Immortal Master, We Meet Again

"Clang!"

A sword's cry erupted.

The possessed Xuan Shi's cultivation rose from the Foundation Establishment middle stage to Foundation Establishment great perfection, though his increase was less staggering than Gu Zang's.

But he held Xiao Feng directly in front of him.

He refused to believe Li Yang would dare kill her.

In truth, even he would not dare.

Romancing Xiao Feng was, in a roundabout way, helping complete the Household Ancestor Ning's mortal transfiguration.

But killing the Household Ancestor Ning's mortalized body would forge a karmic bond that was evil through and through.

He could not bear the consequences.

So he refused to believe Li Yang would dare.

"Get out of the way!" Ning Xinyao shouted.

But her warning was not for Li Yang. It was for the Six Desires Demon Venerable.

"He really will kill her! Get out of the way!"

Others might not understand, but she understood all too well.

This junior brother of hers was utterly mad!

If he could kill someone, he killed them!

This scene was just like their encounter with the heretic cultivators in Stone Gate Village.

Back then, Li Yang had paid no heed to whether the hostages lived or died. He treated anyone who fell into an evil fiend's hands as already dead.

But the Six Desires Demon Venerable did not believe it.

A cold sneer curled his lips. He was certain Li Yang would stop at the last instant.

A mere Foundation Establishment brat thinks he can match nerves with me?

That was what he thought.

Held by the throat, Xiao Feng watched the surging killing intent rush toward her and engulf her.

It would have been impossible not to feel afraid.

But there was nothing she could do.

She knew nothing she said could change the immortal master's resolve, and she would not try.

In her final moments, she recalled what Li Yang had said earlier:

I am Xiao Feng, and I am also the Household Ancestor Ning...

May death free me from the shackles of the mortal world, so I can follow the immortal master and experience a wondrous life.

"Close your eyes..."

Li Yang's gentle voice reached into her mind.

But Xiao Feng kept her beautiful eyes wide open. In the final instant of her life, she wanted to watch the man who killed her.

The Phoenix Sword trembled violently.

This time, it was not from excitement.

After all, Xiao Feng was its master!

But in Li Yang's grip, it was merely a weapon for killing, suffused with his slaughter sword intent.

"Slash!"

The breathtakingly beautiful Xiao Feng was brutally cleaved apart.

Though her death was gruesome, at least she felt no pain.

Then came the Six Desires Demon Venerable.

Xiao Feng was a mortal. The sword strike had lost none of its power, and all of it fell upon Xuan Shi's flesh.

"You-!"

Horror spread across the Six Desires Demon Venerable's face.

Li Yang had actually dared to cut Xiao Feng down!

What sort of sword maniac was he?

No wonder he had dared to kill his daughter.

"Slash!"

Under that strike, he too was cleaved in half. This wisp of a divine sense clone was annihilated along with Xuan Shi's soul!

In truth, both the Seven Emotions Demon Venerable and the Six Desires Demon Venerable possessed terrifying combat strength after taking over their hosts.

Li Yang was only at the first level of Foundation Establishment, and he had already expended a great deal of energy.

In a normal fight, they might well have killed Li Yang.

"Junior Brother! Do you realize what you've done?!"

Ning Xinyao stared at Xiao Feng's corpse, her eyelids twitching wildly.

She stormed over to demand an explanation.

But her answer was a slap-

"Smack!"

The sound was crisp, the blow solid.

"That slap was for warning the evil fiend just now," Li Yang said coldly.

Ning Xinyao's cheek flushed red, her face full of disbelief.

She was about to fly into a rage, but when she met Li Yang's blood-red, bloodthirsty eyes, all she felt was boundless terror.

"Junior Brother! Junior Sister!"

Three streaks of sword light raced toward them. They were three senior disciples of the Mystic Heaven Sword Sect who had joined the Sword Alliance. All had reached Foundation Establishment great perfection, and one was at half-step Golden Core.

"Hm? Where is the Seven Emotions Demon Venerable?"

Li Yang pointed at Gu Zang's corpse. "I cut the venerable down."

"And the Six Desires Demon Venerable? He should have appeared too."

Li Yang pointed at Xuan Shi's corpse. "I cut him down too."

The three did indeed sense traces of the way of seven emotions and six desires on Gu Zang's and Xuan Shi's corpses.

Looking at the Phoenix Sword in Li Yang's hand, they understood somewhat, but they were still deeply shocked.

One senior brother immediately asked, "What about the Household Ancestor Ning's mortalized body? We must protect her carefully. If our plan to slay the two demon venerables disrupts her mortal transfiguration trial, we will inevitably be held accountable."

Li Yang walked to Xiao Feng's corpse and silently buried her.

The three senior disciples' hearts pounded at the sight.

"The evil fiends killed her?!"

Li Yang answered, "I killed her."

All three went pale.

"We're finished! Our Mystic Heaven Sword Sect is bound to be implicated!"

"Junior Brother, how could you be so foolish!"

"What are we supposed to do now?!"

Yet Li Yang remained composed.

"She was the Household Ancestor Ning's mortalized body. Although that caused evil fiends to plunge Yongning Commandery into misery, she ultimately helped me slay the Six Desires Demon Venerable's split soul through her death. Her merits cancel out her faults. I don't blame her."

But the senior brother leading them was left speechless:

"Our Mystic Heaven Sword Sect spread that information in the first place. How could you blame her?"

Li Yang fell silent.

What a fucking mess.

He had already pieced everything together.

Ever since escorting Shen Lou'er, he had gone from an insignificant pawn to one of Lu Feng's important pieces.

The Yongning Commandery incident was a carefully planned encirclement operation, devised by the Mystic Heaven Sword Sect in concert with the Sword Alliance and the Dao Alliance to eradicate the Seven Emotions Demon Venerable and the Six Desires Demon Venerable, who had lingered in the area for decades.

Even the Household Ancestor Ning's mortalized body had become part of the plan.

It was just that he seemed to have gone a little too far.

He had probably exceeded everyone's expectations.

Which meant-the Household Ancestor Ning was innocent. She had only wanted to undergo mortal transfiguration here in peace, only to be dragged into this and killed by him...

No wonder he had gotten along so well with Xiao Feng. There had never been anything wrong with her.

Sometimes, Li Yang really wanted to offer a few choice greetings to his master's birthplace.

"Rumble-!"

A terrifying roar came from the far reaches of the sky, beyond what the naked eye could see. Powerful cultivators were battling there.

A streak of sword light spanned heaven and earth, cleaving the cosmos apart.

Demonic energy also towered into the sky, sweeping across ten thousand miles.

"Damn you, little sword cultivator! You've ruined everything!"

Li Yang had no way of knowing how the battle was going.

Seeing that the three senior disciples had nothing left to do, he immediately took them to purge the evil fiends still wreaking havoc in Yongning Commandery.

They had come to deal with the Seven Emotions Demon Venerable and the Six Desires Demon Venerable, only to find that Li Yang had cut them both down.

So the moment Li Yang proposed it, they all agreed.

A day later.

Li Yang's group of five encountered Su Hen and two other sword cultivators.

When the Seven-Star Sword Formation had collapsed, Su Hen had fled.

He had thought Li Yang was unlikely to survive. Instead, Li Yang had not only lived, but successfully reached Foundation Establishment.

His expression was complicated. "Brother Li, I'm ashamed."

But Li Yang shook his head. "The path of slaying demons and defending the Dao is fraught with death. You've already done very well. You were right, too. Only by staying alive can you slay more evil fiends."

But just as they were chatting,

a streak of sword light flew out of the void.

"Master!" Su Hen immediately cupped his hands, looking somewhat surprised.

The newcomer was an ancestor of the Heaven-Earth Sword Sect.

He gave Li Yang a complicated look.

There was admiration, regret, and even wariness.

He immediately swept Su Hen up. "Let's go!"

He did not linger at all, as though this place had become extraordinarily dangerous.

Before long,

Lu Feng appeared as well.

He was wounded, his aura unsteady. Clearly, he had fought a fierce battle.

His gaze fell on Li Yang.

But when Li Yang looked back, he was too guilty to meet his eyes.

"Ahem..." With a sweep of sword light, he took Ning Xinyao and the three Golden Core senior disciples and immediately fled, not daring to linger a moment longer.

"My disciple, you'll have to pray for your own good fortune..."

Finally,

the Body Integration Expert of the Sword Alliance who had previously occupied the Mystic Heaven Sword Sect to corner Shen Lou'er appeared as well.

Fresh from battle, his blazing sword might had yet to fade as he tore through the sky toward them.

"Boy, if you're still alive, come find me at the Sword Alliance!"

With that,

he tossed Li Yang a token and fled, as though some unimaginably terrifying being was about to descend!

Li Yang gulped.

The next instant-

heaven and earth lost their color, and everything in the world stood still.

A crimson moon abruptly intruded into the vault of the sky.

The entire firmament resembled a beautiful painting frozen in place, but a vast hole slowly burned through its center, its edges curling with crimson-gold embers.

The golden moon descended, the image of a crimson divine phoenix reflected within it.

Blazing-gold streams of flame poured down like a heavenly waterfall, gathering and taking shape in midair to trace a slender figure.

It was not the pressure of a cultivation realm suppressing him. This being had replaced heaven and earth themselves.

Li Yang dwindled into an insignificant ant, helplessly watching the golden moon descend as fiery feathers drifted down.

A jade foot stepped out, its toes touching the void and sending ripples spreading outward, shimmering with waves of blazing-gold law.

A figure whose beauty should never have existed in this world emerged in full.

A crimson-gold gown swayed, her entire body wreathed in divine phoenix fire.

A manifestation slowly unfurled behind her: the phantom of a phoenix so immense that it spanned the heavens, blotting out the sun, moon, and stars.

Every cultivator in the Great Qian Dynasty felt suffocating pressure, while hundreds of millions of mortals fell to their knees.

"Immortal Master, we meet again."