"Was it really him?"
Confucian Scholar Tong Xuan, the woman with the flowered umbrella, and the round-faced monk all looked toward Su Yun, their expressions filled with astonishment. "He isn't a monster, but a living person from the No-Man's Land?"
A living person appearing in the No-Man's Land—and a youth at that—was far more shocking than a whole horde of monsters appearing.
Given how dangerous the No-Man's Land was, humans could never survive here!
And that was indeed the truth. Ever since the incident involving the other world, this place had become a No-Man's Land, crawling with Demons.
They would rather have believed Su Yun was a monster.
The prayer beads around the round-faced monk's neck revolved. His eyelids lowered as he watched his nose, and his nose watched his heart. "Tong Fan may die at the hands of the Ghosts and Gods of the Ghost Market, or at the hands of the Demons in the No-Man's Land, but he absolutely cannot die at the hands of a human. To die at a human's hands would tarnish the Tong Family's name."
The Tong Family was a prominent clan of the Northern Frontier. They could not afford to lose even this much face.
The woman with the flowered umbrella said, "Therefore, no matter where he comes from, he must be punished."
Flower Fox's heart thudded. He hurriedly leaped to Su Yun's side and shouted, "Little Yun, wake up, quickly!"
Almost at the same instant, thunder erupted in the sky, and lightning poured down from the clouds like a waterfall!
At that moment, Su Yun's vital blood behind him completely transformed into a Flood Dragon. His vital blood rubbed against the air, erupting with a Flood Dragon's Chant. "Monggu—"
His vital-blood Flood Dragon whooshed around his body, its long form circling him more than twice.
The impact of that powerful vital blood made the pupils in his eyes, compressed to their limit by the Immortal Sword's sword-light, suddenly rotate and expand!
For the first time in six years, he could see!
He had not refined the Immortal Sword's sword-light. Instead, he had relied on his powerful vital blood to force apart the sword-light's suppression over his pupils, temporarily regaining his sight.
At the same time, the black Flood Dragon in Snake Ravine finally shed most of its snakeskin, with only its tail still connected to it.
The gathered monsters had beaten him until not a single part of his body remained whole. Barely alive, he stirred his remaining vital blood and let out a dragon's roar. The waters in Snake Ravine immediately surged.
In the sky, lightning poured down like a waterfall, crashing onto the black Flood Dragon in a single blast.
"Monggu—"
Amid the thunder came a long dragon's roar. The floodwaters surged, and lightning and firelight instantly crackled wildly across the water's surface. The ox demons, sheep demons, and weasels in the water trembled without end. Those with low cultivation were cooked alive on the spot by the electricity. The casualties were horrific!
Snake Ravine became like a ravine of meat soup, the scent of cooked flesh spreading everywhere.
As the waterfall of lightning descended, Confucian Scholar Tong Xuan on the cliff top roared, "Attack!"
The woman with the flowered umbrella and the round-faced monk behind him immediately sprang forward and leaped off the cliff.
The woman tossed out her flowered umbrella. A male and female pair of Bi Fang Divine Birds flew from within it. As they beat their wings, firelight surged beneath them like tides, and they swooped toward the thunderstruck Snake Ravine.
The string of prayer beads around the round-faced monk's neck flew up, spinning in the air and growing larger and larger with a rushing howl as it followed close behind the divine birds.
Every bead was two feet wide, orange and translucent. Suddenly, firelight ignited within every bead, and each contained the phantom of a Bi Fang Divine Bird!
The two Bi Fang Divine Birds beneath the flowered umbrella charged into the thunderstorm. Their claws shot out, gripping the black Flood Dragon's head and tail and lifting him up.
The prayer beads followed, looping around the black Flood Dragon's neck, shrinking and tightening.
The Tong Family's two great experts had struck, and their power was anything but ordinary—far beyond those wild-path monsters around Tianmen Town.
On the cliff top, Confucian Scholar Tong Xuan looked toward Su Yun across from him.
The moment Su Yun heard Flower Fox cry, "Wake up, quickly," he had already become alert. He had just regained his sight, and the joy in his heart had only just surged forth when, suddenly, a line of blood-red waves came from far away in his "field of vision," rising higher and higher until it blocked his "sight" ahead!
Su Yun's scalp prickled. This "sight" was his vital-blood perception.
Confucian Scholar Tong Xuan on the opposite bank had not moved, yet his vital blood moved first. With his incomparably powerful vital blood, he directly obscured Su Yun's perception!
Su Yun opened his eyes. Sharp radiance shot from his pupils as he glanced at Confucian Scholar Tong Xuan.
Though he had broken through the Immortal Sword's sword-light seal, the sword-light remained. In the instant he opened his eyes, one could vaguely see the shadow of an Immortal Sword floating within each pupil.
"Go!"
Su Yun suddenly leaped forward and jumped off the cliff!
The four fox demons hesitated for a moment, but just then, a blood Flood Dragon swept up from below the cliff, wrapping all four fox demons together and sending them plunging down!
The cliff was sixteen or seventeen zhang high, and Snake Ravine lay below.
It had already become an incomparably perilous place. The waterfall of lightning crashed down, boiling Snake Ravine's waters. Who knew how many monsters had been struck dead by lightning, electrocuted by electric light, or boiled alive.
Though the surviving monsters had been severely injured, they were still fighting to the death.
On the shore, five old weasels were also activating Spiritual Abilities and charging into Snake Ravine.
With the round-faced monk and the woman with the flowered umbrella joining the battle, Snake Ravine became even more perilous!
Meanwhile, the black Flood Dragon transformed from The Whole Village Eats had encountered two formidable foes in the round-faced monk and the woman with the flowered umbrella. His ferocity flared even more. The reverse scale at his neck spun with a hiss, forcibly holding back the monk's prayer beads and preventing them from tightening.
The black Flood Dragon's body was pinned by the two Bi Fang Divine Birds. The birds beat their wings, forcibly dragging him up toward the flowered umbrella.
The black Flood Dragon's body was long, over three zhang in length. His elongated body was packed everywhere with tendons as thick as thumbs. The great tendons exerted force, his muscles tightened, and his body twisted and coiled like a snake. The two divine birds could no longer restrain him, and he crushed one in each claw on the spot!
The black Flood Dragon broke free of the Spiritual Abilities and threw back his head with a roar. At that very moment, Su Yun and the four fox demons were jumping down from the cliff.
As the black Flood Dragon raised his head, he saw Su Yun pull out a coil of rope from his robes.
Confucian Scholar Tong Xuan had no intention of letting them go just like that. He leaped up and jumped off the cliff as well, saying coolly, "Go? Where could you possibly go?"
At the instant he had just leaped from the cliff, he suddenly saw a rope shoot straight into the sky with a whoosh, piercing the clouds and extending into the high heavens.
Confucian Scholar Tong Xuan froze. He saw Su Yun and the four foxes clinging to that rope as it carried them into the sky, flying past before his eyes at tremendous speed.
"Immortal Rope!"
Confucian Scholar Tong Xuan was utterly astonished, even as his body continued falling toward the ravine below.
"The Immortal Rope is no longer merely a Spiritual Ability, but a Spiritual Nature treasure. How could such a treasure exist in this barbaric wilderness? But even if you have the Immortal Rope, you still cannot escape the palm of my hand!"
He activated his Spiritual Nature. Suddenly, splendid writings shot up above his head. Characters from passage after passage, each as large as a tray, arranged themselves in the sky, reaching a height of thirty zhang.
These writings had formed from his intensive study of the sages' works, his contemplation of every word and phrase, until over time they had taken shape in his visualization. Or perhaps they came from learning he had created himself, with ravines and hills spanning a thousand autumns in his chest, and prose naturally forming.
Confucian Scholar Tong Xuan stepped upon those resplendent writings, rising step by step with tremendous speed as he pursued the Immortal Rope.
The distance of thirty zhang vanished in a flash. Confucian Scholar Tong Xuan saw the tail end of the Immortal Rope and reached out to seize it, only to grasp empty air.
He continued lifting his foot, trying to chase farther upward, but stepped into empty space. Tong Xuan's heart sank. Damn it! My learning is insufficient...
His learning was only enough to lay out writings thirty zhang high. Higher than that, he had no more learning, unable to lay down even a single character. Thus, he was merely a Confucian Scholar among Spirit Scholars and could not be called a Great Scholar.
"If I cannot capture them alive, then I can only erase them!"
Confucian Scholar Tong Xuan flipped his wrist and drew out a writing brush. With a light flick of the brush, a string of glowing words whistled out from his Spiritual Abilities, chasing after the Immortal Rope.
Su Yun and the foxes clung to the Immortal Rope as it carried them through the clouds. Tong Xuan's words followed them into the clouds as well.
That string of words sped through the air, blazing with light as waves of solemn recitation rang out. "The origin of human culture began with the Grand Ultimate; in secret praise of ghosts and gods, the images of the Book of Changes came first!"
Once the words rushed into the clouds, their voices gradually faded, sounding distant.
A moment later, Su Yun and the four fox demons sat astride the rope, shivering from the cold as the rope burst through the clouds and hung above them.
"Did you see that?"
Hu Buping shouted excitedly at them, "There are dragons in the clouds!"
When they had just passed through the clouds, lightning and thunder had surrounded them. The Immortal Rope had carried them dodging left and right, avoiding bolts of lightning racing wildly about.
Confucian Scholar Tong Xuan's words were still pursuing them. The voices emerging from each word remained grand and solemn, but the words were swiftly shattered by bolt after bolt of lightning.
Yet just as Su Yun and the others were about to burst out of the clouds, the Immortal Rope seemed to sense danger and hurriedly veered aside.
Su Yun and the four foxes, riding atop the rope, immediately saw a long body of shimmering blue-green light swim past the Immortal Rope. That body was enormous and elongated, with gigantic claws that stepped upon the clouds, unleashing thunderous roars.
Su Yun and the four foxes stared wide-eyed. Yet before they could make out the true appearance of that colossal creature, the Immortal Rope carried them out of the clouds.
"It wasn't a real dragon."
Su Yun shook his head. "I could sense that it was only a mass of primordial qi."
"Primordial qi?" The four foxes were stunned, utterly confused.
But Qingqiu Yue thought of something else. "Brother Little Yun, are your eyes better?"
"Not yet."
Su Yun suddenly stood up, his feet one before the other on the Immortal Rope. His expression turned grave as he spun around.
The cloud layer burst open with popping explosions. The characters "God" and "Image" broke through the clouds. Both were tattered and dim, clearly having endured lightning's baptism within the clouds, yet they had survived.
The two characters flew over. The character "Image" was in front, and suddenly transformed into a white elephant with a long trunk and large ears, charging madly forward. The character "God" followed close behind, then sprang up with a whoosh and transformed into a golden-armored deity, spreading his legs to ride the white elephant.
The radical for "spirit" transformed into a square-tipped halberd. The deity seized it in his hand and charged straight at Su Yun!
Zhai Zhu: Giddyup, giddyup! Riding my beloved little model—yes, that line was copied from reader AS You Ning's comment on this chapter—to beg for recommendation votes~~
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