A Sword Fells the Lake Chancellor
Su Yao heard the voice, but paid it no heed.
He shouted:
"By decree!"
As soon as he spoke, glowing light fell once more like rain, smashing against the gray-red barrier of the Lu Household's formation. In an instant, a tremendous crash erupted, as though heaven and earth were splitting apart!
Countless drops of glowing rain poured down like ten thousand arrows loosed at once, bearing the majestic might of heaven. Each drop shone like molten colored glass, brilliant and dazzling.
The formation's barrier shuddered violently, its gray-red light flickering.
Within a few breaths, the barrier was riddled with holes. Glowing light poured through the cracks, filling the formation with brilliant color.
The Lu Household's members were ashen-faced. They gazed up at the dome about to shatter, their eyes full of despair.
Lu Shang looked at the light filling the sky, his heart full of anger, yet he was powerless.
Just then, a clansman cried out toward him:
"Patriarch, why haven't we activated the formation the ancestor established back then?"
The old man before Lu Shang frowned deeply but said nothing. He only looked up at the formation in the sky, on the verge of breaking.
After pondering for a long while, he thought of Su Yao's ruthlessness and finally took out a token.
As he poured Law Power into it, an even more scorching curtain of light rose from the direction of the Lu Household's ancestral hall.
In just three breaths, it had covered the main peak and three nearby peaks, but the remaining five peaks were abandoned outside.
The old man looked at Lu Shang:
"One must be steady in one's actions. This formation can only protect us for a while."
Lu Shang lowered his head without a word.
The many Lu clansmen around them hung their heads in dejection.
Outside the formation.
Ignoring the newly risen formation, Su Yao looked toward Cibi Lake and saw an old man with a tortoise shell on his back appear before him.
The old man looked at Su Yao:
"Young man, spare others where you can."
Su Yao sneered:
"You stinking tortoise, and you dare meddle in my affairs?"
He paused, his voice growing colder:
"Are you courting death?!"
The old man's face darkened, and he said viciously:
"When the lake god emerges from seclusion, he'll never spare you!"
Su Yao snorted coldly:
"The lake god? And which lake god might that be? The Water Lord of Yunmeng, or the Water Lord of Hong Lake?"
"Even those lords wouldn't dare make trouble at my temple! They too would have to accept an imperial decree and obey orders!"
The old man froze, then caught on and burst out laughing:
"So what if he's the Water Lord of Dongting? How could his bloodline compare to the noble bloodline of our Lake God of Cibi Lake? Even if the Water Lord of Yuze came here, he'd have to show our lake god some respect!"
Hearing this, Su Yao was curious:
Was this damned tortoise truly ignorant, or did he really have some backing?
So he said quietly:
"I wonder what your lake god's origins are!"
The old man snorted:
"Listen carefully."
He cleared his throat:
"Our lake god is the nephew of the Dragon King of the South Sea. That Water Lord of Yunmeng you mentioned was merely a human made a god. How could he compare to ours?"
Su Yao burst out laughing:
"Hahahahaha!"
Then he looked at the old man:
"A mere nephew of the Dragon King of the South Sea. Even the Dragon King's own son would have to bow to me!"
With that, he said no more. His right hand gripped the hilt of the Zhengji Sword, and Law Power surged into the blade like a tide.
The blade hummed, and glowing light burst from its guard. Like the first glow of dawn, it became a brilliant ribbon in an instant, winding around the blade's edge.
Su Yao raised his sword and gave it a light swing. The movement looked casual, yet it held the power of "Glow Ashes" cast on its own.
Compared with its earlier use through a Technique Sword, this Law Technique was even more dazzling!
Wherever the blade passed, it left a rainbow trail that lingered for a long time.
The old man's pupils contracted slightly. He had not expected Su Yao to attack him so decisively!
He instinctively raised both arms to block. Emerald-green water churned around him, forming a thick wall.
But the ribbon of glowing light flowed like mercury spilling over the ground. Ignoring the water wall, it passed straight through and silently entered the old man's chest.
The old man stood frozen and looked down at his chest. A faint glow seeped through a gap in his robes, flickering like a firefly.
The next moment, the light burst forth!
The emerald water around the old man broke apart inch by inch, turning into a mist that filled the sky.
His body swiftly turned transparent in the glow, from his limbs to his torso, as though soaked through with rainbow light. At last, it shattered like colored glass.
There was no scream, no blood. His shattered body turned into droplets of emerald lake water that pattered down like rain, scattering across the red earth below before soaking into the soil.
Su Yao turned toward White Sand Mountain, his voice spreading with the aid of Law Power:
"Now, who else will come to save you?"
Within the mountain, the many Lu clansmen looked at one another.
Outside the formation, a figure in blue appeared not far from Su Yao. He watched Su Yao swaggering about, then looked toward the Lu clansmen fleeing White Sand Town nearby without cease, and urged:
"Fellow Daoist, why must you make things so difficult for the Lu Household?"
Su Yao turned at the voice and saw a middle-aged man who looked like a scholar. He sneered:
"And who are you?"
The man cupped his fists in greeting, then raised his head and said:
"Zheng Xuanzhi of the Vast Righteousness Academy. I currently serve as the education officer of Langqiong Zhao."
Su Yao calmed himself somewhat and asked:
"May I ask what brings you here, Education Officer?"
Zheng Xuanzhi hesitated for a moment, then urged him on, a hint of unease in his voice:
"Fellow Daoist, have you not killed too much... After all, the Lu Household only injured one of your people. But you come from a distinguished sect. One who cultivates the mystical arts should not commit such a sin of slaughter..."
Su Yao retorted:
"Don't try to hem me in with your Confucian doctrines. If the Lu Household hadn't overstepped, I would rather have cultivated diligently in the mountains than become embroiled in disputes!"
Zheng Xuanzhi sighed, but when he thought of Lu Shang's background, he continued to persuade him:
"You may not know this, Fellow Daoist, but Lu Shang, the one who attacked and injured your man, is the son of the Langcao Wu Tribe's chief's second daughter. Lu Shang has decent talent, and the tribe's chief suppressed the opposition within the tribe and passed a fifth-grade direct-lineage Wu Tribe Cultivation Method on to him."
He paused:
"If Lu Shang dies, someone from the Langcao Wu Tribe will surely come looking for trouble with you. Though you come from a distinguished sect, this place is neither Mount Zhongnan nor Qixia Mountain... The Lake God of Cibi Lake had ties with the Lu Household's ancestors, but there had been little friendship between them for a long time. Only in recent years, when the genius Lu Shang appeared, did they renew their connection, and the lake god usually only looked after them. Now you have first killed many of the Lu Household's people, then the lake god's chancellor. I fear this will be hard to account for."
Su Yao paid it no mind, however, and merely replied politely:
"Thank you for the warning, Fellow Daoist."
He paused:
"But I'm not afraid of any of that. If they send someone at Foundation Establishment and I lose, then naturally my skills were inferior. But if they send a Purple Mansion True Person to bully someone weaker, though my temple has sealed its mountain, even a Devil Lord would not dare set foot within Qixia Mountain, but would land from the South Sea instead!"
"As for the lake god, the crown prince of the Dragon Palace of the South Sea had been unable to conceive for many years and only succeeded after coming to my temple to seek medicine. So I need only write a letter to the crown prince of the Dragon Palace of the South Sea. Let's see whether that wicked dragon, banished to this remote place, dares disobey the decree!"
Zheng Xuanzhi was astonished.
Before coming, he had learned that the man before him had an extraordinary background, but he had not imagined it would be this extraordinary.
They stopped a Devil Lord? Doesn't that mean Qixia Temple still has a True Lord?
The crown prince of the Dragon Palace of the South Sea went up the mountain to seek medicine?
Wasn't Qixia Temple said to have sealed its mountain for thousands of years and long since fallen into decline?
He turned to look at White Sand Mountain and thought to himself:
Just who had the White Sand Lu Household provoked?