Volume 5, Chapter 42 – Eruption (Two-in-One)

The Yao Yu demon ancestor had not noticed anything unusual about “He Chuan,” but somewhere in the back of her mind she kept receiving a warning of unease, as though she had overlooked something, and that oversight was about to bring about some kind of disaster.

So naturally, the first thing she thought of was the Hunyuan Buddhist Bead she had given “He Chuan” to conceal his aura.

Though this thing was called a Buddhist bead, in reality it had been excavated from the great Buddha relief behind her. In other words, the one hundred and eight Hunyuan Buddhist Beads were, in fact, the one hundred and eight eyeballs that had been gouged out from it.

The reason for that was naturally because these things were too dangerous.

Although the Yao Yu demon ancestor had not yet explored this ruin deeply enough—she still did not dare confirm whether the Buddha corresponding to this corpse was the “Divine-Eyed World-Seeing Buddha” or the “Vajra Lapis Buddha” of myth—she had at least already realized that the most important condition for activating this thing was “gaze.”

To gaze upon it was to touch it, and that would inevitably produce a corresponding stimulus upon the corpse. That influence would rise in step with one’s cultivation and with the strength of one’s life-force. And the most dangerous kind of gaze was to let this corpse “see itself.”

That was why she had chosen to gouge out all of the corpse’s eyeballs, and also why she had placed seal-sigils over almost every relief mural.

A number of disciples had once suffered the consequences of trying the latter. On the surface, nothing appeared wrong with them at first, but in that very instant they were controlled by the contamination transmitted by the corpse. After that, every word, action, movement, and bearing of theirs began transmitting the same contamination outward. By the time anyone truly discovered what was happening, nearly all of the Suzhen disciples excavating the ruins had already been ruined, transformed into devout believers of some kind of void faith.

Could my unease really be because of this?

The Yao Yu demon ancestor frowned slightly.

“He Chuan” was running over in a humble little crouch, and as he ran, he was already taking out the Hunyuan Buddhist Bead.

At that sight, both the Yao Yu demon ancestor and Wu Mengzi, who was watching from the side, let out a breath of relief. The former even instinctively swept her gaze across the entire black-stone hall, thinking that fortunately the problem was not with this thing, because otherwise those two hundred-odd Wendao Institute disciples would certainly have been lost.

Though they had been expendable from the start—anyone reduced to doing this kind of work would inevitably be contaminated little by little, and would have to be dealt with afterward regardless—it was still not yet time to throw them away. If they died now, finding replacements would be very troublesome.

“He Chuan” came forward with the Hunyuan Buddhist Bead raised in both hands. The Yao Yu demon ancestor withdrew her attention from the surroundings and reached out to take it.

Suddenly!

At that very instant, the bead turned into a blur and vanished. Instead, directly above the Yao Yu demon ancestor’s head, as though something had moved from the relief wall behind her, there came a crisp click!

“…????”

“…!!!???”

It was as if time had frozen.

To say the three people before the stone coffin were glaring till their eyes split would not even be enough to describe it. At first, they instinctively widened their eyes to the limit, so much so that the whites occupied more than ninety percent of their eyes, while the pupils at the center shrank to needlepoints, reflecting the terror spreading through the depths of their hearts.

Th-this… what exactly…

“He Chuan…” Zhao Feng slowly turned his gaze until it covered the fish-headed man, his mouth murmuring, “Do you even know… what you’re doing…?”

“He’s been contaminated.” Wu Mengzi’s body had gone stiff, and looking carefully, one could even see him trembling faintly. “Feng’er, hurry… hurry and take that thing down. Remember, don’t open your eyes at any point…”

“So it really was you!” The Yao Yu demon ancestor fixed a furious stare on the “He Chuan” before her. So that ominous premonition really had come true here after all.

What she absolutely could not understand was this: as someone extremely sensitive to the aura of sapient beings, how could she possibly have allowed a “contaminated one” to get this close without noticing anything?

That Wendao Institute disciple.

No—it should be that bead!

How exactly had it managed to do something like this?

“How interesting.”

“When facing me, you weren’t nearly this frightened.”

“So am I to assume that if I obtained the same kind of ‘manifestation’ as this thing, you would face me with the same humility?”

A low, pleasant, slightly husky voice, one that could only be described as sexy, suddenly drifted over from ahead.

Zhao Feng and the other two had still been holding their bodies stiff, not daring to move, all the while calculating how to lower their sense of presence in the eyes of some unknowable thing. The moment they heard that voice, they instinctively looked forward and cast their gaze toward the fish-headed man.

Like the moon’s reflection cast upon the mirror of the stillest lake.

The false outward appearance collapsed and dispersed, revealing the real image beneath.

A black so deep it resembled hell itself. And upon that dark base, dragon patterns had been embroidered in dark-gold thread. A single broad sash bound it at the waist, wrapping that graceful, jade-like figure.

Soft white hair. Only a portion at the back had been gathered up and casually pinned with a hairpin. Beneath the parted bangs framing her face, there appeared a beautiful, fair, delicate countenance.

Unlike the repression in her voice, that beautiful face was smiling.

As though she had finally seen something she had long wanted to see, that smile was dazzling, radiant, and utterly heartfelt.

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Only those eyes.

Those eyes, dark-gold in the light and faintly reflective, conveyed nothing but endless coldness and endless depth.

“Di… Xiang…?”

Very slowly, one word at a time, Wu Mengzi ground out that name through his teeth.

At that moment, his mind had gone almost completely blank. A chaotic torrent of information exploded in his head, until in the end it pieced itself together into a scene of light and shadow.

The image was blurred, but it could vaguely be identified as satellite footage. It seemed to be somewhere in deep space. A white-haired female cultivator stood there with sword in hand, facing the dark tide converging from ahead, or rather from all directions. She resolutely raised her sword forward, and the tide split to either side as though crashing into a giant blade, failing to strike the planet behind her with its most violent force.

That kind of power.

That kind of power.

She was… here?

Together with… me?

“Don’t look at her eyes!”

The Yao Yu demon ancestor reacted first, letting out a shrill cry as she coldly snapped Wu Mengzi and Zhao Feng back to themselves.

“She knows Emperor Feng’s evil method… don’t look at her eyes! Send word to the Holy Lord! Quickly!”

It was as if time slowed again.

Everything around them broke apart into frame-by-frame slow motion.

One Wendao Institute disciple after another turned and looked up, all kinds of expressions frozen on their faces.

Zhao Feng slowly drew his sword, his eyes filled with shock and uncertainty as he looked at Bai Xiang.

Wu Mengzi drew his Dao-sword with his left hand, while his right fumbled toward his waist, as though searching for some communication device. The movement looked clumsy.

The Yao Yu demon ancestor, the old woman in cassock, split open at the brow, and a blurry shadow was on the verge of emerging from within, as though in the next instant it would leap out of that skin and spring through the air toward Bai Xiang.

A great upheaval

was unfolding within the black-stone hall.

And Bai Xiang paid no attention to any of it.

She neither raised her sword to intercept Zhao Feng and Wu Mengzi’s blades, nor spared a glance for the black shadow lunging at her.

She merely stood there, slowly lifting her head, and in a voice like a sigh, softly said:

“The Tathagata sees me.”

“I see the Tathagata.”

“After the washing of endless years, have you ever seen your full form?”

Wh… what… did… she… say…?

Wh… who… exactly… was… she… speaking… to…?

Their hearts were filled with immense terror. Though his reason knew this was wrong, though he knew perfectly well this was the most taboo and forbidden action possible, Wu Mengzi still could not help but slowly turn his head, looking toward the gigantic relief behind him.

And then he saw a scene that made him feel as though he had fallen into an ice pit.

There was no longer any such thing as a relief.

The protruding portions of the relief were turning into a kind of pitch-black sludge, or rather some substance between black mud and flesh. The fifty-four Buddha faces had already twisted together like a vortex, and at the very center was the Buddhist bead Bai Xiang had tossed up and embedded into its surface.

The bead was growing… little by little…

It was being pushed and squeezed by the black mud and flesh, so that the hole through its center became a “pupil,” little by little invaded by the black mud and flesh, while veins and membranes began bulging up across the wood-grain surface.

But what truly filled Wu Mengzi with fear and horror was that this gigantic single eye was slowly turning gold.

From dark gold to brilliant gold, then to a bizarre gleam, then moving with uncanny agility inside that fleshy framework, turning a few times until its black pupil aimed straight at him. The feeling that eye gave him was Bai Xiang herself, as though it were the eye of that demonic woman standing behind him!

Zheng—

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The giant eye burst forth with a bizarre gaze, splashing tangible golden light across the air and covering every living being within the black-stone hall.

Under the influence of that bizarre golden light, Zhao Feng’s blade and the black shadow lunging from the Yao Yu demon ancestor were both frozen in place. They could only watch as Bai Xiang walked straight through between them with light tapping footsteps, and in passing took the string of Buddhist beads hanging at the old woman’s neck as well.

“Di Xiang…!”

The tail of that black shadow was still connected to the old woman’s body. She struggled mightily to turn her head, her mouth forcing out a weak voice. “Do you know what you’re doing?”

“Our grudge can be settled separately, but this thing… once this thing is released without restraint… it won’t just kill us. Even you will die with us!”

“Even so, does that not matter to you?”

“To pay such a price just to kill us.”

“Don’t you want to return to Eastern Xia anymore? Don’t you want to see your clansmen again?”

“You can’t control this thing at all!”

“Give it up now!”

“Help us suppress It again…”

“There’s no need to make it that troublesome,” Bai Xiang interrupted.

She walked beneath the squirming blurry shadow, lifted her head, and met the gaze of the golden pupil she had already contaminated with her own soul. Yet within her heart another vision took shape, one that reflected the face of her true self.

So, compared to the sapient beings of this world, it is me instead.

I, the outsider, and this soul I have condensed, am like poison to Them.

“Heh.”

Her lips curled upward, and Bai Xiang tossed the entire string of Buddhist beads into the giant shadow, letting the black mud wrap around and devour them.

“She’s gone mad!”

At that moment, the Yao Yu demon ancestor forcibly broke free from the golden light’s immobilization, shrieking as she fled frantically toward the exit.

“Run!”

“Run!!!”

Rumble—

The entire black-stone hall began to shake, and even Qingli Immortal Manor, built upon the foundation of these ruins, shook along with it.

Thousands upon thousands of Suzhen disciples and Yao clansmen stood within the city and turned to look, only to see the towering Immortal Manor palace billowing dust as it collapsed with a thunderous crash. Then three bedraggled figures burst out from within.

Those were—

Some sharp-eyed disciples immediately recognized them. Among those three were actually the old Sword Lord and Senior Brother Zhao Feng?

“Feng’er, hurry and take them away!”

Wu Mengzi emerged with a grave expression and tore a jade plaque from his waist, shoving it into Zhao Feng’s hand.

“Master!” Zhao Feng gritted his teeth and gripped the old man’s wrist tightly. “Then what about you?”

“Di Xiang came for me.” Wu Mengzi’s voice was full of gnashing hatred. “She won’t let me go. Hurry and leave! Take the Yao imperial clansmen and His Majesty with you too! That gentleman is already on his way. Get them out! Go find him!”

Damn it!

Zhao Feng could hardly believe that the situation had collapsed this far in an instant. A surge of resentment and savagery toward Bai Xiang rose in his heart unlike anything before.

True, he and Bai Xiang did not have much of a grudge between them. He had even once admired her deeply. But that did not mean he was willing to stand by and let her exterminate his sect!

This had nothing to do with right or wrong. The Suzhen Dao had raised him and nurtured him!

If he abandoned his master and fled alone, what right would he have to continue calling himself Senior Brother?

Clutching the jade plaque, Zhao Feng rapidly searched the streets around the great hall and quickly located Dou Feiyun and her group, who were hurrying this way.

“Junior Sister Dou!”

He rushed forward and stuffed both Wu Mengzi’s jade plaque and his own into her hands.

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“Senior Brother?”

Dou Feiyun froze, clearly still not understanding what was happening.

“Di Xiang got in,” Zhao Feng explained tersely. “Take everyone and go, now!”

Rumble—

Suddenly, the shaking intensified.

The two of them turned back and at the same time stared in horrified disbelief at the huge shadow slowly rising from beneath the palace ruins.

Crash!

Cracks spread from it in all directions through the surrounding streets. The Yuqing Stone paving, meant to block contamination, began breaking apart and collapsing one piece after another. Countless pedestrians had no time to react before the black mud and flesh surging up from beneath their feet wrapped around and devoured them!

“Di Xiang!”

“With your status… if you have any grievance, come at me! Why make things difficult for these innocent mortals!”

At that sight, the anger in Wu Mengzi’s heart overwhelmed his fear for the first time. Dao-sword in hand, he flew alone into the air above the giant shadow and shouted his accusation.

“Mortals?”

“Innocent?”

The giant shadow suddenly contracted inward, forming a vast black lotus bud. As the lotus petals gradually opened, Bai Xiang’s figure was revealed once more.

“Do you truly think they are mortals, and do you truly think they are innocent?”

As Bai Xiang cast back the question, her tightly closed eyes slowly opened outward as well.

An utterly shocking and terrifying scene took place.

As she opened her eyes, almost in perfect synchronization, something beneath the black lotus on which she sat, within the black mud and flesh writhing below, also began opening in the same way.

They were one hundred and eight eyeballs, each larger than a train engine.

Every single one of them was golden, just like Bai Xiang’s own eyes.

At first, those eyeballs remained still for a brief instant. Then they freely rearranged and, pushed by the black mud, gathered behind Bai Xiang into fifty-four gigantic Buddhas of different forms and expressions. Their bodies were entirely interwoven and fused together, and from that fusion formed an even larger Buddha.

Rumble…

Qingli Immortal Manor was still collapsing.

Black mud and flesh kept surging out, rapidly spreading to every boundary around the city. Anyone trying to escape through the city’s edges would be blocked by black mud at the outermost perimeter. Not a single living being could get out.

What exactly is this… what kind of method is this…?

At the sight of it, the Yao Yu demon ancestor was trembling from head to toe.

To control a god-and-Buddha corpse of this level, even I, even the ancient demon You, the being most skilled in parasitism across all the ages, would never dare attempt it lightly!

But she had done it.

And she seemed to bear almost no burden for it.

She could not understand it.

How was that possible?

“What is that?”

“An evil invasion?”

“With Master Wu and the ancestor both here, how could some evil thing possibly slip in so easily?”

Among the crowd fleeing in panic, a fair-skinned, slightly plump middle-aged man was struggling forward under the protection of his attendants.

His face resembled that of the current Northern Yu emperor, Yao Sheng, by about sixty percent. He was none other than the previous Yu Emperor, Yao Xing, who had apparently been hiding here as well.

“Oh? So even the Yu Emperor is present.”

Bai Xiang cast her gaze sideways, and the hundred and eight golden giant eyes high above turned in the same direction.

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“Ahhh!!!”

At that sight, Yao Xing let out a shriek, his whole body spasmed once, and he rolled his eyes back and fainted on the spot.

“Di Xiang,” the Yao Yu demon ancestor said in a low voice. “Name your price.”

“What price do I have to pay before you’ll let me leave?”

At last, she had seen the situation clearly.

They could not win.

Forget Bai Xiang, who could control a god-and-Buddha corpse. Even if Bai Xiang simply turned and walked away right now, the sum of all of them together might still be unable to suppress this Buddha corpse. It might even devour every last one of them instead.

A thing like this, something that had likely awakened from around the primordial age, could already be called a demon god.

The gap in strength was simply too great.

All she could do was stall.

Stall until that person arrived to reinforce them.

Bai Xiang did not answer her immediately. Instead, she controlled the Buddha corpse, using the black mud and flesh formed from the softened stone reliefs, using the tendrils condensed from them to crush all the attendants and guards around Yao Xing into flesh and blood-mud. Then she lifted Yao Xing alone into the air before finally turning to look at the Yao Yu demon ancestor.

“Only let you go?”

“These are your descendants and clansmen. Are you not going to care about them?”

“If killing these people can appease the Xia Emperor, if it can calm Your Majesty’s wrath… then they will at least have fulfilled the value they were meant to fulfill.”

The Yao Yu demon ancestor changed her tone once more and spoke in a flattering manner.

“Bai Nianchan.”

Bai Xiang suddenly spoke a name.

“Hm?” The Yao Yu demon ancestor froze, failing to react at first.

“Bai Nianchan. Do you still remember that name?”

Time passed.

Second by second, it continued to flow.

Visibly, the old woman possessed by the Yao Yu demon ancestor began to look uglier and uglier.

Of course she remembered that name.

Back then, she had originally intended to use Bai Nianchan as her new host. But because Bai Nianchan possessed a rare talent, one that allowed her to actively sense and even identify Spirit-Vein Demons, it had been inconvenient for her to act personally across such a long distance. So instead, she had simply manipulated the situation, helping Yao Qingyuan set up a trap and steering the general flow of events that followed.

But how could this be…

A mere mortal junior… Was Di Xiang not adopted by the Bai family?

By the time she had memories, Bai Nianchan should have been dead long ago!

Why was she bringing up that name?

It made no sense.

“I am tired of your habitual arrogance, always believing that people and events alike should move according to your will.”

With a sigh, Bai Xiang sat down.

The lotus throne of its own accord formed into a seat made of countless twisted Buddhas, allowing her to lounge upon it with one leg crossed, one hand supporting her cheek.

“Do you know why you were able to send your voices outward just now?”

She smiled faintly, her gaze sweeping over the old woman, then over Wu Mengzi’s face.

“The grand stage has already been prepared.”

“Lousy strategist.”

“Are you still not coming out?”