Chapter 992: Vivifiend Extermination
“Patriarch!”
Off on the horizon, the empress’ godly authority wiped Patriarch Vivifiend out of existence. At that moment, a sigh echoed out in all directions. Howls of grief echoed out from the mouths of the Vivifiends in the holy land.
An instant later, a never-ending sea of flames swept over everything. Where it went, the might of destruction abounded. It gathered within the holy mountain, specifically at the Forbidden by the Zombie door that Patriarch Vivifiend had opened just before he died. The fire closed the door.
After, the huge army of cultivators surged into motion. They were like an enormous hand descending from heaven, carrying a will of death onto the Vivifiends’ holy mountain. Death swept over their entire species. Terror and despair overtook the hearts and minds of all Vivifiends. Some of them simply stood there trembling. Some tried to flee. In some, the terror transformed into madness.
With the patriarch dead, the elders were the ones to assume the will of the species. Enraged, they flew out and called out to the other Vivifiends to fight. But an instant later, rumbling sounds echoed out as that enormous ‘hand’ arrived.
The entire mountain shook as deafening booms rang out. When that huge hand hit, the Vivifiend resistance crumbled. Countless Vivifiends coughed up mouthfuls of blood. And yet some of them still flew out to try to fight back. Sadly for them, the hand’s momentum was unstoppable, ensuring it crushed everything in its path. Those who flew out fell almost instantly.
The cultivator army that made up the ‘hand’ then became like a swarm of bees that hit the holy land with mountain-toppling, sea-draining force. Miserable shrieks, howls of madness, and cries of anguish mixed together and echoed out in all directions. The mountain trembled violently as cracks spread out over its surface, and boulders tumbled down into the sea below. Slaughter broke out everywhere.
This army was made up of imperial soldiers, Sea-Sealing County armed forces, and warriors from both Moonrite and Seven Blood Eyes. Even if the holy land had been more majestic than it was, there was no way it could stand up against such numbers.
In the end, it was only the most elite of the cultivators who actually entered the mountain. But even that was enough to call it a full-scale invasion. In the shortest of moments, an explosive battle erupted, and Vivifiend corpses started piling up.
The majority of the cultivators on Xu Qing’s side were tasked with sealing off the outside world. That involved using spell formations to tightly seal heaven, earth, the air, magical laws, and the mountain itself. In other words, it made sure the Vivifiends had nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.
The only thing in store for the Vivifiends was extermination. There was no other option.
As the sounds of slaughter spread from the holy land, Xu Qing’s godly authority of sound erupted within every bit of noise in the area. Wherever he went, the sound became deadly. Heads flew off of shoulders. Bodies exploded into gore. The killing intent was shocking to the extreme.
He required slaughter. His experience over the last ten days had left him with very tight nerves. Being chased down to be killed had left him feeling as bedraggled as a stray dog. The constant rushing around, the repeated collapse of his fleshly body and the pain that came with it, led to a towering killing intent.
Xu Qing wasn’t a person who enjoyed being down and out. And slaughter was essentially a permanent fixture in his life.
Originally, it should have been possible for the holy lands to get along with him harmoniously. It hadn’t been his desire for friction to erupt so quickly with the holy lands. He had simply been sitting there waiting for the giant and the dragon chariot. But an Imperial Sovereign’s son and his dao protectors had let their greed get the better of them.
And therefore... killing it would be.
Thus, a wind kicked up from the sea, bringing sea water with it as it blew onto the holy land. It mixed with the slaughter, spreading from the bottom of the mountain all the way to the top.
At the foot of the mountain, a Void Returning Vivifiend looked completely insane as he fought with Sir Bloodsmelter. Sir Bloodsmelter was old, but he was on the front lines that smashed into the holy land’s forces. He had felt guilty from the moment he heard Xu Qing went missing, and was fighting with every ounce of strength he had in the hopes of making up for that.
“A species that dares to touch my grand-apprentice will be buried as a species!”
The coldness in Sir Bloodsmelter’s heart manifested as innumerable blood threads that shot forth to devour his Vivifiend opponent.
The Vivifiend’s heart was full of madness, but he also knew that all signs pointed to imminent disaster. All he could hope to do was take some enemies with him. Eyes bloodshot, he performed a double-handed incantation gesture, causing his energy to rise dramatically. He was opting for self-detonation!
But then the wind blew past, and the shadow of death became visible right behind him. A dagger slashed. A head flew! The last thing he saw was the world tumbling around him. Sadly, he never saw who delivered the fatal blow. The only thing he saw were Sir Bloodsmelter’s blood threads.
The slaughter continued. If one could look down from high above onto the holy land, they would see corpses piling up everywhere.
Some people were going completely crazy.
Erniu was one of them. Turning into a host of blue worms, he spread icy frost everywhere, freezing everything around him. At the same time, his cold laughter drifted with the frosty wind.
“The holy lands don’t count for crap!”
At the same time, in another location, a Vivifiend cultivator in the great circle of Void Returning was being beset on all sides. Blood sprayed out of his mouth as he tried to flee. He could tell that the only thing that awaited him in the holy land was death. His senses were full of the aroma of death and the sound of agonized shrieking. As death neared, his heart trembled. All of a sudden, he resorted to a secret magic that would hopefully get him free of the enemy forces surrounding him.
He partly succeeded. The secret magic caused him to glow with a blood-colored light. It was a sort of blood escape art that could be used to break free of a deadly ambush. Unfortunately for him, he couldn’t teleport past the spell formation barrier outside the mountain. All he could do... was reach the foot of the mountain.
Before he could even gain his bearings, the wind blew.
A sensation of deadly crisis filled him that vastly surpassed what he had felt moments ago when being surrounded. It exploded within him, causing his head to spin. He lunged backward instinctively, yet couldn’t prevent the wind from slicing his head off his shoulders. His senses of the world gradually faded as everything turned black. Blood sprayed as a corpse fell. The decapitated head landed upon a shadowy hand that stretched out of the wind. Then the hand and the head disappeared.
When they reappeared, they were halfway up the mountain. There were more corpses there, as the Vivifiends were being absolutely decimated. The disparity in power ensured that any resistance on the part of the Vivifiends was absolutely meaningless. They struggled, but that only bought them a few more moments of life. And the price to be paid was injury and psychological torment.
Even their Smoldering God elders and other Smoldering God experts were simply perishing under the assault of King Firecrusher, as well as the Heir Apparent and his siblings.
Blood clouds gathered in the sky. A blood rain fell. The flames continued to burn, and thus, the blood rain evaporated into a mist that covered the mountain.
Xu Qing was like a death god walking in the world of mortals. Within the blood mist, he went from the foot of the mountain toward the summit. He was not particular in choosing targets. It didn’t matter what cultivation base they had. As long as they were Vivifiends, they were marked for death. Void Returning. Spirit Trove. Nascent Soul. They were all the same to him.
The smell of blood grew stronger, and the screams grew shriller. Gradually, the number of screams began to diminish. Eventually, Xu Qing stepped out of the blood mist and stood at the summit of the mountain. There were no more howls of agony coming from Vivifiend cultivators.
The entire species had been eradicated. The only thing left behind were innumerable corpses littering the mountain. Most were mutilated. The blood had turned the white mountain completely red. Deep below the surface of the sea, Forbidden by the Zombie stirred because of the aura of death. But it was quickly suppressed by the pressure from above.
On top of the mountain, Xu Qing took a deep breath, looked around at everyone who had come to help him, and then bowed deeply. Next, he locked eyes with Ling’er.
Ling’er had grown up. She’d known that Xu Qing had important matters to attend to, and had held back from ever bothering him. When she realized he was looking at her, her expression became one of wistful longing. His eyes softened, and he nodded. Then he turned to look at Erniu, who was walking out of the blood mist.
“Eldest Brother,” he said.
Erniu knew what Xu Qing wanted to say. Licking his lips, he took note of the aroma of blood that surrounded them, then laughed grimly. “Don’t worry, little Ah Qing. By using the blood of the Vivifiend species as a sacrifice, I can track him down! As of now, he doesn’t have those gruish shears anymore. Plus, he’s weaker than ever. I’d say it’s likely he isn’t even in the Imperial Sovereign level.”
Erniu stamped his foot onto the ground and floated up into the air. Reaching toward the blood mist, he made a grasping gesture. Instantly, the blood mist filling the holy land filled with rumbling sounds. Then, five hurricanes formed, with Erniu in the center. Together, they rose up into the air, slowly orbiting around each other.
Massive amounts of corpses were picked up by the wind, and began to flow within the hurricanes. From a distance, it was an extremely ghastly sight, almost like some sort of evil magic.
Erniu’s eyes began to shine brightly as his hands flashed through double-handed incantation gestures. He began to chant, and the corpses within the five hurricanes started crumbling into pieces.
When they were nothing but flowing gore, the five hurricanes looked even more horrifying. In the end, Erniu pointed up into the sky with one finger, and the five hurricanes shot upward. High in the sky, they converged to make a sea of blood that roiled loudly, spinning until it was a gigantic black hole.
Looking at the black vortex, Erniu shouted, “Little Junior Brother!”
Xu Qing didn’t hesitate for a moment. The golden crow flew out of him, swirling through the air. Opening its mouth, it spat out the true form of Floating Fiend that it had devoured earlier. It landed next to Erniu.
Erniu reached out and put his hand on Floating Fiend’s head. His nails dug down deep until they pierced the skull, whereupon he began to chant in a voice that seemed profoundly ancient.
“Blood as the guide, will as the reason, these bones and this cultivator, a soul within heaven and earth, bring it back to its origin!”
As his voice rang out, the black vortex spun more dramatically. Lightning danced back and forth like silver snakes. Gradually, an illusory scene began to form in the black hole. It started very blurry, but as the moments passed and Erniu’s eyes shone more brilliantly, the blue light pulsing off of him seeped into the image. As the blue light stained the image, Erniu spat out mouthful after mouthful of blood, which also joined the image.
It was almost like a purification. The image quickly turned clear.
It depicted the seafloor! A shadowy figure was racing along there. He quickly noticed that he had been spotted, and turned to look over his shoulder.
He was none other than Floating Fiend! A look of shock appeared, and then became a dour expression. He quickly waved his hand as if to sever the connection. The image once again turned blurry.
“Think you can escape?” Erniu laughed coldly. He burst into motion, shooting into the vortex. Xu Qing took a step, also entering the vortex, pulsing with killing intent as he did.
A flaming figure joined them from the mountain. As it blurred along, it turned into Huang Yan, who disappeared into the vortex.
Rumbling sounds echoed out as the vortex vanished. The three figures were gone, leaving no trace behind.