Chapter 141
Zhou Yun Sheng suppressed his cultivation base to Zhuji Qi and entered the One Hundred Herb Secret to find Fang Wen Guang’s bones. Because he was holding onto Mo Yu’s memory, he quickly followed the landscape to the incident’s site, and sure enough he found a skeleton wearing the standard Promise Immortal Sect robes lying under an underbrush, a corner of the robe was embroidered with the word ‘Guang’.
Zhou Yun Sheng quickly collected the bones into a jade coffin, arranging it into the proper yin and yang placement, then he went on a journey to kill every Soul Eater Sect disciple he could find. When he killed all of the 203 disciples that had travelled to the One Hundred Herb Secret Border, he randomly found an Immortal Cave to meditate, waiting for the secret border to close.
A month later, he stepped out of the cave, turned into fog and floated toward Promise Immortal Sect. He occasionally attached himself to a sword cultivator’s spirit sword, and occasionally attached himself to a cultivator’s robe. This way, he didn’t have to waste any spiritual power, he discovered many interesting secrets, and no cultivators noticed his presence.
On this day, the group of cultivators he was attached to suddenly changed their travel direction and marched westward, chatting amongst themselves about an ancient secret border that was about to close, and the lucky cultivators who’d found a way through the seal would be coming out. They were planning to wait at the exit, so they could try to loot a burning house and seek one or two treasures.
Zhou Yun Sheng sensed that Zong Yi had not come back yet, so he decided to stick with them to see what all the excitement was about.
The group arrived at the secret border’s exit, but there was still half a month left before the secret border closed, so they had to sit down and wait. Zhou Yun Sheng explored the nearby terrain with his fog and discovered many experts hidden in the dark. Those who could get pass the seal to enter the secret border were admittedly lucky, and the ones who could get out alive were even more fortunate, but the ones who could get hold of a great treasure and get out safely were simply the darlings of heavenly law.
However, this was only the surface, if they couldn’t conceal the fact that they owned a great treasure, only eternal death was awaiting them. ‘The weak are prey to the strong’, that was the law of the cultivation world.
Zhou Yun Sheng was not interested in any so-called treasures, he was just bored and looking for entertainment. But seeing that the required waiting was half a month away, he turned away, wanting to leave. Just as he’d waked a few steps, he saw a bright light flash at the secret border’s exit and ducked out of the way. All the cultivators that were inside were thrown out, looking very speechless.
“What’s going on? Why did it close early?”
“Did you find anything unusual?”
“Maybe someone touched a seal they weren’t supposed to!”
They gathered together to inquire about each other’s situation, their expressions all at a loss. They triggered the seal to enter again and was about to explore, when they noticed a golden light beam rising into the sky, the interior a vast expanse of mountains and rivers, emitting an enormous pressure.
“This breath, there’s bound to be a once in a lifetime treasure!” It’s unknown who shouted it, but every cultivator immediately forgot about closely questioning matters of the secret border and rushed toward the light beam.
Zhou Yun Sheng stood in the treetops, shaded his eyes with his hand and observed for a long time, but unexpectedly didn’t feel any stirring in his heart. He just needed to seriously practice his exercises, and his strength would naturally go up, he didn’t need to use any treasures. Moreover, when he broke through to Dasheng Qi, maybe he would break and pass through the barriers of space, following the data flow back to reality, using his huge soul force to reconstruct a body. His goals and the goals of the people of this world just weren’t the same, so he didn’t have their strong desire for treasures.
The golden light pillar rose higher and higher, almost breaking open the sky, and at the top of the pillar was a bronze mirror. That golden light was being emitted from the surface of the bronze mirror, faintly linking to heavenly law, the space distorted. Boundless great pressure surrounded, as if the ancient gods had reappeared, it could easily disintegrate Grand Heaven World.
“Is this the legendary, lost to time Kunlun mirror?” It’s unknown who exclaimed this, but it made all the cultivators go crazy.
Kunlun mirror, one of the top ten ancient magic artifacts, with it you could connect the realms of heaven and earth, breaking space and time barriers, possessing supreme god-like power. If you had it, you could directly rise above the Immortal World, soaring up to the Spirit World. This was an unparalleled temptation for cultivators, who continuously fought against the heavens.
Their eyes reddened, faces distorted, if they noticed someone flying faster than themselves, they didn’t hesitate to show their killing intent. They were only staring at the Kunlun mirror at the top of the gold pillar, no one bothered to look down.
At the bottom of the gold pillar, a handsome man was performing complex looking hand-seals one after another, hurriedly refining the Kunlun mirror. He’d already taken the inheritance of the secret border, so the Kunlun mirror which controlled the secret border should naturally be his. But he hadn’t expected the ancient magic artifact to be so rebellious, actually causing such trouble.
Now, he could only hope to quickly tame the Kunlun mirror to recognize him as its master, to avoid experiencing using a wicker basket to draw water. He had already dropped a drop of life blood into the mirror, and was now performing the last few hand-seals. At the last second, he finally made the bronze mirror recognize him as its master, just as the first of the cultivators arrived at the top of the gold pillar.
No one knew whether the Kunlun had any other magical powers, but just the two known uses- connect the realms of heaven and earth, break open space barriers- were enough, enough to let him tear open Grand Heaven World’s space barrier to escape the many cultivators who would be trying to kill him.
He self-confidently used his spiritual awareness to explore the inside of the bronze mirror, but was shocked to find that the mirror had been severely damaged, much of its magical power lost. It seemed that in order to restore its ancient mighty power, it required him to find many precious materials to completely mend it. In other words, he not only couldn’t get any benefits from it right now, he would still have to face down all the cultivators who wanted to kill him for it.
The man swallowed a mouthful of resentment, he was just thinking of putting away the bronze mirror and fleeing, when the woman within the jade pendant shouted at him to stop, “You now only have Yuanying cultivation base, not even regarded as a second-rate expert in Grand Heaven World. If you escape with the Kunlun mirror, you’ll only be killed for it, so it’s better to give the troublesome thing to others. In any case, the Kunlun mirror has already recognized you as its master, you can always call it back.”
The man’s eyes lit up, he flicked his sleeves, setting free the bronze mirror, and quietly left, exposing his face- it was actually the Song Yufei who’d left Promise Immortal Sect forty years ago.
“Your enemy is here, it’s better to give it to him.” The woman’s spiritual awareness was very strong, she slightly swept the area and discovered Zhou Yun Sheng standing in the treetops, watching the liveliness.
Song Yufei rode on a lightning bolt as he streaked across the sky and found Zhou Yun Sheng, somehow even more handsome and bewitching. The many years of untreated resentment immediately boiled. He ordered the Kunlun mirror to follow Zhou Yun Sheng, ordering it to not leave his side until it received his call, however, it also must not allow Zhou Yun Sheng to use it.
The Kunlun mirror already had spiritual wisdom, it naturally saw, heard, and obeyed its owner’s command. It dodged through the many cultivators scrambling to catch it and went straight toward Zhou Yun Sheng, bumping into him.
Seeing the golden light pillar quickly coming toward him, Zhou Yun Sheng felt a bad premonition and immediately dispersed into fog. However, the Kunlun mirror could break the barriers of time and space, how could it not beak into his hiding place? No matter where he hid, it always accurately dropped into his arms.
If you changed the cultivator, they would be ecstatic to have an ancient magic artifact automatically track them down, but Zhou Yun Sheng only wanted to curse. This kind of pattern meant that the entire cultivation world would be hunting him down to kill him.
Seeing more and more cultivators looking to rob treasures appear- among these was no lack of Huashen Qi, Dujie Qi, and Dasheng Qi masters, and even a few Loose Immortals- Zhou Yun Sheng was helpless, he had to grab the cursed Kunlun mirror and bolt. Fortunately before leaving, Zong Yi had given him a lot of treasures, one of which was the lotus leaf stand that allowed him to walk 10,000 li in one step and conceal his breath.
He attached his fog body to the lotus stand and quickly disappeared in place, causing the chasing cultivators to rush into empty air.
“That man seemed to be Ding Guang Zhenren’s small disciple, Fang Xinghai!” It’s unknown who shouted it, but many people paused. Zong Yi’s reputation was a good deterrent, some cultivators couldn’t help but dejectedly retreat, but some of the more powerful ones were unconcerned.
That was the appeal of an ancient magic artifact, for it, not to mention Zong Yi, even offending a Da Luo Jin Immortal was nothing.
Zhou Yun Sheng fled to an Immortal Cave Zong Yi had built, activated the defense arrays, then took out the Kunlun mirror to look over it. An oval-shaped frame engraved with mysterious runes, the text wasn’t the slightest bit familiar looking, so it should be an ancient, long dead Spirit World language. The mirror was very smooth, and sometimes there was a golden glimmer. It could clearly reflect his image, but it also penetrated the stone walls of the Immortal Cave to reflect the outside landscape.
Zhou Yun Sheng’s mind was moving at the speed of light, he already understood the magical power of the strange bronze mirror- the observation of the world. As long as the owner wanted to see something, there was nowhere the bronze mirror couldn’t look at, including the Three Thousand Large Worlds, the Immortal World, and even the Spirit World. With it, you would be omniscient.
A good power, but also a deadly power, Zhou Yun Sheng sighed inwardly.
He’d heard that the Kunlun mirror could break the time and space barrier, then it shouldn’t be difficult for its master to escape with it. Zhou Yun Sheng thought about it, then decided to try refining the bronze mirror, otherwise he couldn’t think of a second way to get out of his current predicament.
If those people recognized his identity, he would surely be blocked on his way back to Promise Immortal Sect. Two fists couldn’t overcome four, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to flee their siege alive.
He took out a jade furnace from his heaven and earth ring, the yang soul fire Zong Yi had gifted him, and tried to throw the Kunlun mirror and a drop of life blood into the furnace to refine it, but the Kunlun mirror resisted fiercely. He wiped the surface of the mirror, but didn’t find the breath of life blood from another cultivators and couldn’t help but feel puzzled.
Could it be that cannon fodder just weren’t destined to own ancient magic artifacts? Or, this magic artifact was prepared for the protagonist, and was just waiting for him to appear to recognize him as its master? Thinking of this, Zhou Yun Sheng sneered. He gripped the Kunlun mirror and fiercely flung it to the ground, then pitilessly stomped on it.
If it can’t be used by himself, then what’s the difference between it and rubbish? Begone!
He stayed in the cave for a few days, waiting until the crowd gradually dispersed, then took the lotus leaf stand and quietly left, but unexpectedly, the Kunlun mirror actually flew out from the cave and into his arms.
He quickly took out a Concealment Talisman Zong Yi had refined for him and wrapped it around the Kunlun mirror. The talisman was made with Zong Yi’s understanding of time and space laws, not to mention the people of this world, even a Da Lou Jin Immortal wouldn’t be able to break it.
He circled around but the magic artifact didn’t leave its breath, Zhou Yun Sheng was relieved, he weaved around a great distance, sneakily flying his way back toward Promise Immortal Sect. With his lover’s Concealment Talisman and lotus leaf stand, no one should’ve been able to find his trail, but no matter where he went, there was always a large group of cultivators tracing him, as if someone had drawn a Tracking Talisman on his body. He repeatedly tried to throw away the bronze mirror, just to watch it turn around and fly back to him, as if it’d recognized him as its master.
He slaughtered those he encountered with lower cultivation bases, and escaped from those he encountered with higher cultivation bases, after fleeing for two months, he gradually became aware of the abnormalities, and looked at bronze mirror with a very gloomy expression.
It wanted to closely follow him, but it didn’t want to recognize him as its master, the bronze mirror apparently had ill intentions for him, as if it wanted him to die to the siege of cultivators. A good trick to attract calamity! He feared that the bronze mirror had already been refined by someone else in secret.
Zhou Yun Sheng thought about it, and guessed that only the son of fate would have the luck to get hold of the Kunlun mirror. Song Yufei? He wasn’t dead?
Ferociously stomping on the bronze mirror again, Zhou Yun Sheng fled to another Immortal Cave Zong Yi had built, thinking about how to escape.
The Kunlun mirror had already recognized its master, so no matter where it was, its owner could find it. And Song Yufei hated Zhou Yun Sheng, so naturally, he always revealed his whereabouts to other cultivators. He just needed to patiently wait for these people to kill him, then call back the Kunlun mirror during the confusion.
Such acts didn’t expose his identity, yet it still killed off all his enemies, it could be regarded as killing two birds with one stone.
Therefore, even if Zhou Yun Sheng hid behind the prohibitions on the Immortal Cave, Song Yufei would still find his position and reveal the news, attracting a group of powerful cultivators to surround the Immortal Cave.
They resorted to all kinds of magical attacks to destroy the defense array outside the Immortal Cave, in just one or two days, this location would be razed to the ground.
Zhou Yun Sheng had long sent some Transmission Talismans to Zong Yi, but they were always intercepted en route, he also sent a distress message to the sect, but no sect members came to rescue him, he could only deal with this alone.
Instead of waiting to die, it was better to pull in a few sacrificial lambs, he heard rumbling outside the Immortal Cave and pulled up his lips in a sneer. If his Yuanshen was crushed by this world, he wouldn’t go back to the Xinghai space, nor would he go back to reality, but even so, he would rather die fighting than live as an ostrich.
As soon as he opened the seal, a colorful barrage of magical attacks rushed in, he quickly turned into fog, enveloping the inside and outside of the cave. Fog followed along the powerful cultivators’ skin and invaded their internal organs, quickly extracting their spiritual power to form any even thicker fog, instantly, a radius of thousands of miles was submerged.
These powerful masters quickly expanded their magic powers to disperse the fog, but that only made their spiritual power drain quicker. Some people started hallucinating and began indiscriminately killing, some collapsed from poison, and some quietly had their Yuanshen crushed.
Clearly only a Jindan Qi small disciple, but one attack could kill dozens of Yuanying Qi masters, his cultivation method was really treacherous and unpredictable!
Zhou Yun Sheng took advantage of their unpreparedness to kill them off, but he also knew that over time, these experienced monsters would naturally find thousands of ways to deal with him.
Today, however, he’d made up his mind to let this siege of people die without burial. He no longer suppressed his cultivation base and circled his spiritual power to rapidly break through to Yuanying Qi. When ninety-nine Heavenly Tribulations fell, these people could only pray for a blessing!
Tribulation clouds quickly rolled across the horizon, the deafening thunder could shake the mountains and rivers, heavenly law sending down pressure with Zhou Yun Sheng as the center, enveloping a radius of hundreds of miles. All who were within the scope of it would be subject to indiscriminate lighting tribulation attacks.
Even if the Lord God, who controlled heavenly law, just wanted to kill Zhou Yun Sheng, it was still a life-less program, so it always created well defined rules, very lacking in flexibility. Nuisances will be struck down by the lightning tribulations- that was already a well-established rule of this world, it couldn’t change on a whim, so all of these people would be buried with Zhou Yun Sheng.
“Bad, that small disciple is going to bear tribulations!”
“He’s just a Jindan Qi child, his punishment will merely be forty-nine tribulations, the most is sixty-nine tribulations, you and I just have to wave our hands to disperse them, why are you afraid?”
“He’s right, we can even take the chance to grab the Kunlun mirror while he bears the tribulations. He’s already busy just defending himself, to think he actually has the gall to call down tribulations! Does he think we’ll die from insignificant little lightning? Ridiculous!”
The Yuanying Qi cultivators weren’t as confident about bearing the lightning tribulations, they all wanted to escape, but found that at some point, nine times nine or eighty one prohibitions had been laid out in the fog, interlocking. The complexity was unprecedented, even a chaos level array master wouldn’t be able to break it apart. They scurried around in the fog like head-less hoarse flies, their eyes filled with desperation.
The Huashen Qi ancestors and above disdainfully dismissed the lightning tribulations and sent out their spiritual awareness to search for Zhou Yun Sheng’s position.
Finding the handsome man leisurely sitting atop a rock, their eyes were filled with a greedy light, and they stepped over each other to get closer and attack him. Just as they neared his position, they were all struck by a thick and solid, matchless lightning bolt, and were paralyzed from head to toe, dropping from the sky like dead flies.
An enormous pressure, as if the ninth heaven above had fallen to the earth, came crashing down, nearly pulverizing their almost invincible bodies, the clear sounds of bones snapping echoed one after another.
How was this forty-nine or sixty-nine Heavenly Tribulations? This was obviously the ninety-nine Heavenly Tribulations that only Dasheng Qi cultivators or Loose Immortals could call down. Although there were Dasheng Qi ancestors and Loose Immortals among the people wanting to kill Zhou Yun Sheng, the reason why they wanted to snatch the Kunlun mirror was to find a magic weapon that could help them carry their own ninety-nine Heavenly Tribulations to smoothly ascend.
They’d never imagined that before the treasure could come into their hands, the ninety-nine Heavenly Tribulations would arrive first. It was like reluctantly bearing their past burdens while also helping others carry theirs, suffering serious injuries without the reward of ascension, the sullen feeling was simply indescribable.
After the second lightning tribulation fell, they were all charred from head to toe. They quickly got up, desperate to flee the fog, but found that the edge of the fog was wrapped in prohibitions, even a chaos level array master wouldn’t be able to open them.
He intended to pull them with him into the grave! Such a cruel mind, such decisive methods, he was indeed Zong Yi’s disciple!
The couldn’t wait to tear Zhou Yun Sheng apart, but didn’t dare get closer to the rock because Zhou Yun Sheng was covered from head to toe in bright purple lightning, all the objects around him would be turned to ash.
Those with lower cultivation bases fell one by one, not even their bones were left. Those with higher cultivation bases began falling to their knees by the fifty-fifth lightning bolt, no longer able to stand upright.
When the sixtieth lightning bolt fell, a Dujie Qi cultivator’s Yuanshen shattered, and his already lifeless, charred black body vanished. After him, more and more Dujie Qi cultivators fell.
Zhou Yun Sheng clearly felt the increased difference in power of the Yuanying Qi tribulations compared to the Jindan Qi tribulations. It seemed that heavenly law couldn’t increase the quantity, so it had to start increasing the quality, even though it wanted to kill him outright, it couldn’t.
He took the Kunlun mirror out from his bosom and sneered, “Since you want to follow me, help me bear a few lighting tribulations.” Then he raised the mirror above his head.
Although the Kunlun mirror was an ancient magic artifact, but it was damaged, its power couldn’t be compared to its heyday. It was okay at first, but at the last five lighting tribulations, a few spider web-thin cracks unexpectedly appeared on the mirror’s surface. It looked even shabbier than before.
And the one who’d refined the Kunlun with his life blood, Song Yufei, suffered a lot of pain. Every fall of lighting tribulation made him violently cough up blood, and he fainted near the end, half dead.
Afterwards, he staggered up to the entrance the nearby Immortal Cave he was hiding in, then stared out at the battlefield, almost biting off his tongue in horror. There was Fang Xinghai, completely unharmed, his hands raised to recall the dense fog, conveniently absorbing the spiritual energy with the fog until none was left. Then he walked up to a group of near death Dasheng Qi cultivators and Loose Immortals, extended a very strange looking dagger and cut open their internal organs, crushing their Yuanshen to pieces, then inhaled their cultivation base into his dantian.
This was the same as directly sucking in the hard work achieved by the cultivator’s cultivation method, an action even more horrifying than the methods of devil cultivators. The few powerful masters fortunate enough to survive the lightning were quickly sucked dry, dissipating into smoke.
“This cultivation method doesn’t belong to the righteous path, it’s undoubtedly a devil method.” The stunning woman suddenly opened.
“Fairy, are you sure?”
“I’m sure, many years ago, the devil world’s ruler practiced a similar cultivation method to become the first devil cultivator to ascend to the Immortal World.”
Song Yufei’s heart shook, he wiped the blood off his mouth, sneered, then turned to leave.
Zhou Yun Sheng killed the last few stragglers, knocked on the cracked surface of the Kunlun mirror, then let out a cheerful chuckle, “Finally a little bit of use. I’ll leave the next lightning tribulations to you as well.”
The Kunlun mirror trembled, at the same time, it issued a sharp buzzing sound. If the magic tool could communicate with people besides its master, it would now be holding his thighs, weeping bitter tears and begging to be showed mercy.
Zhou Yun Sheng, as if perceiving its mood, laughed more cheerfully. Then he put the bronze mirror into his heaven and earth ring, concealed his figure and flew towards the sect.
In fact, he didn’t need to be so cautious, he’d killed almost one-third of Grand Heaven World’s masters in the previous battle, his infamous name had long been spread throughout the cultivation world. Plus with Zong Yi and Promise Immortal Sect behind him, average cultivators wouldn’t dare provoke him.
He flew directly into Promise Immortal Sect’s border and once again ran into a treasure looting 5th Tribulation Loose Immortal.
The Loose Immortal attacked without preamble, using their most powerful magical attack, Hell Prison Fire, which made a grid around Zhou Yun Sheng. However, the black light sword Zong Yi had attached to Zhou Yun Sheng’s body chopped him to pieces.
As the saying goes, take advantage of someone’s illness to seek life, seeing that the Loose Immortal was seriously injured by the light sword, Zhou Yun Sheng transformed into fog and floated like a demon to his side, thrust his hand into the man’s dantian and Zifu, then absorbed his spiritual power and Yuanshen into his black hole. The Loose Immortal’s uncontrollable, powerful Yuanshen was forced into the black hole and twisted into energy debris for absorption. This was the clever use Zhou Yun Sheng had just discovered for the black hole, it was quicker than eating medicinal pills to enhance the cultivation base, plus no sequelae.
In one breath, the once all-powerful 5th Tribulation Loose Immortal became an empty skin sack. Zhou Yun Sheng throw off the skin sack, then raised his eyes, surprised to see Chi Xiao Zhenren with the rest of the elders and the peak masters standing at the top of the tall staircase, looking down at him.
He stepped forward a few steps, saluted the elders, and was about to fly away to Silent Fire Peak when he was stopped by Chi Xiao Zhenren, “Fang Xinghai, what kind of method do you cultivate?”
“It’s my own method, ‘Fog Arts’.”
“Oh? But I don’t think it looks like a fog spiritual roots cultivation method, instead, it looks like the Devil Senior’s ten thousand year old cultivation method, ‘Muddy Heaven, Refine Devil Heart Sutra.'” One elder slowly said.
The rest of the people heard his words and revealed horrified or contemptuous expressions.
In those days, in order for the Devil Senior to cultivate this method, he’d killed at least a hundred thousand righteous path masters, and also took their cultivation base for his own use, finally ascending while ever great immortal sect cursed him. How could they not hate those who practiced this method?
Zhou Yun Sheng’s eyebrows rose, his heart guessing that today wouldn’t have a good end. Either he was killed and robbed by these dignified cultivators, or he cleaved a bloody path through them, but either way, from now on he and Promise Immortal Sect had irreconcilable differences.
Fortunately, the black hole stone inside his dantian had absorbed another ninety-nine Heavenly Tribulations, which should help him escape. The Lord God wanted to kill him, but in quick succession, it had only helped him, he feared that it was vomiting blood by now.
Thinking of this, his thin body instantly turned into fog, enveloping the surroundings.