Yue Qinbin

The Altar Gods were originally malevolent ghosts that committed all sorts of atrocities. Yue Qinbin subdued them with a Spell to serve as guardians before the altar. Though they had gained some power through the usual nourishment of Spells and incense, their essence remained that of fiends and ghosts.

At this moment, their shouts were immensely loud, shaking the mountains and wilderness. In truth, however, they were exceedingly cunning. Seeing two Inner Cores come smashing down with irresistible momentum, they had neither the desire nor the courage to show themselves. Yet, because their Primordial Spirits were governed by Yue Qinbin's command token, they could not avoid coming out when the Ritual Altar encountered an attack. Hence, they put up a very imposing front, their roaring full of fierce bluster, while in their actions they dodged off to the side even as they shouted.

The four guardian gods, in pairs of two, roared as they split to the left and right, clearing the path in the middle.

The two Inner Cores passed right through the midst of them, first crashing into the Flying Sword of the Lotus Wanderer Sun Fu.

Sun Fu had entered the sect relatively late, and what he wielded was not a famous Wutai sword, nor had it been refined with the aid of Grandmaster Taiyi Hunyuan. Its quality was limited, so when released, a streak of yellow light protected his body. Struck by the Inner Cores, it gave a crisp snap and shattered completely, breaking into many pieces of scrap iron!

The Inner Cores smashed the Flying Sword to pieces, and then struck his protective Magic Treasure. A layer of pot-lid-like yellow light likewise shattered into a sky full of fireflies in an instant.

Sun Fu pinched a mudra and cast a spell, just about to make his escape with his feet merely two feet off the ground, when he was struck in the body by the Water-Fire Inner Core. Instantly, he was blown to smithereens, and even his Primordial Spirit failed to escape, resulting in the total destruction of both form and spirit.

Blazing flames scattered in all directions, and icy vapor steamed across the skies, forming a powerful wave of surging Qi that dissipated into the surroundings. That rock used to set up the Ritual Altar was instantly blasted into gravel, and the incense burners, bowls, talisman banners, flags, and mirrors upon it turned to fine dust all at once!

Yue Qinbin and Hu Shi, suddenly encountering such a violent assault, were also flustered and hurried, both maneuvering their flying swords to fly backward at the same time.

Shi Feiyang knew that Yue Qinbin was the one with the highest magical power among them. While the Water-Fire Inner Core smashed toward Sun Fu, he secretly launched Bruninga's Crow-Venom Thorn. A trail of emerald fire was concealed within the luminous tail of the Water-Fire Inner Core, and upon reaching the altar, it suddenly veered around to shoot straight at Yue Qinbin.

Yue Qinbin watched as that violent attack blasted Sun Fu into a ball of flames, his entire body shattered. Amidst his bone-chilling terror, he also felt a trace of fortune that the attack had not been aimed at him; otherwise, even if he did not die, he would have suffered severe injuries. He raised his head to look up into the sky, not yet having completely figured out the situation before he was pinned in the left leg by the Crow-Venom Thorn. Nine sharp barbs drove into the flesh, their tips spraying wisps of green demonic fire that scorched bone and muscle, sending pain straight to the depths of his soul.

He retreated in flight to a spot several miles away, stumbling as he collapsed to the ground. Upon seeing that it was the Crow-Venom Thorn in his leg, he was instantly startled, recognizing it as the signature Magic Treasure of the eminent monk Bruninga of the Western Demon Cult. How had this thing appeared here? And why was it pinned in his own body!

He leaned back against a tree and sat properly, his left hand pinching a mudra pressed against the meridians of his thigh while his right hand held a talisman between two fingers. As he chanted incantations, the talisman paper burned into a fist-sized ball of fire that remained condensed without scattering between his two fingers. He brought this yellow light close to the Crow-Venom Thorn, and the ball of light immediately melted right into it.

The next moment, that Crow-Venom Thorn bounced right out of his leg.

Demon Cult Magic Treasures naturally possessed wondrous uses. Although it had left his body, each of the sharp barbs at the front generated a wisp of emerald-green fire that connected to the bloody hole in his leg. Like a living creature, it automatically adjusted its angle and was about to pierce back in!

Yue Qinbin had practiced Daoism for many years and knew its severity. His left hand had already grabbed his immortal sword, and with a horizontal swipe, he severed the nine wisps of emerald fire. Biting the middle finger of his right hand, he traced a blood talisman in mid-air, pointed forward, and slapped the blood talisman into the Crow-Venom Thorn, urgently shouting: "I am Iron-Zither Scholar Yue Qinbin, under the seat of Grandmaster Taiyi Hunyuan of the Wutai Sect. Our sect shares deep friendships with Venerable Poison Dragon and various other fellow practitioners of your venerable sect. I know not how I have offended Fellow Daoist, but I ask that you please appear and speak plainly, rather than harming the harmony between our two houses!"

His actions completely misjudged the situation. The Crow-Venom Thorn was Bruninga's signature Magic Treasure, which had been dropped at Dinghu Peak last time along with the loss of Wei Fengniang. Bruninga regarded that as a supreme humiliation, and ever since then, he had lived in seclusion in the Great Snow Mountains without coming out, single-mindedly refining a set of Demon Sabers as he waited to return to Dinghu Peak to slay the demonic dragon and exact his revenge once the refinement was complete. Not a single outsider knew about this matter.

Shi Feiyang had seen some Demon Cult techniques in Wei Fengniang's cultivation notes, but they only contained the cultivation methods for a few Spells and lacked the refining method for the Crow-Venom Thorn. He had devised a method of his own to refine this treasure, yet in the end, he could not wield it as smoothly as Bruninga. At this moment, with it forced out of Yue Qinbin's body by the other, he temporarily had no way to make it pierce back in.

He had used the Inner Cores to blow up the Lotus Wanderer Sun Fu and used the Crow-Venom Thorn to force back Yue Qinbin, and right at this moment, he was throwing his full offensive against Hu Shi.

Hu Shi was known as the Fiery-Winged Vajra, steering two blazing Flying Swords with methods that were quite extraordinary. Shi Feiyang used two Inner Cores to trap him, executing a front-and-back pincer attack with water and fire alternating as he launched a wild and ferocious bombardment.

Unable to hold out, Hu Shi used every ounce of strength he possessed. Merging his twin swords, he blasted a gap through the Inner Cores and, fusing his body with his sword, shot straight up into the sky wanting to escape. Shi Feiyang gathered cloud masses in the air to cover him, and right within the clouds, he executed a Spell, turning the Five Elements upside down and shifting Heaven and Earth.

He was originally incapable of casting such a high-level Spell out of thin air, but at this moment, he was operating it by borrowing a Magic Treasure—namely, the Cloud-Mother Veil he had refined a short time ago.

The Cloud-Mother Veil was forged by him during the plum-rain season, when he gathered the surrounding clouds and mists of a thousand miles, synthesized Elixir Qi, and refined them with the authentic genuine Qi of true yin and True Yang. Unfolded, it covered a territory of over a hundred miles, all consisting of thick, dense clouds!

Hu Shi drove his sword and drilled into the clouds. Clearly flying straight up, he was adjusted by Shi Feiyang so that up became down, and in the blink of an eye, he shot out backward from the cloud layer, plunging headfirst toward the ground.

With his old partner Sun Fu blown to death, Hu Shi had already lost his nerve and only wanted to escape and find survival in a hurry. Using every ounce of strength he had, his flying speed was extremely fast, until the lush green earth in his vision rapidly expanded before he realized the direction was wrong. Hurriedly gathering his Sword Light to alter his course, it was precisely in this fleeting instant that Shi Feiyang's two Inner Cores flew over once more.

Shi Feiyang was just waiting for this exact juncture to strike him. The Wutai sword-refining method was peerless under heaven; although Hu Shi's Flying Sword was also self-refined, after all he possessed two of them. With the twin swords joined, further merging with his own Essence Qi and spirit—where man was the sword and the sword was the man, with sword and man existing as one—breaking through this sort of defense was truly difficult to achieve by ordinary means.

Yet precisely at this moment, Hu Shi needed to decelerate, braking his rushing Sword Light backward in a rush. The human heart drove human Qi, and human Qi drove the Sword Light, all attempting to sweep back and turn around. In this very instant, the sword momentum conflicted with itself, and the two Inner Cores smashed over simultaneously, crashing straight into the twin swords. With just a single blow, they blasted the Sword Light to pieces, snapping the two Immortal Swords into several sections.

In the state of body-sword integration, once the sword snapped, the person would likewise follow and suffer severe injuries. Hu Shi felt as though his internal organs were about to disintegrate, and a mouthful of fresh blood surged from his throat. Before he could even spit it out from his mouth, he was struck in the body once more by the two Inner Cores, instantly blowing his entire body into a massive fireball where flesh and bone shattered and burned to death!

Having disposed of Sun Fu and resolved Hu Shi, Shi Feiyang went looking for Yue Qinbin once again.

Yue Qinbin was still under the tree, having a conversation with that Crow-Venom Thorn: "Our Wutai Sect has always been on good terms with your Western Demon Cult. Your master, Venerable Yechili, has met my master, Grandmaster Taiyi Hunyuan, on several occasions. Your current sect leader, Venerable Poison Dragon, is also exceptionally close with our various senior brothers of the Wutai Sect. Ah yes, and the Mount Hua Sect! The Mount Hua Sect and our Wutai Sect share breath and branches, getting along as closely as a single family. You know Uncle-Master Shi Nanxi, right? To my knowledge, Venerable Poison Dragon even wished to invite him over to become the vice sect leader within your venerable sect..."

The Crow-Venom Thorn, since Shi Feiyang had not refined it using the proper methods, was not as spiritually perceptive as when it was in Bruninga's hands and would no longer launch attacks of its own accord. It simply hovered there in a daze, occasionally turning east, occasionally turning west, sometimes tilting upward and sometimes nodding, all of which were actually meaningless. Yet Yue Qinbin assumed that Bruninga was manipulating this treasure to react to him, and he displayed tenfold patience, appealing to emotions and reasoning with logic as he persuaded Bruninga to withdraw his spell quickly and avoid harming the harmony between the two houses.