Chapter 445: Heart Demon Tribulation

Roar!

The instant the Nine Orifices Jin Dan emerged, accompanied by the sounds of dragons singing and tigers roaring, various strange phenomena appeared—azure ancient trees thrust up from the earth, a blue-golden great sun blazed resplendently, golden lotuses sprang from the ground, and heavenly flowers rained down in chaos.

"A supreme-grade Jin Dan!"

Master Dinghai Master Dinghai Zhenjun's breath caught: "A sword-path supreme-grade Jin Dan, and its grade has reached the very limit of the supreme-grade Jin Dan. Even the Dao Sons of the Badaxian Sect rarely achieve it—it is second only to a Dao-Rule Jin Dan."

"And a Dao-Rule Jin Dan is born within a Dao Body. It is a chance bestowed by the heavens—innate, and cannot be achieved by human effort."

"The Great Sun Sword Pavilion has done it."

Zhang Zhang Junsheng cut in, his expression solemn: "To recreate, after the fact, something akin to a Dao-Rule Jin Dan—completely under one's own control, still able to grow, with might surpassing a Dao-Rule Jin Dan."

"First in the realm indeed—well-deserved fame."

"It's just far too perilous."

He was the absolute expert and authority in this field.

"There is also the Heart Demon Tribulation."

Li Hai Zhen cut in, looking toward the direction of the mining area dormitory.

For one undergoing the Heart Demon Tribulation, myriad ages are but a single instant—success or failure both happen in a single moment.

……

Jiang Ding looked around.

A stretch of hazy white fog, no sky to be seen, only able to make out the area within a few dozen meters nearby; the distance was a blur.

"You villain!"

"Give me back my life!"

Before him appeared a black-clad mountain bandit with a bloody gash across his throat, glaring at him with venomous hatred: "I have no grudge against you, no quarrel with you—why did you kill me?"

He had appeared suddenly, asking out of nowhere.

Jiang Ding, however, did not find it abrupt; he felt only that it ought to be so, nothing strange about it. After a brief recollection, he smiled and said: "You're a stockade guard of the Fierce Tiger Stockade of the East Spirit Prefecture—the one who joined the siege of Shopkeeper Long San of the Four Seas Commerce Guild, aren't you?"

This man was of no consequence; he could not recall the name.

Yet he was the very first person Jiang Ding had slain in this life.

Therefore, after a brief recollection, the man's information surfaced in his mind.

"How cruel your heart is!"

"The two of us had no grudge, no quarrel—why did you harm me? At home I still have an eighty-year-old mother, and a wailing infant waiting to be fed!"

The black-clad mountain bandit wept tears of blood: "Without me, they will surely lose their food and starve to death at home."

Somehow, Jiang Ding felt that what he said was true.

Through the voice, it seemed one could see a thatched hut, within which an old woman and an infant in swaddling clothes lay on a pile of straw. The house was utterly empty—the family's belongings, the bed, the padded clothes, the pots, pans, and basins, had all been sold, exchanged for grain.

Nothing was left.

Grandmother and grandson breathed feebly.

In another two or three days, two cold corpses would lie on the straw—one large, one small—skin a bluish-purple shot through with ghastly white.

"…I… am the direct cause of their deaths…"

Jiang Ding Zi murmured.

A faint sense of guilt rose in his heart.

"Good!"

"You finally admitted it!" the black-clad mountain bandit cursed furiously: "Why don't you go and die? Why are you still living in this world? Go die, quickly!"

"Go die, quickly!"

"Die!"

"Die…"

The voice echoed through the hills, again and again, seeping into his heart from every angle.

At once, that faint sense of guilt grew wildly like weeds, spreading to fill his entire heart; thick sorrow and guilt flooded his being, filled entirely with self-reproach.

"Yes, it's all my fault."

"Why don't I go and die?"

Jiang Ding murmured to himself, drawing the long sword shimmering with azure light in his hand: "Why don't I go and die?"

"Why don't…"

The azure-glowing long sword swept out a streak of sword-light, falling upon the venomously roaring black-clad mountain bandit's head, slicing him clean in two; his entrails spilled out with a wet slosh.

"No—kill you sooner."

"You want to kill me too!"

"You've killed me again!"

The black-clad mountain bandit still would not die, roaring furiously: "You butcher, you executioner, you scoundrel steeped in sin—don't you have even the slightest shred of compassion…"

Whoosh!

Another sword-stroke, cutting him apart in a cross.

"I am kind-hearted."

"This admits no doubt."

Jiang Ding sheathed his sword, his expression returning to indifference.

"You were a mountain bandit, cutting down passing merchants from time to time, sparing neither old nor young, neither women nor children—and now that you've been killed, you still dare harbor resentment?"

"Beyond absurd."

"My old mother and infant child starved to death alive…"

The black-clad mountain bandit's corpse hit the ground, its mouth opening and closing, as streams of demonic sound spread forth to beguile—tremendously infectious, stirring empathy, making one feel as though it were one's own experience, grieving and weeping for the mother and infant.

"This is not my fault."

"This is your fault."

"It is also the fault of the East Spirit Prefecture's ruler, the Marquis Who Pacifies the East. From farther back, it is the fault of the cultivators of this world. Only it is not mine."

Jiang Ding said calmly, "My only fault was failing to kill all of you sooner, to restore order to this small realm, so that widows, widowers, orphans, and the childless would no longer die of hunger at home."

"So that people like your mother and your young child could receive help."

"As for your mother and your son, if they still want revenge and truly make a move, I will cut them down with one sword."

Once the words were spoken, his heart felt much more at ease, without the slightest hint of guilt, open and upright.

On the ground, the black-clothed mountain bandit's corpse turned into a wisp of green smoke and dispersed.

The world spun, white fog spread out, covering everything, then scattered once more.

This was the back courtyard of a small general store.

"Jiang Ding!"

"Because of a minor offense, you cut off one of my arms!"

A one-armed man gripped his severed limb and said resentfully, "Is this the law of your immortal sect? Did I violate any law of the immortal sect?"

Wild Wolf Blade, Long Shi!

A little over a hundred years ago, the gang leader of the Wild Wolf Gang, a small gang on Rotten Board Street in East Spirit Prefecture, acting on the orders of the Hou Fu's steward, tested a young man who possessed several thousand taels of silver, and paid a price for it.

"Long Shi, long time no see."

Jiang Ding nodded.

One sword swept through, beheading him; the head flew out, and the one-armed corpse fell.

"You are not a citizen of the immortal sect, and are not under the jurisdiction or protection of the immortal sect's laws."

"What you need to obey is the local, publicly recognized morality and righteousness, laws and regulations that I acknowledge."

White fog surged up and scattered again.

"Jiang Ding, you…"

These were the villagers of Fierce Tiger Stockade, their faces covered in charred, blistered burns from the great fire, looking like evil ghosts, dozens or hundreds of them. These were purely innocent people, harmed by the leaderless Fierce Tiger Stockade guards who had gone on a looting rampage amid the flames.

And their leaderlessness was caused by him.

One sword swept through, and the charred, charcoal-like corpses shattered into pieces.

"Same."

Jiang Ding said briefly.

This did not stir the slightest ripple in his heart.

"Jiang Ding…"

"Why don't you just go die…"

The scene shifted: one after another, place after place, the Hou Fu's chief steward whose name he could no longer remember, the Langshen Sect's Innate Blade Lin Shi, a Qi Refining cultivator from Huaxuedian…

And so on and so forth, people who had once died by his hand were resurrected, cursing and berating him from every angle for his injustice, his inhumanity, his disloyalty, and the fact that he had no reason whatsoever to continue existing in this world.

What he gave them was the long sword sweeping through, and death once again.

Jiang Ding glanced briefly at the legitimate son of Huaxuedian.

This was the first opponent worthy of serious attention he had encountered in his life, who ultimately died beneath the barrage of a heavy machine gun.

Draw sword, slay.

Scene after scene flashed by, death after death beneath the sword, leaving not the slightest ripple in his heart, unable to be resurrected again.

One scene, a pause.

"Immortal envoy."

A middle-aged cultivator stepped out, a Qi Refining Layer Seven cultivator he had never met before, who said calmly, "What of it that we are cultivators of the Li Yun Sect? Just because we come from a small realm, are we born to be enslaved by you? Just because of your playful little examinations, must we risk death?"

"In the end, the entire sect perished."

"Is this also your Dao Heart?"

Li Yun Sect Dao Soldier, Senior Qian Senior Qian Tongyi.

Jiang Ding fell silent, lost in thought.

"No, this is not my Dao Heart."

"This is indeed a flaw in the Dao Heart, not perfect and flawless."

Jiang Ding said with regret.

He had actually admitted it.

"What?"

Senior Qian Senior Qian Tongyi was startled, a sliver of extremely faint delight showing in his eyes, and said with a hint of beguilement, "The immortal sect has no Dao, it betrays human ethics…"

His throat stiffened.

His body collapsed softly, falling apart and scattering.

Jiang Ding slowly sheathed his sword.

"Why?"

An enraged voice came from the void.

"This is indeed a flaw in your Dao Heart, absolutely no mistake!"

"Aren't you going to keep pretending?"

"Heart Demon, heh."

Jiang Ding smiled slightly and said, "There is a flaw in the Dao Heart, but you have to be able to seize it too. Come, keep going for me. I will take the initiative to cooperate with your forgetting, to inspect for deficiencies and fill the gaps, and to seek the true self."

The enraged voice fell silent.

(End of this chapter)