Zhu Xiaoyou was like a tiger loosed into a flock of sheep. His cultivation was not weak to begin with. Entering Fei’e Palace as a second-tier disciple, and now in a rage with no thought for his own life, he slew two men in an instant.
The disciples of the immortal sect had never fought a battle without magic treasures. Caught off guard, they floundered in panic.
“There is a gulf between immortal and mortal, between noble and base. Little ant, allow me to take a strike from you.”
A youth in wide robe and wooden clogs pushed his companions aside and stepped forth from the formation. “Fellow Daoists, he has come for me alone. Fall back behind me.”
A severed head rolled to the cultivators’ feet. The young men fell silent at once. They had trained within the mountain gate, never having seen such brutal methods. Even when harvesting herbs, their clothes remained unstained by dust, their hands untouched by blood.
“Zizhuo-xiong, this man is vicious indeed. You must take care!”
“This fellow is a wolf from the mountains. Once he finds advantage, he runs rampant! Better that we retreat for now. Once the secret realm opens, we can gather our forces and see him destroyed!”
“No! We must withdraw at once. He fears not death!”
Zhu Xiaoyou no longer bothered with reason. Life and death meant nothing to him now; he only feared implicating his friends..
The young man said steadily, “Do not lose your composure!”
Zhu Xiaoyou, drenched in blood, advanced step by step. “You are Huang Zizhuo?”
Huang Zizhuo lifted his gaze towards the secret realm, his brow faintly furrowing. “I am. I am the son of Elder Jinhe of Wuyi Sect. Your skills are impressive. Should you be willing to submit to Wuyi Sect, once you have completed your studies at Wendao Palace you may come under my sect and take up a post.”
Zhu Xiaoyou’s expression was suppressed. He asked, “What post?”
Huang Zizhuo’s smile relaxed. “The post of one who seeks immortality. Your swordsmanship is not poor. Do you not wish to ascend to the summit of the sword path, and glimpse the Dao of the peerless sword immortals?”
Zhu Xiaoyou lowered his head and gave a laugh. “But I have killed your men. Would you not take the chance to avenge them upon me?”
Seeing the question was asked in earnest, Huang Zizhuo answered with magnanimity born of practice in coaxing others to surrender. “Nonsense. We disciples each have means of saving our lives. What is a body, after all? One may simply choose a better vessel to replace it.”
“If you are willing to enter our sect, I shall plead for you before the elders, ensuring your immortal path runs smooth, until you too may gaze upon the way of immortality.”
At this, Zhu Xiaoyou’s lips curled into a sudden smile. But in the next breath, his face hardened, his eyes glinting with ferocity. “Immortality? I couldn’t care less!”
He struck without warning. Huang Zizhuo’s composure broke, and he hurriedly invoked a divine art to defend. Yet Zhu Xiaoyou’s swordsmanship was so domineering it cut straight through, carving a deep bloody gash across his face.
The sword cultivator was truly formidable!
The surrounding cultivators, driven to desperation, unleashed their hidden techniques. For a moment, spells and divine arts blazed across the ground, dazzling to behold.
“Zizhuo-shixiong, you’re not hurt are you?”
“Villain! How dare you defy your betters!”
“If you stand down at once, we shall see to it that you enjoy riches and glory, with endless immortal opportunity!”
But Zhu Xiaoyou, high on slaughter, only laughed. His body was scored with Daoist wounds, his face marked with bloody gashes. Stray spells had shorn his black hair; it flew in wild disarray like the mane of a maddened dragon.
“My brother Lin Yin! A man of Jiang Huaizhuo County! Bullied since childhood, yet he held to three vows: never to kill wantonly with force, never to oppress the weak with strength, never to harm others for selfish desire. My brother tasted every bitterness of the mortal world, and at last set foot upon the path of immortality!”
Zhu Xiaoyou swung his sword, momentum towering. “Yet the world is treacherous, the immortal sects filthy. A man of seven feet reduced to a wraith beneath your hands!”
“What immortality do you cultivate? What Dao do you traverse? What kind of people are you?”
“This world is unworthy to form my brother’s immortal road.”
“Today, I shall show you the Human Realm’s Dog-Beating Sword, and cut down every last cur who treats men as less than human!”
He spared not a thought for his body. Each stroke was a feral beast breaking free of its cage, the reek of blood thickening in the air, his aura growing ever more fierce.
Others sought to combine their powers and finish him with one blow, yet they found the lotus Dao-rhyme about him inexhaustible, opening, closing, bearing attack after attack, and still preserving his life.
Damn that Xi Tao!
Why has the secret realm yet to open? Where are the elders!
Huang Zizhuo, his arm slashed open by the madman, stumbled back in disgrace. An anxious disciple cried, “Shixiong, we have already sent word out through the few he killed! Why is the secret realm still not open?!”
Huang Zizhuo spat blood, terror finally clouding his face. He realised that without a spirit treasure, he could not overcome this rabid dog!
His Dao-realm was clearly deeper.
Yet when the two paths clashed, he was like curdled tofu, crushed in a single stroke.
His heart pounded like a drum, sweat pouring down, though he forced himself to speak with calm. “Do not panic. The elders are surely on their way. Hold fast!”
In the blink of an eye, Zhu Xiaoyou cut down another man, flinging the corpse aside like refuse. “Foul! Stinking foul!”
Clutching his wounded arm, Huang Zizhuo shouted, “Daoist friend! I admit our words were ill-chosen! Yet grievances must return to their source. I have never slain anyone called Lin Yin. Surely there is some misunderstanding!”
Zhu Xiaoyou drew back his sword and slowly turned, its tip dripping blood with every step he took. The others shrank back in fright.
Sword cultivators were already excessive!
But this bastard with his golden lotus body! He couldn’t be killed! Despicable. Utterly despicable!
“Misunderstanding?” Zhu Xiaoyou’s voice was cold. “What misunderstanding? Even now, you would quibble?”
Huang Zizhuo protested, “No, no. We only harvest herbs by mutual agreement. We never force others. You do not understand. Our sects maintain close ties above. Most of these mortal disciples are old, of poor birth, doomed to be lowly all their lives within the sect.”
“If they willingly surrender the flesh, we can guarantee their rebirth into noble houses, princes of the realm, to enjoy every worldly blessing.”
“With such fortune offered, of course they comply. Otherwise, we are not jackals or leopards. How could we stoop to killing men for blood?”
“If you doubt me, bid your young Daoist friend summon the spirits here and now! One question will prove whether my words are true or false!”
Huang Zizhuo spoke with solemn certainty, quietly wiping the sweat from his brow.
As the ancestors had taught, their experience could not be doubted. The souls he and his fellows had tampered with remembered nothing of the truth, only that they were bound for rebirth, for comfort and fortune in the next life.
To summon spirits for testimony would take time, and time was all he needed. Once the secret realm opened, Zhu Xiaoyou would perish, body and Dao both extinguished.
Huang Zizhou’s heart was cruel, yet his face showed only earnest sincerity. The other cultivators chimed in with weeping voices, some even howling as though Zhu Xiaoyou were the oppressor here, unjustly slandering the innocent.
When Huang Zizhuo saw his enemy pause, he allowed himself a breath of relief.
Then came a clear, youthful voice: “Xi Tao-gege, what do you think?”
Xi Tao had sat with eyes closed throughout, but at Huang Zizhou’s words, he opened them and spoke with calm disdain. “Nonsense. To confound black and white, truth and falsehood. That alone merits death.”
A plump child sat upright, his face stripped of all playfulness. “True or false, it matters not. To beguile cultivators into casting aside the flesh for some future life, forsaking the present. Were this the age of saints, such sin would earn thunder from the heavens, your soul scattered to nothing.”
Zhu Xiaoyou laughed coldly. “A pack of hypocrite fiends! I avenge my brother today. If this world knows no saints, then I shall kill you myself!”
From that moment, he ceased to argue. His thoughts were crystalline; never had his mind been so clear. The sword in his hand burned like a rainbow, shone like a rising cloud. Each sweep felled another body.
He bathed the secret realm in blood. Faces blanched, cries rang out, yet the longed-for opening of the realm never came.
At last, he struck the final blow.
Zhu Xiaoyou collapsed to one knee, bracing himself on his sword. Sweat poured like rain, blood mingling with the stormwater that streamed across his trembling body.
Huang Zizhuo staggered mid-flight, face stiff with horror.
“You will regret this.”
His lips barely moved. Then his head split cleanly apart, falling in two.
Within the secret realm, none lived save three. Just then, thunder shook the heavens. The gates of the realm, long sealed, were flung wide. Threads of sunlight pierced the gloom.
Zhu Xiaoyou rose upon his sword, lifted his face, and beheld countless immortals.
He smiled with scorn, turned to Xi Tao and Xue Cuo, and said: “Both my good brothers, here we part. This deed is mine alone, its cause and consequence mine to bear.
If my body remains, bury it. Do not let them make medicine of me.”
Golden radiance poured down.
The horror of the battlefield lay naked before the immortals’ eyes. None spoke. A silence like stone pressed down upon all.
For thousands of years, tens of thousands… nothing such as this had happened.
Never had anyone dared, beneath the very gaze of the immortal gates, to slaughter their sons and grandsons.
They stared, dazed, incredulous.
Amid the heaps of corpses, a single youth stood motionless, gazing heavenward. The blood upon him, non one could tell whose was it, enemy’s or his own.
Then, suddenly, he raised his sword and made a gesture of utmost insolence.
He pointed it at them.
My son. My grandson…
Only now did they see clearly whose bodies lay beneath his feet. Each one noble. Each one a direct heir. Each one kin to an elder.
And they’ve perished just like that?
Must be killed! He must be killed!
The wrath of immortals erupted in an instant. One, without a word, raised his hand and cast forth a streak of clear light.
The light fell like shadow, sharp with killing intent, enough to grind a Foundation Building stage disciple to dust.
Yet halfway down, it froze. Then bent aside, forced to detour.
It was because there were two figures, one big and one small, standing in front of this thief. Everyone was looking at the strange scene. The big one was a face they were very familiar with. They were always the first to know which elder had a proud disciple.
He was the beloved young master of Taiyi Sect, Xin Pu. They could not kill him. They dared not.
The smaller spread his arms wide like a fledgling hawk, shielding the murderous demon behind him.
Him they dared not touch at all.
Others might not recognise him, but elders could not fail to. His parents’ very names were spoken with dread.
Who among them would dare boast of withstanding even a single sword from the Dragon Might Swordmaster of Tianyi Sect?
Xue Cuo stood there in silence. For the first time in his life, he felt true gratitude for his bloodline, though he had never thought it worth much before.
