The Sage Who Transcended Samsara

Lan Jingtian looked around, only to find one way out. There was no fork in the road, and he didn’t discover any secret postern for the soil remained natural with no evidence of digging. In other words, the Golden Tent Warriors either refused to enter the Devil Earth, or stepped into the stone gate.

According to legends, the Nine Levels of Underground was a cradle for evil ghosts and demons. Nether spirits and emperors were born there, and their laws and regulations were totally different from that on earth. Once arriving there, strength within body would never make externalized changes again, and smart skills would not work on dueling. One would be empowered with strength large enough to ruin a city, cut off a river, and even shake the ground, but they would also be eroded by the Exterior Heaven and Earth, degenerate as demons and lose their consciousness. It was also said that the horror, sins, and misfortune, could pass on from generation to generation. Thinking about all these, Lan Jingtian was reluctant to move on.

While Gao Qianyuan said in a casual tone, “We only arrive at Devil Earth after we enter the gate.”

Devil Earth was within the gate? Lan Jingtian was a little shocked. Indeed, he didn’t find any features of Devil Earth except bleaker coldness, thicker black and dark green mists and more dark red blood in the soils. They didn’t encounter any nether ghosts, filthy energy or malformed vigor ocean.

Lan Jingtian was suddenly enlightened that the Longevity Sect and the Life-and-Death Fugacity Sect might have built the stone gate on purpose to isolate Devil Earth from normal world. But he also felt puzzled. The nine-fingered blue-blood man seemed to know the place better than him, had he caught a more high-position captive?

After thinking that, Lan Jingtian grinned hideously. A gate was enough. Wasn’t Su Meng driving them to explore the way? They would close the gate as soon as they went through. If Su Meng didn’t run after, he must lose their trace; if he rushed in a hurry, he would lose his oppressing but leisurely manner, and they would not be afraid of him any longer.

Lan Jingtian reached out his left hand, made a dragon-capturing gesture and pulled back violently. A blast of intangible force slowly pulled the gate. As the gate open, the surrounding fake space seemed to bend, and dark lights shifted.

The heavy stone gate opened slowly. With bleak air surging from within and ice crystals floating mid-air, Lan Jingtian felt him blood was going to freeze.

He perceived that Gao Qianyuan’s skin became translucent, shining with pure blue light, which seemed to freeze into ice soon. He thus smiled, and stepped into the stone gate, with his head raised high.

A gleam of slight and intangible sword power thrived within Gao Qianyuan’s veins, breaking all the ice. Gao Qianyuan was recovered in his moving strength and followed within.

As soon as they passed the gate, they turned around the same time and attempt to close it, pushing or pulling, in order to isolate Su Meng’s oppression.

However, the stone gate was like being dragged by an invisible hand. No matter how hard they tried, the gate only shook but hardly moved.

“Power of Magnet!” Gao Qianyuan and Lan Jingtian felt the scarring suction in themselves as well.

Gao Qianyuan’s body organization was different from ordinary people, and Lan Jingtian refined and absorbed from such a great number of treasures and nutrition that his constitution was changed as well. Both of them had a clear feeling toward the Power of Magnet.

With eyes wide open, Lan Jingtian spared no effort to drag the stone gate. The surrounding fake space bended into a dark sphere. Gao Qianyuan’s sword power, formless and with no division of Yin and Yang, was ready to cut the Power of Magnet.

Having a clear division of labor, they swore to make troubles for Su Meng, stopping him from accumulating more imposing manner.

It had been two months since the battle between the Righteous and Evil Demon. Various news springing out and spreading, Lan Jingtian and Gao Qianyuan heard that Meng Qi killed Elderly Ku in one around. They were on their guard against Meng Qi, taking him as a great enemy rarely seen in their lives.

All of a sudden, Power of Magnet changed its way. Suffering joint force from Lan Jingtian and Meng Qi, the stone gate dashed toward the frame with irresistible momentum and speed.

Peng! Though protected by a Restrictive Spell, the strength from Lan and Meng had gone beyond the gate’s limitation, making it split into pieces and then covered all over with crystals.

Lan Jingtian and Gao Qianyuan looked at each other, coming to realize Su Meng’s coercion and their fear had driven them to ignore that Yin and Yang diversion of the “Power of Magnet” would transform the force of pulling into pushing.

At this time, at the verge of Lan and Gao’s perception, Su Meng’s Qi Xie was vigorous like a broiling sun, while his sword emanated bleak cruelness, prickling their primordial spirits sharply.

“Su Meng! What a scary rival! It cannot go on like this!” As experienced gurus, Lan Jingtian and Gao Qianyuan urged themselves to restrain unnecessary negative moods, adjusted their bodies and mind to a balance between relaxation and alert, cleared their mind, and turned to look Devil Earth up and down, seeming to forget they still had Su Meng’s oppression from behind.

Freezing mists hung over their sides and front, the conditions three hundred meters away were totally out of perception. The ground was black, like buried by thousands of years of blood clots, and was covered by a layer of smooth ice, on which grew clumps of blackish green moss, with eyes, nose, and mouth, giggling.

The Nine Levels of Underground had been hidden a hundred thousand years, and Main World changed its masters several times, leaving little information. Lan Jingtian and Gao Qianyuan only knew the most well-known things inside and nothing about the moss. But through their observation of the moss itself and changes of the Qi Ji between heaven and earth, they found a kind of colorless and odorless gas was emitted from it, hallucinatory and taking in human’s Jing Qi and vitality. Once coming against up to the moss, humans would gradually wither to death.

The two gurus appeared to be relaxed, but in fact they still kept themselves alert. Like in the process of cultivating, a single feather or a mosquito and fly, would perish from the strength. Once sensing threats, Lan and Gao would make best of their pull strength, one using sword, the other stamping on the earth, and work together to shatter the moss into pieces.

Proceeding cautiously for a while, Lan suddenly heard a crisp sound, like someone was chewing bones.

He turned to Gao Qiaoyuan subconsciously, to find Gao was serious as well. Lan understood it was not his illusion, so he readily went to the sound, with one hand at his side and the other across his chest.

This might help to find the Golden Tent Warriors and the Shaman of Longevity Sect!

Mists faded away, and a strong smell of blood overwhelmed them.

In their sight, a man dressed like the Shaman of Longevity Sect was sitting and leaning against a jagged rock of grotesque shapes. He was covered all with blood and his belly was bloating.

Sensing the change of Qi Ji, the Shaman of Longevity Sect turned to them, with greedy in his eyes and no expression on his face.

Abruptly, he put on a rigid smile, raised his right hand, and then tore his own ear down and put it into his mouth. He devoured it and made crisping sounds.

All of his left hand, legs, lip and muscles of his chest were gone, seeming to have been eaten by himself. What remained was a broken bloody body and an inflating belly, though his hunger wasn’t relieve at all.

“He is possessed by a Preta.” Gao Qianyuan squinted his eyes and said.

Lan Jingtian became more precautious. With huge strength, that Longevity Sect Shaman was only one step before joining the line of gurus. Which preta was so powerful to possess Shaman’s body?

The Shaman of Longevity Sect flew to Lan and Gao greedily, and then was clapped away hard by Lan Jingtian. The Shaman’s body was split, and complete lip, legs, and viscera dropped from his belly.

“It seems that the Nether Spirits Formation collaborated by the Life-and-Death Fugacity Sect and Longevity Sect went wrong. It didn’t shut the slot of the Nine Levels of Underground in time, leaving opportunities for demons and evils to sneak out.” Gao Qianyuan said in a dubious way, after he found no preta leaving from the dead convulsive body.

Lan Jingtian snorted deliberately, “The preta might not be a powerful demon for his stealth. It would be good to refine into powerful weapons as a trophy.”

Their surroundings reverted into silence, and no sound came out.

“Go forward. Maybe we’ll find a specialty of the Nine Levels of Underground.” Gao Qianyuan suggested, since he thought his token of sword spirit might help him escape possible dangers without using formation.

His eyes were shining with a bit of passion. He seemed to greatly yearn for some specialty of the Nine Levels of Underground.

Lan Jingtian didn’t answer. He drew back some distance with Gao and followed him forward.

The further they went, the colder it was. Even mists were frozen unmovable. The two had no choice but to give play to their strength to cut out a tunnel.

They heard sounds from ahead, which suddenlyrefreshed Gao and Lan. One on the left, the other on the right, they went together in an arc.

They came up against another Shaman of Longevity Sect, who held a saber in his hand. He was digging the ground assiduously, as if to cut a tunnel to the Nine Levels of Underground.

The pot hole he had dug had been hundreds of meters deep. From its bottom a stream of yellow blood could be seen floating, as though it would spring out like underground water soon.

“Draught of the Nether…” Gao Qianyuan stepped forward, split his body and formation, and dove in to the yellow blood, bathed in malformed Yuan Qi.

Retreating instead of going forward, Lan Jingtian felt everything abnormal, when another “Lan Jingtian” showed up in front of him. That “Lan Jingtian” was covered in dirt, but no malevolence on his face.

“Duplication Oni!” Lan Jingtian, in a calm mind, stretched out his right hand and hit the “Lan Jingtian” on his left thorax.

With a crisp sound, the oni’s left thorax was sunken greatly, and his ribs were broken. Nevertheless, Lan Jingtian sensed a severe pain from his chest as well!

He could feel the severe pain, as if he was hit, too!

How could it be? Lan Jingtian quieted his nerves, sidestepped the Duplication Oni, and tread on the ground hard with his left leg. Slots appeared in earth, and as soon as the oni dropped through it, they closed.

Not before he took a breath, he heard giggling from behind. Not even turning around, he saw “himself” again.

He adopted several ways, even inducing the oni to hit himself, but gained nothing but wounds.

Gradually, he felt engulfed by the depression of death. He could not stay calm any more.

Just at this time, a pair of black boots, along with a long blade drew his attention.

“Su Meng…” Lan Jingtian hummed to himself, like a drowning man grasped at the last straw. It didn’t matter any more if Su Meng was his enemy or not.

“Come out.” He heard Su Meng’s calm voice.

“Good. Few could fend against my ‘Palms of the Samsara’.” Said another steady voice.

Lan Jingtian turned around, only to find a “hulk” sitting straightly on a hundred-meter-tall towering stone bench. Wearing a black gown, he put his cheek on his right hand, on which there was no nose, no mouth, no ears, but an eye with six colors.

Not far away, that Shaman of Longevity Sect was still digging the ground, and a token was flying around Gao Qianyuan, whose eyes were dull.

“Palms of the Samsara?” Su Meng cocked his eyebrow.

“Preta would possess one’s body if they were greedy beyond control. One would be degenerated to hell if their malevolence and resentment could not clear up. Six Dao is not in the Nine Levels of Nether, but in every one’s mind.” The hundred-meter-tall demon said in a slight grin. “I am Celestial Devil of the Samsara, tutored by Demon of Realm of Self.”

Celestial Devil of the Samsara… Contrasted by Master of Six Dao of Samsara, Su Meng found him worthless to beat. He contained himself from teasing him, and asked calmly, “Demon of Realm of Self?”

This was the demon that betrayed the Demonic Lord.

“Immortal Heaven was one of the carnations of Demon of Realm of Self. Da Man colluded with the Life-and-Death Fugacity Sect and attempted to awaken the sleeping Demon of Realm of Self through a Nether Spirits Formation. However, it’s a pity that he was beaten with Immortal Heaven and couldn’t continue. Even shamans, by holding rites here according to his will, could only summon me.” The Celestial Devil of the Samsara smiled. Su Meng couldn’t guess what he was thinking about and why he didn’t mind letting out so much information.