Chapter 814: Blood-Red Dark Swallow
Xu Qing’s voice seemed to come from ancient times, or to pass through deep waters. Every word contained meaning, and as they combined, they created a mysterious water droplet of daoist magic that landed on the surface of the water.
It created a very crisp and clear sound.
Ping....
The sound expanded, creating ripples that spread through the dimension. It was almost as if the entire place... had become the surface of a body of water.
Fifth Prince was on that surface of water. All eight versions of him looked absolutely shocked to the core. He had never seen any divine ability like this! Nor had he experienced any sensation like this before. However, the majestic aura that filled the dimension gave him the sensation that it was some type of dao essence. But what was most astonishing to him was that he realized that, all of a sudden, he had lost his ability to move. He was locked in place, even his cultivation base and magical techniques. Everything about him had turned completely still.
His look of astonishment was also frozen in place. His mind still worked, but that didn’t help him much. Next, Xu Qing spoke again, and an even more shocking scene unfolded.
“Everything is inside the well. All divine abilities, magical treasures, all states exist in the well.... That includes the true you.”
As even more ripples spread out on the surface of the water, Fifth Prince looked down to see himself reflected there.... It wasn’t just him. It was all of his magical treasures, as well as the flames from his magical technique. And there were other magical techniques, including everything he had ever cultivated. Even his heavenly dao was there, as well as all of the natural and magical laws he had gained enlightenment of. He also saw the altar and the funerary urn. Everything that belonged to him and all his secrets were there, whether they were illusory techniques or material items.
Fifth Prince was shaken to the core, as he suddenly came to the conclusion... that if his reflection sustained damage, the same would happen to his true form. That premonition prompted him to struggle to free himself, except that he couldn’t move a muscle. The version of himself in the water grew clearer.
Meanwhile, though it seemed like he and Xu Qing were fighting in a standalone dimension, the reality was that they were still in the imperial palace. It was just that the palace’s spell formation had interfered to keep the effects of their fighting isolated. As a result, everyone in the palace could both sense and watch everything that was happening. They saw Fifth Prince’s gruish corpse fire, and they saw the bizarre bone chains from the funerary urn. They also saw Fifth Prince attempt to extract one of Xu Qing’s souls.
At the same time, they saw Xu Qing’s actions. On the day of the dao debate, Xu Qing had done some fighting. But all he had done was reveal his god state. Now, seeing his god state unleash magical techniques was a big shock to many people.
And the three falling mountains was only one reason for that. After all, on the day Xu Qing clashed with the butterfly, there had been people who sensed what was happening. But what really shocked everyone was the ability currently being unleashed. Not one person had ever seen anything like it!
The thirteen heavenly kings were moved, and the emperor leaned forward slightly, a strange light flickering in his eyes.
As everyone paid close attention, Xu Qing’s voice echoed out again.
“He is you.”
The words caused Fifth Prince’s mind to spin, and his view of the world to blur. It felt like water was flowing around him, obscuring his vision. Within that blurriness, he looked at himself, unmoving and surrounded by all of his magical techniques, natural laws, and magical treasures.
What shook him even further was the realization that... what he was looking at wasn’t under the surface of the water. He was looking at his true form outside the water. Unbeknownst to him, he had somehow come to be in the body beneath the surface of the water. In other words... he had become part of the reflection of himself.
He couldn’t fight back! He couldn’t resist!
Fifth Prince felt shaken to the depths of his being. He wasn’t willing for this to happen, and yet there was no way for him to stop it. He wanted to struggle, yet had no will to make it happen.
Then he saw a hand. It was Xu Qing’s hand, slowly reaching down into the water to fish something out. That simple motion seemed to contain a boundless daoist magic. There wasn’t a scrap of any technique aura. It seemed like a fresh breeze.
After all, Xu Qing had gained enlightenment of how to use Fishing the Moon in the Well to fish the moon out of his own heart. After that, using it to extract souls from other people was downright simple. He had been spending time recently thinking about what other transformations existed within Fishing the Moon in the Well. To some extent, it was a daoist magic that could be used to fish out anything that existed, not just moons. The moon was just a reference point.
And thus, he reached his hand into the water to Fifth Prince, and gently fished out his soul. The rumbling dimension collapsed. The bone chains locked onto Xu Qing’s souls had no one controlling them, so they crumbled into nothing.
The same thing happened to the chains swirling around Xu Qing himself. The seven projected versions of Fifth Prince faded from midair as the entire dimension disappeared.
As the astral redirection concluded, Xu Qing once again saw the imperial palace around him.
Fifth Prince stood motionless in the same spot as before, his face pale and his eyes listless. His soul was gone. His fleshly body remained, but without a soul, he was like a walking corpse.
Xu Qing had not even stood up from his chair, and his expression had hardly changed. He was currently looking down at the palm of his hand. He wasn’t the only one. Everyone else in the palace hall had shifted their gazes to look at the same spot. Fifth Prince’s soul rested on his palm.
“Guyue Qingji,” Xu Qing said quietly, “as an imperial prince who guards the border regions, you’re very important to humankind. Nor have you committed any grave crime. Therefore, I won’t give you a hard time. I’ll simply take one of your magical techniques. Whenever you feel capable of defeating me in combat, you can come take it back!”
Xu Qing waved his hand, and Fifth Prince’s soul became a host of threads that shot back to Fifth Prince. The only thing that remained behind was a funerary urn. Xu Qing’s hand closed around it.
Fifth Prince shivered. The blankness in his eyes faded and he looked at Xu Qing with a complicated expression. Then he bowed at the waist, took a few steps backward, then returned to his assigned spot in the hall. There, he closed his eyes.
The palace hall was absolutely silent, but everyone present was deeply shaken. The events that had just played out changed what many of these members of the human nobility thought of Xu Qing. He seemed more mysterious than before. Turning heaven and earth into a surface of water, then fishing a soul from within it, was virtually incomprehensible to them.
Unless you have a higher cultivation base than this Xu Qing, or have some very unique item....
A divine ability like that clearly has a very profound dao accumulation. It contains a very ancient will. I’d say it’s not a magic from any recent era.
What a majestic divine ability. There’s no way something like that could have appeared in history and yet not be mentioned in any historical records....
As the people in the hall pondered the situation, some people thought about the Summer Immortal Palace.
One of the heavenly kings attending court was a woman wearing a daoist robe, and she had a blurred face. Looking at Xu Qing, she said, “Does that daoist magic have a name?”
“Fishing the Moon in the Well,” Xu Qing replied with a neutral facial expression.
“Good name,” she replied, nodding. She asked no further questions.
This session of court was reaching its end.
The chief minister, who was officiating, looked at the sky outside, then at the gathered officials. “Ladies and gentlemen, if there’s anything further, please submit your petitions to the emperor. Otherwise, court will be adjourned.”
Everyone bowed their heads.
The chief minister scanned the crowd again, then turned to the emperor. After a short moment passed, he said, “In that case....”
The chief minister nodded and was about to proclaim court adjourned. But then, a blood-red beam of light appeared in the dome of heaven outside the imperial capital.
It was visible first. But a moment later, a deafening scream filled the air. Everyone heard the intense sound, which was so loud it shook the entire imperial capital. It shot toward the imperial palace with incredible speed that bordered on teleportation. It didn’t seem as if any spell formation or defensive obstacle would block its progress. As a matter of fact, the imperial capital’s grand spell formation didn’t just open up, it actually blessed it with further speed. Within the blood-red beam was the aura of a Dawning Sun, which made it seem completely unstoppable. Anything that tried to block it would be reduced to ashes.
The first people to notice what was happening were those in the imperial palace. The emperor looked up, and in very rare fashion, his gaze flickered dramatically.
In humankind, there was a very high-level communication method that resembled a blood-colored dark swallow. As long as it was used within human territory, it could span any distance to carry a secret message to its target. The blood-red beam in the sky was exactly that.
The heavenly kings’ auras surged. The heavenly marquises’ expressions flickered. The other officials were visibly moved as they turned to look at the blood-red beam of light that shot screaming into the imperial palace, where it transformed into a blood-colored dark swallow that landed on the emperor’s hand. Then it surged with light like blood as it turned into a blood-red jade slip.
The emperor looked closely at it for a long moment. Then his expression turned grim, and a stifling pressure weighed down on the imperial palace.
Simultaneously, more blood-red dark swallows appeared on the horizon, all flying toward the palace. There were a total of nine of them, all of which entered the palace and turned into jade slips. The emperor flicked his finger, sending one of them into the hands of the chief minister.
The chief minister scanned it, and then his eyes glittered. He crushed it.
Voice hoarse, he said, “One of the three major subsidiary species of the Firemoon Darkheavens, the Saia, have amassed an army 10,000,000 strong and have encroached on our northwestern border to wage war!
“Also, the Whitemarsh species, another of the Firemoons’ subsidiaries, has mobilized for war. They teleported to the front lines of our conflict with the Nightshades to provide backup. As a result, King Eastcauldron was severely injured.
“The Nightshade war has reached a critical point, while the northwest border is in severe danger.”