Chapter 142 — Calamity

Canglan Mountain.

Jietian Peak, the Ancestral Hall.

The old man who tended the hall still held his worn-out broom in his hand, standing at the great doorway of the Ancestral Hall and gazing outward. A strange expression flickered faintly across his deeply lined face—something like expectation, or perhaps a touch of excitement.

The open ground beyond the hall was utterly empty, yet a closer look would reveal many odd talismans around its edges that had not been there before, some pasted on the surrounding tree trunks, others hidden among the grass and stones. Each paper talisman stood about half a zhang from the next; they seemed unconnected, yet in truth they faintly formed a mysterious formation that sealed off this patch of ground from all that lay around it.

The sunlight was gentle, pouring down from the sky, and from within the formation or without, no difference could be seen at all—both were bathed alike in the sun's radiance.

Only in the next instant, a sharp ringing sound suddenly rose above that open ground. The old man standing at the hall's doorway lifted his head to look, and his hand tightened instinctively around the broom.

A peculiar darkness suddenly appeared above the open ground, in the blink of an eye shrouding the air overhead and dyeing everything around with a heavy sense of lethal menace. Yet this darkness stayed confined to that patch of ground alone—more precisely, to the formation formed by those talismans. Clearly this strange outer formation had been set by a master to bind this power within.

The black qi in midair only grew thicker, as though one stood in the ninth hell itself—but in the very next moment, a long dragon's roar suddenly burst from the black qi. Then green light blazed forth, bursting suddenly from the darkness; in an instant its radiance filled the sky and scattered the black qi to nothing.

Lin Jinghong appeared high in the air, the Dragon-Slaying Divine Sword in his hand, green light streaming from his body in dazzling brilliance. His eyes shone with a piercing light, man and sword as one, and he came plunging down from the heavens.

The Dragon-Slaying Sword trailed ten thousand beams of rosy radiance, releasing a mighty roar, its momentum vast beyond measure. While it was still high in the air, dust already whirled aloft from the ground below, sand and stones flying up. And as Lin Jinghong shot down like lightning, the air around him seemed to burst into flame from sheer speed and force.

He looked like a god of war, reckless of all else and burning with the will to fight, swooping down to strike.

The old man at the hall's doorway felt his lips begin to tremble slightly.

"Boom!"

The tremendous roar came in an instant; the ground struck by the power of this wondrous true art gave a groan of agony, and in that same moment the earth within the formation split apart, great and small stones tearing free of the ground and hurtling skyward. That force struck dead center upon the dazzling mass of green light, and had already driven deep into the earth.

The talismans all around the open ground, together with the mysterious charms drawn upon them, suddenly blazed bright as one. A faint sound of mystic incantation rose in the air, like a low murmuring chant, and an invisible force spread outward, enveloping this vast destructive power and keeping it from leaking beyond.

Outside the formation, the sun was warm, the grass and trees serene; within the formation, all was upheaval, like a raging storm.

Such was the wondrous spectacle outside the Ancestral Hall of Canglan Mountain at that moment.

In the distance, a figure in dark green stood gazing at the scene from afar, hands clasped behind his back, utterly motionless.

The storm within the formation gradually subsided; the sand and dust and stones flung skyward by the immense force came drifting back down, yet the cracks in the earth and that great deep pit still bore witness to the heaven-shaking blow of moments before.

At the corner of the old man's mouth, standing at the hall's doorway, something twitched, and at last a faint smile appeared. Deep in his eyes there seemed also a profound trace of satisfaction.

With a whistling sound, Lin Jinghong leaped out of the deep pit, Dragon-Slaying Sword in hand, his clothes covered in dust—even his handsome face was somewhat soiled. The moment his feet touched the ground he began gasping for breath, yet his face could not conceal its excitement and elation.

He raised his head and looked toward the old man standing at the hall's doorway.

A trace of a smile hung at the old man's lips; slowly he lifted his hand and beckoned gently to him.

His breathing somewhat settled, Lin Jinghong strode quickly to the old man's side and called out with a beaming face, "Senior, I—"

The old man nodded with a smile, his gaze resting on him full of gratification and affection, and said softly, "You did well. Truly well."

With that, he slowly raised his head to look at the sky and said unhurriedly, "Even in my day, when I mastered this true-art sword formula, 'Beheading Ghosts and Gods,' I was scarcely any faster than you."

With a sharp scrape, Lin Jinghong slid the Dragon-Slaying Sword back into its sheath, the excitement still not faded from his face, and said, "Senior, if not for your guidance, I truly don't know when I would ever have been able to learn such peerless true arts!"

The old man gave a cold snort, a hint of disdain on his face, and said mildly, "In the Canglan Sect of today, apart from Daoyan, only Tian Buhui—and your former master, Cangsong—are passable. The rest of the elders and chief disciples are a pack of good-for-nothings."

Lin Jinghong was taken aback. He had studied under this mysterious old keeper of the hall for over ten years now, and with every year his cultivation deepened, so too did his admiration and reverence for the old man grow—he truly felt that this elder had opened up a whole world he had never known. So it turned out that the Dao could be cultivated in this way as well.

Over the years, as Lin Jinghong spent long days in the old man's company, the old man had come to cherish and favor him more and more, and spoke with him increasingly often—naturally touching now and then upon appraisals of the great figures of the world. At such moments the old man's tone was unexpectedly arrogant, as though, scanning all under heaven, scarcely a handful were worthy of his regard.

At first Lin Jinghong did not dare argue, though he chafed inwardly; but as his cultivation deepened, he came more and more to feel that this old man was truly unfathomable, and further, that such arrogance must surely have its reasons. With such attainments as his, how many in all the world could truly catch his eye?

Yet he had always taken a strong dislike to that fat senior uncle of his on Dazhu Peak, Tian Buhui—in part, no doubt, because he had once seen Tian Buhui berate Zhang Qingyue. This time he could not restrain himself: "Senior, I think that Tian Buhui is really quite ordinary. What's so remarkable about him?"

The old man glanced at him and shook his head. "What does a youngster like you know? Tian Buhui may look unremarkable, but in cultivation he has a gift all his own—and his nature is firm and persistent, far beyond ordinary men. That becomes especially important as one's cultivation deepens. In his early years after entering the sect he was utterly undistinguished, but once he received guidance and his understanding opened, his progress in the Dao advanced a thousand li a day, and his achievements surpassed even those senior brothers and sisters who had once leaped about and looked down on him."

He snorted coldly again and said, "Of the people in this world, nine in ten are mediocrities—men like Tianyun and Shang Zhengliang and that pack of trash, what do they know?"