Xu Ying looked up at the sky, utterly perplexed. A moment ago, when he looked down at the surface of Crescent Spring, he felt as though the back of the head reflected in the water was his own. But how could the back of his own head appear in Crescent Spring?
He looked down at the water again, only to see the reflection of a back of a head once more.
He looked up toward the sky. The sky remained completely ordinary, with no eye gazing down upon him.
To the side, Yuan Qi also slithered over to the edge of Crescent Spring and peered at the water.
He did not see his own reflection in Crescent Spring; instead, he saw Xu Ying!
When Xu Ying lowered his head, Yuan Qi saw the back of Xu Ying's head in the water; when Xu Ying raised his head to look up, he saw Xu Ying's bewildered face in the water.
The giant snake was startled, his mind roaring in shock. "Could Ah Ying be that arch-fiend, the great villain?" He turned toward Xu Ying, catching only his profile. The youth's eyes were clouded with confusion and touched with a faint gloom.
"I thought I was one of these soldiers," Xu Ying said in a low voice. "I never imagined I stood opposite them."
Yuan Qi said, "Ah Ying, regardless of which side you stand on, I will always stand beside you."
A smile crossed Xu Ying's face as his spirits lifted. He chuckled and said, "Seventh Master is right! Who I was before belongs to the past! Even if my past self made an enemy of the whole world, he didn't have a friend like Lord Niu Qi! But I do!"
Having finished reading the inscription on the stele, Xue Ying'an strolled over with a smile. "After all this time, even a Qi Refiner like Tian Qingzi grew old and died. That fiend must have perished long ago too, right? Brother Xu Ying, where do you think the immortal Dao spiritual root could be hiding?"
Just then, the white-browed ancient corpse behind Xu Ying and Yuan Qi, which had sat motionless and deceased for an unknown eternity, suddenly twitched and rose straight up.
Xue Ying'an's expression changed abruptly, and he shouted in alarm, "Watch out! Tian Qingzi has reanimated!"
Xu Ying spun around and saw the ancient corpse with white brows and white hair standing straight before him, towering and looking down upon him from above.
The corpse's eyes were parched and dried up, its skin withered, shriveled like desiccated firewood. Yet from this ancient corpse radiated a sky-toppling killing intent!
Tian Qingzi had not fallen in battle. Had he died in combat, his killing intent would not have reached such heights. It was precisely because he had grown old and died here, staring day and night at the arch-fiend through Crescent Spring with ceaseless, boundless hatred in his heart, that such immense killing intent and murderous aura lingered even after his death!
"I preserved this useful frame solely for this day!"
His intense obsession erupted, and the Realm of Xiyi suddenly manifested behind him. The vast world within his body unfolded, instantly sweeping Xue Ying'an into it!
His Realm of Xiyi remained intact, though with the passage of endless years, the waters of his Jade Pool had run somewhat dry!
Yet at the very instant his obsession erupted, a spiritual root took root in the Jade Pool, sprouted, and put forth branches. It was another immortal plant, resembling a miniature red bean tree, its boughs heavily laden with red beans that weighed them down into deep curves!
Those red beans were exceedingly plump and fresh. One by one they burst open, and in a flash, the juice of the red beans transformed into a raging torrent of magic power that filled the Jade Pool to the brim!
Surging yuan qi rushed in all directions.
It overflowed from the Jade Pool, swept under the God Bridge, and rekindled the extinguished sun and moon!
Xu Ying was startled and swiftly retreated. "So the immortal Dao spiritual root was hidden in his Realm of Xiyi all along! No wonder we couldn't find it!"
Tian Qingzi's eyes lit up at once, and the Twelve-Storyed Mansions threw open one after another. Vast, majestic yuan qi descended from the heavens, reviving the Heavenly River, washing clean the Heavenly Mountain, and flowing through the Five Sacred Peaks immortal mountains to restore their vibrant vitality!
"Sinner!"
Tian Qingzi roared, appearing as if resurrected, returning to the mortal world. His qi and blood surged like a torrent through his frame, his white hair standing on end as he bellowed fiercely, "I have waited until this day, and at last, I can have my revenge!"
Xu Ying had already scooped up Yuan Qi and leapt backward, soaring over Crescent Spring as he yelled, "Lord Bell!"
The bronze bell was thoroughly disheartened, hiding in the Nether Sea of his Realm of Xiyi, and gave no reply.
Beneath Xu Ying's feet, the calm surface of Crescent Spring suddenly began to bubble and pop. The water turned into eyes, big and small, crowded together in a dense cluster of over five hundred!
At that moment, all five hundred-plus eyes rolled in unison, fixing their gaze on Xu Ying! These eyes were none other than the eyes of immortals!
At the same time, the immortal corpses standing around Crescent Spring turned their heads one after another, their eyeless faces swiveling to look in his direction.
Yuan Qi's scales prickled with dread. He wanted to scream, but dared not make a sound.
Tian Qingzi threw a punch, and the sky shuddered violently. Xu Ying felt himself tumbling uncontrollably toward the fist, utterly unable to dodge or flee!
The revived ancient corpse's white hair fluttered yards through the air as his ancient divine sense surged, exploding like thunder: "I shall avenge my fallen comrades of this blood debt!"
Xue Ying'an had already charged into the Jade Pool within the ancient corpse's Realm of Xiyi. He grabbed the red bean immortal root with excitement, yanked it out with all his might, and laughed heartily. "My immortal encounter is in my grasp!"
Xu Ying, hurtling toward Tian Qingzi's fist against his own will, cast aside the disparity in their cultivation, summoned the broken blade, and brought it down with a furious roar.
Suddenly, the earth-shattering momentum coursing through Tian Qingzi rapidly deteriorated. His brilliant eyes dimmed once more, and the skin that had just regained its suppleness withered and shrank back into desiccated folds.
His fluttering white hair fell limp, and his aura plummeted to absolute zero. He let out a final sorrowful sigh: "I resent this so! I cannot accept it—"
*Slash!*
Xu Ying's blade fell, cleaving his head clean off.
Tian Qingzi's head rolled into Crescent Spring, his eyes wide, dying with grievances unavenged. Xu Ying landed before the corpse, the broken blade dropping to the side.
The youth held the broken blade, every muscle in his body still twitching wildly.
Tian Qingzi's headless body fell to its knees before Xu Ying with a heavy thud, swayed slightly, and collapsed forward, raising a cloud of dust.
Tian Qingzi had planted this immortal Dao spiritual root in the Jade Pool of his Realm of Xiyi precisely because he anticipated that one day, the arch-fiend would likely revisit this old ground to inspect his past atrocities.
When that time came, so long as Crescent Spring was triggered, he would use the immortal Dao spiritual root to awaken his final obsession, using this withered remnant of a body to drag the arch-fiend down with him!
Yet for all his myriad calculations, he had never accounted for Xue Ying'an standing behind him, who yanked out the immortal Dao spiritual root just as he was on the verge of slaying the arch-fiend.
Xu Ying's forehead was drenched in cold sweat, his hand clutching the broken blade still trembling. At that moment just now, he truly believed he was dead!
On the other side of Crescent Spring, Yuan Qi was also shaking from terror. Faced with Tian Qingzi's blow, anyone would have felt boundless despair.
Xue Ying'an held the red bean immortal root, looking utterly dazed, completely unaware that yanking the root would trigger such a chain of events.
Xu Ying stepped forward and bowed deeply. "Thank you, Brother Xue, for saving our lives!"
Xue Ying'an clutched the root, at a loss. The root thrashed like a fish caught by its tail, desperately trying to slip from his grasp.
"You saved my life earlier, and you said you had your reasons for doing so. My saving you just now was purely accidental."
Xue Ying'an had no intention of claiming credit. Tucking the root under his arm, he helped Xu Ying up and smiled. "We're even. By the way, does this count as a life-and-death friendship?"
Moved, Xu Ying said, "It is indeed a life-and-death friendship!"
Xue Ying'an smiled brightly as well. Pure and uncomplicated, he was genuinely delighted to have made such a friend.
Suddenly, the sky grew progressively brighter. Xu Ying looked up and saw beams of light descending from the heavens, casting illumination into the distance.
A thought crossed his mind, and he asked, "Ying'an, is that immortal Dao spiritual root of yours the spiritual root of this Taiyi Lesser Mysterious Heaven?"
Xue Ying'an lifted the root by its foliage, as if grabbing a handful of hair. The root's countless rootlets flailed like a swarm of hands and feet, crawling onto his face to poke at his nostrils and claw at his eyes.
Wrestling with the red bean immortal root, Xue Ying'an strained to reply, "No! The spiritual root of Taiyi Lesser Mysterious Heaven was severed by the arch-fiend. This red bean immortal root should only be formed from a small fragment of it!"
He finally pried the rootlets off and stuffed the immortal root into his Realm of Xiyi.
How could the immortal root be willing to dwell within the Realm of Xiyi of a mere Cross-Refinement stage Qi Refiner? It immediately bounded upward, quickly arriving at the expanse where the sun and moon drifted.
Countless rootlets wriggled out from Xue Ying'an's eyes, ears, mouth, and nose, thrashing relentlessly. The youth cried out and hastily summoned his Golden Core to deal with the troublesome plant.
Seeing this, Xu Ying shot a glance at Yuan Qi. Catching the hint, Yuan Qi swept his thick tail across the stele recording the deeds of the arch-fiend, smashing it to dust!
Xue Ying'an fell flat on his face, dragged across the ground as the root's fibers gripped the earth and raced forward. Xu Ying looked over to see Xue Ying'an lying prone, hurtling through the desert like a salted fish being hauled along.
Xu Ying's gaze flickered. He produced the Pure Yang anomalous fire, gave it a gentle puff, and instantly set Crescent Spring ablaze. Within the spring, the pairs of eyes screeched shrilly as they were scorched, leaping out from the water one after another and scrambling across the ground.
The immortal corpses surrounding Crescent Spring also cried out in agony, flailing their arms and running aimlessly, as though they too were on fire.
Xu Ying summoned his broken blade, cutting down the flaming eyes one by one.
With that, the immortal corpses froze, adopting listening postures as if straining to catch nearby sounds. Xu Ying caught up to the last eye, split it in two, put away the broken blade, called to Yuan Qi, and strode toward the place where the beams of light were descending.
Ahead, Xue Ying'an was still being dragged across the ground. Reluctant to damage the immortal root and unwilling to bite through its rootlets, he found himself in a thoroughly helpless bind.
"Young Master Xue, keep being dragged like that and the skin on your face will be completely peeled off!" Yuan Qi shouted to warn him. "Plant it! I saw that Tian Qingzi's corpse had it planted inside his Jade Pool!"
Xue Ying'an suddenly realized and hurriedly summoned his alchemical cauldron, capturing the red bean immortal root within it first. The root clung stubbornly to his eyes, ears, nose, and mouth, refusing to enter the cauldron and tugging his features crooked in the process.
Only after exhaustive effort did Xue Ying'an force the red bean immortal root into the cauldron. Suppressing it with the cauldron, he cautiously conveyed the root into his Jade Pool and planted it there.
Once rooted in the Jade Pool, the red bean immortal root indeed quieted down considerably.
Just as Xue Ying'an breathed a sigh of relief, the immortal root darted back out, slipped behind his eyes, and raised a rootlet to rap on his eyeball with loud *thumps*.
Xue Ying'an's eyes twitched wildly, nearly popping out of their sockets.
Yuan Qi chuckled. "Ah Ying created an art for refining immortal roots. Ask him to teach it to you, and once you refine it, you can wield it freely. Ah Ying said this thing is an absolute living treasure—enough to make anyone green with envy!"
Xue Ying'an looked at Xu Ying, tongue-tied, hesitant to ask for instruction. After all, such techniques were closely guarded secrets, typically cherished by sects as priceless treasures.
Xu Ying smiled. "It was just a refining method I put together on a whim, nothing worth mentioning. I'll teach it to you." With that, he explained the refining method he had developed back in the small village outside the stone city.
Though Xue Ying'an lacked extensive experience traveling the world, his talent was exceptionally high. He quickly mastered the refining method and refined the immortal Dao spiritual root.
Before long, the red bean immortal root settled down and stopped causing trouble.
With the root planted firmly in his Jade Pool, Xue Ying'an instantly felt his cultivation steadily rising. His physical body, Golden Core, yuan qi, and divine sense were being tempered and advanced every moment. Overjoyed, he thanked Xu Ying and Yuan Qi repeatedly.
Itching to test it, he summoned the red bean immortal root. It drifted in the air, radiating tens of thousands of dazzling rays. With a gentle sweep, it obliterated the lingering remnants of divine abilities hidden ahead!
Elated, Xue Ying'an drew the root back into his Realm of Xiyi.
Catching him off guard, the red bean immortal root slipped out from the Realm of Xiyi once more, brandished its spiritual light, and gave Yuan Qi a sound thrashing, leaving him battered and bruised in moments!
Yuan Qi summoned his bronze weaponry to meet the root head-on, but was swiftly overpowered and beaten even more severely. He yelled, "Ah Ying is the one who gave your master the refining method! Why aren't you hitting him instead of beating me?"
The red bean immortal root immediately spun around, whipped its spiritual light, and struck Xu Ying with a sharp *crack*.
Xu Ying's physical body was sent flying, leaving his soul standing in place. His entire soul was composed of an imperishable true spirit, naturally shrouded in spiritual light, which merely swayed slightly under the strike.
The spiritual light of the red bean immortal root, however, shattered across the ground.
The root tried to reassemble its rootlets, but couldn't pick them up no matter what. Infuriated, it rushed back over and beat Yuan Qi once more.
Xu Ying picked up his physical body, thinking to himself, *I really must find an immortal root of my own. A treasure like this does wonders for the physical body. My physical body is just too weak.*—Compared to his soul, it was simply far too frail.
At last, they arrived at the place where the beams of light had fallen from the heavens. Burned rings of glazed glass marred the desert, forming array patterns.
Xu Ying looked up at the sky. The light above was gradually fading, dimming, and disappearing. It was exceedingly strange, with no clear sign of where it had originated.
"Ah Ying, look over there!" Yuan Qi pointed with his tail, visibly excited.
Xu Ying looked up and saw palaces atop a jade mountain in the distance. Because the mountain was nearly translucent, from afar the palaces appeared as though they were floating in midair, extraordinarily striking.
"That should be where the ancient immortals made their landing," Xu Ying guessed, observing the surroundings. "When immortals ascended, this was their first stop. They landed here and consumed the primordial Dao essence of the immortal Dao spiritual root to replenish their strength before undertaking their second ascension."
He looked toward the summit, where spiritual light gathered and rippled from time to time; the shattered immortal Dao spiritual root of Taiyi Lesser Mysterious Heaven was likely concentrated inside that mountain.
From the peak of the Jade Mountain also emanated waves of grand, solemn auras, presumably belonging to the ancient immortals.
As they walked forward, they noticed several corpses of Nuo masters on the ground, not yet completely swallowed by the desert.
Xu Ying paused, his gaze landing on one of the bodies in surprise. The corpse was that of a young man, but not a Nuo master.
His stature was two to three feet taller than an ordinary person, and he possessed four arms, yet Xu Ying could sense no trace of Mud Pill Nuo arts circulating within him.
"Strange. Could someone naturally be born like this?"
He gazed toward the Jade Mountain, his eyes filled with curiosity. "Or could it be that we aren't the only ones who entered Taiyi Lesser Mysterious Heaven?"
Xue Ying'an rushed ahead, calling out loudly, "Hurry up and follow! The dangers along the path have already been cleared by those ahead of us! Plenty of people must have climbed the mountain already. Let's get there quickly, or we'll miss the immortal encounter!"
Xu Ying hurried after him. Before long, he saw stakes driven into the desert, sharpened to a point at one end, with Nuo masters' heads impaled upon them.
The assailant had employed a very bizarre art that fused the stakes and the Nuo masters into a single entity, leaving the heads still alive.
Yet in the desolate, waterless desert, exposed to the scorching sun, the stakes and the Nuo masters would eventually perish together.
As Xu Ying and the others walked past, the Nuo masters rolled their eyes with great difficulty, watching them.
"Bizarre. It seems neither the Qi Refiners nor the Nuo masters of Shenzhou have such customs."
Xu Ying examined a stake and peeled away a bit of bark, only to see blood seep out. This art was peculiar, somewhat reminiscent of the arts at the Wangxiang Platform.
This art altered the structure of the physical body, merging human and wood into one, which differed from the Nuo arts of the Zhou clan.
The Zhou clan's Nuo arts used visualization to alter the bodily structure, relying on vitality to stimulate various lifeforms and transform them into divine abilities.
Yet an art that combined entirely different species was something Xu Ying had never encountered.
Yuan Qi observed and noticed something. "Ah Ying, this power resembles the transformative life-force I use when shedding my skin and taking human shape. But this power is even stronger than that life-force—it can alter species."
A thought suddenly struck Xu Ying, and he said softly, "Creation."
Yuan Qi was taken aback. "What?"
Xu Ying said, "It's the art of creation. The one who killed them used the art of creation to combine different species with them. This is an act of intimidation, showing that they are not to be crossed!"
Yuan Qi asked in confusion, "Could one of the prominent families that entered this place practice the art of creation? But there is no secret depository of creation among the six secret depositories."
Xu Ying looked up at the Jade Mountain and surmised, "Perhaps they aren't from our world. After all, although the heavenly road was severed, the fact that we could reach this Lesser Mysterious Heaven means the path to it was never completely broken."
Walking into the mountain, he continued, "Perhaps another world among the heavens has found a path to the Lesser Mysterious Heaven."
Hearing this, Yuan Qi shuddered. "If they discover the stone city, they'll also find the path to our Shenzhou! These fellows love impaling heads so much..."
Suddenly, an exclamation of distress from Xue Ying'an rang out from up ahead.
Xu Ying dashed forward and saw Xue Ying'an sent flying by a punch from a four-armed woman, slamming heavily against a cliff face!
A long plume was tucked into the woman's hair, her features quite striking, yet she was exceptionally fierce and valiant. The apparition of a four-armed heavenly fiend manifested behind her, looking imposing and magnificent.
Her Realm of Xiyi had already opened the second mystic pass, the Jiaji mystic pass. Her Golden Core illuminated the pass, floating above the thirteenth Heavenly Mountain.
The disparity in cultivation between her and Xue Ying'an was vast; a single palm strike had sent him coughing blood.
The woman leapt forward instantly, seizing Xue Ying'an's head with one hand, pinning his arms with two others, while drawing a scimitar with her fourth hand to sever his neck!
Xu Ying let out a cold snort, splayed his fingers, and strode forward.
The woman's expression changed abruptly. She watched as her four arms aged at terrifying speed, her smooth, tender skin wrinkling in an instant, losing its elasticity, while the vitality within her body rapidly drained away!
"Strike!"
The scimitar in her hand whistled as it flew out, spinning toward Xu Ying's neck. The broken blade flew forth and shattered the scimitar with a resounding clang!
Daring not linger, the woman panicked and sprang into the air, summoning her Golden Core to suppress the Mud Pill Nuo art surging from behind as she fled up the Jade Mountain.
Xu Ying channeled his Nuo art to assault her Golden Core, attempting to obliterate it alongside her, but a peculiar power within the core repelled the attack, leaving him thoroughly astonished.
"It truly isn't a native art or divine ability!"
Chapter 143