At the heart of the Blackwind Mountains lay the Netherworld Cold Pool.
The sky for several miles around had been completely dyed black by that pillar of darkness shooting into the heavens. Thick netherworld energy mingled with a savage demonic might, forming visible black ripples that spread outward in layers. The ancient trees all around could not withstand the terrifying pressure and exploded in clusters, filling the sky with splinters.
“Roar—!”
A thunderous, muffled roar came from the edge of the pool.
Fang Cunsheng and A-Xing were lying rigidly still in a gap between a pile of rocks. Concealed by the blue sliver of hope revealed by the Eye of Cause and Effect, they had suppressed their auras to the absolute limit.
Peering through the gap, Fang Cunsheng saw a giant bear more than a dozen zhang tall, its entire body covered in iron-black fur. It was pounding its chest in a frenzy. Every paw that came down smashed a huge crater into the earth. Its enormous eyes, like blood-red lanterns, were filled with a violent rage that seemed capable of destroying everything.
This was the supreme overlord of the Blackwind Mountains—the Black Bear Great Demon of the Core Formation stage!
Yet what shocked Fang Cunsheng even more was the sight of two figures hovering in the air on the opposite side of the cold pool. Both wore the robes of core elders of the Gu Yue clan.
The two stood suspended in midair, powerful fluctuations of spiritual power swirling around them. They were astonishingly formidable experts in the late Foundation Establishment stage! Each held a formation flag radiating a dark-red glow, frantically channeling streams of blood-colored light into the cold pool in an attempt to suppress the rampaging Black Bear Great Demon.
“What’s going on? How has that useless Gu Yue Gang still not delivered the ‘Blood Fiend Lure’?!” one red-faced elder roared. His face was somewhat pale, clearly showing that he had expended a great deal of energy.
“He probably got held up at Wild Dog Ridge! We can’t wait any longer. That ‘thing’ at the bottom of the cold pool has sensed the shattered fortune of that Heaven-Mending Spirit Marrow in Wuxia’s possession. It’s showing faint signs of breaking through its seal. If that beast swallows it and advances to the Nascent Soul stage, there will be no peace for thousands of miles around our Gu Yue clan! Raise the formation and forcefully harvest the Ninefold Nether Profound Water!” A ruthless glint flashed through the white-haired elder’s eyes as he suddenly waved his formation flag.
Boom!
The water of the cold pool churned madly, and a bone-chilling aura of darkness erupted in an instant.
A-Xing, hiding in the shadows, began to tremble violently. Even from several hundred zhang away, that cold nearly froze the blood in his veins.
“Brother Cunsheng… Two elders in the late Foundation Establishment stage, and a demon beast in the Core Formation stage… We—we’re practically throwing our lives away.” A-Xing’s voice quavered with sobs as he gripped Fang Cunsheng’s sleeve for dear life.
Fang Cunsheng’s eyes were already suffused with violet light.
Within his karmic vision, the threads of cause and effect above the heads of the two Gu Yue clan elders had long since turned completely ashen. They represented a “sign of certain death.” As for the enraged Black Bear Great Demon, it appeared imposing and majestic, but countless phantom golden chains from the bottom of the cold pool were wrapped around its enormous body.
Those chains were frantically draining the great demon’s vital essence and demonic power!
【Cause-and-Effect Prompt: The Gu Yue clan elders have forcibly activated the blood formation, triggering the greatest karmic backlash from a thousand years ago. In ten breaths, the earth veins beneath the cold pool will reverse their flow, and the two Foundation Establishment cultivators will inevitably be killed by the great demon’s backlash. The weakest point of the Ninefold Nether Profound Aura has appeared at the center of the cold pool. This is the only chance to enter!】
“A-Xing, stay here. No matter what happens, don’t show yourself!”
Fang Cunsheng barked the order. Without waiting for A-Xing to answer, he shot out of the gap between the rocks like an arrow released from its string.
This was precisely the moment he had been waiting for—the instant when both sides would suffer!
“You beast, how dare you!”
A scream suddenly rang out in midair. Sure enough, just as the Cause-and-Effect Prompt had predicted, the balance at the bottom of the cold pool was broken. The Black Bear Great Demon let out an almost frenzied roar and, forcibly enduring the assassination of two flying swords, slapped the red-faced elder into a bloody pulp!
Blood rained from the sky. The remaining white-haired elder was scared out of his wits. How could he still care about harvesting the water? He immediately transformed into a streak of escaping light and tried to flee, only for a bolt of black fiendish lightning spewed from the great demon’s mouth to blast his physical body apart.
Two late-Foundation-Establishment powerhouses were as fragile as paper in front of a Core Formation demon beast!
“Roar—!”
After killing the human cultivators, the great demon threw its head back and roared. Yet before it could enjoy its spoils, the phantom golden chains at the bottom of the cold pool suddenly tightened. The great demon’s enormous body shuddered, and it dropped painfully to one knee, vomiting mouthful after mouthful of dark-green demonic blood.
Now!
Fang Cunsheng had already reached the edge of the cold pool. Without the slightest hesitation, he flipped his right hand, and the black Water-Control Purifying Bottle he had seized from Gu Yue Gang instantly appeared in his palm.
The spiritual power of a mid-fourth-level Qi Condensation cultivator poured into it without reserve. The black jade bottle instantly burst forth with a circle of deep-blue water, wrapping Fang Cunsheng completely within it.
Splash!
Like a fish, Fang Cunsheng leaped into the ink-black Netherworld Cold Pool, where the cold could freeze the soul.
The moment he entered the water, a terrifying wave of extreme cold surged toward him like mountains collapsing into the sea. Even protected by the Water-Control Purifying Bottle, Fang Cunsheng still felt the flow of blood throughout his body slow to a halt. His thoughts nearly froze as well.
“Take me down!”
Fang Cunsheng clenched his teeth and bit the tip of his tongue. The sharp pain restored a trace of clarity, and he controlled his body as he plunged frantically toward the deepest point.
Ten zhang, thirty zhang, fifty zhang…
As he descended deeper and deeper, the surrounding light vanished completely, leaving only endless darkness and deathly silence. The deep-blue water barrier condensed by the Water-Control Purifying Bottle began to emit an ear-piercing creak. Dense cracks faintly appeared across it, clearly showing that it was nearing its limit.
Yet Fang Cunsheng’s Eye of Cause and Effect became dazzlingly bright in the darkness at the bottom of the pool.
About a hundred zhang below, within the silt, a wisp of purest, cleanest golden Buddhist radiance shone like a lighthouse in the night, emanating a gentle yet grand majesty.
It was a battered black ring-handled saber. The blade was covered in the mottling and cracks of time, but countless Sanskrit mantras seemed to flow and evolve within those cracks. Every vanishing and reappearing character fiercely suppressed the wildly surging Ninefold Nether Profound Aura around it.
【Cause-and-Effect Prompt: Blackwind Buddha Blade. A great karmic object left behind before the great demon attained the Dao a thousand years ago. This blade contains the true intent of the Tathagata of the Great Sun subduing demons. Tempered by the Ninefold Nether Profound Aura for a thousand years, its blade has shattered, but its Buddhist bone remains undestroyed.】
“Found it!”
Endless fervor erupted in Fang Cunsheng’s eyes.
At that moment, the Water-Control Purifying Bottle above his head was already on the verge of collapse. Once the water barrier shattered, a puny fourth-level Qi Condensation cultivator like him would instantly be turned into an ice statue by the Ninefold Nether Profound Water here. Not even an immortal could save him.
“To hell with it!”
Fang Cunsheng slapped his own chest and forced out another mouthful of heart’s blood, transforming it into a blood arrow that sprayed onto the black ring-handled saber.
Hum!
Stained by the blood of Fang Cunsheng, a man who possessed the Three-Lives Stone fragment, the black ring-handled saber that had slumbered for a thousand years began to tremble violently. A dazzling ring of golden Buddhist radiance burst forth from the bottom of the pool, forcing back the Ninefold Nether Profound Water within a hundred zhang by several zhang in an instant!
Vast and serene, yet carrying an endless killing intent, the Sanskrit chant of the Buddhist sect suddenly exploded inside Fang Cunsheng’s mind.
Fang Cunsheng felt the Three-Lives Stone fragment in his sea of consciousness tremble and ring wildly, as though it had encountered a friend of ten thousand years. Dense violet mists streamed down from it and intertwined with the golden Buddhist radiance.
Violet and gold lights crossed and interwove, evolving at the bottom of the pool into a terrifying phantom that was half Buddha and half demon.
“With a mortal body, how can one bear Heaven’s Will? With my blade, sever the mortal world. Only by staking everything on death can one attain nirvana!”
A weathered sigh sounded beside Fang Cunsheng’s ear.
The next moment, the battered black ring-handled saber transformed into a streak of golden light. Without warning, it pierced straight through and plunged into Fang Cunsheng’s chest!
“Ah—!”
The overwhelming pain made Fang Cunsheng unleash a silent scream at the bottom of the pool.
This was not an injury to the flesh. The Buddha Blade was forcibly stripping away the impure, inferior false Five-Element spiritual root within his body in an almost savage manner! Every strand of false spiritual root it extracted felt like his soul was being torn apart.
Pain! Pain that pierced to the marrow!
Yet Fang Cunsheng clenched his teeth, eyes wide open. Even as the corners of his eyes split and blood flowed from them, he stubbornly maintained the last thread of his clarity.
Scenes from his past and present lives flashed through his mind. The Gu Yue clan’s ruthlessness, the domineering ancient cultivation houses, the misery of low-level cultivators…
“If I can’t endure even this little pain, how can I defy Heaven and change my fate?! How can I overthrow this damned Heaven?!” Fang Cunsheng roared madly in his heart.
Perhaps sensing the tenacity of his Dao heart, which was almost terrifying, the Three-Lives Stone fragment in his sea of consciousness erupted with violet light and perfectly fused with the golden torrent formed by the Buddha Blade.
Boom!
Inside Fang Cunsheng’s body, the impure false spiritual root, riddled with impurities, was completely severed. In its place stood an entirely new spiritual root, straight and sharp like an unparalleled treasured saber, its entire body radiating violet and golden light!
The Buddhist bone of cause and effect—defying Heaven to change fate!
With the birth of the new spiritual root, the spiritual power within Fang Cunsheng’s body began to surge wildly at an unbelievable speed.
Late fourth-level Qi Condensation… fifth-level Qi Condensation… sixth-level Qi Condensation!
The vast Ninefold Nether Profound Aura was no longer a deadly poison. Instead, it transformed into the purest energy and poured frantically into his body. At that moment, his aura faintly underwent a qualitative transformation.
This was no ordinary breakthrough. He was reforging his immortal foundation!
Meanwhile, above the cold pool…
The Black Bear Great Demon, which had been kneeling on one knee, seemed to sense something. It suddenly turned its head and fixed its eyes on the surface of the pool, its expression filled with terror and fury. It sensed that the Buddha Blade that had suppressed it for a thousand years had actually been refined by someone!
“Roar—!”
The Black Bear Great Demon let out a heart-rending roar. Its enormous body charged toward the cold pool without regard for anything, attempting to completely destroy the little thief at the bottom.
Rumble!
The entire cold pool shook violently beneath the impact of the Core Formation great demon, and the mountains collapsed as the earth split apart.
Yet just as that enormous bear paw was about to slam into the surface of the pool, a young figure burst through the water amid a sky full of violet-gold Buddhist radiance!
Fang Cunsheng stood in midair above the cold pool, his blue robes snapping in the wind.
In his right hand, he gripped a long saber as black as ink, its entire body radiating a faint violet-gold glow. His cultivation had now stabilized firmly at the peak of seventh-level Qi Condensation! Though he was still half a step away from Foundation Establishment, the heavy aura of cause and effect emanating from him faintly stood on equal footing with the Core Formation great demon before him.
“The cause and effect of a thousand years ends today—with me, Fang Cunsheng.”
Fang Cunsheng looked at the enormous paw rushing toward him. A bone-chilling curve touched the corners of his lips as he brought down the Blackwind Buddha Blade in his hand!
A violet-gold saber light more than a dozen zhang long tore through the void and met the Core Formation bear’s paw head-on!