Clash

Fahui rose to his feet and looked down upon Li Xuanling from above. He split his mouth into a grin, revealing a row of sharp, pearly white teeth. Intestines and blood hung from his body, dripping down bit by bit. He sneered: "Vile beast, I have pursued you all this way. As the memories of my previous life gradually awakened, I knew you would come to this small Daoist temple, so this venerable one arrived early to wait for you..." "Vile beast..." Li Xuanling had been forced northward by the Purple Mansion masters, a stifled fury already festering in his chest. Now, startled and berated by this monk, all his lingering regret and bitterness surged into his heart, boiling into a fountain of rage that blazed fiercely within his chest. He snarled: "You motherfucker, with your 'vile beast' this and 'sin' that! Look at the bones beneath your feet! Wipe the flesh and blood from your body, open your dog eyes, and take a good damn look at who the real vile beast is!" "Hahahahaha!" Infuriated, Fahui laughed instead. Intricate golden patterns surfaced across his body. He pressed his palms together, and all the flesh and blood on the ground melted away like red wax, dissolving into wisps of pale golden mist that drifted throughout the courtyard. "You were originally the black serpent clasped in the left hand of my Wrathful Manifestation. If you are not a vile beast, then who is? To think you escaped to the south for decades, throwing your weight around... Now that I am about to return to the seat of Maha, it is time for you to fulfill my ascension." Even before his words had fully faded, his body shot forward like a cannonball, throwing a fist straight toward Li Xuanling's face. Li Xuanling's left hand was already pressed against his hilt. The Lunar Crescent Sword Arc had long been gathering power, and he drew his blade in a flash, unleashing a streak of pure white sword light that illuminated the entire hall. Clang! Bare-handed, his palm brimming with golden light, Fahui seized the fully charged sword light forcefully. Clenching his five fingers, he crushed it to pieces. Golden light gleamed in his inhuman eyes as he allowed Li Xuanling to pull back some distance, laughing: "As for the Daoists in this temple... the very fact that they could be killed by me proves their sins were monstrous." "You!" Li Xuanling was stunned for a breath by his words, then sneered with contempt, treating them as nothing more than wind past his ears. But Fahui raised an eyebrow and snapped angrily: "You don't believe me?" He slowly raised a muscular arm. Drawn by his power, the golden mist on the ground leaped up like serpents and flood dragons, coalescing in his palm into a beam of golden light. Within it, various visions appeared: A Foundation Establishment wolf demon rode the wind, trailing thick black mist and towering demonic qi... The wolf demon devoured the temple master and coerced the old Daoists into gathering infants for its food... All sorts of scenes—babies wailing, Daoists weeping in sorrow—manifested all at once. Li Xuanling had already known these Daoists were not clean, but knowing the circumstances, he was not so easily intimidated. He sneered: "Offering infants was a choice born of necessity! Had they not done so, the wolf demon would have immediately devoured all the common folk at the foot of the mountain! Weighed between pros and cons, greater and lesser evils, how can you pronounce judgment so easily?" "Pronounce judgment?" A hole had been smashed through the roof of the Daoist temple, letting fine drizzle seep in. The dim daylight pierced through the rift in the heavy rainclouds and struck the side of Fahui's face, rendering half of it stark white. Golden light shone in Fahui's eyes, and his voice was solemn: "Evil is evil. To do evil is to face slaughter. Why blather about difficulties? Who under heaven has no difficulties? A hardship is no excuse for evil. Killing these things was well deserved! "Once I have slaughtered every evil person, heaven and earth will naturally be cleansed." With those words, he flew forward, golden light gleaming between his palms. Li Xuanling was momentarily at a loss for words, but the golden light in the temple grew increasingly dense. He felt a dizzying haze overcome his mind, while a surge of indignation collided wildly in his chest, leaving him thoroughly agitated. He exchanged several blows with Fahui with his sword, the impact jolting his palms with pain, leaving him trapped between advancing and retreating. "Tai!" Fahui's punches were immensely heavy, each blow more ferocious than the last. How could this be a monk who had possessed no spells? Li Xuanling grew increasingly despairing, thinking to himself: 'They must intend for me to die by his hand to fulfill this man's purpose. Some reincarnation of a Maha... It matters little if I die, but the Li family still relies on Father to stand firm...' Just then, the Xuanzhu talisman seed within Li Xuanling's Shengyang Mansion suddenly stirred, releasing streams of cool, refreshing qi that spiraled into his mind. He felt as though he had swallowed a large chunk of ice and snow during the hottest dog days of summer. His mind cleared, his vision sharpened, and his defense, which had been steadily crumbling, stabilized. Li Xuanling was deeply shaken. Then, a gentle, calm voice sounded beside his ear: "Guard your mind and hold on for the time it takes an incense stick to burn." How could Li Xuanling not realize now that all those earlier anomalies were Fahui's bizarre, insidious arts? Someone had intervened to dispel Fahui's spell. Li Xuanling felt both overjoyed and suspicious, thinking: 'Who is it... Xiao Chuting?! But it doesn't quite seem like him...' —— Beneath the dim, heavy mist, the mountains lay desolate, dotted with moon-white buildings. On the highest platform, fallen leaves drifted down, scattering across a white jade-like table. "Fate..." Lu Jiangxian reclined before the white jade-like table. In one hand, he held a fine, pure white thread that swayed as it stretched into the boundless void. In his other hand, he held a silver halo of light that bobbed up and down as though endowed with life of its own, remarkably miraculous. "So from the moment I bestowed the Vast Ocean Leviathan talisman, this Maha locked onto Li Tongya from thousands of miles away and began laying his plans... Wrathful Mahasattva has cultivated for nine lifetimes, gathering all manner of fates. In this life, he seeks to slay Li Tongya to prove his Dao... "The various Purple Mansion masters and even Golden Cores of the south are scheming against one another, employing divine abilities and methods to keep Li Tongya alive as bait in order to kill this Maha..." Lu Jiangxian frowned slightly, a touch puzzled. "What connection is there between talisman qi and fate? Each person receives a different talisman—is it because the talisman qi manifests their fate, or does it bestow a certain fate upon them?" Thinking to this point, Lu Jiangxian suddenly gained a glimmer of insight. "Li Tongya is bait, not a sacrifice. With proper maneuvering, his death is not inevitable... As long as they can hold out until Wrathful Mahasattva fully awakens within Fahui and the Purple Mansion masters strike, he can survive..." Lu Jiangxian had not yet recovered enough strength to contend as a player against Purple Mansions, Mahas, or Golden Core Dharmakayas, but sitting idly inside the mirror while Li Tongya was used as someone else's bargaining chip and bait was genuinely stifling. He remained cautious, but he was no longer the utterly clueless, helpless novice he once was. 'Though I cannot act directly, I am not about to let myself be pushed around...' He pondered carefully: 'Back then, even Minghui and Jinlian Maha were utterly powerless before the mirror's true form. This shows the magical mirror's status is exceptionally exalted, likely at the level of Immortals. So long as this matter does not involve Immortals, I can make a move without being detected.' Lu Jiangxian channeled the power of divination he had obtained from Liu Changdie back then. The silver light flashed and shrank by a third. After waiting a moment, it condensed into a single word: "Auspicious." "Good." This was already a scheme orchestrated by a crowd of Purple Mansions and Mahas, but Lu Jiangxian simply felt more at ease after doing a divination. He flicked the thread in his hand, causing it to gleam with white light, and privately set a bottom line for himself: 'I will only act through the Xuanzhu talisman seed as a medium. That way, even if those Purple Mansions suddenly go mad and capture Li Xuanling or Li Tongya, they won't detect a thing—they wouldn't discover it if they racked their brains to pieces!' The Xuanzhu talisman seed was one of the core foundations of the magical mirror. Likely, even an Immortal in person would fail to notice it. Were it not so, Li Chijing and Li Tongya would have been seized long ago when they strolled before Purple Mansion masters day after day. Having considered every link in the chain and made sure nothing could go wrong, Lu Jiangxian curled his lips into a faint smile and murmured softly: "I might as well play along with these people and treat it as gaining experience! Year after year, I feed on your family's incense and sloughed remains; it's time I lent a hand as well!"