novelraw Chapter 113 : The Conferral of the Heavenly Dao Title
Chapter 113 : The Conferral of the Heavenly Dao Title
Chapter 113: The Conferral of the Heavenly Dao Title
The roaring snow surged all the way toward the foot of the mountain, and under the power of natural heaven and earth, Lu Changyuan’s figure looked like a tiny shadow.
The Severed Thought in his hand parted the avalanche’s river. Endless accumulated snow swept past Lu Changyuan, smashing against the Blood Demon at the mountain’s foot. Yet very quickly, ice and snow melted, and one blood monster after another gained form from the snow, slowly condensing from the Blood Demon’s body.
The Blood Demon’s army.
Lu Changyuan did not spare a glance behind him, his sword only swinging forward.
“Mm.”
The girl’s panting entered his ears. Her body grew hotter and hotter, her soft frame turning into a sticky furnace. Fresh blood even dyed Lu Changyuan’s neck red.
Lu Changyuan suddenly twisted aside, feet stamping the earth as he flashed to the right.
And at the next moment, a gigantic monster abruptly drilled out from beneath the snow. Covered in white fur, crystal-glass pupils, with long slender limbs.
A King of the Snow Demons?
Sixth Realm.
Lu Changyuan took a deep breath; the icy air entered his lungs, bringing with it threads of pulling pain.
As long as he crossed this snowy mountain, the sea lay just ahead—and once he stepped onto the sea, Mount Long would be within reach.
There was no need to fight the Snow Demon King. The other party had already come.
In the next instant, those long limbs arrived before Lu Changyuan. Crossing the Severed Thought horizontally, Lu Changyuan was struck flying by that unreasonable force.
This Snow Demon King was actually able to extend its limbs at will through the ice and snow?
Not only that.
The area struck by the Snow Demon King already began to sprout icy spikes, as though intending to turn Lu Changyuan into an ice sculpture.
Lu Changyuan frowned, then stretched out a hand, dipping it in a bit of the girl’s blood and smearing it across the icy spikes.
Sizzle.
Ice and snow melted, turning into water.
Fighting a Sixth Realm was extremely troublesome, and he might not even win. Lu Changyuan tapped the tip of his foot lightly, twisting and weaving as he dodged the Snow Demon King’s shower of icy spikes.
A clanging sound rang incessantly upon the Severed Thought as Lu Changyuan reached the Snow Demon King’s face.
“Roar!”
The Snow Demon King seemed not to have expected Lu Changyuan to still dare approach. It roared, and its massive body turned into a gigantic sphere, slamming fiercely into Lu Changyuan. But in midair, Lu Changyuan reversed his hand and raised the Severed Thought to block.
Bang!
He spat out a mouthful of blood, his figure shooting away like a severed kite string. Unexpectedly for the Snow Demon King, Lu Changyuan did not steady himself but instead flew farther and farther.
Only an idiot would fight you.
Gone.
Seeing Lu Changyuan flying farther away, the Snow Demon King flew into a rage, about to chase after him and smash him to death with its fists—yet countless small grasses abruptly sprouted from its body.
The mouthful of blood Lu Changyuan had just spit landed on the Snow Demon King, and now small grasses had grown, taking root upon it.
The Snow Demon King became even more enraged.
But just as it shattered those little grasses, what it faced was a dense horde of blood monsters—creatures that looked as though they had crawled out of a blood-filled hell.
~~~~~~~~~~
“Are you alright?”
Lu Changyuan asked softly, but he did not know when the girl had fallen unconscious again.
His right hand already began to tremble slightly, the tiger’s mouth split open. Blood flowed along the dim sword body of the Severed Thought and dripped to the ground.
Not long ago, before sunset, borrowing the final light of dusk, Lu Changyuan had swung his last “One Sword from the West.” That strike carried him out of the snowy mountain.
“One Sword from the West” could no longer be used.
He had reached his limit.
Back then, Jiang Jiayi had relied on Xia Lianxue’s constant time-reversal technique, spending several uninterrupted days using “One Sword from the West” to return to the Heavenly Mountain.
Lu Changyuan did not have the help of a little fairy. His oil had run dry, his lamp was about to go out.
If he kept using it, compared to his body collapsing, it was his spirit that was in even greater danger.
Only a few steps remained. To fall here would be far too pitiful.
The pouring rain fell upon the ground, accompanied by thunder and lightning. Lu Changyuan numbly pushed forward in speed. He glanced around—so quiet it was excessive, as though no enemies remained.
Lu Changyuan panted. With a bang, his leg lost control, as though it no longer belonged to him, bursting open with blood. He half-knelt onto the ground.
The damp soil seemed ready to swallow him whole.
“Have you cursed me?”
The young man covered in scars slowly turned his face, marked with dried blood.
The Blood Demon had finally found his weakness.
All along the way, Lu Changyuan had accumulated many injuries and lost a lot of blood. The Blood Demon collected this blood, and upon the Snow Demon King, it gathered the final drop needed to curse Lu Changyuan.
“I understand how you feel now. So this is what it feels like when your own blood won’t listen to you.”
The Blood Demon was close at hand.
Lu Changyuan rose again and properly held the Nether Lord in his arms.
“Then let’s give it a try.”
This final stretch of the path was especially difficult. Cursed as he was, Lu Changyuan had nothing left. Yet amid thunder and lightning, from within his exhausted eyes rose a fierce killing intent.
Dao principles suddenly rose around Lu Changyuan. Though faint, they existed.
The Dao of Killing!
Daoist Chang’an had cultivated not only the Dao of Ruthlessness but also the Dao of Killing.
More precisely, before retracing the Red Dust, Lu Changyuan had originally cultivated the Dao of Killing. Only after reentering the Red Dust and joining the Sun-Moon Palace did he comprehend the Supreme Forgetting of Emotions.
This was why he had said that he broke the rules by entering Jade Radiance.
Now, Lu Changyuan was still below the Sixth Realm and could not yet reclaim his Dao of Killing. But after dozens of days of constant slaughter, he had finally touched upon his former intent.
Lu Changyuan turned his back, looking at the massive sea of blood demon creatures. A hint of mockery passed through his crimson eyes.
Blood bubbled upon the Severed Thought. Lu Changyuan lifted it and gently traced it across the horde of blood monsters.
The air rippled.
The “Five Desires and Six Dusts Mind-Transforming Technique” began operating completely.
Greed, anger, and delusion within heaven and earth ignited in an instant, spreading like ripples across a lake, affecting every monster born from the Blood Demon.
Kill.
Kill kill kill.
Lu Changyuan’s killing intent flooded into the bodies of these monsters—no distinction between enemy or self, superior or inferior—kill!
With this single slash, these monsters actually broke free from the Blood Demon’s control and began slaughtering one another, with some even lunging at the Blood Demon itself.
Though these creatures born from the Blood Demon could not harm it, they indeed caused it trouble, at least slowing its steps.
And Lu Changyuan had already fled far with a single sword’s distance.
The seaside was just before him.
Waves struck the shore. The sound of tides rising and falling echoed continuously, and a slightly salty sea breeze blew against his face.
The rain still fell.
Swoosh!
The waves grew even larger. The surging sea overturned and crashed against the rocks, some of the spray splashing onto Lu Changyuan’s face. Mount Long in the distance was hazy under the rain, faintly giving the illusion of an immortal mountain.
“Last time, you said your trump card was me. This time, it really is me.”
The moon in the sky suddenly turned into a blood moon. The seawater surged with a scent of blood, and wailing sounds rose from all directions.
Lu Changyuan chuckled.
He leaned on a rock by the shore, propping himself with the Severed Thought, recalling the first time he had met Qiu Yuehan. Back then, it was two people of the Blood Demon Palace chasing them. This time, it was the Blood Demon itself.
History was always eerily similar.
“No more tricks left. Last time I still had one. This time I truly have none.”
Last time, he still had his final sword, and the opponents were only a few cultivators of the Blood Demon Palace. This time, his opponent was a Sixth Realm Blood Demon.
Lu Changyuan leaned against the rock. From within the blood-colored forest came crawling noises—the insect tide had arrived.
It sounded as though something was being torn apart alive, then devoured bloodily, before finally turning into a rhythmic gnawing sound like rodents.
Rain fell onto the giant worms, dyeing the earth red. Lu Changyuan narrowed his eyes, wiped the water from his face, then carefully set the girl down so the rain would not fall upon her.
The Blood Demon arrived in an instant.
In Lu Changyuan’s eyes were reflected those monsters whose mouths were filled with densely packed teeth, and a life-and-death crisis exploded beside his ears.
He did not move.
He merely said,
“Stop staring and lend a hand. You can’t really expect me and her to die here, right?”
A charming voice sounded quickly.
“Not bad at all, little Guardian Spirit.”
A massive fox tail covered the sky. In only a moment, it swept aside the dense swarms of insects.
Wine-red hair fluttered beneath the moonlight—she was a fox-woman with fluffy fox ears and a large tail.
Her dazzling phoenix eyes carried a soulful seduction, as though just one glance could hook away a person’s soul. But most captivating of all were her lips—those soul-stealing rosy lips that made even Lu Changyuan momentarily dazed.
Plum-bud brows, rouge sandalwood lips.
A beauty’s arms, a touch of softness, a palace-maid’s waist, a bone-scraping blade.
Under the blood moon, the surroundings should have been a dim, murky world, yet because of her presence, the area brightened by several degrees.
The Red Fox still held a large bear’s head in her hand. She too carried wounds; it seemed she had only just arrived and had not even had time to heal.
Her voice was like a soul-capturing pipa as she said, “The Blood Clan truly is disgusting.”
A slender bow appeared in the fox-woman’s hand. With a light twitch of her ears, a blazing sun suddenly appeared within the bow.
Lu Changyuan looked at this bow—he remembered it a little, but not much, and he was too tired to bother recalling where he had seen it before.
He only saw the bow fully drawn. Then came a shattering of light and shadow. In the next instant, a massive explosion sounded in the distance. The arrow left no trajectory at all—as though it had been in the Red Fox’s hand one moment and the next had already detonated far away. It seemed that the concepts of time and space could not restrict this arrow, so no one could witness its path.
So this was causality?
Lu Changyuan could not quite discern it, but it did have that implication.
After this arrow landed, the entire forest ignited into a blazing inferno. The torrential rain falling from the sky could not extinguish the flames for a time. Rising steam rendered everything hazy.
Lu Changyuan let out a sigh of relief.
This fox was quite strong. They should be safe now.
This thought had only just formed when the massive, fluffy fox tail wrapped up both Lu Changyuan and the Nether Lord together.
“Don’t move.”
Of course Lu Changyuan did not move. He was truly exhausted and only wanted to sleep well. And this fluffy fox tail was very suitable as a pillow.
He said wearily, “You can’t beat it? If you can’t beat it, then hurry up and run.”
The Red Fox said irritably, “How do you talk like that? How could I possibly lose!”
“Then why are you running?”
“Because that thing isn’t easy to kill. Fighting it back and forth is meaningless. We have to reach Mount Long first—only with Mount Long can we kill it.”
The Red Fox was Sixth Realm; the Blood Demon was also Sixth Realm. The two could fight evenly, but that did not mean the Red Fox could kill the Blood Demon. It could not be delayed. If the Heavenly Dao Title fell and the Blood Demon entered Jade Radiance, things would become even more troublesome.
The Blood Demon began dyeing the coastal waters red. It looked as though countless people had died upon the sea, their blood and flesh polluting the waters, releasing an overwhelming stench.
Before long, with the full speed of a Sixth Realm’s travel, Lu Changyuan and the Nether Lord soon reached the peak of Mount Long.
With a flick of her large fox tail, the Red Fox placed Lu Changyuan down. He asked in confusion, “What are we doing here?”
“Ming left something here.”
The peak of Mount Long typically had no people or beasts living upon it, for the area was shrouded year-round in a poisonous mist. And because Mount Long itself sat upon an island in the sea, naturally few ever came.
Back then, the Human Clan had chosen to gather here precisely because it was hidden—yet unexpectedly, they were still found.
Lu Changyuan asked, puzzled, “Can it kill it?”
The Red Fox arched her brow flirtatiously and laughed, “Most likely yes. Although that thing isn’t complete, killing it shouldn’t be a problem.”
So mysterious.
Lu Changyuan felt the Red Fox’s personality was rather familiar.
The Red Fox raised her hand, and the peak of Mount Long suddenly shifted open like a lid being removed, revealing a massive altar. At the center of the altar, a gigantic “冥” character was carved.
This character was just as ancient and distant as the ones Lu Changyuan had seen in the Nether Kingdom.
The Nether Kingdom had two “Ming” characters: one at the end of the Nether River, and one marking its passing point—both stone steles symbolizing the Nether Lord’s authority.
So the question arose—
What was this third “Ming” character here for?
Lu Changyuan understood soon enough.
Clang!
The familiar chime sounded again.
Something illusory appeared above the “Ming” character. Looking closely, they were one spirit after another, but these spirits did not transform into walking “thoughts”—instead, they became droplets of water.
The Red Fox twitched her ears and said, “The Spirit Clan generally disdains collecting the ‘thoughts’ of humans, but Ming has spent these years gathering the thoughts of many who died, converging them into a river to prove her Dao.”
So the Nether River had originally been formed from the thoughts of ancient humans?
No wonder one could reflect one’s Dao upon it.
Within it were all the paths humans had once attempted. No human had ever broken through the Fifth Realm to comprehend the Dao, and those Fourth Realm humans, upon death, left behind their thoughts which entered the Nether River. Whoever gazed into the river could gain insight if they shared similar experiences with those thoughts.
And just within this moment of reflection—
Boom!
That roaring river burst forth from the “Ming” character and crashed violently toward the Blood Demon at the foot of the mountain.
The Red Fox gave a little yawn, her fox tail swaying. “The Blood Demon gathers power through blood. One sweep of this Nether River filled with Nether Qi should leave nothing behind.”
Lu Changyuan watched with his own eyes as the mighty river slammed into the Blood Demon. The destructive “thoughts” seemed capable of sweeping away everything. Blood peeled off the Blood Demon in sheets. Miserable screams rang continuously.
The Blood Demon’s realm began to fall.
From the peak of the Sixth Realm it gradually dropped lower. Everything it had consumed was vomited out before the Nether River. In the end, it nearly could not maintain the Sixth Realm.
The Red Fox raised her bow again. “Now is the time to kill it.”
A massive radiance once more enveloped the bow, and the flowing brilliance exploded the Blood Demon’s body again.
The scattered blood was like a blossoming firework.
“It’s over.” The Red Fox clapped her hands and narrowed her eyes with a smile. “Easy.”
The Blood Demon died?
Just like that?
Lu Changyuan did not relax his brow. He remembered that one of the Three Thousand Great Demons—the Blood Demon—had not died but had been sealed.
If this timeline was the past, then the Blood Demon certainly had not died under the Red Fox’s arrow and the Nether River’s impact. It must have survived through some other means.
Had it escaped?
“The rain stopped?”
Lu Changyuan looked toward the sky and extended his hand. No raindrops fell upon it. At some unknown point, the storm that had lasted for who-knew-how-many thousands of miles had stopped, and stars appeared in the night sky.
Stars?
Lu Changyuan stared in disbelief at the heavens. Up above, a star shone far too brightly.
He turned his head—and saw the Red Fox’s fur standing on end, the glossy hairs of her large tail puffed up.
A terrible premonition filled both their hearts.
The Red Fox murmured, “What happened?”
“You’re asking me?”
Lu Changyuan did not know what had happened, but he had an extremely bad feeling.
“Hurry! Kill it!”
The Red Fox did not waste another word. Her bow once again drew to full, blasting open a massive crater where the Blood Demon had been.
The star in the sky remained bright, and at the moment her arrow exploded the earth, that star began to fall.
A falling star?
Even Lu Changyuan had never seen such a sight. In the cultivation world, such a phenomenon had never occurred. Humanity’s only connection to the stars was that when one ascended into Jade Radiance, one lit one’s own Dao star.
“The Heavenly Dao Title!?”
Lu Changyuan had pondered for a long time what the Heavenly Dao Title was—receiving it allowed one to step into Jade Radiance. What kind of miraculous thing was it?
At this moment, the answer was revealed.
The Heavenly Dao Title was a star. Stars were Dao. In later eras, cultivators ascended to Jade Radiance by lighting their own Dao star. But in the ancient cultivation world, it was the Heavenly Dao bestowing a Dao star upon the strongest of each race. If they could bear this Dao, they could ascend to Jade Radiance.
Even Lu Changyuan’s breathing nearly stopped.
“Stop it!”
Too late.
That star merged into the Blood Demon’s fragments at unimaginable speed. A world-shaking aura erupted from nothing.
The Nether Lord had once said the Heavenly Dao Title was about to descend—but why now, and why upon the Blood Demon?
Lu Changyuan suddenly turned back. “What about yours and her title?”
Since a title had descended, the Nether Lord and the Red Fox should also receive theirs. Why had only the Blood Demon’s fallen?
The Red Fox said anxiously, “Even if they fall, there’s still an order. The Blood Clan only has this one creature left. The Heavenly Dao can easily find it—so its title falls first.”
In other words—
The descent of a Heavenly Dao Title was a mechanical comparison. It first located a race, then compared the strongest of that race. If a race had two strong cultivators, those two had to fight until one remained. Only after that came the final evaluation—whether one could bear the title.
This Blood Clan had only this one monster. The Heavenly Dao found it easily, skipped all comparison, judged it as able to bear the title, and therefore bestowed it.
Now that the Blood Demon had not consumed the Nether Lord, its law was incomplete. In later generations, being incomplete meant one could not attain Dao, and could only wait bitterly for a chance like Xiao Qingfeng.
But now things were different. Ascending to Jade Radiance depended on the Heavenly Dao Title. So even though the Blood Demon’s law was incomplete, with the Heavenly Dao’s title, it forcibly attained Dao.
At the same time, Lu Changyuan realized why, along this whole journey, no Sixth Realm from those pursuing the Nether Lord had appeared—not even the Snow Demon King, who had only been drawn out upon their crossing the snowy mountain.
Those Sixth Realm cultivators had been waiting quietly for the Heavenly Dao Title to descend, avoiding accidents.
The Nether Lord and the Red Fox had originally planned to do the same—waiting upon Mount Long to attain Dao.
Amid the bone-chilling wind, golden characters appeared in Lu Changyuan’s left eye.
【The Blood Demon has been born】