the simulated footage those people had provided, there had not been nearly this many tribulation lotuses!

Not only had the quantity far exceeded expectations, the quality of each lotus seemed to have evolved as well!

In the simulated footage, the tribulation lotuses had been about one meter in length and width, and less than half a meter tall. Their blue color had been pale and bright.

But the tribulation lotuses manifested here by Bai Xiang were each at least one and a half meters in length and width, nearly half a person’s height, and every petal bore its own proper veins etched into it. They looked almost real!

Anyone with half a brain could tell that the power of these tribulation lotuses was definitely nothing like what the intelligence had described.

Seeing inwardly that the momentum was going in the wrong direction, and cursing that this woman was a lunatic who wanted life and death decided the instant they met, Wang Xiu opened his mouth and tried to shout at Bai Xiang, hoping to ease the atmosphere.

But it was useless.

He opened his mouth and could feel his throat vibrating, yet not a single sound came out. He had been temporarily stripped of the right to speak.

And as Bai Xiang’s half-lidded golden eyes opened once more, countless tribulation lotuses across the heavens exploded at the same time.

Each tribulation lotus shattered into a long, narrow lightning spike.

At the top of each spike were carved three ghostly faces. Its lower end was sharp like a spear tip, while the grip in the middle was inscribed with Sanskrit characters. It resembled the demon-subduing vajra of Buddhist and Daoist scripture. The moment it revealed its savage form, it signified Vajra’s wrath descending to scour the human world with thunderous means.

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That was it…

I do not intend to obey the Demon Court, nor have I ever intended to obey rules laid down by others.

Quietly watching the lightning wash everything clean, her face half bright and half shadowed in the radiance, Bai Xiang finally clarified the desire in her heart.

Those things do not bind me.

You are the ones who should obey me.

You should be following my rules.

If walking the Great Dao of longevity requires going through a process like this…

If obeying my own desires and my own nature requires going this far…

Then I do not think I mind.

She pressed her lips together and formed a strange finger seal with each hand. The bases of her palms braced against each other; the index finger of her right hand pointed upward, while the index finger of her left hand pointed downward.

This was a sword seal that Bai Xiang had comprehended and modified from the supreme art of Jinguang Temple, the Great Jinguang Hand Seal.

And its meaning was:

“In heaven and under heaven,”

“I alone am supreme.”