Chapter 157 — The Fire Dragon Artifact

Before Sovereign Dharma King Xuan Yuan's eyes flickered a green shadow, and the toad was upon him. Only then did he make out its face, and he was startled and delighted at once: "Fourth Brother! It really is you!" The golden Daoist robe on Sovereign Dharma King Xuan Yuan's body rippled faintly, as though he were deeply stirred; a strange blood-red light shot from his eyes as he looked the toad up and down, and then he clicked his tongue in admiration: "Fourth Brother, your cultivation is profound now — surely you are close to ascending to the heavens. As your elder brother, I am far beneath you!" His tone was wistful, his spirits flat.

The toad too was greatly moved, and seeing the melancholy in Sovereign Dharma King Xuan Yuan's voice, he said hastily, "Elder Brother, do not sigh so. Who would have thought our brotherhood would one day be reunited? To tell the truth, in those years I went far overseas precisely to seek out dragon-vein peaks and refine this treasure, so that I might lend you a hand. But no sooner had I forged the primal embryo than word reached me that you had been besieged by the despicable wretches of the Xiuhang Sect in league with the Central Plains Daoist sects, that your body and spirit had been all but annihilated, and that Second and Third Brothers had been slain as well. Alone, with no one to turn to and the treasure not yet perfected, I had no choice but to live in seclusion overseas and bide my time, waiting to avenge you all. But then the heavenly tribulation descended upon me, and my attention was drawn elsewhere. And so it dragged on for several hundred years. The Central Plains Daoist sects only grew more flourishing; among my demonkin, some died and some ascended. There was no longer a foothold for my kind anywhere in the Central Plains — even overseas was far from peaceful. That old nun Wuzhen, trusting to the Two-Pole Mystic Lodestone Vase in her keeping, slaughtered my demonkin without mercy. I went to her door many times to reason with her, but there was nothing I could do against that vase of hers, and we both came away badly hurt. If it is like this overseas, how much worse in the Central Plains! Only recently did I finally perfect this treasure. I had meant to spend more time mastering it, but then word came of the immortal estate's consecration, and I thought I would try my luck. But Elder Brother — what of you? How is it your power has fallen so far, that even your primal body had to be remade?" Having laid out his own circumstances, the toad at last took note of Sovereign Dharma King Xuan Yuan's cultivation, and was astonished.

"So that is how it was. In those years I was trapped in a formation by that bald-headed mongrel Changmei, and my primal body was cut down by those Purple and Azure Twin Swords. In the end I had to use the Blood Demon Corpse Deliverance** to barely escape with a thread of my primal essence. I found an island overseas thick with the qi of nether demons, and it took me a thousand years of hardship to barely condense my primal essence and remake my primal body. Because my wounds were so grave — those Twin Swords joined as one had destroyed half my very source — even with my primal body remade, I could recover only half the cultivation and power I once had. Ai!" Sovereign Dharma King Xuan Yuan heaved a long sigh, utterly helpless. "This consecration of the immortal estate — I came hoping I might find some immortal elixir or wondrous medicine to restore my source. Once I regain the power of those years and refine the Formless Blood Demon Body — heh heh! Never mind the Daoist sects of this world; what could even the gods, Buddhas, and immortals of the Nine Heavens do to me then? I will overturn this heaven itself, and let my demonkin once again hold sway over the cycles of heaven and earth! Now that I have returned to the world, the Central Plains Daoist sects have long since withered — apart from a few treasures left by their ancestors, there is nothing left that can threaten us brothers. With Fourth Brother's present cultivation, sweeping away the Central Plains Daoist sects would be no difficult feat. Now that we brothers are reunited, if we gather the demonkin of the world, we can surely accomplish the hegemony we failed to achieve in those years." With these last words, Sovereign Dharma King Xuan Yuan's boundless heroic spirit returned, and he laughed heartily at the toad, his expression thoroughly merry.

Their reunion had come so suddenly, and both Sovereign Dharma King Xuan Yuan and the toad were overjoyed. With a wave of his hand the toad cast a seal of green light that enclosed the two of them together with Wen Yanlan, and they fell to talking. Hearing Sovereign Dharma King Xuan Yuan's words, the toad sighed: "Elder Brother's bold spirit is undiminished from those years. Our foes of old have one and all ascended to the heavens, and the Central Plains Daoist sects are now pitifully weak. But this mortal realm is closely bound to the Sixfold Wheel of Rebirth. If you truly mean to accomplish such hegemony, you will inevitably stir the Sixfold Wheel. Ever since the War of the Investiture, my demonkin have fallen into decline, and the Sixfold Wheel is no longer in our keeping. The Chan Sect established the Nether Bureaucracy, and its yin divinities are as numerous as the hairs on an ox. Never mind the Ten Courts of Yama — even the Ox-Head and Horse-Face, the Black and White Impermanence, are more than we could contend with. And more than that, our own karmic debts and sins are recorded within that Sixfold Wheel. Even if you wiped out every Daoist sect in the world and united all demonkin under heaven over this mortal realm, the moment the Nether Bureaucracy intervened, your hegemony would be no more than flowers in a mirror and moonlight on water."

At these words, Sovereign Dharma King Xuan Yuan's face turned ugly in the extreme. But he knew the toad spoke no falsehood. In those years he had found even mortal cultivators so difficult to deal with — far from gaining any advantage, he had been shattered and nearly annihilated in body and spirit. How much more formidable, then, were the yin divinities of the Netherworld, compared with mere mortal cultivation?

Sovereign Dharma King Xuan Yuan turned it over in his mind for a while, then suddenly chuckled darkly and said to the toad, "There is something Fourth Brother does not know. I have heard tell that the Great Sage of our demonkin, Emperor Gouchen, once handed down a Heavenly Book, in which are recorded the secret lore and arts of the demonkin of remotest antiquity. If we could but lay hands on it, would our strength not swell a hundredfold in an instant? Why should we fear the heavenly tribulation brought on by karmic debt and sin? Even the gods of heaven could do nothing to us then, let alone the petty yin divinities of the Netherworld. Only — that Heavenly Book has now fallen into the hands of a certain young whelp. His cultivation is nothing much, but the power of his treasures is by no means small. I went to seize them, and lost a heaven-demon into the bargain."