Chapter 52#
Xie Zhefeng’s lips moved slightly. He seemed to want to say something, but no words came.
An Wuxue couldn’t tell why Xie Zhefeng was bringing up the matter of when he first woke up, and said with genuine confusion: “Is something wrong with that?”
There he goes again, being inexplicable.
He watched Xie Zhefeng’s expression grow increasingly troubled and worried that the man might turn volatile again without warning.
Could it be… the Soul Bell?
Two near-fatal encounters with drawn swords, and the Soul Bell had been stolen from Xie Zhefeng’s cave dwelling. When it came down to it, he had also laid hands on something belonging to the Immortal Sovereign without permission.
The way Xie Zhefeng was looking at him felt deeply unfamiliar. A vague, nameless weight settled in his chest.
He looked away and said quickly: “I did take the Soul Bell without your permission — but I had only just arrived at Falling Moon at the time, and everything looked new and valuable to me. I saw the Soul Bell unguarded and grew greedy.”
Xie Zhefeng held his spiritual energy steady on all sides, sealing off the outside world.
Zhao Duan and Qiao Ting had exchanged several blows. Seeing that with Xie Zhefeng beside An Wuxue there was no longer any hope of taking a hostage, Zhao Duan wheeled around and tried to blast open Xie Zhefeng’s spiritual energy seal.
But no matter how many times he drove his corrupt energy against it, Xie Zhefeng didn’t budge.
Xie Zhefeng seemed to be waiting to see what Zhao Duan would pull out next. He didn’t draw Chuhan — he simply stood at An Wuxue’s side.
His pupils reflected the image of An Wuxue, covered in blood. His eyes carried a faint haze, and the murderous edge he had arrived with, having cut his way through everything in his path, had eased somewhat.
Xie Zhefeng had always held his sword with perfect steadiness. Yet Chunhua trembled ever so slightly in this man’s hand, the blood on its edge nearly spent to the last drop.
An Wuxue’s eyes darted back and forth, waiting for a reply that never came.
He truly had no patience for lingering on something like this — he only cared about the Beiming sword formation, and the origins of the puppet technique on his body.
He tried again: “Even if I stole your Soul Bell, the matter worked out in the end — the Bell was just what was needed to guide you here…”
Surely he wasn’t going to settle accounts over this right now?
He said, helplessly: “If you want to punish me for it, there’s no rush — can’t that wait until after all this is over?”
Before the words had fully landed, Xie Zhefeng’s expression shifted sharply, and he said in an urgent rush: “I wasn’t —”
He was so flustered that he stepped forward — and forgot the drawn Chunhua still in his hand.
The blade moved.
An Wuxue’s eyes snapped to it in an instant, and he stepped back on reflex, saying quietly: “Immortal Sovereign!”
Xie Zhefeng went rigid again.
He bore the weight of two realms on his shoulders and had never once faltered under it. Yet An Wuxue’s instinctive flinch seemed to press down on him harder than all of those two realms combined, until he could barely breathe.
He murmured: “…Just now — you were afraid I’d strike you?”
An Wuxue: “……?”
What else would I think?
In silence, Xie Zhefeng said quietly: “You… don’t be afraid.”
The man closed his eyes.
On the brow of the incarnation, the snow lotus sword-mark flickered faintly, tinged with dark shadow.
An Wuxue stared.
The inner demon?
Xie Zhefeng had spent months in seclusion suppressing it. Even if it hadn’t been eradicated, it shouldn’t be looking worse than before.
No wonder something had seemed off ever since he appeared.
He ventured carefully: “Has the inner demon grown worse? With the current situation in Beiming…”
Xie Zhefeng opened his eyes.
The sword-mark faded. He said: “It’s nothing. The great demon at Tribulation Crossing who brought you here — that’s him?”
“…More or less.”
Not exactly “brought” — I followed deliberately.
At that, Xie Zhefeng glanced at Kunkun, gave a small tilt of his chin, then turned and swept forward toward where Qiao Ting and Zhao Duan were still fighting.
Kunkun let out a soft “wuwu,” spread its wings, and flew to hover before An Wuxue.
The little creature was trying to burrow into his arms. An Wuxue blocked it: “I’m covered in filth right now…”
“Wuwu!”
Kunkun paid him absolutely no mind and dove straight in.
He had no choice but to catch it, scooping it up into his arms — only to watch the white fluffball immediately acquire a smear of red. He sighed. “You’re so clingy…”
And not at all worried about making Xie Zhefeng suspicious.
“Uwuu…”
An Wuxue assumed it was just fretting over him and being affectionate about it. He stroked its fur gently and turned to look.
Qiao Ting and Zhao Duan were still locked in combat. Xie Zhefeng raised Chunhua and swept it down — the sword-light split through the air like a blade through bamboo, instantly cleaving between the two of them.
Qiao Ting immediately pulled her sword back, flipped several times through the air, and landed cleanly.
Zhao Duan was nearly knocked off his feet by the spiritual force.
One was at early Tribulation Crossing, one at late Tribulation Crossing — and yet Qiao Ting had held out in direct combat this long. It spoke volumes about how little actual experience Zhao Duan had fighting at the Tribulation Crossing level.
The only reason this man had been able to drive the cultivators of the twenty-seventh city into cowering retreat was the shortcut that cultivating through corrupt energy had given him.
Corrupt energy was the manifest form of greed, anger, desire, and malice in the world. Where there was goodness in living beings, there was also evil — corrupt energy could never be fully purged.
Before the Immortal Calamity, the four heavenly pillars had stood firm across heaven and earth, and spiritual veins had coursed through both realms, naturally cleansing the corrupt energy in an endless cycle. In those days, only those driven to utter desperation turned to demonic cultivation, or those whose spiritual resolve had faltered and been consumed by their inner demons. Demonic cultivators were hunted by all; they never amounted to a real threat.
But the Beiming Immortal Lord had struck the first blow, destroying the Beiming heavenly pillar and igniting the catastrophe on the Dark Sea, which then spread to every corner of the world until all four pillars were broken and the spiritual veins severed. The corrupt energy that should have been cleansed by spiritual energy welled up without end, and demons proliferated everywhere.
For a cultivator — whether walking the Way of Floating Lives or the Way of Non-Attachment — reaching Tribulation Crossing required enduring the bitter trials of tempering the mind and the grinding hardship of cultivation.
But corrupt energy offered a shortcut: given enough of it, one could power straight through to the peak of Tribulation Crossing with nothing in the way.
That was how someone like Zhao Duan came to exist — holding power enough to overturn heaven, yet doing nothing with it but wreaking havoc wherever he went.
Throughout ancient times, the two realms had relied entirely on immortals to suppress the great demons.
But a secret method for ascending to immortality had appeared among the demonic cultivators, allowing those who cultivated through corruption to ascend — and those who had ascended to turn demonic. From that point on, both sides had gains and losses, and so the Immortal Calamity had begun.
If the method for ascending to immortality hadn’t ultimately been destroyed, the Calamity could never have ended.
As long as Xie Zhefeng remained the sole ascended immortal in the present age, demonic cultivators — no matter how many — could never amount to a true threat.
But the implication of what Zhao Duan had said earlier seemed to be that Beiming was about to have a corrupted immortal…
An Wuxue’s thoughts screeched to a halt — why was he thinking about all of this again?
He was Suxue. A mortal from Zhaoshui City.
He had come to Beiming only to find a way to break the brand, and to put his past life behind him.
He had barely pushed those tangled thoughts down when he looked up to see Zhao Duan being pinned to the ground by Xie Zhefeng’s spiritual force.
Chunhua spun rapidly just above the center of Zhao Duan’s brow, as though it might descend at any moment.
Zhao Duan cried out in terror: “Mercy!! Fellow Daoist, mercy!!”
Qiao Ting, standing behind Xie Zhefeng with her sword held ready, said with genuine admiration: “What beautiful swordwork, Fellow Daoist!”
Xie Zhefeng looked down at the wretched Zhao Duan, his voice low: “Who said we were fellow cultivators?”
He leaned forward slightly.
An Wuxue caught the motion and was instantly reminded of what had happened to Yun Zhou. He called out: “Im—”
His gaze swept over Qiao Ting. He caught himself, and pivoted seamlessly: “Fellow Daoist Xie — don’t forget what happened to Yun Zhou.”
In the illusory realm of Cloud Sword Sect, Xie Zhefeng had attempted to read Yun Zhou’s memories — only for Yun Zhou’s soul to dissolve the moment it was drawn out, consumed by some hidden curse.
Zhao Duan’s soul almost certainly carried the same kind of curse.
Xie Zhefeng had clearly arrived at the same thought, and only asked: “Have you exhausted all your tricks?”
At that moment, Qiao Yin arrived on swordback with several peak Great Completion cultivators from the city.
The moment she drew near and saw Zhao Duan with Xie Zhefeng’s sword poised at his brow, she paused — then brightened: “Fellow Daoist Xie has captured Zhao Duan? Then the sword formation can—”
Her voice caught. Her gaze landed on Qiao Ting, and the brightness in her tone dropped sharply, her voice going faint: “You… you’re here too…”
She seemed immediately ill at ease. Qiao Ting, by contrast, was entirely composed. She sheathed her sword, cradled it in her arms, and said with mild exasperation: “Of course I’m here. That Zhao bastard took cultivators from the city as prisoners, and everyone was inside the sword formation — I was afraid of losing time, so I came ahead to help.”
Qiao Yin: “That’s… true. That’s fair. It was our oversight…”
An Wuxue glanced at Qiao Ting standing beside Xie Zhefeng, then at Qiao Yin wearing an expression of unmistakable guilt, then — out of the corner of his eye — at Zhao Duan, whose face had gone to an impressively terrible shade of pale.
What was going on between these three?
Qiao Ting, Qiao Yin — the names sounded like they were of the same generation. Yet earlier, Qiao Yin had said Zhao Duan had history with the City Lord’s manor…
“We also came to help,” Qiao Yin said to Qiao Ting. “When Fellow Daoist Xie heard that Fellow Daoist Suxue was in trouble, he came at once — it’s only that Fellow Daoist Xie’s cultivation is so far beyond ours, we couldn’t keep up, so we arrived a step late. We didn’t expect Fellow Daoist Xie to be so capable — we ended up being no use at all…”
“HAHAHAHAHAHA!!” Zhao Duan suddenly burst out laughing.
He had been cowering under Chunhua’s edge begging for his life moments ago — yet now he was triumphant, looking straight at Xie Zhefeng. “Now I understand! That little beauty I captured — turns out he’s yours. So you’re the one he called heartless, fickle, and without feeling!”
Xie Zhefeng’s eyes stilled.
“What a failure you are as an immortal cultivator! Your cauldron just told me he’d rather follow me than stay with you. What a shame — if only I could have broken the seal, that little beauty would be my cauldron now. HAHAHAHA!!!”
The spinning of Chunhua above Zhao Duan’s brow stopped dead.
Xie Zhefeng’s expression went momentarily blank. In the same instant, he turned his head to look at An Wuxue.
An Wuxue didn’t take it seriously in the slightest. He only thought Zhao Duan was an exceptional idiot.
He had clearly been saying whatever it took in the moment to play the man, and this fool was preening with self-congratulation even with a sword nearly at his life gate —
His gaze stuttered.
Xie Zhefeng was watching him, wearing an expression he couldn’t read.
Then the man looked away, and his face was nothing but killing intent.
He said quietly: “A buffoon.”
Zhao Duan’s laughter died in an instant.
Xie Zhefeng pressed two fingers together, conjuring a cutting sliver of glacial sword-energy, and drove it into Zhao Duan’s right arm. Frost crystallized immediately.
Zhao Duan cried out in pain — but the frost didn’t melt. In the blink of an eye, it had spread to cover his entire right arm.
Then —
The frost shattered. Zhao Duan’s right arm broke with it.
“AHHHHH——!!!!”
Zhao Duan shuddered several times. The screaming stopped. He bared his teeth in a vicious grin. “You all want to know what other tricks I have left?”
The words hit the room like a stone in still water. Every person present froze.
What did he mean by that?
An Wuxue felt the wrongness of it too.
Looking at things now, the twenty-seventh city had Qiao Ting and Qiao Yin — two Tribulation Crossing cultivators at early stage — and with the city’s cultivators and the incomplete sword formation to back them up, they had genuinely been able to hold Zhao Duan in check.
But when Zhao Duan had learned that Pei Qian and Xie Zhefeng were inside the city, he had been wary — yet not paralyzed. Where did that confidence come from?
To stand against four Tribulation Crossing cultivators — including Xie Zhefeng’s incarnation at the peak of that stage — Zhao Duan would need a peak Tribulation Crossing ally at the very minimum…
Something’s wrong.
In the span of a breath, one beat before the other — Xie Zhefeng’s gaze sharpened as he reversed his grip on Chunhua, while An Wuxue’s expression changed, and everyone else reacted in their own way.
An Wuxue spun around — and saw a woman in elaborate robes appear directly behind him from nowhere.
Her complexion was a sickly greenish-white. Her face was blank. Corrupt energy boiled around her, and the spiritual pressure of her cultivation radiated out without restraint.
A puppet — at peak Tribulation Crossing.
Qiao Ting’s hand trembled around her sword hilt.
Qiao Yin stared at the woman in the elaborate robes and blurted: “Lady Zhao…”
At almost the same moment, Zhao Duan, seizing his chance as Chunhua’s edge turned away, forced himself through the pain, raised his remaining hand, and sent a burst of spiritual force through his palm — launching himself into the air.
The woman in elaborate robes raised her hand in the same instant. A deluge of corrupt energy surged toward An Wuxue.
She had clearly done the same calculation as Zhao Duan: of everyone present, An Wuxue was the one whose cultivation appeared lowest.
An Wuxue immediately pushed Kunkun clear and drove his soul-sense forward to meet it.
But when his soul-sense pierced into the woman’s sea of consciousness, it found nothing but hollow black.
This peak Tribulation Crossing puppet had only a remnant soul.
With no soul, what was there to attack with soul-sense?
The corrupt energy was already at his face, moments from wrapping around him and binding him fast.
Everything happened in an instant. An Wuxue had no thought of counting on anyone else. He clenched his jaw, steadied his gaze, and raised his hand to form the seal — the sacrificial technique Yun Zhou had used, the one that burned lifespan and soul essence to force a surge of spiritual power.
Chunhua rang out — clang — and blocked in front of him, Xie Zhefeng’s spiritual energy blazing through it, slamming the surrounding corrupt energy apart.
Junior Brother held the sword across him. In his expression was rage with nowhere to go — but his voice was deliberately wrapped in gentleness, as though trying to cover something that sounded very much like fear.
“Are you out of your mind?”
There he goes again, being inexplicable.
When was Xie Zhefeng’s inner demon going to be eradicated? Volatile from morning to night.
An Wuxue said, unimpressed: “I didn’t know you’d step in. How exactly does defending myself offend Fellow Daoist Xie?”
“How could I —”
How could I possibly not come for you.
Qiao Yin and Qiao Ting moved together to deal with Zhao Duan. The woman’s corrupt energy clashed against Xie Zhefeng’s spiritual force — the pressure of two peak-Tribulation-Crossing powers colliding and overlapping, shaking all four directions like the inside of a furnace.
Amid the chaos, the voice of the inner demon rose above ten thousand kinds of noise.
"…Isn’t it perfectly natural that Senior Brother would think you wouldn’t save him?"
“He only asked you for help once.”
“Hunted by ten thousand sects, surrounded by immortal cultivators, his body soaked in corrupt energy, his golden bones shattered to pieces — he propped himself up with Chunhua and stood beneath the mountain gate that the two of you had walked through more times than could be counted, and told you he hurt so much.”
“And then?”
“HAHAHAHAHAHA—!!!!”****