The moment the array spirit of the demon-slaying formation descended, above the Eight Trigrams City, a massive golden pillar of light erupted, reaching straight to the highest heavens.
In the nine heavens above, it was as though a hundred million thunderclaps resounded at once — crackling and splitting, intent on breaking through the demonic clouds and cleansing all the evil demonic energy that pervaded the mortal world.
Lang Jiuchuan was the eye of the demon-slaying array. The moment this array was completed, she instantly felt the profound and intimate bond between herself and the great formation. Regardless of her position — she was the eye of the array, and wherever she stood, she was its heart. To break the array, one would first have to kill her.
And she too, through this pillar of light reaching to the highest heavens, sensed the stars throughout all the celestial realm. She plunged both hands into the pillar of light. The next instant, her spirit-soul seemed to be drawn inside, entering a place of vast and boundless star-sea — and she perceived from it that immense, cold, and boundless power.
She heard the prayers and wishes of all the living beings of the world. She also heard the lament of the mountains and rivers, on the verge of collapse.
“Vast power of the stars, witness my divine ability — encompassing heaven and earth, nurturing all living beings.” Lang Jiuchuan formed yet another seal within the pillar of light, one that would reach to the nine heavens above.
Boom. Boom.
The stars across the heavens — without distinction of size or brightness — all blazed at once with a radiance more brilliant than they had ever known. Broad, clear rivers of silver light, condensed from the power of the stars, poured down like liquid mercury. That pure and lustrous radiance, carrying within it an inexhaustible vitality, pierced through the demonic clouds and purified the demonic energy filling the sky.
The power of the stars throughout all the celestial realm blazed with resplendent brilliance. Wherever it passed, the demonic energy crumbled and scattered.
This sight struck every person in Da Zhan dumb — mouths agape — as they watched the brilliant starlight cleave through and purify the demonic clouds that had hung for so many days, revealing a clear and pristine sky beneath. Thud by thud, they collapsed to their knees, pressing their palms together.
A divine being had manifested!
They were saved!
And among the cultivators who watched, those who could perceive the Golden Core power contained within the starlight understood the truth: the so-called divine being was that Golden Core Zhenren. She had certainly completed the demon-slaying array.
They watched the demonic wraiths shriek and dissolve into wisps of blue smoke beneath the force of the starlight. The spirit that had been stretched taut within them, always on the edge of breaking — at last, it relaxed, just a little.
But it was not enough. As long as the demon did not die, he would return.
Gong Tinglan stared at the brilliant starlight flooding the sky, and even the Star-Moon Array Disk in his own hands trembled in response. His eyes grew red. His form moved in a series of leaps, heading for the Eight Trigrams City — followed closely behind by Gong Qi and the most capable disciples of the Gong Family.
They were going to aid the Zhenren with their strength.
Those who shared the same thought numbered among the countless surviving fellow practitioners — they all surged toward the Eight Trigrams City.
For the sake of preserving all living beings under heaven, they had already watched many fellow practitioners fall on the road that had brought them to this day. They would absolutely not allow things to end in failure at this final juncture.
Ning Zhe gazed at the brilliant stars filling the sky, his entire being bathed in that starlight. He stood upon a high ridge, a silver spear in one hand and the intricate pagoda in the other. He turned to look at the thousands upon thousands of soldiers behind him and said: “Black Armored Guard — form your array. With our crimson blood, we will pacify the chaos and restore the realm under heaven. We will drive out every demon and purge every wicked spirit, and return to this world a clear and righteous sky.”
“Kill — kill — kill!” A battle cry that shook the heavens rang out across the skies.
The Crimson Flame Banners snapping in the wind were illuminated by the starlight — the flames embroidered upon them, vivid and lifelike, blazed with an even more upright and powerful brilliance. Together with the stars illuminating the darkness, those who had been beguiled by demonic energy into magnifying their darkest impulses seemed as though they too had been cleansed and baptized — they awakened, gazing at everything around them in dazed bewilderment.
And at the same moment.
Tantai Wuji — who had been freely drawing upon the negative energies arising from the mortal world as his source of power, tempering and solidifying his demonic essence — let out a roar of shock and fury: “What is happening?”
He perceived it with absolute clarity: the energy that had been flowing into his demonic essence in an endless stream, like a sweet spring, had suddenly thinned and grown sluggish — until it became nothing at all, as though it were about to be severed completely.
How was that possible?
When Lang Jiuchuan had drawn upon the vast righteous energy of heaven and earth to drive away the demonic clouds earlier, it had been little more than a drop in the ocean — it had not severed the flow entirely. And so he had paid it no mind. As long as his demonic essence grew ever more solid and his power ever more formidable, and as long as he could produce the desolate death energy to devour the life force of the world — using the heart’s demons to arouse the negative emotions of the people — that was the simplest thing imaginable.
But what was happening now? It was as though an invisible, indestructible barrier had isolated his demonic essence from all connection with every negative and dark force. It had suddenly halted and ceased to function.
Tantai Wuji summoned the Blood Wraith Lamp and drove a thread of refined demonic essence into it, attempting to project the demonic energy outward — but nothing. The demonic energy seemed blocked, unable to disperse outward, and receiving no power in return.
His pupils shook. What alarmed him even more was that the power he had already accumulated within himself began to dissipate involuntarily — like snow and ice exposed to blazing sunlight.
How could this be?
“Damn it all.” Tantai Wuji swept out of the Blood Wraith Pool and returned to the mortal world. One look, and his eyes went wide with rage.
A pure and vast force of annihilation was descending from above, unceasingly purifying the endless expanse of demonic energy — as though a current of surging vitality had been injected, causing the mortal world, which had been in darkness without a single glimmer of light and on the verge of collapse, to begin once more to pulse with life force, no longer crumbling apart.
The stars throughout heaven — how could she possibly have drawn upon the stars throughout heaven!
Beyond the starlight’s power, there was also Golden Core power, and a current of national fortune and the collective faith of ten thousand people. All these forces together with that radiance forcefully infused fresh spiritual energy and life into the mortal world.
“Lang Jiuchuan! Once again you ruin everything I have worked for!” Tantai Wuji’s voice carried incredulity, shock, fury, and searing jealousy.
The Golden Core realm — and such vast power as this. Impossible. How old was she? Everything she had learned had come from him. What was she relying on?
That laughable heart of compassion to save the world? Or her own inexhaustible personal fortune?
He would rather believe it was the latter. Whatever she had been in her past lives — what heaven-shaking fortune had she carried, to be able, at the mere Golden Core realm, to draw upon the stars throughout heaven and drive away demons and suppress evil?
Jealousy and towering, all-consuming rage twisted Tantai Wuji’s face into something ever more hideous and fearsome. His blood-red demonic pupils contracted sharply. The demonic energy about his entire body surged like a tide, spreading outward, transforming into invisible tentacles that seized and strangled people — those unable to escape let out a single cry before collapsing, their souls reduced to nothingness.
Tantai Wuji devoured those souls. His demonic pupils grew even more blood-red. Feeling a thin and meager trickle of power enter him, the demonic energy across his entire body grew ever colder and more savage — he attempted to drive his demonic arts to slaughter the living.
And yet he discovered that his demonic essence — which had once responded as naturally as an extension of his own arm — was now as though mired in mud, sluggish and slow, its power greatly diminished. The power he had just absorbed had not yet had a chance to settle before it threatened to dissipate as well.
Not only that — the fortune he had accumulated in his own spirit-soul now seemed to come into conflict and repel his demonic essence, transforming into pure Yang Daoist resonance that gnawed away at his demonic essence.
Tantai Wuji’s demonic pupils quivered ceaselessly. Ignoring the agonizing pain of his spirit-soul being torn in two directions, he hastily drove his demonic arts to protect his demonic essence. But the further he leaned into wickedness, the more viciously that fortune of pure Yang turned against him, devouring his demonic energy in return.
The righteous and the wicked cannot coexist.
He had become wicked — and so the righteous energy would not remain in him, but rather, to preserve its own purity, would consume every last trace of his wickedness.
This was a killing strike, using the opposition of righteousness and evil against his demonic essence.
“Lang Jiuchuan — you have driven me to this! I will make you bear the burden of all this blood and slaughter!” Tantai Wuji let out a heaven-shaking roar. The demonic energy around his entire body erupted in a tremendous blast — as though he had lost all reason. His demonic form swept into motion and in an instant he appeared within a city.
How to write what comes next — let me sort it out!
Forgive me, my brain has gone numb too.