The Three Lower Sects had long been in communication, so Shengji was no stranger to Zhujue.
That shriveled old monk specialized in soul curses capable of annihilating an entire city with a single incantation, even from a hundred thousand li away.
If one spoke of the bizarre and unstoppable, even Shengji, the shrine-maiden, would admit inferiority.
But as the current shrine-maiden of Mirror Cloud Shrine, when she ascended into the Earthfiend realm, she had been favored by the Great Dao, gaining the heavenly title of "Daughter of Ghosts." Her cultivation in the path of Ghost-Driving received immense blessings.
In terms of combat strength alone, she was the undisputed champion among the Three Lower Sects of her generation.
Still, witnessing Zhujue cut down before her eyes had left her chilled with dread.
As the Pure Yang sword sect's longtime adversary, the Three Lower Sects knew these killing-maniacs better than anyone, whether in the days of Pure Yang Heaven or now as Pure Yang Ruins.
They never underestimated a Pure Yang swordsman's combat power. No matter how low the cultivation, one could never know what insane sword-qi they had been hoarding.
The Pure Yang sect's ethos was warped. Their disciples, murder-happy lunatics, eschewed careful cultivation of mana, ignored karmic repercussions, and obsessed only with schemes like "save it for one massive strike," "slay something ferocious," or "stab him dead in a single blow."
A mere third-rank swordsman might suddenly erupt with devastating sword-qi, willing to cripple himself in the process and even take pride in it.
Across the entire Yingfutu Realm, more than ninety percent of victories where the weak overcame the strong were owed to Pure Yang sword cultivators, an unruly band of troublemakers who had utterly corrupted the conventions of spell-duels.
Zhujue's death was his own negligence. He thought this young Dragon-Elephant hadn't yet entered Pure Yang formally, that without the sect's inheritance, he wasn't a true Pure Yang swordsman.
Shengji, however, had learned from his fate that she would not repeat the same mistake.
By the time she stepped down from the jade dais, she was already fully prepared. And just as she expected, another sword-light slashed straight toward her.
Yet this time, though her body was cleaved cleanly in half, she suffered no mortal wound.
Shengji was no ordinary mortal; she was like a ghost's shadow.
Her severed form spilled no blood, but instead each half reshaped itself into a complete new body.
In the blink of an eye, two Shengjis stood in midair, identical in aura, nearly equal in strength, yet subtly different in expression, each utterly real.
Every great sect had its own counters to Pure Yang swordsmen.
For Shengji, it was this unique combat system.
She had cultivated with the Register of the Hundred Ghosts' Parade, reaching great mastery and condensing the Hundred Ghosts Devouring Dragon dharmic manifestation, one of her sect's highest-grade superior avatars.
Though she had not formed a "perfect avatar," the powers it granted her were endless, allowing her to summon ceaseless ghostly clones.
Now, each of her avatars was solid and real, able to wield seventy percent of her original self's strength.
Most crucially, every time she suffered a fatal blow, she could simply split into another avatar, diverting the killing strike entirely.
The strongest sword-light of her foe was thus neutralized with ease!
"Division" and "energy absorption" were the core of Shengji's system.
Jing Qian's sword had landed true, yet caused no harm, and instead produced another formidable opponent.
He showed no sign of faltering, unleashing wave after wave of Skin-Shearing Sword-Lights, cutting again and again at her forms.
Each strike he landed, each strand of sword-qi unleashed, was drawn into Shengji's being, transformed into her power, and another avatar would split forth.
In but a few moments, Shengji's numbers swelled, filling half the sky.
Her avatars did not even resist; they simply awaited his slashes, devouring the sword-light and multiplying endlessly.
Jing Qian's movement arts flared, his figure darting like a streak of light through the battlefield, his sword-qi sharp as ever but all in vain.
Her sorcery wound around him like silken threads, tangling the ferocious Pure Yang swordsman and dragging him into her rhythm.
Thus began a war of attrition unlike any other.
Every slash from this mere Dragon-Elephant cultivator sent shock through the watching grandmasters atop the dais.
How could sword-qi so far beyond his realm be flung about so freely? It upended every convention of cultivation combat.
Yet such overwhelming strikes still failed to yield results. Instead, he found himself slowly encircled by Shengji's growing horde.
In the short span of breaths, the battlefield was crowded with hundreds of Earthfiend avatars. Their combined pressure alone made the very air tremble, as though the academy's inner world itself might rupture.
Both sides pressed on Jing Qian with unrelenting offense, Shengji with inexhaustible division, each straining toward final victory.
Her Hundred Ghosts Devouring Dragon manifestation allowed the avatars to weave into the Hundred Ghosts Formation, most adept at overwhelming swarms.
Every new avatar bolstered the array's might, tightening the noose.
Even with his peerless movement arts, Jing Qian was gradually drawn into her tempo.
At that moment, Shengji spoke:
"Jing scion Pure Yang Ruins has reached its end. Its path is broken.
Your sect has only Shangxi left, and even he cannot breach the Star-Seizing realm.
What future is there for such a sect?"
"Even if you spurn my Three Lower Sects, you could at least turn to the Heavenly Court of the Divine Dynasty. That is the true road to the Dao."
"If you swear yourself to Mirror Cloud Shrine, I will spare your life."
"Or, if you wish to join the Divine Dynasty, shatter your Pure Yang Sword Casket, and I will let you leave unscathed."
"I know forging a Sword Casket is not easy; abandoning it would be a pity. But that path is death. Forget reaching the higher three grades, you won't even step into the Star-Seizing realm."
"With your talent, whichever road you choose, your chance of enlightenment is high. Why torment yourself?"
Jing Qian paid no heed to his opponent's words. His entire focus was on the sword.
It was as if he cared nothing for the multiplying enemies before him; indeed, he even seemed to cooperate with Shengji, deliberately aiming his slashes so that each stroke struck multiple avatars, forcing her to divide faster.
His expression was calm and intent, his movement light like the wind, his sword strikes as thunder darting among her incarnations like a nimble butterfly.
At last, when another sword-beam cut down and produced yet another clone, the battlefield filled with a terrifying sight: three thousand Shengjis.
This was the true might of a shrine-maiden's heavenly title.
Once she multiplied like a cancer, when her avatars reached such numbers, even ordinary Star-Seizing cultivators could no longer oppose her.
She had locked Jing Qian firmly within her chosen domain; the Hundred Ghosts Devouring Dragon Array was quietly complete.
When she saw that Jing Qian remained unresponsive to her words, her patience finally broke. She spoke again:
"I pitied your arduous cultivation, and so I gave you a chance. Since you refuse to see reason, then die as a ghost of the Pure Yang Ruins!"
Every word she uttered came from a different avatar.
The tones rose and fell, now faint, now piercing, eerily dissonant.
And as the words fell, every clone raised its hands, weaving seals.
An overwhelming tide of power swelled between them, a mighty array about to form.
But just then, Jing Qian seemed to finally grow satisfied with her numbers. He spoke at last:
"Thank you, elder, for accompanying me in sword practice. If I achieve great cultivation in the future, I shall never forget this gift."
With that, the light of his sword shifted. A unique Dao-rhythm surged along its edge.
Through the earlier exchanges, he had conserved his power, cutting with the lowest-cost Skin-Shearing Sword-Light while letting Shengji multiply, until she had split into three thousand forms.
Now he awakened the three divine wonders sealed within the Qingping Sword Casket: Sword-Light Division, Sword Shadows, and Life-Shortening.
In an instant, his sword-light multiplied: one thread of mana became four Skin-Shearing Strikes.
And with each cut, forty-two sword-shadows followed, each capable of splitting a Shengji clone.
The number of his blades skyrocketed a hundred and seventyfold increase!
And every sword-beam carried with it the essence of life-shortening. Every strike that landed stole seven days of lifespan.
One slash meant three years and two months of stolen life.
Such a chance was priceless.
Outside this cave-heaven, if he wanted to harvest lifespan, he would need to scour leagues of ocean for ghosts and demons, risking karmic entanglements and vengeance from great sea-fiends.
But now, three thousand avatars, each brimming with lifespan, stood before him a dream harvest beyond imagining.
Opportunities like this came only once in a lifetime.
Jing Qian embraced madness.
He poured out everything, burning his reserves, wringing every drop of power into his sword.
In that moment, he became a blazing sun. Endless sword-lights burst from him like a flood of stars.
Whether the strikes killed or not was irrelevant; the lifespans of his foes were all that mattered.
The old masters of the Three Lower Sects had each lived through the Longevity and Soul-Seizing stages. Every one of them carried a thousand years of surplus life.
And the quality of an Earthfiend cultivator's lifespan was leagues above that of seventh-rank monsters.
Against a common sea beast, his life-shortening sword had a pitiful conversion rate, barely one percent.
But against a fifth-rank Earthfiend? The rate soared tenfold.
When he slew Zhujue with a single stroke, the hidden curse in his blade devoured the monk's entire lifespan, granting Jing Qian over ninety years in one cut worth more than twenty sea demons combined.
How could he waste such a fortune?
Shengji's countless clones made her the perfect training dummy. He could harvest her lifespan piece by piece with far greater efficiency than killing Zhujue outright.
To his eyes, the elders of the Three Lower Sects weren't here to block his path at all; they'd come to sponsor his "advancement banquet," bringing gifts of lifespan to fund his growth.
A river of sword-light poured out like a starry waterfall, sweeping through the horde of avatars.
It would not kill her, but it would strip away her most precious essence: time itself.
In a handful of breaths, he had cut nearly thirty times, already gaining a full century of life.
And Shengji? She had lost nearly six hundred years.
A conversion rate of nearly six-to-one, no wonder Jing Qian's opinion of her improved.
Such a fat, rich blood bank of lifespan was impossible to find elsewhere.
Other Earthfiend experts would never allow themselves to be diced apart like this.
Before him, Shengji was near collapse.
The enemy's sword-light carried poison!
The battle she thought already won had been overturned in an instant. Her lifespan gushed away like floodwaters from a shattered dam.
Her grand system, once the perfect counter to Pure Yang sword cultivators, was now utterly restrained and turned into his personal treasure trove.
Shengji could endure no longer.
Each passing second costs her decades. Not even her deep cultivation could withstand such plunder.
Her eyes bled crimson tears. Behind her rose the towering phantom of a bull-headed giant.
And in unison, her three thousand avatars each manifested the same form, three thousand bull-headed men looming in the sky.
The battlefield grew darker, stranger, more terrifying than before.
All of Shengji's clones, along with the bull-headed phantoms looming behind them, suddenly converged madly toward the center.
A tide of overwhelming power erupted, hurling Jing Qian away and slamming him against the very edge of the academy's cave-heaven.
When the smoke cleared, Shengji's form had utterly transformed from a beautiful woman into a towering bull-headed demon.
The demon stood five zhang tall, massive horns pointing skyward, clad in heavy armor and gripping iron chains. Her aura was terrifying, as though she had stepped straight out of hell.
The blood-tears in her eyes were, in fact, her natal Spiritual Construct, the fourth-rank Bull-Headed Blood Tears.
Once she fused this source completely into herself, she could shed her human form and temporarily incarnate as a fourth-rank Star-Seizing Ghost.
As the bearer of the "Daughter of Ghosts" heavenly title, Shengji gained terrifying bonuses when commanding ghostly powers. In this form, her strength surged to an entirely new level.
But the most critical part was this: as a ghost-body, she no longer possessed lifespan or vital essence. Jing Qian's life-stealing sword could no longer touch her!
The turn of the battle shook her Dao-heart to its core. The loss of lifespan had left her both terrified and furious.
Now she abandoned composure, swinging her hooked chains wildly, attacking in near-madness.
But in the very next instant, a filthy, sinister sword-light pierced between the bull-headed demon's horns.
Shengji froze. Her body went rigid, her mind blank, and she remembered nothing more.
Jing Qian instantly flashed forward, appearing right before the immobilized bull-headed demon. Without hesitation, he slapped a powerful Ghost-Suppressing Talisman onto her forehead.
Already stiff, the bull-headed ghost was bound even tighter.
Then Jing Qian summoned the Hell Scroll and, in one sweep, drew the demon inside.
The forty-fourth spirit was sealed into his scroll by far the strongest ghost he had ever captured.
[Netherworld Enforcer: Shengji]
Rank: Fifth Grade
Spiritual Construct: Bull-Headed Blood Tears
Life Pattern: Parade of a Hundred Ghosts (Gold), Aura of the Yellow Springs (Gold), Soul-Splitting (Gold), Soul-Hooking Chains (Gold)…
Even Jing Qian was startled by this outcome.
Had she remained in her human body, things might have been far trickier. But once she transformed into ghost-form, she had walked right into his trap.
His final sword had been empowered with the century of lifespan he'd already stripped from her, a single, supreme "Longevity-Blessing Strike."
The vitality infused into that blade froze even a fourth-rank bull-headed ghost in place.
And the Ghost-Suppressing Talisman he carried was a rare treasure, a secret seal from the Yanfu Path, his one and only.
Through a chain of coincidences, the battle's resolution stunned everyone present.
The proud shrine-maiden of the Mirror Cloud Shrine, bearer of the heavenly title Daughter of Ghosts, a fifth-grade Earthfiend master on the cusp of seizing the stars destined to open a new era for her sect
Had been toyed with by an eighth-grade Dragon-Elephant junior, drained of her lifespan, cut down, and enslaved as a ghost.
It was an ending none present could accept.
Jing Qian's leapfrog kill of a titled Earthfiend directly triggered the laws of the Dao. Shengji's heavenly title was stripped away.
A torrent of law-force poured from the fading Daughter of Ghosts, fusing into Jing Qian's own title: Child of Mount Sumeru.
Like a system receiving a massive patch of code, his title surged in power, vastly strengthened.
He stood silently, eyes closed, attuning to the changes in his cultivation. For a long moment, he did not move.
High above on the jade platform, Wu Yi of the Blood River Sect erupted in anger:
"Lord Sacrificer, how could you allow this! This was merely a contest of inheritance rights. Why did you not intervene?
Shengji was the shrine-maiden of the Mirror Cloud Shrine, one of the rare heavenly-titled cultivators of our realm. She was meant to play a key role in the next battle for destiny!
To sit by and watch her fall is a dereliction of duty. I shall report this to the patriarchs and demand your academy be held accountable!"
No one had cared when Zhujue died. But Shengji, as a heavenly-titled figure, was another matter. Even Wu Yi dared openly to challenge the presiding Sacrificer, desperate to shift the blame.
The Sacrificer, though, was no ordinary figure. For him, the death of a single Earthfiend master meant little.
Ignoring Wu Yi's protest, he merely continued the proceedings with calm indifference:
"The Mirror Cloud Shrine has failed in its bid for inheritance and forfeits its claim.
Do any others wish to contest?"
Everyone else remained silent, just watching the show. All eyes turned toward Wu Yi.
The Three Sects of the Lower Realm had sent three representatives; two were already dead. Only he was left.
Now that the Pure Yang Ruins' heir had struck back and killed two of them, the disaster seemed nearly over.
But no one knew how Wu Yi would handle this moment.
His face was dark as iron. For a time, he could think of no solution. If even Shengji had lost, then he who had only come along to make up numbers stood no chance against that Jing clansman.
Yet the memory of the death order issued by his sect's Star-Seizing Elders pressed on him. His mind spun, searching for some way out.
At that moment, a sword-light rose from below and landed before the crowd.
Jing Qian's figure appeared, standing tall. His sword-light pointed straight at Wu Yi as he spoke:
"On behalf of the Pure Yang Ruins, I challenge the Blood River Sect for inheritance. Please instruct me."
The Sacrificer gave a small nod.
"This is your rightful claim. Let the duel begin."
Jing Qian shifted his light, about to step back into the arena, but Wu Yi suddenly turned aside, ignoring him completely.
"My Blood River Sect concedes. The disciple may go to you."
He had simply surrendered!
The disciple he handed over wore plain clothes and looked utterly bewildered.
This youth came from Youzhou's military provinces, with no clan or backing, and only his talent and determination had carried him this far.
Chosen first by the Mirror Cloud Shrine, he had felt proud of their recognition.
But in less than half a day, he had already been traded away twice.
He now felt his future dissolving before his eyes, helpless and lost.
Even as someone from humble origins, he knew the Pure Yang Ruins were no blessed land.
He had no Spirit-Treasure Fate, and if sent there to forge swords… what good end could await him?
As he wrestled with dread, another voice spoke up:
"The Feathered Transformation Sect applies to contest the inheritance against the Pure Yang Ruins!"
The ever-low-profile Ling Mingji had suddenly stepped forward at this moment, challenging the Pure Yang killer. It shocked everyone.
"This battle, the Pure Yang Ruins concedes."
Jing Qian bowed toward the Sacrificer, yielding the disciple he had just received straight into the hands of the Feathered Transformation Sect.
It needed no further explanation; everyone present immediately understood this was staged.
Jing Qian hailed from Hunzhou, and Ling Mingji had long lingered in Hunzhou. Clearly, the two had struck a bargain.
Yet all was within the rules. With the Lower Three Sects keeping silent, no one else raised objections.
Ling Mingji had gained a free disciple, even picking up an extra bargain.
The youth traded away four times in a single selection and finally escaped the pit of the Pure Yang Ruins. He breathed a deep sigh of relief.
At last, this year's Academy Feast had truly drawn to a close.
It had been a spectacle full of twists, so much so that even two Earthfiend cultivators had perished.
But in truth, apart from the Lower Three Sects' disastrous losses, the other lineages were little affected. They had merely enjoyed a show; for them, it was no different from any other year.
The Sacrificer gave his closing words:
"This year's Academy Feast is hereby ended. All students uphold your virtue, seek the Dao ever deeper."
"Dismiss."
The crowd bowed as always, then departed.
But he gave Jing Qian a special word:
"Jing clansman, do you require escorts from the Academy to deliver you to your sect?"
Jing Qian bowed.
"Thank you for your concern, Lord Sacrificer. If you grant me the location, I will report to the sect myself."
The Sacrificer nodded, sending out a wisp of power.
Jing Qian caught it in his hand, bowed once more, and then transformed into a streak of sword-light, soaring into the skies.
He pierced through the barrier of the Academy's cave-heaven in a single stroke, flying north without a word of farewell.
Now that he had formally entered the Pure Yang Ruins, his heart was already there. All worldly concerns he cast aside. His only thought was to reach the mountain gate.
With his Bian Yuan Weiyang flight technique at full strength, he would arrive within seven days.
He was already eager for the cultivation to come.
...
Far to the north of the Divine Dynasty, beyond the border passes, lay the heart of the Twelve Upper Provinces, the Ruins Province, where the Pure Yang Ruins' mountain gate stood.
There, six Star-Seizing cultivators surrounded a single man who was only at the Earthfiend realm. Yet none dared show him the slightest disrespect.
That man, Shang Xi, had his eyes closed in quiet repose.
Suddenly, he opened them, gaze turning inward, toward the sword-grinding cliffs within the sect's gate.
Some deep sense stirred within him. The heavy, deathly aura cloaking his body flickered suddenly lighter, almost alive.
Then, from who-knows-where, he drew forth a whetstone, setting it across the white ox's horns beneath him.
And slowly, stroke by stroke, he began grinding his iron sword.
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