Dragon Canon

The walls of the house were built using mud and a few broken bricks and stones. There was only one room inside. A stove stood in one corner, and two sleeping mats lay on the floor on the other side. Presumably, the bigger mat was for an adult, and the smaller one a child.

Apart from that, the room contained only a few odds and ends: a few chipped bowls and plates, and a water jar with a crack in it.

A few bundles of dried vegetables lay on the stove. It was unclear how long they had been left there, but their moisture had long since evaporated into nothing.

From this room alone, one could tell that the owner was extremely poor. It was a perfect example of the saying, “Owning nothing besides four bare walls.” However, the items were arranged neatly, and the place was spotlessly clean. There was even a small dent in the child’s sleeping mat. One could almost imagine a child curled up inside, fast asleep.

The room was far too clean. It was clear it was maintained regularly. It was starkly different from the other houses in the vicinity.

Wei Yuan scanned the entire room with his perception, then picked up a wooden comb and a wooden hairpin near the straw pillow on the adult’s sleeping mat. He remarked, “It looks like a woman lived here alone with her child. I don’t see anything that might indicate a man’s presence.”

Considering the circumstances and the environment, Wei Yuan could only imagine how difficult it was for the single mother to raise her child. That said, this was within the place. Other variables might have come into play.

Sun Yu stepped into the earthen hut, sniffed deeply, and said, “The scent of medicine is quite strong in this room. It must have spent quite some time in this room.”

Sun Yu continued to sniff as he walked until he finally arrived beside the child’s sleeping mat. He declared with certainty, “It had laid here on this mat.”

Wei Yuan was puzzled. Even if the monster was searching for a lair, he didn’t understand why it had chosen a child’s sleeping mat when there was a larger mat right next to it. For that matter, he didn’t understand why it had chosen this house when it had nothing but straw and two hemp sheets that were full of holes, while the other houses had proper beds and beddings.

After everyone had scanned the area with their perception, they still found nothing. However, Wei Yuan was convinced that they were still missing something. He crouched down in front of the child’s straw mat, parted the straw, and found a wooden doll. Half of the doll’s head had been severed and, judging by the marks, it had been cut with a very dull knife.

Ever since attaining the Red Lotus Bodhi, Wei Yuan’s perception had grown sharper. Right now, his senses were telling him that the doll was giving off a faint aura of bloodshed and dampness, as if it were still entangled in some sort of karmic ties. He casually tucked the doll away.

After that, the group left the earthen hut and continued to follow the trail of medicinal scent and residual pill fire in the air. As it turned out, the monster had circled around the area several times—presumably because it noticed that Wei Yuan and his group weren’t following it temporarily—before heading straight for the perimeter of the palace complex.

The group continued to give chase at an unhurried pace, maintaining constant vigilance. Its speed was just too great. If they pursued at full speed, they would be vulnerable to an ambush.

No sooner had Wei Yuan stepped outside the palace walls than a sudden sense of foreboding struck him. He was about to cast a protective spell, but just as the light of a Dao spell began to glow, a slender shadow had already lashed out at him!

Wei Yuan let out a muffled grunt and cast Stomping Ground into Steel, turning the ground to steel and temporarily trapping the shadow. Immediately, the Devil Suppressing Nine Level Pagoda appeared and plunged directly into the ground. The pagoda had shifted into an intangible state and could not be stopped by Stomping Ground into Steel.

A crimson immortal sword flickered into existence. Holding it upside down with both hands, Wei Yuan thrust the entire blade into the ground until it was buried up to the hilt!

A shriek echoed from beneath the earth, and two streams of black qi shot out, lashing against Wei Yuan’s body. Then, the monster fled rapidly underground and vanished in the blink of an eye.

Wei Yuan pulled out the sword and saw that its tip was coated with an inch or so of black liquid. It was viscous and heavy, poised to drip but not really. The moment he saw it, a wave of malevolent energy seemed to wash over him. His vision blurred slightly, and he felt as though he could hear various howls and wails in his ears.

Just then, the Devil Suppressing Nine Level Pagoda rose before Wei Yuan. The middle section of the pagoda was adorned with various bronze lamps, and they were lighting up one by one. When their light fell on Wei Yuan, multiple streaks of black qi were instantly revealed.

Most of the black qi rapidly dissipated under the lamplight. The few remaining wisps that could not be dispelled were sucked into the Devil Suppressing Nine Level Pagoda.

Wei Yuan felt a weight lifting from his mind, and he stood up. Suddenly, excruciating pain shot through his body. When he looked down, he saw that he had gained another three wounds. The flesh around these wounds were torn open and already bluish black in color. Black fluid was constantly seeping out of them.

Ji Liuli handed him another three pills: one to replenish qi, one to regenerate flesh, and one to neutralize toxins. Each pill came in an exquisitely ornate box that looked anything but cheap.

Sun Yu treated Wei Yuan’s wounds right there on the spot. It was baffling that, despite being a top disciple of the Xuanming Hall, Sun Yu had not brought any healing pills with him for this expedition. Instead, his entire person was laden with all manner of strange and exotic poison.

The monster’s attacks were immensely powerful. Had those three strikes landed on anyone else, they would have been cleaved in two. Out of all of them, only Ji Liuli could have withstood them with her physical body, and even Feng Tingyu, a top disciple of the Bright King Hall, fell slightly short.

After a brief delay, the group continued their pursuit. Having struck the monster one time, Wei Yuan had developed a subtle, intuitive connection with it. He could now vaguely sense its general direction.

The Crimson Night Slayer of Immortals was forged from the seven sword qi created by the Bay Laurel Immortal Tree when it first sprouted. Thus, it was actually a sword of the utmost yin and cold. A speck of sword intent was currently clinging to the monster’s body and providing guidance to Wei Yuan.

Once they left the palace complex, they were only about ten li from the edge of the grotto-heaven fragment. Wei Yuan could sense that the monster was prowling just ahead with no place left to escape. However, he dared not let his guard down for even a moment.

The monster was definitely a ferocious one. The shriek it had let out just now was powerful enough to threaten his primordial spirit. If he were an ordinary Dao Foundation stage cultivator, his Dao Foundation would have shattered already.

They hadn’t gone far when Wei Yuan suddenly shouted, “Watch out!” In his senses, the monster was closing in at an astonishing speed!

Before Wei Yuan’s shout had even faded, the monster had already appeared above the group and let out a piercing screech!

That single screech instantly caused countless tiny vengeful spirits to rise from the ground within a radius of several hundred zhang. Although the grotto-heaven had shattered, many tiny creatures still clung to life within it, and that screech had just shattered the souls of every insect, every small beast. A land of the death—one ranging several li in radius—had been created just like that.

Wei Yuan and the rest of the group were also staggering unsteadily due to the excruciating pain racking their primordial spirits. Hidden within the monster’s screech was an attack that targeted the soul directly. Its power was exponentially stronger against those with weak will and resolve as well.

The screech was powerful enough to shatter an Avatar. It was clearly the monster’s killing move. However, not a single member of the group fell despite swaying unsteadily for a bit.

The reason why Ji Liuli remained standing was obvious; the Devil Suppressing Nine Level Pagoda was a potent, all-rounder treasure of the primordial spirit.

Zhang Sheng possessed a Dao Heart of Invincibility and a will as firm as steel. The screech could not shake him in the slightest.

Feng Tingyu was a faithful follower of the Bright King Hall. Her brain and primordial spirit were protected by a thick layer of muscle[1].

Sun Yu’s defenses were slightly inferior, but he was the man who had invented the Devil-Eroding God-Annihilating Incense. Not only had he developed a profound understanding of the primordial spirit, he regularly consumed elixirs to enhance his primordial spirit’s defense. Therefore, in terms of his primordial spirit’s defense, he had long reached the level of an Avatar.

Ironically, Wei Yuan possessed the weakest primordial spirit defense out of everyone. But what he lacked in defense, he made up with sheer robustness of his primordial spirit. The soul attack that could have killed another cultivator several times over only dizzied him a little.

The shadow monster, seeing that its killing move had failed to take out its opponents, tried to flee again. However, the Devil Suppressing Nine Level Pagoda had already emitted a ring of golden light that caused unnatural ripples to appear on its body as it swept past it. At the same time, Feng Tingyu’s saber and Sun Yu’s pill fire struck the monster simultaneously, delivering yet another heavy blow.

Finally, a light rain fell from the sky and elicited a piercing scream from the monster. It clearly did not enjoy basking in Zhang Sheng’s Blue Rain and took off running. But this time, the group did not stand idly by. They gave chase.

Several li passed in the blink of an eye. Before Wei Yuan’s eyes, a large grave and a small grave appeared. The shadow monster circled around them once before plunging into the small grave.

Both graves were exceptionally crude-looking—merely mounds of earth hidden among shrubs and stones. Were it not for the two wooden tombstones, no one would have recognized them as graves.

The shadow monster stopped running away upon reaching this spot. It simply hid underground, as if this were its final lair.

At this point, no one knew what lurked within the underground chamber yet. No one was willing to descend into the underground and battle a creature that could move freely beneath the earth either. Thus, after discussing tactics with Zhang Sheng for a bit, Ji Liuli decided to kill it with an array.

First, Ji Liuli suspended the Devil Suppressing Nine Level Pagoda above the grave to prevent it from escaping. Then, she worked together with Zhang Sheng to set up the array. Sun Yu and Feng Tingyu then stepped into the focal points of the array—one yin and one yang—and became integral parts of it.

The array was extremely complex. It took Wei Yuan a long time to barely recognize it as the Northern Star Constellation Soul-Refining Array.

With the array set, Sun Yu expelled a ball of dark green pill fire, which Ji Liuli caught in his hand. Wei Yuan vaguely remembered that when he first joined the Palace of Absolute Beginning, his senior uncle’s pill fire had been a bright blue-white. Now, it had turned into a somber, heavy dark green.

Everything was ready after Ji Liuli placed the pill fire at the center of the array. She activated it. The center of the array suddenly turned impenetrably dark, and a brilliant star appeared above it. Then, a beam of starlight shot into the darkness.

The underground monster let out a piercing scream and rushed out of the center of the array, only to crash head first into the pill fire. It immediately burst into flames, and for the first time, its true form was revealed.

Meanwhile, Wei Yuan had already summoned the Crimson Night Slayer of Immortals and sent a streak of crimson light toward the monster. When the shadow monster’s true form was revealed, his hand suddenly trembled, but it was too late. The light had already swept past the monster.

Four immortal swords had long been hovering on the four corners of the array. They were already descending in succession even before the monster had tried to make a run for it. By the time it emerged, the four immortal swords had already fallen in succession.

Each time an immortal sword landed, the monster’s aura would weaken dramatically. When all four immortal swords had struck, its seemingly bottomless life force had finally reached the bottom.

The monster crashed to the ground, revealing itself to be a little girl who looked only six or seven years old. She wore a white dress that was tattered and covered in bloodstains.

After hitting the ground, she instinctively crawled toward the larger grave while murmuring, “... I’m back. Please don’t chase me away anymore. I’m... scared....”

The little girl’s life force had long since been spent. After crawling just two steps, she stopped moving forever, one small hand clenched deep into the soil.

Silence fell.

Moments later, Wei Yuan asked, “What is going on here?”

Ji Liuli wore a grave expression as she replied, “She’s been dead for a long time. For some reason, she turned into a monster.”

Sun Yu stepped forward to examine the girl’s body. A short while later, he said, “She’s not a Corpse Ba[2]. Her body is still quite fresh. It looks like she’s only been dead for a month.”

Wei Yuan’s first reaction was that it was impossible. The grotto-heaven had been shattered for several years now, and even the oldest traces of combat in the central palace dated back two or three years.

Sun Yu pondered for a moment before adding, “Either there’s some secret treasure down here that prevents the body from decaying, or it’s possible she was possessed by a powerful yin spirit the whole time, which is why her body hasn’t rotted. But look.”

Sun Yu lifted the girl’s arm and rolled up her sleeve. To their surprise, the small arm was twisted and deformed in several places, resembling a twisted three branch.

Sun Yu said in a grave tone, “This arm had been broken more than once. It wasn’t treated after the bones were fractured; instead, it was left to heal on its own, at which point it was broken again.”

Wei Yuan’s chest felt a bit tight as he walked over to the two graves and looked at the tombstones.

The larger tombstone read, “Grave of Xu Shiqi[3],” while the smaller one read, “Grave of My Beloved Daughter, Shu Xinyi.”

By then, Ji Liuli had finished surveying the terrain. She said, “There is likely a Land of Absolute Yin beneath this ground. That is why such a powerful yin spirit had been born.”

“How could there possibly be a Land of Absolute Yin in a grotto-heaven?” Sun Yu asked.

Ji Liuli replied, “It was created by someone.”

Wei Yuan immediately ordered, “Dig! Let us see what kind of Land of Absolute Yin the Xu Clan has created in their own grotto-heaven!”

1. MUSCLEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! ☜

2. Nüba (Chinese: 女魃; pinyin: nǚbá), also known as Ba (魃) and as Hanba (旱魃), is a Chinese drought deity. ”Ba” is her proper name, with the nü being an added indication of being feminine and han meaning ”drought”. ☜

3. Meaning Seventeen. ☜