Chapter 76: Karma Fire Burning Lotus Gatha
Outside the cave, a torrential rain, accompanied by thunder, crashed against the mountain rocks. Lu Qingyang, with bloodstains from his mouth on his fingertips, drew on the bluestone. The dark red blood droplets actually condensed into a reflection of the Taiyi Pavilion's mountain-protecting formation on the stone surface.
Su Li's Ice Soul Sword hummed, suspended at the cave entrance, its blade reflecting nine blood pillars soaring into the sky a thousand miles away—the Karma they had personally sown.
"The Blood Bodhi needs to be nurtured with Nascent Soul essence blood for three days." He tossed the gilded gourd he had taken from Ye Xuanji. The blood mist Spurting from the gourd's mouth condensed into a mandala pattern in mid-air. "May I trouble Fairy Su to undress..."
An icicle grazed his ear and embedded itself in the stone wall, its cold Qi freezing three uncounted storage rings.
Lu Qingyang touched the bloodstain on his neck and clicked his tongue: "It was just a joke. Back then, when you were bathing in the cold pond..."
"Does Fellow Daoist Qingyang no longer want his Profound Yin Mirror?" Su Li's fingertips were entwined with fragments of the mirror's main body, bronze shards rustling down into a pile of Spirit Stones. "Or perhaps, you'd rather taste the flavor of Taiyin Ice Soul?"
Before her words finished, a sudden peal of thunder outside the cave turned crimson.
The twelve Xun Wind Talismans flying from Lu Qingyang's sleeve hadn't even formed a formation before they were twisted into shreds by the threads of Karma entwined in the rainwater.
He abruptly pulled Su Li and rolled into the depths of the cave. Seven golden lotus phantoms exploded where they had stood, the Karma fire burning in their cores melting the Spirit Stones into glazed glass.
"Ye Lingxiao's Soul-Chasing Incense certainly spared no expense." Lu Qingyang wiped the glass fragments from his face, the qingmu spirit pearl in his palm cracking with a third Texture. "Fairy Su, do you still remember that Hehuan Sect female corpse in Burial Dragon Abyss?"
Su Li formed a hand seal to freeze the spreading Karma fire, and her sword tassel trembled when she heard this: "You mean the one with the Taiyi Pavilion Disciple jade token hanging from her waist?"
"Precisely." He flicked his finger, shattering the stalactite on the cave ceiling. A bloody formation diagram emerged from the stone powder. "That foolish woman had Ye Lingxiao's undergarment tucked in her arms, and the hem of the garment was embroidered with a seven-petaled golden lotus—identical to the pattern on the old dog chasing us today."
The torrential rain suddenly reversed, swirling upwards into the sky, and a gigantic bronze palm emerged from the clouds.
The patterns on its palm were identical to the ancient god statues on the murals of the Taiyi Pavilion's underground palace, and every palm line flowed with the wails of Nascent Soul Cultivators.
Lu Qingyang flipped his hand, summoning a bronze Medicine Cauldron. The unrefined blood puppet remnants inside the cauldron suddenly surged forth, tearing and biting to form a flesh barrier.
"The three thousand resentful souls buried in the Kan position should awaken." He bit his tongue and sprayed blood onto the Profound Yin Mirror, which reflected the wriggling Jianmu roots beneath the ground. "Please, Fairy, take three steps to the Zhen position and freeze that finger bone!"
Su Li stepped on the shattered ice lotuses and leaped to the northeast corner. The moment the Ice Soul Sword Qi pierced the rock layer, the entire mountain body echoed with strange sounds of bones rubbing.
She spun around and threw out seventy-two ice crystals, each crystal sealing a wisp of remnant soul brought from the Taiyi Pavilion's Forbidden Land: "Qingyang! There's a change in the Xun position!"
Lu Qingyang was stepping on the Medicine Cauldron, devouring the blood Qi in his palm. Hearing this, he threw a thunder talisman from his sleeve.
The Violet Heavens Divine Lightning struck a certain spot in the Void Realm, actually blasting out a dwarf wrapped in chains—it was the Hall of Punishments' Chief, who had been in seclusion for a hundred years at Taiyi Pavilion.
The dwarf's Soul-Reaping Banner was refined from the skulls of nine hundred and ninety-nine Golden Core Cultivators. The Yin wind it stirred up when swung corroded Su Li's protective spiritual light.
"Old Ghost Ye raised him quite well." Lu Qingyang licked his arm, which was scratched by the Yin wind. Jianmu sprouts emerging from the wound completely absorbed the poisonous blood. "Your Soul-Reaping Banner is even smoother than the waist of the Drunken Immortal Pavilion's courtesan by three points."
The dwarf shrieked in rage, and the skulls on the Soul-Reaping Banner all spewed green fire.
Lu Qingyang took the opportunity to press the qingmu spirit pearl into the ground, and the area within ten miles suddenly shook violently.
Countless Jianmu roots burst out of the earth, entwining the skulls of the Soul-Reaping Banner and frantically sucking. Those Golden Core remnant souls, silent for a hundred years, actually let out a sigh of relief.
Su Li's Sword Intent surged at this moment, and the Ice Soul Sword Qi penetrated directly into the earth's pulse along the Jianmu roots.
In the ruins of the Taiyi Pavilion a thousand miles away, the last nine Soul-Suppressing Pillars exploded, and in the soaring blood light, the phantoms of successive Pavilion Masters devouring Disciples' cultivation appeared.
The Karma Fire Red Lotus, formed by the backlash of Karma, blossomed from the Void Realm, burning along the Karma lines towards Ye Lingxiao's Golden Lotus Dharma Seat.
"It's time to reel it in." Lu Qingyang pulled Su Li onto the Medicine Cauldron, and the taotie pattern on the cauldron's body opened its giant mouth to bite the bronze giant palm. "Did you really think I swallowed three Nascent Souls for nothing?"
A Golden Core phantom appeared in his Dantian, the surface of the originally perfectly round Dao Fruit covered with hideous cracks—that was the price of forcefully activating the Jianmu spiritual pearl.
Jianmu roots extending from the cracks plunged into the Void Realm, actually pulling back half of a burning Golden Lotus Dharma Seat from a thousand miles away.
Amidst Ye Lingxiao's screams, Lu Qingyang plunged the Profound Yin Mirror's main body fragments into the core of the Dharma Seat.
The mirror reflected a secret from a hundred years ago: The Seven-Petaled Golden Lotus Elders tricked Personal Disciples into a blood pool, calling it 'Initiation and transmission of power' (Initiation and transmission of power - empowerment and transmission of cultivation).
Su Li's Ice Soul Sword suddenly let out a clear sword cry. As the Sword Qi swept across the mirror, those devoured Disciple remnant souls actually materialized, frantically tearing at Ye Lingxiao's Dharma image.
"Is it exciting?" Lu Qingyang stepped on the disintegrating Dharma Seat, plunging the Soul-Reaping Banner in his hand into Ye Lingxiao's crown. "When you used the Supreme Void Sword Manual to deceive people into severing their seven emotions and six desires, did you ever consider that the fire of seven emotions is the fiercest poison?"
The ground suddenly split open into an abyss, and Jianmu roots wrapped around a bronze box surfaced.
The moment the box lid opened, thousands of remnant souls imprisoned in the Taiyi Pavilion's earth veins roared out, condensing into a hundred-zhang-tall Karma Beast within the Karma Fire Red Lotus.
The monster had nine heads and eighteen arms, each head bearing the faces of the Elders, and its sharp claws stirred up spatial cracks when swung.
Su Li coughed blood and crushed her sword pendant, a phantom of the cold pond appearing behind her: "Qingyang, I'm going to use that move."
"Only now are you willing to use the Guanghan Palace's secret technique?" Lu Qingyang grinned, blood flowing from his seven orifices, yet he still didn't forget to snatch Ye Lingxiao's storage bracelet. "First, let's agree, I get thirty percent of the Taiyin True Water..."
Frost instantly engulfed the heavens and earth, Su Li's hair tips tinged with snow, and the Ice Soul Sword transformed into a jade rabbit, leaping into the cold pond.
The Karma Beast's attacking claws were frozen in the long river of time. Lu Qingyang took the opportunity to slap the Jianmu spiritual pearl into the monster's body.
Cracks spread across the surface of the spiritual pearl, but it erupted with a devouring force that even Soul Transformation Cultivators found chilling.
"The remnant root of Jianmu that swallowed a Dragon vein naturally has a better appetite." He formed a hand seal, detonating seventy-two earth vein nodes, each buried with spiritual marrow pilfered from the Taiyi Pavilion's treasury. "Fairy Su, it's time to sever Karma!"
The Ice Soul Sword shot up from the bottom of the cold pond, its blade, imbued with moonlight, pierced the Karma Beast's glabella.
Amidst the wails of thousands of remnant souls, Lu Qingyang bit his finger and drew a talisman in the Void Realm. The blood talisman's patterns perfectly matched the taotie pattern on the bronze box.
When the last talisman pattern lit up, the Karma Fire Red Lotus and the Taiyin True Water exploded simultaneously...
After the smoke and dust cleared, only half of a Golden Lotus Dharma Seat remained, stuck in the scorched earth.
Lu Qingyang collapsed beside the smoking deep pit, still clutching half of an unfinished spiritual jade: "A huge loss, all the Taiyin True Water evaporated."
Su Li leaned against her broken sword, gasping for breath, red plum-like bloodstains blooming on her plain white Daoist robe: "Fellow Daoist Qingyang, when you were looting the corpse, did you touch the lotus pendant on Ye Lingxiao's waist?"
"You mean this?" Lu Qingyang tossed a crimson jade pendant into the air. The pendant suddenly burst forth with demonic light.
A crack appeared in the Void Realm, and out walked a young girl, seven parts similar in appearance to Su Li, her glabella bearing a red lotus pattern identical to Ye Lingxiao's.
The blood thread entwined around the girl's fingertip plunged into Su Li's heart: "Sister, you look so beautiful when you kill."
Lu Qingyang's Soul-Reaping Banner was already at the girl's throat, but his grin widened: "Su Yao? Is the Hehuan Sect Saintess you devoured still to your liking?"