Chapter 467: Ling’er’s Life Essence Thread (part 1)
In Sea-Sealing County, in a location not too far from the county capital, there was a teleportation portal that flared with dazzling light as Xu Qing emerged.
His face was pale white. He was dangerously weak, but without a moment of hesitation, he raced off into the distance. Once away from any prying eyes, he found a random cave in some remote mountains. Inside the cave, he coughed up a huge mouthful of blood. He was having trouble seeing as he sat down cross-legged and gasped for breath. Yet that didn’t stop him from clenching his jaw and performing an incantation gesture to lock down the area.
Based on his past experiences, a single day should have been enough to recover by half. Unfortunately, he was currently only about ten percent recovered.
As his internal organs pulsed with intense pain, he sent his senses inside himself to look at the reason why he was recovering so slowly. His internal organs were all cracked and on the verge of falling apart. His flesh was extremely withered. And his bones were all deeply fractured. That was the source of the pain he felt.
As for why he felt so dispirited, it was because his sea of consciousness was dim and his soul wasn’t glittering brightly like usual.
That said, such things didn’t count for much for Xu Qing. This wasn’t his first time sustaining grievous injuries. Instead, what captured his attention was that, in addition to all those other injuries, he could see innumerable hair-thin needles inside of him!
The needles actually didn’t have a corporeal form. They were made of countless shattered bits of light that had spread throughout Xu Qing’s fleshly body and skeleton. They glittered brightly. It was the needles that were impeding Xu Qing’s recovery.
Thankfully, the needles were only in a handful of locations on his bones, with most parts of his skeleton free of their effects.
“The power of a god...” he murmured. His expression turned steely, and his eyes glittered with ferocity.
As a matter of fact, he had spent some of his travel time trying to extrude the needles. Although he’d had a measure of success, the process was extremely slow. He didn’t have time to do it the slow way.
The reason was that the feeling of unease from his heavenly dao bluegreen dragon hadn’t ceased after Chu Tianqun’s death. In fact, it was getting stronger! Because of that, he just kept getting more and more anxious as he journeyed back toward the county capital. What was most telling of all was that as he got closer to the capital, the sense of crisis was reaching truly astonishing levels. That led Xu Qing to the conclusion that the sense of crisis... was related to the county capital!
Thinking back, he remembered that the first time he’d experienced that sensation was when he was in the capital. The next time was after he’d left the Holytide lands. That second time, the sensation was more intense. And it kept getting stronger the closer he got to his destination.
Given that, it seems that the sense of crisis I experienced in the desert wasn’t related to Chu Tianqun. Instead, it was because I was getting closer to the county capital.... But why?
Xu Qing couldn’t come up with any ideas. And regardless of the reason why, he needed to recover as quickly as possible, and get his battle prowess back to peak condition. Waiting wasn’t an option. This entire situation was one reason why he hadn’t just immediately rushed back into the county capital.
If I want to recover quickly, I have to resort to special tactics!
He took a deep breath and his eyes shone with determination as he activated his third heavenly palace. The power of taboo poison erupted, filling every fiber of flesh in his body.
He wasn’t trying to fight back against the needles that had resulted from Chu Tianqun’s god power. Instead, he was using the power of the poison to cause his flesh to rot.
Without any hesitation, he pulled out a dagger, sliced it into his arm, and began carving the rotten flesh off. After revealing the needles of light beneath, he used the dagger to scrape them off his bones. The sound of the blade scraping against bone echoed in the cave, and the pain increased by several times over.
Xu Qing shivered, and sweat began rolling off of him.
This was the best method he could come up with. The reason was that the needles were continuing to spread, though slowly. Therefore, by using the poison to rot his flesh, it made it easier to scrape off the flesh and cleanse it. It also slowed down the needles.
Xu Qing was a vicious person. He was vicious to his enemies, and even more vicious to himself.
Time passed. Xu Qing worked without pausing for a moment. As he scraped flesh off bit by bit, he eventually reached his right wrist. That was where the golden light was. He didn’t want to activate the power of that golden light again, which meant he had to avoid reaching a state of near-death. After confirming the golden light wasn’t being affected by the light needles, he made sure the power of the violet crystal was restoring the flesh in that area before he moved on to other parts of his body.
Using this process, he took four days to remove all of the light needles. During that time, he used both medicinal pills and the power of the violet crystal to make sure he was constantly recovering.
There were light needles in his sea of consciousness as well. For those, he gritted his teeth and used the combined power of the violet moon and the taboo poison to force them out into his flesh. Then he dug them out with the dagger.
When it was all done, he opened his eyes. The process had involved unimaginable pain, but the result was that he was now recovering fully. After another three days passed, he felt that he was back to normal.
He emerged from the cave and looked up to see it was evening. Taking a deep breath, he mulled over the current situation. Finally, his expression became one of determination. He blurred into motion toward the same teleportation portal he had used previously. He still planned to go back to the county capital. For one thing, he wanted to trade the dao fruits in for military credit. Also, he needed to collect more demonization symbols from the Supreme Void World.
Later that very night, he stepped out of a teleportation portal in the county capital. He looked around the familiar city, including the huge statue of Ancient Emperor Dark Serenity, and suppressed the jumpiness in his heart.
Hurrying back to his sword pavilion, he settled down cross-legged and sent a message to the Captain. He got no response. Obviously the Captain wasn’t back yet.
Next, he messaged Arch-Immortal Plumdark to let her know he was safe. She responded immediately, sounding concerned. Then, shortly after, she appeared outside his sword pavilion. Moonlight framed her as she stood there in a blue gown looking at him. She seemed worried.
“Why were you gone for such a long time?” She examined him head to toe, and finding no injuries, she breathed a sigh of relief.
“I ran into an issue on the way back,” Xu Qing said softly, clasping hands respectfully. “It caused some delays.”
She nodded. She had other matters to attend to, and given that Xu Qing wasn’t in trouble, she offered a few parting words before turning to leave.
Before she could take more than a few steps, Xu Qing suddenly said, “Arch-Immortal, I’ve been feeling extremely uneasy recently. Please take care of yourself.”
She stopped and looked back at him. She smiled and nodded. Then she left.
Once alone in his sword pavilion again, Xu Qing messaged Kong Xianglong and asked if anything unusual was going on in the county capital. Kong Xianglong responded that everything was as normal, with the exception of the Nightshade godchild situation with the Holytides. Kong Xianglong actually wasn’t in the capital at the moment; he was out on a mission. But now that he was in touch with Xu Qing, he asked about what happened in Holytide territory.
“Oh, that. Right. There were some other Nightshades there too....” Xu Qing cleared his throat and didn’t go into any more detail about that. That said, he didn’t feel the need to be too secretive with Kong Xianglong, so he continued. “I ended up getting a few thousand dao fruits though....”
Kong Xianglong’s gasp echoed out from the command sword to fill Xu Qing’s sword pavilion. “A few thousand?”
“Yeah… and some of them are your share,” Xu Qing replied.
“Now that’s what I call a bro!! Xu Qing, don’t go and sell those dao fruits. With the Ten Entrails Tree gone, those things are going to skyrocket in value. Heh heh. Swordsages are all on the same side, but... sometimes you just have to fleece the flock!”
Xu Qing wasn’t surprised by Kong Xianglong’s suggestion. Although Kong Xianglong was completely loyal to the swordsages, there wasn’t anybody who didn’t need more military credits. The two of them chatted briefly then ended the conversation.
Xu Qing put down his command sword. Everything’s normal here in the county capital, but this is definitely the source of my unease. Does that mean there’s someone here who’s targeting me?
He was convinced that he wasn’t overthinking things, so he didn’t let his guard down by an iota.
The night passed uneventfully. The next day at dawn, Xu Qing took extra precautions to remain safe as he left his sword pavilion and went up to the city to replenish his supply of medicinal pills. Then he went to the subsidiary sect of the Supreme Void Demonization Sect.
After paying the required military credits, he entered the Supreme Void World. Regardless of the sense of crisis he felt, he needed to have the Ghost Emperor mountain ready as a trump card. And though the mountain was already set into his heavenly palace, he still needed demonization symbols if he wanted to summon it externally. The upside was that having the Ghost Emperor mountain in his heavenly palace made it much easier to control.
Since Xu Qing was a familiar face in the eerie Supreme Void World now, his presence caused quite a stir among the whispering brain trees there. Wherever he went, the brain trees trembled and fled from him. The last time, Xu Qing had been nothing short of vicious. Though it had been a while since he was here last, clearly word about him had spread among the brain trees. That said, Xu Qing’s cultivation base was far more advanced than last time. No matter how the brain trees fled, he could catch up to them. And thus, it wasn’t long before he left the Supreme Void World feeling very pleased.
Seventy-five!
Patting his bag of holding, he left the subsidiary sect and went to the Swordsage Palace’s Library Hall. His hope was that he could find some information about that golden light, and where it might have come from.
Unfortunately, there seemed to be no end to the books and scrolls in the Library Hall, and even after browsing late into the night, he didn’t find anything helpful. Finally, he went back to his sword pavilion.
I’ll go back to the library tomorrow to keep looking. There has to be an answer there! If I can’t find it, though, I guess I’ll report for duty at the Corrections Division and ask the palace lord for help. Worst case scenario, I can just stay in the Corrections Division for a while until I figure out what’s going on.
Although he might be in danger in the county capital, if there was one safe haven for him, it had to be the Corrections Division. After all, the palace lord was in charge there.
With that thought in mind, Xu Qing settled down cross-legged and closed his eyes. It was a dark night with clouds and fog that obscured everything. After doing some breathing exercises, Xu Qing opened his eyes and looked at his right wrist. A moment passed. He rubbed his wrist with this other hand.
Just what exactly is that golden thread?
Xu Qing heard a peal of thunder off in the distance, and then the sound of rushing wind, which almost resembled weeping.
A storm was coming. That was why it had been so dark throughout the day. It wasn’t possible to see the moon outside, as it was covered by seemingly endless clouds. More thunder crashed, like the cry of gods. Occasionally, bolts of lightning would illuminate the county capital.