In Lijing Town, at the Xu residence.
Xu Xiao was bare-chested, revealing his lean, muscular arms. He had gone out for a circuit early in the morning and had already noticed many abnormalities, yet he still felt uncertain. Between his brows, it felt as though several silver needles were constantly pricking and twisting into his flesh.
Xu Xiao hid quietly in his room, gripping a jade bead in his sleeve. He sat cross-legged in an affected posture, the aura within his body undulating as thoughts raced through his mind:
‘Starting this morning, Centurion Chen did not make his patrol along the streets on schedule... Either something happened to him, or he was transferred away. If the Li family is planning a major move, they could never hide it from him, so they would have to move him out of the way first...’
Xu Xiao had pulled off a sleight of hand to secretly take Old Man Liu and Centurion Chen under his control, but he lacked true confidence. In truth, an undercurrent of unease lingered constantly in his heart. Liu Lingzhen had a weak temperament, so he could not let any of it show.
Though disdainful in his speech, he understood deep down that the Li family had deep roots here. Holding these two in his grasp greatly increased the risk of exposure, which only made him worry more.
When he went out to buy medicinal herbs, he had glanced into the tavern along the way to see if Old Man Liu was drinking as usual, only to find the tavern had been trashed by troublemakers and was closed.
Xu Xiao had returned to his courtyard half-doubting, plagued by an ominous foreboding:
‘If the Li family is preparing to move against me, whoever is orchestrating this is no simple figure... But why bother? Who would make such a massive fuss and employ such covert calculations right from the start...’
He found it bizarre, yet he felt as if thorns were pricking his back, wishing he could flee immediately. But Liu Lingzhen was still up on the mountain; to abandon her was something Xu Xiao truly could not bring himself to do.
Xu Xiao believed that as long as he was given ten-odd years, he would surely return home in glory, shatter the Li family's hegemony over this land, and elevate his own clan into a prominent family. But that still lay ten-odd years away. Before then, he was utterly unwilling to shed all pretense of cordiality with the Li family.
Rolling the jade bead in his palm, myriad illusions suddenly surfaced before Xu Xiao's eyes. Sharp pains shot through his chest and shoulder blades, his heart pounding in turmoil as if impending doom hung over him. His left hand was already pressed against his storage bag.
"Hiss!"
He suddenly felt a faint chill across half his cheek. Breaking through the air, he sprang up from the water and retreated a step, a suit of crimson armor lighting up across his body just as the entire wall collapsed, revealing a streak of black light.
*Rumble!*
With an explosive roar, dust and smoke billowed as the house collapsed in ruins. A massive, pitch-black snake tail swept through, tipped with pitch-black curved hooks. Xu Xiao barely dodged the attack in the nick of time, but just being grazed turned his complexion pale and sallow.
"A Foundation Establishment demon beast!"
The black-robed youth before him wore a sinister expression. His black robe snapped loudly in the wind as his black boots trod upon the earth, and beneath him in the shadows, two black hooks wound and slithered, radiating wave upon wave of cold air.
Xu Xiao recoiled in horror, seized by fright, and cried out involuntarily, "You are that hook snake!"
Having his strike dodged, Li Wushao suppressed his surprise. Peering closely, he said in puzzlement, "Indeed rather unusual. A mere Qi Refinement cultivator actually dodged my attack."
Battle cries suddenly erupted all around as several people charged forward, brandishing swords. Xu Xiao backhandedly crushed a jade bead, conjuring a circular qi shield around himself. Watching Li Wushao warily, he shouted, "I have never offended you! I merely stopped that young master from forcing a common girl into marriage, yet you act so overbearingly as to kill me to silence me?!"
In his speech, he showed utter contempt for the Li family's Qi Refinement cultivators, instead frowning in apparent bewilderment as he seized the initiative to interrogate them. As for the surrounding Qi Refinement cultivators, they were of no consequence at all.
‘Just a bunch of small fry cultivating second- or third-rank methods who don't even know spells. Even if they hack at me as they please, they won't scratch a hair on my head.’
Sure enough, the dharma shield was at the Foundation Establishment level. The dharma lights of the Qi Refinement cultivators struck the shield without eliciting the slightest reaction, bouncing off and extinguishing one after another. Li Xijun kept himself hidden, standing far away amidst the clouds, thinking to himself:
‘Fortunately, Li Wushao is here. Otherwise, even if all the clan's elder Qi Refinement cultivators gathered, they would be helpless against him... Fortunately, the one who remained behind was Li Wushao rather than Kongheng, and fortunately, he repaired his tail hooks... Had there been the slightest deviation, none of us could have done anything to him today!’
Down below, Li Wushao had originated as a demon beast of the Eastern Sea; he had no concept of what "forcing a common girl into marriage" even meant, thinking only that this person was spouting nonsense. Paying him no heed at all, he extended his tail hooks without pause. Chen Mufeng, however, could not allow the youth to keep shouting, and roared:
"Demon! You murdered Liu Tai! You used demonic arts to control a centurion, and within two years you broke through from the second layer of Embryonic Breathing to the third layer of Qi Refinement! If this is not cultivating demonic arts, what else could it be?! Who knows how many people you have devoured in secret!"
Even as he spoke, Li Wushao's tail hook had already slammed into the shield. The gulf in strength between Foundation Establishment and Qi Refinement could not be measured by ordinary standards. Xu Xiao had no time to dodge at all and was struck squarely by a tail hook. Even though the shield dissipated most of the force, he still coughed up a mouthful of blood and crashed violently through a stretch of walls and doorways.
For Li Wushao to have survived in the Eastern Sea, the pair of hooks on his tail were the locus of his life's cultivation, holding profound mysteries within. It was only because Kong Tingyun had pinned him down with a magical artifact that he had fallen into their hands. Now that his tail hooks were restored, Li Xijun inwardly applauded.
‘As for this Xu Xiao, he seems... not quite that strong...’
With just a single strike, Li Wushao had battered Xu Xiao into spitting blood and falling back. Li Xijun breathed a sigh of relief. While keeping an eye on the situation, he carefully observed the changes in expression of the people around him as a precaution.
‘That's right... Even if he were the reincarnation of a Golden Core cultivator, he would need to be at the peak of Qi Refinement to play that game of lasting an incense stick's time against the Kong clan's Foundation Establishment ancestor... I was overly cautious.’
Reproaching himself, Li Xijun stood amidst the clouds, watching the Foundation Establishment shield around Xu Xiao. Turning his palm, he produced a talisman as well and hurled it down without hesitation or regret.
The talisman soared and spun in midair, transforming into an exquisite small hammer etched with golden patterns, its ends curving upward like ram horns. It smashed down toward Xu Xiao with a bang.
Li Wushao did not let up either. Two shadows spiraled, skimming swiftly along the ground like two venomous serpents darting upward. Taking advantage of the collision between the two Foundation Establishment spells, he thrust down swiftly, accurately, and ruthlessly from front and rear.
The small hammer talisman in Li Xijun's hand had been purchased from the Yuan family. Its quality was superb, which was why he had kept it as a trump card to save his life. Yet as it traversed the void and smashed down with a loud crack, the dharma shield around Xu Xiao merely dimmed its light and endured the blow.
‘What a formidable talisman.’
Coordinating his fierce attack with the Foundation Establishment talisman, Li Wushao had originally intended to entangle and wear his foe down, but immediately altered his tactics, stabbing down viciously from both front and rear.
"What demonic cultivator?! You fools! This is the immortal sect's [Mysterious Flame Combined Fire Secret Art]!"
Xu Xiao choked on his words, wanting to refute them further, but had not expected Li Xijun up in the clouds to be so decisive, throwing down a high-grade Foundation Establishment talisman right away, so he could only shut his mouth.
A black-and-red medallion emerged in his hand. He activated it, unleashing red light in an attempt to block Li Wushao's tail hooks and buy time for his dharma shield to recover.
Yet the red light barely managed to hinder the pitch-black tail hooks before Xu Xiao's magic power drained away like water swallowed by a whale. Li Wushao was a Foundation Establishment cultivator; how could a mere Qi Refinement cultivator withstand him? Even though Xu Xiao's magic power far exceeded that of ordinary people, he could only hold out for a single breath before it plummeted.
Li Wushao was somewhat astonished, thinking to himself:
‘It truly is Chijiao Island's... Combined Fire secret art. But I don't know why it has spread here. If I kill this man outright, I wonder if it will cause trouble for the Master...’
Li Wushao gradually ramped up his force. Xu Xiao was caught in a dilemma, crying out bitterly in his heart. He could never withstand the attacks of a Foundation Establishment cultivator, but without this shield, he wouldn't last a few rounds under Li Wushao's hands. He had no choice but to hastily bring out his trump card spell. Biting the tip of his tongue, he spat a mouthful of blood, spraying it over the medallion.
As he cast the spell, the red light receded, and the shield issued an overburdened creak. Xu Xiao said hatefully, "Your clan treats human life like grass on your own territory! Aren't you afraid of being condemned by the Qingchi Immortal Sect?!"
Hearing his words, Li Xijun was momentarily taken aback. The look he cast upon the man grew somewhat bizarre:
‘When it comes to treating human life like grass, who could surpass the Qingchi Sect? Does this man truly not know, or is he feigning ignorance, to utter such naive words! Let alone my clan killing someone... even if we made steamed buns out of human flesh, the Qingchi Sect would only be overjoyed and want a share of the spoils...’
However, once Xu Xiao said that, Li Xijun felt much more certain:
‘This man should not be a reincarnation. He must have obtained a heritage due to a karmic mandate...’
In a brief moment, fire flared from the medallion, spewing forth a greyish-red flame. Hazy like mist, it churned up and down. Li Wushao's pupils dilated; his tail hooks had already snapped back like a startled bird, yet they were still lightly grazed.
"Roar!!!"
Li Wushao's head ballooned, contorting and transforming in an instant into a serpent head the size of a house, propped up only by a tiny human body. His serpent eyes, as large as doors and windows, shone crimson as he let out a roar of agony, in so much pain that he could not even maintain his human form.
The tail hook snapped back under his robes; a corner of the hook had already been incinerated, blood dripping down with pattering sounds. Seeing the flames prove effective, Xu Xiao was overjoyed and burst into loud laughter. Riding the wind and wielding the fire, a red ring materialized beneath his feet, and he leaped into the air.
The shifts in that instant occurred with lightning speed. Li Xijun, however, had already pinched another talisman in his hand and took a step forward. Yet Xu Xiao, clad in crimson armor and holding grey flames, glared back at him.
When their eyes met, both felt a chill in their hearts. Li Xijun noticed that the man's expression was both greedy and vicious, as if consumed by a blazing sun or plunged into a raging volcano, while Xu Xiao felt as though he had been submerged in freezing ice, perceiving the eyes of the man before him to be filled with frost and snow, as if capable of seeing right through his mind.
‘This person must be eliminated!’
The same thought flashed through both their minds simultaneously, and both retreated at the same time to widen the distance. Xu Xiao thought to himself:
‘The situation is unfavorable right now; I cannot drag this out. Once I reach Foundation Establishment, this person must be the first to die!’
Li Xijun was equally alert:
‘His blunders from start to finish all stemmed from an information disparity... he believes the immortal sect still acts as a check and balance! We cannot let him escape!’
Hurling the talisman in his hand once more, he shouted:
"Li Wushao! If you hesitate, you will die by his hand in no time!"
The flames seemed to strongly restrain demon beasts. Li Wushao managed with difficulty to revert to human form, grimacing in pain with a dark expression. Riding the wind, he ground his teeth and gave chase, but did not dare use his tail hooks again, instead fumbling a magical artifact out of his storage bag.
Xu Xiao's complexion was flushed red as he produced two more talismans, grey flames circling his flanks. The rod-shaped magical artifact Li Wushao produced had not even reached Xu Xiao's side before melting into limp slag. Frigid qi surged in Li Xijun's eyes. Unsheathing [Hanlin] from his waist, he hurled it forward and shouted:
"Take the sword!"
Li Wushao wrapped a tail hook around the dharma sword, catching it in hand as snowy light rippled outward. Xu Xiao spurred the grey flames to block it and accelerated his flight on the wind, but a Qi Refinement cultivator charged head-on, raising an axe to strike.
*Boom!*
Xu Xiao did not even spare him a glance; with a flick of the flames, he reduced the man to ashes. The surrounding cultivators were instantly shaken with terror, daring only to release dharma light to slightly impede him. Aside from White Monkey and a few others whose cultivation was profound and who still dared press forward to strike, the rest could only back away in silence.
The red ring beneath Xu Xiao's feet was likely a special flying shuttle; its speed was originally astonishingly fast, but hampered by several people, he had to dodge and maneuver left and right, unable to build up speed. Riding the momentum of his kill, he forced everyone back with flames, seeking to break out of the encirclement.
Just as a smile began to surface on his face, another streak of sword light flew toward him. Xu Xiao's face darkened. Whipping his sleeve, he spouted flames and roared:
"What blind small fry dares stand in my way?!"
The dharma sword in the man's hand melted instantly, and the grey flames climbed up his withered arm like a venomous serpent. Yet, as if having anticipated this long before, his other hand swung down faster than the flames could spread, chopping at his own shoulder. With a wet squelch, he severed the arm.
Before the severed arm even hit the ground, it was incinerated into ash. Xu Xiao was shocked and infuriated beyond measure. Parting his lips, he was about to spit more flames, but having been obstructed for that split second, Li Wushao had already closed in with sword in hand, and Li Xijun's talisman arrived right before him!
‘Bastard!’
Xu Xiao was so enraged his vision went black. Still, he managed to find a moment to sweep his spiritual sense over the man. The person who had blocked him was actually an emaciated, shriveled old man who was silently retreating without expression, the blood at his severed arm already slowly stemming, his murky eyes filled with utter calm.
The old man's face was very familiar; Xu Xiao seemed to have seen him often, farming a spirit field by the lake. That spirit field was very close to this place, and the Li family treated him with great respect... What was his name... Li Qiuyang...
"Li Qiuyang! Li Qiuyang! A miscellaneous qi cultivator! He's actually just a miscellaneous qi cultivator! Pfft!"
Xu Xiao's face turned crimson as he took a sword strike from Li Wushao. The demon beast struck purely with his vast demonic power, battering him until he vomited blood continuously. The momentum gathering beneath his feet in the red ring was abruptly disrupted, and his speed plummeted at once.
The even more lethal Foundation Establishment talisman arrived before him, slamming with a bang onto his paper-thin shield. The shield finally shattered like glass, leaving Xu Xiao completely exposed before the crowd.
His face was flushed red, yet he was still able to ride the wind, sweeping flames to drive several people back while fishing out an elixir pill with his other hand.
Yet in that brief instant, a long staff vaulted over the flames and struck square against his palm, smashing the vial of pills to pieces. Xu Xiao let out a cry of agony, terror striking him to the core. Realizing it was that powerful White Monkey, despair welled in his heart, and he lamented:
‘To think I would fall at the hands of these despicable nobodies! I won't be able to roam the world with Zhen'er!’
His trump cards exhausted and his escape cut off, he still fought like a cornered beast, swinging flames back and forth to keep them at bay. Tears fell from his eyes. Suddenly, he felt a tightness at his neck as an immense force took hold of him, pulling him right out of the circle, and in an instant, he was several li away.
He heard a soft exclamation behind him, and a charming voice rang in his ear:
"Rushing all this way... I made it in the nick of time!"
Xu Xiao was already spent, his lamp running out of oil. Swung between extreme grief and sudden joy, he quickly turned his head to look, only to see a charming female cultivator in a red dress. Her skin was fair, and she looked sweet and lovely, causing his heart to flutter for a moment.
Her attire was simple yet elegant: a gossamer mantle draped over a red-and-black dress that shimmered with radiant light. Her brows were like kingfisher feathers, and she toyed with a slender, feather-like red magical artifact in her hands as she looked Xu Xiao up and down.
Watching the enemy slip away right in the middle of their coordinated siege, Li Xijun felt blood surge in his chest. He coughed, nearly spitting blood. After calculating to such an extent, he bit his lip until blood seeped out.
Beside him, Li Wushao lost his composure even more. His eyes suddenly bulged until they occupied most of his face, glowing bright red, while serpentine hisses escaped his throat. Gritting his teeth, he demanded:
"And who... might you be?!"
Li Xijun had only lost his composure for an instant. Forcing himself to calm down, he circulated his talisman qi until his mind became as cool as water. Tugging on Li Wushao's sleeve, he said softly:
"The Qingdu Li clan greets Senior. May I inquire which sect Senior hails from?"
The female cultivator did not even acknowledge him. Looking at Xu Xiao with delight, she said in a tender voice:
"Grand-Uncle Master's heritage has been buried for so many years, and at last it emerges in due time. Wonderful, simply wonderful!"
How could Xu Xiao fail to understand? An orthodox immortal sect had finally arrived in the nick of time to save him! Overjoyed, he said:
"I... I have had a hard time hiding on the territory of these demonic path fiends, but at last an immortal sect has come to my rescue!"
The expressions of the onlookers varied. The female cultivator was startled for a moment, then the corners of her mouth curled slightly into an unsurprised smile as she said:
"Indeed! I am Guo Hongyao of Chijiao Immortal Island. In recent years, we have been endlessly entangled with demonic paths like Wanyu and Chunyi, which is why I arrived late. I shall take you back to the island at once!"
Left cold on the side, Li Xijun and the members of the Li clan looked displeased. Only then did the female cultivator look toward the Li clan cultivators. Sweeping a glance over them, her face chilled, and she said in a low voice:
"You call yourselves a prominent family, yet can you not even recognize my island's lineage? I heard long ago that you were flirting and colluding with Wanyu and Xuanyue; as expected, none of you are anything good!"
Things having reached this stage, there was really nothing left to say. Li Xijun could only cup his hands and say:
"Senior misunderstands...! Our knowledge is shallow and crude, and we have never seen the immortal island's arts before."
Guo Hongyao's face was frosty. Flicking her crimson sleeve, she looked at Xu Xiao beside her:
"How could a disciple of my immortal island be bullied by your family for nothing?"
Li Xijun exhaled and asked softly, "What does Senior mean?"
Seeing him feign ignorance, Guo Hongyao sneered:
"Let this demon pet of yours kill itself. As for you... for the sake of the sword immortal's face, apologize to our sect's disciple, and this matter will be considered settled. As for the formal amends, have Li Yuanjiao come in person; you are not qualified."
Hearing this, the twin hooks beneath Li Wushao's robes grew restless, circling constantly beneath his feet. His two crimson eyes glared venomously at the female cultivator, suppressing a snarl. Li Xijun's expression grew cold as he lowered his head and said:
"Senior must be joking."
The moment these words left his mouth, the atmosphere plummeted to freezing point. Guo Hongyao's smile vanished. Li Wushao stepped forward to shield Li Xijun, glaring fixedly at the woman before them as two streaks of dark light emerged beneath the hem of his robe.
"That is not up to you!"
Guo Hongyao sneered, paying no regard to Li Wushao before her as she spoke coldly.
Guo Hongyao delivered a sarcastic remark. Li Xijun held back the hook snake in front of him. This woman was a disciple of an immortal sect, and they were outside their warding array; if a fight broke out, it would likely cause immense trouble. Thus, he merely spoke politely:
"This matter was our fault, but the hook snake is an elder's spirit beast and cannot be used for Senior to vent anger upon. I ask Senior to reconsider."
Hearing...
Chapter 425