Volume 8, Chapter 500 – River of Blood

“N-no… Cultivator… Lord Cultivator… we didn’t say anything!”

Qi Bing stammered in defense, his pale face drenched in cold sweat. He wasn’t afraid of death, what he feared was failing to deliver the mushrooms in his hands back home.

“Still lying? Don’t you know that immortals are omniscient?” The burly middle-aged man pressed aggressively.

“Senior Brother Fu, no need to waste words on them. These lowly mortals should just be killed.”

“Exactly. The Immortal Alliance strictly forbids any act of ‘defying the heavens’, even mere discussion. Violators are to be executed without mercy, this applies to both immortals and cultivators, let alone two mortals!”

“Senior Brother Fu, hurry up and act. If we hesitate, we might incur the wrath of the heavens.”

“That man is from Qi Family Village, right? To be safe, I suggest killing him and then slaughtering the entire village.”

The cultivators behind him voiced their suggestions one after another.

“Immortal Lords, spare us! This was all my loose tongue! The villagers had nothing to do with it!”

Qi Bing’s legs gave out, and he kowtowed desperately again, even trying to absolve Lu Yao: “Besides, she’s young and doesn’t know any better! I beg the Immortal Lords to show mercy!”

‘Repaying kindness with gratitude, this Qi Bing is a decent man.’

Qi Huang silently praised.

Hearing this, the cultivators finally turned their attention to Lu Yao. Their eyes widened in shock, they hadn’t expected to encounter a woman of such beauty in this desolate wilderness. Even with her veil, she was enough to stir their restless desires.

“Take off your veil!”

The leader, Senior Brother Fu, commanded.

“What do you want?”

Lu Yao asked calmly.

“I want to see if your face is worth sparing the lives of everyone in Qi Family Village.”

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Senior Brother Fu made no attempt to hide his intentions.

“Heh, just for discussing defiance of the heavens, you’d slaughter an entire village? Is this fear of the Heavenly Dao… or just an excuse to indulge your own desires?”

Lu Yao mocked.

“Ridiculous! The Heavenly Dao governs all realms, holding the power of life and death over all living beings. Who wouldn’t fear it?”

Senior Brother Fu argued vehemently.

“Oh, I believe you fear it. But as the saying goes, ‘debt has its owner, vengeance its target.’ No matter how cruel the Heavenly Dao is, it wouldn’t punish unrelated villagers. So slaughtering the village is just your way of maintaining your tyranny! Otherwise, you wouldn’t dare use me as a bargaining chip for their lives!”

Lu Yao ruthlessly exposed the ugly truth in the cultivators’ hearts.

“Nonsense! Since you don’t value this chance, you can die along with Qi Family Village!”

Enraged, Senior Brother Fu sent the sword on his back shooting toward Lu Yao like an arrow, its blade tearing through the air with a piercing shriek.

“Ah!”

Qi Bing paled in horror, instinctively lunging forward to shield Lu Yao with his body. But he was just an ordinary man, his movements were sluggish. Before he could even take a step, the sword was already at Lu Yao’s face.

‘No!’

Qi Bing screamed inwardly, his pupils trembling violently. He was a man who repaid kindness, if he watched his savior die before him, he would never rest in peace.

Clang!

Then, something astonishing happened. Without anyone seeing her move, Lu Yao’s slender fingers had already clamped down on the flying sword, steady as iron tongs.

“H-how?!”

Not just Qi Bing, even the cultivators gaped in unison.

“A few cultivators who aren’t even immortals dare attack me?”

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Lu Yao’s expression turned icy. With a slight flick of her fingers, the gleaming sword snapped in half as if made of brittle plaster.

Worse, the crisp sound was like a stone dropped into still water, sending ripples of energy radiating outward. The cultivators assumed it was just an ordinary shockwave and paid it no mind, letting the ripples pass through them.

“AHHH—!”

The next moment, their faces twisted in agony before they let out bloodcurdling screams. Their bodies split into neat chunks of flesh and blood, tumbling to the ground like ingredients tossed into a boiling pot.

“AHH!”

This scream came from Qi Bing, who stumbled back in terror. The scene before him was too gruesome, too horrifying.

“T-this… this is spatial distortion… W-who… who are you?!”

Senior Brother Fu’s Life Soul emerged from his body, suppressing his fear as he demanded answers. The other cultivators’ souls, however, fled in panic.

Lu Yao said nothing. Yin energy surged from her body like a tidal wave, swallowing the fleeing souls in an instant.

“S-so… Tianjizi was… was right… The will of heaven cannot be defied… My death today was fated… a sacrifice to the River of Blood…”

Senior Brother Fu lamented between screams.

‘Tianjizi again! The River of Blood again!’

Qi Huang’s mood grew heavy. From what she was witnessing, it was clear that Lu Yao’s every move had been foreseen by the Heavenly Dao.

‘What exactly is this Heavenly Dao? How can it predict someone’s future?’

For the first time, Qi Huang seriously pondered this question. Though she was powerful now, the idea of “foreseeing the future” still seemed unfathomable.

Lu Yao clearly felt the same. She felt as though she had been stripped bare, her every secret exposed. If she didn’t find a way to break free, even if she located the Heavenly Dao, she wouldn’t be able to take revenge.

She withdrew some of her Yin energy and interrogated Senior Brother Fu:

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“Answer me, what is the River of Blood?”

“Hmph. If I’m fated to die today, why should I tell you?”

Senior Brother Fu remained stubborn.

“Then die.”

Without hesitation, Lu Yao unleashed her dark Yin energy, devouring his Life Soul.

She then turned slowly to Qi Bing.

“Do you know what the River of Blood is?”

“N-no… I don’t!”

Qi Bing forced himself to sound calm, but his trembling body betrayed him.

“Seems I asked the wrong person. Ordinary folks wouldn’t know much.”

Muttering to herself, Lu Yao vanished like a ghost.

Not long after, Lu Yao arrived at the nearest major city.

The immortals and cultivators here were in a state of panic, all seemingly preparing for something.

Lu Yao had come to gather information about the “River of Blood”, but she quickly realized she didn’t need to ask, because every cultivator was already making preparations to face it.

The so-called “River of Blood” was simply shorthand for the idiom “blood flowing like a river”.

It was common knowledge that from the moment of birth, every person was subject to divine punishment. These punishments came in two forms: Heavenly Disasters and Mortal Calamities.

Most ordinary people only had to endure Mortal Calamities. After all, very few were wicked enough to warrant “heavenly retribution”. Cultivators, however, faced both Heavenly Disasters and Mortal Calamities, even after ascending to immortality.

Thus, immortals and cultivators in the celestial realm would go to great lengths to consult Tianjizi about their impending “tribulations”, hoping to prepare countermeasures in advance. While no one had ever survived a “death tribulation”, overcoming lesser calamities was still possible.

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Then, about a hundred years ago, most who sought Tianjizi’s guidance about their “death tribulations” received the same grim prophecy:

They would die on the second day of the second month of the celestial calendar’s year 19,903.

On that day, a great catastrophe would erupt. The starry skies would be littered with the corpses of immortals and cultivators, blood would flow like rivers, and the sun and moon would dim.

Thus, cultivators began calling this disaster the “River of Blood”, and the second day of the second month of year 19,903 became known as “The Day of Blood”.

Lu Yao did the math.

The current date was the fourth day of the first month of year 19,903.

The River of Blood was less than a month away.

No wonder these cultivators were so frantic.

‘If I really am the one who causes the River of Blood… then in a month, I’ll go on a massacre?’

Lu Yao murmured to herself.

Killing cultivators didn’t weigh on her conscience. The real problem was that the Heavenly Dao had already foreseen this. If she didn’t change course, it would mean she was still trapped within its designs.

“But how do I change it? And how will I know if my changes even worked?”

Lost in thought, Lu Yao suddenly had an epiphany.

If there was one person in the celestial realm who could answer these questions…

It was the legendary Tianjizi.

She inquired about Tianjizi’s whereabouts, only to discover that there wasn’t a single one left in the entire Fuguang Immortal Kingdom.

Without hesitation, she left Mistveil Planet behind, streaking toward another immortal kingdom where Tianjizi still remained.