God of Jiuli

Anyone whose combat strength could reach the top ten of the Seven Springs Hall was not only extraordinarily gifted and powerful, but inevitably possessed dharma artifacts. A dharma artifact was also part of one's strength. Xue Zheng was naturally no exception. The four-foot ring-pommel saber in his hand was a low-grade dharma artifact bestowed upon him by the Yang clan when they recruited him. It was precisely the defense of this artifact that prevented him from completely losing his combat ability even after being struck by the lightning released from the black iron seal. Lying on the ground, saber held ready in defense, his eyes locked onto Li Weiyi who approached with raised sword, filled with desperate fighting will to battle to the death. Li Weiyi intended to step forward and deliver a fatal blow. Yet from the distance, an arrow shot by Murong Xiao came whistling through the air. "Junior, the debt you owe the Changlin Gang, this old man will collect in person." The prolonged voice of Changlin Gang Vice Chief Tang Yan echoed from deep within the dense forest. The terrifying energy of a Wuhai Realm expert sent fallen leaves swirling into the air throughout the forest, surging forward like waves along with his figure. The leaves, imbued with dharmic power like flying daggers, embedded themselves into tree bark. "Your strength isn't bad. Wait until I break through another realm, and I'll use you to test my sword." Li Weiyi threw out these parting words to Xue Zheng, immediately sheathed his sword, and fled south. Moments later, he transformed into a mass of pitch-black nether mist and sped away into the distance accompanied by ringing bells. Xue Zheng's heart eased, and he exhaled a long breath. Just now had been too perilous; he had already prepared himself mentally to unleash his ultimate technique and perish together. Among all the opponents he had encountered in the Yongquan Realm, Li Weiyi was not the strongest, but he was the one who had pushed him into the most dangerous predicament. Break through another realm? "He wants to charge for the Nine Springs Perfected Person?" Xue Zheng naturally assumed Li Weiyi was currently at the level of opening eight springs. After all, Li Weiyi was neither a special mutant race nor a Pure Immortal Physique—merely a mortal. To possess such combat power at the Eight Springs realm was already extraordinary. Changlin Gang Vice Chief Tang Yan arrived. Murong Xiao also converged upon the scene. Tang Yan glanced at Xue Zheng's blackened arms and questioned coldly, "What happened? With the strength of you two combined, you couldn't handle him?" Murong Xiao said, "It is very likely that he not only practices dharma-martial arts, but is also a mind master." Moving his aching, numb arms, Xue Zheng showed no fear of Tang Yan and said indifferently, "He is quite likely an inheritor seed of the Leixiao Sect. He holds a formidable lightning dharma artifact, as well as an unknown escape artifact that emits the sound of bells." He did not mention the spatial treasure. "The Leixiao Sect?" Tang Yan's expression shifted slightly. The Leixiao Sect was located in the Eastern Realm, one of the ten-million sects of the Lingxiao Realm of the Living, perhaps even the foremost among them. Xue Zheng nodded. "Apart from inheritor seeds cultivated by ten-million estates and ten-million sects, who could possess so many dharma artifacts in the Yongquan Realm? Back then, when Cang Li was in the Yongquan Realm, he also wielded multiple dharma artifacts for protection." The more Murong Xiao thought about it, the more reasonable Xue Zheng's analysis seemed. She said, "No wonder the Cangling Tribe values him so much. No wonder he possesses such formidable combat strength at such a young age. The Cangling Tribe must have known his identity all along!" After deliberating for a moment, Tang Yan's eyes turned chillingly dark. "So what if he's an inheritor seed of the Leixiao Sect? Those ten-million estates and ten-million sects cultivate multiple seeds like raising venomous gu worms; only the ones who survive in the end become true inheritors. Besides, if he dies here in the Mount Mang Range, who is to say whether he died in the belly of an exotic beast or the claws of a fiendish demon?" Xue Zheng had worried Tang Yan wouldn't dare provoke the Leixiao Sect, so he immediately chimed in, "In any case, he has never revealed his identity. Who can prove he's an inheritor seed of the Leixiao Sect? What matters most right now is carrying out Eldest Miss's orders. However, those dharma artifacts on him..." Tang Yan understood in a flash and chuckled. "Those artifacts on him that only we know about will naturally be divided up in secret. Not half a word is to be leaked. Taking back a corpse will be enough to satisfy Eldest Miss." *** The giant camel summoned by the evil camel bell was fast indeed, but it consumed far too much dharmic power. Having opened six springs, Li Weiyi could only ride it for a quarter of an hour; ultimately, he still had to rely on his own two legs. Perhaps only after entering the Wuhai Realm and opening his sea of qi, or breaking through the eighth spring, "Fengfu", and the ninth spring, "Zutian", gaining the capacity to store dharmic power, would he be able to sustain it longer. Over the next five days, Li Weiyi treated his injuries while fleeing through the rugged mountains. Every two hours, Senior Tablet would point out the route once. Tang Yan, Xue Zheng, and Murong Xiao caught up with him from time to time. Li Weiyi never fought them head-on; every escape was fraught with danger, and his wounds never had time to heal. On one occasion, he was nearly critically wounded by Tang Yan and only escaped by relying on the evil camel bell and the black iron seal. From beginning to end, his dao-protecting wife never showed herself. He didn't know whether it was because she felt he had grown too close to Li Ling and Cai Yutong recently. In any case, Li Weiyi felt that pinning his hopes of survival on her was terribly unreliable. Five days later. Dragging his battered, exhausted body and traveling day and night on no more than four hours of sleep a day, Li Weiyi finally covered several hundred li and reached the outskirts of the Jiuli Clan's ancestral realm. Standing atop a waterfall halfway up a mountain, he looked far into the distance. An unimaginably majestic snow mountain stood far off, surrounded by countless steep, treacherous peaks and rolling hills. Only its mountainside could be seen; everything above the waist was shrouded in clouds. The dozen or so peaks around it were already magnificent, yet their presence was completely eclipsed by the central snow mountain. Behind Li Weiyi, the stone coffin that had been lying flat on the ground suddenly stood upright. A voice drifted out from the coffin: "You see that most majestic and magnificent snow mountain, don't you? It is shaped like a crown, with snow that never melts all year round." Li Weiyi said, "Could that be the Tomb of the Cang King?" "No!" Senior Coffin said, "That is the Jiuli Sacred Mountain. Ancestral legends say that the God of Jiuli, Chi You, is buried beneath the snow mountain. Whether he is truly buried there is hard to say, but the Jiuli Sacred Mountain definitely ranks among the top three most dangerous and mysterious places in the entire Southern Realm. Even when I ventured into it at the peak of my cultivation during my lifetime, I nearly perished within." Li Weiyi had heard the name of the God of Jiuli long ago. Initially, he had been genuinely shocked; the name was too close to that figure from ancient Huaxia mythology and legends, making it impossible not to let his imagination run wild. Hearing Senior Coffin put it this way naturally stirred waves in Li Weiyi's heart once again. He had already guessed the identity of the person inside the coffin with near certainty. In terms of strength in life, the clan leaders, sect masters, and venerable ancestors of Lizhou today could never even dream of matching him. For him to nearly meet his end while venturing into his own ancestor's burial ground? Senior Coffin continued, "Ancestral lore tells that the God of Jiuli fathered eighty-one sons in all, every one of whom was buried around the Jiuli Sacred Mountain, turning into the peaks and hills before your eyes. Nine among those eighty-one children became the ancestors of the current nine great tribes of the Jiuli Clan." "Then what about the remaining seventy-two?" Li Weiyi asked. This was clearly outside Senior Coffin's area of knowledge! After a long pause, Senior Coffin finally continued, "The Cang King was the eldest son of the God of Jiuli and the ancestor of the Cangling Tribe, buried closest to the Jiuli Sacred Mountain. It is that very first peak to the right of the snow mountain!" Li Weiyi looked toward that peak. It was imposing indeed, its summit nearly grazing the clouds. Senior Coffin said, "However, the vast expanse of forest occupied by the ancestral realm is perilous to the extreme, permeated with protective forces left behind by ancient sages, and even the power of the God of Jiuli himself. If one does not follow the few viable paths, even an expert of the Changsheng Realm who barges in would likely lose a layer of skin." "Therefore, once we enter this ancestral realm, we will be much safer. As for those people pursuing behind us, give them ten times the courage and they still wouldn't dare barge in." "From here on, I will accompany you forward." "Raise the Nine Emperors Streamer. It can silently part the shimmering veil barrier that protects the ancestral realm." Two hours later, Li Weiyi arrived beneath the waterfall, bearing the stone coffin on his shoulder and holding the white Nine Emperors Streamer over three meters long. Like a pallbearer, he parted the luminous veil of the boundary and officially stepped into the Jiuli Clan's ancestral realm. Bizarre beyond measure! Stepping into the ancestral realm, the sky darkened instantly, as if plunging into night. The surroundings were dead silent; not even the chirping of birds could be heard. In the heavens, dense stars emerged... remarkably resembling the Milky Way... Li Weiyi froze for a moment, then immediately asked Senior Coffin, only to be told that for an ancestral realm to be called such, it was naturally different from the outside world—it was a small realm arranged by the God of Jiuli. As for the stars in the heavens, they had been there since antiquity; Senior Coffin admitted that he could not understand them either. "Could it be possible to walk back to Earth from here?" Just as Li Weiyi was muttering this in his heart, a hill a hundred meters high ahead suddenly squirmed. A bull's head the size of a palace hall lifted up, its eyes radiating a soul-shaking majesty. Countless boulders rattled and tumbled down from its back. The night was thick, obscuring clear vision. Yet Li Weiyi's scalp tingled, and he wanted nothing more than to turn around and leave immediately. This place was far too perilous—not somewhere his current cultivation belonged. Senior Coffin said, "Don't panic. That is the tomb-guarding beast, the mud bull. Clear the way with the Nine Emperors Streamer, and it will not harm you." How could he not panic? Holding his breath, Li Weiyi gave a stiff smile toward the hill-sized mud bull and tiptoed past beneath it, constantly feeling that the giant bull's head was staring at him. Fortunately, once he circled past, the massive head lowered back down and made no further movement. Splash, murmur... He advanced along a stream that radiated a nocturnal glow, the water resembling an illuminated ribbon of silk. After walking for merely an hour, glowing green orbs of light suddenly emerged from beneath the ground, each enveloping a carapaced creature the size of a washbasin. They had sharp, mantis-like claws and humanoid heads, appearing exceedingly sinister and horrific. Li Weiyi swallowed hard, sweat continuously seeping from the hand clutching the Nine Emperors Streamer. "Don't panic. That is the tomb-guarding insect clan, the Yanke. Sweep with the Nine Emperors Streamer, and they will naturally yield the path," Senior Coffin said calmly. "So huge... and you call them bugs?" Li Weiyi could sense that these Yanke were far from ordinary. Every single one gave him a stronger sense of danger than Xue Zheng. Thus, following the instruction, he gently swept the Nine Emperors Streamer outward. Sure enough, the Yanke on the ground turned docile and automatically parted to make a path. Having passed through the area where the Yanke lurked, Li Weiyi couldn't help but ask, "Master Coffin, what on earth are we going to fetch from the Tomb of the Cang King? Given how dangerous this place is, I feel like I could train for two more years before coming back." Senior Coffin chuckled. "Rest easy. Without at least a ninety percent certainty, I wouldn't let you take this risk. Besides, you are no longer at five springs, but six, and you have cultivated mind force to make up for your final deficiency. In my view, the danger is already minimal..." "Someone's there!" Li Weiyi heard something. He immediately lowered the Nine Emperors Streamer to the ground, crouched down, and peered toward the direction of the noise.