All around Yun Family Manor, countless plants sprang up at once. Most were enormous trees more than ten zhang tall, from which innumerable branches hung down. Every branch was as thick as a man’s leg, with black bark resembling metal. There were also numerous vines, entirely a vivid green, yet no less tough and resilient than the branches.
The plants reached their full height in an instant, startling the demonized martial artists. But the fighters immediately resumed their advance, charging fiercely forward!
Both branches and vines were exceptionally hard. Even when the martial artists struck them with their power, they remained entirely unharmed. They coiled around their opponents and promptly flung them away.
After several exchanges, not a single person could approach the light barrier again. Even Xiantian martial artists descending from high above were caught in midair by the branches and slammed violently into the ground, their bones and sinews shattered!
After being contaminated by demonic qi, these hundred-odd people were as though they had swallowed forbidden drugs. Ordinarily, they would have retreated at the sight of such a strange scene, but now they seemed utterly fearless of death and refused to stop! Each brandished a weapon, poured Xiantian power into it, and fought the plants with increasing ferocity.
Whenever a weapon struck one of the plants, a metallic clang, clang sounded, but it still inflicted no damage.
In midair, the refined-looking old man exclaimed in surprise at the sight. Then he produced a small flag and waved it overhead.
Black qi immediately spread out and plunged downward. The demonized martial artists inhaled it, and their eyes became bloodshot.
The demonized fighters suddenly began to howl, one after another, like savage beasts.
Xu Ziqing frowned.
That little flag seemed capable of controlling the demonized martial artists. The old man truly cared nothing for their safety and was acting with reckless cruelty!
Without another word, Xu Ziqing pointed two fingers. A green ball of light shot out before him, then divided into hundreds upon thousands of fine needles that surged skyward, filling the air!
Beside the clouds, the Qingyun Needles formed a mountain and sea of needles, completely surrounding the old man’s position.
The refined-looking old man started. “A divine ability!” A vicious look then crossed his face. He turned the little flag over. “This old man has a divine ability to show you too, brat!”
Sure enough, turning the flag exposed its reverse side.
Countless ghostly heads, each the size of a marble, clung to the fabric. Some wore savage expressions, others faces twisted with suffering.
Their auras held a trace of living qi amid the death qi. They were not simply the souls of the dead.
Xu Ziqing understood at once, his gaze turning cold. “You actually cultivate using living souls!” His expression grew icy as he condemned the old man outright. “For committing such atrocities, you have no right to call yourself a cultivator of the immortal Dao. Today I will rid this world of a monster like you, so you can never harm anyone again!”
The old man threw back his head and laughed. “What does a brat like you know? This old man has pursued immortality and devoted years beyond counting to cultivation. It is these juniors’ good fortune to be of service to me. Once their ancestor becomes an immortal and lifts them up in turn, won’t they share in the glory?” Hatred crept into his eyes. “You’ve formed a Golden Core before reaching a hundred, so you must be a disciple of some great sect in a great world. You received enormous resources, and that’s the only reason you’ve achieved so much. Unfortunately for you, today you’ll die at my hands and lose the precious little life everyone has protected so carefully! I’ll show you pampered geniuses that even a person of ordinary aptitude can forge a path to immortality through sheer determination! You’re the ones who never endure hardship or temper yourselves. Sooner or later, your sheltered lives will end halfway along the road! Junior! Be good and offer yourself as a sacrifice to my precious banner!” He waved the small flag again. “I’ll take every living soul in Yun Family Manor for myself!”
This man had originally been a disciple of the Wu’ao Sect dozens of generations earlier, possessing Xiantian abilities. Later, a disturbance during an Ascending Dragon Gate event swept him into a great world, where he discovered the existence of still greater worlds and far more mysterious powers. After exhausting every means of investigation, he learned that he, too, possessed spiritual roots. Unfortunately, his aptitude was so poor that he had only four spiritual roots, and no major sect would accept such an ordinary talent. He did gain admission to a smaller sect, but his status there was low, which his arrogant nature could not tolerate. In the end, he simply betrayed the sect and left.
He had naturally studied cultivation methods of the immortal Dao and believed his lofty ambition would eventually make him an immortal. But after becoming a rogue cultivator, he spent many years training and survived countless dangers only to reach Foundation Establishment, nowhere near his goal. As his remaining lifespan dwindled, he was close to despair when he abruptly discovered an incomplete manual of the demonic Dao, one that employed techniques of immortal cultivation. Clinging to it like a drowning man to driftwood, how could he care that it required living souls? His cultivation was too shallow to commit such acts freely in the great world, where he risked being “slain as a demon.” He therefore forced his way back through the Ascending Dragon Gate and returned to his original sect, the Wu’ao Sect.
With his newfound strength, he became unquestionably the strongest person in the Wu’ao Sect. He seized control and concealed his abilities while gathering power, ordering the sect to amass wealth on one hand and employing all manner of schemes on the other. Sometimes he arranged open contests among sect members; at other times he slipped secretly into distant places to capture large numbers of living souls for his cultivation.
By practicing immortal cultivation methods while supplementing them with demonic arts, he soon broke through Foundation Establishment and entered Essence Transformation. Another century passed before he successfully formed a Golden Core. He grew increasingly smug, believing he had discovered the secret of cultivating the immortal and demonic paths together and that, if he continued, he might become an immortal one day. From then on, he despised the outstandingly talented disciples of major sects even more, convinced that someone like himself was the truly accomplished great cultivator!
At first, the old man paid little attention to the Wu’ao Sect’s quarrel with Yun Family Manor. Only later, after the affair involving Thunder Gate led the sect to seek the manor’s complete destruction, did he personally emerge from seclusion, intending to extract the souls of everyone in Yun Family Manor.
Yun Family Manor’s descendants had multiplied over a thousand years. Their bloodline had accumulated strength generation after generation, and many of the present generation were exceptional talents. Their souls would naturally make excellent materials. As soon as the old man investigated, he coveted them, which was why he had arrived in such an ostentatious fashion.
What he had never anticipated was encountering a Golden Core Perfected One here. The sight filled him with envy and hatred, and he became determined to kill Xu Ziqing!
Xu Ziqing had formed his Golden Core in ten years. During that time, the embryonic divine ability of the Qingyun Needle had also been tempered into a genuine divine ability. The laws governing it were now complete, making it vastly more powerful than before.
The old man was not afraid. Sensing the purity of the Qingyun Needle’s aura, he concluded that it was an extremely clean, untainted divine ability. Such an ability might be powerful, but it surely could not bear corruption; once defiled, its power would naturally be greatly diminished. He therefore turned over the flag, intending to bring down the Qingyun Needle with the death qi and resentment produced by the suffering of living souls. His little flag was a magical treasure, not actually a true divine ability. But the old man’s foundation was too shallow for him to know the distinction, which was why he had boasted as he did.
At that moment, the Qingyun Needles burst forward. The ghostly heads on the flag rose with howls and produced numerous ghostly phantoms. They opened their mouths, attempting to swallow the needles whole.
But the Qingyun Needles neither retreated nor swerved. They stabbed straight through, piercing the phantoms as easily as bursting bubbles!
The phantoms instantly became ghostly smoke. With a miserable wail, they fled back inside the flag!
After only one encounter, the living-soul power released by the flag had been entirely routed by the Qingyun Needles!
The Qingyun Needle contained the power of the cycle of life, death, and reincarnation: one needle embodied life, another death. Ordinary abilities of pure nature might fear contamination, but to the Qingyun Needle, death qi and living qi were no different.
Only now did horror appear on the old man’s face. Glancing down, he saw that the numerous demonized fighters below could do nothing against the strange plants and were being beaten, hurled, and smashed to death. The plants shimmered faintly with abundant spiritual energy. He cried out involuntarily, “Spiritual artifacts!”
In the next instant, his eyes filled with envy once more.
Who is this junior, to possess such wealth? If I kill him, all those treasures will become mine!
Blinded by greed, the old man forgot his earlier fear of the Qingyun Needle. He bit the tip of his tongue and spat a mouthful of blood essence onto the small flag.
The ghostly heads immediately writhed across its surface, each turning bloodred. Hatred, resentment, blood qi, and every kind of vicious energy surged forth, allowing the heads to tear free of the flag’s restraints and charge madly at Xu Ziqing!
The Qingyun Needles surrounded the ghostly heads again, but this time they did not pierce them as before.
The old man roared with laughter. “Softhearted brat! You deserve to die!”
Xu Ziqing’s face was grim as water, and his loathing for the old man deepened.
These ghostly heads were different from the earlier ones. Before, the living souls had indeed been trapped inside the flag; what emerged were only illusory ghosts formed from the souls’ power and resentment. Destroying those phantoms would not truly kill the souls. But now that the old man had spat out his blood essence, he had staked everything. The bloodred heads were the transformed living souls themselves. If the Qingyun Needles pierced them, those souls would never be reincarnated; they would scatter into oblivion.
Xu Ziqing cultivated the immortal Dao. Though he understood the old man’s malice, he could not bear to let the souls of these mortals be obliterated.
Cultivators fought against heaven for their destinies. If they failed and vanished, that was one thing. But these mortal martial artists had clearly been exploited by a cultivator. Even if some harbored evil intentions, they had done nothing to deserve the destruction of all their future chances at reincarnation.
Even so, Xu Ziqing could not allow the old man to continue acting so arrogantly.
His expression unchanged, Xu Ziqing raised a hand. A begging bowl had appeared in his palm.
The bowl was entirely golden, emitting a soft golden glow with the power to deliver souls to salvation. It was a Buddhist magical artifact, specifically meant to restrain yin souls.
Although magical artifacts were inferior to spiritual artifacts in general, Buddhist practitioners had limited lifespans and no true essence within their bodies, so they could not normally wield spiritual artifacts. Instead, they empowered their magical artifacts through daily scripture recitation. Against evil ghosts, these objects could be a hundred times more effective than spiritual artifacts.
Ordinary immortal cultivators, however powerful, could not use Buddhist magical artifacts. Xu Ziqing was an exception.
Buddhist practitioners cultivated reincarnation rather than longevity. Xu Ziqing sought longevity, yet the Dao he cultivated was also the Dao of life’s and death’s cycle of reincarnation. The two paths had certain points of common ground, enabling him to use the bowl.
That, too, was a kind of destined affinity.
The old man was determined to use the living souls to coerce Xu Ziqing. Though Xu Ziqing was compassionate, he was not so foolish as to let the old man do whatever he pleased for their sake.
Fortunately, Xu Ziqing happened to possess this Buddhist artifact. It had come from the White Jade Palace years earlier, passed down from antiquity, with its treasure light undiminished and its power inexhaustible.
He had kept it at the time on little more than a passing impulse, yet now it had proved exactly what he needed.
Perhaps those living souls were destined to retain one last chance of survival.
At that moment, Xu Ziqing sighed softly and touched the bowl with two fingers.
Countless beams of golden light burst from it, transforming into an immense golden net that enveloped all the bloodred living souls!
Elio’s Notes: The 52Shuku mirror calls the golden light a “golden death” (金色死亡) in the final paragraph. Chapter 342 immediately identifies it as a golden silk net, so the translation uses “golden net” here rather than reproducing the apparent source typo.