Destiny in Cinders

When An Jing warped from Keensight to the northern frontier, he felt as if he had skipped summer and fall and went straight from spring to winter in a single step. The cold breeze and biting frost were all too familiar to him.

The weather was so cold that ice crystals would form from the vapor he breathed out. The silver and white of both the land and sky stretched on endlessly. There were no scents in the incredibly arid air that was completely devoid of moisture and life.

This was the snow calamity. Though it had stopped spreading, it had yet to end. It resulted from the nonstop winds that carried the frost all the way from the Northmost Snowfields across most of Dustdawn. The northern frontier itself was fully covered in snow. In fact, a part of North Ocean had frozen up to form a layer of ice that was hundreds of zhang thick.

”The northern frontier of the North Han Circuit...” Returning to his hometown once more and seeing the endless white in his field of vision, An Jing took a deep breath. This time around, his nose wouldn’t crack from the freezing cold. His lungs could also contain the frosty air while his blood flow continued steadily. He could even expose his skin and body as he pleased and would no longer be harmed by the frost, for he had reached the Fortification Realm.

Only then did he begin to feel a sense of ease that he found rather difficult to put into words. The attention all the elites had paid him suddenly got redirected to his master, Ming Guangchen, which was a good thing for both the master and disciple. Ming Guangchen had used the weight of that attention to undergo sacred manifestation, while An Jing had taken advantage of that moment to disappear from view.

After weathering such a major upheaval that involved the deaths of a few sages and adepts, drawing the attention of multiple Pure Yang transcendents and Soaring empyreans, even a celestial-arc bearer like him needed to catch a break from the weight of all that karma. Just because he bore a celestial arc didn’t mean that he was constantly running headfirst into trouble. He had a feeling that he was in for an extended period of peace and quiet.

He patted the heavy sack that he wore at his waist with a smile. It contained the loot he had pilfered from the defeated adepts. He hadn’t had time to inspect everything clearly, but he knew that there was bound to be a few high-grade spirit stones among it. While this wouldn’t make him a tycoon in Skysource overnight, he could definitely be counted among the ranks of the well off. He was certain that he had never been as rich as he was now. It was only a matter of figuring out what precious treasures he had looted from those adepts.

Combat is the best after all. Though that was how it felt, he knew that the spoils he got were well deserved after all the trouble he went through. It was only right for the winner to take from the loser.

While most people in his situation wouldn’t be able to convert all that loot to money to buy the things that they needed, An Jing had Skysource for that. As he had just returned to the northern frontier, he felt like a tiger that had returned to its mountain turf. However, he couldn’t let his guard down while he had so much wealth on him.

He coughed out some blood with trace amounts of metal into his hand. Though Ruhui, Madam Huai and the True Talisman had provided An Jing with quite a bit of vital qi to restore him to the point that he could move about, dealing the final blow to He Wuchang and using Ailment Swordfinger truly squeezed out everything he had. After the battle, he laid there on the ground for a full fifteen minutes before he managed to force his badly battered body to move with the power of Evenstar Ivory Divine Seal.

Having used Ailment Swordfinger, he didn’t have to worry about any lingering hazards in his body. However, he still had quite a few wounds to recover from. In that state, running into a wild beast spelled trouble, let alone going to find his parents immediately. Still, he was able to flee the area.

After grasping his bearings with the directions of wind and sunlight, he immediately ran toward the southeast. He believed his master when he said that Grand Elder Rising Light was a wise and powerful man. There was no doubt that he would take some action to prevent other powerful elites from tracing An Jing’s location.

An Jing could also go to Skysource and sever the karmic chain directly, taking him out of his trackers’ range completely. But before he could do that, he had to pick a departure location that was farther away, lest Grand Chen sealed off the perimeter and waited for him to return.

He wasn’t too concerned that Grand Chen harbored any ill will, and to some extent, he was sure that they would treat him well. Still, he couldn’t be sure that interacting with them wouldn’t lead to some karmic consequences down the line. An Jing couldn’t be bothered to deal with an endless stream of drama and B-plots before he located his mother. B-plots, huh? This phrase from my past life is quite fitting!

As he trudged through the snow, he continued to reflect on the fragmented memories of his past life. The frosty wind blew past him like harmless wisps of smoke. His body was surrounded by the glow of blood lethal qi, but it wasn’t as crimson and savage as before. Instead, it looked like a mist of fresh blood, filled with vigor, vitality and potential. Using Profoundstep, An Jing was able to streak across the snowscape by lightly tapping his feet on the ground, not leaving any deep imprints in the snow.

Evenstar Ivory Divine Seal and the Imperial Sky Art circulated within his body at the same time. The blood lethal qi strengthened his physical strength and force while the metal lethal qi enhanced their structural integrity and tensile strength, allowing him to manipulate the qi essence and strands of lethal qi within his body with ease. It was like he had become a powerful compressed spring, able to unleash bursts of power that let him traverse long distances with ease. He didn’t even make any sound as he did so, leaving nary a trace that people could use to track him.

”So this is the Fortification Realm...” It was the first time he traveled so quickly with his enhanced body, powered by the nine seals within it. Though he hadn’t fully healed, his full speed was still close to tenfold of his old record back when he escaped Direlife Manor! Back then, he was able to easily traverse a thousand li in a day. This time around, he could cross ten thousand as long as he didn’t run out of qi essence.

However, Void Embrace was inconceivably vast. An Jing had crossed thousands of li after leaving Direlife Manor, yet was still unable to make it out of the mountain ranges. All that distance was merely a small part of the entire northern frontier. He didn’t even manage to leave the prefecture. Still, it had been enough for him to distance himself from the terrestrial veins of that area.

As he continued to zip past the landscape using Profoundstep, he saw streaks of silver starlight flashing in the distant, northwestern sky, followed by the sight of a massive divine mirror in the sky giving trouble to a massive, dignified humanoid figure. In time, the celestial radiance from above began to contort to form a galactic funnel, resulting in a sight of a myriad stars in worship.

”Is that a fight between Pure Yang transcendents?” An Jing had no way of knowing that Transcendent Rising Light was fighting against another transcendent. No matter the reason, fights between transcendents drew immense attention from all over the place. The resulting aftermath had altered the spirit atmosphere of the entire northern frontier, rendering any methods that people used to track An Jing useless.

”Looks like the Brightmirror Sect isn’t as bad as Master makes it up to be,” An Jing said. ”I recall that Grand Elder Rising Light was of quite advanced age. I didn’t expect him to make a move for the sake of me and my Master.”

”It’s precisely because of his age that he has hope for the future,” Yvelbane said, understanding this feeling well. ”With your immense talent and the ’divine arc’ you revealed, his decision was hardly surprising.”

”Well, I suppose I should feel grateful toward him.” He stopped and saluted the divine mirror in the sky and continued on his way.

”Oh, the spirit-qi density has begun to rise,” Yvelbane said, astonished. ”I realized something when your master underwent his sacred manifestation to reach the Sanctification Realm. In Void Embrace, the interaction between lifearcs and karma causes a release of karmic power that is capable of dispelling fiend qi, turning it into mystical qi. Anywhere that happens, the fiend-qi density in the vicinity gets reduced.

”The battle between these Pure Yang transcendents didn’t just bring in chaos origin qi from beyond the heavens. The karmic consequences of their battle purifies fiend qi for as long as the battle lasts! The purified fiend qi ends up being converted into power that they use in combat, not to mention being integrated into a part of their cultivation.

”If one of them dies from the fight, the formation world within their bodies will revert back to nature, releasing yet another dense torrent of extremely purified spirit qi back into the environment! This is simply incredible. The laws of the Heavenly Dao of Void Embrace actually encourage cultivators to get into conflict with one another... perhaps even... to kill one another...”