Volume 5, Chapter 60 – Coordinates

For a moment, both siblings wore strange expressions.

So-called “silent speech” referred to a way of chatting without speaking… was that what it meant?

It seemed the Liren-shi had already grown accustomed to these technological creations.

“Come.”

Rongyin looked up at Tao Sicheng. “Come here.”

Tao Kangyuan immediately grabbed his sister’s hand. Tao Sicheng gave him a glance, pried his fingers loose, and quickly walked over to Rongyin.

“Good.”

Rongyin was very satisfied with what she had done. The next moment, she waved a hand, and Tao Sicheng suddenly felt a chill along the side of her neck, as if a blade had sliced across it. In an instant, a spray of blood spurted out.

“You…” She hastily clapped a hand over the wound on her neck, and the look in her eyes when she turned to Rongyin became guarded.

“What are you afraid of?” Rongyin did not care in the slightest. “You’re fusing with it right now. Don’t you know that?”

“Creatures like ‘You’ aren’t good for much else, but their recovery ability is second to none.”

“Don’t believe me? Then take your hand away and look.”

Tao Sicheng frowned. She did as told, lifting her hand and touching the wound, only to discover in shock that the cut had already scabbed over.

Th-This… this healing speed!?

She immediately thought of the Spirit-Vein Demon that had dropped dead on her face.

I… I absorbed its remains and gained its abilities?

“This is power that comes from Jiuli,” Rongyin said.

“Jiuli is a divine bird, the totem our people have worshiped since ancient times. It lends us its power, helping us survive in the most dangerous environments. In return, we offer it incense and faith, helping it grow even stronger.”

“‘Jiuli’…” Tao Sicheng murmured the name under her breath, then her expression suddenly changed drastically. “You mean… the Demon God ‘Jiuli’???”

Whether “Demon Gods” truly existed had never actually been settled.

But there were indeed some scholars who studied ancient ruins. On television and the internet, they had publicly put forward the view that certain demon-beast totems enshrined in unearthed “Demon God temples” were very likely deities worshiped by ancient lifeforms.

She had heard rumors that one such Demon God temple stood in the northwestern desert. Once, endless sandstorms had risen there and even swallowed the entire Xifeng Circuit, completely transforming the landscape. Some scholars had gone there to investigate and copied back fragments of ancient seal script. Based on analysis, they translated the name “Jiuli,” which gave rise to a theory: that the temple enshrined a deity known as Jiuli.

“Is that really so strange?”

Rongyin let out a cold laugh. “People of the present age clearly accept the term ‘Demon God temple,’ yet they still act so shocked by the existence of Demon Gods. With a temperament that twisted, if she hadn’t risen out of nowhere, they would probably have been crushed by the demon race so thoroughly they could never turn things around.”

Just then, the carved pattern on the floor beneath her feet, the one that had been cleared of dust, began to change because it had been stained with Tao Sicheng’s blood.

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The twisting lines started curling back one by one. Every time a line drew inward, it pulled a savage bird’s head out from a recessed latch. This happened nine times in all, until all the warped lines had drawn together into a radiating cluster. At first glance, it even looked like a stone sun carving.

“Seven… eight… nine!”

Rongyin had been counting the lines all along. By the time she reached seven, she was already excited. By the time she reached nine, she was beside herself with exhilaration. Gripping Tao Sicheng’s shoulders, she burst into delighted laughter.

“Hahaha! Good!”

“Nine-Fusion Divine Meridians! They’re actually Nine-Fusion Divine Meridians!”

“Do you know what that means?”

“It means that once your meridian fusion is complete, the moment you truly awaken, every channel and acupoint in your body apart from the Three Origin Apertures will be lit up! You’ll step directly into the realm above the Venerable ranks in the flesh! You may even have a chance to seek the Saint Realm!”

Th-That… really?

She isn’t lying to me… is she?

Tao Sicheng was dazed, and found it almost impossible to believe.

“The way we ancient clans cultivate is different from the people of the present world. For us, bloodline purity, whether that purity allows awakening, and how far that awakening can go, directly determine our upper limit.”

The way Rongyin looked at Tao Sicheng had already changed, and even her tone of explanation had become far more solemn.

“There’s no need to be so shocked.”

“There aren’t many lucky ones like you.”

“After all, these are Nine-Fusion Divine Meridians… in the entire history of our clan, only two others have ever appeared.”

“And if you want to truly awaken, you’ll still have to suffer quite a bit before then.”

“So… you… our goal is to overturn Eastern Xia’s rule, right?”

Tao Kangyuan was already dumbstruck. Tao Sicheng, meanwhile, had barely managed to piece together the thread of events. She stared into Rongyin’s eyes, trying to infer these people’s true purpose.

“…Her innovations are shaking the foundations of the immortals and buddhas.”

Rongyin frowned, seeming unwilling to discuss this in detail.

“In short, all you need to know is that there are many people who don’t like the sight of her.”

“Not just Pilgrimage Mountain.”

“Not just our Liren-shi either.”

“Then who else?” Tao Sicheng pressed.

“How many people do we have?”

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“Have we reached cooperation with Pilgrimage Mountain?”

“Has the Federation also intervened?”

“How many other ancient clans remain hidden within Eastern Xia after returning? Do all of them have ‘Demon Gods’ behind them?”

“Before you reach the upper limit of your gift, you don’t need to know that much.” Rongyin’s expression had turned a little ugly.

But the thing I have always been proudest of was never my gift for power, but my ability to plan and coordinate!

A sharp light flickered in Tao Sicheng’s eyes.

If I can take control of the Liren-shi and command this force, then I—

Boom!!!

At that very moment, without the slightest warning, a tremendous crash sounded overhead.

Like divine thunder from the Ninth Heaven exploding right beside her ear, it blasted Tao Sicheng rigid with shock. Blood burst wildly from the half of her face that was still writhing.

Before she could even react to what had happened, Rongyin flashed over and threw her to the ground. In the next instant, the floor beneath them was punched through by some immense force, and the two of them dropped with it.

“Mmph…? Mmph!?”

Tao Sicheng was worried about Tao Kangyuan and wanted to call out for her brother, but Rongyin clamped a hand over her mouth so tightly that she could barely breathe.

Then, suddenly, every hair on her body stood on end. She had a vague but overpowering sensation that above her head, outside the great hole punched open by the lightning, something utterly terrifying was peering down at her.

At once, she stopped all struggling and curled obediently into Rongyin’s arms.

Drip.

Drip.

A thunderstorm had started outside.

Rainwater streamed in through the hole, dripping down, soaking through, chilling Tao Sicheng all the way to her heart.

Just as she thought that unknown will was about to find her, the pressure hanging over her head vanished abruptly, and behind her Rongyin also let out a breath of relief.

Without asking a single question, Tao Sicheng broke free of Rongyin’s hold and staggered through the rubble, stepping high and low, until she dug Tao Kangyuan out from a heap of broken bricks and tiles.

Tao Kangyuan’s condition was extremely bad.

Most of his body had been charred black by the lightning, and on top of that, the collapse of the structure had left him with severe blunt-force injuries. His signs of life were exceedingly faint.

“We have hospitals under our own control.”

Rongyin approached from behind.

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“He’s a warrior too.”

“And our warriors are very hard to kill.”

After a long bout of chaos and effort, they finally managed to arrange treatment for the wounded.

But by then, dawn was already close.

In the hospital room, Rongyin looked at the stabilized readings on the monitors and finally let the tension in her heart completely drain away.

Hm?

She froze for a moment when a notebook was held out in front of her.

Written on it in ink was a line:

[Was that disturbance just now her?]

After hesitating briefly, Rongyin nodded to Tao Sicheng.

Tao Sicheng withdrew the notebook and continued writing:

[She didn’t find us, but she’s already begun to grasp a Saint’s power?]

Rongyin opened her mouth but said nothing. She only nodded heavily once again.

She knew.

She knew exactly how earthshaking it was that someone could comprehend and master such an ability in so short a time.

To be honest, whenever Rongyin thought back to that descending lightning, her whole body could not help trembling slightly.

That could not even be counted as an attack.

It had only been a “brush past,” followed by a “mere collateral shift in the weather,” yet it had still produced this kind of effect. It was enough to leave one deeply afraid and unsettled.

The Saint their clan sought to oppose was a monster.

“…”

Faced with that answer, Tao Sicheng fell silent.

She turned her head to look at Tao Kangyuan, who lay there wearing a breathing mask.

Little by little, the girl’s hand clenched tight.

…

Elsewhere, in Zhennan, Maozhou:

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“Was it just my imagination?”

“I keep feeling like something is restlessly stirring.”

Sitting atop the mountain peak, Bai Xiang frowned faintly, as though she had vaguely sensed something.

She was seated here in order to experiment with and study advanced techniques of Shrinking the Land to an Inch.

The old beggar was not a Saint, but even he had been able to split open the void and travel about through it. In theory, that should be the signature ability of realms above that of a Venerable Saint.

The old beggar’s shifting definitely had distance limits, and what he had split open was “space when a Void Tribulation was about to descend.” At that time, the rules of the main world in every aspect had been more fragile than they were now. That kind of shifting could not be compared with Fang Yang’s methods.

But if Fang Yang could do it, there was no reason I couldn’t.

Bai Xiang was trying to master that method of shifting movement. Just now, she had used the Shenming Sword to connect with the qi-path divine pool that blanketed Great Xia.

As for the effect… for one brief moment, she felt as though her spirit and will had crossed an unknown number of miles, spanning immeasurable distance in an instant. She had also heard a great deal of noise in her ears.

It was probably the sound created as the will-power of all living beings pouring into the qi-path divine pool.

It was not very clear, but she still had a strange sensation that prompted her to project her consciousness briefly into Pingzhou. As it skimmed through the void, it seemed to trigger a burst of thunderstorm rain and perhaps even drop a few bolts of lightning.

“I wonder whether I struck the source of that feeling.”

Bai Xiang sank into thought.

“Still, whatever.”

“Taishang Response didn’t give any warning. There’s no need to spend too much effort on it.”

She calculated it. The distance Fang Yang had shifted from New Yujing City to the Northern Sea actually was not that great.

If it was only that level of distance, then at present she already had a little confidence.

But going deep into the desert was much farther. With the present solidity of space in the main world, wanting to split open the void that far in one go would be exhausting on the one hand, and on the other… she could not achieve precise positioning.

So could she create a specific set of coordinates?

Set up coordinates for herself to sense, and once they were triggered, she could directly split the void open and go there. Would that kind of operation be feasible?

Bai Xiang felt that it ought to be possible. So she took out the new phone her younger brother had given her and prepared to make the necessary arrangements.

As it happened, several of her disciples also wanted to get involved.

Coordinates…

It seemed she could start discussing with them the possibility of taking revenge with their own hands.