Under Perfected Master Qingfeng’s gaze, Shen Yi quietly finished the beef, Chen Zhong’s abandoned portion included. The medicinal potency held in the fine dish was absorbed by the path infant, while the truly essential demon-emperor flesh and blood turned into twelve drops of demon blood, taken into his sea of qi.
He set down his chopsticks. His expression had long since returned to normal.
It had to be said, the news Wutong Mountain had passed on did indeed throw Shen Yi’s plans into disarray. He even felt an impulse to return to Great Qian at once.
Great Qian’s importance to Shen Yi now went without saying — the equivalent of his home base. Once the Nine Provinces toppled, without enough accumulated faith to sustain it, the golden body would advance not an inch. And once it was damaged, that would be a permanent wound, one impossible to recover by any other means. It would amount to using tens of thousands of years of demon lifespan to condense a “single-use” consumable. This was something he absolutely could not accept.
But once he’d calmed a little, a chill rose in Shen Yi’s heart. Were he truly to go back and take up a guarding stance, that would be exactly what plunged himself and Great Qian together into a slow death.
When the Thousand Demon Den would take its revenge, he didn’t know. Where it would strike from, he likewise didn’t know. Just as Perfected Master Qingfeng had said, for demons, a revenge that lasted several hundred years wasn’t reckoned very long at all. If he waited in vain at Great Qian all those years, with the resources there, his cultivation would struggle to gain anything more.
And what was more, even running at full stretch, getting from Lizhou to Qingzhou was no matter of a single day — while for a demon emperor to slaughter a city took no time at all. Made sport of like a guard dog, run ragged across Great Qian. Once mired in such a bog, Shen Yi would face the gravest problem of all: with his realm unable to keep up its leaping ascent, could he actually hold?
The White-Feather Demon Emperor, ranked forty-second in the Thousand Demon Den, could leave the Prison Dharma Form hard-pressed even in a gravely wounded state; at least a three-zhang golden body would be needed for any chance of beating it head-on. And with the twenty-thousand-odd years of demon lifespan in hand, letting the golden body break through to three zhang was already an optimistic estimate. Should the Thousand Demon Den send even one demon emperor ranked among the top forty dens, Shen Yi would be left without recourse.
With a Nineteenth-Den Blood-Transmuting Demon Emperor already fallen, the Thousand Demon Den — so long as it wasn’t full of idiots — could not possibly pull the fool’s move of “sending the small one first, then the old one.” In truth, without much thought, one could easily arrive at a realistic answer.
It couldn’t be held…
That place held not only accumulated faith, but several friends Shen Yi knew, and War Temple disciples who’d been good to him. Shen Yi had taken away the vast accumulated faith, yet couldn’t accomplish the thing he’d once promised.
“Hoo.”
He slowly closed his eyes, and felt anew what Jiang Qiulan had once experienced. Plainly he’d never once rested, yet still found that time simply wasn’t enough.
The Nine Provinces were too vast; relying on guarding was the worst of poor strategies. To truly protect Great Qian, what was needed was reputation. A fearsome, resounding ill-name that made the Thousand Demon Den blanch at the sound of it — the strength that, should any dare intrude by so much as a hair, would exterminate its whole house in answer. Just like Nie Jun and Wutong Mountain — even having slain the bull demon, the Thousand Demon Den dared only lay hands on their allies.
“I’ve eaten my fill. Has the Perfected Master any other business?”
Shen Yi rose and straightened his robe a little.
“Only wanted a look at you. I’ve had it now.”
Perfected Master Qingfeng nodded and lifted a hand in farewell. One so young who could command the admiration of a host of Mixed Origin Grandmasters was worth a look. The demon-emperor flesh and blood was also his senior brother’s treasured stock; borrowing a little to forge a good tie. But that was all it amounted to.
Upon perceiving Shen Yi’s talent, nearly any power would find it hard not to throw out an olive branch — except Wutong Mountain. These twelve fellow disciples of theirs, every one, was the most dazzling existence within the whole of Xianzong across tens of thousands of years. Before the radiance of the bright moon, however brilliant the stars, they could only pale into dim insignificance.
“I take my leave.”
Shen Yi dipped his chin lightly, turned, and walked downstairs. The Eight-Direction proprietor waited outside the door and quietly gave a signal with his eyes.
Mei Xiyao nodded and followed the ink-robed young man ahead. Only when they’d reached roughly the third floor did she speak softly. “Senior Shen, there was much neglect earlier — I hope you won’t take it to heart.”
Saying this, she smiled helplessly. “Even Great Qian’s Grandmasters were thrown into such a panic — never mind our little dining hall.”
If Nie Jun’s striking this time drew a demon reprisal, Great Qian was at least still an ally, and couldn’t be called wholly unconnected. Their Eight-Direction Dining Hall was the one that had truly suffered a catastrophe out of nowhere — just a crowd of cooks, who’d abruptly offended a colossus like the Thousand Demon Den. Who was there to reason with over it?
Mei Xiyao sighed. “On this land, the weak attach themselves to the strong; while enjoying that shelter, they must also bear the risk of being the fish in the moat caught by the fire. It’s really nothing more than the most ordinary thing. You needn’t worry too much on that Grandmaster’s account either.”
“…”
Shen Yi didn’t answer, only nodded slightly.
Just so. Just as when he’d slain Lady Qinghua earlier — it was with Nie Jun’s help pinning down the Blood-Transmuting Demon Emperor that he’d come through safe to this day. Surely one couldn’t say the man was a good person while doing the pinning, and became a villain the moment he slew a demon. That was a Perfected Master of Wutong Mountain, not a bodyguard Great Qian kept on the payroll.
It was only that the time left to him wasn’t much.
Shen Yi walked down to the lower floor and saw a great crowd of people had hemmed Aqing in on every side. Facing so many cultivators whose realms far surpassed her own, she could still keep calm, questioning each in turn about the things they meant to trade — the very picture of unhurried order.
Without disturbing Aqing, Shen Yi strode straight out of the Eight-Direction Dining Hall. He found a quiet spot at random within this valley, sat cross-legged, and took out the jade box traded from Ma Guangshan. Lifting the lid, he looked at that small purple stone inside.
As the saying goes, one may not have eaten pork but has seen a pig run. Entry-level Mixed Origin though he was, Shen Yi had slain quite a few Grandmasters and earnestly observed a great many path infants; he had a certain understanding of this realm too.
A path infant condensed from the qi of heaven and earth, once it had gathered enough foundation to shatter its core and emerge, was entry-level Mixed Origin. Between it and the mid-tier, the difference was only a single spiritual root.
No wonder Jiang Qiulan had said the Grandmaster’s path was one without traces to follow. The difference in spiritual roots, the difference in path infants — the changes born of combining the two were naturally a road that could not be replicated.
Shen Yi took out the True-Yang Kirin Stone, closed his eyes, and stroked it for a moment. He soon sensed a thin, single layer of restriction upon it. He mobilized his aura and struck at it!
The next moment, the purple stone suddenly loosed a beast-like cry, wisps of golden flame rising up, an eerie purple glow held within the flame’s heart — that was the mark of pollution by killing-force. The purple-gold flame scorched Shen Yi’s palm until it sizzled.
With his present body-refined frame, and the Cold Jade Mysterious Silk Hand’s protection besides, he could still feel pain under the influence of a dead object. This was the might of an upper-grade spiritual root.
For a Grandmaster, the path infant was the true body. And what Shen Yi now had to do was attempt to forcibly fuse such a perilous thing into his path infant. Should any damage occur, that was no wound peacock red-radiance could mend.
(End of Chapter 277)