Chapter 128: Xuanhuang Devours Dragon Abyss
Nine bronze chains, covered in ancient inscriptions, shot up from the molten seabed. Lu Qingyang ascended on the fragments of the Bee Cloud Sword, while behind him, Leng Yuehan's Ice Soul Sword Qi and Su Meiniang's Fox Fire exploded into a rain of stars on the lava surface.
"Daoist Lu, if you dare to monopolize the Heaven Severing Sword Legacy..." Leng Yuehan swung her sword, cutting down an attacking lava dragon. The snow-white silk band on her forehead suddenly burst, revealing the Moon Wheel Dao Scar on her brow.
"Fairy, those are harsh words," Lu Qingyang dodged a grab from a Xuanhuang giant hand, flicking three Talismans with Hehuan Sect secret patterns from his sleeve. "Last night, when we bathed in Dragon blood, you personally agreed..." Before he finished speaking, the Talismans exploded, and in the swirling pink mist, an illusion of him embracing Leng Yuehan in the hot spring appeared.
Su Meiniang scoffed, waving her charred tail. The Nine Nether Fox Fire burned the illusion into smoke: "Little Lord, this illusionary art of 'flower-swapping' truly captures the essence of the Hehuan Sect."
The lava sea suddenly boiled, and seventy-two bronze cauldrons broke through the waves. The taotie patterns on the cauldrons resonated with the sword mark on Lu Qingyang's chest.
He traced the inscriptions on a cauldron's ear with his fingertip, sneering, "Xuanji Old Ancestor truly spared no expense, even bringing the Zhou Tian Star Cauldron that suppresses the Southern Fire Vein."
However, what erupted from the cauldrons was not earth fire, but xuanming heavy water mixed with stardust. Wherever it passed, even space froze, forming spiderweb cracks.
Leng Yuehan suddenly pulled out her Ice Soul hairpin and cut her palm. Her essence blood condensed in the Void Realm into the Guanghan Palace's foundational sword art: "Lunar Eclipse: Heavenly Dog Devours the Sun!"
The sword light transformed into a hundred-zhang heavenly dog phantom, its fangs biting into three bronze cauldrons.
From the cracks in the cauldrons, tentacles covered in eyeballs suddenly emerged. Each pupil reflected the face of a different Cultivator.
"Watch out for Possession!" Su Meiniang shouted with a solemn expression. She swiftly lashed out with her fox tail, wrapping around Lu Qingyang's waist like lightning, trying to pull him back from danger.
However, just as she made her move, the eerie tentacles, like ghosts, quickly wrapped around her ankle, catching her off guard.
Seeing this, Lu Qingyang unhesitatingly threw the Bee Cloud Sword. The Bee Cloud Sword streaked through the air, a cold light, and shot straight towards the tentacles.
However, unexpectedly, the moment the Bee Cloud Sword's edge touched the tentacles, they instantly softened like mud, as if losing all their hardness.
"Interesting, it's actually a North Sea Soul-Devouring Leech!" A flicker of surprise crossed Lu Qingyang's eyes. He immediately realized that the origin of this monster was extraordinary.
No sooner said than done, Lu Qingyang suddenly tore open his robe. From the sword pattern on his chest, a golden-red Dragon blood gushed out like a spring.
"Fairy Leng, I need to borrow your Guanghan Jade Dew!" Lu Qingyang shouted, simultaneously reaching out to grab Leng Yuehan.
Seeing this, Leng Yuehan was instantly furious. She let out an angry cry, fiercely swung her long sword, and a sharp Sword Qi, like a raging tide, swept towards Lu Qingyang.
However, Lu Qingyang remained unhurried. He smiled slightly, extended two fingers, and effortlessly clamped the Sword Qi.
Following that, Lu Qingyang smoothly licked Leng Yuehan's sword. A thin layer of frost instantly condensed on the sword.
At the same time, the Dragon blood in his palm and Leng Yuehan's Cold Moon True Qi instantly merged, forming a black and white Yin and Yang symbol.
"Yin and Yang give birth to all things, all methods return to the source!" Lu Qingyang muttered, and he fiercely slapped the Yin and Yang symbol onto Su Meiniang's back.
In an instant, the innate True Fire burning on Su Meiniang's fox tail underwent a miraculous change. The originally blazing flames now turned to the color of Chaos.
The Chaos-colored flames, as if alive, quickly wrapped around the Soul-Devouring Leech, burning it and causing it to shriek in pain.
In the depths of the seabed, which had been silent, a low and resonant chime of bells suddenly echoed. This sound seemed to transcend the boundaries of time and space, reverberating through the boundless ocean, causing hearts to tremble.
As the chimes sounded, the xuanming heavy water, which had been frozen, began to flow slowly as if awakened. They intertwined and converged, gradually forming a colossal Dharma Idol adorned with a star map. This Dharma Idol was a hundred zhang tall, like a towering mountain, inspiring awe.
The Dharma Idol's left hand held a mysterious Xuanji Disk, while its right hand tightly gripped half a broken whip, which flickered with faint lightning. When the Dharma Idol spoke, it emitted a peculiar mixed male and female voice, as if two different voices were speaking simultaneously: "Mere ants from the Lower Realm, how dare you covet the Heaven Severing Legacy!"
Before the words finished, the half-broken God-Beating Whip suddenly swung. The whip's shadow streaked across the Void Realm like lightning, and wherever it passed, space shattered into pieces like fragile glass.
Seeing this, Lu Qingyang's figure flickered. Like a ghost, he swiftly moved, stepping on the shattered spatial fragments. His movements were as fast as lightning, dazzling to the eye.
Just then, Lu Qingyang suddenly pulled out a captured Xuanyin Banner. The Xuanyin Banner rapidly unfurled in the air, its runes shimmering with an eerie light.
In an instant, three hundred Puppets, controlled by the Dragon Transformation Powder, burst out from the seabed like specters. Each Puppet had one of Su Meiniang's Fox Fire crystal stones embedded in its brow, causing their eyes to glow with an eerie red light.
Leng Yuehan's pupils constricted abruptly at this sight, her face filled with astonishment: "When did you refine the Disciples of various sects into such Puppets...?"
"Fairy, do not wrongly accuse good people," Lu Qingyang chanted a spell. The Heavenly Dipper Array formed by the Puppets actually drew down the Lightning Tribulation from the nine heavens. "These are voluntary cauldrons."
The lightning struck the head of the Xuanji Dharma Idol, but a protective shield, upon which a star map appeared, swallowed the lightning entirely.
Su Meiniang suddenly bit her tongue, her essence blood drawing a Qingqiu forbidden art in the Void Realm: "By blood as a pact, summon the Ancestral Master to the world!"
The faint nine-tailed celestial fox phantom, flickering within the Fox Fire like a candle in the wind, had not yet solidified when the Xuanji Disk in the Dharma Idol's hand suddenly shot out seven dazzling rays of starlight.
Lu Qingyang, with quick eyes and hands, pushed Leng Yuehan into the path of the starlight like a sudden storm. Her Guanghan Jade Body, like a crystal-clear prism, refracted the starlight into a vibrant rainbow: "Excellent! Fairy Leng's icy skin and jade bones are truly a rare treasure, seldom seen in the world."
The refracted starlight, like a sharp sword, struck the seabed altar. The ice mountain, sealing the remains of an ancient Ying Dragon, exploded under this single blow.
In the hurricane stirred up by the Ying Dragon's bone wings, Lu Qingyang moved as if on flat ground, stepping on the Dragon's spine and leaping into the sky like a bird. In his hand, a half-roll of yellowed Jade Slip appeared, like a Secret Manual that had slept for a thousand years: "Old dog, do you know why the Xuan Yin Sect's first Ancestral Master betrayed the Xuanji Pavilion?"
The moment the Jade Slip unfurled, words recording the Upper Realm's secrets surged forth like a vast army, matching the onslaught of the God-Beating Whip, an evenly matched struggle.
Leng Yuehan suddenly pointed her sword at the sky, and silver blood overflowed from her Moon Wheel Dao Scar: "Guanghan Listens to Snow, Jade Pot Light Turns!"
Sword Qi condensed into an ice pot, enveloping the three of them. Outside the pot, the flow of time suddenly accelerated.
Su Meiniang's charred fox tail grew wildly in time, then suddenly pierced the ice pot and plunged into the Dharma Idol's brow: "I found you!"
The fox fur retracted, pulling back a cloud-like cluster of soul fire. From within the soul fire, the Xuanji Old Ancestor's screams could be heard.
"Su Jiejie, this trick of 'snatching from the pocket' is as alluring as a ghost, bone-deep." Lu Qingyang seized the opportunity to drench the Ying Dragon's remains with Dragon blood like a downpour. The heaven severing sword sheath, sealed in the spine, trembled violently like a leaf in a gale.
The Dharma Idol suddenly abandoned its human form, transforming into a colossal python covered in star-like spots, and wrapped around the sword sheath with overwhelming force: "This Venerable One has plotted for a thousand years, how can I allow..."
Before the words finished, Lu Qingyang appeared like a ghost at the python's vital spot, seven inches from its head. His fingertips pulsed with Leng Yuehan's Guanghan True Qi and Su Meiniang's Fox Fire, like two dazzling stars: "Fairies, do you know the highest secret art of the Yin and Yang Hehuan Sect?"
The two conflicting True Qi in his hand, like tamed wild horses, were forcibly kneaded into a chaos pearl, which shot into the giant python's body like a cannonball through the gaps in its star-like spots.
The world suddenly fell silent, and the next moment, the Xuanji Dharma Idol exploded from within like fireworks, scattering into a sky full of stardust.
Before the stardust had completely fallen, a bronze coffin rose from the seabed. The ancient script carved on the coffin lid resonated with Lu Qingyang's sword mark, but what seeped from the cracks was not corpse Qi, but extremely pure Primordial Xuanhuang Qi.
Leng Yuehan suddenly clutched her heart. Her Moon Wheel Dao Scar actually healed as good as new under the nourishment of the Mother Qi: "This is... the aura of the Guanghan Palace's lost Heaven-Mending Art!"
"Interesting." Lu Qingyang used the sword sheath to pry open the coffin lid. Inside lay a female corpse, nine-tenths similar in appearance to Leng Yuehan.
The Ice Soul Sword in the female corpse's hand suddenly flew into Leng Yuehan's palm. The moon crystal embedded in the sword hilt revealed a scene of the Guanghan Palace Master having her Divine Soul extracted by the Xuanji Old Ancestor.
Su Meiniang's fox tail suddenly bristled like a hedgehog, and nine golden bells, like a startled swarm of bees, simultaneously burst open: "The bottom of the coffin actually suppresses Qingqiu's Zhao Yao Banner!"
Just as she was about to reach out, the seabed, like torn cloth, split open into a bottomless abyss. A Dragon claw covered in Xuanhuang scales extended out like a devil's hand, mercilessly dragging the coffin into the earth's core.
Lu Qingyang, quick-witted, like a hungry tiger pouncing on its prey, tore off half of the Zhao Yao Banner. The bloodstains on the banner, as if alive, resonated mysteriously with the Jade Slip in his embrace.
"So that's it!" He laughed, enlightened, shaking open the Jade Slip. The missing part, like the last piece of a puzzle, was perfectly completed by the Zhao Yao Banner. "So the encirclement of Qingqiu centuries ago was just a pretense. What the various sects were truly looking for was..."
Before he finished speaking, a dull, drum-like heartbeat echoed from the earth's core. Each beat was like a terrifying tsunami, causing the seawater to pour back like a breached dam and lava to surge upstream like fire dragons.
Leng Yuehan suddenly swung her sword like lightning towards Lu Qingyang's neck, but the Sword Qi grazed his ear like a meteor, precisely hitting the ambushing stardust: "Be careful, the Xuanji Old Ancestor's Divine Soul is hidden in the stardust!"
The struck stardust instantly condensed into a human form, its appearance strikingly that of the Guanghan Palace Master in her graceful youth.
"Master?" Leng Yuehan's Sword Qi became chaotic, but the Guanghan Palace Master's remnant soul suddenly chanted a spell.
Lu Qingyang flashed in front of the two women. The Xuanhuang Qi surging from the sword mark on his chest formed a Dragon-headed shield: "Haven't had enough of the Possession trick, have you?"
The moment the shield bit into the remnant soul, a stele emerged from where the seabed coffin had disappeared, recording the grand ceremony of the Heaven Severing Sword Master and the Guanghan Palace Master's joint cultivation.
Su Meiniang's Fox Fire swept over the stele, and Qingqiu script gradually appeared: "...Qingqiu Queen as the officiant..."
Her tail tip suddenly pierced Lu Qingyang's shoulder, dipping into his Dragon blood to complete the contract on the stele: "So Little Lord has the blood of our clan's marriage contract flowing within him!"
From the seabed abyss, the Xuanhuang Dragon claw extended again, its palm holding a jade pendant engraved with "Heaven Severing Seventh Generation."
Lu Qingyang, however, flung out the Bee Cloud Sword, shattering the jade pendant. Hidden within the Sword Qi was Su Meiniang's innate Fox Fire: "Mr. Lu hates having his fate arranged by others!"
The fragments of the jade pendant transformed into streaks of light and entered the brows of the three, each revealing different memory fragments—
Leng Yuehan saw herself kneeling before the Guanghan Palace Master, receiving the Ice Soul Sword; Su Meiniang witnessed her grandmother dripping contract blood into the heaven severing sword sheath; Lu Qingyang gazed into a mirror at a man identical to himself injecting Dragon blood into an infant's brow.
"The Reincarnation game should end now." Lu Qingyang suddenly crushed the Jade Slip in his embrace. The shattered paper scraps transformed into a golden bridge leading directly to the earth's core. "If the two Fairies wish to know the truth..."
Before he finished speaking, the sound of chains breaking came from the end of the golden bridge. Nine Ying Dragons, entwined with Xuanhuang Qi, broke through their Seal, their Dragon roars shattering all the Zhou Tian Star Cauldrons.