Chapter 1175: Chapter 1169: Why Did I Come To The Azure Cloud Prefecture
Chapter 1175: Chapter 1169: Why Did I Come To The Azure Cloud Prefecture
Drenched in the rain, fleeing.
Gongyang Ju, soaked to the bone, sprinted madly across the muddy ground.
Never in his life had he imagined his boots would be stained with so much mud, nor had he ever thought he would look as miserable as he did today.
Before him lay a city; even in the heavy rain, the myriad lights of mortal homes still glowed brightly within it.
“I’m here, I’m here. Once I’m among the homes of the commoners, even the Li Clan won’t easily make a move against me.
No matter how mad they are, they won’t use massive Spiritual power within a city.”
Gongyang Ju’s face was full of bitterness.
He wanted to fly, but he didn’t dare; he didn’t dare to use even a sliver of Spiritual power!
The scenes from just moments ago played in his mind.
Over the past three months, they had gathered over a thousand people in Clearpeak Prefecture.
Among them were sixteen Void Refining realm experts and forty-two Divinity Transformation realm experts, with the rest being at the Nascent Soul and Golden Core realms.
These were the powerhouses attracted by the massive prestige of Uncle Rain and Banshu Ao following their arrival.
It truly fulfilled Perfected Qiuyue’s words: in the face of overwhelming power, people’s hearts would change, including his own.
The Azure Imperial Dynasty was so vast; among everyone who had come, who didn’t have glorious deeds and a powerful past in their own respective territories?
In their eyes, the Azure Cloud Li Clan had absolutely no chance of survival.
Moreover, the experts in the Western Frontier still needed three days to return.
And so, leading over eighty cultivators, he had charged toward the Li Clan’s northern iceberg.
“Three months of planning, how could it fall to such a state? How could this happen?”
The torrential rain poured down on Gongyang Ju’s head.
The city drew closer and closer.
Raindrops falling from his bangs blurred his vision, leaving his eyes bloodshot; his ashen face was laced with terror.
They had planned for a full three months.
Every single one of them had been cursed; if anyone dared to leak the secret, they would be possessed by inner demons and die without a burial place.
As soon as they left their respective Grotto-Heavens, they couldn’t leak the secret even if they wanted to.
For the Li Clan, this was a sudden, unanticipated attack.
But upon arriving at the northern iceberg, everything changed.
The northern iceberg housed two of the Li Clan’s branch lineages: Demon Suppression and Silver Moon.
According to the intelligence they had gathered over the years, the iceberg was at best a cultivation ground for the Li Clan’s juniors under fifty years old, along with Li Xinri, Li Xinjue, and Li Zhijing.
On the entire iceberg, there were only a mere two Divinity Transformation realm cultivators.
As for their group on this trip, he was a Void Refining expert.
Hailing from the Emberwing Guard, he wielded orthodox Daoist techniques; his Dharmic Avatar could transform into a dragon capable of destroying all things.
Setting aside peerless monsters like Banshu Ao, he considered himself no inferior to most in the Void Refining realm.
He had once slayed demons in the Eastern Sea alongside the Emberwing Guard, annihilated demonic sects, and even fought against a Sea Tribe Exalted Demon alongside Body Integration realm cultivators of the Emberwing Guard without dying…
In this life, especially over the past few centuries, he had encountered too many such great deeds worthy of being spread by the world.
The eighty experts under his command were all formidable figures.
Among the three Divinity Transformation cultivators who came, one had even been trapped in the Central Plains by a demon who had broken its seal.
The demon intended to refine the people of an entire Region for its own use to break through to the Void Refining realm, yet it was defeated by this very person.
The other two Divinity Transformation cultivators were slightly inferior, but they still possessed illustrious reputations and impressive battle records.
The Nascent Soul and Golden Core realm cultivators below them either dominated their own regions, were renowned as geniuses across prefectures, or were favored by regional saints.
All were heroes of the world with limitless futures.
These eighty people, let alone destroying an iceberg, even in the Western Frontier, relying on their various divine abilities, they could easily overwhelm the Wu Tribe.
Yet, it was just an iceberg.
Gongyang Ju did not want to recall it, but everything that happened on that iceberg still transformed into pure terror, implanted into the deepest depths of his soul.
It was a child, floating mid-air above the iceberg in the rainy night, smiling sinisterly at them.
Then, all across the iceberg, the members of the Silver Moon Lineage emerged in the night rain.
Li Zhijing summoned the demonic beasts from her ‘Heavenly Demon Rune Seed,’ Li Xinri transformed into a blazing sun like the sunrise in the east, and Li Xinjue vanished into the shadows.
He saw with his own eyes that child transform into an indescribable entity.
Taotie!
One of the four white-robed figures beneath the True God of the Mountain of Esoteric Stratagems, Taotie!
That was a nightmare that even several Void Refining experts from the major factions of the Department of Immortal Suppression could not rival.
Back then in the Mountain of Esoteric Stratagems, if Zhen Wu had not betrayed them, the entire Department of Immortal Suppression force would have perished; this was an indisputable fact.
“Why did I come to the Azure Cloud Prefecture? Why did I come?”
Gongyang Ju lost his usual optimism.
He couldn’t dispel the terror he felt upon encountering Taotie.
This was also the first time in his life… he fled. He fled without hesitation, leaving the slaughter behind him.
Eighty people—a full eighty experts who could be revered for thousands of years anywhere in the world and held resounding reputations—had absolutely no chance of survival in front of Taotie.
“The rain in Azure Cloud Prefecture is truly cold.”
Gongyang Ju reached out his hand, catching the rain of the Azure Cloud Prefecture, his heart filled only with infinite sorrow.
Suddenly, he turned his head in horror.
“Splash… splash…”
A similar sound, light, and unsteady footsteps.
Fortunately, the approaching person was a fellow Daoist in the same predicament as him, the Thousand-Faced Swordsman.
Although he had changed his appearance, Gongyang Ju could distinguish the other party’s aura.
The Li Clan hadn’t pursued them, which proved that although the Li Clan was prepared in advance, they were stretched too thin. They had a great chance of escaping.
Unfortunately, this swordsman, whom the world claimed “no one survives seeing his sword light,” had even lost his spatial ring.
The mark on his forehead representing his lifebound flying sword had also vanished without a trace.
And behind the Thousand-Faced Swordsman… just like him, nearly a hundred people had set out, but none had returned.
“We fell for a trap. The Li Clan knew everything about us through some unknown means.”
The Thousand-Faced Swordsman stood shoulder to shoulder with Gongyang Ju.
The rain in Azure Cloud Prefecture was bone-chillingly cold, making the Thousand-Faced Swordsman’s body tremble.
Gongyang Ju had never thought in his entire life that he would become a drowned rat alongside someone of the same realm. They numbly hid themselves in the city.
Gongyang Ju asked blankly, “Who did you encounter?”
“I don’t know.” The Thousand-Faced Swordsman looked utterly despondent.
“In the Immortal Martial Grotto-Heaven, there was a faceless person. The auras within his body were bizarre—corpse qi, demonic qi, medicinal pill qi, and puppet qi. His body had absolutely no flaws, and he didn’t even have a soul.”
“I passed by a Grotto-Heaven. The Li Clan probably won’t be chasing us.
A battle was also taking place there, a massive battle. Seven undying people trapped our fellow Daoists in a barrier, with seven totems.”
The two chatted idly, exchanging scattered words as they slowly stepped into the city.
Void Refining experts could not be perceived by ordinary mortals; they bypassed the city guards.
For the first time, Gongyang Ju and the Thousand-Faced Swordsman discovered that fear had to be dispelled through casual conversation, speaking of all their nightmares as if they were as light as the wind and clouds.
“Uncle Rain and Holy Master Haoqiong haven’t shown up either,” Gongyang Ju said casually, causing both of them to fall silent for a moment.
The Thousand-Faced Swordsman walked forward. To his left and right were mortal homes still burning with bright lamps.
He looked up at the heavy rain in the sky and exhaled a long breath.
“Just like us, they don’t know what they encountered in this rainy night.”
“We thought the Li Clan’s experts were all in the Western Frontier, but in reality…”
“The true experts have always been in Azure Cloud Prefecture.”
“Uncle Rain, Uncle Rain!!!”
Shouts mingled with the roar of the torrential rain.
In the cloudy sky stood two Bodhisattvas.
The Martial Dao Bodhisattva had three heads and six arms, exuding both Buddhist and demonic qi. Behind her, the Buddha-Demon Disk transformed into a massive dark sun.
The colossal Bodhisattva statue sneered as it reached out across the void, catching the numerous cultivators who were deploying every trick they had to flee.
Before the Martial Dao Bodhisattva, the Dharmic Avatars of these cultivators were like figures molded from clay.
Under fists radiating two entirely contradictory methods, they were easily shattered.
Brilliant light radiated across the cloudy sky, turning the rainy night into a multicolored, iridescent rain.
But how could these cultivators, all below the Void Refining realm, escape a Martial Dao Bodhisattva who spread body-tempering Buddhist Dharma throughout the world?
Thus, they completely abandoned their Dharmic Avatars and fled for their lives like madmen.
They were like a swarm of ants scurrying frantically beneath the lethal fingers of a giant.
Those who ran fast enough were temporarily safe, attempting to evade the giant’s eyes and ears by hiding in nooks and crannies its massive body couldn’t reach.
Those who ran too slow panicked as they accepted their impending doom.
The other Bodhisattva was brimming with majesty. Buddhist chants and Buddhist fire permeated the cloudy sky. Her Dao of the Verdant Mountain suppressed the people of the world.
The Buddhist chants of the Bodhisattva of Rebirth affected people’s Soul Seas, while her Buddhist fire invaded their bodies to deliver them to their next lives.
Once tainted by it, Void Refining methods were completely incapable of purging it.
“Uncle Rain, save me!”
Perfected Qiuyue cried out in alarm.
If even Li Wei’s spatial rules couldn’t evade this Buddhist fire back then, how could he.
Now, three clusters of fire burned upon his shoulders, and Buddhist runes crawled all over his body like maggots, incinerating both his physical body and Spirit Soul, making him scream wildly at the sky like a madman.
However, the rainmaker high up in the cloudy sky, who could clearly inspect everything in Azure Cloud Prefecture through the raindrops, seemed as though his eyes had been gouged out and his eardrums pierced; he gave absolutely no response.
He frantically patted the fire on his shoulders.
The immense gravity unleashed by the Dao of the Verdant Mountain stripped him of even the chance to step into his Void Refining space to escape.
From behind came the clanking sound of chains, along with a woman’s voice that was compassionate yet tinged with a hint of wickedness.
“It’s useless. Aside from those in the same realm, no one can break the Dao of the Bodhisattva of Rebirth.
I gave you a chance, but you ignored my warning. You will bear the sins of all these people and descend to the eighteenth layer of Hell.”
The people around were fleeing.
Above his head, the terrifying statue of the Bodhisattva of Rebirth dissipated into specks of starlight in the rainy night, and the countless Buddhist fires and chants in the cloudy sky vanished along with it.
Everything happened in just a few snaps of the fingers, yet it completely routed the cultivators who had charged toward Merit City, leaving them scrambling for survival in a panic.
Perfected Qiuyue looked back in horror.
A girl in a yellow dress with twin tails dragged a long, dark iron chain.
At the other end of the chain was a Body Integration Buddhist almighty expert whose eyes flashed with a hint of clarity before sinking back into a stupor as the chain glowed.
“It’s you… it’s you…”
Perfected Qiuyue staggered backward.
There had been a red leaf where Merit City was located, giving them one chance to escape.
At that time, he knew the Li Clan was absolutely prepared, yet he hadn’t dared to show the red leaf to the others.
He was afraid the red leaf would disturb morale.
No… it wasn’t about disturbing morale.
The Li Clan had given them one chance to flee.
But Perfected Qiuyue knew clearly that since the Li Clan knew so much, they must also know he was the initiator of this operation; no matter what, he had absolutely no path to survival.
With Uncle Rain present, and with so many powerful experts here, no matter how the Li Clan resisted, they were doomed.
Regardless of how many people died, he, Qiuyue, absolutely must not die.
He especially couldn’t forget kneeling before Li Chang.
He wanted nothing more than to eradicate the Li Clan completely and make Li Chang his slave, forcing him to kneel before him day after day.
He had thrown away that leaf and concealed everything.
However, the moment Li Kuanghua arrived, dragging Nun Dairou, everything changed. His lifeline was severed…
“The Bodhisattva of Rebirth’s Buddhist fire can awaken the human heart. My Old Ancestor ordered me to deliver you. Repent before the Bodhisattva, and you may reincarnate.” Li Kuanghua was extremely obedient.
Yet the guilty look that had just surfaced in Perfected Qiuyue’s eyes abruptly turned ferocious.
Unable to put out the three clusters of fire on his shoulders, he frantically channeled his Spiritual power and lunged at Li Kuanghua. “You let us flee? Ridiculous!!!”
“What gives you the right to be a Bodhisattva? The demoness from the nunnery you’re dragging behind you?”
“The Li Clan is a threat to the Imperial Dynasty, a threat to the world!
The Li Clan hides filth and corruption; the Ten Deadly Sins are completely true!
I serve the Imperial Dynasty! I serve the world!”
“Everyone in the world should rejoice in exterminating the Li Clan. These people died for the nation! Why should I descend to the eighteenth layer of Hell?”
“I deserve to be enshrined in the Imperial Ancestral Temple!”
His Void Refining space, heavily rotted and eroded by the Buddhist fire and Sanskrit runes, trapped Li Kuanghua inside.
Li Kuanghua’s expression changed slightly.
It wasn’t because she was intimidated by Perfected Qiuyue, who was at the end of his rope, but rather because of Perfected Qiuyue’s inexplicable obsession—an obsession so deep that even Nun Dairou’s Buddhist Dharma could not purify him.
Soon after, she stopped overthinking it.
The Buddha-Demon Disk behind her split in half, and countless tentacles extended from it.
Demonic patterns crawled across her face as her gaze gradually turned sinister and ruthless.
“Even without Buddhist Dharma, I can still deliver you to the eighteenth layer of Hell.”
Above the cloud layer where the torrential rain impacted the entirety of Azure Cloud Prefecture.
Two pairs of eyes were watching the slaughter occurring down in Azure Cloud Prefecture.
The thousands of people who had come to the prefecture, in the very instant they acted simultaneously, encountered the exact same scenarios and broke into panicked flight.
Uncle Rain, dressed in his blue robe, didn’t move an inch.
He didn’t care about the fate of Perfected Qiuyue or the people below.
Before him.
Stood a towering pagoda burning with flames, and a black-mist figure sitting at the very tip of the ninth floor.
One of the black-mist figure’s legs dangled casually, while the other was propped up on the pagoda.
Resting his hand on his knee to prop up his chin, he observed Uncle Rain with great interest.
The person inside the pagoda was bathing in the light of the Heavenly Fire Divine Tree.
As for the black-mist figure atop the pagoda, the space around him had transformed into shattered mirror surfaces.
Both emitted the aura of a Half-Step Body Integration expert, only a single step away from breaking through, yet facing it as if it were an impassable chasm.
Uncle Rain looked down on everything, as if completely indifferent to whether this heavy rain would drown the entire Azure Cloud Prefecture.
The only thing he cared about was the indescribable Taotie beneath the iceberg.
He took a deep breath and finally spared a glance at the tall pagoda.
“You have been staring at me for a long time.”
The black-mist figure answered honestly, his voice hoarse.
“I just wanted to see the legendary Uncle Rain, and while I’m at it, see if I can make you stay in Azure Cloud Prefecture forever.”
Uncle Rain paid no heed to such arrogant words. Speaking as if to himself, he said calmly,
“Taotie is indeed with your Li Clan. Back then, Holy Monk Yidian and the True God staged a fake battle and then shattered the Dao Seed. Hand over Taotie, and I will naturally leave.”
However, as he spoke, gazing at the bizarre phenomena occurring throughout Azure Cloud Prefecture, the trace of greed in his eyes was impossible to dispel.
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