Eradicating the Roots

North of Jade Pearl Town, mountains sat hidden in the night.

"Tu Fei met with an accident..."

Inside a stone grotto on some desolate mountain, candlelight flickered, casting a withered figure as thin as firewood onto the stone wall.

Reverend Heavy Mist, seated in seclusion, frowned.

"Xiong Ming, Hu Jiu, why haven't you returned to report for so long?"

Heavy Mist shot to his feet with a thud, his expression icy as he looked toward the bronze mirror floating before him.

The Yin Mountain Spirit Domination Art used the superior to control the inferior, allowing one to command vast numbers of low-level creatures, but there was one prerequisite: the master had to part with a Lifebound Artifact to serve as a bridge linking the souls above and below.

This bronze mirror was the "Lifebound Artifact" Reverend Heavy Mist used to control those transformed monsters.

At that moment, Heavy Mist reached out and pressed his hand to the mirror's surface.

Dead silence.

The souls within the mirror had all dispersed, and its touch was as piercingly cold as ice.

"All those 'great demons' under my command were killed?!"

Sweat seeped from Heavy Mist's forehead. The area around Jade Pearl Town was extremely remote; ever since the vitality of the northern border had withered and the Great Chu Dynasty had recalled the Garrison Envoy, the region around Jiayong Pass had become a wasteland no one cared about. He had entrenched himself here for many days without seeing a single cultivator.

That was why he had chosen such a ghostly place to settle.

Most of the time, he sheltered in the mountains. Only when he was refining formations and lacked materials for implements... would he dispatch the demon spirits under his command to go out and plunder and gather them.

What he feared was running into exactly this sort of situation!

Yin Mountain Heretic Cultivators had always had no place in the light of day, and raising monsters violated the laws of Great Chu even more.

After sensing the dissipation of the demon souls under his command, Heavy Mist did not hesitate in the slightest. He withdrew the bronze mirror, turned, and left!

Run! He had to run!

Although his Spirit Domination Art and cultivation realm were not high enough for him to spy on the memory images before the demon spirits' deaths, for all the transformed beings under his command to be slaughtered in such a short time... the newcomer was clearly not friendly!

Just then, a faint, mocking voice rang out from outside the grotto.

"Isn't it a little too late to think of leaving now?"

Heavy Mist's face changed abruptly.

Before the grotto, at some unknown point, a tall figure holding an oil-paper umbrella had appeared.

Heavy Mist stared fixedly at the figure before him. The oil-paper umbrella was pressed very low, so he could not see the other party's face. Stranger still... he could not sense any Primordial Force flowing within the other party's body.

There were only two possibilities in such a situation.

One was that the other party had not cultivated, possessed no realm at all, and was merely an ordinary mortal.

But very clearly, it was the second: the other party's realm was far too much higher than his, so he could not sense it.

"Your Excellency... what divine being might you be?"

Heavy Mist could not help retreating two steps, his back against the grotto wall. This figure gave him an enormous sense of pressure, so much so that even opening his mouth to speak became exceedingly difficult.

"Heh."

Xie Xuanyi gave a scornful laugh and did not answer the question.

He knew why this Yin Mountain Heretic Cultivator before him was so panicked and afraid... between cultivators, unless the gap in strength was too great, they could sense the flow of each other's Primordial Force. Ten years ago, this fellow naturally would not have been able to sense his Primordial Force.

But now, it was another matter.

From the moment he crawled out of the coffin, Xie Xuanyi had felt something was wrong...

There was not the slightest bit of Primordial Force in his body. It was empty, hollow.

He had welcomed new life, "new life" in every sense. Aside from the scattered fragments of memory in his mind that were gradually gathering together, nothing remained.

However.

This bit of memory was already enough.

As long as he held a sword, he was still that Xie Xuanyi who roamed the world unhindered, opening and closing the gates of power, invincible.

With a snap.

Xie Xuanyi took one step forward, closed the umbrella, and slashed horizontally.

Inside the grotto, the wavering candleflames went out in unison in an instant!

A wisp of snow-white energy erupted forth, instantly piercing Reverend Heavy Mist's shoulder. This sword was simply too fast; there was no time to react at all. Reverend Heavy Mist's entire body felt as if struck by lightning, his back smashing heavily into the stone wall as he spat out a great mouthful of blood.

A howl of agony filled the grotto!

But the next moment, the grim-faced Heavy Mist hooked his five fingers like claws, dragged a seemingly small and exquisite Square Seal from the pouch at his waist, and used every ounce of strength he had to smash it out!

This magic seal swelled violently in the wind, nearly filling the entire grotto!

Xie Xuanyi's expression did not waver in the slightest. He opened the umbrella again, leaned back, and his whole body drifted backward like a blade of grass, light and airy, yet his feet remained stuck to the ground from beginning to end.

That magic seal was extremely fast. Unfortunately, it remained a hair's breadth short the entire time. Xie Xuanyi's seemingly "slow" retreat just happened to be that tiny bit faster than the rapidly expanding seal.

In the end, the magic seal exploded, blasting the entire grotto into pieces!

Xie Xuanyi drifted down amid a patch of wild grass and piled stones, narrowing his eyes.

A hundred zhang away, on the far side of the barren mountain, Reverend Heavy Mist turned into a streak of bloody light and shot off into the distance.

Lightning flashed and thunder roared. Rain poured down in torrents.

A bloodstained figure fled in utter disarray through the mountain ridges.

"Did I... get away?"

Reverend Heavy Mist kept looking back, staring behind him. He had already stretched the range of his soul perception to its limit, but he could not sense any vital energy, nor could he feel the aura of the living. He could only use this most primitive method to ensure his own "safety."

"Can you... get away?"

A familiar voice sounded beside his ear.

Reverend Heavy Mist shuddered all over. He turned to look in another direction beside him and saw the figure he least wanted to see.

Several zhang away.

That wisp of ghostlike white, holding a paper umbrella, was facing the opposite direction from him and drifting backward in retreat, yet somehow kept perfectly parallel with him.

When had he caught up?

"What exactly do you want?!"

Reverend Heavy Mist's eyes were shot through with blood. There was already a pleading note in his voice. "I can hand over every treasure I have on me. In this life and the next, I will never set foot in Jade Pearl Town or Jiayong Pass!"

Xie Xuanyi shook his head.

He asked with a beaming smile, "Let me ask you, what you used just now—was that the 'Nether Soul Seal' only inner disciples of Yin Mountain can cultivate?"

Reverend Heavy Mist froze for a breath.

Xie Xuanyi asked with a smile, "Fellow Daoist Heavy Mist, your honored master's name?"

Reverend Heavy Mist hurriedly called out, "My master is Golden Abyss Perfected One, and my grandmaster is White Wraith, one of the Three Sages of Yin Mountain!"

"Good."

Xie Xuanyi nodded with a kindly expression. "Then your luck isn't bad."

Could he be one of us?

Good, good, good... Reverend Heavy Mist was overjoyed and had just been about to say something.

But in the next moment, he noticed something was wrong. The killing intent permeating the air not only had not dispersed, it had instead grown even denser!

Xie Xuanyi still spoke with a smile.

Saying the most vicious words in the gentlest tone.

"Among the four realms, the sect I hate most is Yin Mountain."

"And within Yin Mountain... the one I despise most is White Wraith."

Reverend Heavy Mist's face was full of stunned disbelief. "???"

In the next instant, a wisp of Sword Qi burst from the umbrella sword!

Above the mountain ridge, a wretched howl rang out.

An arm exploded apart just like that!