A Will Eternal

Chaotic fighting was unfolding. After the River-Defying Sect’s Nascent Soul cultivators appeared, even more shadowy figures emerged to join the struggle.

All of those figures had been concealing their auras to prevent the River-Defying Sect from identifying them. Furthermore, it wasn’t just a single group of people; there were four groups!

Even as the fighting broke out, the Blood Ancestor’s eyes opened, revealing the maddened gaze of Bai Xiaochun. Bruiser was his son, and as a father, it enraged him to see people bullying him. He simply couldn’t stand it that people were trying to steal Bruiser’s Violet Core!

“Screw the hell off!!” he roared through the mouth of the Blood Ancestor. Rumbling sounds echoed to the highest heavens as the Blood Ancestor’s right hand clenched into a fist and unleashed a fist strike.

That fist strike was powered by the entirety of Bai Xiaochun’s cultivation base; his Heaven-Dao Gold Core joined with his Undying Heavenly King Core to unleash explosive power. The enormous fist of the Blood Ancestor was like an entire continent rumbling through the air, causing the sky to shatter and sending an enormous shockwave blasting out.

The faces of the infiltrators fell, and they scrambled to get out of the way. Those who were too slow immediately began to cough up blood.

As for the flying snake, the fist hit it directly, and it screamed as it flew backward.

Suddenly, everything went quiet. Everyone was looking at the enormous Blood Ancestor, shock written across their faces as they tried to determine if it even had any weaknesses.

Master Godwind and Frigidsect exchanged a glance. Originally, they had intended to let the fighting go on a bit longer in the hopes of luring out more infiltrators. However, now that Bai Xiaochun had taken control of the Blood Ancestor, they knew that delaying things could further enrage him. After a moment, they nodded to each other.

“Time to end things,” Frigidsect murmured. “Even those who haven’t showed their faces will be too frightened to make a move after what they’ve seen already!” He waved his hand, and a black sun appeared up in the sky, to be joined moments later by a white sun. The two suns overlapped, as did the two ravens inside the sun. The newly-formed raven then opened its eyes and emitted a deafening cry.

Then… the raven flew out. At the same time, cackling laughter could be heard as a scarecrow stepped out of thin air. The Heavenhorn Sword also appeared, flying toward Frigidsect in a beam of golden light.

Things weren’t over yet. Although the spell formations which had been set up looked like they were tapped out, they suddenly glittered with brilliant light, and began to shine three times as brightly as before. Three enormous glowing swords appeared, which began to destroy everything in their path.

Heaven and earth shook violently as all of the intruders fled for their lives. Unfortunately, few could get very far. The Heavenhorn Sword slashed one of them in half, and the cackling scarecrow appeared in front of another and began to skin him alive! Moments later, the victim was revealed to be a projection, but the sight of the attacking scarecrow was still bone-chilling!

The light from the black and white suns made it impossible for any of the infiltrators to hide, and the black and white raven proceeded to slaughter them.

However, none of that was very impressive when compared to the three glowing swords created by the spell formations. They quickly broke down into three nets, each one made up of 100,000 swords, which proceeded to slash their enemies to pieces.

The flying snake appeared to be on the verge of escaping, but Li Zimo snorted coldly and chased after it.

From a distance, the River-Defying Sect made for a spectacular sight. It was almost like flowers of swords were blooming above it….

Strangely, many of the people who died didn’t shed blood, and as their corpses fell to the ground, they simply vanished. Only a small group of actual bodies remained.

Clearly, those who didn’t leave corpses behind weren’t there as their true selves, but had come in clone form. To them, the loss of a clone like that would be somewhat of a waste, but wouldn’t truly injure them.

As the clones vanished and the flower of swords began to fade, the Violet Core safely entered Bruiser’s mouth. He swallowed it, and almost instantly, his aura began to rise.

Inside the Blood Ancestor, Bai Xiaochun’s face was ashen, and he looked completely exhausted. Even with his double cores, it was a draining thing to take control of the Blood Ancestor.

As he looked over at the patriarchs, the animosity in his gaze was apparent.

The patriarchs exchanged awkward glances. The truth was that Bruiser’s Core Formation hadn’t been part of their long-term plan; they had originally intended to use other methods to draw out the infiltrators. Even still, they were worried that Bai Xiaochun would take things the wrong way, so Frigidsect appeared to offer a complete explanation.

In the end, Bai Xiaochun snorted coldly and made a lot of demands on Bruiser’s behalf before agreeing to let the matter drop.

“Those old fogeys….” he grumbled to himself. “They’re all wily old foxes!” Then when he saw how Bruiser’s energy was continuing to rise higher and higher, he got wrapped up in excitement and decided to forgive them for the time being.

Beast kings needed to rest and recuperate after reaching Core Formation, and the patriarchs themselves offered to stand as Dharma protectors for Bruiser during that time. Bai Xiaochun joined them, sitting there cross-legged as he waited for Bruiser to recover completely.

However, waiting around was very boring. Soon he started to think about the baby girl that was the true spirit, and the River-Defying Pill. As the time passed, he became wrapped up in pondering the issue of how to concoct the pill.

“I’m not going to be able to concoct the pill inside of me…. That would only work if I had plenty of life force, which I don’t…. Although concocting it outside of the body is possible, it would be too difficult.” He frowned in consternation.

“Having a drop of blood from the true spirit should make it a bit easier… but I still don’t think I have enough skill in the Dao of medicine to succeed.” Bai Xiaochun felt quite dejected. It was a depressing thing to know what to do, but be unable to do it.

“The simplest thing would be to concoct in within myself…. But I lack life force…. Life force… hey, wait a second!” Suddenly, his eyes sparkled, and he looked down at his bag of holding.

“The little turtle… is the relic of eternal indestructibility. His life force should be sufficient… shouldn’t it?” As Bai Xiaochun considered all these matters, his excitement grew. However, he didn’t dare to give voice to his ideas, lest the little turtle catch on.

“The little turtle is too treacherous. I have to think of a way to get him to willingly give me some life force….” He couldn’t help but feel a bit of a headache whenever he reminisced about the good old days when the little turtle had been unconscious. Suddenly, his heart thumped.

“Unconscious….” A crafty gleam appeared in his eyes as he suddenly realized that the best thing to do would be to concoct some sort of powerful knockout medicine!

Early in the morning seven days later, Bruiser suddenly opened his eyes and let out a long cry. As he did, violet light exploded out around him, and the fluctuations of Core Formation roiled out.

At the same time, all of the other battle beasts in the River-Defying Sect began to howl. Having accomplished their task of standing as Dharma protectors, the patriarchs left with smiles on their faces.

Bruiser was in high spirits. Although he spent the next few days with Bai Xiaochun, he eventually got bored and ran out to have fun. This time, though, he didn’t leave the River-Defying Sect. Instead, he spent his time with the other battle beasts, as well as the female disciples he liked.

Bai Xiaochun let him do as he wished. At the moment, he was almost completely focused on concocting his knockout medicine. Therefore, he remained in his immortal’s cave, mentally reviewing the countless medicine formulas which existed in his mind.

Time passed. Two months flew by.

Bai Xiaochun had come up with a plan, and was making constant improvements to the new medicine formula. On a few occasions, the little turtle popped his head out of the bag of holding to look at Bai Xiaochun. He wasn’t a mind-reader, so he had no way to determine what exactly Bai Xiaochun was thinking. However, the crazed look in his eye left the little turtle with a bad feeling.

Of course, Bai Xiaochun didn’t give up on cultivation. In addition to mentally pondering the medicine formula, he continued to work with the Undying Muscles and the Frigid School Will-Evolving Incantation.

One morning at dawn, he finally finished his mental work with the medicine formula. At the same time, he suddenly realized that a jade slip in his bag of holding was vibrating. Upon producing it, he heard Frigidsect’s voice speaking in his mind.

“Xiaochun, come to the grand hall on Mount River Defiance. The other three great sects of the Middle Reaches have come for a visit.”

Bai Xiaochun was a bit taken aback. In recent discussions with the patriarchs, he’d been told that according to the speculations, some of the people who had infiltrated the sect had been rogue cultivators, but others had come from the three sects.

After all, the River-Defying Sect was a newcomer, and the other three sects were definitely certain to feel them out.

Considering how things had played out, Bai Xiaochun couldn’t help but snort coldly as he rose to his feet. After donning his junior patriarch robes, he put an icy expression on his face and headed toward the grand hall.

Along the way, he saw other cultivators of the River-Defying Sect looking in the direction of the grand hall, grim expressions on their faces.

Eyes flickering, Bai Xiaochun hurried along until he caught sight of three groups of cultivators, all of whom wore expressions of disdain as they tried to shove away the River-Defying Sect disciples guarding the entrance of the grand hall.