Chapter Ninety-One: Submission or Death
“Why?”
Yang Guangyan raised his head and looked at Baili Feihong.
“Old Tie knew this: in East Shore City, the two people you were closest to were Lord Linghu Xue and yourself, and the ones he trusted most were also the two of you. If this was done by anyone, it would have to be you, or else Linghu Xue.”
Baili Feihong answered with icy calm.
“No. I mean, why would he do this?”
Yang Guangyan’s voice began to tremble in an unnatural way.
Unexpectedly, that meant he had lost his composure.
Yet Baili Feihong had no answer.
The peerlessly beautiful guardian envoy, once so full of heroic bearing, now seemed drained of that spirit. In its place was a cold detachment, as though sealed away from the world.
“There are many possible answers. I can’t give you one. Ask him yourself.”
With a blade in hand, Baili Feihong stepped out once more.
“Skill Tome, upgrade Free and Easy Stroll.”
“Deducting 360 skill points. Free and Easy Stroll has advanced to the mastery stage.”
A flow of vital breath turned in his heart. At that moment, Baili Feihong seemed to become a roc, roaming freely through heaven and earth.
Without restraint, he became one with the wind.
A roc spreads its wings, unobstructed by the nine heavens.
The heavy weight of his body now felt light as a feather.
The earth’s gravity seemed to vanish from him.
“Continue enhancing Free and Easy Stroll!”
“Deducting 1,800 skill points. Free and Easy Stroll movement technique has reached its peak.”
“Congratulations, host. You have comprehended martial will and grasped a trace of the mystery of wind.”
In an instant, countless insights arose in his mind.
A wondrous change occurred within his body.
Threads of Free and Easy Stroll vital energy circulated, merging into his body’s acupoints, bones, and even blood.
The seed of the primordial embryo, still in its gestating state, absorbed that trace of the mystery of wind, while wisps of breeze wrapped around it.
[Free and Easy Stroll: movement technique at peak, comprehension of the mystery of wind (1/100)]
“I know what martial will is, but what exactly is this ‘mystery’?”
Dazedly, he looked up at the firmament. The shifting paths of air currents were laid bare before his eyes.
This was the track of the wind.
He could use the currents to accelerate, and even evade the resistance of the wind itself, moving through space with perfect freedom.
More wondrous still, after the surrounding acupoints fused with that trace of mystery, his perception of the world’s primordial energy grew even clearer.
And the speed at which he drew in that energy doubled as well.
It was not that the world’s primordial energy had grown denser.
Rather, he could now perceive its path more distinctly and guide it into his body.
Ten days.
With only ten days, he could fill his acupoints with primordial energy and convert it into the acupoint force of the Demon Suppression Six Paths Scripture.
“Linghu Xue would not flee from the docks. It would be too slow.”
“If it were me, the best way to avoid the pursuit of the Demon Suppression Office and the search of the Yang family would be to enter the Crossridge Mountain Range.”
The Crossridge Mountain Range was perilous beyond measure.
If the other party had abandoned their identity as a Demon Suppression enforcer and willingly fallen into the ranks of the heretical path, then this place would be paradise.
But the mountain range was vast.
It would be very difficult to determine from which direction Linghu Xue had fled.
“What exactly is hidden in Fairness Town, to make Linghu Xue kill Tie Wuyan at any cost?”
“In Blossom Town, someone once mentioned Master Chu.”
“Fairness Town is also Master Chu’s territory.”
“I very much want to know who this Master Chu really is.”
Baili Feihong stepped forward, riding the wind, his form elusive as his speed grew ever greater.
In the end, he was wrapped in the wind itself, carried along by it.
The benefits Free and Easy Stroll brought him were greater than he had imagined.
This martial art was already no less than a minor divine ability, brushing against the level of law itself.
Baili Feihong knew firsthand the terror of divine abilities.
It was only by relying on the Blood Refining Heaven and Earth divine art that he had grown so quickly.
While others were still playing with blades and spears, he had already mastered a mushroom cloud.
The dead-city-like Fairness Town entered Baili Feihong’s eyes.
In the past, it had been bright and prosperous, even more so than East Shore City.
But after the town’s destruction, its decay was obvious at a glance.
A city filled with the aura of death.
“So this is why Old Tie stayed in Fairness Town?”
A chill gathered.
Monstrous evil would surely arise.
The aura left behind by the ancient ice queen, Xuan Su, had already polluted this town.
Black miasma filled the streets, yet at the entrance to Fairness Town, a distinct blood aura purified a patch of land.
In the blackness, it shone like a candle flame, drawing every eye.
Old Tie was using his own blood aura to cleanse Fairness Town.
Old age, declining blood and failing vitality—those words are equally true for martial cultivators.
“This is a sacrifice of his own lifespan, setting a flame of hope alight in this place.”
Baili Feihong sighed.
With one step, he entered the center of Fairness Town, releasing the blood aura of the ninth peak of Blood Refinement.
A violent wind roared in his ears.
It was like a drop of water falling into a pot of boiling oil.
“Blood Suppresses the Mountains and Rivers!!!”
Baili Feihong’s expression turned grave.
He unleashed that divine ability.
A sun lit up the deathly still Fairness Town.
Dozens of seconds later, the sky became bright and clear.
Within Fairness Town, a little more life had returned.
Only the ancestral residence of the Fu family remained, where the demonic aura was as hard as black ice.
Impossible to purify.
“Is the gap really this enormous?”
Baili Feihong shook his head.
By his estimate, once his Blood Refining reached the eighteenth layer, he might be able to dispel that black-ice demonic aura.
Rustle!
“Who is it?”
Baili Feihong suddenly turned toward the streets of Fairness Town.
“Truly terrifying talent. At Blood Refining ninth level, when you are only this old, even Xuan Yuan Xue could not have refined his blood to this extent.”
Danger!
The moment he saw the old man before him, shrouded in mysterious power and impossible to make out clearly, Baili Feihong went rigid all over, the hairs on his body standing on end.
He had never imagined death could be so near!
His temples throbbed, warning him to flee.
This old man was monstrously strong, ten or a hundred times stronger than Yang Guangyan.
With his arrival, the already purified Fairness Town seemed to descend into the underworld, a nether realm covering this place.
Baili Feihong retreated several steps.
Behind him, at some unknown moment, two expert heretics dressed as Black and White Impermanence had appeared.
He saw Linghu Xue.
She stood just behind the old man, her eyes lacking pupils, revealing a strange white glare.
“Who are you people? How dare you enslave a guardian envoy and harm another guardian envoy?”
Baili Feihong’s mind raced wildly. He calculated countless methods, yet none could let him escape the other party’s grasp.
“Tsk, tsk. When that little Yun girl reported to me, I did not believe that a Demon Suppression seed had appeared here. But the first time I laid eyes on you, I knew you were the most gifted guardian envoy since the founding of the Demon Suppression Office. Alas, from this point on, you have only two paths before you: first, join the Netherworld and accept my Nether Talisman; second, die by my hand, after which I will search your soul and refine your corpse into a zombie to serve as material for my invincible corpse creation.”
“The Netherworld? You are people of the Netherworld!!!”
Baili Feihong’s expression changed drastically.
This peerless powerhouse had cultivation beyond heaven and earth.
He did not know the precise level of martial attainment, but he understood at least this much: the man was no lower than the divine ability realm.
This was a master of divine abilities.
“Lord Baili, join us. You will gain the power of a soul that never perishes.”
Linghu Xue’s eyes returned to normal as she urged him.
“What have I done to deserve this, that a divine ability expert from the Netherworld would come after me?”
Baili Feihong did not answer her. Looking around, he gave a bitter smile.
“Blood Refining ninth level, bone refining in six transformations, the five viscera perfected in their five phases, acupoints achieving a full heavenly circuit, divine sense attained in the spirit-refining realm, at least five traces of martial will, one divine ability, and within you still resides a wisp of the mystery of wind. Such a talent—if you were allowed to step into divine ability, even I would have to take a detour upon seeing you.”
The old Netherworld elder looked at Baili Feihong again and again, each time more shocked than before.
The Demon Suppression Six Paths Scripture fused the essences of countless other scriptures, integrating the mysteries of martial body refinement to create an entirely new path of body cultivation.
And yet this absurdly young youth had taken the six martial refinements to their limit, even breaking the boundaries described in the texts to step into Blood Refining ninth level.
Such a mold for forging an invincible zombie was worth a hundred, a thousand times more than any heavenly material or earthly treasure.
Those treasures could be obtained again.
This person before him was the first in the history of the Demon Suppression Office, since its founding by the Gu Liang imperial clan, to bring the first path of the Demon Suppression Six Paths Scripture to its highest level.
“Submit, or die.”
The Netherworld elder’s face grew colder.