Chapter 1035: Mysterious White Dust (part 1)
To the Devilbirds, whether they were from the east or the west, the Immortal Skills Halls were places of pure holiness. The grand immortal adept of every generation might not necessarily have an Imperial Sovereign cultivation base, but in terms of status, was just as important as an Imperial Sovereign.
Nowadays, the decline of the eastern Devilbirds, as well as the death of their grand immortal adept, had caused the eastern Immortal Skills Hall to lose some of its glory. The immortal adepts there were constantly at odds as they tried to outdo the others and become the new grand immortal adept.
Although Yue Dong was the apprentice of the grand immortal adept, she wasn’t the only person who qualified to be the successor. That was why she’d started working with the Lan Clan. If the crazy plan to get Grand Emperor Netherflame’s corpse worked... then she wouldn’t just qualify to take over the Immortal Skills Hall. She and the Lan Clan could theoretically seize control of all the eastern Devilbirds. But now... there were some dramatic developments.
Thankfully, Erniu was around. He was a virtuous person who liked to help others, and therefore, he wanted to see Yue Dong’s plan through to the end. Erniu actually wasn’t very surprised to hear that Xu Qing wasn’t planning to join him.
“You’re right,” he said. “Settling your identity is the most important thing. You’ll come back right away?”
Xu Qing shook his head. He had his own things to deal with. And similar to his Eldest Brother and the Immortal Skills Hall, this situation was something that had been bothering him for a long time. He had thought about the issue for a long time, but had never figured out a way to deal with it. But then... Sir Blood Dust showed up, and he got an idea.
“I’m not sure when I’ll be back,” he said. “That Sir Blood Dust has something of great interest to me, Eldest Brother. I’m going to go look more closely into the situation. Once I have the information I need, I’ll track you down.”
Of course, Erniu was now feeling very curious. “Something of great interest? What exactly?”
Xu Qing looked off into the distance. He could sense that the tracking mark he had put on Sir Blood Dust was already wearing off. Thankfully, he had also put one of Little Shadow’s shadow eyes on him. That meant that he would have no trouble tracking down Sir Blood Dust. After confirming that he could sense Sir Blood Dust’s location, Xu Qing’s eyes glittered.
“Something karmaless,” he said. With that, he took a step forward and then turned to leave.
“That’s fine,” Erniu said. “After all, given the level of your cultivation base, little Junior Brother, as long as you’re careful, you should be fine. Besides... here among the eastern Devilbirds, we have Lu Lingzi to back us up, right?”
Licking his lips, Erniu turned in the direction of the Immortal Skills Hall and started moving.
In that manner, Qing and Niu split up to work on their own respective tasks.
A few hours later, Xu Qing flew through the air concealed in invisibility. Using his connection to the shadow eye, he was making his way through the lands of the eastern Devilbirds. As he got closer and closer to his quarry, his heart started to beat faster. The moment he encountered Sir Blood Dust, he sensed something special about him. It was quite unexpected. That was why his heart was racing.
Right now, the biggest difficulty he was facing was his own cultivation base. He had died in the imperial capital of humankind, whereupon his Master resurrected him in a new body created from the flesh of the broken face. Although he had benefited greatly because of that, it had also created certain shackles. One of them was the fact that his soul and fleshly body were not fused.
The most urgent problem now was that his cultivation base was stuck! If he wanted to break out of the Void Returning level, then he needed all one hundred bits of godly authority in his sea of consciousness to be shining brightly. Right now, that was a problem.
He wanted to get stronger. He wanted to reach Smoldering God. Whether it was because of the threat posed by the Crown Prince of Violet and Cyan, or the war that gripped Revered Ancient, he needed to get stronger. That was the only way to make true progress. What was more, Xu Qing wasn’t interested in constantly relying on the help of his Master. Unfortunately, godly authority wasn’t something he could get just by working hard.
Whether it was gaining enlightenment or seizing authority from other gods, they were things that weren’t certain. When it came to improving his cultivation base, Xu Qing couldn’t just accept uncertainty.
This body is strong enough to keep me safe from anything under the Imperial Sovereign level. And it has limitless potential.... But it’s also created some limitations for me. Godly authority... can improve my battle prowess. But each instance of getting some more requires a destined opportunity. My successes are because of godly authority. But my challenges are because of godly authority.
He had thought a lot about how to deal with the situation, and had come up with some good ideas.
Back in South Phoenix, he had also consulted with Master Seventh, who had informed Xu Qing that when dealing with a path of unlimited potential, it was impossible for anyone to give completely accurate advice. He would need to do his own study and research. The only thing Master Seventh had been able to provide was the profound sun immortal light to fuse his soul and body.
In the last few months in the imperial capital, Xu Qing had been focused on Feng Lintao, but had also been spending time thinking about how to deal with his challenging situation. He had come up with a good idea, which was to make a clone that could practice cultivation separate from his true form. The goal would be to work toward a breakthrough.
Ultimately, he gave up on that idea, as he realized that using a clone for cultivation would be highly unlikely to work.
The main reason was that he simply had too many karmic connections. There was karma from the outer sea. Karma connecting to gods. Karma with Zi Qing. And most importantly... there was karma with the broken face of Eminent Desolation. Even if he did create a clone, all of that karma would be around, and it would cause problems for the clone. Because the clone couldn’t escape from that karma, it would ultimately lead to the clone’s destruction. The Grand Emperor’s shears were sharp, but not sharp enough to sever karma like that.
Because of all that, Xu Qing had given up on the idea of using a clone. But then he ran into Sir Blood Dust!
When Sir Blood Dust showed up, and they clashed inside of those blood clouds, Xu Qing noticed something unusual. The fate threads attached to Sir Blood Dust were different from those of an ordinary person. When Xu Qing used his authority of erasure, he could see that Sir Blood Dust’s fate threads had some sort of white dust on them. It was very faint. But it was there, and it was the first time Xu Qing had seen anything like that.
The young man in the fancy robe had interrupted Xu Qing and Erniu when they used Six Thieves Deceive Life on Sir Blood Dust.
But during the process of using the immortal skill, Xu Qing sensed that white dust, and could tell that it was fighting back. It made it difficult for the seven emotions and six sensory pleasures to be sealed.
It was something very unique that caught Xu Qing’s attention. When the young man in the fancy robe interfered, Xu Qing intentionally let Sir Blood Dust escape. Afterward, it had seemed like he was just quietly following along as they traveled. But as he listened to what the young man said to Erniu, he also pondered the situation with Sir Blood Dust. Eventually, he reached a conclusion.
Something karmaless.
Around evening, as the glow of the setting sun faded, he looked at a low-lying mountain off in the distance. He started moving in that direction.
***
In that low-lying mountain was a mansion grotto, outside of which were hosts of spell formations that concealed the place and created powerful defenses.
Inside the mansion grotto was Sir Blood Dust, seated cross-legged in meditation. After escaping from Xu Qing and Erniu, he didn’t return to his original mansion grotto. After purging himself of any tracking marks, he switched mansion grottos a few times in a row before settling on this one.
His face was ashen, as if he had sustained damage to his vital energy. Veins bulged on his face, and fluctuations of instability pulsed off him. Previously, he had seven major worlds. But now he only had five, and they were all very dim. He had lost two of them after detonating them in the fight with Xu Qing and Erniu.
Something was off about Yue Dong! That slut was doing a lot more damage than she used to. And that corpse puppet of hers.... Why did it leave me feeling so jumpy? And it was actually working with Yue Dong to unleash Six Thieves Deceive Life.... Dammit!!
Sir Blood Dust felt full of defiance and fury. However, he didn’t suspect that Yue Dong was anyone other than herself. After all, Six Thieves Deceive Life was the signature ability of the eastern Devilbirds’ Immortal Skills Hall, and it was also Yue Dong’s signature move.
That whore was one of the scouts that got sent to Revered Ancient. After she arrived there, she must have come across some amazing destined opportunity! Killing her is going to require some clever planning.
Right now, Sir Blood Dust could do nothing but focus on healing. As he did, he took out a jade slip. It was a mission jade slip that the Devilbird holy land had given out. It listed all sorts of available missions, as well as the battle credit that would come upon completing them.
I need to keep racking up battle credit to get access to other pocket realms. Thankfully, there are a lot of humans out there, and there are plenty of weak ones that I can kill. The more I kill, the more battle credit I’ll earn.
Sir Blood Dust had no choice but to suppress the killing intent toward Yue Dong. He was fundamentally a patient person, otherwise he wouldn’t have waited so long before suddenly making a lightning-like attack out of nowhere. Unfortunately, he knew that he wasn’t strong enough right now. He needed to stockpile resources and get stronger before he sought revenge.
As he scanned the jade slip with divine will looking for an appropriate mission, he suddenly sensed fluctuations from outside the mansion grotto. They started very faint, but quickly grew so strong that the entire mountain was shaking violently. The spell formations were being attacked.
An instant later, the mansion grotto’s main door cracked open.
The sudden development caused Sir Blood Dust’s face to fall, and he extended his right hand, and a teleportation symbol appeared under it on the ground. All he had to do was touch that symbol, and he would be teleported away.