A roar rang out.
The Black Fire Snake's tightly coiled body, more than two hundred feet long, abruptly unfurled.
Its enormous body charged toward Jiang Sheng with overwhelming momentum, its hideous, bloody maw opening to unleash a string of fireballs.
The densely packed fireballs fell like a rain of fire, and deafening explosions erupted in the blink of an eye.
Sparks scattered, and smoke billowed.
Under the relentless bombardment, buildings throughout the once luxurious, elegant cave abode were destroyed, and its neatly arranged plants were reduced to ash.
An abode that had remained intact for hundreds of years was suddenly left in ruins.
Jiang Sheng kept darting about beneath the barrage, occasionally sending a strand of Sword Qi from the Qingping Sword in his hand to cleave apart an incoming fireball.
Seeing Jiang Sheng's relaxed, effortless expression only stoked Black Huan's anger.
Everything had gone smoothly throughout its life. Not only had it found spiritual treasures such as fire spirit fruit to strengthen its bloodline and constitution, but it had even discovered a heavenly treasure like the Jade-Green Lotus before opening its Purple Mansion.
By all rights, it should have successfully opened its Purple Mansion, then transformed from a snake into a flood dragon, shedding its serpentine body to become a Blackfire Flood Dragon.
Black Huan had even chosen its future cultivation grounds. Wasn't the eight-thousand-li Taiping River beyond Qingping Mountain the perfect place to command the waters and transform into a flood dragon?
Who could have imagined that, just as it was preparing to break through, a calamity named Jiang Sheng would appear to bar its way?
How could Black Huan not be furious?
Fiery saliva dripped from the corners of its mouth, corroding grooves into the fine jade floor.
To Black Huan, whose body measured more than two hundred feet, Jiang Sheng was little more than a tiny mosquito.
And now that tiny mosquito kept buzzing around it. How irritating!
As Jiang Sheng darted aside once more, Black Huan lashed its tail.
The steel-hard snake tail tore through the air with a howl, sweeping across the abode and reducing the already damaged buildings in its path to complete rubble in a single blow.
Facing that tail sweep and its astonishing force, Jiang Sheng made the spiritual radiance on the Qingping Sword shine even brighter.
A streak of azure Sword Qi slashed diagonally outward, colliding with the snake tail, which was as thick as a millstone.
The Sword Qi shattered on impact, but the tail was left a bloody mess. Great patches of scales had vanished, and even the tailbone was faintly exposed.
The pain of its wounded tail kept tormenting Black Huan, making it increasingly savage.
Its Black Fire Snake bloodline seethed, and its strength quietly rose another few notches.
Black Huan had no time to wonder why its strength was still increasing. All it wanted now was to kill the irritating fly named Jiang Sheng.
"Die!"
Black Huan opened its maw wide, and raging flames poured out, engulfing nearly half the front courtyard in an instant.
Jiang Sheng snorted softly. His left hand formed a seal to draw upon his spiritual power, and rising moisture turned into an unbroken shower of rain needles.
As though caught in a torrential downpour, Black Huan's surging flames were gradually extinguished beneath the endless sharp needles of rain. Even its head became covered in tiny spots of blood.
Why?
Why couldn't it defeat this human?
Why had someone come to stop it when it was so close to opening its Purple Mansion?
Damn them!
The foxes deserved to die!
The humans deserved to die!
They all deserved to die!
With hope right before its eyes yet beyond its reach, Black Huan felt its heart fill with rage that had nowhere to go, while brutal impulses churned ceaselessly within it.
Another shower fell upon its body. The fine rain needles pierced countless wounds into Black Huan, and its steel-hard scales seemed unable to withstand the attack, becoming riddled with holes like a honeycomb.
Black Huan shook its enormous head, its eyes now filled with savagery.
The blood inside it kept heating up, surging wildly through its veins. Its massive heart pumped out torrents of scalding demon blood, which mingled with demonic power and coursed throughout its body.
Jiang Sheng keenly noticed the change in Black Huan.
"Its bloodline has grown too powerful for it to control. Has it already begun opening its Purple Mansion involuntarily?"
At that moment, Black Huan felt its demonic power raging within it, battering its spine without cease.
Bolstered by its bloodline, torrents of scorching demonic power surged upward from its tailbone, forcing open one vertebra after another and charging straight toward the crown of its skull.
The pain of its vertebrae being forcibly pried apart, its flesh torn, and its meridians severed made Black Huan roar incessantly.
As each section of its spine was forced open, Black Huan's already enormous body rapidly approached three hundred feet in length.
Once Black Huan truly opened every vertebra and its demonic body grew beyond three hundred feet, it would become a genuine Purple Mansion Realm being!
Agony wracked every inch of its demonic body. Scales fell away, its spine cracked, and its flesh dissolved. Black Huan was nearly driven mad by the pain.
It needed a target upon which to vent its suffering and hatred.
"Human, die! Die!"
Black Huan roared, disregarding its ongoing advancement entirely as it spat out a pillar of black-and-red fire.
The black-and-red flames surged toward Jiang Sheng, carrying terrifying waves of power that could incinerate everything. It seemed that even the slightest touch would burn him away without leaving so much as a bone.
A flicker of surprise crossed Jiang Sheng's eyes, and he sidestepped the raging pillar of fire.
But Black Huan had now gone completely mad, spewing black-and-red flames without cease to scorch everything around it.
Great sheets of black-and-red fire rained down, burning every remaining building in the cave abode to ash.
They even burned deep pits into the walls on either side of the abode.
Jiang Sheng could see molten rock bubbling and churning within those pits.
Sensing the terrifying fluctuations coming from the cave abode, Bai Shang, Qing Yun, and Qingman had already retreated well away.
Then they saw a pillar of fire surge out of the abode, black-and-red flames spilling dozens of feet beyond its entrance!
That was plainly Black Huan's demonic fire. Black Huan had gone mad!
Inside the abode, Black Huan's demonic fire had already engulfed the entire front courtyard. Everywhere Jiang Sheng looked, black-and-red flames raged.
The maddened Black Huan no longer gave any thought to its advancement. It wanted only to kill Jiang Sheng.
"Ah, the shackles of the bloodline."
As he spoke, Jiang Sheng formed a sword seal with his left hand and ran two fingers along the blade, inch by inch.
As he continuously poured his spiritual power into the sword, the azure lotus enveloping the Qingping Sword showed faint signs of blooming.
An astonishing aura surged from the Qingping Sword, and a razor-sharp sword intent locked firmly onto Black Huan's head.
"So be it. This humble Daoist will send you on your way."
Black Huan's five senses seemed to have grown vastly sharper during its advancement. Sensing a lethal threat approaching, it mustered all its demonic power and spewed an enormous pillar of black-and-red fire.
The next instant, the black-and-red pillar met a streak of azure sword light.
The azure sword light pierced straight through the raging black-and-red demonic flames, sweeping past Black Huan's body in an instant with a chilling, fearsome gleam.
Invisible Sword Qi surged outward, and the raging demonic flames in the courtyard died beneath the sword light's oppressive might.
Black Huan stared blankly, its maw still wide open. It could no longer spit out demonic fire.
"Who exactly are you?"
Having regained a sliver of clarity, Black Huan turned to look at the Daoist who had appeared behind it.
Clad in azure robes and a jade crown, the Daoist strolled as casually as though through a quiet courtyard. "This humble Daoist is Jiang Sheng, a qi refiner of Qingping Mountain."
"So it was you..."
A fine line of blood on Black Huan's head gradually widened and extended until it spanned the entire thirty-foot head. At last, the bloody seam split open beyond all restraint.
Scalding demon blood fell like rain, only to be blocked by the barrier of spiritual power Jiang Sheng raised.
Jiang Sheng walked leisurely up to Black Huan's enormous serpentine body and stored the nearly three-hundred-foot demonic corpse, along with all its demon blood, in his pouch.
"Black Huan is dead. Come in."
Upon hearing Jiang Sheng's voice transmission, Bai Shang and the others hurried inside.
Passing through the tunnel, which the demonic flames had burned perfectly smooth and seemingly widened all around, the three foxes—Bai Shang, Qing Yun, and Qingman—reached the old abode and could scarcely believe their eyes.
Ash lay everywhere. The walls on either side were covered in pits burned out by fireballs, and scorch marks could be seen throughout.
The once magnificent abode, filled with pavilions, towers, fragrant terraces, and winding galleries, had been half destroyed.
Only now did Bai Shang gain a rough understanding of how terrifying Black Huan's strength had been.
Seeing Jiang Sheng utterly unscathed filled Bai Shang with even greater awe. Black Huan was so terrifying, yet Daoist Jiang killed it so easily. Just how astonishing was Daoist Jiang's strength?
"Come. Let's take a look at the Jade-Green Lotus."
Bai Shang hastily led Jiang Sheng to the old abode's rear courtyard.
Seeing the Jade-Green Lotus perfectly preserved in the lotus pond, Jiang Sheng finally breathed a sigh of relief.
During their battle, both Jiang Sheng and Black Huan had instinctively avoided the rear courtyard.
Even after its bloodline drove it mad, Black Huan had continued shielding the rear courtyard to the very end, showing just how deeply it valued and coveted the Jade-Green Lotus.
Now the Jade-Green Lotus remained intact, and Jiang Sheng had also obtained the demonic body of a Black Fire Snake that could be considered half a step into the Purple Mansion Realm. The rewards of this journey were nothing short of perfect.
"Next, I'll need to make some arrangements. This Jade-Green Lotus must absorb all the nutrients in the pond before it can fully mature."
"There are still six months to go. Nothing must happen to this place."
Bai Shang hurriedly said, "I'm willing to stay here and keep watch for you, Daoist."
Jiang Sheng smiled instead. "This humble Daoist had better remain here personally."
"After all, this place lies within Sea Commandery, and our battle probably alerted quite a few people. If I don't stay here, some fellow with enough gall to swallow the heavens may well come looking."
Hearing Jiang Sheng's words, Bai Shang nodded repeatedly.
"Then, Daoist Jiang, should all four of us stay here?" Bai Shang asked.
"This humble Daoist alone will suffice," Jiang Sheng replied. "You three fellow Daoists may make whatever arrangements you wish."
Bai Shang said, "Daoist, you've just fought a great battle. Why don't I stay outside to keep watch while you continue cultivating here?"
"As for my wife and younger sister, they can return to your Daoist temple first, or they can go support the Azure Fox Ancestral Land."
Qingman nodded. "With only our ancestor guarding the clan right now, it really isn't safe."
After the three foxes discussed the matter, Qing Yun and Qingman immediately headed back.
Bai Shang then helped Jiang Sheng make some arrangements outside the cave abode, cleaning up the areas affected by the battle and erasing its traces.
Afterward, Bai Shang began cultivating in the outer cave abode, leaving Jiang Sheng alone within the vast old abode farther inside.
Beside the lotus pond, Jiang Sheng took out a meditation cushion and sat cross-legged. He swallowed an Essence-Gathering Pill and quietly regulated his breathing and nourished his qi.
"The Jade-Green Lotus still needs six months to mature. I hope nothing unexpected happens during that time."
With that, Jiang Sheng half-closed his eyes, and silence settled over the old abode.
Second update~
Six thousand characters again today.
Dear readers, Lin Yuan is full of sincerity. Please send monthly tickets and recommendation votes, and keep following the story!
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