Chapter 66: Karma, Calamity Sword Reflects Past Lives
The qingmu spirit pearl hung three inches from Lu Qingyang’s brow. Inside the pearl, ten mu of medicinal fields trembled, and the dragon blood grass roots, like a spiderweb, entangled his ruptured Dantian. Three zhang away, the Black-Robed Cultivator’s bone flute let out a mournful wail. A skull formed from Nine Nether Profound Flame gnawed at the protective azure light, and the smell of charring mixed with the sizzling of burning flesh echoed through the cliff.
“Ye Wuchen, you Rebellious Disciple of the sect, how dare you speak of Karma?” Lu Qingyang spat out a mouthful of blood. The half-Talisman for substitution clutched between his fingers had already turned to ash. Ten years unseen, the arrogant youth who once vied with him for the position of outer sect deacon at the Taiyi Pavilion mountain gate now had a cinnabar mark between his brows identical to the Old Drunkard’s.
The Immortal Binding Rope, flying from Ye Wuchen’s sleeve, wrapped around the mountain rock. Golden-red drops of blood seeped from the Sword Qi-torn gash in his dark Daoist robe. “If you hadn’t secretly hoarded the qingmu spirit pearl, why would I need to gouge out half my Golden Core to feed the Soul Devouring Gu?” He formed a hand Seal in the Void Realm, and the bone flute’s sound suddenly rose. The array of Yin Soldiers rushing from the bottom of the cliff actually formed the Punish Evil Sword Array of Taiyi Pavilion—precisely the incomplete score the Old Drunkard had demonstrated when he was drunk back then.
Lu Qingyang’s pupils contracted sharply. The hourglass phantom in the spirit pearl space reversed three times. In a single breath in the outside world, he had already meditated for a hundred days by the medicinal field. The Dragon Scale Grass, watered by the spiritual liquid in his palm, suddenly shot up, its leaves like sword blades piercing the Void Realm. In reality, the cliff exploded with a roar. Thousands of grass-leaf Sword Qi clashed with the Yin Soldier array, creating a metallic clang that startled birds within a hundred li, causing them to fall.
“What magnificent spiritual awakening of plants!” Ye Wuchen wiped away the black blood from the corner of his mouth and summoned an ancient bronze mirror covered in cracks. When the mirror reflected the scene of Lu Qingyang’s Dantian, the qingmu spirit pearl suddenly let out a mournful cry—the mirror actually showed the Old Drunkard’s withered hand, clutching a compass in his dying moments, with the initial move of Taiyi Pavilion’s forbidden art, the “Soul-Chasing Mark,” leaking between his fingers.
Lu Qingyang felt his Divine Sense struck by lightning. The scene of the rainy night in the ruined temple all those years ago surged in his Sea of Consciousness. It turned out that the Old Drunkard’s coughing blood transmission of cultivation during his dying moments, with something hidden in his palm, was not the “Basic Qi Refining Art,” but rather the imprinting of half a Soul Mark into his Meridians. The spiritual power accumulated over ten years of arduous cultivation now, like a wild horse, rushed through his Ren and Du Meridians along the Soul Mark’s trajectory, actually intending to forcefully break through the Nascent Soul bottleneck!
“Only just figured it out now?” Ye Wuchen laughed maniacally, crushing the ancient mirror. The mirror fragments transformed into streaking light and vanished into the earth pulse. “That old ghost stole the spirit pearl to extend his Dao Companion’s life. Taking you as a disciple was merely to raise a substitute cauldron for calamity!” Nine Funeral Nails flew from his sleeve. The Soul Locking Chains tied to the tails of the nails were precisely the corpse-binding ropes Lu Qingyang had pawned in the black market back then.
Suddenly, crimson snowflakes drifted down the cliff. Lu Qingyang’s temples visibly turned white with frost at a speed discernible to the naked eye. The spiritual power rampage caused by forcefully attempting to break through to the Nascent Soul realm drained all the essence of plants and trees within a ten-li radius, even causing the qingmu spirit pearl to appear dull and withered. He gritted his teeth and slapped his skull. The vital essence blood he spat out condensed into a blood-colored Talisman in the Void Realm—it was precisely the “Life Burning Nascent Soul Art” Su Li had given him when they parted.
“Fool! How can a life-burning secret art…” Ye Wuchen’s mockery abruptly ceased. The moment the blood-colored Talisman touched the spirit pearl, the withered Dragon Scale Grass inside the pearl suddenly flowered and bore fruit. As the infant-fist-sized vermilion fruit fell to the ground, the flow of time throughout the entire cliff suddenly slowed down. The moment Lu Qingyang’s white hair lifted, a three-zhang-tall Nascent Soul phantom appeared behind him, its features remarkably similar to the Dragon Soul sealed in the bronze casket.
Ye Wuchen frantically retreated, crushing a life-saving jade Talisman, only to see Lu Qingyang’s Nascent Soul phantom raise its hand and grasp. The skull formed from Nine Nether Profound Flame reversed direction, carrying the remaining Evil Qi of the Yin Soldier array to backlash its master. The Soul Locking Chains, moreover, wrapped around his recently reformed Golden Core. Amidst screams, the Taiyi Pavilion’s secret art of “Transplanting Flowers and Grafting Trees” had now become a death-Death Warrant, a self-inflicted trap.
“This sword strike repays you for the black market ambush of yesteryear.” Lu Qingyang pointed his fingers like a sword at his brow. The azure light bursting from the qingmu spirit pearl was mixed with a Dragon roar. As the Sword Qi pierced through Ye Wuchen’s Dantian, the jade pendant at his waist suddenly shattered, revealing the phantom of Taiyi Pavilion’s Enforcement Elder. The moment that phantom glimpsed the spirit pearl, it actually showed the same horrified expression as the Old Drunkard before his death.
Before the cliff completely collapsed, Lu Qingyang took Ye Wuchen’s storage ring. As his Divine Sense swept over the items in the ring, his pupils sharply contracted—on a half-faded, yellowed scroll, Su Li holding the bronze casket was depicted lifelike, and the inscription at the bottom bore the cinnabar Seal of Taiyi Pavilion’s Scripture Pavilion.
On a cloud boat a thousand li away, Su Li, who was mixing medicinal liquids, suddenly crushed a jade bottle. The red string on her wrist spontaneously ignited without wind, and the ashes on the table formed a divination hexagram: Kan above, Li below, Wei Ji (Not Yet Completed). Amidst the maid’s panicked inquiries, she caressed the already faded Soul-Chasing Mark on her collarbone and whispered, “It turns out you and I are both pieces in this game…”