Chapter 961: Dayan Jianzi, Can You Let Me Go?

The surrounding hundreds of millions of believers' incense-power gathered, roaring, snarling, summoning their deity, and were filled with malice toward the only remaining blue-robed youth in this heaven and earth, wishing nothing more than to flay him, strip his bones, and devour his flesh and blood.

This malice spread throughout heaven and earth, as if the cultivator had been abandoned by the entire world.

Yet none of the malice could approach within a thousand li of the blue-robed youth; whatever came close was instantly cut down and slaughtered to the last.

Numbers, overwhelming numbers, hundreds of millions of living beings — all useless.

Dare to attack, make your choice clear, whatever the reason — then you must die.

"This incense-power is very annoying."

Jiang Ding furrowed his brow.

When the malice of living beings accumulates to such a magnitude as nearly half a world's living beings, persisting for hundreds of years, it brings some ill consequences — involving karma, involving fortune — extremely complicated.

This is a world where spirit can influence matter.

If a cultivator is not strong enough, the curses of hundreds of millions of living beings truly can curse him to death.

"Handle it quickly. Apart from a very few stubborn zealots, most of the common people are innocent, blinded by Xi Ping'an. Rescue them as soon as possible."

Jiang Ding sighed.

He flew down from the sky, wandering for several days within this fifth-grade lower-quality undersea spirit vein, measuring all manner of data on spirit veins, earth qi, tidal flows, and the like, calculating rapidly in his sea of consciousness.

"There's not even a fifth-grade array…"

Jiang Ding's teeth ached a little.

Xi Ping'an had relied entirely on the Incense Divine Court to hold dominion over the East Sea in the past, never intending to deploy a fifth-grade array at all.

This meant there was nothing to make use of whatsoever — everything had to be built from scratch by himself, and all the costs had to be borne by himself.

"Forget it, forget it, starting from scratch is fine too, more convenient."

Jiang Ding pulled a long face, vanished, and returned several days later.

In his hand was an additional set of arrays — a fifth-grade lower-quality Cloud Mist Water Wave Array, very suited to the East Sea environment. The key thing was it was cheap: only 520 billion lower-quality spirit stones, the lowest sect price among arrays of this type.

Actually, if he waited another 201 years, there would be a promotion event, and the price would drop by another 70 billion lower-quality spirit stones. Jiang Ding hesitated for quite a while before painfully giving up on that idea.

"Let's finish up the East Sea here as quickly as possible. A few years of output will cover the savings."

Jiang Ding flew in the sky.

Around him appeared several hundred thousand array flags, jade tripods, azure water droplets, jade pillars, and other array instruments, along with some reserved interface points for boundary-fixing arrays, densely blanketing this stretch of sky. Most were made of jade or stone materials, with no metal at all — related to the nature of the Cloud Mist Water Wave Array.

"Fall!"

Jiang Ding tapped lightly with his finger; a jade tripod fell, without splashing water, melting like ice as it

sank into the sea, then plunged deep to the seabed, finally settling on a node of the spirit vein.

Array flags, jade pillars, jade talismans rained down one after another; array patterns spread out continuously…

This work of laying arrays Jiang Ding had already done with great proficiency — his divine sense split into ten thousand threads, moving simultaneously, instinctively, almost without thought.

Several months later, accompanied by the trembling of heaven and earth, a vast expanse of array patterns and cloud mist appeared between heaven and earth.

Seen from afar, this sea region was completely shrouded in cloud mist; divine sense and gaze could not penetrate it — hazy and indistinct, with occasional illusions of pavilions and towers appearing, looking like a Penglai immortal realm.

In fact, this was not wrong.

This place would hereafter be the center of the East Sea Cultivation World; in the hearts of many mid- and low-grade cultivators, it was no different from a Penglai immortal realm.

"It's done…"

Jiang Ding was about to activate the array and open the attached ultra-long-range teleportation array to transport the cultivators of Tushan Master Tushan Zhongting over to handle various matters, when his heart suddenly stirred.

"Come out."

Jiang Ding's face expressionless, he formed hand seals and drew out a fist-sized golden sword from the center of the spirit vein.

This golden sword had been buried deep within the spirit vein, only exposed once the array was fully activated.

Previously Jiang Ding had not discovered it. Apart from interference from the fifth-grade spirit vein, the main reason was that he was too weak — weaker than even a Qi Refining cultivator, not even as good as a mortal; the energy ripple of a light breeze was greater than him.

"Dayan Jianzi…"

Xi Ping'an emerged from the golden sword, a forced fawning smile barely appearing on his face.

"Can you let me go?"

"Killing me won't do you any good. I've told you, my father left a restriction on me — if you kill me you'll fall into madness, the kind you can never escape no matter what."

"You should know, my father is the Great Sun Sword Master, about to break through to Refining Void — he might already be able to kill a Harmony Dao realm cultivator, having mastered the power of karma. Those evasion methods you mentioned are completely useless."

Xi Ping'an pleaded.

"Oh? Wasn't it you who kept seeking revenge against me?"

Jiang Ding said curiously.

He paid no heed whatsoever to Xi Ping'an's threats.

Because he was not alone — he had the Taiyi Qingmu Xianzong behind him.

Back then, Taiyi Qingmu Xianzong had been able to kill the Great Sun Sword Master head-on!

Now, a mere technique left behind by the Great Sun Sword Master — there must certainly be a way to deal with it. This was beyond doubt; after all, they were a hegemon power of the realm, one of the Nine Bullies.

"That was my mistake in thinking."

"Judging a gentleman by a petty man's heart."

Xi Ping'an said with a shameless grin: "When my father was still a Dayan Jianzi, he went around every day beating people to death regardless of friend or foe. After advancing to Refining Void he was still the same — he even deliberately indulged the growth of the East Extreme Demon Sect, forcing the Badaxian Sect to support the East Extreme Demon Sect, all to drive the emergence of stronger

enemies, then cut them down one by one, grinding his sword to the utmost limit, and then break through above Refining Void.

"He had terrifying ambition, unwilling to end this life at Refining Void — he wanted to remain invincible even in the realm above Refining Void, strengthening his opponents as much as possible."

"In the end…"

Xi Ping'an showed a shade of gloom.

"He died."

"He died on the sword cultivator's path of seeking the Dao, cut down by a joint attack of stronger forces — though there was the matter of his weakened state."

"But the Way of the Sword needs no reason—only the result. Win or lose."

"He, Zou Zou Xiyuan, wasn't strong enough. He died. That's all."

"When leaving the Mother Realm, he only smiled at me and told me to live on. That's all. He never mentioned revenge."

"A sword cultivator hones his blade on the blood of the strong, and to die by it in the end is only fitting."

"If elders, kin, or descendants use this as a pretext for revenge, that is the gravest shame a sword cultivator could suffer."

"It would mean his descendants are no longer true sword cultivators—that they no longer recognize the sacredness of a sword duel."

"So between us, there is no grudge."

Xi Ping'an concluded at last: "Besides, I've been a coward since childhood. I'm not suited for the Way of the Sword, and I've never gone onto the battlefield to kill anyone from your Eastern Extreme Demon Sect. Between us, we are but strangers passing by chance, with no karmic tie whatsoever."

He gave many reasons.

"It doesn't hold."

"It just doesn't hold."

Jiang Ding, however, did not accept any of it. He shook his head: "I don't care what a sword cultivator is, and I don't need to know. I am only myself."

"I still remember,"

Jiang Ding looked at Xi Ping'an, and at last a look of bitter hatred surfaced on his face: "You once hunted me down!"

"You despicable, shameless bastard!"

"You came after me when I was weak, hunted me down, nearly beat me to death!"

"You think I would forget?!!"