Chapter 353: Leading The Way

The sun rose as usual.

Wei Yuan watched the sunrise and took the opportunity to assess his own fortune. All five Dragon Blood Woods had sprouted tender shoots and formed a circle that resembled a natural mystic array. At the center of the array, a faint yet tangible wisp of fortune was slowly rising, propelling Wei Yuan’s fortune to new heights.

It was still the sweltering summer within the realm of Qingming, but in many parts of the Great Tang, it was already the depths of winter.

Three more days, and it would be a new year.

At this moment, the whole realm was filled with festive cheer. People in every city were spontaneously making New Year preparations according to long-standing customs. This was Qingming’s first New Year, and the cultivators had long agreed to ring the bell twelve times on New Year’s Eve to celebrate.

For this purpose, Yu Zhizhuo had specially cast a massive bronze bell that weighed over 10,000 catties. Over the past few days, he had been working diligently to engrave an array upon it, so that its toll could resonate throughout the entire realm.

A batch of spirit fields was set to ripen on New Year’s Eve, as if to join in the celebration.

In recent days, the number of merchant caravans traveling to and fro Qingming had increased by 50%. They were all continuously transporting various New Year’s goods into the realm.

Everywhere was bustling with vitality and festive cheer.

Wei Yuan stood atop the central peak, overlooking the entire realm and savoring this moment of peace and tranquility.

Suddenly, he sensed that something was amiss. The morning was too quiet. Even the cities, usually bustling at dawn, were conspicuously silent. People were simply hurrying past each other on the streets, as if they had lost the desire to speak.

Brow furrowed slightly, Wei Yuan gazed at the sky and scanned his surroundings. But besides the indescribable stillness, he could not detect anything else out of the ordinary.

Deep within the Shaman realm, on a magnificent altar nearly 1,000 zhang high, tens of thousands of Shaman priests were ascending the staircase step by step. At the head of the procession, a group of strongmen carried a white jade coffin draped in crimson cloth. The coffin was somewhat translucent, and a faint, blood-red glow shimmered within.

The procession finally reached the top of the altar and placed the white jade coffin at its center. Two Spirit Warlocks and two Shadow Warlocks sat at each corner of the altar, while a Holy Warlock pushed open the coffin lid.

A young girl lay inside the coffin. Her expression was serene, as if she were in a deep sleep; her four hands were folded alternately across her chest, and a long tail was coiled between her legs.

As the ritual began, waves of blood surged skyward from the altar, and a massive, slowly swirling vortex appeared in the sky. The terrifying aura caused every Shaman to tremble.

A gigantic claw reached out from the vortex in the sky and slowly reached out toward the young girl in the coffin. As if lifted by an invisible giant hand, she flew upward to meet it halfway.

The giant claw was hundreds of zhang long. The girl appeared as tiny as a speck of dust compared to it.

As she rose into the air, an expression suddenly flashed across the girl’s face—extreme agony. She then let out a series of piercing screams that echoed throughout heaven and earth!

Her body twisted unnaturally, and her long tail exploded segment by segment into a mist of blood, followed by her legs, torso, and arms. Each time a part of her body shattered, her screams grew ever more harrowing.

The Great Warlocks seated atop the altar suddenly clutched their heads and began rolling on the ground in agony. After just a few rolls, their heads exploded violently into pools of pus and blood.

The girl’s head held out for an exceptionally long time. There was a point where she had even opened her eyes, though her eye sockets contained only rotting flesh and blood. She had no pupils. Suddenly, fountains of blood started gushing from her eyes and mouth, as if her skull contained an endless supply of blood. In the end, her head exploded as well, leaving only her screams to echo endlessly throughout heaven and earth.

Around the altar, 100,000 superior sacrifices and 50,000 average sacrifices collapsed simultaneously, while the inferior sacrifice lay in endless numbers on the periphery. Blood flowed steadily from beneath the sacrificial victims, pooling into the altar.

In the blink of an eye, a column of blood qi hundreds of zhang thick shot out of the altar and into the sky, tearing a 100-li-long gash in the heavens.

The blood column persisted for an entire ke before finally dissipating. Where the girl’s corpse had lain, only three deep, inky black orbs remained. They seemed capable of sucking everything around them into their depths.

The gigantic claw in the sky reached down once more, grasping at the three black intent from afar. The intents rose slowly, and the claw trembled slightly. It was as if it were lifting three mountains.

In the blink of an eye, the claw seemed unable to withstand the pressure and began to crack, oozing droplets of blood. The blood, each drop the size of a carriage, ignited into a fiery, shadowy flame as soon as it touched the ground and reduced everything to white ash.

On the altar, many Wild Warlocks, Shadow Warlocks, and Spirit Warlocks were all gazing up at the sky, watching as their little princess was completely reduced to nothingness, severing her own future and transforming the very foundation of her existence into a terrifying force of karma. With this, she unleashed an earth-shattering curse to slay her murderer and everything connected to them.

This plan had been in the works for a long time. Since it had finally been set in motion, the Sky Warlock must have finally found a lead. However, the fact that the karmic energy had split into three parts in the sky likely meant that the lead was unclear—all three targets were possible targets.

A Holy Warlock and a Wild Warlock who knew some of the inside details exchanged a subtle glance with each other.

From the moment she was born, the little princess had displayed various extraordinary qualities. Both her normal senses and spiritual senses had advanced by leaps and bounds as well. No danger could ever come near her without her detecting it first. It was why she dared to train the Downbelow with only a small contingent of guards.

She also bore a unique karma that drew the attention of all Sky Warlocks and caused them to invest everything they had into her cultivation. It was said that, empowered by that karma, she was guaranteed to become a Sky Warlock. Any other outcome was unthinkable.

But now, all the remnants of that karma had transformed into a terrifying curse. The young princess who should have become a part of a legend had already perished just as the curtain was slowly rising.

Since ancient times, the will of Heaven had been difficult to fathom.

The three black intents vanished one by one. Then, a blood rain began to fall from the sky. The blood in the rain was human blood and imbued with abundant spirit qi—it was the world’s response to the sacrifice. TheShamans all let go of their inhibitions and began to cultivate, absorbing the energy. In particular, a small group of Shamans at the top of the altar absorbed 90% of the entire blood rain.

The Realm of Qingming.

The morning glow spread steadily and soon covered the entire horizon. The sky turned dark red and took on a thick, viscous texture. The people within the realm of Qingming looked up at the sky with unnatural calmness. No one panicked, and no one fled; it was as if they had all silently accepted the arrangements of fate.

This is what ultimate fear looks like.

Surface-level fear usually manifested as panic, screaming, and fleeing. Moderate-level fear often appeared as bodily paralysis, rendering one unable even to fee. But ultimate fear was a state of serene, calm acceptance, waiting for whatever was to come without thought or reflection—a state bordering on heroic fearlessness.

With a hum, a stream of pure qi erupted from the center of Qingming. It soon transformed into a bluish barrier of light that enveloped the entire realm.

All the cultivators of the Palace of Absolute Beginning received the summons and flew toward the central peak. There, an array left behind by Ji Liuli gathered the collective power of the cultivators to provide the greatest possible protection.

Most people didn’t recognize this extraordinary phenomenon, but those old men and women who had survived the earliest days of the establishment of Qingming could never forget it. It was a Great Curse of the Shamans. However, the blood curses of that time had been nowhere near as vast in scale as the one unfolding before them now.

Wei Yuan sat in his study and picked up a mirror to look at himself. In the mirror, the flesh on the man’s face was constantly dissolving and sliding away. Soon, his eyeballs rolled out one by one.

He knew then that it was the Great Karmic Curse.

There was no time to ponder how the Shamans had found out about it despite all the precautions he had taken. He rushed out of the room, circled Zhang Sheng’s residence, and planted four tender shoots of Dragon Blood Wood at the cardinal directions.

Wei Yuan had already known his ending from the divination he performed using the jade mirror. In truth, he didn’t need the divination to know that no one could escape the Great Karmic Curse. Now, he only hoped that his teacher, the one whom he shared the deepest bond with, would survive the ordeal.

Wei Yuan planted the last Dragon Blood Wood beside the Qingming Realm Stone.

Everything had begun here, and everything would return here. He hoped that this meager bit of fortune could save just a few more mortals.

In the Great Realm, Yin Yang suddenly opened her eyes slowly, sensing a faint resonance with some place in the Beyond. At that moment, Wei Yuan could no longer isolate her connection to Heaven and Earth. Then again, the Great Karmic Curse was already descending upon them, so the Shamans must have already become aware of her existence.

Amid the blood-red clouds in the sky, a gigantic eye opened.

This narrow, elongated eye contained three pupils, each gazing toward the past, the present, and the future.

Wei Yuan stood atop the peak and gazed up at the heavenly eye. He wasn’t afraid. Truly. He, of course, yearned to live more than anything, but as death loomed, he discovered that he wasn’t afraid at all.

He thought back to his life. Though it was brief, it had been incomparably bright.

He had established a Dao Foundation that was peerless under the heavens. He had waged war against the foreign races, expanded the borders of the human realm, saved the lives of hundreds of thousands, and guided over a thousand cultivators who had once had no hope of walking the Dao to forge their Dao Foundations. The Radiant Devil-Subjugating Sword, the Ten Directions Lapis Lazuli Golden Fire, and the Six Paths Jia Yi Divine Wood Qi might seem like a joke to most others, but they had in fact paved the way for countless others.

Wei Yuan hoped that after his death, someone would continue down this path and not let it be cut short. Fortunately, the cultivators of the Palace of Absolute Beginning had already embraced the philosophy of Xu Wenwu’s world. As long as even one of them survived this, they would likely carry on the torch.

As for Xu Wenwu... there was probably no need to worry about him. Even if this world was completely destroyed, he might still be able to travel to the next world.

His father, the mother he had never met, and all his other ties—he could no longer concern himself with them now. It had all come so suddenly, and he was completely unprepared for it.

Within the Great Realm, Yin Yang’s face kept shifting from expression to expression—one moment showing pain and struggle, the next turning cold and ruthless. All the immortal plants held their breaths and remained silent, as if sensing that the end of the world was drawing near.

The Red Lotus Bodhi grew ever more ethereal, branches and leaves swaying as the faint recitation of sutra echoed from it. The Bay Laurel Immortal Tree hid behind the Ice-Glass Divine Tree.

Wei Yuan entered the Great Realm and unearthed the White Lotus of Tainted Earth.

In his study, Zhang Sheng performed a divination to foretell Wei Yuan’s fate. The answer he arrived at was: “The End.”

Zhang Sheng rose to his feet, carefully adjusted his attire, and bowed three times to the portrait of Founder Xuan Yue. Then, he sat cross-legged on the couch, placed his sword on his lap, and waited quietly for that moment to arrive.

Resting on his lap was his fourth Immortal Sword. Suddenly, it emitted a soft hum. “There is still a sliver of hope.”

“I know.”

“Then why not seek it?”

“How?”

“Use me to cleave through the Void and return to the Palace of Absolute Beginning. Feign death and escape with the Yin Yang of Reversal Pendant to feign death and escape. Sever the karmic bond with the power the Skyblue Hall has accumulated over a thousand years—that way, you will survive this ordeal.”

“If I do so, Wei Yuan will die.”

“He is bound to die!”

“Even so, I must stand in front of him and delay the inevitable for him.”

“Even knowing full well that you’ll die?”

“Yes.”

“Why not preserve your life so you can avenge him in the future?”

Zhang Sheng smiled calmly and said, “The tide of history is inevitable, and the red dust swirls forevermore. You and I are but two among innumerable lives; our life or death is not as important as we think. If I cannot even step forward at this critical moment of life and death, then what future is there to speak of? A so-called ‘useful body’ that is gained through despicable survival is better off gone.

“A master should always lead their disciple from the front. That is all there is to it.”