The so-called Foundation Establishment cultivator was, in the end, only a human being — flesh and bone — and there was no true imperishable body in this world. Lingxu Zhenren had already suffered repeated backlashes in succession; his spiritual power was draining away like flowing water, and his cultivation was receding with each passing moment.
Tearing open the void likewise demanded enormous spiritual power, and before he could even pass through it, he was sent flying by one of Jiangche’s paws. The gateway through the void slammed shut with a resounding thud.
Lingxu Zhenren was so enraged that his blood and energy surged in revolt — his eyes blazed with savage fury. It seemed there would be no end to today’s battle except in one of their deaths!
He withdrew a porcelain vial from within his robe, tipped a pill from it, and swallowed it down. Then he rose and stood suspended in the void, his hands forming continuous seals, those cold and ferocious eyes regarding Lang Jiuchuan and the others as though they were already dead.
Jiangche shrank back into the form of a tiny kitten and perched upon Lang Jiuchuan’s shoulder, drawing in the spiritual energy flowing from the bone chime she carried to replenish its nearly exhausted reserves.
Lang Jiuchuan did the same.
She now felt, with heartfelt appreciation, just how remarkable the bone chime truly was. It was like a personal resupply station — steadily, little by little, restoring the spiritual power she had spent. Even with her soul aching from the buffeting it had received, she was not left entirely without the power to fight back.
Heaven truly does cherish life.
She acknowledged that.
Lingxu Zhenren had also noticed the change in Lang Jiuchuan. He was supremely confident in his own cultivation, and he knew full well the might of the Seven Fiends Banner — for Lang Jiuchuan to have destroyed it must have cost her an enormous drain on her spiritual power. Even working together with that white tiger to keep him pinned down, her spiritual power and vital energy should have been completely depleted and exhausted by now.
Yet beyond her pallid complexion and somewhat wan appearance, she did not look all that dire — at the very least, she was far from dying.
She still had strength left to fight!
Lingxu Zhenren felt his blood and energy threaten to surge to his throat again. Why, in spite of being trapped in such a broken and ruined body, fighting against him — a Foundation Establishment cultivator — for this long, was she still able to continue?
He noticed what appeared to be spiritual energy circulating around her and furrowed his brow. His gaze dropped to her waist, then sharpened. The spiritual energy was emanating from a pale blue bone chime hanging there.
Lingxu Zhenren’s breathing constricted. She was practically cheating!
“Who are you really? You and I have no deep enmity between us — why should we both suffer for it? Why not set it all aside with a smile and make peace? This Zhenren will make no further issue of your borrowing a corpse and reversing the natural order of yin and yang, and will even petition Heaven’s way on your behalf. What say you?” Lingxu Zhenren said in a low, steady voice. With so many treasures on her person, they could never have originally belonged to that child’s body — they must have been brought by her.
Lang Jiuchuan said: “You’re even more cunning and contemptible than Zhengyang Zi. At least Zhengyang Zi fought — he never talked such hollow, high-sounding drivel, going through the motions of civility with me while secretly forming seals to summon yin killing energy and lay a Supreme Killing Soul-Severing Formation. Such false benevolence, such false righteousness — it is revolting.”
Lingxu Zhenren’s eyes turned vicious and cold. “Zhengyang Zi — you killed him!”
“Yes. And you will die at my hands too — to go down to the underworld and keep that villain Zhengyang Zi company. Blood debt must be repaid in blood!” Lang Jiuchuan smiled, cold as a blade.
“Arrogant little brat!” Lingxu Zhenren’s forced gentleness fell away completely; his expression turned savage, and the aura around him surged dramatically. “Refusing the wine freely offered and choosing punishment — today I cannot leave you alive!”
Lang Jiuchuan laughed coldly. Well, isn’t that convenient — I was just thinking the same.
Without waiting for his Supreme Killing Soul-Severing Formation to take shape, she produced a Five Thunders talisman from her hand and hurled it toward one specific direction.
Several booming explosions rang out. The Five Thunders talisman blasted open a small hilltop; the enormous ancient trees standing upon it crashed down in ruins, and sunlight came flooding in.
When light enters, the darkness disperses. The yin killing energy seemed to lose its anchor — it could no longer coalesce and was scattered by the sunlight, making it impossible for the killing formation to complete.
“Did you truly think this was the full extent of my capabilities?” Lingxu Zhenren laughed coldly, and raised his arms in a sudden sweeping motion. The air around them buzzed, and the space warped in a peculiar ripple.
Jiangche spotted the distortion in the air and lunged at it with its full body — and was thrown back.
A barrier. A sealing array.
Within the confines of the barrier, yin killing energy was condensing rapidly into something solid; the stench of rot and decay was sharp and nauseating enough to draw tears.
Lang Jiuchuan let out a cold snort. A sealing array required enormous spiritual power and mental energy to sustain — having already lost a significant amount of his vital essence to repeated backlash, he was now erecting a barrier on top of all that. Was he in such a hurry to die?
But that also made it clear that he had resolved to kill her here in this mountain gorge and was prepared to stake everything in an all-or-nothing gambit.
True enough — as the yin energy continued to spread, Lingxu Zhenren produced an ancient eight-trigram mirror.
The hairs on the back of Lang Jiuchuan’s neck rose. That mirror was extraordinary.
The ancient mirror was no larger than the palm of a hand. Its back was engraved with the intricate pattern of the primordial yin-yang and eight-trigram diagram. Yet its face was nothing like that of an ordinary eight-trigram mirror — not bright and clear, but a profound and turbid shade of profound black, like a lightless dead pool of unfathomable depth, as though it could swallow every ray of light.
And from the moment this mirror appeared, the small mountain gorge — already enclosed within the sealing array — turned dark as night, the yin energy blackening into heavy fog, forming a realm unto itself, boundless darkness pressing in from all sides, every corner radiating a sense of foreboding.
Jiangche’s heart grew heavy.
So this was the true strength of a Foundation Establishment cultivator?
It knew that the Xuan Clan had many who were useless, but it also knew that not all of them were. And the one standing before it now was among the finest of the Daoist sects — yet this person had not devoted himself to guarding the living, to vanquishing evil and upholding the Way, but had become nothing more than a guard dog for the so-called Xuan Clan.
Truly pitiable.
Lang Jiuchuan’s eyes flickered with a hidden excitement. This was a true Daoist Foundation Establishment cultivator — not Zhengyang Zi’s half-step Foundation Establishment — and she could absolutely use their confrontation to gain experience.
Real combat was the most potent medicine for rapid advancement.
She fixed her gaze on the ancient mirror. The profound and still depths of the mirror’s face suddenly began to ripple and distort like the surface of water, and the inscribed runes seemed to come alive, circulating slowly — uncannily strange.
Lingxu Zhenren’s voice went cold and heavy. His hand shot toward the ancient mirror, and he pressed down into the center of the now-flowing eight-trigram pattern: “Today I shall use the Dao foundation of you, this arrogant little wretch, to consecrate my Eight-Trigram Yin-Yang Mirror of Reversal.”
Hum!
A low and eerie resonance echoed through the small sealing array, shaking the yin energy within it into thin threads that, like serpents, rushed in a scramble to force themselves into every orifice.
“Guard the seven orifices and the heart meridian — this yin energy is poisonous,” Lang Jiuchuan said in a low, firm voice, warning Jiangche. “Your spiritual power is already insufficient — do not strike again. Assist me, guard against this man’s underhanded moves, be my rear guard. Understand?”
Jiangche agreed. Work in coordination, watch for the right moment to deliver a sucker punch — understood.
And while Lang Jiuchuan was giving Jiangche her instructions, the ancient mirror in Lingxu Zhenren’s hand released itself and hovered before him. The profound black of the mirror’s face suddenly receded, replaced by a surface as smooth as silver — and within the mirror was reflected a dizzying, rapidly-spinning, inverted and disordered chaos of light and shadow.
Lang Jiuchuan hastily averted her gaze and shut her eyes. But even so, her breathing tightened, her body trembled faintly. She summoned the Dizhong and held her breath in readiness, her mind a sheet of crystalline clarity.
Do or die.
Lingxu Zhenren’s hands flew through seals with rapid precision, his lips murmuring incessantly. On the back of the ancient mirror, the yin-yang and eight-trigram inscriptions rotated in reverse — faster and faster, more and more distorted and chaotic.
“Heaven and earth overturned, yin and yang reversed — execute.” He flicked a drop of blood from his heart from his fingertip, striking it into the eight-trigram mirror.
Hum hum.
A strange and overwhelming force erupted with a thunderous blast.