Chapter 84: Luo Wuji (Part 2)
Luo Wuji walked steadily down the main street of Blackstone City, turned at the familiar corner, slipped past an alley hung with unlit red lanterns, and stopped before the two-story Green Willow Inn beneath its weathered wooden sign.
He lifted his gaze slowly. Blackstone City hasn't changed, he thought, and the thought had barely formed when his face twisted.
A sharp pain like an ice needle pierced his mind from temple to temple. A muffled groan escaped before he could stop it, and his hand flew to his head, fingers digging into his skull.
Gritting his teeth, he forced the pain down by sheer will and stepped inside.
Ignoring the laughter, the stink of cheap wine, and the curious stares, he went straight to the innkeeper behind the counter.
"A room," he said, his voice a little hoarser than usual.
The innkeeper, a stout man with a thin mustache, looked him up and down with a puzzled, skeptical frown. "Two copper coins a night. In advance," he said, expecting hesitation.
Luo Wuji did not answer. He slipped a hand into his sleeve and let two copper coins fall onto the wood with a dry clink.
The innkeeper blinked, pocketed the coins, and slid him a carved wooden token marked seven. Token in hand, Luo Wuji climbed the stairs without looking back.
From the darkest corner, three men in black watched in silence, their eyes tracking him until he vanished down the upper hall.
He found room seven quickly, pushed the door open, and slammed it shut behind him. Inside, the facade broke. He dropped to one knee, clutching his head. His breath came ragged, and the impassive mask he wore cracked under tearing pain.
He knew exactly what caused it. Forcing his meridians against Wei had already been trouble enough. Then he had burned a soul technique to escape that hypocrite of the righteous path. Finally he had wasted another thread of intent on a mere guard. It felt as if his consciousness might gutter out at any moment, like a candle in a storm.
"Not yet," he told himself, jaw clenched until his teeth ached. "This useless body can barely hold a fraction of my soul."
Pain gave way to icy focus. He looked down at his left hand. On his ring finger sat a black iron ring. Inside it lay everything he had stolen from the Crimson Demon Sect branch treasury as it burned.
He closed his eyes and sent a thread of spiritual consciousness into the ring. A spasm ran down his spine and cold sweat beaded on his forehead, but he did not stop.
With a faint flash, four small translucent black stones appeared and dropped into his palm. At once the qi in the room thickened. They were the few mid-grade spirit stones he had left.
Without hesitating over the waste, he bit the tip of his index finger until it bled. Using his blood as ink, he drew quick, complex patterns on each stone, then limped to the four corners of the room, setting a stone down and repeating the same bloody sigil on the floorboards.
Finally he sat in the center in lotus position and fed the last of his qi into the stones. The blood in the patterns lit with a faint crimson glow, drinking the pure qi from the spirit stones. Centered on Luo Wuji, an invisible layer of energy expanded in an instant, sealing the room from sound and presence.
A simple rank one isolation and energy-gathering formation. If he had proper resources and this body were not so weak, he could lay a rank four formation even at his current cultivation. This would do. In little Blackstone City there were not even rank three formation masters.
He closed his eyes and turned his divine sense inward. He could not see his spiritual sea. His cultivation was too low for that, but he could use his spiritual consciousness, and with it he perceived the damage clearly. Fine cracks like crazed porcelain ran across his spirit. Each pulse sent a stabbing pain through his head.
I can repair this with the Void Nurturing Spirit Sutra, but that would take a month of uninterrupted meditation, and I do not have that much time.
He emptied his mind and recalled the words of the Sutra engraved in memory. Use the essence of heaven and earth that dwells in the world to integrate it with the spirit, strengthening the soul from its origin.
Despite the stabbing pain of holding his consciousness active, he sensed an invisible current of colorless energy drifting in the air, drawn by the spirit stones. He shaped his divine sense into an invisible hand and, with a delicacy impossible for a cultivator of his level, began to draw the essence toward his heart, guiding it slowly to where his spiritual gate should be.
To practice the Sutra required great soul talent, but that was irrelevant to Luo Wuji. In this lower plane, he was certain no one possessed better soul control than he did.
Slowly a small whirlpool of invisible, colorless energy gathered around his heart, feeding his wounded soul drop by drop. In the calm, his brows furrowed. Something in the execution was wrong. He could feel it.
He opened his eyes abruptly and coughed a mouthful of blood onto the floor. A dull thud sounded as he caught himself on one palm. "Damn it," he hissed. "Without the thunder root this body cannot withstand the Sutra."
He spat again, and felt his spiritual consciousness begin to fade. He could not believe he had made such a mistake. His mind had been chaos since meeting that young man named Wei. Just before losing consciousness, he dragged a finger through the blood he had spilled and altered the formation patterns. The room flared faintly as a transparent dome settled over his unconscious body.
A black bolt of lightning tore the Nine Heavens in a single slash and the void split wide open. A sea of tribulation fell inverted, each drop heavy as an ancient mountain range. The thirty-three domains trembled, and in the ten thousand lower worlds immortals felt the furious heavens.
In the eye of that apocalypse, Luo Wuji waited alone. His sword rose against heavenly judgment, the blade vibrating with hunger as it devoured thunder. The first bolt struck him head on, splitting flesh to immortal bone. The blood that welled evaporated into scarlet vapor.
The second descended like a pillar of divine punishment meant to erase worlds. Luo Wuji barely turned his wrist. The sword rose, split it in two, and the sky groaned as the halves were violently drawn into his body.
A third dark thunder tinged violet formed like the pillar that holds up hell. Then space tore behind him and three figures wrapped in artifacts descended through the tribulation.
"LUO WUJI!" the three voices roared as one, and the sky thundered with them as three devastating attacks eclipsed the lightning. "This tribulation will be your tomb!"
The protective layer of divine energy around him collapsed under the pressure. With his chest open, the black bolt struck his unprotected body. His immortal flesh, which not even divine-rank weapons could mark, filled with fine cracks, and dark lightning poured from each one.
Luo Wuji coughed black blood that turned to a withered lotus in the air and dissolved. On the brink of death, he let out a tired laugh that made the thunder recoil.
"So you finally show yourselves," he said without turning, his voice broken but full of contempt. "So in the end only you three remain..."
He tightened his grip until his charred hand threatened to break. His black eyes lit with an icy rage that froze the three where they stood. "If I am to fall," he said without hesitation, "I will take you with me. Let heaven burn with us!"
He released the sword and the blade dissolved into ten thousand fragments of light that drove into his chest. His dantian, a sun that had burned for eighty thousand years, exploded. Flesh, bone, soul, everything became a sword.
A light that was neither gold nor silver burst from his soul, erasing the air and freezing time as a human sword carrying a hundred thousand years of betrayal rose against the tribulation and against them.
The three, who only an instant before had smiled in contempt, went pale. "That stance...!" the man in the center choked. "The Heavenly Extinction Sword Sutra?!"
The immortal on the left took half a step back in the void. Even his divine mantle trembled. "Impossible! That cursed technique should have disappeared when we destroyed Wuji Valley eighty thousand years ago..."
"Stop him!" roared the third, and for the first time since attaining immortality, genuine fear showed in his eyes. "If he completes the formation, we all die with him!"
The light devoured them.
Luo Wuji woke with a choked gasp.