The sword aura condensed high above fell like punishment from heaven, hitting the lake’s surface and sending out billows. Even the guardian beast’s unshakeable phantom was jarred and took half a step back.
When the thick mist dispersed, the figure floating in the air attracted the cultivators’ attention.
A sword cultivator. Carrying a sword on his back and wearing only a mask made of coarse cloth over his face.
At this instant, his blade wasn’t drawn from its scabbard, but numerous sword techniques floated around him. The guardian beast had never been on the receiving end of such a threat before, and it let out a fierce roar at the sky. Following its bellow, the sword techniques up above changed in an instant, and like a rain of swords, fell towards the misty lake.
“A sword cultivator?!”
“That sword cultivator hasn’t drawn his blade!”
Among the crowd, Su Yi didn’t take his eyes away. An ancient seal. A tomb guardian beast…The thing suppressed here had to be an invaluable secret left over from ancient times. He shifted his gaze a bit to look elsewhere, and stared right at the swordsman above the misty lake. The sword techniques a moment ago awed him. The wielder…who are they?
There are many cultivators in the world, and those who use swords as weapons are dubbed sword cultivators.
A sword cultivator’s cultivation depends entirely on the sword cultivator, and unity between mind and sword is the highest state.
The cultivator who had come to their aid from above hadn’t actually drawn his blade to overpower the guardian beast. Meaning this person had already reached the state of controlling sword with mind. Throughout the eastern realm, all the cultivators who could achieve this were at least Deity Transformation.
In other words, this cultivator is a powerful figure at Deity Transformation.
Everyone’s eyes were drawn to the sword cultivator high above. With a closer look, they discovered there was also a figure clothed in red behind the sword cultivator. After the sword cultivator’s techniques landed, the talisman in the red-clad cultivator’s hand drifted down to the ground, and like a spirit exorcising array, it immediately dispersed the fierce evil spirits present.
“There’s another person! There’s also a talisman cultivator here!”
“Two Deity Transformation cultivators have arrived! Did the news spread so quickly?” A cultivator from the Su family whispered.
Su Yi watched on in silence. The Su family and the Cangxue Sect were the first to get wind of the vision in Nanwu Mountain, but that did not mean other sects in the world had no information.
One mountain, four sects, eight great families—Which force did the two arriving figures belong to?!
In a corner no one noticed, a figure jumped down from the upper reaches of the Misty River. The corpse water in the river had become more turbulent under the influence of the yin qi. In just a few breaths, the figure passed through the misty lake’s mirror, shattered by the sword aura, and entered the lake.
From high above, the swordsman struck the guardian beast with the swords. The sword techniques he condensed with two fingers were relentless.1The two fingers here refers to a hand gesture that represents a sword (剑指). The index and middle fingers point, while the thumb covers the bent ring and pinky fingers over the palm. This gesture is what creates the sword techniques (剑诀)
He lowered his eyes and surveyed the misty lake’s span, watching the ‘Nascent Soul’ fierce evil spirits around him be swallowed up by the guardian beast one after another
…No, it wasn’t these.
He searched briskly and suddenly saw a living corpse in the misty lake.
The living corpse wasn’t swallowed by the guardian beast and stood under the deterrence of the sword techniques. A familiar mark appeared at the center of its forehead, exactly the same as the evil technique that burnt qi and blood in Nanwu Mountain’s withered forest.
Found it.
The swordsman pointed his swords to the side, locking onto the living corpse. The guardian beast atop the misty lake roared.
The swords thrust down were shattered by yin qi, and the living corpse was engulfed by waves and vanished.
When the swordsman flashed and dodged the guardian beast’s attack, just as his hand touched the blade on his back, he suddenly remembered something and let go of the hilt without drawing the sword.
The cultivators on the shore watched the guardian beast confront the swordsman. The white haired old man’s murky eye patrolled the guardian beast. Under the swordsman’s sword aura, things previously obscured by the mist became visible. He abruptly caught sight of something, and his face changed slightly: “Young friends, this guardian beast has an ancient deity talisman on it. This is a creature from ancient times…It has a restriction on it.”
The swordsman high above lowered his eyes and looked at the white haired old man below.
Jiang Xingfeng heard the old man’s words: “An ancient deity talisman…hiss, I heard from Master that this isn’t easy to deal with.”
An ancient seal, a guardian beast, and an ancient deity talisman.
It’s enough to say this place was far more valuable than an ordinary place of rest. If this were an ordinary guardian beast, it would likely just guard the tomb door here for the tomb owner, but a guardian beast with an ancient deity talisman is different. It meant this fierce beast wasn’t the guardian beast they had thought it was, but rather an ancient beast that had to be suppressed by both an ancient deity talisman and an ancient seal.
Even ignoring how this ancient beast had the pressure of a peak Deity Transformation cultivator, with its cunning, it wasn’t easy to deal with.
The most important thing at the moment was to control this fierce beast and wait for other cultivators from outside to arrive…A little carelessness, and this Nanwu Mountain was very likely to become the next Far North Demonic Abyss.
The swordsman watched the increasingly irritable guardian beast below. The sword on his back vibrated faintly. He said cool-headedly: “If necessary, I’ll draw my sword to stop it and you send a message to Tianlu Mountain and the Gu family…” Before he finished speaking, he seemed to see something and said urgently: “Not good. Stay away!”
The two hurriedly swooped back. The guardian beast felt threatened from all directions and immediately roared at those high above. The spiritual boat was hit and the white haired old man had no way to continue observing, he could only operate the spiritual boat to find a space.
“It’s going berserk!”
“What the hell is this! The yin winds are getting stronger!”
“Steady your psyches!”
The misty lake’s vicinity was in near chaos, but the lake was extremely tranquil, as quiet as still water under the supersession of the guardian beast.
The stench of the putrid corpse water heightened, but Su Yu wasn’t drawn to these details, he didn’t even care about the yin qi swirling around him. He summoned the yin qi that had condensed again in his barren dantian, and quickly swam towards the location of the inky stone along his sight. The closer he got, the more he could feel that the inky stone hidden at the bottom of the pit was steadily spurring his ocean of consciousness.
The yin qi in the misty lake climbed towards Su Yu impatiently, as if biting his exposed wounds. The wounds split open again, and the blood was plundered and deprived by the vast yin qi wrapping around him.
At this moment, Su Yu saw the instigator. It turns out only the beast’s phantom was above the misty lake. There was actually a beast that looked similar to it underwater. This beast was much smaller than the phantom above. Right now, it was entrenched on the large inky stone condensed from the vast inky qi, and an extensive amount of yin qi left its mouth.
It seemed like the misty lake in its entirety was a universe from within its mouth.
The guardian beast beneath the lake noticed something. Once it approached, it realized that this person was the human high above the misty lake. It had wanted to devour this human and suck his flesh and blood for plentiful nourishment, but unexpectedly this human took the initiative to enter its domain.
Food delivered to its door…The greed in its eyes was clear at a glance. Its tail, wrapped around the living corpse in the distance, suddenly loosened and rolled to the figure farther away, immediately wrapping around Su Yu.
Su Yu was previously contemplating how to get closer, but unexpectedly the guardian beast came to him first.
He immediately gave up resisting and let the guardian beast drag him down deeper and deeper. The deeper he went, the richer the yin qi, and the more breathless he was. His swelling meridians were about to explode, and the revolving totem in his dantian spun at breakneck speed. In an instant, Su Yu felt as if his consciousness was about to fade.
There was too much yin qi at the lakebed. If his body indiscriminately continued to absorb it all, he would be unable to withstand the huge circulation, and be paralysed before he could get close to the guardian beast.
Calm down…Su Yu clenched his jaw, and the tingling sensation brought him back to a trace of his thoughts. He forcefully suppressed the dantian totem’s riot, and the yin qi that was originally diverted by the eye totem paused for a moment. Then, he suddenly grabbed the tail coiled around his waist.
When the guardian beast’s tail coiled around the human, yin qi was abnormally drained from it.
The guardian beast had focused its mind on dealing with the cultivators high above when its strength was abruptly cut short. It was almost cleaved by the sword cultivator’s sword techniques. It lowered its head in anger and found that its own body’s power was rapidly fading!?
Most of its entity was released to attack the cultivators outside. The area under the lake was originally its domain, but now this cultivator was forcibly devouring its body’s power. The guardian beast tried its best to shake Su Yu off, but he instead hugged its tail tightly.
Above the misty lake, the white haired old man leapt and flew up, he used the spiritual boat to suppress one of the guardian beast’s feet for the two cultivators at Deity Transformation: “Young friends, the rest depends on you.”
Jiang Xingfeng’s mind was concerned with the ancient deity talisman. Even if that thing was suppressed by restrictions, it was still an ancient fierce beast. He scratched his hair, “Leaving this to us…we’ve slayed demons and eliminated devils, but we’ve never killed an ancient fierce beast. How do we kill this thing?! Gu Qi, tell me—Gu Qi?”
The swordsman stared at it, then suddenly said, “It’s not in a good state.”
Jiang Xingfeng: “Isn’t it pretty fierce?”
“Its attacks slowed.” The swordsman keenly gazed at the lake’s bottom. The lakebed wasn’t visible through the dark waters, but since the beginning, the beast hadn’t looked at him on several occasions, but at the bottom of the lake, as if it were fearing something.
Beneath the misty lake, Su Yu felt that the hunger in his body was weakening. The eye totem wistfully looked through him at the yin qi being absorbed from the lake waters. His mind became clearer, and as he got closer, he clearly saw the abnormality in the guardian beast.
The guardian beast was actually holding a shrunken inky stone in its mouth. It seemed as if the one in the guardian beast’s mouth was the inky stone in full, and even the main segment of the guardian beast. After Su Yu saw the pearl in its mouth, he climbed up the guardian beast’s tail without hesitation, and used the force to jump onto its back.
At that moment, the guardian beast that was concentrating on dealing with the cultivators above the misty lake towered. Seeing that the yin qi it released was absorbed by the other, it immediately became enraged and wanted to drive out the human who had broken into its lake. Just as its claws extended to press down on the human before it, the phantom on the lake surface was attacked from all sides.
Several sword auras broke through the misty lake’s resistance and rushed in, plunging into the lake waters under the guardian beast.
The sword auras broke through the guardian beast’s defences and nailed into the stele-like tomb door beneath the guardian beast’s entity. As soon as the stele was attacked, the guardian beast immediately let out a wail.
Su Yu saw the sword auras flash from above, and watched as they pierced into the inky stone beneath the guardian beast. Several cracks appeared on the inky stone’s surface, and the guardian beast’s movements slowed down. Just then, the eye totem in his body perceived Su Yu’s intention, and it made the yin qi it had just absorbed burst out unrestrained, forcibly pushing Su Yu right in front of the guardian beast.
Su Yu looked up and saw the fangs and mouth of the guardian beast solidified from yin qi. He had no time to resist the rebellious actions of the totem in his body. The moment the guardian beast was hit by a sword aura from above again, he suddenly reached into its mouth and grabbed the pearl.
There was a strong stabbing sensation on his shoulder, and he could feel as his whole arm was nearly torn off by the guardian beast. But the hand grasping the pearl didn’t relax in the slightest. In his struggle with the guardian beast as it teared at his arm, he pulled the pearl tied to thousands of leads out the beast’s jaws.
The guardian beast let out a silent scream. Su Yu’s ears were shaken to the point of bleeding.
At this moment, the phantom of the guardian beast on the lake’s surface shook for a moment. The swordsman standing high up with his swords seized the chance and divided the sword techniques into seven parts. The small swords laced with thunder were all aimed at the guardian beast’s phantom, and then pierced into the beast’s joints and apertures.
In an instant, the phantom of the guardian beast seemed to fully deflate, and yin qi surged in all directions.
Jiang Xingfeng’s pupils dilated, he formed a seal with both hands to protect the cultivators behind him, and used a formation to suppress the violent yin qi. A few drops of cold sweat fell along his face: “Gu Qi”
The swordsman’s expression shifted a bit, and sword techniques formed in one movement.
In the lake, the guardian beast counterattacked Su Yu and swallowed him into its stomach in one bite.
At the same time, Su Yu pressed the pearl into his mouth with his other hand.
The pearl melted in his mouth, and a huge amount of yin qi rushed into his body, relieving his hunger in full. The jade white guardian beast was destroyed by the sword techniques from high above when it lost its pearl. A strong sense of dread surged up from Su Yu’s stomach. He looked up and saw a dazzling light—several giant swords hung high above.
The giant swords were clear in his field of view. The pure and condensed sword auras sharp and dazzling. The tips of the swords even penetrated the guardian beast’s phantom, and pointed straight at him.
The eye totem in his dantian instantly rioted. Su Yu gritted his teeth hard. At the critical moment, the yin qi in his body was mobilized once more, and he forcibly knocked open the guardian beast’s fangs and crawled out.
In an instant, the sword techniques high above plunged straight down, and the corpse water within the lake surged and rolled aside.
The currents swept Su Yu away, immediately casting him far.
Light broke through from the sky, and like soaring dragons of thunder, the sword auras penetrated straight through the vast yin qi above the lake. Like a blinding white rainbow, they pierced down to the lakebed, and went straight into the pewter green stone door emitting a faint light.
Suffering such a heavy blow, the guardian beast atop the stone door almost became a shadow under the brilliance of the sword auras. The stone door suddenly cracked, and along the seal covering Nanwu Mountain’s peak spread multiple cracks.
It collapsed instantly.
Beside the misty lake, the white haired old man hurriedly controlled the spiritual boat to protect the cultivators around him. He peered into the distance, a bit of thoughtfulness in his murky eye. On the surface, it was indeed the two Deity Transformation cultivators who had joined forces to break the situation, but moments ago, he noticed that the guardian beast had weakened.
He couldn’t help but gaze at the lake’s bottom. What else was there?
The chill winds dissipated in an instant, and the yin qi shrouding the whole of Nanwu Mountain seemed to gradually clear.
Simultaneously, the seal high above also fractured and dissipated, turning into small flecks of starlight.
“An ancient yin-gathering array formed by yin qi—Fortunately, there wasn’t enough yin qi in Nanwu Mountain. Otherwise, we couldn’t have broken this phantasm even if we joined forces.” Jiang Xingfeng looked down and saw the scarred and exhausted cultivators nearby, alongside the Su family. “Tsk, this thing also had the cultivation of a peak Deity Transformation cultivator. Even a few Golden Core cultivators from the Su family dare do this. Oh, the Su family’s young master seems to be looking at you…”
He noticed the swordsman’s silence and changed the subject: “What’s wrong?”
The swordsman eyed the riverbed and said in a deep voice: “It disappeared.”
Jiang Xingfeng paused: “What disappeared?”
The thick mist above the lake gradually dissipated, and so did the tomb guardian beast’s phantom. There was nothing around the lake.
The swordsman spoke again: “That fierce beast. I didn’t kill it.”
Not only that, the living corpse with a strange handprint on its forehead had also disappeared…The entire misty lake seemed to be empty save for the corpse water all over the ground.
Jiang Xingfeng’s expression changed slightly, and he promptly turned to the lake.
The swordsman bowed his head, there was a person lying amid the messy rubble.
Although he was a person, he was covered in blood, as though he had been washed up by the overflowing river. He was so dirty that his actual appearance was indiscernible. However, with a glance, he recalled the bloodstains he had seen in the withered forest not long ago.
The swordsman leaned over and reached the gravelly shore in the blink of an eye. He was about to reach out to identify the figure, but as soon as he touched them, he felt a scarlet hand.
When he smelled the blood on the youth’s body, the veins in the swordsman’s neck suddenly bulged. Just as he hesitated, the ‘dead man’ suddenly stood. Grabbing his wrist and raising his body forward. He swept away the mask on the swordsman’s face.
Dirty blood was smeared on the swordsman’s face, and its fishy smell was close at hand.
What scent—
The swordsman’s blood and qi burst out almost simultaneously. Suppressing the lake’s tomb guardian beast hadn’t caused uncontrolled spiritual energy to run through his meridians. He turned his other hand to clasp the shaking sword behind him, and was kicked in the side of the face by the youth who had got up from the ground.
In that short moment, the youth turned around and jumped into the lake.
The swordsman leaned forward to chase, condensing a sword technique with two fingers. The incompressible spiritual energy in his body broke through his meridians.
“Gu Qi, what was that just now—” Jiang Xingfeng took a step and stopped in his tracks. He saw the swordsman raise his hand to wipe blood off the side of his face. He looked straight at the slightly long fangs at the corners of the swordsman’s mouth, and paled in fright: “Gu Zizhou! Your teeth have grown out!”
alverose: This marks the end of the first volume, and Chapter 15 will kick off the next volume/arc.
