Chapter 45 — Xuanyuan Dharma King

Without the aid of any external force, the young man simply floated thousands of zhang up in the sky, white clouds drifting one after another beneath his feet. He had not cast so much as a single concealment spell to hide his person—his audacity was truly beyond reckoning.

"Rrrrumble!!" A vast aircraft passed close by, and the young man stared at it, clicking his tongue in wonder: "Human wisdom really does reach to Heaven! To think they can rise into the sky and burrow into the earth with borrowed power alone—and I hear they have even been to the moon. Even I, the Ancestor, would never dare attempt such a thing; those ninefold celestial winds of the upper air would blow an immortal to death! Tsk, tsk!! No wonder our demons have fallen so low. If our demon race had half the wisdom of humans, we would never have..." He muttered on to himself, utterly unaware of the commotion he had stirred up.

Space rippled faintly, and the young man came down into a mountain forest below. Such a method was plainly far superior to Kunlun's art of shrinking the earth. Command flag in hand, he searched everywhere, but Zhou Xuan seemed to have become one flesh with the earth and the woods—not the slightest breath of him escaped.

The young man shook his head. "Could he have gone into hiding? Impossible! Who could hide from under the Ancestor's very eyes? Eh? Since he is an heir to the Celestial Spirits Fiend-Slaughtering Array, he must have some cultivation to him. A pity the Ancestor's power has not yet recovered to half of what it once was; still, it would be best not to swagger about. Otherwise I could blast this whole ten-li stretch to rubble and kill the man along with it—would that not be delightful? Hmph. Number One says those so-called grandmasters are all late Spirit Transformation stage? My cultivation may have suffered grievously—I am only at the early Return to Void stage now—but one against three is still manageable. Add their magic treasures, though, and it is another matter. The Heavenly Master Sword, the Dragon-Tiger Treasure Seal, and the Yuxiu Ruler left behind by that mangy Taoist Zhang Daoling of Dragon-Tiger Mountain, and Mount Shu's Purple and Azure Twin Swords—against those I would be at a great disadvantage. Not worth it at all!"

At the mention of Mount Shu, a flicker of killing intent crossed the young man's eyes. "Do you think that will be enough to turn the Ancestor aside from his search? You underestimate the Xuanyuan Dharma King of old." Having spoken his former title aloud, the young man could not help but feel a little pleased with himself.

"Demon-Search of Heaven and Earth, Heaven's Sight and Earth's Hearing!" Crackling sounds erupted as a formidable wave of divine consciousness, so dense it seemed almost tangible, poured out from the blood-lit eyes of the Xuanyuan Dharma King in every direction. Trees and rocks three zhang around him were torn apart and burst asunder by that all-pervading consciousness.

To command such power without stirring the least trace of true essence, by divine consciousness alone—had any cultivator of the Chinese Daoist sects witnessed it, his eyes would have started from his head. Cultivators sit in meditation and refine their qi day after day, laboriously circulating the true essence within their bodies, opening their meridians and tempering their flesh—all of this is external work. With perseverance and a willingness to endure hardship, anyone can reach a high realm. The cultivation of divine consciousness, however, is not so easy: natural talent, comprehension, and bitter toil are all indispensable. Of essence, qi, and spirit, the faculty of divine consciousness is the most mysterious—vague and elusive, leaving no trace to follow. The aim of cultivators is to seek long life and eternal indestructibility. Yet the physical body is a thing of form, and in the long river of time every thing of form must at last crumble to dust. Therefore the great sages of old proposed the cultivation of divine consciousness, seeking to escape the flesh and let the divine consciousness endure forever between Heaven and Earth, within the cosmos.

To become a sage through the flesh, to seek eternity through divine consciousness—two utterly different ideals, yet not in conflict with each other. Both methods of cultivation were handed down. The cultivation of the flesh always leaves traces to follow and is easy to practice; the way of entering the Dao through divine consciousness is far too difficult, and few ever succeed. Often those of mediocre talent and comprehension never even find the threshold in their whole lives. Thus those who cultivate the flesh far outnumber those who cultivate divine consciousness.

Later, some cultivated both, and gradually discovered that a powerful divine consciousness was of immense benefit in circulating and marshaling one's true essence and in communicating with the spiritual qi of Heaven and Earth. The dual practice gradually became the mainstream. Yet the way of cultivation is fundamentally the way of balance between Heaven and Earth: where there is gain there must be loss. Fine as dual practice is, its progress is exceedingly slow, the balance between divine consciousness and true essence is extremely hard to maintain, and breakthroughs in realm are very difficult. The benevolent see benevolence and the wise see wisdom. In ancient times the methods of cultivation were far more numerous than today. After the great war of the Investiture of the Gods, a great many methods were lost, and the dual practice became the orthodox way, handed down through the ages. Few now understand the method of cultivating divine consciousness.

The Xuanyuan Dharma King was himself transformed from a wisp of essence-blood of an ancient cultivator. That ancient one had used his own essence-blood as the medicinal catalyst and kindled his furnace to refine an elixir, refining for decades on end. At the very moment the elixir was completed, his enemies found him out, beat him to death, and seized the elixir. But the enemy never noticed that a wisp of essence-blood remained in the furnace, unrefined. That essence-blood absorbed the spiritual qi of the elixir at the moment of its completion, and over tens of thousands of years it gradually developed a consciousness of its own, cultivated a human form, and moreover obtained that ancient cultivator's art of divine consciousness cultivation. In a single leap he became one of the foremost masters of the cultivation world of that time, styling himself the Xuanyuan Dharma King. Within a few years he had gathered half the demon race under Heaven and raised the cry that the demons should rule the whole of the human world. For a time his momentum was such as had rarely been seen in a thousand years.

In the end, however, the demon race was in decline—how could the strength of the Xuanyuan Dharma King alone turn the tide? At last the foremost master of the Daoist sects of the day, the Longbrow Ancestor, summoned all the cultivators of the world and fought three great battles with the Xuanyuan Dharma King at Mount Shu. In the final battle he laid out the Daoist killing array, the Twofold Primordial Microdust Array, and trapped the Xuanyuan Dharma King within it, then slew him with a single stroke of the Purple and Azure Twin Swords. From that time on the demon race dwindled, and never again could they contend with humankind; they could only howl and prowl in the mountains and forests, far from the crowds of men, and be true monsters.