Chapter 241: From Glory to Ash

"No one will be able to deny me my future. I'm a cursed king,never to be killed or destroyed! I'll regenerate and come back. Just you wait. I won't forget what any of you have done, and none of your descendants or relatives shall live on, either. You'll all die!" the red rope cursed king roared from beneath the divine purple rock.

Blue Lantern's eyes twitched, while the dragon king stared at the cursed king with hatred.

"I can't stand listening to this any longer. Xiao Nanfeng, free it from the divine purple rock," Madam Rouge commanded.

Xiao Nanfeng nodded and unsealed the cursed king. The red rope cursed king's main spiritual avatar attempted to flee in a beam of red light.

"Do you think you'll be able to escape? It's too late!" Madam Rouge cried out.

With a wave of her arm, she summoned a mirror before the beam of red light that absorbed it fully. Then, she pinched her fingers as the mirror transformed into a cloud of smoke and flew toward her mouth.

"Madam Rouge, do you intend to start a feud between us? I'll take you down the moment I regenerate!" the red rope cursed king screeched.

"You won't regenerate," Madam Rouge replied disdainfully.

She absorbed the smoke into her mouth. The next moment, a radiant pink glow emanated from her body.

Blue Lantern looked at Madam Rouge anxiously.

"Don't worry," Xiao Nanfeng consoled him. "Madam Rouge is my friend, and she won't eat you."

Blue Lantern: ...

He had never seen someone interacting with a cursed effigy in such a friendly manner.

"Elder, you told the red rope cursed king that it wouldn't be able to regenerate any longer. Could you have some special technique for doing so?" the dragon king pressed.

"Consigning it to eternal damnation is all but impossible, but it's easy to prevent it from regenerating. Simply meld its cursed spiritual avatar into Xiao Nanfeng's red moon," Madam Rouge suggested.

"What?" the dragon king exclaimed.

"Into my red moon? Why?" Xiao Nanfeng was surprised himself.

"I know not whether this red moon of yours is a blessing or a curse. My instincts tell me that it's problematic, that there's a cursed air around it. I recommend you meld the red rope cursed spiritual avatar with it and counter curse with curse. That may be of benefit in the long run," Madam Rouge stated.

"Counter curse with curse?" Xiao Nanfeng was taken aback.

The dragon king said, "The elder is correct. I have long heard rumors that those who cultivate the Taiqing red moon die to it in the end."

Xiao Nanfeng's face spasmed. "Please don't curse me, Dragon King."

"The Taiqing Immortal Sect has persisted for tens of thousands of years, and there should have been plenty of cultivators who have managed to cultivate this red moon. Who among them still live? Have they not all died in their prime?" the dragon king asked.

Xiao Nanfeng: ...

"And you should be aware of the downside to this red moon of yours," Madam Rouge added.

Xiao Nanfeng nodded with a frown. The red moon would continuously absorb his body's vital energy and cause it to decay. As a result, he would have to swap out his bodies every now and then. As his spiritual cultivation increased, the red moon sapped away even more of his vitality, meaning that he needed to replace his bodies more and more often.

"Cursed effigies naturally absorb vital energy from the world around them, and can help mitigate the downside of your red moon," Madam Rouge continued.

Xiao Nanfeng's eyes brightened. That was truly compelling.

"In that case, would I be able to forge the red rope cursed king's spiritual avatar into a physical body?" Xiao Nanfeng asked.

"You can try it. Then, when the red rope cursed king regenerates and returns to its spirital avatar, it'll share a body with you and eat you right up."

Xiao Nanfeng's face stiffened. That wouldn't do! He wasn't afraid of an ordinary cursed effigy, but a cursed king would be far harder to deal with.

"How exactly did cursed effigies come about? Why can they not be destroyed? Madam Rouge, how did you transform into a cursed effigy?" Xiao Nanfeng asked.

"We were just regular mortals to begin with. Every cultivator that has transformed into a cursed effigy first had to reach the apex of cultivation. With the peak of our strength, we would set up an altar, sacrificing countless treasures and fortune in order to establish a link to a world away. An object from the world away would appear on the altar—perhaps a mirror, a rope, a lotus, and so on, filled with cursed spiritual power. By attuning to this object, once we perish in battle, the cursed spiritual power within it will revive us indefinitely. When that first happens, our bodies merge with the object and transform us into cursed effigies—cursed kings. When cursed kings share a portion of their cursed spiritual power with their subordinates, they can turn into cursed effigies as well, but will remain under the control of the cursed king," Madam Rouge recalled.

"In other words, this kilometer-long red rope that forms the red rope cursed king's body came from this—this world away?" Xiao Nanfeng clarified. [1]

"Quite so. The red rope cursed king attempted to seize my cursed spiritual avatar with a subordinate avatar of its own; I intend to let it taste the feeling of losing its own avatar instead. Meld it to your red moon. If it regenerates, it will surely be trapped in your red moon, which can hypnotize it. I can even sense a great and sinister evil hidden in the red moon that would deter its regeneration."

"Don't scare me, Madam Rouge. What do you mean, a great and sinister evil?!" Xiao Nanfeng exclaimed.

"You're well aware," Madam Rouge replied.

Xiao Nanfeng: ...

"To meld a cursed king's spiritual avatar into the moon that forms at the Lunar Deluge stage of spiritual cultivation? Is that possible?" Blue Lantern asked, frowning.

"It is a little difficult, but not impossible. We simply need to draw on all the cursed smoke in the draconic palace," Madam Rouge replied.

"All the cursed smoke...? Madam Rouge, why does it feel like you want to make my red moon even more sinister?" Xiao Nanfeng sounded particularly worried.

"Will you agree to this, Dragon King?" Madam Rouge suddenly looked toward the dragon king.

The dragon king nodded. "I thank you for the knowledge, Elder. As long as the red rope cursed king will remain incapable of regenerating, I would sacrifice everything."

"Very good. Let's begin, then!" Madam Rouge clapped her hands together.

Xiao Nanfeng's brows furrowed. "Madam Rouge, why do I feel like you're treating me like a lab rat?"

"You must be mistaken. This is for your own good," Madam Rouge replied, her face genial.

That placid expression, however, shook Xiao Nanfeng to no end. He had to be right. Madam Rouge was treating him like a lab rat!

"Xiao Nanfeng, the elder is correct. Your Taiqing red moon will kill you sooner or later, so you might as well take this gamble," the dragon king urged.

Xiao Nanfeng cursed the dragon king mentally. Stop cursing me, you dimwit!

Blue Lantern nodded. "You hardly lose anything by trying it. You're already hounded by a whole bunch of cursed effigies, and another one makes little difference."

Xiao Nanfeng: ...

None of these cultivators had his best interests in mind!

Although Xiao Nanfeng was still hesitant, after weighing the pros and cons, he ultimately agreed to the experiment.

Xiao Nanfeng sat cross-legged. The dragon king's body flickered, causing a half-draconic, half-rope ball of red light to emerge from the kilometer-long red rope, the amalgam of the dragon king's truesoul and the cursed king's subordinate avatar.

"Cursed smoke, I invoke thee!" the dragon king commanded.

Clouds of cursed smoke surged toward Xiao Nanfeng.

Madam Rouge caught the end of the red rope and stepped into Xiao Nanfeng's mindscape, inducing the cursed smoke to gather around his red moon.

"Go!" Madam Rouge commanded, tossing the red rope toward the red moon.

The red moon seemed particularly resistant to the red rope and refused to let it draw near, but the combined efforts of the dragon king and Madam Rouge swamped it with cursed smoke.

The red moon immediately glowed with incandescent light, as though furiously struggling to break free. However, there was so much cursed smoke that it filled Xiao Nanfeng's mindscape.

Madam Rouge waved a hand, summoning countless mirrors to reflect light toward the red moon and suppressing its struggle.

Xiao Nanfeng's eyes widened. Despite his best efforts, the red moon was still struggling furiously. His back was drenched in sweat. It was suddenly apparent just how sinister the red moon was. The others might not be able to see it, but he could sense that the red moon was dripping blood all over as it was forced into submission.

"What's the matter with this red moon? Could it really be so sinister as to kill all cultivators who manifest it? No choice but to be a lab rat... I hope this idea of countering curse with curse really works, so I have some way of dealing with the red moon if it ever tries to retaliate against me," Xiao Nanfeng thought to himself.

A tremendous quantity of black smoke, like a raging river, shot into Xiao Nanfeng's mindscape. Simultaneously, the draconic palace began to shake and rumble as pitch-black mountain peaks collapsed.

"The countless treasures accumulated by the draconic palace over tens of thousands of years, all distilled into cursed smoke—and all that cursed smoke just to affix the red rope cursed king's spiritual avatar to Xiao Nanfeng's red moon. What frightening expenditure," Blue Lantern sighed.

"My draconic palace, once the jewel and glory of the world, now reduced to naught but ash and rubble!" The dragon king gazed at the destruction of all he had wrought. "If I may ask a favor of you, please look after my son when he's in need."

Blue Lantern sighed again and nodded.

The destruction of the draconic palace caused a huge commotion, with aftershocks that spread all the way from the seabed to the surface of the sea. Countless disciples from every sect in the region were paying attention to the disturbance. They saw the water ebb and surge violently, forming huge, tsunami-like waves.

"Has something happened to the draconic palace again? Is anyone willing to go down there and have a look with me?" someone cried out.

The disciples all around looked at the speaker as though he were a fool. No one had managed to return from the draconic palace recently. Now that such a commotion had occurred, who would dare risk certain death?

Most of the smarter disciples were already fleeing, but there were eventually one or two brave souls who dove deep into the sea.

The gigantic whirlpool that represented the entrance to the palace had vanished. The cultivators slowly approached the draconic palace by swimming down. From afar, they could see a crack appear on the barrier surrounding the palace, as if the whole formation around it were about to break apart.

1. This 'world away' (彼岸世界) is steeped in Buddhism. It distinguishes our mortal world, with a rigid cycle of life, death, and reincarnation, from this other, ascended world freed from this cycle and from mortal concerns entirely. 彼岸 is part of the title of this novel in Chinese, illustrating the importance of this idea to the narrative at large. ?