Chapter Eighty-Six: The Purple Demon Shadow

All living beings under heaven are mere straw dogs. To prove my Great Way, I will slaughter them all!

Who is it?

A voice like a demon’s rang straight through Liang Yan’s ears, and he could not help but shudder in terror.

He looked around in alarm. Everywhere he saw the myriad faces of the crowd twisted into ugly malice, as though all of them meant to take his life.

Then, in a flash of realization, he saw himself among that endless multitude, another one of the common masses, utterly unfit to exist beneath heaven and earth.

His gaze fell on the butcher’s blade in his hand. On instinct, he tried to throw it away, only to find that no matter what he did, he could not let go.

You cannot cast it off... cannot cast it off...

Echoes rose and fell across the square.

“Who are you, exactly? Why hide your face? If you have the courage, then show yourself!”

Liang Yan’s mind was nearly on the verge of collapse as he shouted furiously into the empty square.

Yet no one answered. Only that incessant, muttering whisper remained.

Abandoned infant by his parents... abandoned infant by his parents...

The echoes rolled on across the square. Liang Yan was so horrified that his very soul seemed ready to leave his body, his face contorted with pain.

“Shut up!” He looked wildly around him, but could find no speaker at all.

Foster father died miserably... foster father died miserably...

Huaiyuan Town was slaughtered in a single night...

Poor talent, no hope of seeking immortality...

Schemed against, dead and path extinguished...

It was as though ten thousand mouths were whispering in his ear, the same words reverberating over and over through the empty square.

“Enough!”

Liang Yan suddenly turned and glared at the scholar’s statue, his expression gone mad. Spiritual power surged in his hand as he thrust out a finger, sending a blue streak of light flashing forth. It struck the iron scripture floating in midair before the ancestor’s statue. Yet the iron tome merely swayed slightly and took the blow without a scratch.

Zhuo Bufan, standing nearby, watched coldly. From his perspective, Liang Yan had since the beginning been staring blankly at his own crippled right hand. Then he had begun howling like a madman, questioning the empty square around him, and now he wore a crazed look as he actually spent his last remnants of spiritual power attacking the iron book before the founder’s statue.

“This man is pretending to be mad and foolish. Could it be he wants to trick me into lowering my guard?” Zhuo Bufan’s eyes narrowed, and a cold smile surfaced at the corners of his mouth.

“This place is strange. I’ll kill you first and ask questions later!”

Having made up his mind, he once again formed a sword gesture with his right hand and pointed it from afar at Liang Yan.

A thunderous crash exploded.

Yet the deafening sound did not come from Zhuo Bufan’s Dawnlight Sword, but from the iron scripture itself.

Along with the blast, countless sword energies burst forth from the tome. The clear water dripping from the gourd in the scholar statue’s hand could no longer suppress them, and that surging sword aura broke through the flow and rushed upward.

With a crack, the gourd in the scholar statue’s hand was actually shattered by the sword energy.

At the same time, Zhuo Bufan’s Dawnlight Sword let out a mournful cry in midair, its tip dipping downward as it plunged into the ground, as though paying homage to the sword aura overhead.

However, if one were to call the sword aura in the sky imperial in bearing, that would not be quite accurate. It was merely suppressing a low-grade flying sword like Dawnlight Sword.

On the contrary, instead of an emperor’s majesty, it was more fitting to describe the sword aura above as a stray dog in flight.

For the sword energies bursting from the iron book were not advancing, but fleeing in panic, while purple qi churned within the pages, as if something were about to break free.

Zhuo Bufan’s mind raced, but with his knowledge he could not see through what was happening here. He glanced at Liang Yan and saw that he was still dazed, staring at the iron scripture with a baffled expression. He could not help thinking:

“Could this man truly have lost his wits? This place is simply too strange. As for the matter of the Supreme Sword Canon, it is not wise to rush. I should withdraw first and make my plans later.”

The desire to retreat had already arisen in his heart. He no longer wished to remain here for even a moment, and he poured spiritual power into his hand, forcibly recalling the Dawnlight Sword embedded in the ground.

At that very moment, the myriad sword energies contained within the iron tome finally burst free all at once. In the center of the page, a flash of purple light flickered, and from within emerged a plume of violet mist. The mist shot upward into the heavens and, in just a few breaths, enveloped the vast white jade square.

“What!”

Zhuo Bufan was startled. He looked around and saw the purple mist surging without end, leaving him with no path of retreat.

“What kind of evil being is causing trouble here? This is the forbidden ground of the great Confucian sect Star-Scholar Pavilion, and powerful experts of the sect are nearby. I advise you to know what is prudent and leave at once, lest you become a trapped turtle in a jar!” Zhuo Bufan held his sword in hand and shouted sternly.

Yet throughout the entire cave, he alone was speaking. No one answered at all.

Zhuo Bufan frowned slightly. His lips moved, as though he wished to say more.

Just then, another change occurred.

A pillar of light descended from the boundless purple clouds, and a human silhouette gradually appeared in midair. Purple radiance circled his body, wavering and indistinct, making it impossible even to tell whether it was male or female.

The moment he appeared, he raised a hand and waved. Two violet beams shot out from his palm, one toward Zhuo Bufan and one toward Liang Yan.

The hairs on Zhuo Bufan’s body stood on end. Spiritual power within him surged madly as he rapidly formed a sword incantation and shouted:

“Condensing Sword Form!”

At his command, the Dawnlight Sword trembled rapidly at the tip, releasing clear and melodious sword cries. The moonlit power in the surrounding air also turned into strands of white silk, swiftly gathering at the sword’s point.

“Go!”

The silver-white flying sword shot toward the violet beam, but when the two met, there was no violent collision as expected.

The silver sword light pierced into the purple pillar without the slightest obstruction, as though stabbing into empty air. It pressed straight onward, passing through the purple figure’s body without slowing in the least.

At last it flew directly into the scholar statue, where the hilt still trembled endlessly.

“What?!”

Zhuo Bufan’s face changed drastically, but the purple beam gave him no time to react or think. It had already shone upon him.

In that instant, the light in Zhuo Bufan’s eyes vanished, his pupils dilated, and he collapsed soundlessly to the ground. There was not a single wound on his body, yet within, not the faintest trace of life remained.

Liang Yan was farther from the purple figure than Zhuo Bufan had been, so only after Zhuo Bufan died on the spot did the beam aimed at him barely reach his eyes.

Yet at this moment, his face was still blank with confusion, as though lost in a spellbound trance, paying no heed to anything around him.

Just as the purple beam was about to fall upon him, a restless turmoil suddenly rose within Liang Yan’s body. A bead the size of a ring flew out from within him. Half black and half white, with two streams of energy slowly circulating within it, it was none other than the Heavenly Opportunity Bead that had originally been within the Twin-Fish Dual-Life Formation!

The moment it appeared, it shot out a streak of black-and-white true light toward the violet beam. The two collided in midair without a sound.

The seemingly overbearing violet beam was actually held back by that black-and-white radiance. Not only that, it was even forced backward, retreating toward the purple figure.

The purple silhouette in the air seemed to have expected this all along. He brought both hands together before his chest and formed a bizarre seal. The purple beam flared brilliantly at once and counterattacked toward the Heavenly Opportunity Bead.

“Hm?”

After the Heavenly Opportunity Bead stirred, Liang Yan finally came to his senses. He looked around and saw that the countless figures of the crowd had already vanished, leaving only Zhuo Bufan’s corpse lying not far away.

Looking down, he saw his right hand was bloodied beyond recognition, long since crippled, and the butcher’s blade in his grasp had also disappeared without a trace.

Liang Yan drew a deep breath, his thoughts whirling.

Though he did not know exactly what had just happened, he could roughly guess that the purple figure before him was an absolute enemy. The reason he was still alive now was entirely because of a rare treasure like the Heavenly Opportunity Bead. If the bead could not defeat this person, then Zhuo Bufan’s fate not far away would be his own.

The black-and-white brilliance shot from the Heavenly Opportunity Bead and the purple beam from the mysterious figure confronted one another silently in midair. Though no sound was made at all, Liang Yan knew without looking how perilous the struggle was.

It was just that he currently had insufficient spiritual power throughout his body, and the meridians in his right arm were completely severed. There was simply nothing he could do but wait for the outcome of their clash.

The Heavenly Opportunity Bead and the purple figure were evenly matched, locked in stalemate above. After roughly the time it takes to burn half an incense stick, the purple figure’s body suddenly trembled slightly, and then he let out a sigh.

He seemed to turn and glance at Liang Yan, then moved his right hand sideways and extended a long, slender index finger, pointing at him from afar.

Liang Yan was horrified, but in his present condition of utter exhaustion, there was nowhere he could evade. A strand of purple thread shot instantly into the crown of his head.

“It’s over!” Liang Yan reflexively closed his eyes and thought with a bitter sigh.

Yet after a moment, he opened them again, his face filled with utter disbelief.

The purple thread had entered his body, but it caused him no harm whatsoever. Instead, it followed the channels of his meridians downward, and at last slowly wrapped itself around the red light cluster within his body.

Then the purple thread began to withdraw. After a moment, a red object was slowly drawn out from the crown of Liang Yan’s head by the purple filament.

With a slap, the red thing fell to the ground and rolled about incessantly, emitting shrill squeaks.

Liang Yan steadied himself and looked carefully. Only then did he realize that the red light cluster hidden within him for many days was actually a tiny red insect, with four eyes and eight legs, now writhing on the ground.

He quickly took out a small wooden box from his storage pouch, put the red insect inside, and tossed it back into the pouch. Then he raised his head and looked at the purple figure, an expression of mixed emotions in his eyes.

He had long wished for nothing more than to eliminate this hidden danger within his body, and yet in the end it had been this very person who saved him.

The purple figure, having removed the red insect from Liang Yan’s body, said nothing. As though resigned, he withdrew both hands and actually took the initiative to disperse his supernatural power.

With the purple beam gone, the black-and-white radiance of the Heavenly Opportunity Bead immediately flared brightly and shot toward the purple figure. Swept up by that black-and-white glow, the figure turned into a mass of purple qi, which was then drawn back into the bead.

The purple mist filling the entire cave also converged on the Heavenly Opportunity Bead, just like a huge funnel slowly being swallowed into it.

When all the purple qi and mist had been completely absorbed, the Heavenly Opportunity Bead suddenly burst out with a deep rumbling sound in midair. Four more spheres appeared around it. One of them shone with brilliant light, and within it slowly emerged a purple character for "demon."

This time, unlike the previous occurrence Liang Yan had experienced with the old monk, the character was crystal clear and remained visible instead of fading away. The four spheres rotated slowly around the Heavenly Opportunity Bead, though the other three remained pitch black, with only this one bearing a written mark.

Before Liang Yan could even figure out what had happened, the Heavenly Opportunity Bead suddenly flew backward from the air and reentered his body.

Boom!

An indescribably pure spiritual energy overflowed from the Heavenly Opportunity Bead. The Twin-Fish Dual-Life Formation within Liang Yan’s body operated of its own accord, yet even so, it could not fully digest such surging power.

That spiritual force continued to pour forth, a warm current racing through his limbs and bones. Liang Yan’s injuries recovered completely, as though he had been born anew.

“What is this?”

Liang Yan raised his right hand, his face full of disbelief.

“It can actually regrow a severed limb!”

Yet this spiritual power was merely the tip of the iceberg. The Heavenly Opportunity Bead continued to release an endless stream of energy. Liang Yan’s face flushed crimson, and in an instant he had already reached the peak of the fifth level of Qi Refining, on the verge of breaking through to the sixth!

Boom!

A muffled explosion sounded in the empty cave as Liang Yan successfully broke through to the sixth level of Qi Refining. But at this moment, blood-red streaks had already spilled from the corners of his mouth, clearly showing that this forced breakthrough had left his foundation unstable and his body temporarily unable to bear it.

Yet the Heavenly Opportunity Bead seemed unwilling to let him go. Spiritual energy still poured out like a flood, wave after wave, ceaselessly washing through his meridians. In the blink of an eye he had reached the peak of the sixth level and was still climbing.

“Ah!”

Liang Yan let out a pained cry as blood flowed simultaneously from his eyes, ears, mouth, and nose. His aura kept rising, and at last he broke through again to the seventh level of Qi Refining! Only then did the energy within the Heavenly Opportunity Bead seem nearly exhausted, the spiritual power flowing out growing thinner and thinner until it finally vanished completely.

The Heavenly Opportunity Bead had actually taken him directly from the fifth to the seventh level of Qi Refining. Such a thing had never been heard of in Star-Scholar Pavilion throughout the ages.

Yet blessing and disaster are ever intertwined. Though Liang Yan had “broken through under compulsion,” every meridian in his body had suffered terribly, and at this moment his injuries were no less severe than those he had sustained from Zhuo Bufan’s flying sword earlier.

He gritted his teeth and forced himself up on trembling legs, gathered the red pine needles scattered on the ground back into his pouch, then pulled out the Dawnlight Sword stuck in the founder’s statue and tossed it into his storage bag.

“Pff!”

Just after he finished this, Liang Yan spat out a mouthful of blood, his mind reeling in a haze, and then he collapsed headfirst to the ground.

Whoosh! Whoosh!

Almost the very instant he fell, two sounds of breaking air came from the cave entrance. Then two people descended from above and landed before Liang Yan. Out of the corner of his eye, he only caught sight of both of them wearing white robes, with jade pendants at their waists marked with the character for "law."

Enforcement disciples!

That was Liang Yan’s final thought. Then darkness swallowed his vision, and he lost consciousness completely.