novelraw Chapter 25 : Chapter 25
Chapter 25 : Chapter 25
Chapter 25
Suizhou, Lishui Lake.
It was an enormous lake. The mighty waters of the Ji River gathered here, providing an inexhaustible source.
In the lifetime when Shuang Wenlü entered the Dao, he had also been here. Across ages and ages, most places in Suizhou had changed their old faces for new. In the past, this had been a vast marshland. Now only a single Lishui Lake remained. Wujiguan had chosen the island at the lake’s center as its Suizhou station.
When Blood River Old Ancestor carried the Blood-Rust Blade into Beiliang Prefecture, Shuang Wenlü cast his gaze toward him from afar.
Blood River Old Ancestor crossed the Zhuo Sea to another continent with the Blood-Rust Blade by borrowing the route of the Wan Yao Cave.
The Tongzhao Demon General of the Wan Yao Cave was a highly cultivated Lili. It possessed an innate, extraordinary beastly divine ability. Borrowing that ability, Wan Yao Cave could connect to eight continents. Any yao cultivator within Wan Yao Cave could use that route to travel conveniently between the cave and the eight continents.
“Is Jianrong in seclusion?” Shuang Wenlü asked his subordinates.
Jianrong was the current master of Wan Yao Cave, and also an old acquaintance of his.
His subordinates quickly returned the news. The master of Wan Yao Cave had begun a long seclusion two hundred and sixty years ago. Such seclusion almost completely cut off all news from the outside world.
No wonder a Demonic Cultivator had dared to steal passage through Wan Yao Cave’s route. If Jianrong were present, she would control the cave’s mechanisms. Any stir within the cave, no matter how small, could not have been hidden from her.
Shuang Wenlü sent a message to Wan Yao Cave, letting them investigate for themselves.
His gaze fell upon the Southern and Northern Liang Prefectures, where Demonic Cultivators gathered.
Originally, the universe had no Demonic Cultivators. Cultivation was cultivation of both power and the heart. If a cultivator’s Dao Heart regressed and demonic thoughts arose, it would only cause their cultivation to stagnate or even retreat—there was no such thing as “turning into a Demonic Cultivator.”
Demonic Cultivators only appeared after Demon Abyss collided with the universe two thousand seven hundred years ago. Cultivators of the universe drew inspiration from demons, and over time the Demonic Path was formed.
The Dao of the universe and the Dao of Demon Abyss were completely different, yet each had aspects that benefited the other. When the two worlds connected, it aided the growth of both. However, the Dao of the universe leaned toward cooperation and mutual gain, while the Dao of Demon Abyss leaned more toward devouring. That difference led to countless conflicts afterward. Shuang Wenlü had always allowed Demon Abyss to remain for this reason.
Sword Pavilion stood across the far southeast of the universe, but demons did not have only the Red Sand Sea as a route into the universe.
After the Dao of the universe gradually absorbed and grew from the Dao of Demon Abyss, if a cultivator’s Dao Heart collapsed, demons could take advantage and enter the universe. This too was part of how the universe assimilated what it needed from Demon Abyss.
Thus, the top cultivators of the universe had never joined forces to eradicate Demonic Cultivators. They only kept them suppressed within the Southern and Northern Liang Prefectures. As for the younger generation’s battles with Demonic Cultivators, those were tempering trials.
This time, as many Rule Fragments entered the universe, quite a few Demonic Cultivators also obtained Golden Fingers. The disturbances they caused only grew larger and larger.
Shuang Wenlü found them annoying, but he had no intention of eradicating demons.
Cultivation was a path of liberation, and also a path difficult to walk. The hardest part lay not outside, but within. If elders swept away every obstacle ahead for the juniors, how would the flaws in their Dao Hearts ever be resolved?
Yet some of the commotion was beginning to disturb his arrangements.
From the void, Shuang Wenlü selected a strand of karmic causality. His fingers formed a sword, and from his fingertip extended a segment of a flawless, transparent sword tip. He severed it.
The broken karmic strand snapped back like a whip, coiling around the sword tip and leaving a fine line upon the clear blade.
To cut off a karmic thread was to take on a karmic thread.
Shuang Wenlü lifted his head to look toward the Ji River. There happened to be one karmic matter there that could be concluded.
…
Midstream on the Ji River.
A great ship driven by spell arts was moving with the current, bound for Lishui Lake. Beneath the water ahead of it, a deep shadow lay concealed.
The one aboard was none other than Qiu Shufeng, who had previously wandered into Sitting-Forgetting Island by mistake.
Qiu Shufeng was taking medicine.
The pill was called Ninghua Dan. It was refined by cultivators, yet ordinary people could also take it. It could stabilize the foundation, nourish vitality, and replenish essence and qi.
The Farming System chattered in his mind. “Instead of eating these pills, you would do better to sleep properly. If your body is as leaky as a sieve, no matter how much medicinal power you swallow, it will all seep out anyway.”
Ever since it arrived with Qiu Shufeng, it had not seen him go a single day without worrying.
Suizhou’s situation was too bad. The terrain here was rugged and ever-changing, with many yao, demons, and ghosts hiding in the wilds. Mortals could avoid dying easily only by living under protection.
In every registered city, village, and township of Suizhou, Wujiguan cultivators had set up formations for protection. But formations required resources to operate, and this became Suizhou’s poll tax.
As long as one registered with the government as having long-term employment, one could receive a seventy percent reduction of the poll tax. But even the remaining thirty percent after reduction was still not cheap. Every day in Suizhou, many people who could not bear the poll tax were forced to move out to dangerous wilderness.
This kind of taxation also gave rise to many problems.
For example, in order to register and reduce the poll tax, commoners had to accept wages crushed to the lowest possible level; wealthy households registered idle relatives under false employment; hidden households; infanticide; abandoning the elderly; and so on. It even spawned brokers who made their living by connecting employers and commoners under such arrangements.
Qiu Shufeng swallowed the pill and said, “I know what I am doing. Once all these miscellaneous matters are handled, it will be fine.”
The Farming System treated that as an excuse. From what it had observed, Suizhou’s “miscellaneous matters” would not be finished even in ten years.
Qiu Shufeng had calculated the poll tax revenue. By rough estimate, only about forty percent was handed over to Wujiguan. The remaining sixty percent was embezzled.
Suizhou, Suizhou. Evil devoured people, and people devoured people.
He had already begun to rectify it, but he had only arrived not long ago. He also understood that if he pushed too urgently, it could lead to a complete collapse. Therefore, he could only proceed slowly.
“We work well together. I do not want to be forced to switch to another host so soon,” the Farming System said.
“I know what I am doing,” Qiu Shufeng repeated slowly. “Only by preserving a useful body can one accomplish things.”
Yet his mind was still turning over the poll tax.
Those powerful local clans could only be ground down slowly, so Qiu Shufeng wondered whether he could reduce some costs from the Wujiguan side.
He had calculated it. Wujiguan did not profit from setting up formations. They only charged for material costs and did not count labor. In years of disaster, they even subsidized a great deal. Wujiguan set up formations not for money, but for merit.
However, with the Farming System’s peculiar nature, perhaps some of the material costs for formations could be reduced. Many materials included spirit plants. As long as they were plants, they fell within the Farming System’s rules.
This year’s spring planting had already ended. The Farming System’s improved seeds would not be promoted in Suizhou until next year. Spirit plants containing spiritual qi and various wondrous effects were more troublesome to cultivate, but they could still be tried.
…
The great ship suddenly halted.
Qiu Shufeng nearly toppled from the inertia. Several vines abruptly extended from his sleeve, bracing him.
“What is going on?”
…
Outside the cabin, the blue sky and emerald riverwater were gone. All around was gloomy, ghostly fog. One could not see five fingers before one’s face. The river beneath the ship was a sheet of black. Countless ghostly green hands with twisted fingers reached up from the water, wrapping the ship tightly. It was they who had forced the ship to stop.
Huo Xiao stood on the deck. Sword light plunged into the water, severing countless ghost hands.
But in the next breath, more ghost hands grew from the severed ends. They crawled up the hull, only to be blocked beneath the rail by the ship’s formation. As long as yin qi remained, these things could not be cut to exhaustion.
Huo Xiao felt his sword growing more and more sluggish. He recalled his flying sword. Its blade was mottled with many black stains like clinging mud.
“What is this?” Huo Xiao’s brows knitted tightly. He could not cleanse this filth for the moment, and he did not know its origin.
A ghost domain like this could not appear out of nowhere, yet the cultivators on watch had sensed nothing before the ship entered it.
The resentful, baleful aura within the fog was terrifyingly dense. Within it, divine sense could see nothing at all. From all directions came sudden wails and cackles, as ghosts slammed into the ship, only to be thrown back by the protective formation.
The formation’s light began to flicker.
Huo Xiao’s face darkened. Sword light cut into the fog, splitting countless evil ghosts.
Yet the evil ghosts within the fog seemed endless. Once split apart, they would reform from the fog in an instant. If the ship could not escape this ghost domain, they would be ground down until they died.
…
Inside the cabin.
The Farming System’s voice changed. “Find a way to escape—now! This is not something you can handle. This is a Rule Fragment!”
“What is a Rule Fragment?” It was the first time Qiu Shufeng had heard the Farming System so panicked.
“It is an existence similar to me,” the Farming System said urgently. “Within its rules, it is almost unbeatable. This is an aggressive domain-type Rule Fragment. If you cannot seize its flaw, you can only run!”
Qiu Shufeng understood.
Just as within the domain of planting, the Farming System’s strength was almost unreasonable, this ghost domain they were trapped in was the same kind of thing.
He took out a bronze bell to send a message to Huo Xiao, asking whether they could abandon the ship and escape with the people.
Huo Xiao replied urgently, “No. This is a trap made on purpose, designed against me.”
His cultivation was at the Sixth Layer of the Tianquan Realm, and he was a sword cultivator with outstanding battle strength. But the mud-like filth in the fog could foul his flying sword. It countered him too strongly. His flying sword was linked to his mind. When it was harmed, he also suffered. He could barely exert even half his strength. Before he could fly out of the ghost domain, his flying sword would likely be destroyed first.
Qiu Shufeng’s thoughts spun rapidly. This had been arranged specifically against him. A Rule Fragment had no reason to target him; only someone whose interests he had offended would want him dead.
He asked the Farming System, “Does every Rule Fragment find a host like you do?”
The Farming System reacted. “Usually, yes! You have no way to fight a Rule Fragment, but if you can deal with its host, it has no reason to keep targeting you!”
But who was that host? Where were they hiding?
“We have to lure him out. Their target is me…” Qiu Shufeng murmured.
…
Within the ghost domain.
Countless vengeful souls encircled a city.
Inside the city’s banquet hall, a ghost cultivator with a dark green complexion sat together with a young man dressed like a scholar, a square kerchief on his head. The ghost cultivator was named Suili. He was a ghost-bodied Demonic Cultivator. The scholar was named Wang Yingqi, a descendant of the powerful Wang clan in Suizhou.
Between them on the table was a large, shallow round tray filled with a thin layer of water. On the water’s surface appeared the image of the ship.
On the deck, Qiu Shufeng stood holding an official seal. A pale blue aura covered a radius of two zhang, keeping the ghosts from invading. Within that two-zhang radius, several cultivators were adjusting a teleportation formation.
Wang Yingqi watched the image and could not help asking anxiously, “Lord Suili, will they escape?”
Suili sneered. “Do not bother. They cannot escape.”
This ghost domain was the function of a rare treasure he had obtained earlier. The treasure was called the Ghost Domain Map. As the number of evil ghosts within it increased and their abilities grew, it would gradually become stronger. Wherever the Ghost Domain Map was spread, a ghost domain overlapping reality would form there. To enter or leave the map, one needed his permission.
“They cannot hold out much longer,” Suili said, glancing at the water surface with contempt.
The ship’s formation would soon be eroded clean by the map’s yin qi. That sword cultivator named Huo Xiao was indeed formidable, but Suili had refined Filth-God Mud specifically to counter him. This thing came from the Ghost Domain Map. Once it touched something, it could not be removed. Without his flying sword, how much cultivation could Huo Xiao have left?
Wang Yingqi flattered him. “Lord Suili’s methods are superb! We have already prepared the yin-corpse ground you wanted. Once next month’s full moon arrives, it can be used.”
The Wang clan had colluded with Suili for a long time. Suili used demonic cultivation methods to help them remove rivals and control power. The Wang clan gathered gold and silver and provided Suili with cultivation resources.
However, the cultivation resources Suili wanted were not limited to gold, silver, and heavenly treasures.
He was a ghost-bodied Demonic Cultivator. What he wanted were souls steeped in grievance and malice.
Suizhou’s environment suited him very well. What it lacked least were resentful dead. But then Suizhou gained a Qiu Shufeng, and that was irritating.
Suili nodded in satisfaction. “Wang clan brat, after we deal with those cultivators, Qiu Shufeng will require your hand.”
Qiu Shufeng was an official of Zhao State and carried fortune. The official seal he held was a fortune treasure refined for that purpose. Fortune techniques had strict requirements and heavy limits, but as protective methods, they could sometimes be even stronger than cultivators’ defensive spell arts. Moreover, to break a protection technique that relied on fortune often invited backlash.
Suili found it troublesome to kill Qiu Shufeng, but Wang Yingqi—bearing the Wang clan’s fortune—could solve it.
Wang Yingqi took out a bronze dagger, drew a deep breath, and nodded. “It is prepared.”
…
Qiu Shufeng held the official seal and raised his head to look at the savage evil ghosts beyond the pale blue fortune barrier.
What kinds of ghosts were inside the Ghost Domain Map?
Laborers whose legs had been smashed, infants drowned to death, elders abandoned in the wilderness…
They were all the common people of Suizhou. In life they had suffered bitterly. In death, that suffering was still used by others.
The spirit stones on the ship had been exhausted. The protective formation was gone. Now everything relied on the official seal. The fortune treasure drew upon Qiu Shufeng’s fortune. Only he could use it, and once activated, it could not move.
The person behind this still had not appeared. Their plan had clearly failed.
“I am asking you for one thing,” Qiu Shufeng said to the Farming System. “After you escape, next year Suizhou’s improved seeds can be promoted. If Zhao State sends someone else to Suizhou, can you give the improved seeds to him?”
The Farming System said softly, “All right.”
The Ghost Domain Map could not do anything to it, but it also had no ability to save people.
“Huo Immortal Elder, if you have a way to escape, go,” Qiu Shufeng said.
Huo Xiao’s flying sword was already fouled by more than half. Its light was dim. It barely maintained a defense around them, while Huo Xiao himself looked as though he might collapse, half-closing his eyes as he leaned against the mast.
He did have a method to preserve his life.
But it only preserved his own.
Huo Xiao opened his eyes and gripped his flying sword. “Life and death are in my own hands. If I do not gamble once, how can I accept it?”
He hid the flying sword beneath his sleeve. His lips were pale. “Huo is a man bearing guilt. Why would I cherish this life?”
“Good.” Qiu Shufeng raised his head. “We have come to this point. Will you still not show yourself?”
The fog surged. Pale bones paved a long road leading to the deck.
Within the fog, Suili and Wang Yingqi stepped out, walking upon the road of bones.
Suili’s face was dark.
He had not been lured out—he had been forced out. He was the master of the ghost domain, and no one could injure him within it. Yet it left him feeling deeply displeased. He intended to repay all that displeasure to Huo Xiao.
“Shenling Wang clan.” Qiu Shufeng spoke when he saw Wang Yingqi.
“You have good eyes, Prefect,” Wang Yingqi said. He was somewhat surprised.
He had never met Qiu Shufeng, yet he had been recognized at a glance.
It seemed striking early had been correct. Qiu Shufeng had long harbored intentions against the Wang clan. His earlier gentle methods had only been forced by circumstance.
But no matter how carefully he planned, it was about to become empty.
Wang Yingqi slowly lifted the bronze dagger in his hand. The dagger was also a fortune treasure refined for use. He wielded it with some difficulty.
The bronze dagger stabbed into the pale blue barrier, letting out a screeching sound.
Sweat appeared on Wang Yingqi’s brow as he carved the barrier open, inch by inch.
When the opening reached three cun, Huo Xiao—who had been leaning with closed eyes beneath the mast—suddenly opened them. His face was white as paper, yet his eyes were bright as stars.
A sword slid out from his sleeve.
Sword light was blood-red. It pierced through the gap and stabbed straight at Suili.
Suili waved his hand. Countless bone walls rose before him. Yin qi condensed into heavy black chains that blocked the strike.
The sword light pierced through. Bone walls exploded into shattered white. Yin qi scattered into ink-black. Between black and white, a streak of blood light broke the final barrier and reached Suili’s front.
In the space of a hair, Suili pulled a dark iron chain from his palm and twisted it toward the blood sword.
The crimson sword tip halted half a finger from Suili’s throat. The iron chain wrapped around the blade. A drop of blood fell from the tip.
Huo Xiao lowered his head and coughed once.
Blood was still flowing from his left hand. He had sacrificed blood to his sword, using it to cover all filth so he could unleash that strike. But he no longer had the strength to follow through.
That strike had been too vicious, too perilous. Suili had been shocked into tightening his soul. Only now did he relax. If not for the Ghost Domain Map’s arrangements being available at his will, and his reserves of yin qi being sufficient, that strike just now might have overturned him.
The moment he relaxed, terror turned into rage.
Wang Yingqi’s face turned cold as he lifted the bronze dagger again. Qiu Shufeng let out a soft sigh.
Suili’s iron chains coiled like serpents toward the sword behind them. Blood spilled from Huo Xiao’s mouth.
The ghost domain was bleak. Heaven and earth were dark.
Grievance-laden souls wailed as if crying, as if howling—unclear whether it was hatred or sorrow.
Two more people were about to die.
To die in Suizhou.
To become part of the ghost domain.
To become companions to those ghosts.
A sound like tearing silk suddenly rang overhead.
The dark sky was ripped open. Light fell from the rift.
That light was like sunlight reflected off snow piled on a mountain peak, cleansing away all darkness.
Suili let out a shriek of terror.
The Ghost Domain Map had been broken open.
It was a sword light.
All gloom dispersed. All filth scattered. Before that sword light, Suili’s countless methods were like thin water stains. In the blink of an eye, they vanished together with his life.
The rift in the sky peeled open the cold worlds on both sides, revealing once more a clear blue sky. Beneath the ship, the Ji River surged. Heaven and earth returned to normal.
They had returned from the ghost domain to the normal world.
Wang Yingqi clutched the bronze dagger, terrified beyond measure. Huo Xiao dropped back onto the ship and bound him.
Qiu Shufeng still looked up at the sky. “Which senior has acted to aid us?”
The one who had drawn the sword did not reveal himself.
“This is…” Huo Xiao wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth and lifted his head to look at the bright sky. The filth on his flying sword had also been cleansed away by that sword light.
“Sword Pavilion’s sword,” he said softly, and with solemn weight.
“Sword Pavilion…” Qiu Shufeng sighed in reverent admiration. “A three-thousand-li Sword Pavilion cuts off Demon Abyss, a single sword spanning all to guard the universe.”
That was an immortal who protected the universe.
He noticed the brief complexity that passed through Huo Xiao’s expression, but he did not ask.
Huo Xiao had come to him long ago to recommend himself. A cultivator at the Sixth Layer of the Tianquan Realm, with no family and no ties, had no reason to protect a mortal official, even if that mortal could become a great minister in the future.
Yet a Tianquan Realm cultivator also had no need to scheme against a mortal.
Qiu Shufeng did not know Huo Xiao’s origins, but in these years, Huo Xiao had indeed been reliable.
That was enough.
Who did not have secrets? Why dig to the root?
…
Above the blue sky, Shuang Wenlü put away the Ghost Domain Map. With a light shake, he sent all the vengeful souls within into reincarnation, then stepped across the void and vanished.
…
Beiliang Prefecture, outside Blood River City.
Hidden underground was a secret cavern. At the bottom of the cavern was a pool of blood. Blood River Old Ancestor condensed his body from the blood pool, his eyes filled with brutality.
The Blood-Rust Blade was no longer in his hands.
He had used living blood sacrifices to remove the rust from the Blood-Rust Blade. The more he killed, the more he killed, until the commotion grew too large and people discovered that he possessed the Blood-Rust Blade. His subordinates somehow broke his blood curse, colluded with outsiders, betrayed him, and stole the Blood-Rust Blade from him.
If not for the secret art of rebirth through a drop of blood, and these resurrection blood pools he had prepared in advance, even if he did not die, his cultivation would have suffered a severe loss.
But did those people think that stealing the Blood-Rust Blade from him meant it was over? Blood River Old Ancestor was, after all, a figure who dominated a city and shook a region of Beiliang Prefecture. The Blood-Rust Blade had been blood-sacrificed by him long ago. It already concealed his methods.
Blood River Old Ancestor casually fished a blood robe from the pool and draped it over himself. He went out first to investigate the situation.
The Blood-Rust Blade had already changed owners many times. It was long gone from the hands of those few Demonic Cultivators who had stolen it from him. Those Demonic Cultivators also had no news now. No one knew whether they lived or died.
Blood River Old Ancestor wanted nothing more than to eat their flesh alive, but what mattered most now was reclaiming the Blood-Rust Blade.
When it had been stolen from him, he had already removed two fingers’ width of blood-rust from the tip, exposing the edge.
It was only after the edge was revealed that he discovered the Blood-Rust Blade was not a blade at all, but a sword. One side was a straight edge, the other a curved edge—an asymmetrical sword.
But that was not important. What mattered was that once the edge was exposed, he could finally sense the hidden secret within the Blood-Rust Blade.
When he held the Blood-Rust Blade, he could feel it teaching him.
Teaching him the Dao of slaughter.
From livestock to extraordinary beasts, from mortals to cultivators—living beings could be killed, plants could be killed, even heaven and earth could be killed.
At first he could only learn from it techniques of slaughter against ordinary beasts and mortals. Later, as he continued blood sacrifices and more and more of the Blood-Rust Blade’s edge was revealed, he gradually could learn techniques of slaughter against extraordinary beasts and cultivators.
On the day he removed all the blood-rust, he would be able to learn the most fundamental Dao of slaughter. That was the unsurpassed Dao Canon hidden within the Blood-Rust Blade.
Now that the Blood-Rust Blade’s traces had shown themselves, endless waves rose across the Demon Prefecture. Around it were one bloody slaughter after another. In such slaughter, the revealed edge of the Blood-Rust Blade grew longer and longer, exposing three cun of blade.
Blood River Old Ancestor planned for a long time and finally settled upon a strategy.
After more than another month, he finally waited for the chance he needed.
A Demonic Cultivator had seized the Blood-Rust Blade, and for the moment there were no other cultivators nearby.
Blood River Old Ancestor hid nearby. When that Demonic Cultivator relaxed, he triggered the methods he had planted on the Blood-Rust Blade.
A wave of blood suddenly surged from the Blood-Rust Blade. The Demonic Cultivator was caught off guard and swept into it. He struggled to break free, but the hidden Blood River Old Ancestor had already struck. In an instant, he took the man’s life.
Blood River Old Ancestor caught the Blood-Rust Blade. Before he could rejoice, he saw a firework suddenly explode from the Demonic Cultivator’s body.
Blood River Old Ancestor had no time to stop it. His expression changed abruptly. Many powerful auras lingering nearby, having sensed the disturbance, rapidly converged on this place.
Having been tricked by the Demonic Cultivator in his dying moments, Blood River Old Ancestor could no longer leave easily. His mind raced.
He had to escape. He could not stay in the Liang Prefectures. In this chaos, he could not keep the Blood-Rust Blade.
He had a method to borrow the road through Wan Yao Cave to leave, but the nearest passage from here was at Bugui Fu. That place belonged to Sword Demon Xia Yi.
Sword Demon Xia Yi was not like other Demonic Cultivators. In the Liang Prefectures there had long been rumors that before he became a Demonic Cultivator, Xia Yi had once been a member of Sword Pavilion. Neither Sword Pavilion nor Xia Yi wished to speak of it. After turning into a Demonic Cultivator, Xia Yi’s temperament was unpredictable. When he fought, he had no restraint at all. No Demonic Cultivator in the Liang Prefectures dared provoke him openly. Thus the news remained a rumor.
Blood River Old Ancestor had lived a long time. He knew more.
Sword Demon Xia Yi was not merely from Sword Pavilion.
He had been the previous Pavilion Master of Sword Pavilion, and the direct disciple of Sword Sovereign Shuang Wenlü.