Volume 4, Chapter 171 – Godslaying

There had been no news of Cui Yuanhao for quite some time, to the point that Bai Xiang had nearly forgotten about him.

Added to that, the information she had gathered from the Venerable Net mentioned that Zhang Dai had not appeared in public for a long time. Rumor had it that in order to study the sacred weapon method and seek a different breakthrough on that path, he had gone so far as to descend into demonic obsession. Naturally, she had concluded that Tianfu Mountain would most likely withdraw from the tribulation struggle.

This was not baseless speculation, but a conclusion drawn from many angles.

Take Wentian Dao, for example.

Wentian Dao and Tianfu Mountain were both human-path forces. If the human path in the Void Realm intended to participate in this tribulation struggle over the main world, then Wentian Dao absolutely should not have thrown itself into the arms of the Qianyuan Sect right from the start. At the very least, it should have waited and watched a while longer.

But Zhang Dai had actually appeared here, and was even mixed up with the people of Jinguang Temple. That meant some of her judgments had gone wrong.

No, not just my judgment.

Bai Xiang’s thoughts spun rapidly.

Because of the stone that Wentian Dao had cast into the water, every force’s judgment of the human path had likely gone wrong.

In other words, this encirclement-and-kill trap aimed at her was not merely guided by Zhou Yuan, Ten-Extremes Daoist. It was also human-path forces like Tianfu Mountain and the remnants of Jinguang Temple taking advantage of the situation and following through on the plan.

Which meant that from the very beginning, their core goal had not been to avenge Zhou Yi at all, but rather the Xuandi Scripture in Bai Xiang’s possession, as well as the new Path of Qi!

“Bai Zhixing.”

Now that several hundred monks and several hundred Dao soldiers had suddenly emerged below and already surrounded Bai Xiang completely, leaving almost no dead angles even in the sky, the white-robed Daoist seated high above first recalled the thing he had used to strike at Bai Xiang earlier, then spoke her Dao name aloud.

“You disregarded the greater good and rejected my goodwill. That alone would have been one thing. But you also had a serious conflict with Dao Executor Cui, and after defeating him, you forcibly took the human-path sacred weapon I bestowed upon him, the Tianxuan Sword.”

Zhang Dai called back a dark, rod-like object and looked coldly down at the scene below.

“Furthermore, you indulged your disciple and kin in slaughtering fellow cultivators. You yourself, after recognizing Zhou Yi’s Great Hand Seal of Golden Light, forcibly intervened and killed him. Clearly, you coveted the secret art of Jinguang Temple that he possessed and intended to seize it and cultivate it in private.”

“That Zhou Yi had originally intended to discuss matters of the human path with you after the match, yet you murdered him anyway. It is plain to see that your heart holds no place for the people of the human path, only boundless greed for fame and power.”

“Bai Zhixing.” Zhang Dai narrowed his eyes. “You have committed countless evils in this lifetime.”

“I will ask you once more. Are you willing to submit and offer up the new method to be entrusted to the human path?”

Bai Xiang stared at that black rod-like object for quite a while. Then she cast a sideways glance over the monks and Dao soldiers before asking, “If I comply with Venerable Zhang, how does Venerable Zhang intend to deal with my qi method and Shenming Sword Dao?”

Reаԁ оn ΚαtReaԁіոɡCаfе

“Is that something you have the right to ask?” Cui Yuanhao cut in coldly. “You still cannot break through the limitations set by the Law-Transmitting Venerable Saint. For that qi method to remain in your hands is simply a waste!”

He had used the phrase “remain in your hands,” not “be created by me.”

Heh. So he still bears a grudge against me. Just as the rumors say, he really is arrogant to the bone.

Bai Xiang kept her eyes only on Zhang Dai, as though she had not heard a word Cui Yuanhao had just said.

Cui Yuanhao’s expression darkened again. His hand closed over his sword hilt, ready to flare up.

Zhang Dai raised a hand.

Cui Yuanhao’s face twisted, but he still shut his mouth and retreated half a step.

“If you convert, the disciples of Shenming will naturally be incorporated into Tianfu Mountain’s order.” Only then did Zhang Dai continue. “If you hand over the qi method, that will be a great merit. Merit offsetting fault, it will be enough to erase those punishments imposed on your kin.”

“As for you personally…”

Zhang Dai lowered his gaze and just happened to catch sight of the scar-headed old monk from earlier climbing out of the rocks in a filthy, bedraggled state.

“Since your hands are stained with blood debt and you viciously murdered the ‘reincarnated Buddhist heir’ nurtured by Master Denghai, your punishment is not something I alone can decide.”

Zhang Dai let out a faint sigh.

“My suggestion is that you first go with Master Denghai and serve a full hundred years at Jinguang Temple as a Candle-Attending Bodhisattva, doing your utmost to win the master’s forgiveness. After that, you may come to Tianfu Mountain to seek me out. In remembrance of your merits, I will appoint you Mountain-Guarding Sword Attendant…”

As he spoke, Zhang Dai’s brows gradually began to draw together, and his tone slowly turned absent-minded.

Because all the while, he too had been observing Bai Xiang’s expression. With every sentence he spoke, the mocking smile on Bai Xiang’s face deepened by another degree. Naturally, he could tell that Bai Xiang was not sincerely asking about her own “fate” at all.

“…It seems you are determined to resist to the end.”

An expression of profound disappointment appeared on Zhang Dai’s face. Shaking his head, he slowly closed his eyes.

“At the age of eighteen, to suppress the foremost of Heaven’s Pride—calling you dazzlingly gifted would not be an exaggeration.”

“But alas, you do not understand the greater good, nor do you respect the human path…”

Rеаd оn КаtRеaԁіnɡСαfe

“Venerable Zhang is far too arrogant.” Bai Xiang’s voice suddenly spread out, covering a wide swath of the surrounding airspace. The effect was like a voice amplified through a loudspeaker, accompanied by invisible ripples that spread outward in wave after wave.

“Today, I will teach Venerable Zhang two truths.”

Bai Xiang tightened her right hand around Feixiang Heaven and her left around the hilt of the Tianxuan Sword, then drew the latter with a ringing shing.

“First: only the greater good that I acknowledge counts as the greater good.”

“Second: only the human path that I acknowledge… counts as the human path.”

Grinning beneath everyone’s gaze, she smiled—and in the next instant, Bai Xiang threw out both swords. The Qi-Origin around her body took the shape of a giant Buddha. At the same time, her Qi-Origin linked with Tianyuan and guided a change in its nature, instantly cloaking the entire Buddha in a suit of lightning armor as crackling arcs of thunder burst forth.

And it was not over yet. The giant Buddha seized both swords in its hands; with a flick of its wrists, two thunder-light sword blades were dragged out with a tearing crackle. Every swing left behind layers upon layers of overlapping afterimages, and each layer, once it fell, turned directly into “reality.”

In the blink of an eye, the thunder-light Buddha had already swelled to several hundred meters in height. At the same time, from behind it emerged hundreds upon thousands of Buddha arms holding thunder swords. Like Bai Xiang at its center, the Buddha itself rose into the air seated in a lotus posture, and every bolt of lightning exploding around it condensed into a bud of the Forbidden-Method Tribulation Lotus.

Wind and clouds changed color. Heavy storm clouds rapidly gathered over this stretch of sky.

Cui Yuanhao’s expression turned extremely grave at the sight, because the intensity of the aura Bai Xiang displayed this time was at least twice what it had been when she fought him last time.

“Venerable…” he called out to remind Zhang Dai.

“As expected.” Zhang Dai did indeed frown slightly at first, but soon relaxed again. With a sweep of his sleeve, he scattered out a field of silver-glinting swords.

“All living beings take up the sword.”

“Form the ‘Godslaying Sword Array’!”

The first Forbidden-Method Tribulation Lotus had already burst open under the thunder-light Buddha’s control. Thunder kept exploding through the darkened sky, and with each flash of the continuous lightning, one could glimpse the vague shadow of a thunder pestle. Even the Jinguang Temple monks at the very front, despite using their defensive secret art of making golden light shine from the body, could not hold out. They were quickly forced back under the bombardment and drilling assault of thunder pestles and thunder swords, and the battle formation was smashed into disarray by the giant Buddha.

Boom boom boom boom—!

One thunder pestle after another exploded downward. Several monks had their golden-light Dharma robes blasted apart, spraying blood from their mouths as they flew backward.

Skrrt—clang!

Several more thunder swords, dragging trails of electricity, hacked down in an instant, slashing directly at the center of the formation—the position held by the scar-headed old monk. Every time they collided with the monk’s golden-light Dharma robe, a burst of crackling electricity and the ring of metal striking metal would erupt.

“Hah…!”

Rеаⅾ oո ΚatReаdiոɡСаfe

The old monk’s cultivation was clearly deeper than that of the other monks. With his only remaining left arm, he brought out an alms bowl and used it as a shield. Astonishingly, he was able to withstand the strikes of over a thousand thunder pestles and several hundred descending thunder swords.

“Excellent skill, Master.”

Bai Xiang’s voice sounded by his ear.

“Let me see—is this a tan-art, or manifested demonic power?”

The instant the words fell, an invisible ripple suddenly spread outward from the place where the thunder-light Buddha stood. Everyone and everything encompassed within that airspace felt their demonic power vanish in an instant, as if under some kind of edict, impossible to mobilize!

Do not panic!

The scar-headed old monk endured the miserable feeling of wanting to cough up blood. A many-rayed Buddhist light pattern appeared between his brows as he shaped his mouth to bark at the monk disciples: Quickly—all of you, get behind me!

Then what about this?

Suddenly, another “curious question” sounded by his ear.

The scar-headed old monk froze at first, then discovered that the bizarre domain that banned techniques and muted sound had… whooshed back all at once!

This was truly murderous.

Since these people had come to besiege and kill Bai Xiang, they had naturally researched her in advance. They all knew that when the Tribulation Lotus was activated, there would be tan-art sound suppression and that no Dao-Void cultivation could be used within it. Of course they had prepared countermeasures beforehand.

But why had no one said that this technique could be deployed with such speed, or withdrawn and restored with such effortless control?

Bai Xiang first used a vibration tone to lock Tianyuan, using Tianyuan to cut off everyone’s ability to mobilize demonic power and interrupt the secret arts and methods they were preparing. Naturally, that forced them to switch to other methods on the fly.

Either Jinguang Temple’s body-tempering secret arts, or moving behind the monks to use tan-arts to evade the thunder pestles.

But at that exact moment, Bai Xiang sent out another vibrating tone and lifted Tianyuan’s suppression!

With that one release and one withdrawal, many people’s internal energies crossed up on the spot, producing extremely violent loss of control!

In an instant, more than a dozen people exploded on the spot, blood spraying everywhere. More than a dozen others failed to suppress the contamination of demonic power, and their flesh swelled and warped all over, turning them into Yaosui monsters that had lost all reason!

“Bai Zhixing! You—”

Rеaԁ oո ΚαtRеаdinɡCafе

The scar-headed old monk was shocked and enraged, but before he could finish speaking, the vibrating ripples swept over him again, silencing every word that followed. He could not make a sound at all.

Release, withdraw, release again.

With this exquisite control of the Dao of Vibrating Space, combined with the thunder-light Buddha’s fierce thunder assault, the battle formation formed by Jinguang Temple collapsed the moment it met Bai Xiang. Even the scar-headed old monk himself was smashed from the ground into midair by a single sword strike and batted around like a baseball by hundreds of Buddha arms wielding thunder swords.

Bang bang bang!

Clang clang clang!

Zhang Dai, you old bastard—I’ve bought you nearly ten breaths already, and you still won’t make your move!?

In a tearing slash, half his face was sliced off by a thunder sword. Twisting that half-skeletal face around, the scar-headed old monk glared furiously toward Tianfu Mountain’s Dao contingent.

And at that moment, the hundred Dao soldiers of Tianfu Mountain had already received the swords bestowed by Zhang Dai. Each held a floating sword, and together they surrounded Zhang Dai in a vertical plane formation of Dao patterns.

Cui Yuanhao, meanwhile, fell into the inner ring with three others. They too drew their sacred swords and, imitating Zhang Dai’s posture, sat upright in the air.

Hm?

Sensing the powerful aura brewing over there, Bai Xiang turned her head to look—and discovered with some surprise that every sword in the hands of those outer disciples seemed to be a lower-grade sacred weapon.

And the swords held by Cui Yuanhao and the other three were even more numinous, each manifesting the outer aspect of a fire hawk, a water python, a flower demon, and a fog-wraith… These were actually four middle-grade sacred weapons!

Then Zhang Dai himself…

She immediately fixed her gaze on Zhang Dai’s position and saw him stretch out his right hand and crush that black rod with force.

As flakes of steel continued to fall away, what emerged was a sword of entirely golden hue, now firmly gripped in Zhang Dai’s hand.

“All living beings borrow the law.”

“With this sword, slay the gods.”

“Go seek out that guiding pull… go!”

Holding the sword, Zhang Dai pointed from afar toward the thunder-light Buddha. Then he tossed the golden sword—and at the same time, everyone else tossed out the swords in their hands as well. At once, they rolled together into a river of sword-light, like a towering storm cloud, crashing madly down upon the thunder Buddha.