Chapter 66 Jiang Xuanwu

Chapter 66: Jiang Xuanwu

Boom! Boom!

Just like a bomber, wherever the flames swept, the crowd burst apart in massive waves.

That was not all. Flesh and blood served as the finest fuel, and the Qi-blaze followed the burning gore, igniting a raging inferno in the blink of an eye.

From then on, as many people as squeezed into the vanguard, the higher the flames soared.

It was truly like demonic fire.

The gap between mortals and Foundation Establishment cultivators was simply too vast; it could never be bridged by mere numbers.

Yet if the opposing side also possessed a Foundation Establishment cultivator, the situation changed entirely.

At that very moment.

Hovering in high mid-air, Lin Zhen merely gave a light wave of his hand.

"Wind arise, clouds gather, rain fall!"

A raincloud roughly an acre in size condensed out of thin air, and torrents of rain poured down, swiftly extinguishing the flames.

Even Qi Condensation cultivators could summon rain with a minor Cloud and Rain Spell, let alone a Foundation Establishment cultivator like Lin Zhen.

The old man glared fiercely at Lin Zhen in the sky.

Unable to hold back any longer, he stomped his foot, causing a set of black battle armor to materialize across his skin. A pair of blood-Qi wings snapped open behind his back, and he soared straight up into the air.

Even though he primarily practiced body-cultivation supplemented by spiritual arts, as a tier-two body cultivator whose blood-Qi had condensed into ethereal wings, he had long since mastered the ability to fly with his physical body.

"I'll take your life first, old man!"

The elder clawed forward, swift as lightning.

Lin Zhen remained unruffled. A golden light blocked his front, and in a flash, his figure had already retreated a hundred meters away.

"The Lin family's Golden Scale Sword!"

Seeing a bloody gash appear on his palm that rapidly healed itself, the elder gnashed his teeth.

Lin Zhen smiled faintly, "The Jiang family's body-cultivation techniques are peerless in Shangyang, capable of withstanding magical artifacts with the physical body alone. If this junior didn't possess the Golden Scale Sword, how would I dare to match wits with Senior?"

The Golden Scale Sword was a middle-grade spiritual weapon, sharing the same lineage as the Dragon-Slaying Sword in the possession of the Lin family's ancestor; both had been forged from the shed skin of a golden flood dragon.

The Dragon-Slaying Sword utilized the dragon's spine, while the Golden Scale Sword was crafted from its reverse scale.

The blade of the Golden Scale Sword was exceptionally sharp, making it the ultimate counter to meat shields like body cultivators.

"If my Mingwang Armor hadn't been left behind in the Jiang family..."

The elder muttered in secret vexation.

Approaching the end of his lifespan, his trip to oversee the Yue Kingdom was merely to fulfill his final duty as a member of the Jiang family. The Mingwang Armor that had accompanied him through countless battles naturally remained in the Jiang family for others to use more effectively.

He had merely brought along a set of dark iron armor of high-grade magical artifact tier.

After all, in a mortal dynasty, even without any magical artifacts at all, he should have been more than capable of suppressing everything single-handedly.

Who could have anticipated encountering such an unexpected twist.

The elder couldn't help but cast a glance at the sleeping palace below.

With keen perception, Lin Zhen caught the elder's gaze and smiled.

"Senior cares deeply about what lies within that palace, but now that Senior has come up here, it won't be so easy to go back down."

A flash of golden light illuminated the sky.

The two had already clashed once more.

***

Down below.

With the elder no longer blocking the way, only a single silver wolf remained to face the surging tide of humanity.

Seeing the crowd rushing forward like malevolent ghosts, terror flashed in its eyes. With a whimper, it tucked its tail, shrunk its form once more, and scurried away through a dog hole in the back.

As for the formation guarding the palace gates, it had first been breached by a restriction-breaking talisman and then corroded by so much blood and gore, rendering it utterly incapable of holding on any longer.

After a slight charge by the chaotic army, leaving behind a few corpses, the blood-colored grid in the air flickered and went out like a short-circuited wire.

"Crowned King! Crowned King!"

The first to charge into the palace was a martial arts grandmaster. Ecstasy plastered across his face, his feet flew as he opened the palace doors in a flurry of leaps and bounds.

Instantly, a rich, cloying stench of blood rushed over him.

Hit by the bloody gale, the martial arts grandmaster felt as though he had imbibed divine nectar; the blood-Qi within his body surged by several folds in an instant, and his true Qi began to circulate rapidly beyond his control.

"Heavenly treasures!"

The thought suddenly flashed through the martial arts grandmaster's mind, driven by instinct as he lunged deeper into the palace.

There, he beheld a bubbling pool of blood. A dozen people were soaking in the pool, only their heads exposed, eyes closed with expressions of slight agony.

A majestic middle-aged man draped in imperial robes hovered suspended above the blood pool out of thin air. His eyes were shut tight, and thin threads of blood extended from beneath him down into the blood pool below.

He appeared to be draining the blood of the people beneath him.

The bloody stench he had smelled emanated entirely from this pool of blood.

The grandmaster swallowed hard. Such a bizarre and eerie spectacle abruptly reined in his greed, and step by step, he cautiously began to back away.

Yet at that exact moment, the massive mob of rebel soldiers behind him had already rushed inside.

The chaotic commotion threatened to rouse the sleeping entity.

Not good!

Terror gripped the grandmaster's heart.

Swish!

In the void, a pair of eyes seemed to snap open abruptly.

The grandmaster could not describe the feeling of those eyes, for the very instant he laid his eyes upon them, he was already dead.

First, a single corpse fell, and then the death spread like a plague.

The rebel soldiers rushing in behind him collapsed one by one.

In the air, strands of blood-colored silk threads spread out like a spider web: ten meters, fifty meters, a hundred meters, three hundred meters...

It seemed to have no end, no limit.

Until it reached a five-hundred-meter radius.

A colossal net of blood fiercely expanded.

The blood threads fell upon the flesh and corpses on the ground like countless straws, dissolving the flesh and blood into white ash that converged toward the depths of the palace.

Squelch! Squelch!

The blood pool churned violently, the liquid growing shallower and shallower. The people who had been soaking in the pool were instantly drained of all their bodily Qi, turning into withered mummies.

At the very bottom of the blood pool, a withered corpse covered in bloodstains gradually grew plump once more, finally transforming into a ruddy-complexioned middle-aged man.

The man glanced at the imperial-robed middle-aged man—whose blood-Qi was vibrant and bloodline pure, yet whose eyes remained vacant—and muttered to himself:

"This old man prolonged my life with demonic arts, attempting to seize a descendant's body to continue my Dao. Victory was within my grasp, bringing life back from the jaws of death, yet I encountered this massive upheaval.

"Is this my tribulation of mankind?"

Boom!

A figure crashed heavily into the palace, shattering a large opening, and landed precisely before the man. It was none other than the elder who had been fiercely battling Lin Zhen.

At this moment, his dark iron armor was riddled with countless holes, and his expanded physique had shrunk back to its original size, appearing even leaner and gaunt than before.

He raised his blood-stained head, looking first at the man, then at the imperial-robed middle-aged man, sorrow and regret flashing in his eyes.

"Xuanwu, it is my fault for failing to hold them off. Forgive me."

The man was none other than the Jiang family's paramount cultivator, a peak Foundation Establishment expert known as the ancestor of the Jiang family: Jiang Xuanwu.

Fourteen years ago, Jiang Xuanwu had suddenly appeared before the elder covered in grievous wounds, claiming he was on the brink of death and that his only salvation lay in a body-seizing secret technique he had accidentally acquired. He intended to use the bloodline of Jiang descendants to forge a flawless vessel for possession.

Jiang Xuanwu was the pillar of the Jiang family; should he fall, chaos would inevitably consume the clan.

Consequently, the elder kept the matter strictly confidential, not even informing the main branch of the Jiang family. The fewer people who knew, the lower the risk of exposure.

This was precisely why Jiang Xuanwu had chosen to return to the mortal realm.

Countless pairs of eyes watched the main branch of the Jiang family; the moment any sign of weakness showed, countless figures would step forward to test the waters.

Moreover, even within the main branch, the Jiang family was far from monolithic.

Thus, the elder had secretly controlled the imperial court, selecting the most suitable vessel for Jiang Xuanwu's possession: the reigning emperor.

He had guarded the place in absolute secrecy, never leaving his post for even a step, waiting only for the vessel to be successfully refined, leaving him no time to care even if the Yue Kingdom fell into utter chaos.

"Uncle Xu, do not blame yourself."

The man's voice was gentle as he reached out to lift the elder to his feet.

"You only need to help me one last time."

"What?"

Doubt flashed across the elder's face, followed immediately by a drastic change in expression as the blood-Qi within his body began pouring continuously into the man.

"Xuanwu, you intend to absorb even me?!"

Jiang Xuanwu grasped the elder's hand, his expression unchanged, yet his eyes burning with a growing madness.

"My Greater Yin Blood-Transforming and Spirit-Consuming Demonic Art should have allowed eight-tenths of my cultivation to seamlessly integrate into the fleshly vessel without loss, but now all my efforts have fallen short of the final step.

"The only recourse is to reverse the demonic art, allowing me to briefly return to my peak state.

"Help me this once, Uncle Xu, and let me gamble one last time.

"Once I break through to the Golden Core realm, all previous hardships will matter no longer.

"The Jiang family shall rise to glory once more because of me!"

Gazing at Jiang Xuanwu's madness, the elder fell silent for a long moment before nodding with a desolate expression, entirely letting down his defenses.

"Xuanwu, I am old, and this is the only use I have left. You must succeed!"

Lacking any resistance from the elder, Jiang Xuanwu finally absorbed all of the elder's primordial blood, which shared the very same origin as his own.

Tears welled up in his eyes as he watched the elder wither away into a dry skeleton before his very eyes.

"I will definitely succeed!"

"Before that, let me first dispatch the little pests outside."

Jiang Xuanwu's figure abruptly vanished.