Sorrow

Within Tranquility Cave by the cold pool, layer upon layer of restrictive spells offered protection. Lin Xiao and the others heard none of Blood God Ancestor's thunderous shouts. Even when the many demonic cultivators smashed Spring Return Valley into utter ruin, making the earth quake and the mountains shake, they sensed nothing amiss. Danxia was explaining to a somewhat muddled Yao'er how restrictive spells based on the mutual generation and restraint of the Five Elements should be cast, while Lin Xiao quietly circulated his profound art beside them, practicing several exceedingly practical restrictive spells Danxia had taught him.

Again and again, he changed hand seals; again and again, he recited incantations; again and again, he gathered true essence upon his seals before slowly dispersing it. Lin Xiao continuously honed his proficiency in releasing restrictive spells this way. Danxia had told him that cultivators of profound attainments could, with a flick of the finger and a sharp cry, imprison a vast ocean and turn it into a mirror. Entranced by the wondrous scenes she described, Lin Xiao could not help imagining that one day he too might possess such heaven-shaking, earth-moving cultivation. Thus, he practiced restrictive spells with exceptional care and diligence.

Whenever his spirit was overly drained and his energy faltered, Lin Xiao sat cross-legged and cultivated the technique within the Thunderclap Fire Art Jiang Zizai had given him.

Skyfire True Essence circulated through his entire body time and again. Lin Xiao felt that after cultivating the Thunderclap Fire Art, his true essence had grown ever purer and hotter, while a thread of extraordinarily powerful lightning force naturally arose within its fire force. The lightning force darted through his meridians, periodically surging into his bones and muscles, leaving his entire body tingling and itchy in waves.

Moreover, Lin Xiao discovered that while cultivating the Thunderclap Fire Art, it seemed easier for him to enter a certain profound state of meditation, and his perception of the natural world around him appeared to have improved greatly. Even a speck of dust drifting before his eyes could grant him a deeper understanding of some eternal truth that had existed between Heaven and Earth since ancient times. Though this so-called deeper understanding had advanced by less than the breadth of a hair, he was still moving forward, steadily drawing closer to the "Dao" and the "principle"!

No matter how slow-witted Lin Xiao was, he knew that the Thunderclap Fire Art Jiang Zizai had taught him was an extraordinary method. He felt both grateful and ashamed, unable to understand why Jiang Zizai treated him with such generosity. He had already made up his mind that should he achieve great success in the future, he would repay Jiang Zizai properly and settle this debt of gratitude.

After completing another eighty-one Greater Celestial Circuits, Lin Xiao slowly opened his eyes. This time, as his eyelids lifted, an extremely fine streak of blue lightning flashed and vanished between his brows. The current was too tiny for Danxia or Yao'er to notice. Lin Xiao himself, however, felt that with every cultivation session of the Thunderclap Fire Art, his eyesight improved. For instance, at that very moment, he could clearly see that one of Danxia's eyebrows, three feet away, was slightly disordered and stood out awkwardly from the surrounding hairs.

Blinking in pleasant surprise, Lin Xiao formed hand seals once more and began practicing the restrictive spells Danxia had taught him. Wave after wave of faint magical fluctuations gathered in his palms, then swiftly dispersed, cycling without pause. Danxia, who was explaining to Yao'er how to cast two restrictive spells of differing attributes at once, could not help casting Lin Xiao a satisfied glance. Such a diligent and gifted disciple—Danxia would never hand him over to Daoist Danling! Unless Daoist Danling offered a magical treasure even better than the Hundred Treasures Rainbow Robe in exchange; then perhaps she could consider it.

Just as Danxia was happily calculating her little scheme, Tranquility Cave suddenly shook violently. Danxia cried out, "What is happening?" Before her words had faded, the entire mountain containing Tranquility Cave was uprooted by an enormous force. With a BOOM, the peak was hurled more than a hundred zhang into the air. Vast demonic power came surging in, and countless restrictive spells within the mountain flashed with blinding light. The spells were shattered by the combined arts of several thousand demonic cultivators. The mountain gave a groan, then abruptly disintegrated into countless fragments.

Several dozen wall-facing disciples of the Great Luo Pill Dao within Tranquility Cave cried out at once. As the mountain collapsed, they tumbled from the sky one after another. Yet before they could reach the ground, countless streams of black smoke and sinister qi swept over, slicing them cleanly in two at the waist. Strands of true spirits whirled into the air and shot straight toward the heavens, disappearing from sight.

Danxia seized Yao'er with one hand and casually tossed her toward Lin Xiao. With a point of her right hand, a tri-colored radiance shot into the sky, enveloping the three master and disciples in layers of protection. The Hundred Treasures Rainbow Robe she wore transformed into a twenty-zhang-wide mass of seven-colored rosy light, tightly wrapping around the three of them. The several dozen powerful defensive magical artifacts embedded in the robe—treasure pearls, bells, jade pendants, and more—flew up one after another, transforming into masses of light as large as bushel baskets and forming a small "Heavenly Net Formation" around them.

Several hundred streams of black smoke struck almost the instant the seven-colored rosy light rose.

Within every stream of black smoke lay a thumb-sized Baleful Intent Blood Thunder. When one of these tiny thunderfires exploded, it burst into a mass of bloodlight over a zhang wide, blasting Danxia's protective treasure light into wild flickers. When several hundred streams of black smoke exploded at once, the light of the Hundred Treasures Rainbow Robe Danxia had unleashed dimmed sharply, and its protective rosy light was compressed to barely a foot thick. Danxia gave a muffled groan and spat a blood arrow several feet away. At the very first clash, she had already suffered grievous internal injuries.

More than two thousand demonic cultivators surrounded Danxia, Lin Xiao, and Yao'er. These demonic cultivators could not be bothered to waste a single word. Seeing Danxia rely on the power of her magical treasure to block the first wave of Yin Thunder attacks, they raised both hands in unison and simultaneously released flying swords and magical treasures of every color, which fell upon the three like raindrops.

Danxia's face turned deathly pale. Before she had even understood what was happening, she had suffered a crushing blow. With little experience in battle, she was thrown into a panic. As thousands of sword lights and treasure lights rained down together, she instinctively struck Lin Xiao's back with one palm, sending him and Yao'er flying far away.

"Xiao'er, Yao'er, run!" Danxia screamed. Tri-colored sword light rose from her hand and swept through the air to meet the countless sword lights.

Lin Xiao's back had suffered a heavy blow, and he drifted several hundred zhang away. When he and Yao'er looked back, they saw Danxia swallowed by the innumerable sword lights and treasure lights.

"Master's wife!" Lin Xiao and Yao'er cried out miserably at the same time, only to see those thousands of sword lights and treasure lights engulf Danxia before converging into a torrent and shooting toward them at terrifying speed.

Lin Xiao screamed. He drew the Crimson Dragon Sword from his back, tightly hugged Yao'er as she twisted and struggled in his arms, then rode a streak of red light and fled in disarray toward the back mountain of Spring Return Valley.