Chapter 229: The Immortal-Descent Pass, the Rain-Cloaked Wanderer
Xin’an Prefecture, outside the Chu capital of Yingjing.
Boyang Mountain.
Song Yan guided the Red Dust Ark according to Wang Ke’s directions and brought it to a halt somewhere among the peaks, after which the group disembarked.
His arrangement with this employer was nearly at its end, and he would soon receive the last portion of the Falling Truth Vine. Young Song’s spirits were high.
He glanced at Wang Ke and asked casually, “Now that we’ve arrived at the Chu capital, what are your plans?”
The man’s protective ward had been destroyed. Without someone to guard him, accidents would be all too easy to come by.
“My protective ward was shattered by that Yuan Zhen. Per the sect’s rules, my wandering journey must be cut short, and I am to return to the Central Domain to report the situation.”
“How do you intend to go back?”
The Central Domain was far indeed from the Kingdom of Chu.
Wang Ke chuckled and turned over his palm, revealing a white game piece.
The white piece shattered with a crack, and a wisp of spiritual light coalesced into a length of withered vine that shimmered with golden luster.
“As for that—I’m afraid I cannot say.” Wang Ke handed over the spirit herb, his tone light, without the slightest trace of anxiety.
“I have Fellow Daoist Song to thank for the escort. Should we ever meet again, I shall certainly raise a cup in celebration.”
Meet again?
Heh. Perhaps.
During this journey, Song Yan had occasionally crossed paths with familiar faces, but that was only because the Kingdom of Chu was such a small place. Some of them he had known the whereabouts of beforehand and sought out deliberately.
But beyond Chu’s borders—let alone the Central Domain—even within the Nine Kingdoms of the Southern Region that surrounded it, the sea of people was vast. What chance was there of ever meeting again?
Perhaps, but the probability was vanishingly small.
Still, Song Yan knew the other man was merely being polite, and he did not take it to heart.
“Indeed.”
He accepted the Falling Truth Vine and cupped his fists in a bow.
Wang Ke and Song Yan parted ways at that place.
After the separation, Wang Ke strolled northward through the mountains at an unhurried pace, yet his speed was uncannily swift.
He arrived at a deep valley.
“Thank goodness Senior Brother Meng left a teleportation array here when he wandered through Chu all those years ago. Otherwise, flying back to the Central Domain would take until the end of time.”
“Senior Brother Meng truly had foresight.”
Wang Ke chuckled, his mood seemingly fine.
Though he had told Song Yan he was returning to the sect ahead of schedule, the truth was that Chu had already been his final stop in the Nine Kingdoms of the Southern Region.
“Pity that the chess manual gold page was not one of the ancient games. Otherwise, this trip would have been truly perfect.”
His spirits were excellent.
So excellent, in fact, that he even allowed the three unfamiliar cultivators tailing him to follow him into the valley.
From the moment he had parted from Song Yan and the others, Wang Ke had sensed their presence.
Not truly unfamiliar, for the leader was one of the demonic cultivators who had set their sights on him several months prior.
He had not expected them to bide their time until now.
“Truly patient.”
The three of them—one at the Perfection realm of Qi Refining, two at the ninth level—while he appeared to be nothing more than a mortal with no spiritual power whatsoever…
It seemed these fellows were extremely cautious in their methods, old hands at this sort of thing.
Wang Ke came to a stop beside a pool. Before he had made any move, three streaks of spiritual light flickered simultaneously within the valley.
Three magical artifacts and three techniques hurtled toward Wang Ke all at once, blindingly fast.
Only at this moment did the three pursuers reveal their forms, closing in from different directions to encircle him.
Six streaks of spiritual light engulfed Wang Ke’s body.
The three figures slowed their movements, apparently having not expected it to be so easy.
“Heh. So this man really was nothing but a mortal.”
“That shouldn’t be… I saw him produce a Cosmos Bag before. Perhaps something happened and he lost his cultivation?”
“There really are such good things in this world.”
“Never mind all that—Brother, hurry and take his Cosmos Bag.”
The last one’s gaze was somewhat fevered. “I saw it before. His Cosmos Bag did not look ordinary at all.”
The green-robed man at the lead nodded and stepped forward.
But in that very instant, an unexpected change erupted.
Wang Ke’s shattered corpse suddenly broke apart, transforming into five or six game pieces that clattered to the ground.
“No! This man—”
The green-robed man’s experience was vast. How could he not know he had been played?
At the same time, beneath his feet, points of spiritual light converged with sudden swiftness, coalescing into several crisscrossing lines of black ink.
It was as though the phantom of an intersection upon some vast game board.
Along with the ink lines, three white game pieces materialized—one to his left, one to his right, and one behind him.
“Place.”
A voice drifted from somewhere within the valley. Before the word had finished sounding, a white piece fell with a sharp clack.
It landed before the green-robed man, and an inexplicable sense of crisis surged through his heart.
But alas—it was already too late.
“Capture.”
Under the horrified, wide-eyed stares of the other two, all the spiritual energy within the green-robed man’s body, including his protective spiritual shield, began to dissipate outward with terrifying speed.
His features aged visibly before their eyes. In the span of a single breath, all life had fled.
And the spiritual energy that fled from him gathered toward a point within the valley.
The other two looked toward an unremarkable tree, where Wang Ke sat in meditation.
The spiritual energy extracted from the green-robed cultivator now reassembled in his hand, though it had become a single black game piece.
“F-Foundation Establishment!?”
A single game piece had instantly slain a cultivator at the Perfection realm of Qi Refining.
By now, how could the two of them fail to understand his true realm?
“Senior! Spare—”
Clack. Clack.
In the blink of an eye, the phantom of a game board appeared beneath both their feet as well.
Two black pieces fell simultaneously, the sound like rain striking green stone. The two did not even have time to scream before all their spiritual energy and vitality were drained away, transforming them into playing pieces.
“I am about to leave Chu anyway. Consider this a small act of justice for the cultivators here.”
The phantoms dissipated.
“Mm…” He extended his palm, upon which rested three playing pieces—one black, two white. “This shouldn’t count as breaking sect rules.”
The three men’s Cosmos Bags, Wang Ke did not so much as glance at.
He rose to his feet and continued deeper into the valley.
After walking for a while longer—
At the end of the valley, beneath a waterfall, Wang Ke at last found the teleportation array his senior brother had carved in years past.
Without a shred of dignity, he sat down on the ground and swept away the moss and dust covering the array with his bare hand.
Then he raised his palm, and eight playing pieces floated upward one by one, slowly circling and shifting in the air.
At a certain moment, they descended, alighting upon the teleportation array.
The eight pieces transformed into spiritual light the instant they touched down, sinking into the formation.
Profound ripples emanated outward. After untold years, this teleportation array was about to welcome its second user.
Wang Ke walked forward at an easy pace. Light of white and black rose up around him.
He suddenly turned his head, casting a glance toward the direction of the Chu capital. “Song Yan… Song Yesheng.”
Before the light swallowed his figure, he let out a soft laugh.
“How interesting.”
…
After parting from Wang Ke, Song Yan led Xiao Ju and Xiao He toward the northeast.
“Yan-yan, where are we going?”
Xiao He’s eyes sparkled. Clearly, she wished to see the legendary capital of the Kingdom of Chu, and was asking on purpose.
“Look.”
Song Yan pointed casually. On the distant horizon, a winding, unbroken wall of gray-black stone stretched across the land.
Under the sunlight, the pass had an ancient quality to it, like the spine of some primordial beast.
“Senior Song, what is that place?” Xiao Ju asked.
“The Immortal-Descent Pass.”
The maps and information he had obtained at Eastern Abyss Sect could not possibly cover every market and cultivator gathering place in the Kingdom of Chu.
After all, some rogue cultivator settlements were small in scale—they might spring up overnight under the leadership of a Foundation Establishment cultivator, or collapse just as quickly when their patron perished and the tree fell and the monkeys scattered.
But most of the larger, more established markets were naturally marked.
Such as the one before them now—the largest rogue cultivator gathering place in the Kingdom of Chu.
The Immortal-Descent Pass.
A “city” where cultivators congregated.
On the one hand, Song Yan had been intending to find a market where he could prepare everything needed for Foundation Establishment as thoroughly as possible, then devote himself entirely to accumulating cultivation before returning to the sect to establish his Dao Foundation.
The Immortal-Descent Pass was unrivaled in Chu in this regard.
On the other hand, the purpose of wandering the world was to travel ten thousand miles and witness all things beneath heaven.
This was a grand spectacle he had never seen before. Since he was already here, broadening his horizons could only be a good thing.
…
Clap.
“Esteemed listeners, please quiet your hearts. Today’s tale does not concern the secrets of the Immortal Court, nor shall we speak of the harem’s intrigues.”
“Let us instead speak of the origins of the Chu Kingdom’s foremost immortal city—the Immortal-Descent Pass.”
The storyteller struck the gavel, and his folding fan swayed gently.
“Many hundreds of years ago, a vicious flood dragon appeared in the waterways of this Chu region. No one knew whence it came… Ah, this gentleman’s experience is vast indeed.”
“Quite right. In those days, the mortal world still called it ‘Former Chu.'”
“This vicious flood dragon, though its origins were unknown, possessed fearsome power.”
“Its entire body was black and red, like ink-jade soaked in blood. Its eyes gleamed like stars, its dark scales bristled like thorns, and with each breath, clouds of mist boiled forth for a hundred miles, and mountains crumbled.”
“Most extraordinary indeed…”
“A Fourth-Order Great Demon!”
The audience below gasped at these words.
“All of you are talented cultivators of great knowledge and resourcefulness. You surely know that a Fourth-Order Great Demon represents the strength of the Nascent Soul realm!”
“How was this Fourth-Order demonic calamity overcome? Does our Kingdom of Chu possess a Nascent Soul elder today?” The storyteller answered his own question. “No.”
“And in the era of Former Chu, a thousand years ago—did we have a Nascent Soul cultivator then?”
“Hear me out.”
He paused for dramatic effect.
“This vile dragon, this wicked beast, descended upon the mortal world during lunar eclipses and solar ruptures. The people of the eighteen prefectures along the lower reaches of the Chu River would see the black moon in the sky and the blood-red glow at night, and know that the calamity of the dragon drinking the river was upon them.”
“Do you know how brazen it was?”
“In those days, the cultivation world of our Kingdom of Chu did not yet have the current structure of the Six Great Sects.”
“Among those Six Great Sects, there was one called the Ziyuan Sect.”
“That name may seem unremarkable today, but if I were to mention another, perhaps all of you would have heard of it.”
“That would be the youngest Core Formation cultivator recorded in the history of the Chu Kingdom—Perfected Qingyan.”
“At the age of one hundred and twenty-six, he entered seclusion to attempt breakthrough. After three years, at one hundred and twenty-nine, he achieved the Great Dao of the Golden Core. He was a disciple of the Ziyuan Sect.”
“And so, on that day, the entire Ziyuan Sect held its annual Spirit Offering Grand Ceremony as was their custom—venerating the ancestors, opening the sect gates wide, and accepting disciples in great numbers.”
“Who could have imagined that the vicious flood dragon would overturn rivers and seas, tearing through the sky to descend upon them? Its tail, a thousand zhang long, swept across the sect gates. In an instant, the immortal mountain shattered, and the sect collapsed.”
“Pitiable were those mortal prodigies just recruited, who had only glimpsed the great Dao of immortality before being caught in the demonic gale, transformed into droplets of blood scattering through the air, perishing in an instant.”
“The Ziyuan Sect’s cultivators fought wave upon wave. The current Sect Master burned his entire cultivation and vital essence to summon three bolts of Purple Heaven Divine Lightning, yet it was to no avail.”
“The beast yawned and spat a cloud of putrid toxic mist. Within a hundred miles, all grass and trees withered to nothing.”
“In a single day, the Ziyuan Sect was annihilated—every disciple dead, the Sect Master’s Dao extinguished. One of the Six Great Sects vanished from the world just like that.”
The storyteller’s fan snapped open, revealing a painting of a dragon amid swirling clouds.
“As the saying goes, when lips are lost, teeth grow cold; when the rabbit dies, the fox grieves.”
“The Ziyuan Sect had been destroyed without cause. How could the others dare harbor any hope? This vicious flood dragon had surely come for them all.”
“Yet perhaps we should thank this flood dragon, for it united every cultivator in Chu—the remaining Five Great Sects, who had been fighting over spirit veins, swore an oath to drive the dragon from Chu’s lands.”
“Every Core Formation cultivator from the Five Great Sects, both openly and in secret, plus the Core Formation ancestors of lesser sects and the rogue cultivator masters of the time…”
“Thirty-nine Core Formation cultivators gathered from across the nation! Truly a spectacle of dazzling sword light and majestic treasures.”
“The then-Sect Master of the Profound Abyss Sect, Daoist Xuanming, held aloft the Seven Treasures Demon-Suppressing Pagoda, its seven-colored radiance surging toward the heavens. The Gate Master of Zhongmiao raised the Yin-Yang Treasure Mirror, inverting mountains and rivers, dimming sun and moon…”
“The elders displayed their powers like the Eight Immortals crossing the sea, each showing their divine abilities.”
“But alas…”
“The vicious flood dragon was, after all, a Fourth-Order Great Demon. Ordinary techniques were useless against it, and most magical artifacts and treasures shattered at a mere touch.”
“The most perilous battle was fought by the former abbot of Huadu Temple, Master Duguan. Wielding the Demon-Subduing Great Pestle, he charged at the forefront, striking directly for the dragon’s eyes.”
“Esteemed listeners, what was the might of Master Duguan’s Wrathful Vajra Dharma Body?”
“It was the product of over one hundred and eighty years of cultivating Buddhist mysteries—yet the dragon’s casual exhalation of toxic breath corroded half his body in an instant, gravely injuring his vital essence.”
At these words, the entire hall fell silent.
A pause.
“Just when all of Chu, across its four provinces and thirteen prefectures, was awash in lamentation, and every cultivator’s heart sank in despair…”
“On a certain morning, amid the thin mist, a small boat was seen drifting from mid-river.”
“At its bow sat a solitary old man in a rain cloak, a bamboo hat upon his head, a wine gourd hanging at his waist.”
“The old man’s appearance was utterly ordinary. He did not avoid the dust, did not avoid the river water—he looked for all the world like an ordinary fisherman.”
“Most peculiar indeed.”
“Yet when the vicious flood dragon beheld this man, it reacted as though facing a mortal enemy. Its thousand-zhang form rose into the air. Turbulent waves surged upon the river in tier upon tier, and a deluging rain lashed down for ten miles in every direction.”
The storyteller’s pace quickened.
“The old man casually tossed out a fish creel. In the time it takes to speak a word, the creel soared into the sky and transformed into a vast, all-encompassing formation.”
“In an instant, ten thousand mirages rose from the river’s surface. The Eight Gates of Dunjia locked down the four directions, and within the Nine Palaces, phantom sword light appeared—leaving the vicious dragon unable to defend both head and tail!”
“But the true marvel was yet to come. As the dragon thrashed within the vast formation, crashing left and right like a turtle trapped in a jar, the old man flicked a small pill from his fingertip and drew his sword finger across it.”
“That immortal pill was scarcely larger than an ordinary elixir, yet every cultivator present wore a look of profound shock.”
“The pill transformed into a streak of sword light, its edge impossible to conceal, striking straight for the dragon’s brow!”
Clap.
The gavel fell heavily.
“To know what happened next, you must listen to the next chapter.”