Chapter 23 — The True Words of the Esoteric Sect

Loudly lamenting the importance of money, Zhou Xuan prepared to force the outer formation into action, to trigger the Dutian Divine-Slaughtering Formation within the blade and drain away the death qi from the golden silkworm.

Seal after seal, his hand signs shifted without pause. Sweat poured down Zhou Xuan's face. When the Second Yuanyan was present, he could drive this formation with perfect ease, flowing and free, effortless beyond words; now it was more than ten times harder. Zhou Shuo thought to himself: plainly I must cultivate my true body more in the days to come—yet raising the true body to the Spirit Transformation stage is no easy thing. Without profound methods and the aid of spirit pills and wondrous medicines, it would take at least two hundred years of bitter toil. Zhou Xuan shook his head, driving the stray thoughts from his mind, and threw all his true essence into driving the twelve command flags. As though shoving a boulder, Zhou Xuan's eyes went wide, the veins standing out all over his body; the true essence in his dantian was nearly pumped dry before the twelve command flags at last began to rotate slowly around the hilt of the two-headed wolf's blade.

Ray after ray of spiritual light shot from the flags, twining about the hilt like spider silk. Zhou Sheng paid it no heed, sitting cross-legged on the ground and throwing all his effort into restoring his true essence. More and more light appeared, until the hilt could no longer be seen at all. The formless pressure twisted into a vortex, and countless energies of a nature wholly unlike the qi of heaven and earth were gathered in by the twelve command flags, transmuted into streams of radiant, many-colored light.

Hum! A low sound issued from the blade. The four eyes of the two-headed wolf blazed with green light, and every thread of that radiance was sucked away in an instant. The twelve command flags, robbed of the force sustaining them, clattered to the floor. And the Blood-Transforming Divine Blade rose of itself from the earth and hung suspended in the air, shrouding the whole training chamber in layers of blood-red light. The deathly slaughter-qi upon the golden silkworm stirred restlessly at the touch of that blood light, and there was a faint suggestion that it was being drawn toward the blade.

Zhou Zhan rejoiced: it works after all! This formation may be spending all its strength suppressing the energy of that Seven Treasures Wondrous Tree Staff, but if I give it a tonic, surely it can spare a little strength! A shrill, ghastly shriek came from the golden silkworm! The viscous blood-night of the Blood Demon Killing Curse congealed into a single mass, gathering at the silkworm's head and holding fast against the pull of the blood light. That mass of blood writhed into ever-changing shapes—demons, skulls, scythes, and other grotesque forms beyond number—until Zhou Xuan clicked his tongue in amazement: truly formidable! Were this curse to fall upon my true body, then—then... Zhou Xun did not dare think further.

In the end the Blood Demon Killing Curse fell a notch short; after all, the name of the demonic path's foremost killing formation is no empty boast. The Heavenly Mystic Blood Demon Li Duo was fierce enough, but he could not be compared with that master of the demonic path who forged the Blood-Transforming Divine Blade in ages past. The Blood Demon Killing Curse collapsed into a lump of blood the size of a fist, flew into the blade, and was devoured by the Blood-Transforming Divine Blade as a tonic. Zhou Zhan hurried forward to check whether his golden silkworm had suffered any harm, utterly failing to notice the strange behavior of the Blood-Transforming Divine Blade suspended in the air.

By now the Blood-Transforming Divine Blade had drawn all its blood light inward, revealing a black, dark, ancient blade. Talisman scripts appeared one after another across the blade that the blood light had once covered, as though two things were locked in struggle. Zhou Xuan was wholly absorbed in refining and restoring the damaged Yuanyan golden silkworm; had he noticed, he would certainly have been shocked, for the battle between the two energies within had reached its limit. After several thousand years of strife, the energy of the Seven Treasures Wondrous Tree Staff was no longer as vast as before, while the Divine-Slaughtering Formation within the blade ceaselessly absorbed new energy from without. But because that energy was so very pure, it could never be destroyed, and the two sides had long since deadlocked—and now the Divine-Slaughtering Formation had just absorbed the death qi from the Blood Demon Killing Curse, which proved precisely the last straw that breaks the camel's back!

Gradually the energy of the Seven Treasures Wondrous Tree Staff was forced out. Zhou Xuan at last sensed something amiss. He had only just drawn back the Yuanyan when he discovered the situation, and his soul nearly flew from his body. This was disastrous beyond words: if that energy were allowed to burst forth, to say nothing of his own house, nothing within ten li would be left standing. How great is the might of an ancient relic? To speak of destroying heaven and earth might be an exaggeration, but a single strike could surely lay waste a thousand li. Though it was only a trace of energy, Zhou Xuan could still feel the tremendous explosive force contained within it.

With a single guiding sign, the twelve command flags that had fallen to the ground rose floating once more. By now Zhou Xuan had recovered his power, and wielding them was effortless indeed. But to trap that mass of energy was not so easy. Golden—

Streams of flowing light poured from the blade and gathered in the air into a mass of golden liquid, from which boundless pressure radiated outward. Zhou Xuan drove the Dutian Divine-Slaughtering Formation with all his strength to suppress the pressure within that golden liquid, lest it burst forth. The two sides were locked in deadlock when the Blood-Transforming Divine Blade, floating in the air—whether driven by instinct or something else—caught sight of the bane that had plagued it for a thousand years. With a long keen, the blade tore through space and appeared uncannily within Zhou Yan's formation. This Blood-Transforming Divine Blade was the ancestor of the Divine-Slaughtering Formation; how could Zhou Xun's incomplete formation hope to hold it?

Seeing that mass of golden liquid within the formation, the Blood-Transforming Divine Blade looked upon it as an enemy beyond all reconciliation. Its edge blazed, and it struck down with savage force. For all his reckoning, Zhou Xuan had never counted on such a calamity; his mind went blank, and he watched helplessly as the golden liquid burst forth. Hum! A single Sanskrit note rang out. An object within the wall, as though yielding to that immense pressure, suddenly burst through the air. In the very instant the golden energy was about to erupt, that object swallowed it like a leviathan drinking the sea—swoosh! swoosh!—draining the golden energy utterly dry, then spun glinting in the air. The Blood-Transforming Divine Blade, too, clattered to the ground, the last shred of its own spirit worn away by that single strike, reduced once more to a dead weapon.