Family Cultivation: I Become a Mirror

Chapter 325 - 298: Suppressing the Snake

Li Xuanling had died.

The relentless downpour continued, diluting the blood that flowed everywhere, while crows cawed mournfully in the rain. The sign of "Zhèn Huí Watch" lay in three pieces on the ground, scattered haphazardly.

Kneeling on the ground, Fa Hui leaned forward, his figure’s lines sleek and powerful as a tiger under the washing rain. He supported Li Xuanling, breathing heavily from three inches away, the golden talismans in his palm lighting up one by one. Beneath him, Li Xuanling had already stopped moving.

"Huff..."

With a deep sigh, Fa Hui’s spellcasting began to take effect, eyes sparkling with golden light, ready to devour Li Xuanling’s life span.

"The ninth life... the ninth life... Nine Lives Maha."

As Fa Hui inhaled, he triggered a surge of Li Xuanling’s life span and cultivation level. The Mysterious Pearl Talisman Seed inside Li Xuanling’s Sea of Qi Acupoint was overwhelmingly potent, about to snatch away Li Xuanling’s life span and cultivation level—how could it yield to him?

At that moment, the Mysterious Pearl Talisman Seed tried to take away Li Xuanling’s cultivation level and life span. Fa Hui, merely a Maha reincarnation, naturally couldn’t compete with it. He persisted in casting spells, but it looked as if he was about to be left empty-handed.

"This is bad!"

Fortunately, Lu Jiangxian had been watching closely. From thousands of miles away, he gently pinched his fingers together, suppressing the movement of the Mysterious Pearl Talisman Seed. It hummed and dissipated the cultivation level and life span, forlornly fleeing into the void.

The many Zifus watching couldn’t extract Li Xuanling’s life span—which was a shocking flaw. They quickly controlled the Mysterious Pearl Talisman Seed to release its grip on the life span and cultivation level. They erased the parts of Li Xuanling’s memory related to the Dharma Mirror to prevent any unforeseen issues, and quickly retreated back into the mirror.

"Damn it..."

The Talisman Seed he had planted for dozens of years had vanished without a trace. Lu Jiangxian cursed under his breath. Although a Talisman Seed at the Qi Cultivation Level wasn’t of much use to him now, it was still a loss. He thought to himself:

"Take the Qi Cultivation Level with you, but don’t even think about Li Tongya!"

Meanwhile, Fa Hui, casting his spells, loudly called out, and streaks of white fabric appeared in the void, fresh and pleasant, misty like smoke, entering his mouth and nose. He swallowed a mouthful, feeling a fountain of sweetness under his tongue, his limbs growing hot.

"I have obtained the spell!"

Behind his head, one after another, bands of rainbow light appeared. The coppery marks on his body grew even deeper. His eyes shone brightly and illuminated the gloomy rain curtain like two pearls.

"Plop."

As Fa Hui rose with the wind, releasing his body, Li Xuanling fell back to the ground with a heavy splash. His eyes were wide open, staring fixedly at the sky, slowly reflecting a figure in a grey robe, which grew larger and rapidly descended in front of the watchtower.

"Splash..."

The grey cloth shoes stepped into the puddles, and the slightly reddish rainwater quickly parted, just enough to make room for one foot. The black and grey robes fluttered gently in the wind as Li Tongya halted his steps.

"Ling’er..."

Zifus from all sides made their moves while Lu Jiangxian silently guided from thousands of miles away. They reached a compromise and restraint that allowed Li Tongya to arrive just in time to watch his eldest son die right before his eyes.

Li Tongya’s grey-white beard fluttered lightly in the air, his expression slightly dazed. He rested his right hand on his sword, and the rainwater under his feet leapt eagerly, climbing his robe.

"Serpent Jiao? You’re quick to arrive."

Fa Hui eyed him with his golden gaze, feeling an itch in his throat and coughing loudly, so hard that he knelt on one knee, coughing and laughing, spitting out two clean and sharp teeth.

As soon as these teeth hit the ground, their color rapidly darkened to dull gold. The shapes stretched and morphed into two patterned short sticks, which slammed into the ground, creating two large, cracked pits.

"Hahahaha."

Picking up the two patterned short sticks and wiping the blood off them, one in each hand, Fa Hui laughed and said:

"Why bother with this? Isn’t his death by my hand something you orchestrated?"

Li Tongya remained silent, the raging rainwater already coalescing beside him into two shallow aqua Serpent Jiaos with bared fangs and flailing about. The elderly Li Tongya silently stared at the monk in front of him, Fa Hui neither dodged nor evaded, calmly meeting his gaze.

"You knew I wanted to devour you, and you also knew that I would lure you out using your clan members," he said.

Anger ignited within Fa Hui’s golden eyes, and the patterns on those two short sticks began to light up bit by bit as he chanted in Sanskrit:

"It’s just that you don’t know whom I intended to use to draw you out... So you deliberately sent Li Xuanling northwards, sacrificing your own flesh and blood... It’s also due to fate that I devoured him, breaking through as a Mage... for that, I must thank you!"

Fa Hui glanced at Li Tongya, and indeed, he spotted a flash of annoyance and regret, dissolving any lingering doubts in his mind. He laughed and said,

"I don’t know where you got the news from, to come so swiftly. Fortunately, I had taken precautions in my past life, setting up Divine Skills as a disturbance, preventing you from interrupting the achievement of this life."

"How bold of you, knowing full well that you were targeted by Maha, to still wish to use your offspring as bait for me. Yet, you were caught in my Divine Skills, too slow by a moment. Now the regret in your heart, I’m afraid, is unspeakable!"

As Fa Hui became more closely intertwined with Furious Moha, golden light radiated from his eyes. He was about to delay further with more words when suddenly a bright white light shone through the mountains.

Li Tongya drew his sword.

The teal and white Green Ruler Sword burst forth from its sheath with a surge of powerful white sword luminescence, large as a sail, howling towards him, lighting up the surroundings into a blanket of white. Statue fragments, the ruins of Taoist temples, and the rainy puddles on the stone slabs were all enveloped in the white light.

"Good!"

Fa Hui bellowed, both hands gripping the short sticks, as a golden pattern glimmered on his body, intricately winding along his beautiful lines and bursting forth with an intense golden light, colliding with the white light between heaven and earth.

But who knew that the white sword luminescence possessed such Agility, swelling and shrinking, feinting a move, burrowing beneath him and craftily circling to his upper arm before lightly touching down.

"Clang!"

The Moon Que Sword Manual was always fierce with this initial gesture, especially when delivered through the Green Ruler Sword. In an instant, golden light radiated, and Fa Hui’s left arm neatly and cleanly fell to the ground. He arched his eyebrows, smiling as he said,

"So it’s the Sword Origin... Good!"

Despite his words, Fa Hui’s remaining right hand quickly reached for the severed left arm, but before he could grasp it, three streaks of white light appeared before his eyes, floating and dancing towards his heart, third eye, and lower abdomen.

"Pfft..."

Having only just broken through as a Mage, Fa Hui stood no chance against Li Tongya wielding the Green Ruler Sword and unleashing the Moon Que Sword Origin, each sword light with its own Spiritual Nature consciousness. Pierced by the tripartite moonlight, his heart, third eye, and lower abdomen each bore a small hole clear through.

"Hit!"

Before Fa Hui’s body even hit the ground, an avalanche and tsunami-like Sword Origin charged at him, slicing as effortlessly as through fruit and vegetables, and in a few breaths, he was chopped into pieces scattered all over the ground.

"Li Tongya."

For a moment, the entire ruin was strewn with white flesh, Fa Hui’s face now half-intact, landing right on the fallen clay puppet, its crimson lips moving, laughing as it said,

"Since I’ve inherited Li Xuanling’s fate, I must ask you,"

Li Tongya’s face remained unchanged. His sword in hand shone with a crystalline teal and white glow. The ends of the dismembered limbs on the ground, bloodless and devoid of organs, were like sticky dough, growing arms and legs and scurrying about, sticking to each other. The mouth that had landed between the clay puppet’s palms cried out:

"On what grounds? When Ganixi advanced from the east, it was I who saved Li Jingtian; I who took her deep into enemy territory, threading among the various Shanyue people, serving as slaves and laborers. It was I who brought her back out, I who preserved her chastity and my own life, preventing us from becoming a handle for others..."

The half-face wriggled, the red mouth opening and closing, revealing shiny, sharp teeth as it emitted piteous cries:

"In terms of intellect, how am I inferior to Li Xuanxuan? When it comes to methods, I’m several times stronger than him! Regarding talent and Cultivation Level, Li Xuanxuan couldn’t even catch up to me if he tried! On what grounds!"

The mouth moved up and down, not employing any Divine Skills or sorcery or witchcraft, yet it managed to disturb Li Tongya’s perennially unchanging countenance as if a snow mountain were crumbling.

"Father! On what grounds was he Family Head for twenty-eight years? On what grounds was I the one to marry the enemy’s daughter and, without recognition, obediently die!"