Chapter 54 Exposed
In Zhong Yue’s psyche ocean, Xin Huo was sitting casually on the head of Zhong Yue’s soul, the little flame was burning quietly prompting Zhong Yue to wonder whether if the eyebrows of his soul were all going to be burnt away by the little flame.
The little flame was dead quiet, it was strangely odd as Xin Huo would usually be hopping and jumping around at times like this.
“Between life and death,” in an indifferent tone, Xin Huo said.
Zhong Yue’s heart thumped, the time around him was seemingly stopped, the moment the Sword Cocoon sword silk that slashed down onto his head crawled to a snail’s pace as if it was not moving at all while the sword silk on his back was also moving exceptionally slowly.
This is the state of extremity between life and death. The terror and fear instigated his body, psyche, and soul to erupt with the latent potential within him, thereby granting him access to unearthly perception and reflexes.
He once jumped off the cliff countless times from the Yin Ma Tai, actively cultivating in such a state; but as his strength and prowess increased, the previous danger and trepidation he felt gradually numbed and it eventually became harder for him to enter such a life and death situation anymore.
Right now, faced with one of the Ten Malefic Weapons – the Sword Cocoon, at the precipice of death, he was able to enter the marvelously elusive state again.
But this was different than the past few times, for the past few times his heart thumped in uneasiness, he had to visualize the Sui Sovereign to calm his mind and banish the inner demon within him from burgeoning.
But this time, he was submerged in an immensely peaceful state of mind.
Before this, although it was dangerous, deep within the unconscious recesses of his heart, Zhong Yue knew that Xin Huo would not allow him to fall to death, hence, he had never really immersed himself to a deeper level of the state of extremity.
But now, he had dived deeper into another realm of the state of extremity as he truly found the ethereal boundary between life and death!
Even if he had entered such a magical state, the clear and present danger of the Sword Cocoon still existed. All of a sudden, the sounds of bones cracking emanated from Zhong Yue’s body, he twisted his body into an odd and peculiar shape in order to evade the Sword Cocoon sword silk.
He lowered his head with his neck twisted around as if it was broken, his head leaned backward while his chest bulged forwards and his back formed a shape reminiscent of a fully-drawn bow!
From his body, came the sounds of dislocating bone away from their original positions and his tendons being stretched taut on the verge of shredding. The ribs on his chest were all dislocated and his backbone plunged forward with all of his muscles assisting its forward movement, trying to evade the sword silk coming from his back.
It was as if every part of his body was granted their own lives and thoughts, they could move freely around of their own will, at the same time, his internal organs were also shifting places in his body so that the bones would not crash and inflict any damage to the internal organs.
It seemed long but it all happened in the blink of an eye, if someone saw him right now, they would cry out in fear as if having met with a monstrous creature.
Zhong Yue’s body was twisted in strange and peculiar angles, the bones in his body were dislocated and shifted all around making him look like a human-like boneless python. In such a weird body posture, Zhong Yue was barely able to dodge the sword silks slashing down on his head and piercing from behind.
It was like he had disassembled his body and reassembled it again!
Streams of blood splattered into the air, Zhong Yue was still not able to fully dodge the sword silks, the sword silk pierced through his left ribs and he could feel that at least five of his rib bones were broken from the attack, thankfully he had shifted his internal organs away from the attacks.
There was also a slim rivulet of blood that ran all the way from the crown of his head down to the nose, even his nose tip was sliced.
“Puhh——”
Zhong Yue vomited out a mouth of blood, although he had dislocated all his bones and shifted his body that allowed him to escape from death, his internal organs were still injured due to the vigorous shifts, but the result was way better compared to having his life wrested away from him for eternity.
“Thankfully I had once lived as a Xiang Dragon, or otherwise I would surely be dead already!” Zhong Yue thought in his heart while he stepped on the Jiao Dragon and kept a distance away from the sword silk.
He was once assimilated into the Xiang Dragon, his intimate understandings of the body structure of the Xiang Dragon was incomparable to anyone else. He could be said as having been elucidated on the true quintessence of the Xiang Dragon, in addition to that, he was visualizing the Xiang Dragon to train on his psyche and so his body was stronger than before.
Because of his resilient body, he could have achieved such an impossible task within such a short period of time!
Zhong Yue’s body flew out, he was startled as he looked at ‘Shui Qingyan’.
The Xiang Dragon Sword Qi slashed on ‘Shui Qingyan’’s neck, at that instant where the young lady’s trachea and carotid artery were about to be sliced, the head of an elephant suddenly appeared out between her eyebrows, the god-devil like elephant head then swept its trunks at the Xiang Dragon Sword Qi.
The Xiang Dragon Sword Qi was hindered for a second while the young lady’s legs disappeared and were replaced with long and sharp spider legs, she seized the opportunity and receded back, dodging the Xiang Dragon Sword Qi from nearly slicing her neck off.
“Tian Myriad Mother!” Zhong Yue evaded the sword silk and stood in mid-air, he then summoned the Xiang Dragon Sword Qi back into his hand.
“Your words, who would believe them?”
‘Shui Qingyan’ stopped down, the elephant head and spider legs disappeared into thin air, she pressed her hand on her neck, her neck was nearly sliced into half and her head would fall off from her body, she gazed at Zhong Yue vigilantly, she mumbled, “You have just entered the state of extremity between life and death? I am more than willing to know who is teaching you, allowing you to have such a strong prowess?”
Krong——
The building collapsed, the pillars, lintels, and walls cascaded down onto the duo, a Jiao Dragon appeared behind Zhong Yue and guarded him under the falling debris which were all repelled by the ferocious Jiao Dragon.
‘Shui Qingyan’’s body was also surrounded by the water dragons, the falling debris was also unable to come close to her as well.
The sword silk whirled in the air, it rapidly turned back into a Sword Cocoon the size of a finger and rested on her hair.
Five of his ribs were broken, blood gushed out from the wounds, surging pangs of burning pain coursed all over his body.
He had unleashed all his might when he was in the magical state of between life and death, as a result, the energy in his body and psyche were all depleted. Lucky for him, the beast god inner core was still continuously supplying energy into his body, his soul visualized the Sui Sovereign and plundered the beast god essence to replenish his psyche so that his combat capability would still remain at its peak state.
But the wounds and injuries on his body were still beyond the healing capabilities of the beast god essence could heal.
“Who is supporting you from behind? He or she should not be one of the members of Swords Gate? You have consummated the Xiang Dragon Sword Qi, you have the form of a dragon scaled body when you fought with me, and you were in the Beast God Ridge, the one standing behind you, could it be the beast god?”
While the stones and rocks were raining down upon them, ‘Shui Qingyan’ mumbled, “If the world knows that the beast god is in your psyche ocean, I suppose your ending will not be any more happy than mine.”
“Stop! Quickly stop at once!”
The elder of Swords Gate was flustered, he quickly rushed in and with a single lift of arm, countless tree vines emerged out of nowhere and the giant python-like vines curled Zhong Yue and ‘Shui Qingyan’ in it. The vines wreathed around the Sword Cocoon on ‘Shui Qingyan’’s head so as to disable the malefic weapon and prevent it from harming anyone.
Zhong Yue allowed the tree vines to curl him without resisting while ‘Shui Qingyan’ also consented to the tree vines restricting her movements – the duo both kept silence.
“Tian Myriad Mother thought that the beast god hid it’s spirit in my body and tried to threaten me with this. But I am not worried that the world would know the existence of beast god inner core in my psyche ocean, but rather I am more afraid that Xin Huo would be exposed.”
In Zhong Yue’s heart, Xin Huo is way more dangerous than the beast god or even Tian Myriad Mother, the little flame was more than daring, he had the guts to do anything including erupting the Demon Soul Yin Effluvium!
It was hard to fathom a person’s mind, if the Swords Gate found out about Xin Huo and someone decided to wrest him away, then things would be bad!
“Thankfully, the two of you only suffered flesh wounds, there are no major deadly injuries.”
The elder inspected the duo and heaved a breath of relief, he said, “Or otherwise, we, the Swords Gate would then lose two talented youngsters, then there would be no point for any remorse! Between the two of you, there is no need to compete anymore, the two of you are the strongest in the upper house, the two of you will both enjoy the treasures in the Ethereal Palace, the best treasures of all!”
Five of Zhong Yue’s ribs were broken while ‘Shui Qingyan’’s neck was nearly sliced off, the elder’s heart thumped in shock and he quickly applied vulneraries on their wounds and instructed the two Qi Practitioners to send them back, he said, “These two youngsters must be placed under close watch, they can not engage in a duel anymore, there must be a death between two tigers, losing either one of them will be a great loss to the Swords Gate.”
One of the Qi Practitioner whispered, “Elder, the Shui Tu Clan had the Sword Cocoon, it is reasonable for her to have such strong prowess, but the Zhong Shan Clan comes from a small tribe, with his current prowess, I’m afraid there is something odd going on behind his immense strengths….”
The elder’s heart skipped a beat, he gently nodded and said, “Leave that for now, let them have their wounds fully recovered. The elders of Swords Gate will run a check on his identity.”
The two Qi Practitioners immediately brought Zhong Yue and ‘Shui Qingyan’ away, the elder gazed at the water castle, his heart again thumped in shock as all he could see was tens of miles around this land was destroyed as the result of the duel between the two young man and young lady.
“The young lady of Shui Tu Clan is of one of the top ten clans and she had the Sword Cocoon with her, it is perfectly fine for her to have such a prowess. But this boy from the Zhong Shan Clan needs an identity check on him, he is able to compete with one of the Ten Ominous Weapon and heavily injured the Shui Tu Clan, can a little member from the Great Wilderness’ smallest tribe achieve such level of strength?”
The elder lowered his head as pondered, “As for this Shui Qingyan, can really a few months time allow her to cultivate to this level? This young lady also seems to be very suspicious, she might not be clean too….”
In the castle, the battle was still going on, Li Xiuniang, Yu Zhenlong, Yu Feiyan, Tian Yanfeng and the others were still fighting over each other, but what they did not know was that the first of upper house was already decided.
“This round of Lawless Battles, a catastrophic event almost took place ….” the Qi Practitioners in the air heaved a breath and thought to themselves.
The battles after had nothing to do with Zhong Yue anymore, he was now lying on the bed with his wounds covered with vulneraries, every now and then there would be Qi Practitioners coming in and apply new vulneraries on his wounds.
The medicinal herbs of Swords Gate are of high quality, his wounds were healing rapidly. Another two more days passed, Zhong Yue could feel that his ribs were returning to their original place and starting to recover; the skin and muscles wounded by the sword silk were also starting to recover.
The final battle royal between the top hundred upper disciples had also ended, after this battle, the name of the Zhong Shan Clan and the Shui Tu Clan trampled the rest of the upper house, most of the Qi Practitioners were also well aware of Zhong Yue and ‘Shui Qingyan’’s name. Not long later, there were rumors that said the two were once lovers but somehow they had turned into bloody enemies.
However, Zhong Yue knew nothing of the rumors, his ward was guarded a Qi Practitioner who was actually keeping watch over his activities. Clearly, the sudden increase in his prowess caused the emergence of distrust towards him from the higher-ups of Swords Gate.
“Don’t worry too much.”
Xin Huo was all casual and he said, “At most, we will just release the devil souls beneath the Swords Gate and have fun watching the Swords Gate find itself in deep water.”