An Alchemist's Path to Eternity

”To tell you the truth, the army that attacked us was only a small part of the Demon Alliance’s forces. Most of them went south to attack the Blue Sea Alliance. If they had sent their full strength against us, the Zhou family would never have held out for so long.”

As Zhou Yunshen spoke, his expression was filled with grief. The suffering of the past two decades had clearly left its mark on him. The fate of Spirit Tamer, an old friend of his, had been especially tragic. He had made his final stand in Endless Valley, relying on its terrain for protection, only for that same terrain to trap him. Not even his Nascent Soul had managed to escape.

Luo Chen was utterly shaken by this. Sages were notoriously difficult to kill. Even if their bodies were destroyed, their Nascent Souls could merge with heaven and earth long enough for them to teleport through the void. Unless the enemy possessed a rare treasure like the Primordial Unity Cauldron, capturing one was definitely not a simple matter.

After a moment of silence, Luo Chen asked, ”What happened before the attack?”

Zhou Yunshen looked at him in confusion.

”I mean before the Demon Alliance arrived,” Luo Chen clarified. ”What happened inside the Society after Moon Hermit returned? More importantly, what happened to the people connected to me?”

An uneasy look crossed Zhou Yunshen’s wrinkled face. But Luo Chen pressed him for an answer, and after a long hesitation, the man finally sighed and said, ”There were rumors everywhere at the time. People said Moon Hermit had gained something extraordinary in the Sunken Sea. They also spoke of how you killed Flying Cloud despite the difference in your cultivation. I don’t know what truly happened there, but after Moon Hermit returned, she began purging every faction in the Society that had ties to you.

”As far as I know, Surging Lake was reclaimed, and the Zhang family of Lotus Picking Island was exterminated. Zhou Shanshan was the only one spared. She is a distant descendant of mine, so far removed that I can barely trace the connection, but Moon Hermit showed me that much respect. Truthfully, Moon Hermit hid her strength even better than I had. She had already reached the late stage, and she knew I was at the sixth stage. That was the only reason she granted me that favor.

”The Azure Yang Shop your subordinates established in Dragon Abyss Immortal City was destroyed as well. Rogue cultivators associated with you were captured, and from what I heard, they were treated very harshly during their interrogations. One of them was named Duan Li. He later died during a demonic beast attack, though I don’t know exactly what happened. The Earth Mulberry Sect was wiped out entirely as well. Haih... that was a terrible waste. Rogue cultivators who know how to cultivate spirit plants are rare and valuable.”

Luo Chen listened in silence, but at some point, his usually calm and unruffled expression had turned furious. With every name Zhou Yunshen mentioned, his expression grew colder.

Zhou Yunshen’s voice gradually faltered under that growing killing intent. Although his cultivation far surpassed Luo Chen’s, he felt as though he were standing before a volcano moments from eruption. The scorching pressure radiating from his interlocutor left him deeply uncomfortable.

So this is the aura of someone who killed a Sage while still in the Golden Core Realm... Tsk, I haven’t even killed one at my own level....

Zhou Yunshen shook his head and forced himself to continue. ”There’s some good news too. Moon Hermit tried to capture a rogue Adept known as Sovereign Thatched Mountain, but she never found her. The Zhang family wasn’t completely wiped out, either. One of their cultivators survived by hiding in a cave deep under Surging Lake. One of my members later found her and brought her back to my family.”

That small bit of good news did nothing to ease the fury on Luo Chen’s face. When Zhou Yunshen finished, Luo Chen shouted furiously, ”MOOOOOONNN HEEEERRMIIIITT!”

He did not even try to restrain his killing intent. An invisible blaze surged from his body, and its heat distorted the air around him. Then, almost as quickly as it had appeared, both the killing intent and the mysterious flames vanished.

Luo Chen drew a long breath and forced his emotions back under control. ”Thank you for telling me all this.”

”Compared to what you did for my family, this is nothing.” Zhou Yunshen hesitated before adding, ”Black King took the surviving girl from the Zhang family with him. What do you plan to do with her?”

Is that Zhang Jingqing? Luo Chen answered without hesitation, ”Thank you for looking after her all these years. Her father served me for a long time. From now on, I’ll look after her myself.”

Zhou Yunshen seemed to have expected that answer. He took out a storage pouch and held it toward Luo Chen. ”Then please give this to her for me. Consider it my way of making up for everything she’s endured over the years.”

The words made Luo Chen frown, but Zhou Yunshen did not seem willing to elaborate. He excused himself on the grounds that his family members had only just reached the city and still needed somewhere to settle. Luo Chen did not insist that he stay; he merely extended an invitation for later and watched the man take his leave.

Luo Chen remained alone in the mountain pavilion for a long time before returning to his cave residence. Upon returning, he found a beautiful woman standing gracefully with concern filling her eyes as she watched the flood dragon lie coiled on the ground, obviously injured.

After examining the injuries, Luo Chen swept two fingers through the air. A stream of azure-golden fire flowed from his fingertips and closed around the blue flames burning along the wounds.

”Was it the Merman Emperor Liu Jun?”

Black King bared his teeth against the pain. ”It was. He was one of the three Demon Emperors besieging the Zhou family. I can handle him in the sea, but the flames from that oil lamp of his are especially dangerous to my body.”

Luo Chen nodded. He knew exactly how dangerous the lamp could be. Even with a fourth-tier archaic beast body—no, precisely because of it, he had been unable to endure those blue flames. He had survived only by severing his own arm and using the Withering-Flourishing True Fire to stop the corrosion from spreading.

Black King’s physique was about the same as Luo Chen’s at the time, and even his newfound Undying Body offered little protection against a power created specifically to destroy archaic beasts. According to legend, the merfolk had once been the servants of a certain Titan Beast race before eventually overthrowing their masters. Thus, the blue flame had to be one of the weapons they had developed against their masters’ powerful physiques.

Rather than waste such a rare flame by extinguishing it, he used the Withering-Flourishing True Fire to draw every last trace from Black King’s wounds and guide it into his Purple Mansion.

Only then did he turn his attention to the woman beside them. Her features were certainly familiar, but... When he had last seen her, she was still young and resembled her mother only in appearance. Years of hardship had since stripped away that youthful innocence and liveliness, burdening her with the same quiet sorrow that had once marked her mother. Their shared misfortune had deepened the resemblance into something far greater than mere looks.

Under his gaze, the woman appeared rather uneasy. After a moment of hesitation, she finally offered him a graceful bow. ”Greetings, Sage.”

Luo Chen spoke gently. ”You’ll stay with me from now on.”

Her tense expression finally eased, and her brows unknitted in relief.

***

”There’s this much in here?”

Luo Chen examined the storage pouch Zhou Yunshen had given Zhang Jingqing. It contained far more than what an early-stage Initiate could possess. Even an ordinary Adept might not have amassed such wealth over an entire lifetime.

Black King lay beside him and scoffed. ”Little Qing never had an easy time with the Zhou family. Once the demonic beasts surrounded the Coral Sea, they even sent an Initiate like her onto the battlefield. This is probably just their way of making it up to her.”

Luo Chen shook his head. ”If they had truly treated her that badly, she wouldn’t have survived when more than ten thousand of their cultivators died.”

Black King paused. He could not argue with that.

After checking the pouch, Luo Chen handed it to him. ”Give this to Zhang Jingqing when you get the chance.”

He then asked what had happened during the battle.

Black King began explaining, ”The Zhou family didn’t have any natural defenses like the other two families, but they spent years turning the Coral Sea into a fortress. The Blood Coral on the seabed gave the demonic beasts plenty of trouble. From what you’ve told me about formations, Master, the coral was probably part of one. That’s likely how they managed to hold out for so long. I only managed to break through the enemy lines because I had the dragonworms with me. Once they scattered through the demonic beast army, everything fell into chaos. As for that old man, he’s far stronger than he looks. The moment he decided to abandon the Coral Sea, he stopped hiding his cultivation and fought at full strength. He held off two Demon Emperors by himself. But I could sense that he is very old. Fighting that hard seriously took a great deal out of him.”

The account gave Luo Chen a clearer understanding of Zhou Yunshen. The man had spent centuries hiding his strength and enduring in silence, never acting rashly unless circumstances left him no other choice. Yet once he made a decision, he carried it out with decisiveness. Now the Coral Sea was gone, and he and his surviving family members no longer had a place to call home. But rather than seeking refuge with the Blue Sea Alliance, the strongest human power in the Northern Sea, he had instead brought his clansmen to Divine Origin City. The reason for that choice was not hard to guess.

Luo Chen narrowed his eyes slightly. Is he also planning to head for the Central Continent?

Then, he sent out a message with his divine consciousness. Sang Jinghe entered soon afterward, his reddened eyes making it clear that Zhang Jingqing had already told him what happened to the Earth Mulberry Sect.

”What would you like me to do, Sage?”

”Go ask Fu Hongzhang when the family head is expected back in the city.”

Sang Jinghe stiffened. There was only one reason Luo Chen would ask about Fu Chaosheng’s return: He wanted to know when they could depart for the Central Continent.

But if they left the Northern Sea, what would become of the Earth Mulberry Sect’s blood debt? What of the Zhang family of Lotus Picking Island, or all the others who had suffered because of their connection to Luo Chen?

Luo Chen could tell what Sang Jinghe was thinking, but he did not say more. After the other man departed dejectedly, he let out a quiet sigh.

The Northern Sea had been reduced to a battlefield, and countless cultivators were struggling just to find a way out. In such times, even something as heavy as revenge could not be carried by impulse alone. More than that, Luo Chen still did not believe he could defeat Moon Hermit, and even assuming he could, there was no way to know where she had gone. For the moment, there was simply nothing he could do.

Yet that did not mean the debt would be forgotten. The world seemed boundless only to those without the strength to cross it. Once Luo Chen reached the peak of cultivation, even if he had to search every corner of the world, he would find that woman and settle accounts with her!