Chapter 224 — Striking at the Heart

In truth, these things were clear not only to Tian Buhui but to Lu Xueling as well, plain as a mirror. If one truly reckoned the matter, Daoyan had all but remade the world and the righteous path; on any ordinary day, raising a statue or carving a stele in his honor would hardly have been too much. Yet heaven's sport had brought him to this end. Had Daoyan lost his mind after falling to demonic ways and simply slaughtered all before him, Tian Buhui and the others might be no match for him, but at least they would not have to think too much. But now Daoyan had asked them those few clear questions, and at once they were cornered.

As for the world's reasons and principles—who could say what was right anymore?

Just then Ming Li spoke coldly. "The living beings of the world are nothing to me. What merits you have earned, I care nothing for. I ask you only for that one sword strike of ten years ago—the one that destroyed Bil'i!"

Before the words faded, the Soul-Devourer blazed with green light. In an instant an icy chill rolled in from every direction, filling the mortuary within and without. A sharp whistle split the air, and Ming Li had already driven his magical artifact straight at the center gate.

Daoyan's expression shifted slightly. He seemed not to have expected Ming Li's cultivation to have advanced so far in ten years. From this single strike alone, the Soul-Devourer seemed slow but was truly swift, secretly carrying the force of wind and thunder, green light flickering—this was the Canglan sect's Taiji Profound Pure Way, and its level was plainly that of one who had broken through the Yuqing realm to master Shangqing powers. Moreover, in Daoyan's discerning eyes, this youth had in the Shangqing realm itself cultivated to the very peak, faintly pressing toward the legendary Taiqing realm.

Daoyan took it all in. Standing to one side, Tian Buhui and Lu Xueling were both outstanding figures of the Canglan sect, and at that glance both paled slightly. They could not help exchanging a look, and each saw the astonishment in the other's eyes.

Only in Tian Buhui's eyes was there more wonder. In Lu Xueling's, after the wonder came a faint, indefinable disappointment—swiftly overwhelmed by a surge of joy.

The three of them could not possibly know that Ming Li, for all the setbacks and twists of fortune he had suffered in recent years, had also known his share of lucky chances. As he stood there now, he was the only person in the world to have mastered all of the Heavenly Scroll, the foremost wondrous book of heaven and earth. The Scroll's origins were mysterious, handed down from remotest antiquity, its marvelous arts and powers ever-changing beyond measure. Indeed, most of the world's thriving schools of cultivation had some connection to this book: the many powers of the Fanyin Temple derived from the fourth volume of the Heavenly Scroll, and the Demon Sect's manifold strange arts had always been said to spring from it as well. Ming Li alone cultivated all four volumes, and his present powers could well be imagined.

Yet formidable as Ming Li had become, the Daoyan he faced was a figure of the first order in this world. To command the matchless Immortal-Slaying Sword Formation of Canglan Mountain, one must have cultivated the Taiji Profound Pure Way to the Taiqing realm—and now, at last, all present beheld his true power.

The Soul-Devouring Demon Staff came on, trailing wind and thunder, seemingly irresistible. Before it even reached him, the layer of black qi around Daoyan had begun to churn violently, as though forced by a vast power and about to scatter. But after that first flicker of surprise, Daoyan recovered his composure and stood firm and unmoving. Suddenly his right hand thrust out from the black qi. His long, slender fingers formed a sword sign before him, tracing figures in the empty air, pointing like the wind. Where his fingers passed, green light blazed in answer, and in moments he had drawn a Taiji diagram of yin and yang.

Once the yin-yang taiji diagram took shape, it spun without cease. In the air around it, the wind suddenly grew sharp and urgent. All about was pitch-black, and only this pattern blazed with light. In no time at all, it had formed a fiercely revolving vortex of air currents in midair.

Shihun came roaring in, and the taiji diagram barred its path. The two collided, and by all appearances both bore a force of ten thousand catties that nothing could withstand. Yet at the very instant of impact, apart from a faint, shrill hiss that tore through the air overhead, there was not a sound at all.

The taiji diagram was driven back a full three feet by Shihun—yet it was precisely those three feet that exhausted every last bit of Shihun's assault, leaving it no strength to advance another step. Moreover, the blue light gradually dimmed, until it seemed to turn with the spinning of that vortex.

Ming Li gave a long cry and leaped into the air. Shihun's halo of light flashed at once, and it flew back. Dao Yan the Perfected One shot it a sidelong glance, gave a cold laugh, and pointed his sword incantation. The yin-yang taiji diagram flared brilliantly and struck at the figure in midair.

Shrill cries rang out across the sky, and the sound of air being torn was unceasing. Ming Li's figure flickered in and out of sight, darting to and fro with ghostly speed. But Dao Yan the Perfected One seemed to possess the divine power of fiery eyes and golden pupils; he was not in the least deceived by Ming Li's strange arts. The taiji pattern in midair clung to Ming Li's figure without letting go, and closed in ever nearer.

At last Ming Li slowed, and the taiji diagram caught up with him. A cold light flashed in Dao Yan the Perfected One's eyes, and the yin-yang taiji diagram in midair blazed with blue radiance, swelling in the wind to fully four times its former size and cleaving down from above.

Lu Xueling's body trembled slightly. Tian Buhui, for some reason none could guess, nodded slowly.

The taiji diagram cleaved down, and yet Dao Yan the Perfected One's expression changed. With a strange cry he paid no heed to the taiji diagram gathered in midair by his true arts, and his whole body shot up into the sky. The taiji pattern's blow struck only empty air—Ming Li's figure had vanished—and at the same time the diagram, as though seized by some outside force, scattered to the winds.

And at the very moment Dao Yan the Perfected One's body flew up, a tremendous rumbling rose from beneath the ground of the charity manor's courtyard. Within a space two zhang across, the earth shook violently. Moments later, like a earth-dragon howling as it burst forth, all the stones and sand roared up from the ground, and even that ruined house collapsed as well, countless fragments of wood mingling with the sand and earth. All of it was then swept by some nameless mighty force into an immense, dense torrent of sand and stone that thundered after Dao Yan the Perfected One's figure in midair.

Attack and defense had, in an instant, been strangely reversed.

Yet Dao Yan the Perfected One, though in midair, showed no sign of alarm. Watching the giant torrent of earth that Ming Li had gathered and hurled at him with strange arts, the black qi around his body gave a violent shudder, then rolled forward of its own seeming will, as though drawn by an invisible hand, forming before him a black wall of qi two feet square.

In that instant the earth torrent, of unimaginable power, arrived and smashed heavily against the black qi wall. This time it was like a thunderclap in the heavens; at the fiercest point one could dimly see several fine threads of lightning flash past. A colossal roar swept across heaven and earth in an instant, and a wind of vast, invisible force descended like a towering wave, surging out in every direction from the black qi wall in midair as its center.