Chapter 912: Celestial Devil (II)

For a while, the group repeatedly went through the cycle of shattering the skeletons only to watch them reassemble.

Then the Azure Dragon suddenly swung his dragon tail in a mighty arc, sweeping away the swarm of devilish corpses.

He shouted, "Something’s not right! I know what’s going on!"

He pointed at the tower behind them. "That must be an ancient stupa[1] that Buddhist monks use to suppress evil spirits. It was filled with sariras, relics formed from the condensed cultivation energy of Eminent high monks after death.

"The monks must have used the sariras to set up a formation to suppress an evil spirit. However, the cultivators from the Divine Nine and the Terrestrial Ten must have come here without understanding that and ended up taking away the sariras!

"With the ancient evil spirit no longer suppressed, it unleashed its power and slaughtered all of the cultivators!"

Having lived for a long time and experienced many things, the Azure Dragon was able to figure out almost everything.

When this place was in the higher realm, it had been a temple stupa, used to suppress devilish beings. Even after crashing into the lower realm, its power had remained intact.

However, the Divine Nine and the Terrestrial Ten’s expedition team later arrived and saw sariras embedded in the walls, brimming with spiritual energy. Despite being countless years old, the sariras were undoubtedly still incredible treasures. The expedition team greedily scrambled to pluck the sariras from the walls.

Nonetheless, they weren’t able to leave. Most of them were slaughtered in the courtyard. Only a few people managed to escape with their lives.

"If that’s the case, then what was sealed here wasn’t just some ancient evil spirit but the celestial devil that fell from the higher realm!" Daoist Yan furrowed her brows and narrowed her eyes. "Should I summon the Vessel of God?"

Caiyi raised her hand and said, "That won’t be necessary for now. The celestial devil has already left. We just need to break through the corpses and get out. Summoning a legendary artifact in the Thousand Pavilion Valley would cause too much of a stir. It might attract unwanted attention."

Once she was done speaking, she spun around and transformed into her full demon form. She became a nine-tailed demon fox that was dozens of zhang tall!

Earlier, the group didn’t quite understand the situation, so none of them had fought with full force. But now that they understood what they had to do, they unleashed their full strength!

Caiyi swiftly swept a bunch of skeletons away. She was weakest at close combat, but in her enormous demon form, she was still incredibly formidable.

Seeing that, the Azure Dragon transformed into his full dragon form as well, stretching across the courtyard. When faced with these mindless, melee-focused devilish corpses, his gigantic true form was the most effective weapon.

𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎

With a thunderous rumble, Caiyi and the Azure Dragon crushed countless devilish corpses, clearing a large part of the courtyard. However, the devilish sariras glowed once more, trying to reconstruct the devilish corpses.

Daoist Yan made her move right then, unleashing a mighty sword strike!

Whoosh.

With that strike, Daoist Yan shattered three devilish sariras. Their glow instantly faded, and the devilish corpses fell limply to the ground.

With Caiyi and the Azure Dragon focused on close-combat offense and Daoist Yan handling long-range finishing strikes, the three Eminent Ones swiftly and thoroughly wiped out all the devilish corpses in the courtyard.

The three of them were among the top eighth-realm beings in the world. If any of them had been even slightly weaker, this battle wouldn’t have ended so easily.

Once the dust settled, Daoist Yan scanned the area with her sword sense and said, "There shouldn’t be any more threats here."

"Yes, there are no more threats, but..." Chu Liang gazed sorrowfully at the field of shattered bones and dust. "Our esteemed seniors' remains have all been destroyed."

As for the storage tools and enchanted items the corpses might have had, those were nowhere to be seen. If Chu Liang were to spend an entire day searching here, he might just be able to find a few lost items buried in the cracks of the world.

The Azure Dragon transformed back into his human form and told Chu Liang, "We don’t have the time to deal with that now. Let’s keep moving. These were just underlings. There’s bound to be worse ahead."

"Is that celestial devil still here?" Chu Liang asked apprehensively.

"Very likely." The Azure Dragon nodded. "If it truly left, the devilish qi here should have been weakening. These tainted sariras and devilish corpses wouldn’t still be this powerful. If my guess is right, it’s still using this place as his lair. It just leaves from time to time."

"I want to see just how powerful this celestial devil from the higher realm really is," Daoist Yan said as she strode boldly out of the courtyard, taking the lead.

Of course, she knew that if a devilish being needed to be sealed away even in the higher realm, that meant it was unimaginably powerful. Nevertheless, with Mount Shu’s Vessel of God at her disposal, her confidence was not without cause. Unless it was a Hallowed One at the ninth realm, Daoist Yan was confident she could take on anyone.

"It’s better to be cautious," Caiyi warned. "It seems this celestial devil is especially skilled at turning people into devils. We

have

to stick together. Otherwise, we could end up as its puppets."

Chu Liang pointed out, "We’re almost at the center of the Thousand Pavilion Valley now. This place is so vast. Surely we wouldn’t be so unlucky as to just bump into him."

...

"How about we split up? I can’t take this anymore."

A gust of wind blew past. Daoist Cangqiu and Daoist Cangyun were slumped against a strange tree in the middle of the fog. They looked utterly miserable.

Daoist Cangqiu’s arm was broken, and it dangled limply at his side. The left side of his torso had caved in, and a bloody fist-sized hole gaped open in his abdomen, giving a clear view of the tree roots behind him. His robes were soaked in blood, and even half of his skull had collapsed inward.

Daoist Cangyun’s head was in a slightly better state, but he was missing his legs. His lower half was nearly all gone. It was a mystery how he was sitting up at all, but he was still sitting upright with surprising poise.

Aside from the missing lower half, he seemed to be in a fairly decent state from the front, but his back was riddled with bronze arrows, each one pulsing radiantly.

Daoist Cangqiu and Daoist Cangyun were eighth-realm cultivators. Under normal circumstances, such injuries could be healed in a single breath. However, the being that had inflicted those wounds on them was a terrifying existence that did not belong there. That being’s spiritual energy lingered in their wounds, preventing their recovery and slowly stripping away their life force.

As eighth-realm cultivators, Daoist Cangqiu and Daoist Cangyun had long lifespans that stretched on like endless rivers. Regardless, if they couldn’t receive treatment in time, even those rivers would slowly be drained dry.

That was why Daoist Cangqiu was ready to give up.

They had ended up in this state because Daoist Cangyun had put too much faith in Caiyi’s method of overcoming the checkpoints. He’d tried to use her strategy at the Heavenly Martial Sect.

As a result, a group of muscular male spirits from the Heavenly Martial Sect chased the pair down, trying to seize their corporeal bodies. They were pursued for several li, but fortunately, those spirits could not leave their sect grounds, so the pair made a narrow escape.

"Did you forget? It was you who insisted on reclaiming the hidden treasure of the Immortal Pavilion in the first place," Daoist Cangyun said weakly. "And now you're saying we should give up?"

"I believed your nonsense at the start. I really thought we could just follow behind them and reap the rewards without lifting a finger," Daoist Cangqiu snapped, glaring at Cangyun. "And look what happened?"

"Why are you glaring at me?" Daoist Cangyun raised eyebrows in exasperation. "How is this my fault? We used the very same method! That fox demon could pass through, but we couldn’t. If that’s not us being targeted, then what is?!"

"I don’t care if we were targeted or not. I’m done. I’m leaving!" Daoist Cangqiu roared.

"Fine, fine, fine!" Daoist Cangyun replied irritably. "Look at the state I’m in. There’s no way I can keep going anyway. Let’s just leave!"

"Leave?" A strange, eerie chuckle rang out behind them. "Why leave? What’s so bad about staying here?"

"

Eh?

" Daoist Cangqiu and Daoist Cangyun stiffened in fear.

The illusions and lingering spirits in this place were certainly powerful, but none of them could leave the area where they had died. They still fell within the category of earthbound spirits.

However, the area that Daoist Cangqiu and Daoist Cangyun were in was considered an unclaimed territory on the map of the Thousand Pavilion Valley. There shouldn’t have been any spirits there at all!

Since when could earthbound spirits wander freely? Or... had Chu Liang’s group found them?

Either way, this was a terrifying situation for them in their current condition!

When Daoist Cangqiu and Daoist Cangyun turned to look behind them, they saw a terrifying figure in the shadows. Waves of devilish qi surged up violently like raging tidal waves, accompanied by a deep, rumbling laugh.

"Come into my embrace, and taste all the sorrows of the mortal world.

"Bone sariras, Skeletal Wanderers.

"Mortal flesh is far superior. Come with me, come with Mother Devil..."

1. A monument that contains Buddhist relics like sariras, found in the cremated ashes of Buddhists. ☜