Chapter 43#

Kunkun shifted in his arms, nuzzling its head against his wrist — soft and fluffy, tickling him.

He knew the little creature was laughing. He gave Kunkun a light pat on the head and smiled at Pei Qian: “Then I’ll have to thank Fellow Daoist Pei in advance.”

Pei Qian waved a generous hand and stepped onto the spirit-boat. “We’re all fellow cultivators — it goes without saying.”

From start to finish, Xie Zhefeng had not said a word.

Beiming lay at the far north of the two realms, pressed up against the Beiming Sea and the extreme northern reaches. Travelling from Falling Moon Peak, the direct route would have been due north — straight through Thornbriar Creek in the center — to reach Beiming City.

But in order to collect Pei Qian, Xie Zhefeng had first curved westward and stopped at Langfeng City. Now that they had their fourth member, he lifted off directly from Langfeng and set course for the far north.

As the spirit-boat passed over the Langfeng Sword — that blade that, like the Zhaoshui Sword, drove straight up into the sky — Xie Zhefeng’s spiritual energy faltered for a moment, and the boat came to a halt, hovering above the Langfeng Sword.

Pei Qian looked up with mild surprise. “Fellow Daoist Xie?”

Falling Moon had kept the true reason for Beiming’s city seal from the two realms at large, but since Pei Qian had already accepted Falling Moon Peak’s message and agreed to enter Beiming, he naturally knew the truth of the matter.

Xie Zhefeng offered no evasion, and said simply: “Both the Zhaoshui and Beiming sword formations have developed unexpected faults. Since we’re passing Langfeng, it’s only natural to take a look at the Langfeng Sword as well.”

An Wuxue also bowed his head to look at the Langfeng sword formation below.

Pei Qian said: “Fair enough. I’ve been staying in Langfeng City lately and noticed no changes in the Langfeng sword formation — it hadn’t occurred to me. If you want a close look, formation work is more my area — would you like my help?”

Xie Zhefeng shook his head lightly, said nothing, and appeared to be extending his soul-sense carefully outward.

Pei Qian seemed surprised: “The sword energy around you is formidable, clearly a master of the sword path — I didn’t expect you to be versed in something as sweeping as the Four Seas Ten-Thousand Swords Formation as well.”

An Wuxue was not surprised in the slightest. Of all the swords in the formation, he could not speak for the others, but when it came to the Langfeng sword formation, Xie Zhefeng had its every detail committed to memory — even without having studied formation work.

This was the second sword he had laid. It was one of the four principal swords of the Four Seas Ten-Thousand Swords Formation, planted at the center of Langfeng City. Like the Zhaoshui Sword, beneath that great blade lay the spirit swords of countless Langfeng City immortal cultivators who had perished in the Immortal Calamity.

Among them was the natal sword of the previous Langfeng City Lord, Xie Zhui.

Junior Brother had been born in Langfeng. His mother was unknown — seemingly nothing more than a fleeting affair of Xie Zhui’s. That woman of mysterious origin had given birth to him, wrapped him in swaddling cloth, and left him on the doorstep of the Langfeng City Lord’s manor in the middle of the night before disappearing. He had only his father. Day after day, he followed his father in sword practice and cultivation — and in the end, he used the very sword techniques Xie Zhui had taught him to run his blade through his father’s core, after Xie Zhui’s cultivation had fallen and he had set his eyes on his own son.

Junior Brother had personally carried that spirit sword to the sword tomb. On the day the tomb was sealed shut for good, Junior Brother’s every tie and entanglement with Langfeng City — bound to that natal sword of his father’s — was buried along with it, beneath ten thousand swords, never to see the light of day again.

After that, the sword tomb was built and the second great sword was forged.

By then, he and Qin Wei had already grown distant. Qin Wei simply remained at Falling Moon, and Xie Zhefeng came to Langfeng City in his place to lay the formation together.

After Xie Zhefeng succeeded as Immortal Sovereign, he was perpetually occupied — travelling the two realms, cutting down demons and monsters — while he focused on laying the formations and reinforcing the four pillars of heaven at each corner of the world. In the few decades when they were apart far more than they were together, the years of laying the Langfeng sword formation were a rare time when the two of them were rarely out of each other’s sight.

In those years, they had the experience of the Zhaoshui sword formation behind them, and the work went much faster than it had with the first sword.

But the fighting was, if anything, worse than it had been in Zhaoshui City.

Langfeng backed onto the Guixu Sea: vast, sparsely populated, swept year-round by surging winds. Snow drifted across the sea’s surface like drifting catkins — but when driven by the gales, it became sharp as a blade. On an ordinary person it could strip the skin from their flesh; even a cultivator had to hold up a constant shield of spiritual energy just to move across the Guixu Sea. The demons born on that sea were therefore fiercer than most.

The most powerful among them were the Snow Demon clan — notorious and reviled even before the Immortal Calamity. The women of the clan were each of devastating beauty; the men had faces as fine as any woman’s. They cultivated the Way of Floating Lives, forever leaving emotional debts in their wake yet caring for no one. For the sake of advancing their cultivation, they would exploit anything and anyone. Immortal cultivators across both realms had always feared them — and always fell for them anyway, deceived by their looks.

Such a clan had, naturally, turned to demonic cultivation wholesale during the Immortal Calamity. Among them were even corrupted immortals and several great demons at the Tribulation Crossing stage. The corrupted immortals died at the hands of the Nanhè Immortal Sovereign, but those great demons at Tribulation Crossing went on wreaking havoc for many years.

On the day the Langfeng sword formation was nearly complete, the Snow Demon clan united their full strength to seal the city. The wind and snow of the Guixu Sea churned around them without abating. Standing in the city and looking up, one could see nothing but an impenetrable white. Had the barrier cracked even slightly, that blade-sharp snow would have come down like a rain of knives, stripping the flesh from mortal bones in an instant.

Cultivators trying to come to their aid from outside could not break through. The transmission talismans sent by Qin Wei and Qi Xun could not pass through the layers of wind and snow.

At the last step of the formation, no one could afford to withdraw their spiritual energy.

An Wuxue had been pouring everything he had into maintaining the barrier over Langfeng City, feeling his meridians run dry, his spiritual energy guttering, the pain forcing his brows into a tight knot — and yet he had no choice but to hold on.

Then one of the Tribulation Crossing cultivators finally had nothing left and died.

That cultivator died still gripping their natal sword, the blade driven deep into the ground, keeping their remains upright. With the sword-holder’s soul gone, the natal sword hummed and resonated, carrying the will of its master, channeling the force released from the cultivator’s body at the moment of death into the barrier as sustenance.

An Wuxue’s vision had begun to go dark — they were so close.

Falling Moon’s First Seat and the two realms’ Immortal Sovereign cannot both fall here, he had thought. If the barrier truly cannot hold, I’ll protect Junior Brother, and use my last breath to complete the sword formation.

“Junior Brother — if I die here…”

He had glanced at that cultivator’s rapidly decaying body and said quietly: “Then bury Chunhua in the sword tomb of the next great sword. Think of it as letting me look out from within.”

Junior Brother had suddenly stepped forward and seized his arm.

That cold presence enveloped his side. That face, striking even with its perpetual chill, drew close — carrying worry and resolve.

“Senior Brother will not fall here,” Junior Brother said, with weight behind every word. “I’ll go kill them.”

He had startled. “Junior Brother!!”

But Xie Zhefeng was already gone.

The wind and snow beyond the barrier were like a beast that devoured everything, smothering the whole of Langfeng City without mercy.

The ordinary people sheltered indoors. Every cultivator stood around the Langfeng sword formation, spending the last of their strength to uphold the barrier. The entire city was silent as death.

Chuhan’s blade cut against the light of heaven, straight into the howling gale and swirling snow, out through the barrier.

If An Wuxue were asked to name anything in his past life that compared to those hundred days in Canggu Tower, it would be those few hours in Langfeng City.

He himself was on the verge of collapse; he knew Junior Brother had gone out alone to fight the great demons; and the sword formation could not be abandoned.

He wanted to leave and could not. Every moment of those few hours was its own ordeal.

He didn’t know how long it lasted.

But eventually, the wind and snow beyond the barrier did ease. The barrier held until the formation was complete.

The Langfeng Sword took the place of the heavenly pillar, the great blade trembling as it suppressed the scattered corrupt energy, dispersing the gale and the heavy snow.

An Wuxue had already been completely spent, but he forced himself to stay conscious. He finally found Xie Zhefeng outside the city.

Around Junior Brother lay a mountain of Snow Demon corpses — a staggering, ghastly peak of ice and flesh.

Junior Brother, ashen-faced, was leaning on his sword, kneeling among the bodies.

Every great demon at the Tribulation Crossing stage from the Snow Demon clan had been slain by his hand alone.

An Wuxue had rushed to his side. “Junior Brother!”

Xie Zhefeng’s pupils were unfocused. He looked up at him with glazed eyes, and then, finally at ease, passed out.

He had made good on his promise — fought the Snow Demon clan’s great demons alone, and had not retreated until the sword formation was complete.

That battle in Langfeng City was one of the few times in Xie Zhefeng’s cultivation that he had been so gravely wounded. After it, he spent a full six months recovering.

So even though Xie Zhefeng had never studied formation work, the Langfeng sword formation held no secrets from him.

An Wuxue sat on the spirit-boat, watching Xie Zhefeng close his eyes and extend his soul-sense to probe the current state of the Langfeng sword formation. He said nothing.

After a moment, Xie Zhefeng opened his eyes. He said nothing, only raised his hand and formed the seal.

The spirit-boat lifted and moved again, heading north.

Pei Qian raised an eyebrow. “So the Langfeng sword formation is unaffected?”

Xie Zhefeng gave a nod.

Pei Qian looked unimpressed. “Are all the cultivators from Falling Moon Peak sealed jars? Fellow Daoist Xie never speaks, and you’re just as quiet, Fellow Daoist Suxue…”

An Wuxue thought to himself that he was no sealed jar.

He was quiet only because Xie Zhefeng was right beside him, and by now he was riddled with enough suspicious points that the more he said, the more he risked. He naturally did not dare to speak freely.

But being overly cautious was itself a suspicious point, so he simply steered clear of anything personal, took Pei Qian’s opening, and said: “That’s quite the claim, Fellow Daoist Pei. Can just the two of us really stand in for every cultivator from Falling Moon? Does everyone in your own sect share your temperament?”

Pei Qian’s expression faltered.

An Wuxue’s gaze sharpened almost imperceptibly — Pei Qian’s reaction seemed off.

“I don’t have a sect,” Pei Qian said, his words coming more slowly. “My cultivation came from a family tradition, so to speak. These days I’m… an independent cultivator.”

A family tradition?

“A cultivator clan from Langfeng City?” An Wuxue asked.

He couldn’t recall any cultivator clan with the surname Pei. Perhaps a minor one that had risen after his death?

Pei Qian’s fingertips traced the compass hanging at his waist. “I’m from Beiming, actually. I just like wandering around. Lately I’ve taken an interest in the snow lotuses on the Guixu Sea — I was staying here to pick a few.”

From Beiming?

No wonder Xie Zhefeng hadn’t sought out Qi Xun and had gone looking for this cultivator instead — someone he didn’t seem to know all that well.

Given that the Beiming sword formation was the problem, having a Beiming native who was a Tribulation Crossing expert in formations would be genuinely useful.

There was indeed a formation-specialist clan in Beiming — no match for Lihuo Sect, but in his time the best of them could hold their own against Lihuo’s top cultivators.

But that clan, if he recalled correctly, didn’t carry the surname Pei.

He remarked idly: “Quite impressive, Fellow Daoist Pei — with no sect or clan to rely on, you reached Tribulation Crossing on your own ability and took up formation work as well…”

Pei Qian turned his head and gazed out at the sea of clouds stretching beneath the spirit-boat.

“Not exactly on my own…”

An Wuxue couldn’t see Pei Qian’s face, but something in his voice carried a quiet melancholy.

So he said no more.

The spirit-boat fell quiet.

They travelled on like that for a full day.

— Beiming.

An Wuxue stepped off the spirit-boat and looked at the vast, seemingly boundless barrier stretching before him. It was strange to think that his return to Beiming after a thousand years had come to this — and for a moment, he felt unmoored.

The barrier encased all of Beiming. Inside it was gray and formless; nothing could be seen. The Beiming Sword stood at the center of Beiming’s first city, towering from earth to sky — normally visible from the very edge of Beiming’s borders. Now there was nothing to see.

Beiming was immense and had once thrived. Looking out in every direction now, there was not a single figure in sight.

Falling Moon Peak had already handled everything behind the scenes, kept the matter contained, and it was through that work alone that the two realms had remained stable despite such upheaval.

Pei Qian’s brow was tightly creased. “How could it have come to this… it was still perfectly fine just a few months ago.”

Xie Zhefeng produced the Far Reaches Talisman that Shangguan Liaoliao had sent.

As the talisman rose into the air, Xie Zhefeng glanced back at him — just briefly — and said: “This journey is dangerous. If you’ve had second thoughts, step back now.”

The words had barely landed when the talisman blazed with light, and a small section of the barrier directly ahead of them began to tremble.

An Wuxue didn’t move.

The light descended and washed over all three of them.

The blinding glare forced An Wuxue’s eyes shut. When he opened them again, the barrier that had been before them was now behind.

They were inside.

What had looked gray and formless from outside was now clear — or rather, now he could see exactly what the gray was.

Corrupt energy.

It drifted through the air, seeming to permeate everything, trapped within this vast barrier. Anyone who wished to turn to demonic cultivation here could do so with almost no effort, simply by drawing in the corrupt energy around them…

An Wuxue murmured: “There’s so much of it…”

No wonder Shangguan Liaoliao had only managed to send out a handful of words.

For corrupt energy of this magnitude to spread across all forty-nine cities of Beiming in an instant — it was no small feat that Shangguan Liaoliao had sealed off Beiming alone and kept it all from leaking out.

“Watch out!” Pei Qian suddenly shouted.

Xie Zhefeng was beside him, so An Wuxue couldn’t risk extending his soul-sense. He turned his head immediately to look — and saw a figure lunging toward them, ashen-faced!

Corrupt energy emanated from the figure. Its expression was vacant, but it clawed and grasped with both hands, reaching for the nearest person — An Wuxue.

What is this?!

A soft, sharp sound.

The figure lurched to a halt, a hollow appearing in the center of its brow. It crumpled.

Xie Zhefeng had acted.

An Wuxue quickly stepped back.

Looking around now, he could see that faint, drifting figures — none of them resembling the living — were scattered all through the area inside the barrier. They had sensed the newcomers’ arrival and were converging.

Xie Zhefeng raised a hand and erected a small barrier around the three of them, then stepped past An Wuxue to crouch down and examine the fallen figure.

Pei Qian crouched on the other side to look as well. “They look like puppets. Are these puppets made by the demonic cultivators causing trouble in Beiming? This many?”

“Extraordinary puppet technique — Fellow Daoist Xie, before you destroyed this one, I could actually sense a trace of lingering soul and even some life force within it…”

Xie Zhefeng had already located the source of the life force. He reached out and lifted the tattered sleeve covering the corpse’s left arm.

An Wuxue looked at the marking on the skin, and his pupils contracted sharply.

That pattern…

It wasn’t identical — but part of it aligned perfectly with his Cauldron Brand.

At that moment, Xie Zhefeng turned and looked back at him.

Their gazes met, and it seemed both of them had arrived at the same thought simultaneously.

The book left behind by Yun Zhou — the one with a Beiming origin — had contained both a method for applying the Cauldron Brand and a record of puppet techniques.

An Wuxue had always assumed these were two separate things: one being the Cauldron Brand on his body, the other being the puppet technique used to create Yun Yao’s form.

But the source of life in the puppet Xie Zhefeng had just destroyed was that crude, rougher version of a “Cauldron Brand”…

Was this Cauldron Brand truly a Cauldron Brand at all?

What if the book had not recorded two separate techniques, but one?

In that case, this body of Suxue’s…

An Wuxue’s heart plummeted.

Had a person called Suxue ever truly existed anywhere in these two vast realms?