The demonic qi roared, churning like a sea.
This surging tide of decay nonetheless brimmed with vitality, like the black, stinking slime oozing from rotting fruit and the worms writhing within it. The utterly turbid demonic qi spread and seeped outward like a tide, rising and falling to a single rhythm, as though answering the breath of some being.
Then it twisted, contracted, and gathered into a vast, grotesque human shape.
It had three heads, five arms, seven mouths, and nine eyes, its form like a swollen corpse. Within the pitch-black, tar-like slime that flowed all over its body glimmered countless pairs of faintly luminous eyes.
In the center of its chest, a huge maw ringed with sickle-like fangs opened and closed like a cavernous abyss.
Deep within that opening lay an untouchable, chaotic darkness.
A being that suppressed the hearts of all living things had revealed a portion of itself from the Netherworld. Everyone felt the sky dim slightly, as if something had blocked out the sunlight.
“An Extramundane Demon, manifesting?!” The leader of the Red Armored Guards nearly cried out at the sight. This demon incarnation, huge as a mountain peak, was by no means an opponent they could face.
He at once ordered the retreat to continue; even the battle-hardened Red Armored Guards looked utterly bedraggled in that moment.
Fortunately, the Extramundane Demon had no interest in the Red Armored Guards or in humans. Its deep, fathomless gaze pierced across who knew how vast a distance before settling on this place, and only then did it step forward, heading for Suspended Fate Valley.
[“A thousand mountains, a hundred peaks, ten thousand rivers and waters... Humanity's seals are always so dull.”]
It reached out a hand and thrust it into Suspended Fate Valley, then gave a slight start. [“The Fuxie Fragment has already been taken?! Who did it, and when?”]
It swept its gaze around once. Its divine sense passed over the Red Armored Guards' camp, shrouded in the military formation, yet found not the slightest clue. [“Could it have been taken before this? The question is who...”]
Time was pressing, and it could not afford to waste any time searching for the target. With a sigh, it could only press one hand onto the endlessly rushing great river.
For a single instant.
The surging, mighty river turned foul. Black hues seeped into the clear, pure water of the mountain gorge; an oily sheen spread swiftly, befouling the whole water vein.
The mountains quaked. Violent tremors swept through all the land around Suspended Fate Valley, splitting the earth open and scattering the birds and beasts of the hills.
The earth veins shuddered and shifted, and stream after stream of pitch-black demonic qi, sharp as swords, burst from the cracks in the ground, vaguely gathering in midair into a hazy shadow.
This shadow had a pair of outstretched, shattered wings, and a pair of pale-gold eyes—curious, and observing the human heart at every moment without cease. Its form was rapidly coalescing, taking substance, faintly sketching the outline of a flawless human body.
It lowered its head slightly and surveyed everyone around Suspended Fate Valley, making every heart tremble.
Yet in that first moment, it did not find the little human who had piqued its interest.
Just then, together with a sigh from the twisted Extramundane Demon, two lights abruptly blazed at the far end of the sky.
One was the light of the Six Sun Mirror, blazing and magnificent, brilliant as the great sun; the other was North Mystic True Sha, empty, clear, cold and still, deep and dark as an abyss.
Sensing the Extramundane Demon's manifestation, Real Man Xuanjing and the Northern Circuit Envoy, who had been fighting in the distance, astonishingly set their dispute aside and came to strike as one.
[“Let's go,”] the twisted Extramundane Demon said. “Extramundane Demon Jiexin” nodded slightly. [“Xuming, help me find someone.”]
[“He... is very interesting. It's likely him—the one who received Fuxie's Lineage Inheritance.”]
[“Very well, I'll do as you say.”] “Extramundane Demon Xuming” answered. A small fragment separated from its body and slipped into the shadows of the deep forest. [“But we must leave at once.”]
A hazy, chaotic rift suddenly appeared between heaven and earth. This passage, leading straight to the dark realm of the Netherworld, twisted unsteadily the moment it opened and was already on the verge of fading.
But it was enough for the Extramundane Demons to pass through.
The shadow flowed away, and the oppressive feeling vanished at once; the sun, which had dimmed, returned to brilliance. As the rift and the demons disappeared together, everything returned to how it had been.
But just at that moment, the attacks of the two Divine Hidden Real Men struck the demonic-qi-seething Suspended Fate Valley.
Cold light pierced the ground, drifting clouds froze over, mountain rocks turned to ash, grass and trees burst into flame—heaven and earth darkened abruptly, and then came an immense, violent shock.
As the sky-filling dust and smoke dispersed, everyone raised their heads to look at where Suspended Fate Valley had been, only to find, to their astonishment, that a huge pit now gaped in the middle of the gorge.
It was as if an immortal or a god had pointed a finger down from the clouds, leaving a hollow in the earth—half of it covered in frost, half of it rising with white smoke and scorched fumes.
Two figures faced each other from opposite sides of the gorge. Frowning, they looked toward the direction where the Extramundane Demon had torn open its passage to the Netherworld, and only then did they turn to each other.
The cultivator with tightly closed eyes, six light-mirrors hovering behind his back, and hair streaked in black and white, said in a low voice, “The victory is undecided.”
The woman with long, glossy hair white as ivory and a plum-blossom mark between her brows narrowed her eyes slightly and said coldly, “We stop here.”
With that, she flew toward the forest on one side. Several times the woman reached out a hand, and streaks of dark blue-black light carried several people over; before long, all the survivors of the Tianyi Sect, Bai Qinghan among them, were clasped and shielded in a great hand of Killing Aura, and swiftly flew away from this place.
“Leave as quickly as possible. This place is dangerous.” The cultivator with tightly shut eyes and knitted brows also turned his head and gave a stern order. “An ancient Extramundane Demon has broken free of its seal; it falls to the ‘Great Chen Demon Suppression Terrace’ to oversee the matter.”
“Under the [True Martial Covenant], I will keep watch over this place until they arrive.”
“We obey the Real Man's decree!”
The Red Armored Guards bowed respectfully, then led the people away from the area as fast as they could.
Two perspectives.
“Interesting. Those Extramundane Demons seemed to be looking for something just now?”
Midair, the Northern Circuit Envoy looked around at the world about her and muttered in puzzlement, “And why is there only one little cutie? Weren't there supposed to be two Extraordinary Destinies?”
“Just as I thought.”
Held aloft by the Northern Circuit Envoy's gentle power, Bai Qinghan looked toward the direction where An Jing had vanished and said thoughtfully, “Did Eldest Senior Brother obtain something connected to the Extramundane Demons, or perhaps a deity's divine power, that he could wield such extraordinary strength?”
Gu Yeqi, sheltered at the center of the Red Armored Guards, also gazed into the depths of the mountains before they left the Suspended Fate Manor area. “Brother Jing really could sense the Extramundane Demons in advance... He saved us, and yet he can't come with us.”
“But it probably wasn't the Extramundane Demons... Could it be the master of those sword qi?”
“Mm...”
In the sky, Real Man Xuanjing opened his eyes just a sliver. Astonishingly, he had no eyeballs; his eye sockets were utterly black, yet within that blackness two red-gold points of light faintly gathered, serving as pupils that reflected all things—the divine ability [Sun-Yang Dharma Eye].
He let out a soft sound of surprise. “The Immortal Sword Fragment is gone... Was it hidden by the demonic qi, or carried off by the Extramundane Demons?
“And the two Star Destinies I sensed before—how is it that only the one on the Demon Sect's side is left?”
He searched several more times, his gaze sweeping across more than a hundred peaks around him, yet found not the slightest trace, and could not help but be puzzled. “That shouldn't be...”
Even so, now was not the time to go looking for people. He turned and looked at Suspended Fate Valley before him, its black demonic qi churning without cease, and shook his head slightly, thinking, “The Extramundane Demons are growing more and more active. Not just on our mountain's side—‘Jinyuantian’ must be sent a full report as well...”
Deep in the forest.
The pitch-black shadow writhed, rolled, bubbled, and swelled. Countless faintly luminous pupils flickered across the tar-like shadow, making it heave and deform until it finally recongealed into the form of a Red Armored Guard.
But on the head of this Red Armored Guard, where the face should have been, there was only a huge hole.
The hole was a mouth, and also an abyss, with turbid darkness flowing within it. It looked around the forest, searching for a scent, and then fell into a halt like a stalled machine.
It had not found its target.
Whether they cared or not, whether they searched deliberately or in passing, at that very moment everyone was looking for An Jing.
The gazes of every party would converge upon An Jing.
But all of them were bound to return empty-handed.
In Another World, within ancient Underground Ruins.
“So I've made it out alive at last...”
An Jing rose slowly from the dust, wiping the cold sweat from his head with lingering fear, and looked at the rift that had already closed. “The formation was too big. Better to lie low in Another World for a while.”
Chapter 52