‘He wants to kill Kong Haiying.’
Contempt stirred in Li Ximing’s heart.
Truth be told, there was nothing truly irreconcilable between Duxian Dao and the Li clan thus far. But Li Ximing did not believe for a second that Ye Gui’s sole objective was Kong Haiying.
‘If all your maneuvers were aimed at Kong Haiying, why put on such a foul face before my family earlier!’
Since Ye Gui could spout nonsense so effortlessly, Li Ximing played along. Feigning a startled expression, he replied, “Fellow Daoist Ye Gui, did Kong Haiying not perish earlier? The shifting of Xuanyue’s earth veins before Senior Changxi’s demise was the very portent of his death!”
Ye Gui was momentarily choked by this sudden concoction of lies. He stared heavily at him. By rights, that person had been Fu’en, but if it had truly been Kong Haiying, it was entirely within reason that Changxi had deliberately claimed it was Fu’en. For a moment, he actually paused.
True or false, Li Ximing’s words completely dismantled all his prepared remarks. Ye Gui said coldly, “Oh? Whether this is... true or false... enough. Let me see the divine abilities of Mingyang!”
As his words fell, the Great Void rumbled. A dark purple sheen drifting above and below through the Great Void gave off a solemn, weighty roar, breeding a humid moisture.
In the next moment, a kaleidoscopic fish emerged from the iridescent glow. Roughly the size of a calf, its illusory scales were variegated in shades of purple. At the fish’s head sat a human skull of pale bone, its hollow eye sockets eerily vacant.
The purple fish flipped in midair. Innumerable others of its kind surged forth from the purple iridescence, densely congregating beneath the heavenly gate to form a river that charged straight upward. Seeing that Ye Gui was truly getting serious, heavenly light surged at Li Ximing’s glabella, and the heavenly gate behind him similarly rumbled with thunderous clamor.
A heaven-shaking battle cry erupted. Innumerable figures clad in golden armor and golden garments upon the heavenly gate suddenly came to life. Descending from the gate with spears and swords in hand, each met the assault head-on, halting the purple river beneath the heavenly gate the instant they clashed.
Yet with a tremendous rumble, Ye Gui opened his mouth and spat out a white vapor. As though weighing a thousand jin, this white vapor sank at once, and the Great Void abruptly congealed. Li Ximing, along with the entire ‘Audience at the Heavenly Gate’, felt as if trapped in a mire, sinking inch by inch, caught in a dilemma of whether to advance or retreat.
‘No wonder Changxi didn’t dare fight him. Just this Mount Dongyu alone... this old fellow already has formidable control over the battlefield in the Great Void.’
Li Ximing knew this was Ye Gui’s second divine ability, ‘Mount Dongyu’. Thankful that the Mingyang path was proficient in combat, and intending not to use spiritual artifacts so he could test his own battle prowess, he immediately opened his mouth and exhaled Mingyang purple flame.
This purple flame was normally nurtured in his Juque Court. Exhaled in a torrent now, it was no ordinary fire. Flames roared, and the burgeoning power of mutual engendering surged, slamming into the congealed Great Void.
Li Ximing did not need to contest the vast expanse of the Great Void suppressed by Mount Dongyu; his mouthful of purple flame condensed into a single point. No matter how formidable the opponent’s suppression ability was, against this focused penetration piercing a plane with a point, it easily burned open a pinhole-sized breach.
He only needed that one point!
A single point in the Great Void could be an entire plane, or an entire gate. Li Ximing vanished along with the heavenly gate behind him, effortlessly slipping free of the joint blockade of ‘Nanchou Water’ and ‘Mount Dongyu’. He manifested his form in another pocket of the Great Void, turning into heavenly light to fly away.
And so, Ye Gui, a grand mid-stage Purple Palace cultivator, facing one newly ascended to the Purple Palace, failed to impose any pressure in two exchanges and watched him make a clean escape!
‘So this is the Great Void...’
At this moment, Li Ximing finally realized just how difficult it was for Purple Palace cultivators to slay one another. The Great Void was a net riddled with loopholes; every Purple Palace expert could be as immense as Mount Tai or as minuscule as a speck of dust. How could anyone lock an opponent down and prevent them from fleeing?
Ye Gui was not surprised in the least. Circulating his body divine ability, his figure emerged at the fringe of the purple radiance, dragging the entire purple light in motion once more to envelop Li Ximing. Mount Dongyu pressed down again, and the mire-like pressure resurfaced.
Yet this time, his hands formed a seal. The moment Mount Dongyu manifested, the Great Void beneath Li Ximing twisted into a hollow void, causing him to step onto nothing and fail to shift away directly. Li Ximing was not afraid, however; holding flame in his mouth, he spat it straight at the dharma sword in Ye Gui’s hand.
The dharma sword barely parried the firelight before an exceedingly sharp aura rose from the Great Void. Li Ximing knew it was the other man’s spiritual artifact. Resisting the urge to take out his own spiritual artifact, heavenly light surged at his glabella, and he barked:
“Chi!”
Glimmering heavenly light instantly illuminated the entire Great Void, finally revealing a dazzling flash of golden radiance. Shangyao Fuguang poured out from Li Ximing’s glabella, crashing down with a resounding boom.
Li Ximing had actually cultivated this ‘Shangyao Fuguang’ for only a brief period, but backed by his Purple Palace cultivation and the natural glabella heavenly light of his own divine ability, the mutual amplification managed to hold off the spiritual artifact for a moment.
‘If I can’t beat you head-on, can’t I just run?’
Practice made perfect. Purple flame flared before Li Ximing, and he broke away once more. But Ye Gui took another step, surfacing right on his heels, thrusting his dharma sword straight ahead. Li Ximing immediately raised the heavenly gate to block with his divine ability, feeling only a chill in his hand as a streak of purple light darted onto the back of his hand.
Having blocked this blow from the divine ability, Li Ximing was essentially unharmed. Taking the chance to pull away, he flew for several breaths before the other man closed the distance again. Having grown wiser, Li Ximing sprayed a mouthful of purple flame directly at the sword in Ye Gui’s hand, which simultaneously neutralized Mount Dongyu—killing two birds with one stone—and safely broke away once more.
Yet when he shifted horizontally this time, he found the Great Void growing increasingly steep and arduous to navigate. A sweep of his spiritual sense revealed the unmistakable Kanshui formation, and when he peered into the mortal realm, a majestic mountain towered below, encircled by streams—it was Mount Xianyou.
Li Ximing had no intention of asking the Xiao family for aid. It was purely that their clash had drifted into the Great Void of Mount Xianyou. The Great Void here was like a ten-thousand-li mountain range, making movement extremely difficult. This was not the work of spells or formations, but a matter of spiritual essence. As Mount Xianyou was the foremost nexus of spiritual essence in Lixia Commandery, the Great Void around it was extraordinarily steep.
Ye Gui evidently noticed this as well. Possessing the ‘Nanchou Water’ body divine ability and riding upon his spirit crow spell, he was far faster here than Li Ximing. He traversed the distance in a flash. Li Ximing blocked him with a puff of purple fire and vanished, but this time manifested his form in the mortal realm.
‘If the Great Void is hard to traverse, can’t I travel through the mortal realm?’
Slipping out in one breath, he left his pursuer grasping at air. The scene brightened. Several spiritual hills clustered below, where a small clan seemed to reside. A few cultivators were fighting in midair. With a turn of his divine ability, Li Ximing instantly matched the patterns on their robes.
‘The Wu clan of Commandery South. So I have reached the southern part of Lixia Commandery.’
These Wu family cultivators appeared to be locked in a bloody struggle with demonic cultivators. As Li Ximing stepped into the sky, the weather abruptly transformed from a dreary drizzle into a balmy spring day. Before the raindrops in midair could even hit the ground, brilliant heavenly light flooded the sky, accompanied by drifting iridescent clouds.
‘Purple Palace...? Huh?’
A Purple Palace expert suddenly popping up overhead left every cultivator frozen in place like statues. The demonic leader’s mind nearly exploded, only a single thought surfacing in his blank mind:
“Huh? Just robbing a batch of spirit rice... is this necessary...?”
The back-and-forth battle instantly descended into an embarrassing farce: someone swinging a sword let it fly into the sky; someone casting a spell nearly bit off their tongue; a demonic cultivator halfway through raising his shield dared not raise it any further, letting his head be sliced off by a sword; and the opposing Wu cultivator had no mind for battle either, nearly tumbling from the sky.
Xiao Chuting was most likely not here. Li Ximing had no interest in paying any heed to them. Without pausing, heavenly light flashed beneath his feet, and he vanished from the spot, streaking toward the unreachable distance.
Yet even though he had only passed by at quite a distance, the demonic cultivator ahead was caught completely off guard, scorched from afar by the wake of Li Ximing’s flight. Feeling purple flames erupt and heavenly light blaze, his chest tightened as his beard and hair were instantly incinerated clean, and his robes caught fire with a hiss.
Had he been an ordinary cultivator, it would have been slightly better; unfortunately, he was a demonic cultivator. Flesh and robes burned searingly together. The surrounding onlookers watched dumbfounded, yet dared not run.
Fortunately, Li Ximing had only appeared before him for a fleeting instant and had paid him no attention, vanishing several li away. Even so, the burns had him shrieking in agony, his dharma garments long since reduced to ashes.
Before the others could rejoice, the Great Void tore open once more in the next instant. The sky that had just cleared from rain abruptly turned dark with heavy clouds, and solemn, sacred prayer chants echoed. Ye Gui’s figure appeared before them, clad in dark blue Daoist robes, his spirited eyes sweeping over the surroundings.
At this moment, Ye Gui had his ‘Nanchou Water’ body divine ability running at full power, nearly half his body transformed into a purple halo, augmented further by ‘Mount Dongyu’. That single glance struck like a bolt from the blue. Ye Gui’s figure vanished in the very next instant, and only then did the six cultivators come to their senses, crying out in unison as they plummeted, trailing purple radiance.
Before Li Ximing had even left Mount Xianyou’s territory, he slipped back into the Great Void the moment the density of spiritual essence eased. Ye Gui’s purple radiance immediately lit up in pursuit from within the Great Void. ‘Nanchou Water’ was truly swift; Li Ximing was forced to exchange another blow with him. Looking up, he saw the mountain gate of Xuanyue right ahead.
Yet Ye Gui arrived right alongside him.
He still cradled his dharma sword in his arm, every dusky-blue rune upon the blade illuminated. Having pursued him all this way, Ye Gui kept a frosty face as he pinched an incantation seal and chanted; another wisp of white vapor leaped from his lips.
As this white vapor flew out, not only did Li Ximing’s footing sink, but the Great Void before his eyes shifted as well. The brilliance of Xuanyue Gate’s Gentu formation instantly dimmed, as though veiled in a hazy white luster, and even the Great Void beneath his feet became undulating and uneven.
‘Mount Dongyu has such power as well?!’
Li Ximing’s spiritual sense stirred. The Great Void of Xuanyue Gate was like stagnant water, and the entrance into the Purple Palace array became hazy, seeming both near and far. He knew that the divine ability and dharmic power of Mount Dongyu could influence the Great Void, but he had not anticipated such wondrous efficacy.
Exhaling flames, he broke out of the Great Void and plunged into the mortal realm of Mount Xuanyue, only to find the sprawling mountain cloaked in a layer of misty purple light like smoke, prompting the cultivators of Shanji Commandery to look up in succession. Ye Gui sat poised above it, astride that jet-black crow.
“No wonder Ye Gui is confident he can stall me for three to five years... Entangled like this, it would indeed be hard to slip away. Even if he cannot kill me, spending three to five years wearing me down to minor injuries is certainly no trouble for him.”
Unable to enter, Li Ximing was not particularly disheartened. As long as Ye Gui intended to entangle him, entering the Xuanyue mountain gate would merely be swapping one cage for another; remaining outside was no different.
Yet he had thought out an escape route long ago. How could he have rushed here just to be trapped for nothing? He now watched coldly as the other’s purple radiance swirled above Xuanyue’s mountain gate.
‘However... how could Old Real Person Qi sit idly by?’
Sneering, he plunged back into the Great Void. Though unable to enter, he led the pursuit in circles around Xuanyue’s mountain gate. While he took several strikes from divine abilities over the span of half an incense stick, that purple aura hovered incessantly around Xuanyue’s mountain gate.
Li Ximing knew that Sumian was someone who cherished his reputation, so he deliberately kept up the stalemate with Ye Gui. As the surrounding cultivators grew more numerous, Li Ximing plunged into the Great Void once more and finally saw Real Person Sumian manifest his form nearby.
The old Real Person sighed and spoke, “Fellow Daoist Ye Gui... stay your hand! This old man... promised Fellow Daoist Changxi to protect Xuanyue, and I cannot sit by and watch...”
Real Person Changxi had died right at Sumian’s Xuanmiao Temple, even delivering his own corpse to Xuanmiao Temple’s doorstep. Which cultivator north or south of the Jiang did not know this? Xuanmiao Temple could claim to be defending Salt Lake only because Duxian Dao had chosen not to attack it. But now Ye Gui had brought the fight straight to Xuanyue’s mountain gate, and Li Ximing was repeatedly clashing while Sumian was nowhere to be seen—this was inviting people to point fingers and curse his spine...
The reputation Sumian had cultivated for hundreds of years was closely tied to his own affairs after death, so he naturally could not abandon it. Forced to come out, he took his stand in the Great Void, and Ye Gui finally ceased his attacks.
“So it is Old Real Person Qi,” Ye Gui chuckled and replied. “I was merely sparring with Real Person Zhaojing, but I did not anticipate causing such a commotion and disturbing you, Old Real Person. Let us end it here, then.”
He did not seem on bad terms with Sumian. Casting a deep glance at Li Ximing, he turned back with a smile and asked Sumian, “I wonder what time limit Old Real Person Qi promised Changxi? I intended to visit you in the coming days precisely to discuss the matter of Xuanyue!”
“Turning weapons of war into gifts of jade and silk is naturally for the best,” Sumian replied.
Li Ximing brushed off the enemy dharmic power clinging to his wrist, ignoring Ye Gui, and said bluntly, “I recall the Real Person mentioned treating the disciples of Xuanyue. One from the Kong clan has been crippled into uselessness, and three have been maimed. I shall have them sent to you when the time comes. I trouble the Real Person.”
Li Ximing could not be bothered to engage in polite pretenses with Ye Gui. Since Sumian had shown up, it proved the man cared about his reputation and at least would not break his word. With Xuanyue’s disciples heavily wounded, if he could trouble someone else to heal them, there was no need to do it himself.
Hearing this, Sumian could only nod. Watching Li Ximing bow casually and take his leave, while Ye Gui shook his sleeves and departed, Sumian suddenly felt a tremendous headache.
‘I still need to find a way to resolve this matter. Time is growing shorter and shorter, and I must devote my energy to that demonic fetus. I don’t have time to constantly accompany these two in their antics...’
Sumian sighed and made his way back to Xuanmiao Temple, scheming silently to himself:
‘I must also find a way to open the treasury of Mount Xiaoshi and conclude this matter quickly, lest every idle bystander keep their eyes fixed here, bringing collateral trouble and tying my hands...’
Chapter 732