Chapter 562: Divine Mountain Suppresses Blue Heaven, White Rhino Descends the Mountain Once More

【In the first year, you methodically reviewed the Dao-Unification realm techniques you had long since mastered, and following Long Yuetian's guidance, attempted once more to summon the Blue Heaven Art to suppress that wisp of Divine Mountain True Intent within your body.】

As the deduction began, the demon-vanquishing lifespan drained away rapidly.

Shen Yi sat cross-legged in a secluded cave abode, his entire form drifting once more, as if merging into everything around him; even the subtlest currents of qi were entirely within his grasp.

Such was the might of a Dao-Unification realm spirit art—nearly transcending the realm of techniques, drawing closer to that of a domain.

With Long Yuetian's help, Shen Yi quickly merged the Blue Heaven and Mountain-Suppressing arts together, directing them to suppress the Divine Mountain True Intent within his body.

Under the double crushing weight of the spirit art and treasure art, and with the vast demon-vanquishing lifespan pouring in, that wisp of Divine Mountain True Intent soon grew as feeble as a candle in the wind.

Yet just as this wisp of true intent was on the verge of dissipating, Shen Yi noticed something amiss.

Though to him it seemed as though only a short while had passed, in truth every change within his body stemmed from nearly a thousand years of bitter cultivation on the panel.

Across these long ages, beneath the desolate Blue Heaven's suppression, this wisp of true intent shifted from a lofty mountain into an earthen mound, from the mound into a stubborn stone, until only a single grain of dust remained.

At this point, the change abruptly halted.

No matter how familiar Shen Yi was with the techniques, no matter how formidable his realm, that single grain of dust stubbornly refused to perish.

"……"

After a long silence, Shen Yi suddenly stopped the infusion of lifespan: "Are you certain you're right?"

"I—" Long Yuetian's tone suddenly lost its earlier certainty, for he realized his master had done exactly as instructed, and the entire process was beyond reproach, yet still no further progress could be made.

Yet he still found it somewhat absurd: "Could it be that with a single grain of dust, one seeks to suppress this Blue Heaven?"

"Give it a try."

Shen Yi's greatest advantage was that, sustained by demon-vanquishing lifespan, he possessed trial-and-error opportunities far beyond the reach of other cultivators.

He closed his eyes, feeling the faint Divine Mountain True Intent—beneath the vast Blue Heaven, it seemed all the more insignificant.

To be honest, with his current strength, to dream of opposing Hongze Daxian was no different from this grain of dust beneath the Blue Heaven; the other could slay Qin Zongzhu with a single palm, so destroying Shen Yi would be but a flick of a finger.

The mere thought of the Bai Xi treasure he had glimpsed that day still left Shen Yi with lingering dread.

But if he didn't even dare to dream of it, then truly not even a sliver of a chance remained.

Thinking of this, Shen Yi settled his mind and began to nurture this wisp of true intent anew; the grain of dust swelled once more, gradually transforming across long ages into a towering, magnificent mountain.

He raised both palms and sent this mountain up onto the Blue Heaven.

Then he exerted the Mountain-Suppressing Art with all his might.

The Blue Heaven was like an azure ocean, the Divine Mountain like a hidden reef beneath the waters—a single wave would suffice to submerge it.

Before the spirit art, ordinary Dao-Unification realm techniques appeared so feeble.

"……"

Long Yuetian, within the panel's deduction, lived through each day in truth, and could more vividly observe just how perilous a situation his master was in.

The other would either be drowned within this vastness, losing his sanity, or forcibly attempt to suppress this Blue Heaven—a mantis trying to stop a chariot, courting death—with virtually no third path to walk.

Yet the next moment, he noticed something amiss.

Shen Yi, having transformed into the Divine Mountain, did not attempt to suppress the Blue Heaven, but rather—like a tiny stone stele—stood quietly amid the endless firmament, concealing himself behind the clouds and mist.

Hide first. Survive first.

This instinct-driven notion seemed utterly opposed to the aggressive, striving heart needed to overcome a stronger foe, yet the deduction process, which had long shown no progress, finally began to shift.

Long Yuetian pondered for a long while before suddenly understanding.

The reason for prioritizing survival was that his master firmly believed he would ultimately prevail… to vie with the heavens for longevity, to see who could outlast whom—though it sounded strange, was this not itself a form of confidence?

At the same time.

The entire inner gate of the Banshan Sect trembled faintly.

Yan Chongzhang, who had been soothing the sect's disciples, seemed to sense something; he abruptly turned his head to look in a certain direction.

The next moment, he watched helplessly as that nameless low mountain took flight, rose into the air, then rapidly shot upward, visibly transforming into a towering, magnificent treasure mountain, revealing its true form!

It then began to shrink, until it was the size of a palm, before darting toward the secluded cave abode where Shen Yi resided!

Boom—

With demon-vanquishing lifespan measured in units of a hundred thousand years pouring in madly, this treasure mountain crashed into Shen Yi's body, was refined in an instant, took residence within his inner palace, and replaced the original wisp of Divine Mountain True Intent.

【Remaining Demon-Vanquishing Lifespan: 460,000 years】

【Dao-Unification (Immortal). Divine Mountain Suppresses Blue Heaven: Entry-Level】

Shen Yi slowly opened his eyes; all sharpness had receded within his pupils, leaving him looking plain and unadorned.

As if nothing had happened at all.

Only Long Yuetian within the Wan Yao Dian had personally witnessed just how awe-inspiring and terrifying that mountain within the other's inner palace truly was.

This must surely be a gift left behind by an immortal.

Beyond the techniques, that great immortal had even left behind a treasure.

Merging these three arts together and cultivating them to entry-level was the true first trial; this Divine Mountain was the reward for passing that trial.

Even with Long Yuetian's noble status in life, he now felt nothing but envy.

Such a precious secret cache, left behind in the remote backwater of West Hong—it felt rather like picking up gold by the roadside.

"Congratulations, my lord, on forming a bond with an immortal."

Hearing Long Yuetian's heartfelt congratulations, Shen Yi did not pay it much mind.

To be honest, whoever could devise a technique with such a mindset—that immortal's thoughts were quite dangerous… whether they could have lived until now was still uncertain.

He sank into inner vision, inspecting the treasure mountain newly added within his body.

Rather than a treasure, it was more a heavenly material that aided in cultivating this immortal art.

Presumably that immortal had foreseen that a cultivator who could comprehend Divine Mountain Suppresses Blue Heaven would likely be in less-than-ideal circumstances; those with smooth sailing, like Long Yuetian, would never believe such nonsense as suppressing the Blue Heaven with a grain of sand.

Dust is dust; heaven and earth are heaven and earth.

The former should be ruthlessly suppressed by the latter, just as the other three Hongs should rightfully submit beneath North Hong.

Cultivation arts also choose their masters.

For that reason, that immortal left behind this mountain, as one final aid to cultivators who comprehended the Dao—so they wouldn't be left with absolutely nothing.

At least for now, with Shen Yi's cultivation, he simply couldn't command this treasure-mountain, only passively receiving its protection.

"Take it slow."

Shen Yi stood up and looked out toward the quiet cave dwelling's entrance.

He was now very curious about where the clan leader of the Haoyue Shuanghu clan was currently and what the Liuli Qingfeng clan was doing.

Just then, a gentle voice rang out from within Shen Yi's Dao tablet.

"Is Shen Zongzhu nearby?"

Shen Yi pondered for a moment before realizing who the owner of that voice was.

It was precisely the great tree he had most wanted to lean on when being chased by the tiger demon earlier—Qingyue Sect Master Ji Jingxi.

……

Xihong, Hanyue Mountain.

A man plastered all over with talisman shadows limped toward the mountain peak.

His xuan-white great cloak had long been torn and stained a dark red, making him look utterly wretched.

"Hah…"

An Tingfeng breathed raggedly, gazing at this mountain range he could normally cross in an instant—now it seemed so towering that even climbing it left him feeling unequal to the task.

He paused briefly to rest, then resumed his steps up the mountain.

Once an invincible great demon at the peak of the Earth realm, after being gravely wounded by the Purple Xian Dragon Consort and then having his demon body locked down by Situ Junrui, he now looked as weak as a mortal.

An unknown amount of time passed.

An Tingfeng finally crossed this mountain range and arrived at the ancestral land.

This place should have been the burial ground for all the ancestors of the Haoyue Shuanghu clan, but now these remains had all been dug up and laid straight on the ground. Some unknown thing had drained the lingering aura from them, and they had long since rotted beyond recognition.

An Tingfeng merely passed by them, and several skeletons crumbled to dust that scattered on the wind.

Finally, at the far end of the ancestral land, within such a Tianyan Siji scene, a wisp of dense vitality flickered into being.

It was a white flower, swaying gently in the wind.

An Tingfeng stared at this flower, then suddenly let out a breath of relief. His whole body went limp as he sat down beside it, casually extending a broad palm stained with blood, fingers slightly curled, to shield the white flower from the mountain wind.

"Lady, I've returned."

His voice was faint. He glanced sideways, a hint of dejection in his eyes: "All these years I've been searching among the various great immortal sects and demon clans, and just when I thought I'd found a way to bring Anyi back to life and let her grow up healthy, suddenly it all turned out like this."

An Tingfeng stroked the petals with his fingertip, baring his fangs slightly, and sighed: "Actually she's already come back to life, but she… refuses to come back!"

At that last half-sentence, this tiger demon suddenly took on a trembling, furious tone.

"Our body and hair, received from our parents."

"How could she, how dare she! Refuse to return that body to you!"

"With the Lady's soul, with her body, our family reunited, joyful and harmonious…" An Tingfeng's breathing grew heavier, as if lost in that beautiful imagining.

He had once been a fierce tiger that struck terror into the older generation of demon clans, but after reaching the peak of the Earth realm, he suddenly stopped advancing.

Everyone assumed he had suffered an incurable grave wound in that long-ago battle between kin.

In truth, An Tingfeng had always been siphoning off a portion of his essence blood to nurture this white flower formed from the Lady's remains—all to keep her here, until Anyi grew to adulthood, and then plant this flower into his daughter's body.

"Everything I did was for reunion, and in the end I was betrayed by her!"

"Did the Lady ever think we'd give birth to an ungrateful wretch of a beast?"

An Tingfeng seemed to be both crying and laughing, his face like an evil ghost. His left hand pressed over his heart, where a long-healed wound remained—the "reward" for all his years of devotion from Anyi, after she had barely come back to life.

In his right palm, that white flower began to tremble violently.

"The Lady is angry too?"

An Tingfeng slowly let his smile fade and nodded seriously: "I understand."

As his words fell, he suddenly clenched the white flower's stem, his voice calm: "Reunion doesn't only come in one way. Our family will return to being together in the end—for instance, within your husband's body."

"I'll take the Lady to find her now. As the saying goes, Zibu Sect, father of the fault—such a wretched beast should repent and be punished within her father's belly."

As his words fell, he slowly pulled that white flower out from the ancestral land.

The flower's stems and leaves, like human hands, frantically slapped at An Tingfeng's right palm's Hukou, but could not stop him from bringing it toward his mouth.

"You're just… too soft-hearted… same as years ago… too kind."

"If you're like this… you'll… spoil her."

An Tingfeng gripped the stems and leaves that fought desperately against him, stuffed the entire flower into his mouth, and chewed unhurriedly. Clearly he was chewing a white flower, yet between his teeth crimson blood plasma quietly seeped out, staining his pale fangs and adding a savage touch.

"Lady, I will deal with Anyi, and with that cultivator who tricked her away. You must trust your husband."

An Tingfeng swallowed the white flower down, then closed his eyes.

The next moment, his tattered xuan-white great cloak was suddenly torn apart by surging muscles. His burly demon body swelled against the wind, limbs thick as great trees, and he slammed his broad tiger palm hard against the peak of Hanyue Mountain!

Boom!

The massive Bai Hu's muscles were taut to the point of bursting. It glared wide, eyeballs nearly bulging from their sockets, the area around its slit pupils entirely flooded with blood.

Its savage face jerked upward, releasing a deep tiger's roar toward the heavens.

Releasing the tiger back to the mountain—one will regret it in the end.

"Roar—"

The tiger's roar went on without end, frenzied and shrill, as if enduring unimaginable agony.

The essence blood it had siphoned off over a hundred thousand years now rushed back into its body all at once, nearly tearing its demon frame apart!

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Before that erupting blood qi, the talisman shadows on the tiger's body shattered one after another.

An Tingfeng tumbled endlessly on the mountaintop, destroying everything he touched, until he was utterly spent; the ancestral land was already a shambles, carpeted in thick bone dust.

It lay sprawled on the ground, its rapid breathing quickly turning into a low laugh that spread through this burial ground, carrying a faintly eerie air.

After resting briefly, the fierce tiger rose unhurriedly to its feet and swayed as it walked down the mountain.

By the time it reached the broken foot of Hanyue Mountain, a letter written in demon blood had already turned into a streak of light, speeding toward the waters—straight to the prince's manor of the Seventh Master of the Qi family.

Sure enough, the dragon daughter from the east—her heart was always in the east, or even the south.

The demon race of the Western Flood ultimately still had to rely on the Western Long Gong.

……

In the palace of Qi Seventh Master, within the Western Flood waters.

This dragon son, clad in imposing heavy armor, sat upright on his throne, finished reading the blood letter in his hand carefully, and slowly set it down on the table.

"Seventh Prince, I seem to have caught the scent of that fierce tiger—could it be that he's seen reason too?"

There was only one guest in the hall, an old man draped in blue-green feathers.

"That's not bad at all."

Qi Zhaoping smiled, though he let out a long sigh of relief in his heart.

God knew what rotten luck he'd been having lately—first, every soldier and general he'd sent out vanished without a trace, their fate unknown; not only did he lose his dharma treasure, he also lost face at the Wanxiang Pavilion.

Then his elder brother called him to account, ordering him to immediately find that stupid bear who'd gone completely silent, to keep the news from leaking.

Perhaps his luck had turned at last.

Or perhaps the recent shifts in the Western Flood's situation had already been sensed by these land-dwelling demons—back when his elder brother had written to ask, he'd been politely turned down, yet now these great demons were coming to pledge themselves one after another.

He'd send this good news to the Southern Flood shortly, to give his elder brother something to be happy about.

"……"

Though he didn't much care for the hot heart-fire aura clinging to this old Blue-Green Phoenix.

Still, Qi Zhaoping kept the smile on his face: "Then I'll have to trouble your clansfolk to help us find that fierce tiger."

"Me go help him?" The blue-feathered old man was taken aback.

"It's not exactly helping him—after all, your young son was most likely lost to the hands of the Seven Sons of the Southern Flood too." Qi Zhaoping looked over meaningfully. Though he knew perfectly well this was Wan Yao Dian's doing, outsiders didn't, so he simply let the mistake stand and chalked it up to the Seven Sons as well.

At those words, the blue-feathered old man's face twitched.

He deliberated for a long while.

Slowly he rose to his feet: "Very well. Let this be the Liuli Blue-Green Phoenix clan's pledge of allegiance to the Western Long Gong—may it wipe away all past grievances in one stroke."

"What grievances could there possibly be."

Qi Zhaoping waved a hand: "But you don't need to go yourself. Go find something for that Ji Sect Master to do."

His elder brother hadn't been idling in the Southern Flood either—these past days had been enough for the other party to thoroughly investigate just how many people the Seven Sons of the Southern Flood had sent over to request aid.

After all the trouble of winning over that fierce tiger, he couldn't let the other side just go and clash with that Qingyue Sect Master like that.

"Rest assured—you'll soon see that my Western Long Gong's way of doing things is completely different from that woman from the east. Just get the job done, and there'll be plenty in it for you."

"……"

The old Blue-Green Phoenix slowly bowed in salute.

He naturally knew exactly what matter the Seventh Prince was referring to.

Because of the fire nature in his body, he was innately despised by the Western Long Gong, which forced the Liuli Blue-Green Phoenix clan to dwell in the most remote corners of the Western Flood.

Now that internal strife had broken out within the Western Long Gong, the Blue-Green Phoenix clan finally had a chance to catch its breath.

Merit earned by following the dragon—such a thing, being asked to take the vanguard, he was certainly unwilling. But if, riding on the momentum of two dragon palaces joining forces, he could bully the Seven Sons of the Southern Flood a little, that wasn't exactly a big problem.

(End of chapter)