Day of Ascension

Everyone present felt a pang of disappointment. Had the Exorcism system really been created for the sole purpose of deceiving people and devouring them?

Had this come from anyone else, they might not have believed it. But it came from an Exorcist Immortal from four thousand years ago, so they had no choice but to accept it.

The dimpled woman asked, “How did you find me?”

Xu Ying replied, “I resonated with heaven and earth and sensed a faint trace of aura leaking from your Radiant Vestige land.”

Guo Xiaodie said, “After the Yunmeng Marsh appeared, our Guo clan’s Exorcists came to investigate whether there was a spiritual sanctuary here. They discovered a red glow rising from this place and forming a phenomenon, so they informed the clan and summoned everyone over.”

The woman’s expression instantly darkened. She turned to examine her Radiant Vestige land of sublimation closely, then stamped her foot.

“My hiding place has really been exposed! Did Yunmeng Marsh’s emergence cause it?”

Suddenly, she sensed something amiss. She turned back and found the young man, the young woman, and the snake demon on his shoulder all staring at the back of her head.

The dimpled woman’s eyes darted around, and she said warily, “You thought I’d been devoured, didn’t you? You were checking whether there was a thin slit on the back of my head with light shining through?”

She parted the hair at the back of her head and smiled. “Take a good look.”

Xu Ying and the others leaned in for a closer look. There was no slit, and they all sighed in relief. Xu Ying said, “I’ve found nine Exorcist Immortals’ Radiant Vestige lands recently, and all of them had been hollowed out.”

After repairing the flaw in her Radiant Vestige land of sublimation, the dimpled woman scanned her surroundings and said, “Release the dragon-horse and come inside. It’s dangerous out there. My aura leaking out drew you here, and it may also draw that so-called master of mine. There’s no telling when he’ll arrive.”

Xu Ying voiced his compliance. Dazhong stopped suppressing the dragon-horse and hovered above him. Xu Ying led the way and followed the dimpled woman into her land of sublimation.

Guo Xiaodie, Li Yingzhu, Guo Yue, and the others went after him. Once inside, they saw a beautiful landscape filled with countless Dao avatars, while immortal light draped the sky.

They saw a complete ethereal void.

The Five Sacred Immortal Mountains, Heavenly Mountain, Heavenly River, the three Passes, the Twelve-Story Pagoda, and others were all in view!

Xu Ying looked up and even saw her Primordial Spirit on the Divine Bridge, like a fairy waiting for ascension.

Even more striking, grotto heavens hung upside down in the sky. There were not only nine grotto-heavens of the Mud Pill, but also nine each of the Jade Pool and Crimson Palace.

Clearly, the dimpled woman was a great grandmaster who cultivated both Qi and Exorcism!

Puzzled, Dazhong wondered aloud, “She’s clearly a Qi Cultivator from three to four thousand years ago. How come she’s cultivating both Qi and Exorcism?”

Xu Ying also had the same doubts.

Dual cultivation of Qi and Exorcism was clearly a recent development. It had only begun spreading through the Divine Land after Zhou Qiyun’s tribulation.

The female Exorcist Immortal told them to make themselves comfortable. “My surname is Bai, and my given name is Qiuzi. I’m an Exorcist from the late Qin and early Han eras. I have spent four thousand years here in seclusion, hiding from my master, but he never found me. I never expected you all to find me today.”

Bai Qiuzi was visibly nervous. She took out a clear mirror and waved her sleeve gently, sending it floating in the sky. Then the mirror began to show what was happening outside.

The dragon-horse had galloped away, diving deep into a swamp and swimming underwater.

Bai Qiuzi said to Xu Ying, “If you can sense my aura, then my master definitely can too. He’s likely on his way. Don’t make a sound!”

As soon as she finished speaking, the mirror’s surface rippled. A distorted figure appeared in the reflection, and the mirror occasionally shuddered.

The figure searched the area but found no trace of her. Though his lips never moved, his voice still reached Bai Qiuzi and the others.

“Qiuzi, how long have you been hiding? It’s almost been four thousand years, hasn’t it? Are you going to keep hiding?”

A Primordial Spirit rose behind him. It sat in the void, appearing boundlessly vast, yet it barely took up any space. Divine light blazed from it, and immortal qi swirled around it in ceaseless currents. An eye rolled open at its glabella, revealing a third eye that pierced through layer after layer of void in search of the Radiant Vestige land.

That blurry, distorted figure smiled leisurely. “We’re master and disciple, after all. Why must there be such a huge rift between us?”

His voice echoed in everyone’s mind, speaking through his divine sense. He said slowly, “Qiuzi, you might have misunderstood me. I admire your talent; why would I eat you? Come out, and I’ll teach you the true method.”

He chuckled. “You must have noticed it after hiding it for so long, haven’t you? Although exorcism arts can grant you a long lifespan, it’s not eternal life. The immortal herbs cultivated from exorcism arts cannot grant you true eternal life.

“Your Radiant Vestige land of sublimation isn’t a real Immortal Realm, either. It’s merely slowing down your aging. By now, you must have noticed yourself growing older.”

Bai Qiuzi’s expression darkened, nervous and uneasy. He had struck her sore spot.

Xu Ying looked at her beautiful hair and spotted some white strands mixed in. An Exorcist Immortal can’t gain true eternal life even by sublimating their Radiant Vestige?

That blurry figure’s Primordial Spirit thoroughly scoured the nearby void in just a short time. Failing to find Bai Qiuzi’s land of sublimation, he couldn’t help but frown.

He said softly, “Girl, where could you have run off to?”

That blurry, distorted figure vanished.

Just as the others were about to speak, Bai Qiuzi lifted her hand and wrote a few characters.

“He’ll be back.”

Within the mirror in the sky, that blurry, distorted figure reappeared. His warped, spinning face suddenly pressed against the mirror’s surface, seemingly having discovered something. A large eye blocked the mirror, peering in.

The fluctuations from the mirror’s divine ability had drawn his attention and led him to investigate the source.

The mirror already spanned half the sky, but now that single eye filled its entire surface. Everyone inside the land of sublimation could see every minute detail of it.

For a moment, the atmosphere grew unbearably oppressive. Everyone held their breath. No one dared inhale, and even their hearts seemed to stop for an instant.

The sense of oppression was too much!

In a panic, Bai Qiuzi drew a silver needle and sent it flying into the air until it hovered before the mirror. She trembled from head to toe, poised to drive the needle into the eye within the mirror.

The voice rang in her ear. “You’re right here.”

Bai Qiuzi’s hand trembled just as she was about to drive the silver needle into the strange eye within the mirror. Then the eye that filled the mirror suddenly drew back, revealing the blurry, distorted figure once more.

He looked up at the sky, only to see a black coffin flying toward him.

As soon as the black coffin appeared within the mirror, the mirror’s surface steadied for a moment, and the blurry, distorted figure returned to normal as well.

His features became clear. He looked to be in his thirties and had a sesame-sized tear mole at the corner of one eye. He was handsome, though there was something faintly demonic about him.

Suddenly, the tear-mole man vanished from the mirror’s surface, likely evading the black coffin’s pursuit.

Just as he left, the black coffin descended from the sky and landed in the center of the mirror’s surface. A maiden slowly descended before the black coffin. Her delicate brow frowned slightly as she looked around.

She muttered, “Strange, I clearly sensed your aura. You’ve emerged from the Abyss of Cangwu. What exactly are your intentions?”

She soared skyward and vanished from the mirror’s surface along with the black coffin.

Bai Qiuzi waited quietly for a moment, then let out a sigh of relief and said softly, “They are likely gone. I’m going to move right away. What do you wish to ask or say?”

As though a crushing weight had been lifted, the group found themselves drenched in sweat. What had just happened truly terrified them.

Guo Xiaodie asked, “Senior Bai, I noticed that you cultivate both Qi and Exorcism and possess immense strength. Why do you call yourself an Exorcist Immortal?”

Bai Qiuzi smiled sweetly, revealing two dimples. “Exorcists are Qi Cultivators to begin with. A human taking on the difficult challenge of cultivating immortality forms the character for ‘Exorcist.’

“Back in my time, Qi Cultivators had already reached a dead end. Some clung stubbornly to orthodoxy and refused to change, while others saw that the traditional path led nowhere and opened their Secret Troves instead. Those Qi Cultivators were called Exorcists.”

The Guo clan’s Exorcists were left speechless, unaware that Qi Cultivators and Exorcists shared the same roots!

Bai Qiuzi pushed open the temple door of her Radiant Vestige land and invited everyone to leave.

“Exorcism arts appeared very long ago. Qi Cultivators argued fiercely back then. Some believed that it wasn’t orthodox and attacked it. Others believed that those adhering to tradition were being stubborn and inflexible. As their arguments escalated, they started fighting.”

She was the last to step out. At some point, she changed into the attire of a village woman and wore a rough, patterned headscarf. “Later, people discovered that traps were hidden within exorcism arts and suspected that those who spread exorcism arts harbored ill intentions.

“Thus, Emperor Ancestral Dragon ordered the burning of books and the burying of Exorcists alive, destroying all the exorcism arts that contained traps. They also captured many who taught those harmful arts and killed them. But it was useless. I still fell victim to the trap in the end.”

In that era, there were many Exorcist Immortals. Many chose to sublimate their Radiant Vestige and live in seclusion in the mountains and forests.

Bai Qiuzi discovered that many of her friends had gone missing after going into seclusion. When she went to visit them, she found that they had been devoured, leaving behind nothing but empty husks.

She realized something was wrong and understood that Exorcist Immortals like her had been set up. Fortunately, she had weathered countless great battles. Though she was not the strongest, she possessed many methods.

She concealed her Radiant Vestige land of sublimation on a dragon-horse and rode it into the Yunmeng Marsh. That immortal master who imparted her techniques in her dreams tried searching for her repeatedly, but he never found her.

Xu Ying asked, “Miss Bai, why do you say that Exorcism was a trap from the start? Wasn’t it developed by Qi Cultivators? I met a Qi Cultivator from the era after Emperor Wu. The exorcism art he practiced had no traps and could refine immortal herbs.”

Bai Qiuzi replied, “Before I went into seclusion, a group of Exorcists had already noticed the trap. They are likely the ones who developed the true techniques. Although I never learned their true techniques, I’ve lived thousands of years longer than they did.”

She mounted the dragon-horse’s back. “Even if one obtained the true techniques, I suspect that Exorcist Immortals still cannot prevent aging. I’ve been hiding inside my land of sublimation as an Exorcist Immortal for over three thousand years. I hadn’t felt the passage of time at first, but I recently began to feel it.”

Her expression turned solemn. “What’s more, I can feel the rate at which I’m aging beginning to increase. It seems that cultivating immortality through Exorcism is still not the orthodox path. Only by ascending can one truly attain eternal life. This time, I will enter the world and search for a way to ascend. I cannot keep hiding.”

Just as she was about to take her leave, Xu Ying took out a few thin handwritten books. “Miss Bai, I have the true techniques of Mud Pill, Crimson Palace, and Jade Pool here. They will allow you to refine their immortal herbs.

“Once you cultivate them, you should be able to avoid that person’s detection. After refining your immortal herbs, you won’t have to worry about being devoured.”

Bai Qiuzi received them and read them carefully. The more she read, the more astonished and excited she became.

If she cultivated according to these handwritten books, she would definitely be able to refine the three types of immortal herbs within her.

Bai Qiuzi suppressed her excitement. Her eyes shone like shimmering autumn waters as she scanned Xu Ying up and down. “You came to seek true techniques from me? I failed to impart any true teachings to you, yet I’ve received three true techniques from you instead. You still lack the Gushing-Spring Secret Trove, don’t you?”

Seeing Xu Ying nod, she immediately smiled. “Leave the technique for the Gushing-Spring Secret Trove to me; I’ll take care of it for you! There’s a Mountain God Temple on Mount Dongting ahead. Wait for me there!”

Riding the dragon-horse, she galloped away, its hooves clopping across the water’s surface.

Li Yingzhu looked at Xu Ying and nudged his back with her shoulder. Giggling, she asked, “Demon King Xu, erm, could you give us a copy of the three true techniques?”

She leaned in close to Xu Ying’s ear and whispered, “Do you still remember that night on Mount Jiuyi? I was the one who stripped Xiaodie and tucked her into your bed.”

Seeing how close they were, Guo Yue coughed dryly.

Recalling the events of that night, Xu Ying flushed slightly. “Second Aunt, I owe the Guo clan a debt of gratitude. In order to protect me, Old Ancestor Guo confronted Emperor Shengshen. Compared to that, three true techniques are not worth mentioning.”

Li Yingzhu grinned, exposing her canine teeth. She whispered, “I’ll tuck Xiaodie into your bed tonight!”

Xu Ying flushed red, unsure whether she was being serious. His heart pounded wildly.

They arrived at the Mountain God Temple on Mount Dongting. The god had long since vanished. The Guo clan members cleaned up the place and waited quietly inside the temple.

***

In the underworld.

A dragon-horse that was dozens of zhang in length galloped at a furious pace, its iron hooves clattering as it sped across the mountains, alarming the Underworld Court. The ghost gods looked on from all sides, watching as it headed straight toward the underworld’s forbidden zone, leaving them horrified.

“Who is that? Who dares to intrude where not even the Underworld Court dares to set foot in?”

The dragon-horse kept galloping, traveling over a hundred thousand li in a single night to reach deep within the forbidden zone. Here, the mountains loomed gloomily. Graves dotted the landscape, and ghostly flames flickered everywhere.

The dragon-horse came to a halt before a grim mountain. The entire mountain was surrounded by steep cliffs, and a coffin hung on the cliff, forged from black iron.

Standing atop the dragon-horse’s forehead, Bai Qiuzi looked up at the suspended black iron coffin. “I’m looking to repay a debt of gratitude and need the cultivation technique for the Gushing-Spring Secret Trove.”

An authoritative voice rang out from the suspended black iron coffin, saying coldly, “Bai Qiuzi, you’re not dead yet? What does your wanting to repay a debt of gratitude have to do with me?”

Bai Qiuzi smiled. “Old Demon Nine Netherworlds, you’re the only one among my enemies who has the cultivation technique for the Gushing-Spring Secret Trove. Naturally, I’ve come to find you.”

“Bai Qiuzi, you’re courting death!”

The black coffin exploded, and overwhelming power surged forth from within. “We’ve both been hiding safely, and you just had to come and provoke me! Today, even if I risk being detected by that evil, I must send you to your death!”

***

Xu Ying waited all night at the Mountain God Temple on Mount Dongting. As he grew anxious, Yuanqi murmured, “Ah Ying, is she trustworthy?”

Dazhong agreed. “I haven’t seen Li Yingzhu send Guo Xiaodie here naked.”

Yuanqi replied, “Master Zhong, I was talking about Bai Qiuzi.”

Dazhong said sheepishly, “I thought you were talking about Li Yingzhu.”

Suddenly, they heard the clatter of hooves.

Outside the temple, the dragon-horse neighed. Xu Ying stepped out of the Mountain God Temple and saw Bai Qiuzi jumping off the dragon-horse, covered in blood and wounds. She handed him a black scripture and smiled.

“This is the Black Water Yellow Springs Scripture. It took me quite a bit of effort to obtain it.”

Xu Ying received the book. Just as he was about to speak, Bai Qiuzi waved her hand at him and said with a smile, “See you in Jianghu!”

With that, she leaped onto the dragon-horse, and it galloped into the darkness, carrying away that valiant, heroic woman until she vanished without a trace.