"Sigh!"
Zhao Fenglou reached out and gently stroked Ling'e's hair. Although he was a soul-body, the 'Blood Soul-Seizing Lamp' had been condensed using a secret art specifically for killing. Therefore, it still retained a substantial amount of magical power, allowing him to touch others. He gently ran a hand through Ling'e's waterfall of black hair.
Zhao Fenglou's bright eyes gazed quietly at the woman before him, the woman he had not seen for so long, yet who had guarded this place all this time!
Ling'e's forehead was a deep red, a mark left from when she had pleaded with Li Yan earlier.
"Now that the enemy is gone and I can enter the cycle of reincarnation, you should return to your freedom! Do not delay your cultivation any longer."
Zhao Fenglou's eyes were also filled with gentleness, but at this moment, his body had begun to dissipate, becoming more and more ethereal.
A long-lost smile appeared on Ling'e's face. She reached out another hand and grasped the side of his ethereal green robe. The robe was constantly turning to ash, the motes of light flying in all directions, giving Zhao Fenglou the appearance of ascension.
Zhao Fenglou's soul could already feel an irresistible power of law descending from the heavens and the earth. He knew it was the rules of reincarnation calling to him.
"What is cultivation for? It is only for the longevity in each person's heart. My lord, do you not understand my heart?"
Perhaps because she knew there was no more time for modesty, Ling'e's gaze burned as she looked at Zhao Fenglou.
Zhao Fenglou's expression froze for a moment, and then his gaze became even gentler, but he still shook his head resolutely.
"Your Great Dao has only just begun. I do not know where I will be born in the next life. Even if I wanted to stay with you, it is impossible!"
At this, Ling'e suddenly smiled radiantly. In that instant, with the blood still staining the corners of her mouth, she looked devastatingly beautiful. She whipped her head around to look at Li Yan.
"Senior, this is something I found next to the remnant pill back then. I don't know if it's useful, but please accept it as a token of my immense gratitude."
Then, to Li Yan's surprise, Ling'e quickly untied a sachet from her waist. With a flash of light from her hand, she threw the sachet towards Li Yan.
Afterward, Ling'e quickly turned back to look at Zhao Fenglou.
"Others seek longevity to eternally accompany the sun and moon. My longevity is only to accompany my lord for a part of the journey!"
As she spoke, she suddenly tossed the bronze lamp into the air behind her. At the same time, she let go of Zhao Fenglou's green robe.
In an instant, a Six-Eyed Demon Moth appeared in the air. Zhao Fenglou seemed to realize something, and his face changed drastically as he shouted.
"Ling'e, don't!"
At the same time, he formed a claw with his hand and grabbed directly at the Six-Eyed Demon Moth that had just revealed its true form.
But his figure was already extremely ethereal. His hand only managed to momentarily obstruct the Six-Eyed Demon Moth, which was flapping its wings frantically. The moth then broke free from his grasp.
Immediately after, it flew straight towards the bronze lamp, its white flames burning high...
"Master!"
In the air, Li Yan caught the storage pouch that had been disguised as a sachet. Beside him, Zi Kun saw what was happening below and quickly cried out. With his cultivation, he could, of course, instantly restrain Ling'e. But he had clearly seen Li Yan's eyes only flicker for a moment, without any intention of intervening.
"Even if she is saved, what then? Only an empty shell of a body will remain!"
Li Yan spoke softly. As he spoke, a loud "bang" resounded. The Six-Eyed Demon Moth had crashed into the white flames. At the same time, she had dispersed all the magical power in her body, leaving herself with not a single shred of defense.
"Whoosh!"
The flame of the bronze lamp instantly soared to a height of a hundred feet, becoming a blinding white!
This white flame was originally formed from Zhao Fenglou's spiritual arts and contained the flame of his soul, making it twice as venomous as any Alchemical Flame .
A suppressed cry of pain came from within the soaring flames. Then, after a brilliant flash, the body of the Six-Eyed Demon Moth, engulfed in fire, completely melted within the white flames.
"Ling'e!"
Zhao Fenglou's voice trembled. His ethereal figure flickered and also plunged towards the bronze lamp. Almost at the same instant the blinding white flame surged, he too flew into it. It was forged from the condensation of his soul; he still wanted to see if he could save Ling'e.
But in just a moment, the white flame turned from incandescent white to a dark red. The towering flame seemed to have been soaked in fresh blood, and its height slowly began to fall.
Li Yan stood high in the sky, a silent observer from beginning to end.
"Master, I never thought that Spirit Moth would be so fierce and her love so deep!"
Qian Ji shook his head. He too had understood from Li Yan's earlier words.
Ling'e was determined to die. They were not related to her in any way, so what reason could they have to make her want to live? Saving her now would only be a temporary reprieve. Her body was just an empty shell, her heart already dead. And for one whose heart is dead, death is never far off.
"She had long been determined to die, only staying to fulfill a promise. Otherwise, she might not have even begged me to let her go earlier!" Li Yan said, his gaze fixed on the bronze lamp.
Just then, with a "clack," the bronze lamp shattered from the middle. The white wick in the center also turned into scattered flames that flew in all directions.
And from within these scattered flames, an almost transparent, green-robed phantom slowly rose into the air. On his shoulder was a moth. With a gentle flap of its wings, Ling'e's equally ethereal figure stood beside the green-robed phantom.
At this moment, her face was wreathed in a smile, so pure, just like the little demon who had just gained spiritual intelligence.
Then, the green-robed phantom gently took her hand, and they turned together to look at Li Yan's group.
Their lips moved, but no sound came out. Yet Li Yan and the others could read their lips; they were both saying the same thing.
"Thank you!"
Li Yan understood. Zhao Fenglou's "thank you" was for killing Xu Xing, for saving the person he had wanted to save.
And Ling'e's "thank you" was for sparing her life once, and for not stopping her from throwing herself into the fire.
As their lips moved, their bodies became so ethereal that even Li Yan's Divine Sense could barely see them.
Li Yan vaguely saw them both raise their free hands and wave at him before completely vanishing amidst the dying flames.
"A moth flies to the flame, its six eyes unseen, to tread the path to the Nine Serenities with my lord. The Yellow Springs is not a land of battle, but a journey of sunlit scenery."
Li Yan looked at the sachet in his hand and murmured softly, the thoughts surging in his heart belying his calm exterior. He never thought that a little demon he had met by chance would have such deep feelings.
Looking at the sachet in his hand, a scene surfaced in Li Yan's mind—something he had seen during the soul-search. A delicate Six-Eyed Demon Moth was flying above a skeleton. That skeleton had been dead for who knows how long. A skeletal hand held a remnant pill that had been eroded by countless years, and a storage pouch was discarded on the ground...
In a patch of empty space, Li Yan sat cross-legged atop the Cloud-Piercing Willow , looking at the Jade Slip in his hand with an unreadable expression.
This Jade Slip came from Ling'e's sachet. Besides this Jade Slip, the sachet contained only some medicinal pills and Formation Plates used by low-level cultivators.
That night, Li Yan had left Jiaoming Province. On the road, he opened the sachet Ling'e had given him.
There were quite a few Jade Slips inside. At first, Li Yan hadn't noticed the one he now held. His eyes were immediately drawn to two large bones placed among the medicinal pills and Formation Plates. One was a skullcap over four feet long, and the other looked like a seven-foot-long leg bone. Both bones were grayish-white and gave off a feeling of immense weight, yet there was not the slightest fluctuation of Spiritual Energy from them.
The moment he saw these two huge bones, Li Yan felt a sense of familiarity. He was stunned for a moment, then, to the astonishment of the two demons, he drew out the smaller skullcap.
As the skullcap came into his hand, Li Yan's eyes narrowed slightly. It was just as he thought. The four-foot skullcap was as heavy as a boundless mountain. A Foundation Establishment stage Ling'e could at most move it in and out with her Divine Sense; she couldn't lift it at all.
When Li Yan first saw the two large bones, he had sensed a hint of familiarity from their color and the aura they emitted. He was suddenly reminded of the unknown demonic beast tail bone he had obtained from Chan Master Dajing .
The aura and color of that demonic beast tail bone were so similar to these two bones, and its weight was so great that even Li Yan, at the Nascent Soul stage, had almost dropped it.
'What kind of demonic beast's bones are these? They are so peculiar. Though they don't emit a trace of Spiritual Energy , they are astonishingly heavy!' Li Yan thought to himself.
"Zi Kun, you try and see if you can lift this thing!" Li Yan suddenly looked up at the two curious demons. Hearing this, Zi Kun's face showed even more astonishment. He was from the Purple Divine Dragon-Elephant clan. What was his greatest strength? Power, of course. And he was a Third-rank Demonic Beast.
However, since Li Yan had spoken, he certainly couldn't refuse. Besides, Li Yan's words had piqued his curiosity even more.
"Little Egg, I estimate... it'll be difficult for you!" said the white-robed Qian Ji , shaking his head with a sly grin.
"Get lost!"
Zi Kun glared at him but didn't boast. He wasn't stupid. For Li Yan to say such a thing, this unremarkable skullcap must be something special.
A few breaths later, looking at the flushed-faced Zi Kun who couldn't even budge the skullcap, Li Yan just smiled. With a wave of his hand, the skullcap disappeared.
Fortunately, both of these bones were rootless objects. Otherwise, with Ling'e's cultivation, once she took them out of the storage pouch, she would have been unable to move them to another space.
Zi Kun shook his head helplessly. Having followed Li Yan across several continents, they had long since learned that there were too many things in this world that they still couldn't understand and that continued to amaze them.
Afterward, Li Yan briefly looked through the other items in the sachet. But those low-level items no longer held any interest for him.
'It seems the token of gratitude Ling'e spoke of was these two unknown bones,' Li Yan thought to himself. He then casually picked up a Jade Slip and sank his Divine Sense into it. The next moment, his expression froze slightly, because a gentle force had repelled his Divine Sense.
"Hmm? It has a defensive restriction!"
Li Yan hadn't expected this Jade Slip not only to have a restriction but one that was unusually strong. The next moment, he immediately realized something was wrong.
'Even a Golden Core cultivator might not be able to open the restriction on this Jade Slip... Could it be that the token of gratitude Ling'e spoke of was this Jade Slip and those two bones...'
Li Yan felt that this Jade Slip and the two bones might both have come from the storage pouch left behind by the skeleton Ling'e had encountered.
Half an hour later, Li Yan grasped both ends of the Jade Slip and twisted forcefully. "Bang!"
A visible ripple erupted from the Jade Slip in his hand, which he dispersed with a gentle flick of his sleeve. Using what seemed like an extremely violent method, he finally broke the restriction on the Jade Slip. In reality, this was a profound restriction-breaking technique for Body Cultivators that also required a corresponding incantation. It just looked a bit too brutish and crude when he broke the restriction.
Then, Li Yan's Divine Sense pierced through. The next moment, his expression became rather interesting.
Because, recorded within the Jade Slip was a cultivation method. The opening page bore several large characters---"Golden Pearl Dragon-Subduing Art."
If Li Yan remembered correctly, the eighteen Prayer Beads of Chan Master Dajing had been refined using the Mingtuo Temple's guardian divine art, "Secret Traces Vajra Suppresses the Sacred Mountain ." That magical treasure was immensely powerful and could summon a Vajrapani Bodhisattva to suppress the four directions. Moreover, it contained the votive power of Buddhism.
Later, Li Yan had spent no small amount of time reading Chan Master Dajing's introductory Buddhist scriptures, but in the end, he could only manage a simple command of that Vajrapani Bodhisattva and couldn't use a single bit of votive power.
And the Mingtuo Temple's guardian divine art, "Secret Traces Vajra Suppresses the Sacred Mountain ," was derived from a cultivation method called the "Golden Pearl Dragon-Subduing Art."
Seeing the name of this cultivation method, Li Yan's eyes immediately flashed. The "Secret Traces Vajra Suppresses the Sacred Mountain " had been modified too much by the Mingtuo Temple to be too Buddhist in nature. When used by non-Buddhist disciples, its power was not entirely satisfactory. But the "Golden Pearl Dragon-Subduing Art" before him was the original version of this cultivation method. If he were to study it, he might achieve unexpected results.
Next, Li Yan first gave the "Golden Pearl Dragon-Subduing Art" Jade Slip a rough read-through. When he saw the final chapter, he was even more pleasantly surprised.
It turned out that the latter part was the refinement method for the accompanying magical treasure for cultivating the "Golden Pearl Dragon-Subduing Art"—the refinement chapter for the 'Golden Pearls.' It detailed the method for refining the 'Golden Pearls.'
It also mentioned the raw materials for refining these pearls. The main materials could be the bones of six types of demonic beasts from between heaven and earth, or any one of four types of wondrous celestial stones.
Among them was a demonic beast called the "Sinking True Dragon." Its bones were like ash, and it swallowed the essence qi of heaven and earth to sink its bone marrow. Moving mountains and shifting peaks was as easy as throwing a pebble...
This description immediately made Li Yan think of the three bones he had obtained from Chan Master Dajing and Ling'e. They were almost identical to this description.
However, according to the description, the two bones in Ling'e's possession were undoubtedly left behind by an adult "Sinking True Dragon" after its death. The tail bone obtained by Chan Master Dajing was either from a juvenile "Sinking True Dragon" or a broken tail bone from an adult.
'This makes sense. These two cultivation methods come from the same source, so it's completely understandable that they would collect the same refinement materials. And judging from the restriction on the Jade Slip, the skeleton Ling'e encountered was definitely a cultivator at the Nascent Soul realm or above. Only a high-level cultivator would have the vast amount of Spirit Stones to purchase such rare materials, or the ability to slay such a demonic beast. It's just unknown for what reason that person perished in a remote cave, unknown to anyone...'
The "Sinking True Dragon" demonic beast was a variant species of heaven and earth. Its flesh and bones were immeasurably heavy. If refined using the "Golden Pearl Dragon-Subduing Art" method, its weight would increase tenfold, even a hundredfold. While saying one pearl could suppress a realm was an exaggeration, it was enough to show the power of this art.
Li Yan had never expected that a single unintentional act of his would bring him such a rich reward!
.