novelraw Chapter 112 : The Spirit Who Walked Out from the Nether Kingdom
Chapter 112 : The Spirit Who Walked Out from the Nether Kingdom
Chapter 112: The Spirit Who Walked Out from the Nether Kingdom
Mount Long lay beyond the northwest seas.
This mountain stood upon the surface of the ocean, shrouded in haze all year round. The mists encircling it seemed to veil Mount Long in a layer of gauze.
Looking from the coastline, one could not tell how far Mount Long truly was—everything appeared hidden within that faint and indistinct fog.
A small white-veiled sedan suddenly appeared in the sky and halted outside a formation.
Around Mount Long was the Spirit Clan’s protective array—ordinary people could not enter. Even a Sixth Realm Dawning Sun cultivator would be stopped outside.
Of course, the little immortal fairy inside the sedan chair was not an ordinary person.
Her voice floated out softly, gentle yet resonating clearly throughout all of Mount Long.
“From the Jade Palace, here on Spirit Clan lands to discuss some matters.”
Mount Long remained utterly still.
Xia Lianxue frowned. When members of the Nine Sects and Twelve Palaces visited other races, they usually barged straight in. Her being this polite was already a courtesy.
Yet the Spirit Clan did not respond at all.
Standing in midair, Xia Lianxue’s expression grew colder.
She waited a full ten breaths.
The little fairy in white raised her slender hand and said calmly, “Since they refuse to open the gate, then we shall go in ourselves.”
“Junior Sister—?”
That layer of misty barrier shattered with a sound.
Though she was only at the Sixth Realm, she had fallen from the Seventh Realm; hers was not an ordinary Sixth Realm cultivation. The Spirit Clan’s formation was nothing more than paper to her.
With a resounding crack, the great array broke apart.
Qiu Yuehan stared dumbfounded at the domineering Xia Lianxue.
“Isn’t this a bit—”
“Still too polite,” Xia Lianxue said coldly. “Since I came personally, the Spirit Clan ought to be kneeling at the gate to greet me.”
That the Palace Mistress of the Jade Palace had personally arrived, and yet the Spirit Clan neither showed gratitude nor acknowledgment—unforgivable.
The two slowly descended at the foot of Mount Long.
Before them stood many stilted wooden houses where the Spirit Clan dwelled.
Now that the great array was broken, numerous blue-haired Spirit Clan members emerged from the forests behind the houses, weapons in hand, gazing solemnly at Xia Lianxue and Qiu Yuehan.
For no reason, Qiu Yuehan felt this scene strangely familiar, with an urge to strike these Spirits down.
“A misunderstanding—all a misunderstanding!” someone hurriedly flew down from the mountain—a very old man, his face wearing an ingratiating smile. “Ah, Jade Palace immortals! I did not realize which venerable one had come in person.”
The little fairy said indifferently, “Jade Palace, Xia Yutang.”
The old man’s expression changed drastically.
News that the Palace Mistress had returned to the Jade Palace was already known across the cultivation world. Naturally, Xia Yutang’s name had risen again to fame.
“So it is the Palace Mistress herself—”
He quickly smiled even wider. “I am the current clan chief. You may call me Lan Xi. I wonder what brings the Palace Mistress to our humble, remote land—”
Xia Lianxue’s expression remained unchanged. “Why was there no response earlier?”
It wasn’t that Xia Lianxue wished to press the issue—
—but if the Spirit Clan dared ignore the Jade Palace’s call today, they might dare to defy the Dao Sect’s decree tomorrow, and rebel the day after.
What was this?
Treason?
Her gaze turned dangerously sharp, making Lan Xi’s heart tremble with fear.
He hastily explained, “Please, do not be angry, Palace Mistress. Truly, today is a special time—our clan has an important event. We did not realize it was you.”
Xia Lianxue pressed closer step by step. “What event? If you cannot give me a proper explanation today, you will come with me to the Dao Sect.”
Before going there, he was Lan Xi; after returning, who knew what he would be?
Years ago, when the Dream Demon Clan’s chief was taken to the Dao Sect, he came back a year later—deranged, chanting all day, ‘Long live Daoist Chang’an, long live eternal peace’. It was terrifying.
Lan Xi did not wish to end up the same.
So he quickly said, “A ritual—an ancestral offering. It occurs once every ten years; it’s a great and sacred festival for our clan.”
Xia Lianxue withdrew her dangerous gaze. “Take me to see it.”
If it truly was a ritual, there would be a place of offering.
If there wasn’t, then he was lying—and if Xia Lianxue caught the Spirit Clan in a lie, the day would turn... interesting.
Lan Xi hurriedly said, “Please, follow me.”
The little fairy and the Moon Fairy followed Lan Xi up the mountain.
At Mount Long’s peak, an altar had indeed been prepared—a tall jade cauldron carved with sun, moon, and stars stood at its center, surrounded by sacrificial implements and burning torches.
Dense runes etched the stairway all the way to the embroidered moon shoes of the white-robed fairy.
Lan Xi wiped cold sweat from his forehead. “I did not lie—today is truly our ritual day. Most of our clansmen are climbing the mountain for worship.”
Xia Lianxue narrowed her eyes slightly—a gesture she had learned from Lu Changyuan—one that made others’ hearts skip.
“Very well.”
Lan Xi finally breathed in relief.
But Xia Lianxue soon spoke again. “Several hundred years ago, did my master come here?”
“Your master?” Lan Xi looked puzzled.
“The former Palace Mistress of the Jade Palace.” Xia Lianxue took out a scroll painting—on it was Feng Xianlong.
Lan Xi nodded. “Yes, she came once. She took away our clan’s Sacred Pearl. Years later, she sent a little girl to us, asked that we raise her for several years before sending her to the Jade Palace for cultivation.”
Qiu Yuehan looked around Mount Long—it felt oddly familiar, evoking memories of her childhood. Hearing this, she suddenly turned around.
She asked, “Who was my father?”
Only then did Lan Xi notice how much Qiu Yuehan resembled that little girl in his memories. Realization dawned upon him.
“We do not know either. You were brought by the Palace Mistress’s master. She never told us who your father was.”
Qiu Yuehan’s heart churned with mixed emotions.
Her mother was dead, and her father—nowhere to be found.
A single-parent family—now not even that.
Xia Lianxue felt the urge to pat her senior sister’s head, as Lu Changyuan often did to her—but seeing Qiu Yuehan’s expression, she refrained. She only said softly, “It’s alright. You will know, one day.”
Then she turned, her voice cold again as she looked to Lan Xi. “What is this Sacred Pearl?”
Lan Xi hesitated, then explained, “Around three thousand years ago, during one of our clan’s rituals, a Sacred Pearl suddenly appeared within the jade cauldron. Those who cultivated beside it found their progress doubled. We believe it was a gift from our ancestors.”
And then Feng Xianlong stole it.
Xia Lianxue truly felt like rubbing her forehead and asking what on earth her master had been doing. When she trained under Feng Xianlong, she had never even seen such a pearl.
Lan Xi continued frankly, “Oh, yes—around four hundred years ago, a scholar-like man came to seize the Sacred Pearl, but by then, it had already been taken by your master.”
Xia Lianxue was a little surprised.
So Feng Xianlong’s theft had happened much earlier.
Qiu Yuehan, meanwhile, recalled fragments of memory.
The Nether Kingdom—Lord of the Nether’s realm—had also appeared three thousand years ago.
The Moon Fairy murmured, “Three thousand years... The first emergence of the Nether Kingdom was also then.”
Clang!
A crisp sound rang out.
From the jade bracelet on Qiu Yuehan’s ankle, Feng Xianlong’s phantom suddenly appeared once more.
As the phantom formed, Lan Xi shouted, “That’s her! That’s the one who took the Sacred Pearl!”
The phantom ignored him, looking instead toward Qiu Yuehan. Her voice was gentle. “My master left something for you.”
Qiu Yuehan asked, puzzled, “What thing?”
“I do not know either. My memory is incomplete. But Yuehan, now I can tell you about the Palace Mistress’s origin.”
The phantom’s voice flowed softly.
Feng Xianlong had been a prodigy of cultivation, walking the path of destiny and fortune, attaining Jade Radiance. Such backlash was unbearable for most—but she could bear it because she was not a complete person.
Back in the Nether Kingdom, Lu Changyuan and Su Youwan had once heard Mei Zhao Zhao’s prophecy:
Five hundred years of wind, five hundred of sun, five hundred of rain—she shall return at last.
That was fifteen hundred years.
Yet the prophecy was incomplete—for the true tale spoke of a man and a woman, each waiting fifteen hundred years.
Two spans of fifteen hundred years made exactly three thousand—the time when the Nether Kingdom first appeared.
The Nether Kingdom was unique. The spirits there devoured the flesh of cultivators, and from the decayed remains new life could be born. But—had any such new life ever left the Nether Kingdom?
Yes—two beings had, one male and one female, one of yin, one of yang.
The woman had left when the Nether Kingdom first opened three thousand years ago, transformed into human form, cultivated along the Dao, and two thousand years ago attained enlightenment—naming herself Feng Xianlong.
After the phantom slowly finished, Qiu Yuehan nodded with difficulty. “Then... my father?”
“My memory is incomplete—I cannot recall. But Yuehan, your mother must be my master. You resemble her greatly. Perhaps... you have no father.”
Qiu Yuehan drew in a deep breath.
Suddenly, she thought—
Perhaps it was not that she looked like Feng Xianlong, but that Feng Xianlong looked like the Lord of the Nether—for Feng Xianlong had been reborn from his flesh and blood within the Nether Kingdom.
But whose thought was Feng Xianlong? Whose will was so dear to the Lord of the Nether that he would use his own blood and flesh to create life?
Qiu Yuehan could not remember.
Nor did she wish to.
She feared those memories. She felt that things were good as they were now—with her junior sister beside her, and that old monster teaching her techniques.
Her circle was small, but her relationships were tangled—
She was her junior sister’s senior, her junior sister’s husband’s disciple, and her junior sister’s master’s daughter.
Xia Lianxue noticed her senior sister trembling and called softly, “Senior Sister?”
Qiu Yuehan lowered her head, her long brows veiling the emotions in her eyes. “It’s fine. I was just wondering what my mother left for me here.”
The phantom gestured that she did not know either—only that Feng Xianlong had hoped Qiu Yuehan would return once.
So, they turned together to look at Lan Xi.
Lan Xi shuddered in alarm. “She didn’t leave anything behind. That one took away the Sacred Pearl, and after many years, returned a little girl—this one. We gave her back to you already.”
Xia Lianxue’s voice turned icy. “Truly left nothing?”
Lan Xi quickly replied, “Nothing, nothing at all, truly nothing.”
“Senior Sister, do you sense anything?”
Qiu Yuehan looked toward Xia Lianxue’s delicate yet frosty face, her ink-black hair swaying lightly. “There isn’t.”
What exactly had Feng Xianlong left behind on Mount Long?
Always timid, Lan Xi said cautiously, “If the two of you aren’t in a hurry, you may stay and observe our Spirit Clan’s ritual.”
The blue-haired old man smiled warmly. That aged face, because of his smile, buried his eyes deep in wrinkles.
“After all, it only happens once every ten years—quite rare indeed.”
Lu Changyuan exhaled deeply.
Three more days had passed.
The rain was still falling. Lu Changyuan had grown used to the feeling of being soaked through; the only dry place on him was his back, for the blood heat radiating from the Lord of the Nether on his back constantly dried it.
He even found time, amid his weariness, to wonder if he should carry the Lord of the Nether in his arms instead—that way, the front of his body would be dry as well.
…He decided to do just that.
“Whew.”
He drew in a deep breath that filled his lungs, then released it and forced himself to stay alert.
The exhaustion of the mind was cumulative—the so-called mental fatigue—and he had already reached its limit. That he could still move now was purely due to willpower.
“Two days’ journey left.”
A towering snow mountain appeared before him, stretching for thousands of miles.
Lu Changyuan was the sort who listened to advice. When he heard that walking straight ahead would lead him to the Dream Demon Clan, he promptly took a detour—and thus avoided them.
In truth, the Dream Demons still existed in later eras of the cultivation world. This race occasionally entered others’ dreams, granting them pleasant dreams in exchange for a wisp of essence as payment.
Of course, those were the educated Dream Demons. The ancient ones used to kill their dream hosts directly—monsters who struck while inside others’ dreams.
If one encountered them, it would be troublesome enough. And these Dream Demons certainly weren’t educated—they lacked the beating from Daoist Chang’an to keep them in check.
【Space-time is repelling you】
Lu Changyuan closed his eyes. When he opened them again, the words had vanished.
“Mm—”
The Lord of the Nether shifted slightly in his arms and actually opened her eyes.
The girl’s gaze was uncharacteristically dazed; then, with a hoarse voice, she said, “You haven’t put me down.”
Lu Changyuan said crossly, “Why should I put you down?”
The Lord of the Nether said nothing. Her face—identical to Qiu Yuehan’s—carried only a faint smile. “Mm.”
Mm what?
“Can you walk on your own?”
“Not really. The blood is still acting up—I have no strength at all.”
All she could do was lean her head against his chest weakly, speaking with little energy.
Lu Changyuan thought as much—a curse linking the blood of an entire royal clan wasn’t something easy to endure. “Then rest well. We’re about to cross the snow mountain.”
Now it was truly a mix of rain and snow.
The rain kept falling, and upon the snow mountain, it turned into icy spears from the sky, painful when they struck.
Lu Changyuan lowered his head and looked at the Lord of the Nether. The girl said something, but he was distracted and didn’t catch it.
So he leaned closer, pressing his ear near her lips.
Then she kissed his cheek.
Lu Changyuan realized he’d fallen for it and let out a silent laugh.
“The monster of the Blood Clan is coming. If you truly can’t go on later, just put me down,” the girl said naturally. “But remember to avenge me.”
She was cursed by the Blood Demon; the closer the Blood Demon drew, the heavier her reaction became.
The royal blood she had barely suppressed began to tremble again—meaning the Blood Demon was near.
Lu Changyuan shook his head. “You should’ve said that at the start. It’s too late now. I’ve carried you this far—I’ll see you to Mount Long.”
The Lord of the Nether merely curved her lips at him.
Would Lu Changyuan really have refused to bring her if she had said so earlier?
Her inky black hair had grown dull, stained with her own blood. “Humans—ever the ones who keep their promises.”
Lu Changyuan carried her onward, stepping into the snow.
“It’s just that I like keeping mine.”
“Then you won’t ever leave me?”
Lu Changyuan didn’t reply, but his speed increased sharply. The freezing wind cut his face like blades, drawing a thin line of blood.
The Lord of the Nether felt his warmth.
Cold—chillingly so—but somehow comfortable.
Without thinking, she said, “I heard the human race is a kind that stays in heat all year round.”
“Who told you that?”
The tense air dissipated somewhat under her inexplicable words.
“From where I stayed before—in those tents. Every night there were strange sounds. Granny Long wouldn’t let me watch.”
Children shouldn’t see such things.
Lu Changyuan couldn’t help but chuckle twice. The wound at the base of his thumb no longer hurt as much.
“Why are you asking this?”
“You are my Guardian Spirit, after all. Finding you a mate should be a master’s responsibility.”
Why did it sound like she was saying *after this battle, let’s go home and marry*?
Lu Changyuan didn’t answer—he only turned his head sharply.
Below the snow mountain, a blood curtain vast enough to blot out the sky had risen, writhing with countless Blood Worms—so disgusting it stirred instinctive revulsion.
It came so quickly.
That Blood Demon, having devoured the corpses of those races Lu Changyuan had slain, had grown even more terrifying.
“Shouldn’t Heaven’s Dao send down a tribulation upon such a monster?”
The Lord of the Nether’s weak voice carried doubt. “What heavenly tribulation? Heaven’s Dao has never sent down any tribulation.”
Never?
The wind roared—
A massive icicle thrust toward Lu Changyuan. He ceased thinking and cleaved it apart with a backward swing.
“I’d rather be human.”
The girl’s words were swallowed by the storm as Lu Changyuan drew his sword.
In the pure white snowfield, countless long-haired Snow Demons appeared—exactly like those he had seen in the white-robed fairy’s dream.
They hadn’t changed in tens of thousands of years.
Lu Changyuan thought so to himself.
“Hold tight—we’ll have to charge through in one go.”
The Lord of the Nether hummed softly, her eyes full of complicated thoughts.
She was used to loneliness.
Yet at this moment between life and death, loneliness had quietly fled from her heart—transformed into this cold embrace.
Lu Changyuan stretched out the hand holding his sword, caught a piece of ice, and crunched it between his teeth. The icy chill stabbing his tongue cleared his mind.
“You can sleep a bit more if you wish—when you wake, we’ll be there.”
Sword light burst forth again.
Compared to *One Sword from the West*, which burned like a blazing sun, this strike reeked of blood. The wind and snow were dyed red by it; shards of ice shattered with a howl, turning into sword energy laced with blood that pierced through the Snow Demons without mercy.
The main force of that strike crashed into the mountain itself.
The entire range quaked with the sound of breaking. Snow that had slumbered for countless years collapsed along the sword’s path, revealing the black rock bones deep beneath—as though the mountain had been split open, the snow falling like the mountain’s blood.
Lu Changyuan said, “Compared to when you bare your fangs, you look better kneeling and kowtowing.”
Then the snow fell in torrents, carrying despair, forming an avalanche that drained all color from heaven and earth.
The girl watched the mountains collapse, the Snow Demons wail, everything descending into death.
For no reason, she thought—
This was the most beautiful scene she had ever witnessed in her brief life.