A Will Eternal

A cacophony of voices thundered out to fill the rainbow structure. After all, the Starry Sky Dao Polarity Sect had existed for countless years, with the seven rainbows being its identifying standard.

Not only was that rainbow structure famous in the eastern Heavenspan River, but it was also praised by the other three riversource sects.

In terms of beauty and splendor, the Starry Sky Dao Polarity Sect took first place among all the branches of the river, which was a major source of pride to the demigod patriarch and ordinary disciples alike.

But now… the seven-colored rainbow structure was completely black. Even the buildings which covered its surface were pitch black, driving the disciples into near madness.

“Our rainbow!!”

“Is this still our sect?!?!”

“The rainbow!”

“Calm down everyone. We need to get out of here right now! Can’t you tell that the rainbow has been poisoned!? I have the feeling that if we don’t escape immediately, we’re all dead!”

Down below, the cultivators in the four cities gasped, expressions of astonishment covering their faces as they looked up.

“Heavens! Who would have thought that it would be so terrifying for Elder Bai to concoct medicine!!”

“How did he do it?! I’ve never heard of pill concocting sessions going like this!!”

“The rainbow… is black now….”

Big Fatty Zhang and Xu Baocai exchanged stunned glances. Although they had more experience in this regard than anyone, and had assumed earlier that the true disaster was yet to come, even they were nearly struck mute by what they were seeing.

They swallowed hard, their hearts racing madly as they stared at the pitch-black rainbow. The other cultivators who were with them were equally shocked.

About this time, the cultivators who were on the rainbow itself exploded into action like a hive of wasps. Shouting and clamoring, they raced off of the rainbow structure with all the speed they could muster.

They were absolutely terrified by the thought of Bai Xiaochun concocting medicine, and were convinced that the best thing to do was just move away….

From top to bottom, the Starry Sky Dao Polarity Sect’s rainbow began to empty out. Those who couldn’t fly fast enough used secret magics to get away as quickly as they could.

From the day the Starry Sky Dao Polarity Sect had been founded until now, nothing like this had ever happened before….

Before long, all seven rainbows were completely and utterly empty….

Back on the previously blue rainbow, Bai Xiaochun stood there, his jaw hanging open, trembling as he looked around at what was happening. And of course, his anxiety continued to build.

“Why is this happening? Dammit! I did everything to make sure no accidents happened! Something fishy is going on. Something very fishy!!” Terror and madness rising in his heart, he looked over at the Patriarch Steel Veins, a bitter smile on his face. “Fellow Daoists, you were here to see it all, right? I was fixing my previous mistake! I didn’t want to change the rainbows’ color….”

The other three prime elders were stunned into silence at the moment. Their eyes were blank, and they were so taken aback that they had no idea what to do.

It was around this time that transmission jade slips began to buzz in all three of their bags of holding. When they scanned them with divine sense, they immediately heard pleas of help coming from their fellow clan members.

“Patriarch, everyone else is evacuating the rainbow. We need to leave too!!”

“We can’t stay here, Patriarch. It’s too dangerous!!”

“Patriarch, Elder Bai is terrifying when he concocts medicine. Let’s get out of here…. If we don't leave now, we might get destroyed along with the rainbow….”

When Bai Zhentian heard the messages from his clan members, he didn’t say a single word. He just took a step forward and vanished. After arriving at his clan, he gathered up all the cultivators and left….

Although he was fairly certain the black rainbow hadn’t actually been poisoned, he was still fearful of Bai Xiaochun’s concocting methods. And since he couldn’t do anything about it at the moment, he had no choice but to care for his clan members.

Bai Zhentian truly couldn’t have been more shaken. “This Bai Xiaochun’s pill concocting is even more terrifying than his battle prowess….”

He had already decided that if it came down to it, he would rather die fighting Bai Xiaochun in battle than allow him to concoct medicine outside of his front gate….

“Dammit, I can't believe a walking disaster like this has lived long enough to become a deva!” Wrapped up in depressed thoughts, Bai Zhentian hurried away as quickly as possible.

Li Xiandao was essentially thinking the same thing as Bai Zhentian. The only difference was that he was more profoundly afraid. He had the feeling that if Bai Xiaochun were given enough time, and the right circumstances, then he… could actually destroy the entire Heavenspan Realm.

“It’s a good thing that when he came to cause trouble, he just beat me up, and didn’t decide to concoct medicine instead….” Heart pounding with lingering fear, Li Xiandao quickly turned to say one last thing to Bai Xiaochun.

“Um… Fellow Daoist Bai, I have an errand to run, see you later!” With that, he turned and blurred into motion to begin moving his clan away.

By now, the only person left was Patriarch Steel Veins, toward whom Bai Xiaochun stared, nearly on the verge of tears.

Patriarch Steel Veins was inwardly cursing Bai Zhentian and Li Xiandao for fleeing with such haste. Smiling wryly, he looked back at Bai Xiaochun and said, “Bai, old pal, there’s really nothing I can do about the situation. You… um, take care of yourself. I think… the demigod patriarch should be back in four or five days at the most.”

With that, he hurried away to move the Hall of Steel Veins off the rainbow.

Soon, the previously bustling rainbow only had one person left on it. Bai Xiaochun.

“I just wanted to concoct a Turn Off Pill…. I never thought it would end up like this…. I know it’s my fault….” As he stood there looking around with a weepy scowl, he found that he couldn’t calm down. It was just like the old saying went: his heart was beating like fifteen buckets in a well--eight going down while seven were coming up. Earlier, he had thought it was great that no one came after him with violent intentions because of his pill concocting. But now that he was all alone, he suddenly felt guilty.

“The demigod patriarch will be back in four or five days….” The mere thought of how the patriarch would react left Bai Xiaochun shaking in terror.

“Will he end up regretting what he's done for me…?” The mere thought caused his face to drain with blood. A moment later, he was rushing back toward his immortal's cave.

“No! I still have four or five days. I can still fix the problem!! I can do it! I can definitely get the colors back into the rainbow!”

The total population of the four cities skyrocketed in the briefest of moments. At the same time, numerous bitter gazes were directed at the black rainbow up above.

“Good. Let Elder Bai stay up there by himself….”

“But when will it end? We can’t live down here forever!”

“What do we do now? Even the other prime elders have moved down into the cities! From that, you can see how terrifying Elder Bai’s medicinal pills are!”

“Let’s hope things wrap up soon. If things go on like this, Elder Bai is going to run the sect completely into the ground….”

The next day, Bai Xiaochun burst out from his immortal’s cave. He looked gaunt, with his hair in disarray, and his clothes in tatters.

“I figured it out,” he muttered. “When black crabapple gets mixed with miluo wood, it creates a unique sediment…. That's what made the rainbow change color. Dammit. I did plenty of research ahead of time and never heard anything about that sediment. Why did it pop up after I started concocting…? Getting rid of it won’t be easy, but I should be able to come up with a way!

“If I use the pollen of spiritpure daisy toward the end of the concocting process, I can drive out the black color. If I bolster the effect with my cultivation base power, then it should do the trick!”

His excitement surged as he was convinced that he had come up with a solution to the problem. But he quickly suppressed his excitement. Worried that he might end up causing yet another problem, he quickly concocted a single batch and then performed some tests. Afterward, when he was sure that there would be no side-effects, he excitedly set to work on a larger batch.

At first, he planned to take things slow and steady. He did some quick calculations, and came to the conclusion that it would take three days to finish the job of cleansing the rainbow.

And that was when he got a message from the Hall of Steel Veins. The demigod patriarch… would be back in only two hours….

As soon as he heard that news, he felt like he was about to explode.

“I have to put everything on the line!!” He pulled out all of the pill furnaces he had left, and even personally went to the Internal Affairs Pavilion. There wasn’t anyone on duty, but as a prime elder, he could easily unlock the storage warehouse and take out more than a thousand new pill furnaces!

In addition to the several hundred he already had, it was a total of about 1,500 furnaces. He quickly set them all up in the courtyard of his residence, and then went about madly concocting… 1,500 batches of pills made from spiritpure daisy pollen!

Because time was limited, he pushed the concocting process along with his cultivation base. In the end… when about two hours had passed, all 1,500 pill furnaces had turned bright red.

“It worked!” He knew that time was running out, so he threw his hands out in front of him, sending a blast of cultivation base power into the furnaces and causing them all to explode!

The resulting explosion, bolstered by his cultivation base, caused the seven rainbows to return to their previous color!

It was at that exact same moment that the pressure of a demigod began to weigh down on the area.