The Great Sect's Heavenly Mandate Ultimately Returns to One

He returned to the courtyard.

After dragging things out through an entire night and morning, Liu Dongqing's anticipation for the Demon Refining Mystic Sect's supreme mystic art had long since reached its peak.

Once the door was shut tight, Liu Dongqing could no longer suppress the tremor in his heart. Wearing an expression of near-mad ecstasy, his slightly shaking hands withdrew both the red and green jade slips from his robes.

At last, after taking several deep breaths in succession, Liu Dongqing calmed his mind somewhat before pressing the jade slip inscribed with <Crimson Crow Secret Sigils Devour Fire and Ascend in Flame Spirit Incantation> against his brow.

As his arm rose, three rings of cyan radiance condensed once more between Liu Dongqing's brows.

The instant that solid cyan light touched the jade slip, the instant Liu Dongqing's life-bound refined mana connected with the crimson jade glow, it was as though heavenly thunder had stirred earthly fire.

In an instant, an unprecedented blaze erupted from the jade slip in Liu Dongqing's hand, blooming brilliantly within the space around him.

Within the flames, an exceedingly splendid scene first emerged in illusory light and shadow—

It was a round furnace, its body seemingly deathly white and etched with hollow carvings. Through those openings, one could clearly see the scarlet flames burning within the furnace.

The crimson flames blazed like the true sun of the great day. At their center, dense Daoist sigils resembling demon script gathered together, wrapped in fiery radiance and taking the shape of a Crimson Crow.

At a glance, it also resembled a Golden Crow within the flames.

The moment this splendid vision appeared, it abruptly transformed into a streak of spiritual light and plunged between Liu Dongqing's brows.

And this was only the beginning of all the changes.

Immediately afterward, all the blazing firelight that had splashed forth from the jade slip seemed, at this moment, to gain a tangible flow.

Traces of Sigils surfaced one after another amid the streaming light.

At first, there was the main body of the cultivation art—a text of exquisite phrases written in ancient seal-script characters.

Then came one ordinary-text manuscript after another, recording notes both profound and superficial.

The instant these Sigils emerged, they all transformed into a surging torrent, following the flow of light and pouring together into Liu Dongqing's brow.

Huu—inhale—huu—

As time slowly passed, a vast multitude of Sigils drifted through the flowing light and entered Liu Dongqing's brow.

Around him, the firelight cast by the jade slip grew increasingly dim.

At last, at a certain moment, when the final passage of text carried away the last strand of flowing light, the entire bedroom first plunged abruptly into darkness. After reaching the utmost depths of dimness, the jade slip—now far more ancient-looking, stripped of its former warm and lustrous sheen—suddenly burst forth with another blaze of brilliant light.

Only this time, the light did not pour into Liu Dongqing's brow.

Instead, it diffused in all directions.

Liu Dongqing stared intently at the bright light that continuously dispersed as soon as it emerged.

Within it, shallow and illusory figures were reflected one after another—

At first, the many figures were all spirited young people dressed in similar standardized Daoist robes, each pressing a jade slip to their brow.

Then, the figures that continued to appear were set in increasingly dilapidated surroundings, and the young people no longer bore the high spirits of their predecessors between their brows.

After that, expressions of panic, terror, and helplessness appeared one after another amid the light.

Liu Dongqing even saw the figure of a young shaman among them.

At last, strands of light scattered and then vanished like smoke.

Within the final strand of light, Liu Dongqing's own trembling, delighted expression appeared as well, then likewise diffused along with the radiance.

Crack—

Accompanied by a dull snap, Liu Dongqing lowered his head.

The jade slip, utterly stripped of its luster, slowly faded from crimson beneath his gaze. In the end, even the jade slip itself abruptly turned into a wisp of powder, dispersing from between Liu Dongqing's fingertips.

It was as though he had clearly witnessed the entire process by which the Demon Refining Mystic Sect had declined from prosperity.

And he clearly and directly realized that, after passing through so many cultivators, the final chance of inheritance for this supreme mystic art had fallen upon him alone.

Even before this, the Demon Refining Mystic Sect had been nothing more than a distant, unfamiliar term to Liu Dongqing.

But at this moment—

After Liu Dongqing had gone through so much, and then witnessed such a scene—

A lonely sense of mission still inevitably welled up from the depths of his mind.

It was quite some time before—

Liu Dongqing emerged from his silence and steadied his heart once more.

Then he picked up the last remaining jade slip and pressed it against the space between his brows again.

The scene that had already appeared before was now replayed as Liu Dongqing received the <Ghost Vine Blood-Draining Bone-Devouring Pill-Subduing Art>.

There were only two differences. The first was that, during the infusion of the inheritance, another vision appeared—far from magnificent, yet deeply bizarre.

It was a strange, grim black vine, rising from the earth in a sinister, terrifying, twisted posture. It frantically wrung and coiled itself, wheeling about without restraint, until it finally formed a vine plant.

Among its thorny, wildly twisted branches bloomed tiny flowers of deathly white.

From afar, the crisscrossing vine branches seemed to form a human figure, the scattered pale blossoms like adornments upon a robe. Taken as a whole, the vision also resembled a round fan patterned in black and white.

The second difference came at the end of the inheritance. After the phantoms of the succession of inheriting disciples vanished one after another like images in a revolving lantern, the jade slip crumbled into powder as well.

Yet amid the powder slipping between Liu Dongqing's fingers, a seed quietly appeared in his palm.

Still where he stood, he flipped his hand and put the seed away.

Liu Dongqing raised a hand to rub his brow. Only after quite a while did he finally awaken from the torrent of Sigils brought on by receiving two supreme mystic art inheritances in succession.

His eyes shifted slightly. After a brief consideration, Liu Dongqing's gaze fell upon a cloth pouch on the table.

It was the fifty fragments of spirit stones Manager Hou had sent over.

Slowly sorting through the immense flood of cultivation art inheritance within his mind—

Liu Dongqing reached out and picked up the cloth pouch.

'Even the cleverest housewife cannot cook without rice.'

'It's time to take a look around the market within Sunward Dao Academy.'

Meanwhile, outside Glazed Mountain Temple in the Western Regions—

Today, before the gates of this famed holy land and great sect of the Western Regions, billowing columns of black smoke soared into the heavens. From afar, they joined into a canopy that blotted out the sky and sun, shrouding the entire Glazed Mountain Temple within.

Every so often, flashes of eerie crimson light could be glimpsed vanishing within the black smoke.

Beneath the illumination of that strange demonic radiance—

On the narrow mountain road before Glazed Mountain Temple, a lean figure draped in voluminous monk's robes was climbing upward along the bluestone path. With every step, he bowed his head in devout prostration, worshipping toward the mountain gate.

Thus he continued until the gaunt monk took the final step before the gate.

When he raised his head after that final kowtow, he revealed the true form of a demon ape, with a hairy face and a thunder-god's beak.

Then—

The demon ape's scarlet eyes stared fixedly at Glazed Mountain Temple's tightly shut gates. When he opened his mouth again, human words emerged.

"This humble monk is Monkey Mind. I have knocked upon the mountain in accordance with the ancient Zen rites, seeking an audience with the current abbot of Glazed Mountain Temple!"

As his words fell—

Glazed Mountain Temple's tightly shut vermilion gates slowly opened a crack.

Then, beneath the gaze of the demon monk Monkey Mind, a young novice slowly poked half his body out. Timidly looking at the fierce scene of demonic aura swirling across the sky, he said in a childish voice—

"My master said—those who have left home do not speak falsehoods. He isn't here, and he will see no one!"