Aspiring to the Immortal Path - Chapter 525
Chapter 525: Garden
The scattered group could no longer maintain the Steel Wall Formation.
As those rings disappeared, the daemons crazily attacked.
This time, they couldn’t fend off the daemons in the same way.
A daemon easily broke the line, stabbing its claws into a cultivator’s chest. Its sharp claws ignored the vast majority of defensive barriers and easily pierced into that cultivator’s heart.
Screams quickly began to fill the air.
“Fight our way out!” Nan Ningjiang shouted.
Seeing this, Tang Jie smiled and ran off in another direction.
While the maze passages had shifted around, the general direction had not.
He made his way toward the exit in his memory, and he soon arrived in its vicinity.
He didn’t immediately go out, instead waiting around the exit.
After some time, he decided that the time was right and shouted, “This way! I found the exit!”
The underground palace was very large, and the maze was only a small part of it. Considering that there were probably many more dangers to follow, Tang Jie still needed to borrow the strength of Godhead Palace. Thus, while he needed them to die, he couldn’t have them all die immediately. He needed to control it so that they were weakened step by step.
Everyone grew excited and ran off in the direction of Tang Jie’s voice.
The first to arrive was Ling Tianqi. As he rushed up to Tang Jie’s side and saw that luminescent door, he excitedly said, “Yes, this is the exit. Eh, haven’t we been through here before?”
Ling Tianqi looked around.
Tang Jie slightly frowned. The shifting of the maze should have changed everything, and nobody should have realized that this was the path that Tang Jie had stopped them from going down. But who was Ling Tianqi? A formation expert of Nadir Hill, a master of variation and combination. Even if Tang Jie didn’t have the ability to memorize and organize with his two bodies, Ling Tianqi would have eventually figured out the rules of the maze himself.
As he looked around, he was able to sense that something was wrong.
The old man’s gaze fell on a wall, and he saw the mark that Tang Jie had left behind.
His eyes brightened. “This is…”
And then he shuddered and looked down in disbelief. A golden blade had pierced through his body.
The old man trembled as he struggled to turn his head, only to see Tang Jie staring at him with cold eyes.
He raised his hand. “You…”
“My apologies, but you know too much,” Tang Jie said.
A moment later, Ling Tianqi exploded into countless chunks of meat, and with a light wave from Tang Jie, Ling Tianqi ceased to exist.
Softly sighing, Tang Jie put the blade back into his bag. In the distance, several more people ran over, Xu Mingyue and Ming Yezhen being among them.
“Young Master Qian!” Xu Mingyue brought her hands together and bowed to Tang Jie.
Tang Jie pointed at the exit and said, “I’ve found the exit. You guys hurry and go. I’ll stay here and wait for the others.”
“Okay!” Xu Mingyue accepted without a second thought, charging into the exit with Ming Yezhen. They didn’t want to spend a second longer in this strange place.
One person after another followed Tang Jie’s voice to the exit and rushed out through it.
Tang Jie coldly watched them go, silently counting them up.
Other than Ling Tianqi, the two sects had barely suffered any losses among their True Persons. It was mostly the lower-tier cultivators who had died, with the Bloodbath Hall disciples having suffered grievous losses. They weren’t very strong individually, and primarily fought using their combat formation. The shifting of the maze had the greatest effect on them, and almost half of the fifty elites had died.
Still too few have died. Tang Jie was very dissatisfied by the result.
The sounds of battle from the maze were starting to dwindle, and it seemed like the majority of the people had already escaped. Tang Jie was just about to turn and leave when someone shouted, “Brother Qian, Brother Qian, wait for me!”
He turned and saw someone running over.
“True Person Liang?” Tang Jie blurted out.
This was none other than the deceased Dark Fiend’s good friend, Liang Chunsheng.
He was sprinting with all his might, and behind him was a particularly large daemon.
Tang Jie saw this and immediately pulled out his saber.
Liang Chunsheng was delighted. “Thank you for the help, Brother Qian! Wait… When did you start using a saber?”
Liang Chunsheng was startled. He didn’t recall Qian Yingchen to be someone that used the saber.
Tang Jie slightly raised his head and said, “True Person Liang, I recall that you’re skilled in paralyzing the mind, but what about countering that?”
Liang Chunsheng was startled, but before he could react, Tang Jie threw something at him.
A Mindseizer.
“No!” Liang Chunsheng shrieked in terror, and then he was paralyzed.
At the same time, Tang Jie’s Spirit Ring erupted out, and a snow-white wave of saber energy swept out.
Liang Chunsheng was sliced in half, and the remaining power of the strike struck the daemon, the intense Yang energy annihilating it.
There was a surge of spiritual energy as Liang Chunsheng’s spiritual power returned to the world.
Tang Jie threw out the Mountain River State Diagram and put Liang Chunsheng within it, and then he took back the diagram. Only then did Tang Jie breathe out.
The attack just now had been very taxing for him. A full-power attack unleashed while his Spirit Ring was expanded was able to instantly kill a True Person of the same tier. From that moment, Tang Jie knew that cultivators of the same level would not be able to stop him.
There were still sounds of fighting coming from the maze, but Tang Jie didn’t pay them a second glance, turning and walking toward the exit.
With one step, the world around him changed.
Tang Jie found himself in a garden, and when he looked back, he saw no sign of the door he had come in through.
Sure enough, the exit to the maze was a teleportation gate. Fortunately, he hadn’t stepped through first, or else he would have found it hard to cause trouble for Godhead Palace.
Tang Jie was in a quiet place, awash with flowers. It was like he was in a royal garden. Above him were blue skies and white clouds, but if one looked carefully, one would find that this was an artificial blue sky, not a real one.
There was a white mist drifting about the garden, making this place seem like a fairyland. But upon closer inspection, one would find this fairyland to be rather bleak.
While the flowers grew lushly, there was no sign that they were being tended to. There were grassy meadows all about, but there were no little paths that one could take to admire the flowers. While the small bridges were still intact, they were bereft of footprints. And while the streams gurgled, there were no fish swimming in them.
The formation had maintained this fairyland so that not even weeds could grow, but it couldn’t hide the bleak and deserted feeling. Standing here, one could feel that this place had once been gorgeous and majestic, and one could also feel that it was now silent and abandoned.
Tang Jie surprisingly found that he couldn’t see anyone else.
The teleportation of the maze exit seemed to be extremely random, so much so that Tang Jie didn’t end up with anyone else.
Compared to the gloomy maze, the garden was clearly much more soothing.
Even so, Tang Jie was still cautious.
Ten thousand years was enough for far too many things to happen. The daemons in the maze were only the beginning.
Tang Jie inspected his surroundings as he made his way through the fog.
The farther he went, the thicker the fog became.
If the maze was so dark that one couldn’t even see one’s hands, then the garden was so white that it seemed like one was walking in a cloud.
In the fog, Tang Jie could hear faint sobbing.
This made Tang Jie only more cautious.
The people from Godhead Palace and the Beast Refining Gate weren’t ones to cry. This sound like that of a woman sobbing could only mean that something wicked was afoot.
He wasn’t sure what it was, but the more this was the case, the more he needed to be careful.
As he was walking, someone suddenly walked into view.
It was the seventh of the 12 Hawks.
The two sized each other up. The seventh Hawk was nervous at first, but when he saw that it was Qian Yingchen, he smiled and said, “So it is Brother Qian.”
He walked over to Tang Jie.
Tang Jie said, “So it’s Brother Li! Brother Li, be careful. This garden is strange, as if there’s something impure here.”
“Mm, I’ve also sensed it. But if we work together, there should be no problem.” He stood next to Tang Jie and advanced together with him.
A partner meant that one could relax, looking in one direction while leaving one’s back to one’s partner.
But as Tang Jie turned his head, a cunning light shone in the seventh Hawk’s eyes, and his face suddenly transformed.
This wasn’t the seventh Hawk at all! Instead, it was a pale and savage face, like that of a hanged corpse. Using the seventh Hawk’s voice, it said, “I’ll take this side and you take that side,” while slowly raising its hands.
While Tang Jie’s back was turned, it thrust two ghostly claws at Tang Jie’s neck.
Just when it was about to grab Tang Jie, there was a flash of light.
The ghost froze, and then it let out a piercing screech.
Its body was twisting as it howled, radiating white light. The ghost face contorted in fear as it roared, “This is impossible… How did you notice…”
Tang Jie coldly looked at it as he shook the golden saber. “I didn’t need to notice anything. Whether you were human or ghost, I was going to kill you anyway… The person you were pretending to be wasn’t my friend.”
Tang Jie transformed back into his original appearance before turning back into Qian Yingchen.
“Wh…what…” The ghost looked at Tang Jie in disbelief. It had never expected this answer from Tang Jie.
“No! I won’t accept this!!!” The ghost howled as it vanished into a white puff of smoke.
As the ghost disappeared, there was a red flash of light. Just as it was about to escape, Tang Jie snatched it.
This was a red pearl, the color of blood, but it was extremely flexible and was constantly changing form.
Tang Jie chuckled. “I’m rather lucky! An intact ghost essence.”
The red pearl in Tang Jie’s hand was one of the most sought-after treasures of the cultivation world: a ghost essence.
That Daoist Fuyu whom Tang Jie had encountered years ago had been artificially creating ghosts and killing innocents for the sake of ghost essences. But the ghost essences he created using this method were of the lowest grade.
What Tang Jie had was the ghost essence of a real ghost.
While it seemed like Tang Jie had killed it easily, it had actually been quite strong. According to the Ghost Classic, this kind of ghost was called a White Phantom. It was skilled in transformation and killing silently, a ghost assassin.
It was ranked 112th in the Ghost Classic, and it could be considered an extremely valuable ghost.
For this White Phantom to form such an intact ghost essence meant that it had to have lived for several thousand years, so it was at least as strong as a Spirit Ring True Person. If it hadn’t been careless and dropped its guard, Tang Jie would have needed to go through significant effort to kill it.
Ghost essences were excellent treasures for tempering the mind, almost necessary.
Whether one was charging at the Heart Demon Tier or raising one’s resistance to Divine Will, one had to have this treasure. But ghosts were rare in this age, and finding a ghost essence was extremely difficult.
The fragment of Myriad Court had lain dormant in the Great Mountain for ten thousand years, accumulating deathly energy, Yin energy, demonic energy, and earth energy. All these various energies coming together meant that it wasn’t strange to find things like daemons and White Phantoms here. What was once a supreme Immortal court had now become a haunted land.
He really had no idea what he was going to find farther in.
But this only made Tang Jie happier.
Tang Jie had lured everyone here partially so that he could use the power of his enemies to explore this place, and also so that he could use this hidden realm’s power to weaken his enemy.
For this reason, the stronger the dangers here were, the more he benefited.
So long as he could use them properly, even He Changan wasn’t anything to be afraid of.
Tang Jie put away the ghost essence and continued forward.
The garden was very large.
The underground palace seemed to contain its own dimension. Putting aside the blue skies and clouds, the garden alone was many times larger than the palace complex outside.
One could see how extravagant the Court of Myriad Domains had been from this. A random corner of the place had its own little paradise.
As he was walking, Tang Jie spotted a little flower blooming in a nearby flowerbed.
That small flower grew in the middle of numerous other flowers and seemed utterly unremarkable. It had no special color or anything else entrancing about. It was just an elegant little flower bud, and beneath it were nine little leaves.
Each leaf was like a coiled-up little snake, little thorns growing from them. Together with that little flower, they swayed in the wind.
Tang Jie trembled in shock.
“Nine Heavens Luan Grass?”
(TN: The Luan is a kind of mythical bird in Chinese mythology.)
He didn’t dare to believe his eyes that a divine plant like the Nine Heavens Luan Grass was growing here.
The Nine Heavens Luan Grass was a plant that was called a divine herb even in an era as rich in resources as High Antiquity. It had countless uses, but its greatest benefit was that it could increase one’s cultivation level. It was said that a cultivator that consumed this divine plant would have a much higher chance at successfully reaching the next cultivation realm.
It had to be understood that this was not valid only for a particular cultivation realm, but for all cultivation realms.
For the sake of reaching Violet Palace, Ming Yekong had taken great pains to raise a single Bloodweeping Fiend Lotus, but compared to the Nine Heavens Luan Grass, it could be thrown straight into the trash.
Tang Jie almost couldn’t believe that a Nine Heavens Luan Grass was right in front of him, and it was already mature.
He was just about to pluck it when he suddenly stopped.
For some reason, an extremely beautiful woman in rainbow clothes had appeared next to the Nine Heavens Luan Grass.
The rainbow girl didn’t belong to either Godhead or Beast Refining. With bare feet, she stood in the garden, carrying a basket in her hand. This basket was made from more than a hundred kinds of different flowers and plants, each one extremely rare.
She stood next to the Nine Heavens Luan Grass, seemingly thinking of something as she muttered to herself.
She bent down and lightly moved to take the grass.
This Immortal grass seemed to have a mind of its own. Realizing that some calamity was approaching, it retreated into the ground.
The slender hand stopped, and a look of distress appeared on the woman’s face. She whispered something and then lightly slapped the ground.
The Nine Heavens Luan Grass popped back up.
The rainbow girl gently moved away the soil next to the grass, and then she pulled it out together with its roots. The Nine Heavens Luan Grass didn’t move, but a little Luan Bird appeared on the flower.
That girl then took out a seemingly ordinary little black cauldron made of wood. She placed some soil in the cauldron, and then she put in the Nine Heavens Luan Grass.
In this process, the rainbow girl didn’t look at Tang Jie once, and Tang Jie let her work, not even moving.
Once all this was done, the rainbow girl stood up.
And then she faded away, only leaving behind that hole in the ground, but this also gradually closed up.
Whew! Tang Jie exhaled.
At that moment, he realized what he had been watching.
History!
All that had happened actually hadn’t happened just now, but ten thousand years ago, before the Myriad Court had shattered.
For some reason, this scene had been preserved.
Thus, Tang Jie had mistakenly believed that a Nine Heavens Luan Grass had been growing here.
In truth, the Myriad Court wasn’t deserted at all. Countless wicked things lived here, and the real treasures had all been devoured, not waited around for cultivators to dig up. For this reason, while this garden had once been home to numerous Immortal grasses, after ten thousand years, it had been devastated, and only fiends and ghosts remained.
Perhaps there were still treasures left, but he would have to go deeper.
Just as he was about to leave, he stopped.
He rushed over to where the Nine Heavens Luan Grass had been growing.
He pressed the ground.
It was very hard.
Tang Jie started to dig up the earth.
It wasn’t long before he heard a clang.
Delighted, Tang Jie reached into the hole and pulled out a bracelet.
The many years had left the bracelet looking worse for wear, and there was even a layer of rust on it.
But when he wiped away the rust, he saw that the bracelet glowed with an enchanting light.
Yes!
This was the bracelet that the rainbow girl had been wearing on her wrist.
Even though Tang Jie hadn’t seen how the rainbow girl had buried the bracelet under the earth, through his exceptional observation abilities, he had noticed that the rainbow girl had come wearing a bracelet but had left without it.
Because of this observation, he hadn’t missed out on this opportunity.
Tang Jie held the jade bracelet and looked it over. He saw that light was flowing through the bracelet, but he didn’t know how to use it. Inserting spiritual energy garnered no response.
Unable to get anything, Tang Jie put it away. He looked back at the clearing. He didn’t know if anyone else who came by would be able to see that scene, so he thrust out his finger several times at the ground. No matter what sort of lucky encounters were here, Tang Jie had now severed all the Karma of this place, and the scenes of the past would no longer replay.
Once all this was done, Tang Jie continued forward, feeling a little expectant. This expedition might be far more fruitful than he had expected.
Meanwhile, outside the underground palace.
His original body excitedly rubbed his hands. “They’ve entered the garden, so let’s go inside now.”
