"Still, why would the locust tree try to kill him?" Yuan Weiyang asked, somewhat perplexed.
If the tree had held back, it wouldn't have met such an end. Its form was colossal, with countless roots buried deep beneath the earth—its subterranean bulk was likely many times larger than what showed aboveground. Slaying a life of such magnificent grandeur was extraordinarily difficult.
Yet the moment it struck, Zhou Qiyun seized upon the hiding place of its soul consciousness and severed its life!
"The old locust probably wanted to find a vessel for rebirth," Xu Ying reflected, deeply moved. "Zhou Qiyun was the strongest existence here and had suffered wounds. If he was left powerless to resist, the tree could have seized his body. After all, it only had eight thousand years of life left.
"A human life is barely a century, and even a bitter practitioner like the Zhou clan ancestor only gained a lifespan of over three hundred years. Even if the old locust's vitality had run dry, it still had eight thousand years of longevity. Giving up eight thousand years to seize a mortal who lives at dawn and dies at dusk seems like a terrible trade."
Yuan Weiyang pondered for a moment and said, "It was most likely when it saw Zhou Qiyun display the realm of Hidden Scenery latent transformation and manifest the immortal realm of Shenzhou. That made it believe it could rely on such a method to survive forever."
Xu Ying suddenly shuddered.
Even back then, Zhou Qiyun had probably already conceived the plot to ambush the old locust, intending to borrow its vitality to heal his own wounds. Every word and deed of his afterward had been a calculated trap, luring the old locust into the net.
He refused to let himself stay injured for long because he still had a second task to accomplish.
The old locust was his sacred medicine of healing.
Could Zhou Qiyun's choice of the giant locust tree as the battleground against the master of the Mud Pill Palace have been premeditated to scheme against the tree from the very start?
*The old locust might truly have been as thoroughly villainous as the bronze bell claimed, but Zhou Qiyun used bait to lure it into making a mistake. His schemes run far too deep; this is not the righteous path.*
Thinking to this point, Xu Ying suddenly recalled Zhou Qiyun's earlier words.
*When facing these old bastards who refuse to die, you truly cannot afford a single mistake. Any slip could mean death.*
A mistake meant death!
It was that brutal.
*To us, Zhou Qiyun is just such an old monster. When facing him, we must not make any mistakes either. Otherwise, the slightest slip could be our end!*
The next day, as Xu Ying cultivated, he could clearly feel that the fragrance of the giant locust tree had weakened considerably. That dense, soul-cleansing spiritual qi of heaven and earth had also grown faint.
Yet the tree's blossoms still bloomed with fiery intensity. Buds along every bough had burst open overnight, as if pouring their remaining life into a final bloom, leaving behind an extraordinary blaze of brilliance within the Netherworld.
*A pity that you made one wrong move,* Xu Ying thought quietly, watching the locust flowers wither and drift through the air.
He returned to the grand hall and began deciphering Granny Tuo's Immortal Scripture character by character.
The old locust was dead, the master of the Mud Pill Palace was dead, and the Bone Emperor had fled far away. Once Zhou Qiyun's injuries fully healed, he would depart to attend to his second matter. During this interval, Xu Ying had to decipher Granny Tuo's Immortal Scripture.
As for how much to decipher, Xu Ying had to weigh it carefully.
Decipher too much, and keeping him alive would be pointless. Decipher too little, and keeping him alive would be equally useless. His best chance of survival lay precisely in that balance between usefulness and dispensability.
Furthermore, he had to provide authentic scripture.
Zhou Qiyun's talent and comprehension were terrifyingly high. Interspersing the scripture with errors would easily be noticed by him. Inviting suspicion from such a figure was simply courting death.
Xu Ying deciphered the immortal scripture while cultivating, letting neither hinder the other. He had originally thought he could use the blooming of the locust flowers to step into the second tier of the Pass-Breaching stage, but now that the old locust was dead, reaching the second tier was likely out of reach.
Over the past two days, more and more people from the Zhou clan arrived at Huaihua Palace, as the Zhou disciples and retainers who had stripped Shuikou Temple bare also rushed over.
In the hall, several Zhou disciples wore joyful expressions, casting repeated glances toward Xu Ying.
Xu Ying kept his head down, deciphering the scripture, paying them no heed.
Before long, Zhou Qiyun emerged from seclusion and came to find Xu Ying and Yuan Weiyang, asking, "Both of you possess extraordinary intellect. Have you deciphered Granny Tuo's Immortal Scripture?"
Xu Ying and Yuan Weiyang each presented the portions of the scripture they had deciphered. Zhou Qiyun placed the two scrolls side by side and unfurled them together, his left and right eyes reading them simultaneously.
After a long while, Zhou Qiyun rolled up both scrolls and asked, "Only this much?"
Yuan Weiyang said, "Deciphering up to this point is already my limit."
Zhou Qiyun turned his gaze toward Xu Ying. Xu Ying put on a troubled look and said, "If we could have a little more time..."
Zhou Qiyun rolled the two scrolls together, tucked them into his sleeve pouch, and said, "I am setting out for the Nether Court to pay respects to the Son of Heaven of the Nether Court. The two of you will accompany me at my side. Granny Tuo's Immortal Scripture and the records of the inner manor will be yours to browse as you please!"
Xu Ying and Yuan Weiyang secretly let out a sigh of relief, knowing they had deciphered just the right amount to temporarily preserve their lives.
Xu Ying quickly said, "I still need to climb the tree once. My friend Yuan Qi is still up there."
Zhou Qiyun waved a hand. "Go quickly and return quickly. The boys of my Zhou clan have already begun felling the tree. Everything here will be taken away."
Xu Ying hurried out of Huaihua Palace and walked swiftly toward the giant locust tree. Numerous Nuo masters of the Zhou clan were bustling about.
Some were clearing the battlefield, slicing the colossal beast's carcass into numerous portions and categorizing the various parts neatly for artifact refinement, medicine crafting, and culinary consumption.
Others were drafting dao image illustrations of the colossal beast and the giant locust tree. Still others were dismantling Huaihua Palace, packing the palace halls onto carts to be hauled off to parts unknown.
When Xu Ying reached the base of the giant locust tree, he saw over a dozen men and women carrying sword caskets on their backs, driving flying swords to slice into the tree. Their swordsmanship was remarkably exquisite; as they wielded their blades, their bodies shone with radiant light, looking like massive snowballs of flashing brilliance.
*The Zhou Celestial Demon-Slaying Sword—fine swordsmanship! If Magistrate Zhou Yang had possessed such swordplay back then, he wouldn't have had to die.*
Xu Ying praised internally and passed by them. With a light leap, he sprang onto the trunk and dashed upward along the dragon-scale bark.
A voice called out from beneath the tree: "Eldest Brother, that's Xu Ying!"
The dozen or so men and women felling the tree looked up one after another. The one who had spoken was the Zhou disciple whom Zhou Youyou had rescued from Xu Ying's grasp.
The one he called Eldest Brother was a young man in his thirties or forties. He was quite tall, with facial features somewhat resembling Zhou Qiyun's, a fair, beardless face, and immaculate makeup featuring rouge and powder, dressed in rather flamboyant clothing.
This person was none other than the eldest young master of the Zhou clan's inner manor, Zhou Zhi.
"Let's go, after him!"
Zhou Zhi and the others immediately leaped upward, pursuing Xu Ying. Zhou Zhi said, "Don't strike just yet. Killing him here might be seen by others and draw our ancestor's blame. We'll go up a bit further; it won't be too late to kill him then."
The dozen or so Zhou disciples said resentfully, "This wretch dared to kill our people after coming to Zhou territory. We don't understand why the old ancestor insists on keeping him around!"
Zhou Zhi said indifferently, "The old ancestor desires immortality. His Nuo methods have reached their limits, and making further progress is nearly impossible, so his heart is set on acquiring demon techniques to draw parallels and break through. Heh heh, the old man stubbornly clings to his position without stepping aside, dreaming of eternal life while refusing to become emperor. How are we younger generations supposed to climb the ranks?"
The Zhou disciples chimed in with agreement. "Eldest Brother's cultivation is advancing by leaps and bounds. When you become clan head in the future, we will follow you wholeheartedly."
They did not attack immediately, but followed him upward for two or three thousand zhang. Seeing an opening, four Zhou disciples unslung the sword caskets from their backs and planted them before themselves.
*Click-clack!* The sword caskets popped open, and tiny flying swords shot forth, swelling as they met the wind and shooting upward!
The sword caskets were treasures refined by the Zhou clan. Aside from masks, Nuo master artifacts encompassed a wide variety of common treasures. For a prestigious great clan like the Zhou family, every sort of treasure was readily available.
They had just been using these flying swords to chop down the tree; using them to kill was naturally effortless.
They each displayed the Zhou clan's supreme skill, the Zhou Celestial Demon-Slaying Sword, their technique far more refined than Zhou Yang's had ever been. They had no need to implant demon willows to govern the flying swords; simply forming hand seals and focusing their minds was enough to execute the intricate, ever-shifting sword art!
The flying swords soared, whirling in tight clusters like great snowballs rolling up the trunk of the giant locust. Yet after a long while, neither the swords returned nor did any sign of Xu Ying appear.
The four Zhou disciples pinched their sword seals once more to recall their weapons, and seeing the flying swords that had just darted away returning, they each let out a breath of relief.
Suddenly sensing danger, Zhou Zhi yelled frantically, "Watch out!"
Before his voice had faded, the dozens of tiny flying swords returning abruptly surged in speed, piercing through the hearts, throats, and foreheads of several Zhou disciples—so fast that even he had no time to intervene!
Even the Zhou disciple who had narrowly escaped with his life in the grand hall had his throat punctured by a sword, followed by several blades pinning his chest and forehead, impaling him dead against the tree, his eyes wide and unseeing in death.
*This Xu Ying is a grandmaster of the sword! His swordsmanship is even more exquisite than our Zhou clan's Zhou Celestial Demon-Slaying Sword!*
Zhou Zhi raised two fingers and tapped them consecutively with ringing *clangs*, shattering the flying swords darting toward him. The impact left his fingers trembling, shocking him. *The hidden power within these flying swords is formidable!*
He looked down to find that the two fingers he had used to strike the swords were sliced open, his Vajra Indestructible Body breached.
Glancing at the other Zhou disciples, he saw them hastily activating their sword caskets and launching their flying swords, which spun into silver spheres to shield their bodies. Yet with a series of *clangs*, the silver spheres were pierced through, and the flying swords shattered, scattering everywhere.
Those Zhou disciples had their foreheads run through and were pinned dead against the tree!
Out of sixteen people, only six remained. Ten Zhou disciples had perished in this single wave of sword strikes!
"Superb swordsmanship! But his cultivation is even more terrifying!"
Zhou Zhi's expression turned cold as he told the five surviving Zhou disciples, "The information you gave me was wrong! His cultivation is far deeper than you claimed!"
Among the five survivors, several had been deciphering Granny Tuo's Immortal Scripture in the grand hall and had witnessed Xu Ying killing people there. But Xu Ying's cultivation back then was far lower than it was today.
Over these past few days, Xu Ying had taken advantage of the blooming locust flowers to cultivate tirelessly day and night. While it might not be described as advancing by thousands of li in a day, he had still reached for the sky in a single bound, stepping into the first tier of the Pass-Breaching stage.
What was more, he had grasped the wonders of the Eight Sounds of Primordial Nurturing, practicing them whenever he found time to temper his sinews, bones, qi, and blood, internally refining his five viscera and six bowels, honing his divine sense and soul until they were hard as steel. The power of his flying swords after driving them had naturally increased tremendously!
Measuring Xu Ying's combat power today by his cultivation back then would naturally lead to a bitter loss!
Zhou Zhi sprang upward with a furious roar. Dazzling radiance erupted behind him, abruptly revealing a divine figure with the head of a bird, the body of a human, and bird talons. It stood behind him much like Xu Ying's Elephant King divine body, yet bore its own distinct form.
As the divine figure flapped its wings, Zhou Zhi's body aligned parallel to the ground, his feet treading the trunk as he dashed straight upward.
With a flick of his sleeves, a rustle of countless golden feathers shot forth like zhang-long flying blades. Whistling sharply through the air, they darted along the grooves of the bark at breakneck speed!
Xu Ying, who had concealed himself within the bark's crevices, was immediately flushed out by the golden feather daggers, dodging the long plumes weaving through the texture of the tree.
The edges of these feathers were extraordinarily sharp, like blades tempered a thousand times over. The broad vanes looked as though thin golden swords had been pieced together into a single feather shaped like a saber.
This was a dao image!
An image of the Great Dao!
*The Zhou clan definitely possesses an illustration of the Great Peng's dao image, or they couldn't possibly refine even the feathers in such meticulous detail!*
Just as the thought crossed Xu Ying's mind, Zhou Zhi charged head-on. The young man unleashed a torrential tempest of punches and kicks, pummeling wildly. Accompanying his every move, the Celestial Peng divine figure behind him also assaulted Xu Ying with wild fury!
Zhou Zhi's fists and palms transformed into the winged sabers of the Celestial Peng divine figure, their blades sharp and domineering. Zhou Zhi's legs became the bird talons of the Celestial Peng, claws capable of tearing everything apart!
Xu Ying met the assault head-on with the Eight Forms of the Ba Snake and the Six Forms of the Dragon and Snake. Both the Ba Snake and the Dragon-Snake were jarred until their blood-qi scattered into rising mist.
Xu Ying was also badly shaken, his feet treading the massive tree as he retreated upward step by step. The bark beneath his feet exploded with sharp cracks, splinters flying everywhere!
Zhou Zhi spun his wings, unleashing yet another deluge of golden feather daggers that formed a golden torrent, hacking down upon Xu Ying from all directions!
At the same time, the other five Zhou disciples bounded forward from below, rushing toward the fray at top speed. However, compared to Xu Ying and Zhou Zhi's speed, they lagged far behind and were unable to keep pace for the moment.
Fighting with rising fervor, Zhou Zhi let out a delicate cry, spinning through the air with a whistling rush. The Celestial Peng divine figure spun along with him, its wings—each over ten zhang long—slashing like divine sabers into the giant locust tree with cracking snaps as they sheared toward Xu Ying!
Surrounded by the golden feather daggers and left with no retreat, Xu Ying planted both feet firmly on the trunk, driving his legs deep into the wood. Visualizing the Eight Sounds of Primordial Nurturing, he thrust both palms forward one after the other to meet the Celestial Peng's twin sabers!
Violent vitality surged from beneath his palms, transforming into a soaring, churning dragon and snake that roared upward to meet the twin sabers. The savage force shattered all the surrounding golden feather daggers into dust before they could even draw close!
*"Mang-gu—"*
A dragon's chant and a python's roar thundered as their moves collided. Zhou Zhi grunted, the wings of the Celestial Peng behind him shattering completely before the divine figure itself detonated. Zhou Zhi was engulfed in steaming mists of blood, his skin bursting apart under the shock!
Tumbling and rolling, his entire body plummeted down the tree!
Xu Ying was astonished. *This man is strong—he took a blow of my Eight Sounds of Primordial Nurturing and didn't even die!*
In the brief moment Xu Ying paused, the other five Zhou disciples rushed up, preparing to activate their sword caskets. Suddenly, a delicate laugh echoed from below: "Since completing my arts, it has been so long since I found an equal match!"
Xu Ying froze. *Is this person a man or a woman... wait, could it be...*
Stunned, he blurted out, "He's a genius! He deciphered Granny Tuo's Immortal Scripture! Does that mean he has cast away all his primordial yang?"
Chapter 55