The White Tiger Elder watched in silence as Kong Yun stepped into the Purification Wheel and was swallowed by its pure white radiance.
He turned away, reluctance and regret stirring in his chest. Yet, he understood this was a duty Kong Yun ought to bear.
Only, aside from Kong Yun, how many of those old monsters who had frittered away ten thousand years possessed such integrity?
The demon clan prized bloodline above all. Yet rather than step into the Purification Wheel themselves, they would scour the outside world for lesser demons and seize their blood instead.
There are ever so many in this world who are prodigal with the sacrifice of others. But how many will lead from the front?
And he could only turn a blind eye. Were he truly ruthless and purge them all, the royal court of demonkind would likely be thrown into upheaval.
“His Majesty has given his utmost for our clan. He is the pride of demonkind.”
“But a realm cannot be without a king for even a day. Elder Bai, you must soon plan for a worthy successor.”
The White Tiger Elder looked towards the one who had spoken… a figure once notoriously vicious in his youth.
Anger flickered in his heart.
“I have no authority to decide,” he said coldly. “All the Great Saints are watching. Beneath the Purification Wheel, what right have I to play at power? If you are so eager, go and ask the Peacock Great Saint yourself. See whether His Reverence agrees. Hmm?”
The elder shrank back a little, yet persisted unwillingly.
“All the elders of the Feather Clan followed His Majesty in death. They are a model for our people. But when the Great Saint returns and rewards are apportioned by merit, those of us who have laboured in obscurity… shall we not suffer a mute loss?”
Several elders nodded, finding the argument sound. The White Tiger Elder was silent for a long while. Then he let out a long sigh.
“Perhaps demonkind has failed to produce a Golden Immortal in ten thousand years not because the Great Dao is broken, but because people of our generation are unworthy of immortality, unfit for sanctity.”
“Report!” A shrill voice rang through the hall.
A lesser demon rushed in, flustered. “Elders! Elder White Snake has come to blows with the Lord of Tiandu City! They have shattered the mountain ward and are fighting in the heart of the Demon Court. It has caused a great disturbance!”
The White Tiger Elder frowned. “A great disturbance?”
The lesser demon dared not conceal anything. “Yes! Elder White Snake took a liking to that white tiger’s exceptional bones and wished to use him to aid the resurrection of the Snake Clan’s Great Saint. But somehow, during escort, the demon escaped. And with many demons from the mortal realm has begun wreaking havoc!”
“He claims our Demon Court abducted one of theirs and demands his return. The commotion is growing. The entire court is in chaos!”
The elders exchanged glances.
To sustain the Purification Wheel, the royal court had transferred its elite forces to the Six Saints Temple. That had given Yin Feixue an opening.
They erupted at once: “Let us go and meet him!”
“A base creature of mixed blood. Some wild mountain spawn. How dare he behave so insolently!”
“I volunteer to suppress this traitor!”
The White Tiger Elder’s expression darkened. “Enough.”
Silence fell.
He drew in a breath he could no longer contain. “This is the fine mess you have made… Very well. I shall settle it. Guarding the Purification Wheel is the true priority. Elders, I leave that to you.”
They had spoken boldly, but knowing the stakes, they merely cupped their fists in assent.
Outside the temple, chaos indeed reigned. Demons of the royal court and demons of the mortal realm were locked in fierce combat.
The White Tiger Elder swept his gaze across the battlefield and saw him. There was a silver-haired youth at the centre, locked in ferocious combat with Elder White Snake.
He stepped forward to intervene. “Elder Snake! Stay your hand!”
White Snake, blood covering his face, roared in fury. “He injured my true body. We are enemies beneath the same sky! Stand aside!”
Yin Feixue advanced and withdrew with measured courtesy, even finding leisure to incline his head towards the White Tiger Elder.
The black blade in his hand was like a peerless weapon of calamity. He was a demon god of annihilation. The blade’s killing intent so fierce it shattered White Snake’s nerve and unbalanced his mind.
White Snake spat curses. “You are but a lowly white tiger. A base thing! How dare you posture!”
The White Tiger Elder’s jaw tightened.
Yin Feixue only laughed lightly.
“The peacock of your royal court, he is a man of chivalrous heart. You share his origin, yet one is in heaven and one in the mud. What are you, by comparison?”
White Snake exploded in rage. “You—!”
Anger clouded his judgement; flaws opened everywhere.
“Careful!” the White Tiger Elder warned. “He is baiting you!”
The blade’s light surged like thunder splitting the heavens. White Snake screamed as half his skull was cleaved apart. He crashed to the ground, barely clinging to life.
Yin Feixue withdrew his blade with calm composure. The White Tiger Elder’s gaze turned glacial. He inhaled slowly.
“We sprang from the same root. I had no wish to make enemies of the lower realm demons. But you have gone too far, City Lord Yin.”
Yin Feixue smiled faintly, refined and at ease.
“You slaughter lower realm demons, work us like cattle and horses, so that your royal court may feast in silk and song. On what grounds? Some damned ‘royal bloodline’?”
“Provoke us far enough, and even a Great Saint’s descendant will fall beneath my blade.”
“Heaven does not birth the noble, yet the noble call themselves so. Since you do not know the saying, I shall teach it to you today.”
“Your so-called resurrection of the Great Saint is but killing the hen for its eggs and confusing root and branch. It is no true Great Dao.”
“For ten thousand years demonkind has produced no Golden Immortal. You cannot escape blame.”
“You are breeding cowards, not Great Saints.”
Fury surged through the White Tiger Elder at last. Now he understood how even White Snake, cold and ruthless as he was, had been driven to madness.
This man’s tongue dripped venom. Each word struck straight at the heart. He could endure no longer. “You insolent whelp!”
A heavy, frost-cold blade flashed into his hand.
In an instant they exchanged dozens of blows. Yin Feixue only grew fiercer, entering a state half-enlightened, half-inebriated by battle. Not only did he not retreat, his overwhelming momentum emboldened countless lesser demons to stake their lives against the royal guards.
While battle raged without quarter, the Six Saints Temple remained eerily still.
The Purification Wheel revolved serenely, its vast bloodline power bathing the statues of the Six Saints, stirring the slumbering ancient gods.
Suddenly, the statue of the Southern Peacock King shimmered faintly. Divine radiance cloaked it; beneath the pure white glow, the once-lifeless visage gained a trace of vitality.
The elders’ eyes shone with excitement. “It lights, it lights! The Southern Peacock Great Sage is the first to respond!”
“The Feather Clan’s foundations are indeed profound. We must redouble our efforts.”
“Unless you are also willing to die for the clan, the bloodline power required to awaken a Great Saint is inexhaustible. Who knows when it will suffice?”
“What difficulty is there? When it comes to capturing demons, no one surpasses us.”
Amid their murmuring, a radiant peacock feather drifted down from the unseen.
He had heard the call, the prayers… and through fissures in time beheld the pure white sky. Beyond its barrier he felt the summons of blood, untainted and true.
Kong Yun sat cross-legged within the Purification Wheel, meditating in stillness. A sudden tremor stirred his heart. He opened his eyes.
In the white expanse, a single emerald feather descended upon his knees. Then another. And another, until it was as though green snow fell in endless flurries.
His whole body shook, as if a mountain were collapsing upon him. Within the storm of feathers, a vast, cold eye flickered into being and vanished again.
A magnificent plume, vast enough to eclipse heaven and sun, spread across the white void, drifting, searching.
He is looking for me.
Kong Yun could neither speak nor resist.
When the vast peacock plumes blotted out the sky entirely, darkness swallowed his vision. Yet by his ear he heard breathing that was not his own.
In that instant his soul felt an overwhelming pressure, as though crushed beneath a mountain. His true spirit was shattering, fragment by fragment.
Cold. Deathly still. An abyssal terror devoured him inch by inch. He watched himself falling, fully conscious and unable to retreat.
The Sovereign was devouring him.
No—
Blood streamed from Kong Yun’s seven orifices. His fine, delicate features twisted under the immensity of the pain. He understood with dreadful clarity: the Great Saint was occupying his body bit by bit, awakening from within his flesh.
He was the blood that flowed through the Great Saint’s veins, the sweat upon His skin, the strands of His hair, the feathers fallen from His form.
Only one thing was gone. He was no longer Kong Yun. No longer a living being.
Grief welled in his eyes. Fierce unwillingness flooded them scarlet. He opened his mouth to speak, but his body was no longer his to command.
“Xiao Yun.”
“Kong Xiao Yun.”
Whose voice was that? So familiar…
As his soul fractured and his consciousness teetered on the brink of dispersal, he suddenly felt himself slumped against someone’s back, swaying.
He tried to grasp hold, his fingers closing around cool, slick fabric. A calm, steady fragrance rose from it, faint and pure, like lotus blossom.
Xue Cuo?
Xue Cuo!
Is it you?
“Yes, it’s me! Kong Yun, you bloody fat bird idiot!”
“It’s me! Wake up!”
…
When Xue Cuo arrived at the Demon Court, battle raged on every side. He caught sight of Yin Feixue; his heart jolted violently. Something was wrong.
He cast a divine divination for Kong Yun. The omen revealed: Kong Yun is no longer Kong Yun.
What did that even mean?
He cast again. The same result.
At once he lit incense and sought Her Ladyship’s guidance. Then, not daring to reveal himself, he went straight for the Six Saints Temple.
The elders guarded the Purification Wheel. Xue Cuo exhausted himself securing the Lady’s divine will at his side before he dared slip in beneath the searing godlight and steal into the Wheel.
Inside, the Great Terror pressed in from all directions. Had Her Ladyship not recovered three or four parts of her former strength, with the Bridge of Rebirth and the Infernal Hell shielding him, he would never have penetrated this demon artefact.
Within the Wheel lingered a palpable divine gaze. Though not fully awakened, it nearly assimilated him into a puddle of blood.
He searched for what felt like an eternity, guided at last by the leg hair Xiao Yun had once given him in jest, until he found the young man deep within, submerged in a sea of emerald feathers.
Like a thief in the night, Xue Cuo slung Kong Yun over his back and ran, forcibly dragging him out of the Purification Wheel.
He had entered without a sound. He came out rolling headlong across the floor, straight into the gaze of a white-browed, white-haired elder.
They stared at one another. Xue Cuo, dizzy, gave an awkward grin.
The old man exploded with fury, striking with lethal force. “Who are you?!”
Xue Cuo snatched Kong Yun up and bolted. Instantly the elders and royal guards gave chase. Treasured artefacts battered him until he nearly spat blood. He ran through sheer will, wind tearing at his face.
“Kong Yun, of all things you could do. You become a vessel? Have you lost your wits?!”
Behind him the elders were apoplectic. The moment the two emerged, the Great Saint’s statue had dimmed. That was worse than killing them.
“A human spy obstructing our revival!” one roared. “Seize him!”
Cornered, Xue Cuo unleashed the Supreme Freedom Technique and broke through… only to stir a hornets’ nest.
“Who is he?! He has stolen the Great Saint’s secret art!”
The elders’ eyes burned red. That was the Peacock Great Saint’s most closely guarded technique. How could a mere human wield it?
The peacock! It must be that peacock betraying his own!
Damn the Feather Clan. Unreliable creatures, forever chasing romance and letting their clan’s wealth flow outward!
…
Xue Cuo fled with Kong Yun on his back, enemies closing from every direction. With nowhere left to run, he invoked the Supreme Freedom Technique again. Suddenly his vision went blank.
He plummeted from mid-air.
“Your Ladyship, is there any way?!”
…
Within his true spirit he saw a colossal driftwood log adrift upon nothingness. Upon it perched a magnificent peacock, gazing down at him with divine eyes. The Southern Peacock King.
Xue Cuo’s pupils contracted. He stumbled, dragging Kong Yun behind a pillar. “You’ve forced my hand!”
Gritting his teeth, he bit his finger and painted a summoning talisman across his own face. Hands trembling, he completed the final strokes, thrust three sticks of incense into the ground, and lit them in one swift motion.
“Your Ladyship, save me!”
The instant the words left his mouth, the air froze. His features became blurred and strangely placid; his eyes deepened beyond measure. His entire bearing overturned in an instant.
“He” raised a hand and pointed lightly towards the temple. The radiance of the Purification Wheel flickered and dimmed.
The Southern Peacock King vanished at once from Xue Cuo’s spiritual vision. Then “He” disappeared as well.
Xue Cuo returned to himself and vomited a great mouthful of blood, pale as though freshly dug from a grave.
Seizing the moment, he fled the temple.
…
Outside, chaos reigned.
Xue Cuo’s organs burned with pain. Suddenly he gave a muffled groan and dropped to one knee. Kong Yun slipped from his back.
His jet-black hair was transforming, strand by strand, into trailing peacock plumes. His refined face grew distant, cold… like an unanimated clay idol.
A level male voice echoed within Xue Cuo’s mind, as though from ten thousand years past: “Xue Cuo. He is my blood. My flesh.”
Xue Cuo’s head snapped up. “Impossible! Get out of his body!”
No reply.
He slapped Kong Yun’s face.
No breath. No response.
His features were changing. His aura was changing. Becoming unfamiliar… so unfamiliar that Xue Cuo wondered if he had stolen the wrong person.
If this was not him…Then where was Kong Yun? Dead?
Had Kong Xiao Yun already died? Reduced to the Sovereign’s blood?
Xue Cuo could not accept it. He sat there, dazed amid the battlefield, the clamour fading from his ears into nothing.
…
Yin Feixue and the White Tiger Elder fought until both were torn and bloodied.
Bathed in blood, Yin Feixue’s fighting spirit only soared like a mad blade that drank gore. Every strike brimmed with killing intent.
Then suddenly he felt something. He turned.
There, upon the temple steps, sat the brother he had thought of day and night. He was cradling a small demon saint robed in emerald plumes, tears streaming down his face.
Xue Cuo?
For a moment Yin Feixue could scarcely believe it. His golden eyes flared bright, then clouded with confusion.
He shouted his name. Xue Cuo did not hear.
Yin Feixue cleaved out with a single stroke, forcing the White Tiger Elder back. Then he turned sharply and carved a path through all who barred him.
If Xue Cuo would not come to him, he would go.
“Xue Cuo! Xue Yinbing!”
Still no response.
Xue Cuo ignored the spells and blades, the raging demons, as though he were a lifeless clay puppet. Suddenly he lifted Kong Yun onto his back and rose into the sky with the Supreme Freedom Art.
When they were six years old, Kong Yun had carried him across the sea of clouds. They had soared like a needle into the night sky, then plunged towards the great marshlands.
“You see?” Kong Yun had said. “There’s no hurdle you cannot cross. Fly high enough, and all mountains and rivers lie beneath your feet.”
Back then, Xue Cuo had rested quietly against his back, feeling the night wind. Now they had changed places. And Kong Yun lay silent.
…
Xue Cuo shot upward, flying towards the blazing sun that scoured all impurity.
“Southern Peacock King, Great Saint of demonkind dead these ten thousand years. Are you not also a stain of filth? Will the sun melt you away?”
“If you will not come out, then we die together.”
“I will bury my brother myself. No one else shall have this body.”
His focus was fixed entirely upon the Sovereign. He did not notice the pale hand reaching towards him. Beneath him, the silver-haired youth in black armour stood surrounded. His armour was shattered; silver hair matted with blood.
Scarlet dripped from the blade’s edge.
Drip.
Drip.
He gazed up at Xue Cuo’s retreating back. His golden eyes dimmed like fireflies slowly losing their glow.
Did he see me? Yin Feixue wondered.
But the battlefield was vast. There were so many people. It was only natural not to be seen.
He had seen Kong Yun. Just as he himself had only ever seen Xue Cuo.
