Chapter 302 — A New Beginning [Part 1]

Boom! Boom! Boom!

More than a dozen Thunder-Sound Walnuts exploded all at once!

A blinding, searing radiance shone through from behind him.

Zuo Yan felt a savage blow to his back; sweetness rose in his throat and he spat out a mouthful of bloody froth. Before he could react in any way, he clung to the female cultivator and plummeted like a falling star, slamming hard into the earth.

Bang!

The ground was solid, all right!

That was Zuo Yan's last thought before he lost consciousness.

Ma Fan stared at the city wall, nearly half of it collapsed, and recalling the scene of two days past, he could not suppress a shudder of lingering dread. The great formation within Hengxiao City had been utterly destroyed, and the talisman battle-towers were all but ruined.

At the most critical moment, the boss had hurled out who knew how many Thunder-Sound Walnuts, and saved them all.

The simultaneous detonation had blasted out a blank expanse ten mu across.

The peaks around Hengxiao City had not been so lucky; they had been blown apart outright, not one left intact. Near Hengxiao City there was not a single patch of ground unscathed — devastation lay everywhere.

In the sky, cultivators of the Vermilion Bird Camp could be seen patrolling back and forth. After the battle, some cultivators with ill intentions had tried to profit from the chaos, and the Vermilion Bird Camp, nursing a bellyful of fury, had slaughtered them clean. In that defense of the city the Camp's role had been pitifully small, and it galled them deeply.

To have come within a hair of total annihilation, to the point where even the boss could not have escaped, was for the Vermilion Bird Camp — tempered in battle and victorious time and again — nothing short of a humiliation.

No one had expected that in the end it would be the boss who saved them all; even now, thinking back on it felt like a dream.

There was little joy on Ma Fan's face. The boss was still unconscious and had not woken, and that cast a shadow over every heart. In the team as it now stood, the boss was the true leader. No one could imagine what things would become with him gone.

Perhaps this team, so hard-won and finally drawn together, would face collapse.

Ma Fan chewed on a blade of grass, his feet kicking absently at pebbles.

"Old Fan, Old Fan!" Xie Shan's voice, brimming with delight, suddenly came to his ear.

"Mm." He turned his head and answered vaguely.

Xie Shan said urgently, "The boss is awake!"

Ma Fan felt as though struck by lightning. A moment later he came to his senses and asked hurriedly, "The boss is awake?"

"Heh heh, just woke! And it happened to be my watch!" Xie Shan said, rather pleased with himself.

"Wonderful!" Ma Fan murmured to himself.

"Isn't it just — things will be fine now…"

Word that Zuo Yan had woken spread swiftly through all of Hengxiao City; the city rejoiced, and the gloom of recent days was swept away at a stroke.

Zuo Yan felt his whole body wracked with pain, about to split apart, and could not help but let out a groan. Gazing at one familiar face after another, joy at having survived the calamity welled up in his heart. Then his expression suddenly changed, and he asked Gongsun Heng, "The female cultivator — where is she?"

Gongsun Heng's expression turned strange.

"How is she?" Zuo Yan was frantic beyond measure.

Though he still did not know the particulars, there must be something extraordinary between the female cultivator and himself. The image of her risking her life to save him, and those eyes brimming with feeling, flashed before him again and again.

Just who are you…

In her, the answers to so many of the questions that plagued Zuo Yan might be found.

She must not come to harm!

Seeing Zuo Yan's alarm, Gongsun Heng did not joke; he said quickly, "Come see for yourself."

When Zuo Yan saw the female cultivator, he froze where he stood.

She sat quietly in the corner of the room, seemingly unaware of the two men's presence.

"Her — her cultivation…" Zuo Yan asked, his voice trembling.

Gongsun Heng shook his head. "She woke before you did, but her cultivation, for some reason, has been reduced to nothing."

Zuo Yan's heart sank like a stone. In silence he walked over to the female cultivator. When he saw the emptiness in her eyes, his heart could not help but quiver, and his nose suddenly stung.

Those eyes, so clear, so full of wonder and longing…

She sat quiet and silent; Zuo Yan came to stand before her, and she seemed utterly unaware. He reached out and waved a hand before her face, and still she gave no response.

"Examine her body," Pu Yi's voice suddenly sounded, somewhat grave.

Zuo Yan pressed his lips tightly together, reached out, and laid a hand upon her.

She was like a wooden puppet, not stirring in the slightest.

Zuo Yan's expression changed.

The meridians throughout her body were completely severed; that strange purple power had vanished without a trace. All that remained was a thread of life-force so faint it seemed a candle guttering in the wind, liable to go out at any moment.

Even her soul — he could not sense it.

How could this be?

Zuo Yan's mind rang like a struck bell, and then went blank.

He did not know how long passed before he came back to himself. Looking at the female cultivator's ugly, wooden face, and above all, when his gaze fell upon those empty eyes, some chord in his heart was gently plucked.

His vacant gaze suddenly hardened a little.

He entered his sea of consciousness and saw the demon Pu. Pu glanced at him and said, "I know what you want to ask. To be honest, it's very difficult."

Pu Yi's voice was grave and low, without a trace of his usual flippancy.

Zuo Yan's expression was earnest. "Tell me."

The demon Pu set no conditions. He glanced at Zuo Yan and tossed him a sphere of light whose surface was ceaselessly wreathed in swirling runes, saying, "This is the Sutra of Deliverance from Tribulation. I got it from a Chan cultivator. It may be of some use."

Zuo Yan's spirits lifted; he caught the sphere of light at once.

"Don't rejoice too soon. This scripture can only sustain that last thread of life in her body." The demon Pu pondered a moment, then said, "If you truly mean to save her, you had best find a way to obtain a Water-Cloud Fetus."

"A Water-Cloud Fetus?" Zuo Yan asked curiously. He had never even heard the name.

"Mm. The Water-Cloud Fetus can nourish and sustain the soul, and is ideally suited to injuries of the soul."

"Injury of the soul?"

"Mm. Her secret art is very strange — it burns the soul to generate immense power." Pu Yi's face was grave. "This is the first time even I have seen such an uncanny secret art. Her origins, I fear, are no simple matter."

Having said this, the demon Pu glanced at Zuo Yan. He found it rather strange: for Zuo Yan to have become entangled with such a remarkable female cultivator, he himself could hardly be simple. Yet in ordinary times, he had never seen anything remarkable about Zuo Yan.

The demon Pu reined in his thoughts and went on, "By rights she was certain to die this time. Fortunately, she had left a sliver of her divine sense within your body…"

Zuo Yan's body shuddered violently. "She left her divine sense in my body?" he blurted out.

"The Five Elements Glazed Bead inside you — her divine sense is in there." The demon Pu silently counted his blessings that he had not crushed that bead before; otherwise, things would be troublesome now.

"The Five Elements Glazed Bead…" Zuo Yan murmured.

"Once your cultivation reaches a certain level, you will be able to glimpse the mystery within it," the demon Pu said. "That Five Elements Glazed Bead is a rare treasure indeed."

Zuo Yan's fists clenched unconsciously.

Suddenly, he was brimming with fighting spirit.

For so long he had lacked a clear goal, even back in Wukong Mountain. Long years of life at the very bottom had left him with low expectations; once his most basic needs were met, he was at a loss.