Since leaving Mount Cangwu, Xiaobai and Black King had crossed ridge after ridge, through wasteland and forest. With no teleportation array to ride, they had needed a full half year to reach the border between humans and demons.
That border was in truth rather vague. At its center lay the Guyuan Mountains, the bridgehead from which the human race had once marched into the Million Mountains; south of them were the Aoxiao Mountains, conquered once and later retaken; and to the west, the Yuding Domain.
The Yuding Domain especially—the territory it covered now was nothing like its old extent. It had become a ghost domain! Within were countless vengeful souls and malicious ghosts, and presiding over them was a fourth-rank Ghost Emperor of thoroughly savage temper.
It was precisely that fourth-rank Ghost Emperor that made the place a natural dividing line. Neither human nor demon would lightly cross it.
Xiaobai's steps paused for a moment at the outer edge of the Guyuan Mountains, and she looked down at the ruins below, sighing with feeling.
"What is it?" Black King asked, puzzled.
Xiaobai said wistfully, "Do you see that river?"
Black King snorted a puff of hot breath from his nose. "I'm not blind. Of course I see the big river."
"The ruins beside it are Dahe Mill. That is where my master and I cultivated when we were nothing."
Black King was briefly taken aback. Ever since he had refined the remnant soul of the desolate beast Stone Dragon two hundred years ago, his sense for spirit qi and spirit veins had grown extremely keen; as he looked now, he was startled.
"The spirit qi is so thin here, and you say this is where the master got his start?"
Xiaobai nodded her slender head and smiled with a touch of melancholy.
Back then, low as her cultivation had been and weak as she was, she had at least been free of care. Now she had reached the Ghost Emperor realm and wielded immense power, yet she could never again be as simple as she once was. And she did not know whether this body condensed of ghost qi would ever have a chance at attaining the Dao and ascending.
"Let's go. First to Hehuan—oh, no, it's called the Nine Spirits Domain now."
The Nine Spirits Domain, where the Nine Spirits Sect was located.
In fact, when the Nine Spirits Sect first set about establishing its mountain gate, the Medicine King Domain had been the first choice. But a world-shaking great battle had turned the Medicine King Domain upside down and shattered its spirit veins. Though it could be healed with time, Jiuling Yuanjun, thinking of his sect's disciples, had moved the sect into the former Hehuan Domain instead. At least the spirit veins of the Hehuan Domain were relatively intact.
Xiaobai and Black King traveled stealthily the whole way, making straight for the Nine Spirits Domain. When they passed the Yuding ghost domain, they used ghost-path arts and slipped through with ease. Before long they reached the gate of the Nine Spirits Sect.
At the gate, the two hesitated.
"Do we sneak in, or present ourselves openly?"
No wonder they wavered: one was a ghost and the other a demon, and openly announcing themselves would easily stir up trouble. Yet sneaking in would be less than honorable.
Xiaobai blinked. "The master sent out invitations to the Dao Discourse far and wide, covering every Nascent Soul upper sect in the Eastern Desolation—what he wants is a grand spectacle. In that case, we present ourselves openly!"
She gave Black King's head a light kick with one dainty foot.
"Your voice is loud. You do it!"
Black King gave a huff, then slowly opened his mouth, and a roar like thunder burst forth.
"Black King, of the Pill Sect, has come to pay his respects!"
The rumbling sound carried across the mountains and fields, frightening birds and beasts into trembling.
Streaks of escape light rose from within the Nine Spirits Sect, brimming with killing intent. Staring at those murderous cultivators, Black King was rather dumbfounded.
They had come on a friendly visit—was this any way to receive guests?
Two mighty streaks of escape light flew out from within the sect and landed together at the gate. A man and a woman: the man mature and steady, the woman lovely and young.
Both were early Nascent Soul cultivators!
The moment they landed, their eyes went to the ghost and the demon, then gradually settled on Xiaobai.
"You say you are of the Pill Sect?"
"This one is Xiaobai, a ghost servant of the Pill Sect. This foolish fellow is Black King, our master's spirit pet." Xiaobai smiled apologetically. "Black King's wild nature hasn't changed; he made a bit too much noise just now. I ask the two Daoists' pardon. May I ask how to address you both?"
The man and woman exchanged a glance, greatly shocked.
In their perception, whether Xiaobai or Black King, the aura each gave off was immensely powerful. Even some mid-Nascent Soul cultivators would seem inferior. And such powerful beings were merely a servant and a spirit pet of the Pill Sect?
The woman, slightly higher in cultivation, said gravely, "I am Chang Xi."
The other, a middle-aged man who looked as though he had only recently formed his Nascent Soul, also gave his name: Meng Ye.
"Since your master is of the Pill Sect and counts as an old friend of our Supreme Elder, please come in." Chang Xi gestured in invitation, and sent her junior brother Meng Ye ahead to inform the Supreme Elder, Jiuling Yuanjun.
Black King shrank his body, draped himself over Xiaobai's shoulder, and followed Chang Xi at a slow flight toward the tallest mountain within the Nine Spirits Sect. He said nothing the whole way; Xiaobai handled all the talk.
Xiaobai spread her divine sense, and after briefly observing the state of the Nine Spirits Sect, could not help voicing admiration.
"The Nine Spirits Sect once fell into decline. I never expected that in a mere hundred-odd years it would flourish again. Even Nascent Soul true ones—the sect has gained the two of you."
Chang Xi smiled. "I count as having been taught by our senior brother himself. As for junior brother Meng Ye, it was through your master's grace that he was fortunate enough to form his Nascent Soul."
"Oh?" Xiaobai was somewhat surprised; then she seemed to think of something. "The Nascent Soul Formation Pill?"
Chang Xi nodded. "Yes. We bought a Nascent Soul Formation Pill refined by the Pill Sect's own hands from True Man Taiyue of the Taishan Sect, and with it cultivated junior brother Meng Ye. Speaking of which, that batch of Nascent Soul Formation Pills the Pill Sect put out had wondrous effects beyond compare. Across the human sects of the Eastern Desolation, seven Nascent Soul true ones emerged one after another. We all owe the Pill Sect a debt of gratitude!"
Xiaobai knew that batch had numbered around ten pills, but she had not expected seven people to break through with them.
She said in surprise, "Such a high success rate?"
Chang Xi smoothed her dark hair and said in admiration, "Such a success rate truly stunned many, and some even doubted it. But when we Nascent Soul true ones gather now and then and talk it over, it is certain that those seven all formed their Nascent Souls after taking Nascent Soul Formation Pills refined by the Pill Sect. The Pill Sect's pill refinement art truly stands alone in the world!"
Hearing others praise her own master, Xiaobai could not help smiling, warm and pleased inside, wearing an air of shared honor.
In truth, accomplished as Luo Chen's pill refinement was, most of that batch had been of fourth-rank, low grade. And apart from those he had refined himself, some had been collected from the ruins of the Mingyuan Sect. The high success rate came partly from the pills' efficacy, and partly from the deep foundations of the Golden Core cultivators preparing to form their Nascent Souls. After all, Golden Core cultivators attempting that step at such an age were the elite of the elite, survivors of the two-hundred-year human-demon war, and with their sects' full support, how could they fail to soar?
Amid their conversation, they had arrived at Jiuyuan Peak.
Meng Ye, seen earlier, now stood respectfully behind a man in splendid robes whose bearing was imperious.
It was Jiuling Yuanjun himself!
He looked at Xiaobai, and at the black dragon of reduced size on her shoulder.
"Black King. It has been a long time."
Black King chuckled. "Jiuling, I didn't think you'd still remember me!"
Jiuling Yuanjun shook his head with a light laugh. He and Black King had never had much to do with each other, but he had gone to Baili Qingchuan often enough in those days to have met him.
Then Jiuling Yuanjun's gaze fell on Xiaobai's face.
"Is there some matter with your master? Rather than come himself, he sent the two of you."
Without hesitation, Xiaobai spoke as she brought things out.
"My master has pressing business and could not come. But it should not be long before you meet him."
A large black urn was produced, along with an invitation card.
Jiuling Yuanjun casually handed the black urn to Chang Xi and took the invitation.
"Shouyang Dao Discourse?"
His brows lifted, and he read the contents closely; when he saw the true information, his breathing quickened for a moment beyond his control.
A soft cry came from beside him.
Jiuling Yuanjun pressed down his shock. "What is it?"
Chang Xi pointed at the black urn.
That urn was the Nine Spirits Sect's inherited True Artifact, used to gather Nine Heavens Firmament Qi and aid the sect's Nascent Soul cultivators in cultivating formidable killing arts.
A hundred years ago, Luo Chen had borrowed it. So Meng Ye, who had advanced to Nascent Soul only within the last century, had never had the chance to cultivate the sect's killing move.
Now Luo Chen had returned it, as was only proper.
But what astonished Chang Xi was that it was filled to the brim with firmament qi—by a rough count, a thousand strands or more. Crimson Firmament Qi, Purple Firmament Qi, and Scarlet Firmament Qi, three kinds, were missing, but the quantity of the other six was shocking enough.
A thousand strands—such a quantity was something an ordinary Nascent Soul cultivator could not gather in a lifetime. And its value was beyond measure!
Jiuling Yuanjun was of course stunned by Luo Chen's grand gesture as well.
Drawing a deep breath, he said with feeling, "This is far too precious. Brother Luo is too courteous."
Xiaobai said, neither servile nor overbearing, "This is my master's token of thanks for borrowing your sect's True Artifact to cultivate his sword art. Please do not decline. In addition, he hopes you will attend the Shouyang Mountain Dao Discourse assembly six years from now."
Jiuling Yuanjun nodded solemnly. "Tell your master that I will certainly not be absent!"
Xiaobai smiled. The first step of this task had been completed satisfactorily.
She and Black King politely declined Jiuling Yuanjun's urgings to stay and hurried away from Jiuyuan Peak. Watching their receding figures, Jiuling Yuanjun could still seem to hear the two bickering—something about how they must not make such a racket the next time they came to pay respects.
He gripped the invitation tightly, his expression somewhat dazed.
Meng Ye had assumed the Supreme Elder was stunned by the Pill Sect's Luo Chen and his generosity, but Chang Xi knew Jiuling Yuanjun better—he was both teacher and elder brother to her—and knew it could not be so simple.
"Senior brother, what is it?"
Jiuling Yuanjun said nothing, only handed the invitation to the two of them.
Chang Xi and Meng Ye exchanged looks, then read the invitation together. At one glance, a cry burst out that was even more shocked than when they had seen the thousand strands of Nine Heavens Firmament Qi.
"A chance at Spirit Transformation?!"
Jiuling Yuanjun let out a long, slow breath. "The Pill Sect's Luo Chen is always so unexpected, always full of shocks!"
……
A towering Dao palace, framed in jagged bone. Among the dense white bones, snakes and pythons slithered, and the stench was foul. Luo Chen, changed back into a black Daoist robe, teleported over from Mount Cangwu, then stepped out and was already beyond the White Bone Dao Palace. Everywhere he looked, the mountains and wilds were wrapped in silver, all beneath a blanket of snow.
Treading on the thick frozen earth, Luo Chen raised an eyebrow.
This fourth-rank spirit vein the White Bone Mysterious Snake occupied was truly remarkable!
No wonder Canglong had chosen this place for her tribulation when she first strove for the Nascent Soul stage.
Thinking of those old days, Luo Chen was lost for a moment.
Great Snow Mountain!
Here he had fought for his life, and won his chance to form a Golden Core. Now, leaving this place, he was headed toward the next life-and-death struggle—the chance to break through to Spirit Transformation.
"I hope this journey goes smoothly!"
He murmured it, then summoned a white cloud; with a sprinkle of his mana it turned into a red cloud, and he stepped onto it as if on flat ground.
The red cloud drifted, slowly leaving Great Snow Mountain behind.
This journey was neither far nor long—he still had several years—so Luo Chen was in no hurry and had no need to use the mana-guzzling Explosive Void Fire Escape; he traveled at an ordinary escape speed.
Past Great Snow Mountain lay the Yuding Domain.
That place had long since become a ghost domain.
Luo Chen's arrival was in no way concealed.
The vast ghost domain instantly seethed. A Ghost Emperor abruptly awoke and, with thousands upon thousands of ghost kings and ghost generals, surged toward Luo Chen.
Luo Chen neither retreated nor dodged.
Since leaving Great Snow Mountain, on the road ahead there remained only friends and enemies. Friends would help him go on; enemies who blocked his way he would crush and tear apart without mercy.
Facing tens of thousands of vengeful souls and malevolent ghosts, Luo Chen overawed them all with a single glance. Then he brought out the Soul-Refining Banner and took the whole lot inside—including that Ghost Emperor.
The Yuding ghost domain, which had straddled the border of humans and demons and wreaked havoc for three hundred years, was swept clean in an instant. Even if a few first-rank minor ghosts still lingered here and there, they would never amount to anything in the future.
Luo Chen did not linger. He crossed the Yuding Domain and went west.
Passing Tianfan, Wuxing, and Shenfu—three of what had once been the Far Eastern Six Domains—he spread his divine sense to take a brief look at how the great domains of the Eastern Desolation now fared.
These three domains, once so prosperous, now did not even have a single Nascent Soul upper sect among them; all had become places where small factions and rogue cultivators gathered. Clearly, the cultivation world of the Eastern Desolation had indeed declined greatly.
But past the Far Eastern Six Domains, things were much better.
Within the Yanhua Ancient Islet, though no Nascent Soul sect existed, Luo Chen's divine sense swept past and discovered, to his surprise, a Nascent Soul true one he did not recognize cultivating quietly and austerely in a fourth-rank spirit vein.
There was no sect insignia, and the mana aura he gave off resembled no Eastern Desolation school Luo Chen knew. Curious, Luo Chen paid the man a little more attention: a blue robe, an upright bearing, a calm expression; his distinguishing feature was perhaps a pair of brows like frost and snow.
"A rogue cultivator?"
Luo Chen clicked his tongue in wonder. He had not imagined that the Eastern Desolation of today could produce a Nascent Soul rogue cultivator.
After marveling, he found it only natural. In the two-hundred-year human-demon war, so many experts had fallen and so many great sects had scattered like smoke; brutal as it was, vast resources had been left open. And among rogue cultivators there had always been those of tenacious mind. To seize the opportunity and rise with the tide was only normal.
Luo Chen did not stay long, hurrying on.
Soon after he left, the man hidden in the ancient islet twitched his frost-white brows and slowly opened his eyes.
His gaze was full of alarm.
"Since I was fortunate enough to form my Nascent Soul, my divine sense has far surpassed others of my rank. Even if I cannot match a late-Nascent Soul great cultivator, it is enough to conceal myself from outsiders."
"But how could the Eastern Desolation hold such a being—one who spied on me in secret for so long, and I felt nothing at all?"
"If not for my innate sense for danger, I fear he could have looked at me half the day and I would never have noticed."
"Who is that person?"
……
Past the Yanhua Ancient Islet was the former Motian Cliff, which, when the Luotian Sect held it, had also been called the Luotian Domain.
But now it had reportedly been renamed.
It was called the Qingdan Domain!
Luo Chen paused there a long while before leisurely departing. There was only one reason for his pause.
On Motian Cliff, the female cultivator cultivating on that fourth-rank spirit vein was an old acquaintance of his.
Tao Wan!
The former Azure Pill Valley had been a Golden Core great sect ranked among the foremost of the Yuding Domain, and had even once tried to cultivate a fourth-rank spirit vein and refine fourth-rank Nascent Soul Formation Pills, hoping to raise up a Nascent Soul true one.
But from then on its fortunes had gone steadily downhill.
The Yuding Domain was destroyed, Azure Pill Valley left homeless, and only through the bitter perseverance of its sect master, Tao Wan, did it survive the human-demon war and finally settle in the Luotian Domain. In this, the Luotian Sect's protection had played no small part—after all, Luo Chen and Tao Wan had once shared the bond of old friends.
But Tao Wan's Nascent Soul formation had also somewhat exceeded Luo Chen's expectations.
After observing closely for a while, he understood.
"She succeeded in forming her Nascent Soul these past few years by taking Nascent Soul Formation Pills I refined!"
Tao Wan had not formed her Nascent Soul long ago and was still consolidating her realm, so her body now and then gave off mixed, unsteady mana fluctuations. Within them was the aura of the Nascent Soul Formation Pills Luo Chen had refined.
Realizing this, Luo Chen could not help but smile.
He had obtained the Nascent Soul Formation Pill recipe from Azure Pill Valley, refined the pills, and broken through to Nascent Soul himself. The later batch had used Demonic Lord Liantian's recipe. Now Tao Wan had broken through on pills he had refined—cause answering cause, effect answering effect; it was a curious turn of fate.
Luo Chen did not call on her, nor linger long.
Sooner or later the two of them would meet.
And for now he had only one destination!
Crossing Lake Taihu and passing through the Pingshan Sea, Luo Chen's feet finally came down on the soil of the Bikong Region, where living things could scarcely approach.
Here golden light filled all, and the faint echo of slaughter rang. Chaotic heaven-and-earth vital essence scoured the body of any living creature that dared draw near.
Luo Chen felt nothing of it, and walked on step by step.
Compared with the first time he had come here and stopped short at the sight, and the second time when he had struggled forward, this third time he reached his destination without the slightest obstruction.
A colossal beast lay amidst the earth.
Its hair bristled like blades and swords; its slumbering tiger's snore was like rolling thunder.
As Luo Chen drew near, the great tiger's eyelids trembled without cease, as though it might wake at any moment.
Luo Chen smiled faintly and slowly extended his right hand toward the great tiger.
"It is time you woke, Di Tu!"
Chapter 1063