Ch656 – Evil Qi Cultivator Appears
Although the Dao of Heaven had been covering up Lin Xuanzhi’s life star all these years and blocking others from finding out, the identity of the first successor in the prophecy hadn’t changed, even though everyone had forgotten the former Lin Xuanzhi.
After all, he was the eldest son of the East Land and the first person who would inevitably sit on that supreme throne, as well as someone from the Xuan clan.
The Yan family’s position was snatched from the Xuan family’s hands. In the past one thousand years, the Yan family had always been the first heir ordained by fate, but right now, that right of succession had fallen into the Xuan clan’s hands again. This was a threat and an insult to those in charge of the Yan family.
Yan Tianhen, however, gripped Lin Xuanzhi’s hand. “Dage, don’t be impulsive. We have to find an appropriate opportunity to talk about this matter slowly to make it easier for my parents to accept you. You can’t make trouble right now.”
Lin Xuanzhi naturally smiled in agreement.
Although he had no intention of competing for that position, others didn’t see it that way. However, he had finally passed a difficult test and earned the recognition of Yan Tianhen’s parents, so in the future, they didn’t have to hide like people having a clandestine love affair.
As for the Xuan clan’s side, Lin Zhan would never oppose this. As for how Xuan Wushe would think… In any case, Lin Xuanzhi didn’t care about his opinion.
In the end, Lin Xuanzhi didn’t ask why Yan Tianhen didn’t tell him about his serious injuries in the Tomb of Youshan. Ah Hen had grown up and would inevitably have some private thoughts. He probably didn’t want Lin Xuanzhi to worry. Although he didn’t ask, Lin Xuanzhi secretly vowed in his heart that he would take this mischievous little monkey with him at all times in the future, lest he bring back some more injuries while Lin Xuanzhi wasn’t paying attention.
After living here for three days, Lin Xuanzhi and Yan Tianhen were ready to bid farewell. Since they’d been traveling outside for so long, they always had to return to Myriad Dao Academy to have a look and exchange the mission rewards for some stars while they were at it, or else Yan Tianhen just might be expelled from the Academy.
Although You Ming was extremely reluctant, he also knew the importance of this. He allowed them to leave only after briefing them on a few matters and stuffing a storage ring full of precious items into Yan Tianhen’s hands.
Lin Xuanzhi and Yan Tianhen walked to the Royal Heavenly Capital’s city gate when suddenly, an explosive blast sounded in the northeast, and then a black dragon-shaped thing drilled out from the ground. It howled sharply and flew into the air.
He could feel that the dragon was made of evil Qi.
Moreover, this evil Qi had already condensed into a solid entity, so it was extremely powerful. Fu Zhu kept jumping and screaming beside Yan Tianhen, sounding very anxious and restless.
Yan Tianhen actually didn’t like evil Qi.
In other words, it was impossible for normal people in this world to like evil Qi; not even demons liked it. However, it was precisely this much hated and despised evil Qi that was stronger than both spiritual Qi and demonic Qi. Anyone who cultivated it would be able to have inexhaustible power, and they could raise their cultivation to terrifying heights at a speed hundreds or even thousands of times faster than that of ordinary people.
When he was still Youshan Lingyu, he had been forced to cultivate evil Qi because he had no other choice. If he didn’t cultivate evil Qi, then he wouldn’t have been able to obtain the secrets of evil Qi cultivators and enter their inner circle. However, it was precisely because he understood too well how terrifying evil Qi cultivators could be that his hands and feet were getting colder and colder by the minute, and he couldn’t even move an inch. Fu Zhu was still screaming, clearly recalling the past.
Yan Tianhen came to his senses and looked at the rabbit that had knocked Ah Bai and Hu Po three feet away from him. His heart became soft, and he squatted down and held out his hand toward Fu Zhu. “Come here, Rongrong, come to my side.”
Fu Zhu immediately ran over and jumped into Yan Tianhen’s arms. The soft rabbit was shivering and kept making a sound like he was crying in fear.
Yan Tianhen could only sigh.
Fu Zhu was turned into a Youshan evil spirit by those people.
There were countless ancient beasts in the mountains and sea, most of which were popular and respected monsters, such as the phoenix and the nine-tailed divine fox. Originally, because of Fu Zhu’s beautiful and cute appearance, he was also loved by all the people in Hidden Spirit Holy Sect. However, after he started cultivating evil Qi together with Youshan Lingyu and fell to the demonic path, they started calling him “evil spirit”. No one liked him anymore except for Youshan Lingyu.
Fu Zhu had been cruelly refined and transformed into a vessel for evil Qi by those evil Qi cultivators, so he would become anxious and afraid whenever he met the evil Qi cultivators who did this to him.
This also indirectly proved that the fellow who broke through the ground wasn’t anything good. Yan Tianhen pursed his lips and looked at the black fog that disappeared into the northeast sky. His heart felt heavier.
A little while later, Lin Xuanzhi returned.
His expression was so gloomy that one could wring out water from it. Clearly, he recognized that it had been the evil Qi cultivators buried underground for countless years.
“I couldn’t catch up.” Lin Xuanzhi said with a cold expression, “He ran away.”
Yan Tianhen bit his lip and still had to pretend to not know anything. He asked, “Is that thing very powerful?”
Lin Xuanzhi nodded and spoke in a heavy tone, “It’s very powerful. This is an evil Qi cultivator. It’s human in nature, but it has become a monster from cultivating evil Qi. This kind of evil Qi cultivator is highly powerful, unpredictable, and utterly inhuman. Wherever it goes, flowers will wither, vegetation will not grow, and the spiritual Qi in the soil will dissipate. It can even make people feel despair, depression, and pain, and make them wish they had killed themselves. It is extremely harmful and dangerous. And these evil Qi cultivators, in turn, can take advantage of these negative emotions to condense them into evil Qi to improve their own cultivation.”
Yan Tianhen gasped and hugged the rabbit in his arms. “Evil Qi cultivators… are they already so powerful as soon as they come out? To think that someone in this world can actually cultivate evil Qi.”
Lin Xuanzhi shook his head. His pair of beautiful long eyebrows were always gently wrinkled. “I’m afraid that the evil Qi cultivator who escaped from the ground is one of the evil Qi cultivators who had been sealed in the Great Immortal-Demon War ten thousand years ago. Ever since that day when Fu Zhu was released from its seal, I suspected that evil spirits will reappear in the world. Now… this has verified my suspicions. The actual culprit that truly turned the Nine Lands upside down and caused the decline of Daoism was evil Qi. Demons only became the targets of a crusade because Demon Venerable Youshan Lingyu cultivated evil Qi and colluded with those evil Qi cultivators.”
There were not many evil Qi cultivators in this world, to begin with. They could be said to be as rare as phoenix feathers and kirin horns. In addition, even until the end, the orthodox Dao refused to admit that these foreign evil Qi invaders had the ability to destroy the entire Nine Lands. Therefore, information about the existence of evil Qi cultivators were forcefully suppressed, and they deluded themselves by pushing all the blame onto the demons.
Future generations weren’t aware of this, so they gradually became more and more ignorant of evil Qi cultivators. They only knew about Fiends. But how could evil Qi cultivators cease to exist just because the world didn’t know about them? Existence was still existence, even after tens of thousands of years. Even if all traces of their existence had been completely destroyed, it was an indisputable fact that evil Qi cultivators had indeed almost turned this world over and made it sink.
However, for Yan Tianhen, his deepest memory was of someone shattering half of his Dantian Qi Sea, forming new meridians and veins in his body, and pouring evil Qi into half of his body, which made him unable to beg for neither life nor death. He cried his throat out until he could no longer make a sound. The nails on both of his hands cracked from scratching at his surroundings, and his fingers became a blurry, bloody mess, dripping with blood.
Yan Tianhen shivered and shifted closer to Lin Xuanzhi. Lin Xuanzhi didn’t notice his abnormality; he was still immersed in the major matter that both evil spirits and evil Qi cultivators had broken free, unable to extricate himself.
Soon, soldiers guarding the city ran over. The general in armor leading them cupped his hands at Lin Xuanzhi.
“Huarong Sword Immortal, someone saw you chase after the abnormality from the northeast just now. We want to hear a thing or two about that.”
Lin Xuanzhi looked at the general and spoke lightly, “I didn’t catch up with that thing. I only felt that the evil Qi was thick, so it’s most likely not a good sign. General might as well send some men and go investigate the ground where it broke through.”
“I will naturally send someone to investigate the situation on that side. Huarong Sword Immortal guessed that it was an evil spirit. What is the basis for that?” This general was from the Gu family. The Gu family’s young master and Prince Ye were friendly with each other, so this general was also polite to Lin Xuanzhi and Yan Tianhen.
Lin Xuanzhi replied, “Whenever evil spirits pass through, in best case scenarios, there would simply be a concentration of evil Qi, but in worst case scenarios, no vegetation will grow, and everything will wilt. Wherever evil spirits use their techniques, people who go there will feel deep sorrow in their hearts and wish they were dead. General can so over and feel it for himself.”
General Shi gasped and nodded gravely. “Thank you, Huarong Sword Immortal. Sword Immortal is very knowledgeable, and we naturally can’t match his experience. I still hope that if Sword Immortal has any reliable news, he will tell us so that we can capture the evil spirit as soon as possible.”
Yan Tianhen said, “That’s simple, but evil spirits can’t be dealt with easily. You still have to keep your guard up and prevent him from sneaking into the city.”
General Shi quickly showed his loyalty and did not dare to stop Yan Tianhen for too long, so he sent them out of the city. Yan Tianhen’s mood fell to rock bottom, and he looked at Lin Xuanzhi with an extremely complicated gaze. “Dage, if evil Qi cultivators appear in this world, will there be chaos in the Nine Lands?”
Lin Xuanzhi raised his hand and gently rubbed Yan Tianhen’s head.
Although in Lin Xuanzhi’s eyes, Yan Tianhen would always be a child who needed to be protected, now that it had come to this, he wouldn’t deliberately say something to temporarily appease Yan Tianhen’s emotions and conceal the truth. Yan Tianhen was not fragile; he had long been qualified to stand side by side with him.
Lin Xuanzhi answered, “I still don’t know what that evil Qi cultivator’s cultivation realm is. I still need to investigate the specific situation, but I have a hunch that matters will not be simple.”
Speaking of this, Lin Xuanzhi paused slightly and looked at Yan Tianhen. “Ah Hen, there’s something you don’t know. The root cause of the war ten thousand years ago was all started by evil Qi cultivators… You’re right, I’m afraid the Nine Lands will become chaotic soon.”
Originally, Evil Qi cultivators weren’t native to the Nine Lands. Back then, a crack formed in the sky of the Nine Lands, and the location was Youshan in the Southeast Land. If they wanted to refine a Pillar of Heaven to repair it, nine Divine Realm powerhouses needed to exhaust a thousand years in order to refine a single Pillar of Heaven. During these thousand years, even if there were no floods or natural disasters, there would always be a world with a higher cultivation realm that could find the Nine Lands from the spiritual Qi that escaped through the crack, thereby bringing disaster to the Nine Lands.
In such a situation, Hidden Spirit Sect sent people to search for a suitable sacrifice while also sending people to guard the huge black-purple tear in the sky.