Chapter 84: Heart Demon Corrodes Bones · Taiyi Pavilion's Blood Banner Severing Karma
As Xiao Ming crushed the green jade bricks in front of Taiyi Pavilion's main hall, dark golden blood beads seeped from between the fingers of his left hand. That was the wound bitten by the thousand-year-old Horned Dragon nurtured at the array's core when he broke through the seventy-two layers of the Purple Star Dragon Confinement Formation. He squinted, gazing at the sixty-four soul-capturing bells hanging from the eaves, and heard the hoarse, cold laughter of Pavilion Master Xuan Yin Immortal Master: "What if you're in the Soul Transformation Stage? Do you think this thousand-year-old Legacy, the sect's treasure—"
"Noisy."
As the cold iron sword sheath heavily struck the Dragon Stone, Xuan Yin, three hundred feet away, suddenly clutched his throat. The ink-colored curse marks that appeared out of thin air on his neck were frantically devouring Spiritual Qi. That was the Incomplete Manual of the Five Ghosts Spirit Devouring Curse that Xiao Ming had exchanged for three Low-Grade Spirit Stones three days ago when he dueled someone in the market. The stinging pain from the curse's backlash made Xiao Ming lick his molars. Sure enough, cheap goods were never good.
Nine bolts of purple lightning struck from the clouds, but they twisted into snake-like forms when they touched Taiyi Pavilion's mountain protection Formation. Xiao Ming lightly tapped his foot, and the bronze wine gourd hanging from his waist suddenly spewed forth a sky full of emerald flames. This Netherworld Ghost Fire, taken from the South Sea's Guixu, immediately emitted a teeth-grating corrosive sound upon contact with the Formation barrier.
"Three steps in the Kan position, five steps in the Xun position?" He sneered, crushing the blood bead in his palm, letting the golden liquid outline complex Talisman patterns in the Void Realm. "Old Man Xuan Yin, your set should have been changed three hundred years ago."
Before his words finished, eighteen dark purple Talismans shot out from his sleeve. Each Talisman paper was imbued with Spiritual Qi of different attributes, even mixed with fragments of the Maiden's Bewitching Soul Art that he had secretly copied while drinking with the Hehuan Sect Saintess at the Heavenly Fragrance Pavilion. The moment the Talisman Formation formed, the Earth Vein Spiritual Qi of the entire Taiyi Mountain Range suddenly reversed, and the wails of Spirit Beasts echoed from all seventy-two peaks simultaneously.
Xuan Yin's expression finally changed. The jade ruyi in his hand exploded into dust, revealing the blood-colored long banner sealed within. The moment this item appeared, the surrounding hundred li immediately howled with sinister winds, and even Xiao Ming's Lifebound Treasure, the "Nine Nether Soul Devouring Banner," on his waist vibrated and hummed.
"What a Taiyi Pavilion..." Xiao Ming's eyes turned crimson, a sign that his Heart Demon was about to backlash. Three days ago, when he forcefully broke through to the Soul Transformation Stage, he saw himself in a hallucination pushing his childhood Junior Sister into a melting furnace to seize the Taiyi Artifact Refining True Scripture. The bloody scent lingering in his nostrils now was identical to the charred aroma that wafted from the furnace that day.
The blood-colored long banner suddenly swelled to a hundred zhang, and the resentful souls appearing on the banner were all Disciples of past generations of Taiyi Pavilion. Xiao Ming suddenly grinned. He remembered that half a month ago at the Ghost Market gambling house, a scruffy old Daoist said that his fate was afflicted by the Seven Killings, and he would sooner or later suffer the tribulation of ten thousand souls devouring his heart. At that time, he had splashed half a pot of drunken immortal brew all over the other party's face, but now it seemed he should have asked a few more questions.
The Nine Nether Soul Devouring Banner transformed into a Black Dragon and charged forward. The moment the two extremely Yin Magic Treasures collided, the roars of tens of thousands of vengeful spirits echoed between heaven and earth. Xiao Ming seized the opportunity to bite his tongue, and the essence blood he spat out condensed into three ancient Thunder Talismans in the air. These were fragments of the Divine Firmament Jade Pivot Thunder Art that he had copied from the bottom of the Thunder Marsh when he was almost torn apart by a Thunder Beast in the Eastern Sea Secret Realm.
"Boom!"
As the purple thunder Dragon tore through the blood-colored curtain, Xiao Ming saw half a white bone arm exposed beneath Xuan Yin's Daoist robe—this old fellow had long since refined himself into a Corpse Puppet. He suddenly felt bored. The bronze ancient mirror that slipped from his sleeve suddenly shot out a Chaos azure light. This was the primordial relic "Tai Xu Mirror" that he had bid for against a Kunlun Disciple at the auction last month.
The moment the azure light enveloped the blood-colored long banner, Xiao Ming heard a baby crying. The scene reflected in the mirror made his pupils contract: three hundred years ago, when Taiyi Pavilion was first established, the first Pavilion Master had thrown his own offspring into a blood pool to refine the sect's treasure Magic Treasure. Those wailing souls in the banner were all blood relatives and descendants of past Pavilion Masters.
"No wonder..." he murmured, performing a hand seal. A tearing pain suddenly came from deep within his Nascent Soul. Forcibly activating the unrefined Tai Xu Mirror caused fluctuations in his recently stabilized Soul Transformation Stage Cultivation. The Nine Nether Soul Devouring Banner seized the opportunity to devour three main souls. The eerie smiling face that appeared on the banner reminded Xiao Ming of the proprietress at the Heavenly Fragrance Pavilion who always undercharged for wine.
Xuan Yin's roar was no longer human. His rotting body continuously gushed out blood-colored tentacles. Xiao Ming, however, suddenly stopped and retreated, pulling out a paper-wrapped package from his qiankun bag—it contained spiced broad beans he had bought when entering the city. The crisp crunch was exceptionally clear amidst the wailing of ghosts and wolves. He chewed and mumbled, "I said, why was this fight so difficult? It turns out your ancestral Taiyi Artifact Refining True Scripture is actually a Demonic Path Cultivator's manual."
The blood-colored long banner suddenly trembled violently, and countless wronged souls broke through the Restriction and rushed towards Xuan Yin. Xiao Ming seized the opportunity to throw out seventy-two bronze coins. These were "Treasure Falling Golden Coins" cast from the Spirit Stones he had won gambling. The moment the golden coin Formation trapped the Tai Xu Mirror and the blood banner, he bit his finger and wrote an ancient "Burial" character in the Void Realm.
As the chains from the Netherworld emerged from the ground, Xiao Ming suddenly remembered the past of secretly learning Demonic Path Cultivation Technique during the Foundation Establishment Stage and being punished to kneel in the Ancestral Master Hall. The Elder who always loved to whip his palm with a ruler, before his death, said that the person most like the founding Ancestral Master was actually him. Now that he thought about it, the old man's eyesight was indeed sharp.
When the last wisp of soul fire merged into the Nine Nether Soul Devouring Banner, Taiyi Pavilion's main hall collapsed with a crash. Xiao Ming stepped on the bronze Pill Furnace in the ruins and dug out half a charred Taiyi Artifact Refining True Scripture from the ashes. He stared at the rouge mark on the edge of a certain page for a while, then suddenly flipped his hand and shattered it into powder.
"What Xiao wants..." He flicked the bone ash from his Daoist robe and lightly chuckled at the empty mountain gate, "was never this filthy thing."
The setting sun in the west cast his shadow long. The wine gourd at his waist had a hole in it at some point, and the jade liquid drizzled onto the scorched earth, actually giving rise to several blood-colored mandalas. The various forces observing from a hundred li away all collectively took half a step back. They saw that the Soul Transformation Cultivator who always cheated at the gambling house, now had eyes filled with the meaning of nirvana, having seen through the gates of life and death.