Chapter 186 — The Great Battle Brews (Part Two)

"I must see for myself what is going on—but this place is the very root and heart of Kunlun, tended and fortified over thousands of years. Its wards and formations are no trifling matter. Best to be careful; I'll not have my treasure ship capsized in a ditch."

Within Zhou Lang's white mist and immortal clouds there flickered a blood-red light, and faint tremors of heaven-and-earth primal essence came drifting out—plainly someone was fighting. He swiftly swept the Seven Treasures Wonderful Tree through the air, slicing open a rift in space, and slipped inside. There he formed several dharma seals and fashioned a tiny mustard-seed pocket of space, concealing his form entirely, then sent out a powerful divine sense to observe the situation beyond the rift and stole forward in secret.

By now Zhou Xuan, tempered in the fire of karmic deeds, had reached the realm of Heaven and Man in both power and attainment. Another ten years or so of bitter cultivation, enough energy amassed, and he could shatter the void and achieve the great Way of the Heavenly Immortal, rising to that supreme state where one refines the void and unites with the Dao. Add to that the Seven Treasures Wonderful Tree in his hand and all those other Investiture of the Gods artifacts of fearsome power, and even an immortal descended from Heaven would have to weigh his chances—only by trying could one tell who was cock and who was hen.

This art of splitting space, though not so handy as the Blue God's spectral body of the heavenly ghost, which could shift at will and come and go without a trace, was still an excellent means of hiding oneself. Moreover, Zhou Xuan had sealed off every breath of his with talismans and prohibitions, not the slightest leaking out. To discover him was well-nigh impossible. At least, among all the people Zhou Xuan had encountered to date, only Bai Qi possessed such skill. Not even the six-eyed toad, nor the two mysterious women of extraordinary attainment who had come to seize the immortal estate, nor the ox-headed underworld god Zhou Xuan had slain—none of them had the ability to see through Zhou Yan's movements.

Zhou Xuan roused his true essence and in an instant arrived where the white mist and immortal clouds coiled thick. His divine sense perceived it clearly: the surging primal essence had calmed. The earlier commotion was as though someone had dropped a stone into a placid lake, ripples spreading outward on every side; now no one cast further stones, and the ripples slowly settled.

"Strange, most strange. The thirty-three tiers of the Supreme Clarity prohibition, the ninety-nine barriers of the Purple Mansion—broken open without a sound. Either this is someone intimately versed in formations, or else a god or immortal. No, no—even a god or immortal could not breach these prohibitions without stirring a whisper. Unless..."

Zhou Xuan had come to Kunlun to probe its strengths and weaknesses, yet stumbled into this affair. He had barely entered the immortal clouds and white mist when he found the prohibitions guarding Kunlun's mountain gate thrown wide open, without the slightest defensive force—letting him enter the Kunlun Grotto-Heaven without so much as lifting a finger.

"Haha, haha! The Kunlun Grotto-Heaven truly lives up to its name. Beside this, the Shushan Grotto-Heaven this old ancestor has seen is no better than a latrine. And rightly so—that old fellow Longbrow was nothing but a common immortal. A few magic treasures, a rabble of loose immortals gathered about him—how could he compare with figures of the ancient School of Exposition like the Primordial Lord of Heaven?" Zhou Xuan had no sooner entered the grotto-heaven than he heard a shrill, grating laugh. By the sound of it, who else could it be but that knave, Dharma King Xuanyuan?

Zhou Zhan was startled, then understood at once. Dharma King Xuanyuan had taken the primal essence of the old Daoist Qianji; with that thousand-year demon's methods, his demonic arts were endless. A few rounds of cruel torture and old Qianji would spill everything he knew. Qianji was Kunlun's sect master—of course he knew the outer formations and prohibitions like the palm of his hand. No wonder Dharma King Xuanyuan could breach the mountain-guarding Supreme Clarity and Purple Mansion prohibitions without a sound.

These thirty-three tiers of Supreme Clarity prohibition and ninety-nine barriers of Purple Mansion surpassed even Zhou Yan's Great Formation of Heavenly Fire in power. Even Shushan's Formation of Life, Death, Illusion, and Annihilation—the Two Modes and Fine Dust Great Formation—without the suppression of the Mixed Prime Unity Supreme Clarity Divine Talisman, fell far short of them.

Zhou Xuan quietly revealed himself behind a boulder, merging with the stone through the Five Elements escape art, and covertly took stock of the whole Kunlun Grotto-Heaven. Hiding within space was the safest method, true, but it made ambush attacks awkward—unless one were a heavenly ghost like the Blue God. With Dharma King Xuanyuan attacking Kunlun this time, Zhou Jin's mind stirred at once: he wanted to pick up some cheap gains, harvest a few primal essences and souls to take home. After all, the primal essence of a cultivator in the late Spirit Transformation stage was a hundred or a thousand times stronger than an ordinary man's soul.

"Dharma King Xuanyuan, you are an elder of the demon clans whose fame spans a thousand years—how is it you act without distinguishing friend from foe, grievance from debt? In the great war a thousand years ago, it was Shushan's True Man Longbrow who destroyed your primal body. Kunlun took no part in it. Now that you have returned to the world, if you seek vengeance, you should seek out the Xiuyan Sect. Why come to Kunlun to make trouble?"

The vast white-jade palace, the Palace of Empty Jade, hung high in the sky, much of it hidden within the void, drifting and tumbling, auspicious qi flying in all directions, rosy radiance shooting out on every side. Dharma King Xuanyuan, the Great Strength Bear King, the Old Daoist of Extreme Yin, Wen Yanlan, and the six-eyed toad in its green robe all trod upon white clouds, flying high in the air.

Several dozen old Daoists, each holding command flags, precious swords, banners, bronze mirrors, and other treasures, had the five surrounded in their midst. Behind these old Daoists, in turn, were gathered great companies of young disciples, all riding flying swords and holding jade talismans and other artifacts, most of their faces showing curiosity.

"Gracious me! No wonder the overseas cultivators are all called loose practitioners, while only the Central Plains can boast true sects. Look—behind these old Daoists there must be three hundred young disciples at least. If they all unleashed their arts together, who knows how great the power would be. Today I shall see it for myself. But it will be far from enough against these fiends. If Kunlun has no hidden experts to bring out, then today the whole sect will be wiped out. Hey! There are old acquaintances among them too..."

Zhou Xuan carefully observed the Kunlun disciples floating in the sky. They were all young men and women in their twenties, both male and female, all at the Qi-Introduction stage and above. The leading pair, a man and a woman, had the highest attainment: the woman had faintly stepped into the Spirit Transformation stage, while the man was close to reaching its middle phase. Both were acquaintances of Zhou Yan—none other than the brother and sister Ling Fei and Ling Yan.

"Enough idle talk! You little Daoists collude with that old thief-nun Wuzhen of the Southern Sea to stir up the overseas cultivation world. Of course this old ancestor would come to settle accounts with you. Speak—is that old thief-nun Wuzhen here? Let this old ancestor search. If she is not, I'll leave you a way to live. If she is, then don't blame this old ancestor for showing no mercy!"