Chapter 60 — Demon Among Demons, Part Two

Zhou Xuan was startled; with a wave of his hand, five-colored clouds and mists wrapped themselves around him—the Aurora Shield King Xuan Yuan Fa had just given him. Hazily, several hundred twisting ripples flickered in and out of sight within three feet of him. Still uneasy, Zhou Xuan slipped off to an inconspicuous spot and tossed out several jade tablets, adding a protective formation around himself. Only then did he relax and watch the commotion in the field, muttering to himself all the while: This old demon has learned a thing or two, grown clever—striking without so much as a word of warning. Truly worthy of this sect master's style. But to think a few skeletal palms could catch her—that is likely overconfidence! This woman's cultivation is probably no lower than that old Daoist Kuang Jun's. Zhou Xuan's experience had grown greatly of late; though he could not gauge the woman's exact cultivation, judging by that trick of riding the wind, she was likely another peerless master. Seeing King Xuan Yuan Fa make his move, he had best hide to one side, lest the fire spread to the fish in the pond. He could come out later and pick up the scraps at his leisure.

The instant the white-bone palm was about to touch the white-robed woman's foot, she vanished without a trace. Crack! Crack! Crack! The bone palms clenched together, each shattered by the other's enormous force, bursting with the sound of splitting bamboo, and at last crumbling into white powder that scattered across the ground. King Xuan Yuan Fa's face turned grave; with a backhand he thrust a palm out from beneath his ribs at an impossible angle, meeting head-on a slender, fair hand that appeared out of the void! Bang! No sound came forth, yet an invisible shockwave spread swiftly outward. King Xuan Yuan Fa's golden Daoist robe billowed up like a round ball, his hair standing on end—a most uncanny sight. Nothing within a radius of a hundred feet remained whole; even the stones and sand underground were shaken to powder, and dust filled the air. Crackle-crackle! The invisible spatial tremor demolished Zhou Xuan's protective formation cleanly; several jade tablets burst into fragments, and even the Aurora Shield shuddered violently. Zhou Xuan felt as though his innards had taken a heavy blow, and he nearly spat out a mouthful of blood; he hastily split off a second primordial avatar before he could suppress the surging qi and blood within him.

Zhou Xuan was startled. Careful as he had been, he had still not reckoned on the sheer force of the two exchanging blows; clearly they had not yet gone all out. Is my luck good or bad? Cultivators may go a lifetime without witnessing such peerless masters, and I have met three in less than a month? Zhou Xuan sighed inwardly. A great wind rose for no reason, blowing the dust from the field until it was spotless. The veil on the face of the white-robed woman standing opposite King Xuan Yuan Fa vanished. Zhou Xuan strained his eyes to make out her features, but what fell into his eyes was pure emptiness; dimly he seemed to see a face of exquisite beauty, yet the moment his gaze shifted elsewhere, the impression of her face in his mind vanished without a trace. After several such attempts, Zhou Xuan finally gave up trying to look at her.

King Xuan Yuan Fa suddenly waved a hand; his true essence dispersed, the swollen Daoist robe slackened, and his hair returned to its former state. "Xuanpin **! So you are the descendant of an old friend—no wonder you know the secret of this ancient Changping battlefield." At the sound of King Xuan Yuan Fa's voice, the white-robed woman suddenly trembled and asked in rapid succession: "Who are you, Senior, that you know of the Xuanpin **? Which of our sect's patriarchs were you acquainted with?" The tension in the field, drawn taut as a bowstring, eased at once. "The valley spirit never dies; it is called the Xuanpin. The gate of the Xuanpin is the root of heaven and earth. Continuous, it seems to exist; use it without effort." King Xuan Yuan Fa murmured: "In those years the four of us were filled with boundless ambition, gathered all the demons and monsters under heaven, and prepared to wipe out the Daoist sect in one stroke—yet for a trifling matter we parted ways, and were broken one by one by the Daoists. Apart from my Blood-Congealing Nether Demon Art, among us his self-created Xuanpin ** was the most exquisite; a pity he still died beneath the Purple and Azure Twin Swords! Now do you know who I am?" King Xuan Yuan Fa stared straight at the woman's face, which seemed as void as emptiness itself.

"The Blood-Congealing Nether Demon Art?" The crisp voice reached Zhou Xuan's ears. "Impossible—you are actually alive in this world! You are King Xuan Yuan Fa? Did you not die a thousand years ago in Mount Shu's Two Modes Microdust Formation? Even if you did not die, with your cultivation it would not be impossible for you to have ascended to the heavens long ago—how..." The woman's tone was full of doubt. Yet in her heart she half believed it: this young man before her was about her equal in cultivation, and his way of handling things was smooth and seasoned; clearly he was no greenhorn who had never fought. Thirty years ago she had been all but invincible under heaven, and no such figure had appeared; even a peerless genius, even a Demon Venerable reborn, could not in thirty years come to stand on her level. And what he said was coherent and detailed, bearing a fair resemblance to the one recorded in her sect's scriptures—could it be true after all? the white-robed woman mused. Then she heard King Xuan Yuan Fa continue: "With the Two Modes Microdust Formation and the Purple and Azure Twin Swords, even a true immortal trapped in the formation would likely come to grief. Your old ancestor destroyed his own true body, and only thus escaped; it took a thousand years to condense a true body again, and I have recovered three tenths of my power. As for your Xuanpin **, I fear you have not yet condensed the Xuanpin Pearl!"

"So it truly is Senior Xuan Yuan; this junior, Wen Yanlan, greets you." The white-robed woman spoke politely, though her body only shifted slightly. "Wen Yanlan? Wen Yanlan, the Demon Among Demons?" Hearing the white-robed woman give her own name, Zhou Xuan's astonishment rolled like waves. Disciples of other sects might not know the name of Wen Yanlan, the Demon Among Demons, but Zhou Xuan had learned something of her from that dead old Daoist Ling Yun: thirty years ago the foremost master of the demon path, who alone challenged the four great grandmasters of the Daoist sect, leaving behind a fearsome renown. "The Demon Among Demons!" Seeing Zhou Xuan step forward, King Xuan Yuan Fa heard the woman's epithet and frowned. Only after Zhou Xuan had muttered for a while did his brow smooth out.