Inner Demons

Chapter 191: You Dare Touch Me?

Li Yunxin looked at Yue Yunzi, and with a regretful shake of his head said, “A fine master, reduced to a mentally challenged child. I truly feel deep regret.”

Kun Wuzi lowered his eyes slightly, and Yue Yunzi fell silent. Then Kun Wuzi looked at Li Yunxin. “Why does the Dragon King feel regret? You were the one who destroyed his physical body.”

“Because he came to my Weicheng to kill people.” Li Yunxin pointed his folding fan at Yue Yunzi's ghost. “Of course, we are all adults, and it’s hard to say what is right and wrong. But in a general sense, from beginning to end—you were the ones who provoked me.”

“Your Grotto-heaven’s Miss Liu came to me, wanting me to follow her up the mountain. I was naturally unwilling, so she started threatening violence. I had no choice but to deal with her.”

“After that, this gentleman ran to Weicheng, wanting to stir up trouble, and he had some bad intentions that would make even you frown. So, I also had no choice but to deal with him. Actually, it’s that simple.”

Kun Wuzi nodded. “So, the Dragon King did nothing wrong.”

Yue Yunzi cried out, “This man is not the Dragon King! That Chiwen is dead, dead!”

But Li Yunxin and Kun Wuzi both ignored him.

Li Yunxin smiled. “I didn’t travel hundreds of miles to your Grotto-heaven to cause trouble. Instead, two major incidents happened in Weicheng. One time, half of Taoxi Road was destroyed, and half of Yeyuan Mountain was burned bald. The other time is now. If you had been here just now, you would have seen a great many souls—your sect’s Yue Yunzi slaughtered tens of thousands of innocent people. I know that cultivators have a first commandment—he deserves to die.”

Kun Wuzi looked at the earth below his feet.There was once a field of carnage in Weicheng, but the pouring rain had fallen for so long that the blood and flesh had been washed away. However, the blood of tens of thousands of people was not so easily cleaned up—from the sky, a part of Weicheng was still pink.

But no lingering souls could be seen.

The Ten Directions Banner and the million Ghost Soldiers had scattered in all directions, and by now, they had all disappeared.

And this was one of the things he was wary of.

He could feel the monstrous resentment from hundreds of miles away, but when his clone arrived, the resentment and Ghost Soldiers were gone without a trace.

However, they hadn't completely vanished—there were still traces.

Kun Wuzi could feel that the million Ghost Soldiers were still in this area but… he couldn't find them.

—He was a Great Accomplishment Profound Realm Master!

This Profound Realm Master then smiled. “Who is to say the Dragon King didn’t kill them? Tongfu is, after all, an Enlightened Master, so he wouldn’t easily break this precept. But the Dragon King is a demonic creature.”

Li Yunxin realized that "Tongfu" must have been Yue Yunzi’s courtesy name in the mortal world.

Kun Wuzi sighed slightly. “Previously, I spoke with Tongfu from hundreds of miles away and knew that the Dragon King was only in the Manifestation Realm before.”

“Now the Dragon King is a Master, but Tongfu can barely keep his sanity. This shows that the Dragon King put a lot of effort into destroying his physical body.”

“And now… the land around this Weicheng is a great formation that is hidden but not yet activated. I am ashamed that this poor Daoist cannot see through its workings.”

“I’m just saying, the Dragon King is a demonic creature, and the Emperor of Ye is also a demonic creature. Two demonic creatures kill a cultivator of my Daoist Orthodoxy, and so many people have died in the city. And the Dragon King needed the resentment of the Ghost Soldiers to form the array—” Kun Wuzi smiled slightly. “This poor Daoist feels that the Dragon King killed them. The Daoist Orthodoxy will most likely think so too.”

Li Yunxin looked at him, astonished. “You’re forcefully shifting the blame. This isn't the truth.”

Kun Wuzi shook his head slightly and smiled. “That’s not what the Dragon King thinks it means.”

“This poor Daoist means that the one who acted to kill, or who seemed to have acted to kill, might have been Tongfu. But the one who made Tongfu take this step was actually the Dragon King. Can the Dragon King say that Tongfu killing tens of thousands of people was not part of your plan?”

Li Yunxin stared at Kun Wuzi for a while, the look of astonishment on his face fading. He then smiled. “Oh. That’s what you mean. The head is his own, the body is his own, I didn’t force him with a knife.”

“You must have had a human body before. But you used some method to seize the Dragon’s Son’s body.” Kun Wuzi said flatly, as if he wasn't surprised by this.

This was because he had indeed experienced too much. Only by experiencing so much did he realized how little he knew. Therefore, he was clear that there must be many magical and strange things in the world and there was no need to be surprised by everything. This seemed to be the exact opposite of Yue Yunzi's self-confidence.

“Seizing the Dragon’s Son’s body and becoming the Dragon King... but it should still be a human mind. If it’s a human mind, and you can still scheme against a cultivator by using the lives of tens of thousands of innocent people... Li Yunxin, you are truly a demonic creature.”

“Your head is on your shoulders, you can think whatever you want,” Li Yunxin sighed and sat up straight.

Kun Wuzi smiled. “In the future, everyone in the world will think so too.”

“You want to kill me?”

“Yes, but not yet. I will not act rashly,” Kun Wuzi raised his hand and stroked his beard. “Killing you only requires this clone, it’s not a very difficult thing. But there seem to be many secrets on your person, and I would very much like to know them. However, if I kill you, I cannot guarantee that your Spiritual Soul won’t be damaged, and you may not remember so much. What’s more... you are a Master now.”

“But this poor Daoist will take Tongfu’s soul back to the mountain gate. What he says will probably be the truth. Hehe... In this regard, we are not like demonic creatures. The Dragon King probably doesn’t understand—the Daoist Orthodoxy is the righteous path of the world, and it always needs some facts and evidence. It cannot just be based on the empty words of this poor Daoist—”

“I understand that,” Li Yunxin snorted. “A great many individuals who don’t really care about order and justice gather together, but then have to care about it and be constrained by it—as a whole. Because if they don’t, these individuals will fight amongst themselves and destroy themselves. This is a very interesting phenomenon.”

Kun Wuzi was stunned for a moment, then smiled sincerely. “The Dragon King’s way of putting it is also very interesting and makes sense.”

“It is indeed so. Therefore, once the Daoist Orthodoxy confirms the Dragon King’s evil deeds at the Wei River, we can then make a move, and we won’t be as restrained as Tongfu was. There are some unwritten rules between the Daoist Orthodoxy and demonic creatures—one of which is to not wantonly kill Masters.”

After saying this, Kun Wuzi paused slightly. He looked at Li Yunxin and couldn't help but smile, as if he found this unique demonic creature truly interesting and added, “Even if we have to kill, it must be done cleanly and smoothly. The Dragon King not being able to scatter Tongfu’s soul today means it was not clean and smooth enough.”

Li Yunxin was silent for a while, frowning.

“Are you saying…” he asked tentatively. “Are you saying that it’s no big deal that I took out Yue Yunzi—as long as there’s no evidence?”

“Because there are some unspoken rules between demonic creatures and the Daoist Orthodoxy. So without a good excuse... you can only suffer in silence?”

Kun Wuzi laughed loudly. “The Dragon King can think that. But the reason Masters are not killed is because it’s very difficult to deal with them cleanly—a Master’s soul is extremely difficult to scatter. At that time, if the Dragon King makes up a lie, and we still have Tongfu here to confront the Dragon King—who would the Dragon King say has the right of it?”

“Naturally, the Daoist Orthodoxy has the right of it,” Kun Wuzi stopped smiling and looked at Li Yunxin coldly. “Because the Daoist Orthodoxy is always a little stronger than a demonic creature. So the reasoning is on the side of the Daoist Orthodoxy.”

“Therefore, this poor Daoist will naturally avenge Tongfu. But there is no rush.”

Li Yunxin sat in the rattan chair, and beneath the chair was the Profound Light Precious Mirror. The clouds swirled around him, and the clear light of the Profound Light Precious Mirror shone on him, turning him a faint golden yellow. This made him look very much like a deity sitting on a throne in the clouds—except that this deity was being threatened by the clone of another deity.

He frowned slightly, resting his chin on one armrest of the rattan chair in thought for a while, and then sighed. “So what you just said, if I were to summarize it, you’re just trying to say one thing—”

“No matter why your people provoked me, if I took them out, it’s my fault. Now your clone is standing in front of me, and I can’t do anything to Yue Yunzi’s soul. So you’re taking him back, and you’ll have a legitimate reason to come after me—and also have an explanation for the demonic creatures. In short, because you’re strong, you’re right.”

Kun Wuzi didn't want to answer him and was even too lazy to smile. He raised a hand, and his robe sleeve became huge, looking as if it was about to roll up Yue Yunzi’s ghost.

Just then, he heard Li Yunxin say, “I advise you not to do that.”

The Wei River Dragon King stood up, the peaceful expression on his face gone, replaced by a stern and cold one.

“I was hoping there were still some reasonable people in the Daoist Orthodoxy, but I’m very disappointed.” He waved his hand and put away the rattan chair, standing on the Profound Light Precious Mirror with layers of clouds swirling around him. “And sometimes, your senses may not be as sharp as your Tongfu’s.”

“You only sent one clone, and you said there was no rush. This shows that you are a cautious person. You believe that even if I am in the True Realm, I can still injure your main body by setting up a great formation in this Weicheng.”

“—Unfortunately, you guessed wrong. This formation has nothing to do with you. It’s only for him.” Li Yunxin pointed to Yue Yunzi’s soul.

And Kun Wuzi frowned. “Don’t think you have a great reliance just because I won’t kill you today. This formation of yours—”

“You don’t know a damn thing.” Li Yunxin laughed loudly, while pointing at the Profound Light Precious Mirror beneath him. “Do you know why I can use this thing? Now if I want to, I can even summon his Thirty-six Heavenly Spirits Divine Child Formation. When his body was destroyed, I took his magic tools. And the reason I can control them freely is because—even his soul is mine now, so how could his magic tools not be mine?”

“You want to take him back to the Daoist Orthodoxy to find his elders? Friend, you’re dreaming a nice dream—” Li Yunxin’s smile abruptly disappeared, and he narrowed his eyes.

He spread open his folding fan with a swish, and with a casual stroke from the fan, he quickly outlined a figure in the landscape painting on the fan.

Kun Wuzi saw it clearly—he drew a small child in the middle of the landscape.

When this stroke was completed—the heavens and earth instantly shook!

Kun Wuzi had previously felt the monstrous resentment in this place, but when he arrived, the million Ghost Soldiers that had set out in all directions had vanished without a trace. He couldn't find any trace of the Ghost Soldiers but could feel their presence.

And now...

He finally knew where those Ghost Soldiers had gone.

They—a full million Ghost Soldiers—had been refined into resentment and Spiritual Power and scattered around Weicheng!

To annihilate a million Ghost Soldiers in such a short time, even Kun Wuzi himself would admit he couldn’t do it. So there could only be one explanation—those Ghost Soldiers did not resist, but obeyed the order and “willingly” transformed into resentment.

Now, Li Yunxin’s single stroke instantly became the eye of the formation.

The Spiritual Energy around Weicheng and the resentment formed by the million Ghost Soldiers surged wildly, even causing the pouring heavy rain to briefly roll back into the sky! The resentment formed by the souls of a million Ghost Soldiers—what a powerful force that was, far more than ten thousand, a hundred thousand, or even a million times that of the “faith of a million people”?

The land around Weicheng carried such a powerful and terrifying aura, so much so that even Kun Wuzi’s clone changed expression—as soon as Li Yunxin completed that stroke, he immediately felt something was wrong. After sensing the surging, violent aura in Weicheng, he immediately roared. “Are you crazy?! If this resentment spreads, you will destroy half of—”

He was about to say half of Weicheng Prefecture. But as the words came out, he realized that half of Weicheng Prefecture wasn't enough to contain it. In the worst-case scenario, it would destroy half of Qing Kingdom—half of the country would become a place where resentment ran rampant, how many people would die?!

It was possible to anger the Celestials!

However, the reason the second half of the sentence didn’t come out was because...

The violent and terrifying monstrous resentment only appeared for a fleeting moment. Then, it suddenly vanished without a trace!

This sudden change caused the clone of the Great Accomplishment Profound Realm Master to freeze in mid-air, as if he were truly stunned.

—Where did that kind of power go?!

The next moment, he subconsciously looked at Yue Yunzi’s soul next to him.

It was gone.

He then turned to look at Li Yunxin’s folding fan...

The originally white paper fan had a landscape painted with light and dark ink.

But at this moment, the colors of the landscape became full. The painting was so realistic that it was as if...

The entire landscape around Weicheng had been shrunk, miniaturized, and stuck to the fan!

At a glance, it was a colorful and beautiful panoramic landscape. If you looked closely with great effort, you would find even finer details in the landscape—you could see the rocks on the mountains, the moss on the rocks, and if your eyesight was strong enough, you could even see the incredibly tiny specks of dust on the moss!

And a person... was also in the painting.

That was Yue Yunzi.

Kun Wuzi was stunned for a long, long time before he raised his hand and pointed at Li Yunxin. “You, you, you are—”

“A Painting Saint remnant,” Li Yunxin looked at him calmly, and with a swish, he closed the folding fan. “You see, now you can’t make a complaint.”

“Just now, those—” Kun Wuzi muttered in disbelief.

“You should understand this principle,” Li Yunxin smiled. “When you write talismans, the concentration of Heaven and Earth Spiritual Energy is sufficient. But when talismans are arranged into a formation, the Heaven and Earth Spiritual Energy can’t allow the talismans to be ‘soaked in Spiritual Energy,’ so additional replenishment is needed. For example, Yue Yunzi kills 30,000 people to form his Nether Spirit Formation.”

“But the scope is too small. He thought that by drawing a person in Weicheng and its surroundings, that would be my ‘great formation’—I don’t like such a small-minded approach. That ‘person’ was only a part of my real formation.”

“My great formation is this half of Weicheng Prefecture. Yue Yunzi used his own Spiritual Power to guide the resentment of those 30,000 people to corrode my small formation, feeling all smug... he thought my arrangements had all been used by him. That fool didn’t know... I had pre-set meridians and acupoints in that humanoid small formation. He used his own Spiritual Energy to guide the resentment to flow along those meridians and acupoints in their entirety—wasn’t that person exactly him then? Hahahahaha!”

Li Yunxin couldn’t help but laugh wildly, as if he found it extremely amusing. “Once that fool’s formation was complete, he had already drawn himself into my Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains Painting. He was still stupidly asking me why his Daoist Arts weren’t working and why his body was not as good as before? Hahahaha... Half of his Spiritual Energy was already drawn away by himself, and half of his body had already entered my painting, so how could it work?!”

“But you know what. What is painted in the Illusory Realm is ultimately illusory. What is painted in the Manifestation Realm is real but can be easily destroyed. As for the True Realm... I am in the True Realm now. I can use my Spiritual Soul to paint a real, genuine thing, as if it was created by the heavens, but... only when you reach the Profound Realm can you draw the heavens and earth into a painting.”

“I don’t have that level of skill. But the resentment of a million Ghost Soldiers, condensed in an instant around Weicheng, was enough for me to use a Profound Realm technique—although it was only for this one time, it was enough for me to literally draw his soul into this painting... This is the technique that we Painting Saint remnants can use in the Profound Realm—to draw the heavens and earth into a painting!”

“—Don’t you think my plan is brilliant?”

Kun Wuzi stared blankly, listening to him finish, then his eyebrows shot up, and for the first time, he showed genuine anger. “Since you are a Painting Saint remnant, what reason do I need to kill you?! This Lord will now take you out right here—”

“But my father is Li Chunfeng.” Li Yunxin smiled. “Do you dare touch me?”

Kun Wuzi froze once again, no longer speaking.

Note 1: A cultivator above the True Realm is called undying and indestructible, and is called “Master.” A True Realm cultivator, a Profound Realm cultivator, and a Supreme Indifference Realm cultivator can all be called “Master.” This is a term of respect.