One Sword Severing River

One Sword Severing River

Golden Toad fell into the river, but the donkey had no intention of letting him off. It gave chase, beating the drowned dog without mercy.

The moment it opened its mouth, several fire dragons spiraled downward.

They began no larger than little snakes, yet in the blink of an eye, they swelled to dozens of meters long.

"Boom!"

Flames erupted from the river. This divine fire seemed to be something altogether different from ordinary flame. It burned fiercely within the great river, setting the waters themselves roiling.

It was as if what rolled through the river was not water, but oil.

A great pit appeared in Golden Toad's back, a huge chunk of flesh and blood missing. He looked utterly miserable, and his cries no longer carried the force to startle both banks. All he could do was croak out threatening roars.

Within the blazing fire, he desperately stirred up thick fog and spat poisonous smoke.

Yet the fire dragons kept circling, evaporating every trace of fog and toxic smoke.

As General Donkey drew closer step by step, the ring of fire steadily shrank. Poison God Golden Toad charged left and right, even trying to sink beneath the water, only to be blasted back again and again by the fire dragons.

The temperature at the center of the entire ring of fire rose ever higher. Flames shot into the sky, turning the river's surface bright as day, while General Donkey's wildly triumphant laughter spread in every direction.

At this moment, General Donkey dearly wished he could imitate Great Immortal Kongchenzi and recite a couple of poems.

Unfortunately, his belly was empty, and he had no words to offer.

In the end, all his swelling pride could only become one sentence: "Demon! Die!"

The flames lit up the heavens, visible from nearly all of Jiangting Commandery.

More and more people gathered along both banks of the great river in Jiangting Commandery, and they saw Poison God's miserable state with perfect clarity.

Many immediately felt as though their faith had collapsed. Thousands upon thousands of Five Gods Cult believers stared with disbelief in their eyes.

"Poison God lost." The peddler carrying shoulder poles and selling late-night food by the river felt dizzy and disoriented. Even his tongue seemed to have swollen, making his words blurry and hard to understand.

"How could Poison God lose to a donkey?" The immortal had not even made a move, yet a donkey had come out and nearly burned to death the god worshipped by generations of Jiangting's people. No one could quite believe what they were seeing.

"What kind of monster is this? How could it be so powerful?" Those who had just arrived had yet to grasp the situation.

"That donkey was released by the White-robed Immortal aboard the boat..." Those who had been there earlier immediately explained.

Within the crowd, some stared at the donkey and suddenly recalled something.

"Could it be? Has Great Immortal Kongchenzi, the Gongzhou Sword Immortal, come to our River Prefecture? I heard that this immortal rides a donkey that can speak human words and breathe fire." A merchant in a black cap, one who often traveled far and wide, suddenly shouted.

"I've heard of him. Is he not the immortal whose One Sword's Chill Shakes Fourteen States, who knows the Sword-flying Technique?" Quite a few people nearby had heard rumors as well.

"That immortal actually came to River Prefecture?" When they looked once more at the white-clad figure on the river, he suddenly seemed entirely different.

"Didn't you know? When I came to River Prefecture, I heard people say that the Five Gods Cult's River God Lord encountered this immortal on the river and was killed by a single sword strike." Others offered further proof.

"This immortal even refined the River God into an immortal pill to save several children. He gave the remaining flesh to the villagers from all the surrounding towns and villages to eat. They say everyone who ate it could prolong their lives and remain free of all illness. There were so many people in those towns and villages, yet everyone received a piece!"

"River God Lord died? And people even ate him?"

One shocking piece of news after another sent the Jiangting riverbank into an uproar.

Though Jiangting was prosperous and boasted many famous sites and historic relics, such mythical tales were rarely seen, much less witnessed firsthand.

And after hearing the legends of the Gongzhou Sword Immortal, the Five Gods Cult believers suddenly found it easier to accept that Poison God was no match for him.

It was only natural that Poison God could not defeat another immortal. How could ordinary mortals possibly understand matters between immortals?

Seeing how formidable Great Immortal Kongchenzi was, many people on both banks of the great river in Jiangting Commandery felt something stir within their hearts.

The gods of the Five Gods Cult were no match for this immortal!

At this moment, the situation in the center of the river grew increasingly dire.

Though Golden Toad was as powerful as one of the strange beasts in Mythical Beasts of Mountains and Seas, his Blood Qi was gradually evaporated and drained away before this divine fire.

It transformed into a blood dragon and was drawn into a Jade Gourd hanging from the donkey's neck.

Before dying, Poison God Golden Toad let out a miserable croak. His mournful cry shook the entire city of Jiangting Commandery like a clap of thunder.

At last, beneath countless watchful eyes,

Golden Toad directly turned into a dried corpse, like a statue, and slowly sank to the bottom of the river.

Silence blanketed both banks. Only General Donkey, his eyes glowing red with excitement, cackled wildly amid the blazing river fire, while the surrounding fire dragons roared with savage ferocity.

There could be no more wicked fiend in this world than this.

The people on both banks trembled from head to toe at the sight, their legs shaking.

"This must be some colossal demon that once harmed all living beings, subdued by the immortal and made into his mount."

"Thankfully, the immortal subdued it. If such a vicious demon were set loose, who knows how many people would die beneath heaven."

At the ferry dock on the opposite bank of Jiangting, the Poison God Altar disciples felt their backs soaked through.

There had been no gaining the upper hand, no fleeing from a desperate situation into an ambush.

Mountain God had not even arrived, yet in the blink of an eye, the deity worshipped by their own Household, Poison God, had been burned into a dried corpse by the enemy's mount.

"When did this donkey get here?" The Poison God Altar Master had nothing left but fury.

"Didn't Protector Feng say Kongchenzi came alone?"

"Where is Protector Feng? Where is Protector Feng?"

The Poison God Altar Master's eyes were bloodshot. His heart brimmed with rage and terror, with nowhere to vent either.

Feng Yusheng, who had long since fled without a trace, looked at the flames soaring into the sky above the river and Donkey Guardian General, who resembled an unrivaled fiend. He suddenly recalled that day, felt his backside burn, and sensed the faint pain returning.

"This Great Immortal's mount is actually this powerful?" So he had shown mercy before. That so-called thirty percent strength had been an exaggeration.

"Wooo!" A startling blast jolted the terrified Poison God Altar disciples awake from their daze.

The Cloud Tower Painted Boat, which had just been in the center of the river, had crossed the river in an instant and arrived before them.

A white-clad youth aboard the boat looked down upon them from above.

The souls they had only just recovered were frightened out of their bodies once more.

"Fire! Fire!" the Poison God Altar Master shouted with all his might, as though clutching at a lifeline.

A dense barrage of crossbow bolts cut through the air and fell toward the Cloud Tower Painted Boat.

Yet they pierced only an afterimage.

When they looked again, the white-clad youth was already standing before the ferry dock.

At that moment, every face turned deathly pale.

Now, they truly had no way to heaven and no gate into the earth.

Sweat streamed down the Poison God Altar Master's face like rain. His temples were drenched into a sodden mess as he staggered backward again and again.

At that moment, the land along the riverbank rolled and churned. The ground bulged upward, as though some colossal creature were running beneath the earth.

The ground beside the ferry dock split open, and a giant beast burrowed out from below.

It was a massive monster that looked like a lizard, then like a gecko, and upon closer inspection, like an Earth Dragon.

Standing atop the monster's head was a person clad head to toe in armor and wearing a savage evil-god mask.

The arrival was Mountain God, one of the Five Gods Cult's five gods, with the Mountain God Altar Master standing atop him.

"Mountain God's divine carriage..."

A sword left its sheath, overwhelming the surging great river and eclipsing the moonlight of the nine heavens.

The sword edge fell from this side of the riverbank all the way to the other side before coming to rest.

"Dong—wung!"

One Sword Cuts the River, severing the river in two.

With a thunderous crash, the entire great river split into two halves, the boundary sharp and distinct.

For the first time in their lives, the people whose families had lived along both banks of the great river for generations saw the color of the riverbed.

Enormous waves surged up and crashed continuously toward both sides. Some even crowded onto the banks, flooding up to the knees of those ashore before scattering down the streets.

That one sword strike directly plunged heaven and earth into silence.

Water splashed into the sky, falling as a fine drizzle near the shore and soaking everyone's clothes.

Whether high officials and nobles, ordinary folk, or wandering heroes of the martial world, all felt a deep chill after seeing that sword strike.

It was the natural smallness and helplessness mortals felt before the mighty power of heaven and earth.

Mountain God of the Poison God Cult and the Mountain God Altar Master were both split straight down the middle into two halves.

In the blink of an eye, Mountain God Lord and the Mountain God Altar Master, who had only just arrived, perished beside the river.

They had not even managed to finish a single sentence.