Chapter 14 – Devil Venerable Also Wants to Know
– Table of Contents –
Chapter 14 – End of the great war
The Spirit Severing Array used power that went against the natural order to
forcibly change spiritual veins, and was an extremely difficult array to set
up. It required 108 flags and 108 Nascent Soul and above cultivators.
Nascent Soul was already an impressive level among cultivators, and any
sect who could deploy more than fifty at once would automatically rank
number one among the cultivation world.
108 Nascent Soul disciples required the collective power of all the righteous
sects to gather, and if they were missing even one person, the array would
disperse, and all their efforts would be for naught.
The sects had been highly selective in choosing the disciples in the array,
afraid one of them might have dealings with a demonic sect or their will
wouldn't be firm enough and they would be influenced by inner turmoil.All 108 disciples they chose were future pillars of the righteous sects. Only
when they were sure the array wouldn't be broken did they feel free to
attack the demonic sects.
They never thought that Shu Yanyan had planted a time bomb in the
righteous sects eleven years ago, and now, eleven years later, it disrupted
the Spirit Severing Array and shook up the righteous sects' entire plan.
In midair, the white-robed woman held a righteous cultivator's Nascent
Soul in one hand, and stuffed it casually inside her magic weapon, an
unopened spider lily.
Shu Yanyan's bonded weapon was a near-demonic artifact as avaricious and
bold as she was. It demanded to be fed a Nascent Soul every time it was
used.
After devouring Hè Wenzhao's Nascent Soul, the spider lily slowly opened,
and amidst Qiu Congxue's ghosts, flowers bloomed into a blood-red path,
like the one that led lost souls to the afterlife.
The remaining 107 disciples watched these two beautiful yet wicked
women with despair, and gradually lost consciousness among the fragrance
of the spider lilies.
"Shu Yanyan!" Qiu Congxue yelled. "Your flowers devoured several of my
ghosts!"
"You know my lilies," Shu Yanyan said unconcernedly. "Even I can't
control them. They'll eat whoever they want. Are you capable of controlling
your ghosts? Every time I get near you, I can hear the sound of those ghosts
gnawing on bones—doesn't that hurt? No wonder you can never beat the
Venerable even at Mahayana stage. You can't even control your own
weapons, that's so pathetic."
The two women continued taunting each other while mopping up the enemy
forces. Qiu Congxue grumbled. "The Venerable won't even let me eat any
of their souls. I can't take it."She ground her ghastly white teeth.
"The Venerable said that dead cultivators can reincarnate into ordinary
people in their next life, so unless there's a deep grudge, there's no need to
destroy someone's soul," said Shu Yanyan. "Us killing cultivators is those
who defy heaven killing others who defy heaven, so cosmic law won't
assign us any crime. But destroying a soul is messing with the system of the
six paths of reincarnation. It'll be punished by the heavens, and our
tribulations would be harder to pass."
"He's a demonic cultivator who'll kill people without a thought, but he has
hangups about weird things," Qiu Congxue said disapprovingly. "After I
first stepped down the Asura Path, I never thought of turning back."
Shu Yanyan shrugged. "You can disapprove of the Venerable all you want,
but you gotta be able to beat him first. In Xuanyuan Sect, might has always
made right."
Alongside the blossoming of Shu Yanyan's spider lilies, Dubhe was slowly
colored red in the sky, shining down with bloody light.
"Indeed," the Jiuxing Sect Master said. "These three stars, Polis, Alkaid,
and Dubhe, are our greatest obstacles in this war."
The Biluo Valley Master said, "Then it's fortunate we still have a backup
plan."
"Amitabha.[1]" The Wuxiang Temple abbot softly flicked the prayer beads
in his hand, and after reciting a Buddha's name, he tossed them into the air.
At the same time, Shu Yanyan and Qiu Congxue saw above their heads a
peacock shining with multicolored divine light. Under the light, the spider
lilies withered. Shu Yanyan's smile froze on her mouth and she said dully,
"No way, the Buddhists have even called in the Great Peacock Wisdom
King[2]?"In Buddhist teachings, it was said that the peacock was born from the
phoenix, and liked to eat people. One day, she devoured the Buddha, who
cut her stomach and escaped, and wanted to kill her. The other Buddhas
dissuaded him, believing the peacock had a destiny to be reborn, so he
sealed her in a spiritual mountain and gave her the title, "Mother of Buddha,
Great Peacock Wisdom King Bodhisattva".
The Peacock King was said to have the power to protect from disasters,
cure illnesses, and prolong life. Shu Yanyan's flowers and Qiu Congxue's
ghosts were both powerless under its might.
Under the Buddha's light, the spider lilies wilted, and the vengeful ghosts
reentered the paths of samsara.
Shu Yanyan had it a bit better. Even if minds were cleared of desires under
the Buddha's light and the power of her charm was weakened, it didn't
harm her foundation. However, Qiu Congxue was a ghost cultivator, and
she was in danger of being released from the world into samsara, her very
life at risk.
Within the couple dozen remaining Nascent Soul disciples, eighteen took
off their wigs and exposed bald heads, sat cross legged, and began reciting
sutras.
"What's going on?" Shu Yanyan cried. "I never heard there were a bunch of
monks in the array! I can't do anything to them!"
Qiu Congxue chuckled in the midst of the Buddha's light and said, "Just
now, we've killed or injured most of these righteous disciples, and the rest
are low on spiritual essence and can't fight anymore. Our duties are already
done. Just wait for me to destroy the Wisdom King avatar, so you can
escape."
"Are you crazy? Do you want to be sent on?" Shu Yanyan said. "Is Qiu
Congxue someone who'll sacrifice herself for others?"
"Oh, you shut up." Qiu Congxue gave Shu Yanyan a kick and flew upward.Many bones extended from her body, blocking the Buddha light for her.
A string of prayer beads was faintly visible in the light. Qiu Congxue could
smell her own body burning, and her shield of bones gradually dissipated
under the light's assault.
She found it!
Reaching out bone fingers, she grabbed the prayer beads and threw them
into the distance.
Shu Yanyan heard a terrible cry come from Qiu Congxue, and her silhouette
vanished in the light. The eighteen monks all spat up blood. In this fight in
which neither side had attacked, there ended up being no victor.
The Buddha's light vanished. Shu Yanyan glanced at the beaten and
bloodied righteous cultivators and the monks who had no more power to
fight. Her smile faded and she said lightly, "You can go."
The crowd stared at her uncomprehendingly, having thought she would start
a massacre. Instead they heard, "There have been uncountable casualties in
this decade-long war. Both the righteous and demonic sects will need a
century to recover afterward. Enough have died, and I've also done enough
killing already."
With a piece of black cloth in her hand, she turned and left, leaving the
surviving cultivators looking at each other in disbelief.
At the outskirts of the Xuanyuan Sect's mountain range, Baili Qingmiao
was unceasingly working to pick up fallen cultivators, giving first aid to the
survivors. She headed further and further, gradually leaving behind the
other troops, and when she saw a black-robed figure on a riverbank, she
quickly picked them up with the Moonlit Frost Silk.
"Thank the heavens, you're still alive!
"Oh my god! There's no flesh on your body!
"Your face is completely blackened, I can't tell which sect you're from."Are you a man or woman?
"Don't give up, you must continue to hold on!"
Qiu Congxue's eyelids twitched, roused by the racket near her ears. She
opened her eyes slightly and saw a girl in yellow robes treating her
tearfully.
"Shut the hell up," Qiu Congxue opened her mouth to say, but found that
her throat had been burned and she could only make an inhuman rasping
noise.
"You're still alive!" Baili Qingmiao said, and started sobbing. "Please don't
die. Too many people have died. So many elders are gone now. Don't die, I
don't want to see anyone die anymore!"
Qiu Congxue: …
She opened her eyes, and for some reason, a line came to her mind—"A
single ray of the rising sun landed on Baili Qingmiao's body. Her
expression was warm but resolute, with a beautiful and pure wish to save
others."
What was that rubbish? Qiu Congxue wrinkled her blackened brows. How
did such cheesy words suddenly appear in her head?
As the sun rose, another battle elsewhere neared its end. The battling armies
of cultivators in the northern mountains of Xuanyuan Sect were nearly
evenly matched in strength, and in ten years their numbers had decreased by
more than half. The Medicinal Hall's stores collected over many years had
all been used up, and even if more wounded arrived, nothing could be done
for them.
Altar Master Yuan was the only one of the Altar Masters who could still
stand, and the righteous cultivators also only had a handful left who could
move. "Are we still fighting?" Altar Master Yuan asked. "The spiritual
energy has returned, so if we keep fighting, everyone's sure to die."The righteous cultivators silently looked toward Wenren È's battle with
twenty-one experts and shook their heads.
Ten years of war had come to a cruel resolution. At the very least, they had
managed to ensure the survival of the cultivation world and avoid a once in
ten millennia calamity.
Altar Master Yuan cupped a fist and said, "In that case, we ask you kindly
to leave Xuanyuan Sect, and in return promise not to attack while your
backs are turned."
After a moment of discussion among the righteous cultivators, they nodded
and, carrying their allies, deployed a large flying boat and left Xuanyuan
Sect.
The only participants left in the Great Sect War were its twenty-two top
cultivators.
Yin Hanjiang had recuperated for many years and recovered from his
injuries. He paid no mind to the retreating cultivators, only gazing at that
faraway battlefield. The day passed, night fell, and stars appeared, but Polis
was dark.
"Venerable!" Yin Hanjiang said frantically, getting to his feet with sword in
hand.
"Stop looking, there's no way Wenren È will survive," Altar Master Ruan
"reassured" at his side. "He's surrounded by twenty-one high-level experts,
and one of them is a Buddhist. Do you know how strong their edicts to
'deliver all living beings' and 'let go of the blade' are? A single sutra can
make all your fighting intent vanish. Wenren È has defeated opponents
stronger than him so many times by relying on passionate fighting intent, so
a Buddhist cultivator is his worst matchup. Without fighting intent, Wenren
È is just an ordinary Mahayana cultivator."Altar Master Ruan really demonstrated the backstabbing nature of demonic
sects. He had been saying "Venerable", but now instantly switched to
"Wenren È", willing to abandon someone in an instant.
After that reassurance, he spat a dead bug out of his mouth and stamped it
under his heel, cursing lowly, "Putting a heart-eating bug in me? I'll kill
you dead! Ten years ago while Wenren È was still alive, you already had a
plan for controlling all the Altar Masters and Sect Protectors to steal his
position, didn't you? Why didn't you die in the great war, you little
schemer?"
"He might as well be dead," said Altar Master Yuan. "His queen parasite
was killed. Otherwise, how could you spit out his bug so easily?"
Even the merciless Altar Master Ruan, looking at the remnants of
Xuanyuan Sect, couldn't help but remark, "There were too many deaths."
"The righteous sects were just trying to prevent the calamity of a
millennium," said Altar Master Yuan. "The demonic sects have actually
gotten quite tame under the Venerable's management. We just mess with
righteous cultivators, and don't even dare go after civilians anymore. The
righteous sects taking the offensive and starting the Great Sect War, even
using strategies like the Spirit Severing Array, was all to trick the heavens
and mitigate the cleansing of the human world via a great disaster. Using
this many human lives to ensure survival for the next ten thousand years
can still be considered a worthwhile trade."
"We're all people who invite calamities. It's in our fate." Altar Master Ruan
spoke some rare cultured words, then turned and saw Yin Hanjiang had
disappeared and started cussing again. "Fuck, where'd Yin Hanjiang go?!"
The people who could still move turned their heads painfully and found the
spot where Yin Hanjiang had sat conspicuously empty. And from deep
within the mountains, in the Xuanyuan Sect's forbidden ground, came the
faint sound of drumming, each beat louder than the last.Hearing Altar Master Ruan's words, Yin Hanjiang understood what kind of
attack the Venerable was facing.
Fighting intent! If only there was fighting intent, the Venerable would not
lose!
But of the three battlefields, two of them had already laid down their flags,
and the Venerable was up against the most powerful Buddhist cultivator of
the Wuxiang Temple. There was no fighting intent for him.
In his desperation, Yin Hanjiang remembered the Burning Sky Drum, filled
with the memories of the Great Demon War in the immortal realm.
He instantly fused with the demonic sword and transformed into a hail of
red blades to rush headlong to the Burning Sky Drum. With the power of a
Void Boundary cultivator, he used his own body to sound the drum.
The first light drumbeat seemed to resonate in Wenren È's heart.
He slowly opened his eyes and saw a kind-faced old monk facing him,
saying, "Major-General Wenren, let go of your hate. Set down your blade,
and you will be absolved of your sins."
Major-General? Such a nostalgic title; it had already been three hundred
years since he'd last heard it.
Three hundred years ago, he was still an ordinary person, and the Wenren
clan were loyal servants of the state. But the entire clan ended up executed.
He hated, he resented, he wanted to kill every foolish ruler on the earth,
but… what happened afterward?
Bong! A second beat struck heavily in Wenren È's heart. His brows rose,
seeing a young child appearing in his memories, reaching out a tiny hand
and grabbing the end of his robe. So much like a younger him, barely
surviving a battle and being saved by the civilians living at the border, only
to hear that the Wenren clan had been exterminated to a man."Major-General, the sea of suffering is boundless, but turn around and you
will find the shore." The old abbot went back to reading sutras, and the
fighting intent that had risen within Wenren È dissipated again.
Bong bong bong! Three urgent beats sounded, like a horn calling Wenren È
to battle.
He saw another image, a man in a ghost mask, embracing his robe before an
everburning lamp and peacefully closing his eyes.
Bong bong bong bong! The sound of the Burning Sky Drum was deafening,
sounding like a voice by Wenren È's ear yelling, "Venerable, Venerable!"
Wenren È opened his eyes fully and said to the monk looking upon him
with compassion before him, "Great master, if you want me to set down my
blade, how about you first ask if my blade is willing?"
The Wuxiang Temple abbot shook his head, trembling. "It seems we were
just short."
Along with his words, the illusion surrounding Wenren È shattered, and
twenty-one experts brandished their bonded weapons at him. If he had
awoken a second later, these twenty-one weapons would've destroyed him
body and soul.
The drumbeats continued incessantly. Wenren È raised the Seven Killing
Halberd and said in a clear voice, "The fact that you could pressure this
Venerable to such an extent shows you were worthy of the full extent of this
Venerable's strength. We're all at our limits, so in this last bout, let the
heavens determine the survivors!"
Polis shone radiantly in the sky, as Wenren È's halberd clashed with twenty-
one bonded weapons. The force unleashed by twenty-one powerhouses
clashing called down peals of thunder around them.
As the Xuanyuan Sect cultivators chatted idly and looked at the sky, Altar
Master Ruan said in disbelief, "The Venerable is actually still alive! Howdid he survive? He's fighting twenty-one experts!"
"Is calling him Venerable again what's most important? Hurry up and set up
a barrier! Do you want to die?" Altar Master Yuan planted a foot in Ruan
Weiyi's rear end.
Ruan Weiyi hurriedly activated Xuanyuan Sect's wards. The instant the
barrier rose, a streak of red light flew out of it, charging into the battlefield
without a second thought.
Yin Hanjiang was uncaring of how the aftermath of such powerful
opponents clashing might cause him injury. His vision was a field of red, as
he searched among rubble and ruins for Wenren È's figure.
That limb wasn't his, and that weapon wasn't his—where was he, where
could he be?
A monk staff fell from the air, about to hit Yin Hanjiang, but in that
moment, a beaten-up halberd flew forth to shield him as if it had a will of
its own, blocking the staff.
Seeing that halberd, Yin Hanjiang resumed human form. He held Wenren
È's bonded weapon, and following its resonance, found the barely breathing
Wenren È.
He flew forward and scooped him up. His mouth felt numb from joy, and he
found himself unable to speak.
The two landed on flat ground. Yin Hanjiang clutched Wenren È, trembling
all over. Wenren È slowly raised a hand and stroked Yin Hanjiang's cheek.
"Protector Yin, you really did save this Venerable," he said weakly.
Thank you for reading. If there are any mistakes, I hope my fellow
cultivators will offer guidance.
Please support the original author over on jjwxc.
1. The Buddha of infinite light. ↩2. You can look up Mahamayuri. ↩