Vessel of Worlds

Shielded front and back by two shields, Andy walked lightly toward the sound of the tiger's roar.

Moments later, he emerged from the white jade passage into a great hall several hundred zhang across.

The scene before him stopped him cold.

A broad sword, three chi long and gleaming blood-red from tip to hilt, was buried in the body of a colossal turtle five or six zhang across, tiger-headed and ox-tailed.

By its spiritual energy, the great turtle had to be a rank-five beast. Yet now it lay utterly helpless, its massive body shrinking and withering at visible speed, as though every drop of vital blood in it were being drained into that blood-red sword. And the sword grew redder, brighter, more crystalline by the moment. Even across a hundred-odd zhang, Andy could smell the waves of gore rolling off it.

"You! How did you get in here—are you a five-root cultivator too?" The one wielding the blood-red sword was none other than the black-robed Demon Gate young master. At the sight of Andy bursting into the hall from the passage, his astonishment was no less than Andy's own.

"Oh? And how would you know I'm five-rooted?" Andy asked in surprise.

"Heh. The restriction on this dwelling is a most particular bloodline ward—only cultivators meeting a certain condition may pass through unharmed, while all others are barred. By this young master's deduction, the condition is possessing all five spiritual root attributes. That is precisely why my two subordinates could not enter. Heh heh—I take it those two useless wretches have already died at your hand?" The black-robed youth smiled carelessly as he spoke. His blood sword still needed time to drain the great turtle dry, so he was content to chat with Andy a while.

"Quite right. I killed them," Andy admitted with perfect frankness, then countered: "And three years ago—my companions. What became of them? Did they all die at your hands?"

The black-robed youth gave a dry laugh. "Ha! Better those two died—it spares this young master the trouble of doing it himself later. As for your late-stage companion—he had real ability, I'll grant. He actually lasted several exchanges against me. As for how the others ended... heh heh. Why should this young master tell you?"

Seeing that the blood sword had drained the turtle to an empty shell a few chi across—his stalling accomplished—the youth said no more.

"Hmph. That blood sword of yours is tremendously powerful—beyond the scope of any ordinary peak-grade artifact, if a rank-five beast couldn't resist it for a moment. Is it a dharma treasure, then? My learning is shallow, but I've always heard that only cultivators of Core Formation and above can wield dharma treasures—an iron law of the cultivation world for tens of thousands of years. You may be at the very peak of late-stage Foundation Establishment, but you should not be able to use one!" Andy said, puzzled.

"Ha ha! You orthodox cultivators know only your 'artifacts' and 'dharma treasures.' Have you never heard of the Ten Great Demon Artifacts of antiquity?" The Demon Gate youth held the blood sword poised before him, watching the impossibly dense crimson radiance flow along its blade, and laughed in high spirits.

"The Ten Great Demon Artifacts? The legendary supreme treasures of the demonic path, said to cut down immortals and slay gods? How would such a thing be in the hands of a late-stage Foundation Establishment demonic cultivator?" Andy said, aghast—but his tone brimmed with doubt.

"Correct—so you have some learning after all. A true one of the Ten could flatten the entire cultivation world by itself. The Blood Demon Sword in this young master's hand is a replica of one of the Ten—the God-Slaying Demon Sword. Heh heh. Even a crude replica surpasses an ordinary dharma treasure in power. Now let this young master see what ability an early-stage Foundation Establishment cultivator like you possesses—to have slaughtered my subordinates not once but twice!" As the youth finished, a look of savage ferocity spread across his handsome face—the kind that struck fear at a single glance.

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"Very well!" Andy answered coldly. His hands turned over, white light flashed, and the Blazing Heaven Blade appeared in his grip.

As matters stood, both men were bent on claiming Recluse Ximen's legacy, and neither could possibly yield. Only one of them would leave this place alive. In such circumstances Andy wasted no further breath—he showed his trump card outright.

He gripped the four-chi bone saber in both hands—scarlet from end to end, barely a cun wide, its gently curved blade rippling with a restrained luster that seemed there and not there. Set into its chi-long hilt, a translucent red spirit stone radiated staggering spiritual energy.

"A high-grade spirit stone—a high-grade spirit tool! You're no simple man after all!" The Demon Gate youth had braced himself, knowing his opponent was no ordinary early-stage cultivator—yet the sight of a high-grade spirit stone and a high-grade spirit tool, things even Core Formation cultivators struggled to possess, staggered him all the same.

Before the youth could react further, Andy raised the Blazing Heaven Blade high and hacked down at him with all his strength.

A crescent of searing red light, several chi across, scythed toward the Demon Gate youth!

The youth was no slower. His hand touched the Blood Demon Sword floating before him and swept it lightly at Andy.

An answering crescent—several chi across, but of a dark, dull blood-red—rose to meet it.

Both were red light, but Andy's burned far brighter, and blisteringly hot; the youth's was deeper and murkier, and reeked thickly of blood.

The two crescents met without a sound—and neither could advance a hair's breadth. They hung locked together, until, moments later, with a single detonation, they annihilated one another and dissolved into scattered motes of red light.

Both men's expressions tightened. The Blood Demon Sword and the Blazing Heaven Blade were their deadliest attacks—and each had been neutralized with apparent ease by the other. Wariness deepened on both sides.

The Demon Gate youth was especially shaken. His Blood Demon Sword possessed the singular property of devouring vital blood—and the more it drank, the mightier it grew. It had just finished draining a rank-five beast dry; its power stood at its very peak. That casual-seeming sweep had carried enormous force—and it had done no better than trade evenly with a single strike of the other man's high-grade spirit tool. So this was the power of high-grade spirit stones. A high-grade spirit tool driven by them was not to be underestimated.

Andy was equally stunned. The replica demon artifact's power was unfathomable. His own strike—outwardly plain—had carried force enough to shatter even a peak-grade defensive artifact with ease, and the blood-red broadsword had dissolved it with one light sweep. It overturned much of what he thought he knew about the limits of Foundation Establishment cultivators. The lesson settled deep: the cultivation world remained fathomlessly mysterious, and he was still a frog at the bottom of a well. Treasures, techniques, elixirs beyond his imagining existed in numbers he could not guess. He could never afford carelessness—not for a single moment.

After that opening exchange, deadlocked, neither man rushed to attack again. They watched each other in cold silence.

Then Andy shook his sleeve, and thirty life-sized humanoid puppets dropped into ranks beside him in a rapid patter. Every puppet stood expressionless—shields raised two-handed, or bows in hand—arrayed in three ranks facing the Demon Gate youth.

The first rank of eight all bore shields; the two ranks behind all held longbows.

Shields and bows alike, whatever their colors and attributes, were mid-grade spirit tools—every one.

At the sight, the Demon Gate youth's thoughts spun frantically: Mid-grade spirit tools—impractical things, nearly vanished from the modern cultivation world—but each one prices far above a peak-grade artifact, several thousand spirit stones at the least. Thirty of them—the total must exceed a hundred thousand spirit stones! Even a wealthy Core Formation cultivator's entire fortune might not stretch so far. Who in all the seas is this early-stage youth? Is he, like me, the direct heir of some great Star Sea sect? Did he, like me, find his way into Recluse Ximen's dwelling because he too is five-rooted? But the secret of Recluse Ximen was known only to me and my uncle—how could this man have learned it?

In the space of a breath, countless questions flooded the Demon Gate youth's mind. Whatever shred of contempt he had still harbored for Andy was gone without a trace—replaced by something he refused to name, even to himself: fear.