Chapter 53#
Xie Zhefeng’s eyes darkened.
The madness and malevolence he had been suppressing all this time burst forth unscrupulously at this moment. Above his brow, the snow lotus sword mark fully emerged, surrounded by black qi, looking as if he had entered the demonic path.
Standing in front of him, amidst the turbid qi, he looked more like a demonic cultivator than the woman in extravagant dress.
An Wuxue’s heart tightened. He quietly scanned with his divine sense and, while Qiao Yin and the others were fully occupied with Zhao Duan, he waved his hand and cast an illusion on Xie Zhefeng’s face to hide the signs of the inner demon.
Xie Zhefeng seemed to be struggling with the inner demon; his pupils were slightly dilated, yet he still stood between An Wuxue and the woman in extravagant dress.
Amidst the chaos, An Wuxue heard him say, “There’s no need for this next time.”
“…Hm?”
“I will save you.”
“Oh…”
Xie Zhefeng added, “In the future, if you are in danger, I will certainly not stand by and watch.”
An Wuxue nodded perfunctorily, “Thank you, Immortal.”
The spiritual energy at Xie Zhefeng’s fingertips trembled slightly. The Chunhua Sword, controlled by his spiritual energy, suddenly dropped, but he picked it up again in an instant.
Kun Kun flew back into An Wuxue’s arms. Xie Zhefeng, holding Chunhua, headed straight for the woman in extravagant dress against the flow of turbid qi. Zhao Duan, with only one arm left, was fighting with the few cultivators from the twenty-seventh city.
An Wuxue called out, “Young City Lord Qiao, where is Pei Qian?”
“Before we hurried here, we were worried that all the masters in the city being absent would cause trouble, so he stayed behind in the sword array!”
Qiao Yin looked at Zhao Duan again and said angrily, “How could you be so utterly heartless as to kill the person who raised and taught you to refine them into a puppet?”
Qiao Ting’s face was extremely dark, and he spoke through gritted teeth, “Calling you a dog is truly an insult to dogs.”
In a few breaths, the woman in extravagant dress, who had only a remnant soul in the puppet body and fought entirely by instinct, was at a disadvantage against Xie Zhefeng.
Chunhua immediately detached from Xie Zhefeng’s hand. Knowing his inner demon was recurring and that he shouldn’t prolong the fight, he sought a quick resolution. In the blink of an eye, he formed a seal and sent out the spirit sword.
The turbid qi around the woman churned even more violently, forming an almost solid, impenetrable wall.
With a firm expression, Xie Zhefeng drove the seal steadily. Chunhua instantly broke through the turbid qi and was about to pierce the woman’s brow.
But Xie Zhefeng suddenly stopped.
Array runes emerged on the woman’s body, crawling across her skin. Although she was a puppet body that had entered the demonic path through turbid qi, the runes on her skin flowed with silver light.
The silver light was dazzling, forming array patterns that were exceptionally familiar to both An Wuxue and Xie Zhefeng.
Even Qiao Ting and Qiao Yin turned their heads and widened their eyes.
Zhao Duan laughed, “Isn’t your cultivation very high? Isn’t your sword technique very good? Kill her!!!”
As the Young City Lord of the twenty-seventh city, Qiao Yin had been guarding the sword array every day lately; how could she not be familiar with this array pattern?
She said blankly, “The sword array core…”
Wasn’t this the stolen array core Pei Qian had mentioned!?
No wonder Zhao Duan was still so confident even now!
In that brief moment of distraction, her divine sense was not on guard, and Zhao Duan found an opportunity, hurriedly driving his sword toward Qiao Yin.
There was a “clash.”
Qiao Ting stood in front of Qiao Yin, his spirit sword clashing with Zhao Duan’s blade. Both sides shook and retreated at the same time.
Zhao Duan’s spiritual energy was higher than Qiao Ting’s. After taking the attack head-on, Qiao Ting’s internal organs were shaken violently. He spat out a mouthful of blood, then wiped it away with his sleeve and looked back at Qiao Yin. “Being distracted while fighting an enemy with higher cultivation than yourself—has your role as Young City Lord made you go backward, sister?”
Qiao Yin was choked for words, her face showing embarrassment. “I…”
Zhao Duan didn’t continue the attack. Instead, he stood there leisurely, tending to the wound on his severed arm, and said gloomily, “Sister?”
He looked at Xie Zhefeng and the woman in extravagant dress. When his gaze fell on Xie Zhefeng, it was full of malice, but when it fell on the woman Qiao Yin called “Immortal Master Zhao,” it was filled with gloom.
He sneered, “Bastard, aren’t you the son of this woman who is neither human nor ghost? Where did you get a sister? You were just a lowlife switched with me at birth. Everyone knows this now. Do you still consider yourself the young master of the City Lord’s Mansion?”
Qiao Yin’s eye twitched; she had no desire to admit that Zhao Duan was her biological brother.
Qiao Ting, on the other hand, shrugged nonchalantly.
On the other side, Xie Zhefeng withdrew his sword, clashing spiritual energy with the woman again, and immediately turned back to lead An Wuxue away.
Seeing this, Zhao Duan became even more proud. “Why aren’t you using your sword anymore?”
Xie Zhefeng just stared at the puppet and didn’t speak.
An Wuxue naturally understood.
It seemed the problem with the sword array of the twenty-seventh city lay here.
Zhao Duan hadn’t destroyed the array core but had moved it onto the puppet. This puppet at the peak of the Tribulation Transcendence stage was now equivalent to a part of the array. If Xie Zhefeng truly went for the kill, the puppet could instinctively mobilize the power of the array, which would be equivalent to fighting the entire sword array of the twenty-seventh city!
If he directly destroyed the puppet, he would be destroying the array core. Although the sword array had the ability to repair itself, all forty-nine sword arrays in Beiming were closely linked now. If the array core was destroyed at this time, there would be too many constraints before it was repaired.
The array core had ended up in a half-dead puppet; they could neither hit it nor kill it.
Qiao Ting frowned, “Is this one of the sword array cores? Isn’t the sword array meant to cleanse turbid qi? How can it coexist with a puppet that has entered the demonic path?”
Zhao Duan replied generously, “Of course, I first made her into an immortal cultivator puppet, moved the array core, and then led her into the demonic path, linking the puppet mark and the array core together, using the sword array to nourish the puppet mark—the spiritual energy you’ve been putting into the sword array lately has helped quite a bit.”
Qiao Yin was furious, “You beast, I was truly blind back then!”
Zhao Duan’s tone was now exceptionally flat, without any fluctuation. “Now the puppet mark and the array runes are intertwined. Only I know the order of each rune and array pattern. If I die, your only choice is to destroy this array core and then repair it. But with the critical situation in Beiming, a single move affects the whole body. Destroying the array core to rebuild it might draw out even more turbid qi. Do you still want to fight me?”
Qiao Ting rolled his eyes, “Who made you memorize those words?”
“How did you know—no, bah! I said that!”
Qiao Ting: “…Fine, everything you said is right.”
Xie Zhefeng had already formed another seal and was using spiritual techniques to fight the woman.
The more spiritual energy he used, the more the turbid qi around the woman flourished, as if the spiritual energy were inexhaustible.
At the same time.
In the sword array of the twenty-seventh city.
Every time Xie Zhefeng clashed with the woman, the puppet body would use the power of the sword array, and the entire array would shake as if the earth and mountains were trembling.
The cultivators inside were all pale; some were seriously injured and had to be supported as they were taken away.
Pei Qian was in the center of the array, his spiritual energy flying from his hands and the array patterns around him floating.
He muttered to himself, “Did they find the array core…? This lost array core is like a living person, moving one moment and still the next, with such a big temper…”
Another tremor!
He gave a soft grunt, hurriedly stabilized the sword array, and flew to the side of the other Great Completion stage cultivators.
He said, “There’s something strange about the array core. From now on, the array might draw even more spiritual energy, and if you’re not careful, you’ll be sucked dry. If you have concerns and don’t want to die here, there’s still time to leave.”
Someone said, “Immortal Master Pei is an outsider, yet you are at the forefront. How can we, the cultivators of the city, steal an ignoble existence? We will naturally stand together with Immortal Master Pei!”
Pei Qian laughed, “Don’t give me those high-sounding words. If you stay, I’ll take it as your own choice; whether you live or die has nothing to do with me. And don’t speak for others about standing together; you want to stand together, but others might not…”
He tilted his chin slightly, pointing at another cultivator who was hesitating to speak. “Can’t you see he doesn’t want to stay?”
The person who spoke was both embarrassed and slightly annoyed, unable to answer for a while.
Suddenly—
the sword array shook again as if the river were being overturned and the sea was being turned upside down!
Pei Qian didn’t want to waste more time talking and flew back to the center to inject Tribulation Transcendence spiritual energy.
He muttered, “What is all this? I shouldn’t have accepted the transmission from Luoyue to return to Beiming. I really am fated to be at odds with Beiming.”
In front of the woman in extravagant dress.
Xie Zhefeng’s sword light fell in several places, but he eventually withdrew and retreated each time.
None of those places were where the array core could be separated. Attacking them instead caused the woman to draw spiritual energy from the sword array to resist.
If his main body were here and his soul were unharmed, his Eternal Immortal spiritual energy could have simultaneously eliminated Zhao Duan and the woman and then repaired the sword array in an instant with his great power.
But now…
An Wuxue was watching the battle from behind while holding Kun Kun, and at this moment, his heart was in his throat.
—Xie Zhefeng’s inner demon had flared up at the worst possible time.
The man’s eyes were now completely blank, and he was fighting entirely on instinct.
Although Kun Kun was lying in his arms, the miasma beast’s spiritual energy was actually being sent into Xie Zhefeng’s sea of consciousness. Even if he couldn’t see the state of the inner demon in Xie Zhefeng’s mind, he knew that Xie Zhefeng was likely fighting on both the inside and outside.
On the other side, Qiao Ting, Qiao Yin, and the others were gradually unable to hold on.
They were only at the early stage of Tribulation Transcendence. Previously, with the help of many immortal cultivators and the damaged sword array in the city, they had managed to block Zhao Duan. Now they could neither stay nor leave. In a direct confrontation without Xie Zhefeng’s help, no matter how poor Zhao Duan’s combat experience was, he would still have the upper hand.
Finally, he couldn’t help but shout, “Immortal!”
Xie Zhefeng’s movement slowed slightly. He looked back at him, his eyes full of struggle.
In his sea of consciousness, the inner demon whispered, “He calls you ‘Immortal.’ He has always called you ‘Immortal,’ oh, he has called you ‘Junior Brother’ twice.”
“But what was that for? To say you’re self-deceiving, to expose your hypocrisy, to get rid of your suspicion!”
Senior Brother…
He had finally spent eight hundred years to root out the inner demon; he hadn’t expected to let his Senior Brother see all his embarrassment.
If he messed up something important, Senior Brother would be angry.
He steadied his mind, and the voice of the inner demon gradually weakened.
An Wuxue said urgently from the side, “The Immortal shoulders the responsibility of both realms, and right now the victory depends entirely on the Immortal alone! If the Immortal is controlled by a mere inner demon—”
“I won’t be.” Xie Zhefeng was clearly in a state of madness, yet he spoke these words gently.
An Wuxue was slightly stunned.
Xie Zhefeng formed a seal and threw it at the woman, temporarily blocking her. With a wave of his hand, he set up a barrier, separating himself from Zhao Duan, Qiao Ting, Qiao Yin, and the others.
Then, he turned and beckoned to Kun Kun.
Kun Kun gave a “wu” sound, jumped out of An Wuxue’s arms, and ran to Xie Zhefeng’s side.
Xie Zhefeng stroked it gently.
An Wuxue was puzzled—what was Xie Zhefeng going to do?
He saw Xie Zhefeng close his eyes, his avatar’s body trembling, and his soul actually drifted out of the avatar.
An immortal’s soul was golden, a golden light cluster surrounded by black qi. The black qi was Xie Zhefeng’s inner demon, the most primal turbid qi in everyone’s heart.
Kun Kun’s wings moved slightly as it flew beside Xie Zhefeng’s out-of-body soul. the miasma beast’s spiritual energy enclosed the four directions, protecting the soul within.
An Wuxue watched as all the turbid qi caused by the inner demon gathered in one spot of the soul, turning into a small part of deep black where no golden light could be seen.
This was…
He suddenly realized what Xie Zhefeng might be doing.
Could it be…
The pain of splitting the soul was no different from a thousand times the pain of lingchi (death by a thousand cuts) on the body.
This…
In an instant—
With his eyes closed, Xie Zhefeng brought his two fingers together to create the light of the Chu Han Sword.
The sword light was cold, and the familiar feeling made An Wuxue take a step back.
But the sword light didn’t go toward Zhao Duan, nor toward the puppet woman, nor toward An Wuxue.
The light of the Chu Han Sword pointed directly at Xie Zhefeng’s soul and, without any pause, sliced off the small piece of the soul that had condensed all the turbid qi of the inner demon!
The man jerked violently, his whole body convulsing. His face was pale, and he spat out several large mouthfuls of blood.
Kun Kun immediately stepped forward and broke apart the sliced-off piece of the soul that only contained turbid qi.
The turbid qi dissipated in all directions, like tiny fish and shrimp entering the vast ocean.
Xie Zhefeng’s soul returned to its clear state, leaving only a golden light symbolizing an immortal’s soul.
The golden light flew back into the avatar’s body, and the man finally opened his eyes again, revealing the black eyes An Wuxue was so familiar with.
The black eyes were once again covered by the starry night, and his gaze was calm, leaving only a faint killing intent.
His junior brother looked toward him.
“I will not be controlled by the inner demon and delay critical matters,” he said. His voice still carried the pain of splitting his soul, but his tone was exceptionally steady. “You… do not worry.”