Vessel of Worlds

"How would the fellow cultivator have Qianqian swear?" The girl smiled slightly. First he had freely gifted the treasure, and only then demanded an oath—clearly he harbored no thought of silencing her. Had he simply waved her off without conditions, she would have found it stranger still.

"You and your honored grandfather are deeply bound. Swear upon him, then—that I could certainly trust," Andy answered after a moment's thought.

At that, a flicker of anger crossed the girl's face, and it turned cold as frost. "Qianqian will never swear upon her grandfather! But Qianqian will swear upon her own heart: not one word of this day's events shall pass my lips—or may I fall to another's hands as a furnace-cauldron, suffer every torment, be invaded by inner demons, and have my cultivation crippled utterly! If that does not satisfy you, take back your bottle!"

Andy nodded. "That was thoughtless of me—no slight to your grandfather was intended. The fairy is a woman of true and deep feeling, and every word came from the heart. How could I fail to believe you?"

Hearing the equal sincerity in his reply, the girl let the matter go.

Andy went on: "That demon-thing is vicious beyond the ordinary—we should both leave soon. Will the fairy continue her search elsewhere? I can guard your departure from this place first."

"Thank you. With the treasure you've given, Qianqian's journey is already complete. Once I've tended to Senior Sister Song's remains, I'll leave the sealed space—and trouble you to stand guard." The girl sighed softly, removed the storage pouch from the Song surnamed woman's body nearby, and laid the corpse itself into a fresh pouch. Then she stowed the jade bottle and took out her restriction disc without hesitation.

A while later, wrapped in gathering white light, the girl gazed at Andy a long moment. "This journey I owe to your rescue—and now a great treasure besides. Qianqian carries yet another deep debt to you... and still doesn't know your full name."

"I am Andy." He smiled slightly.

"Qianqian lives on Boundless Peak in the Taiyi Sect. If ever you need anything, Zhao... Fellow Cultivator Zhao—come find me there. Qianqian will spare nothing!" A faint flush touched her cheeks as she spoke—and then white light flashed, and she was gone from the cavern.

With both young women teleported away, Andy let out a light breath, the corner of his mouth curling. "Well then," he chuckled softly. "No outsiders left—time to play properly with you Ice Demon Imps."

He shook his sleeve, and a dozen-plus bow-armed humanoid puppets dropped into place before him—while in his hands he gripped the four-chi scarlet bone saber.

At Andy's command, the Ice-Wind Python gradually drew its pursuing Ice Demon Imp toward the puppets—then broke into a sudden sprint and shot over their heads.

The imp was scarcely slower; it sprang after in the same breath, claws out to rip open the python's body in midair.

Then a dense storm of spell-light erupted from below—ice spikes, golden blades, barbed thorns, spectral spears—blanketing every foot of air for a dozen zhang behind the python.

The Ice Demon Imp was a master of concealment, its position never fixed—but this barrage came like a falling sky at point-blank range, beyond any dodging. Twisting and wrenching its body in midair, it slipped nearly all of it—but two water arrows still struck home, punching black wounds half a cun wide.

Flesh wounds like these meant nothing to the creature; with its brutal constitution the punctures were already knitting closed and would soon vanish altogether.

But that flicker of time was all Andy needed—the wounds fixed the imp's position. The Blazing Heaven Blade swept out, and a fire dragon ten-odd zhang long lunged at the creature, fangs and claws wide.

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The imp bounded away in panic, ten zhang and more in a few leaps—but the dragon was faster still, running it down and swallowing it whole.

One wolf-howl of a death shriek, and imp and dragon vanished together. Something glinted, falling from midair—and Andy, sweeping in behind, snatched it from the air.

"So this is the crystal core unique to demon-beasts?" A layer of purple qi sheathed Andy's palm, and upon it sat a glittering, rhombic, transparent ice crystal about a cun across.

"An ancient sealed space indeed—harboring demon-beasts the world thought extinct ages ago. In the hands of a demonic-arts cultivator, a core like this would fetch a fine price," Andy murmured, turning it over.

A pity the Ice Demon Imp was only a rank-four demon-beast of late-stage Foundation Establishment caliber—the core itself was of limited use, and dense with demonic qi besides. He had no use for it.

The Ice-Wind Python came sliding over, its two fist-sized green eyes fixed on the core with unmistakable interest.

"Oh? You can use this?" Andy caught the meaning the python pressed toward him, mildly surprised. "True enough—it's an ice-attribute core. Perhaps it would nourish your ice arts."

But the mass of demonic qi within could not simply be ignored.

Drawing the demonic qi out of a demon-beast core was nearly impossible for anyone untrained in demonic arts—but for Andy, holder of the Blood Intent Gate young master's entire estate, it was no great matter.

With due gravity he took a long, narrow jade case from his pouch, murmured the incantation, and peeled away its sealing talismans.

Inside lay a blood-red sword a chi long—the young master's Blood Demon Sword, grown dull and lightless from years without a drink of vital blood.

Andy set the core beside the crimson blade, recited softly, formed a strange seal with both hands, and struck it into the crystal.

A thread of black qi drifted up out of the core—and the Blood Demon Sword drank it into its blade.

Within a single incense stick's time, the core stood scoured clean of demonic qi, while the sword's color had gone a shade darker and grimmer.

Andy resealed the Blood Demon Sword in its warded case with great care and returned it to his pouch.

The purified core, once he had checked it over repeatedly and found nothing amiss, he tossed to the python—which hissed in delight and swallowed it whole.

"The Ice Demon Imp is no solitary creature by nature. There's likely more than one in this place."

Andy searched the cavern carefully. Besides the passage he had entered by, four other deep tunnels branched away.

He raised several spirit tool shields into a tight guard around himself and, with the python, chose a passage and pressed in.

Sure enough, guided by the python's keen senses, he found another Ice Demon Imp—and with the puppets and the Blazing Heaven Blade, claimed a second core with no great effort.

A thorough sweep of three of the four passages yielded three more Ice Demon Imp cores in all.

The last passage opened into an underground cavern dozens of kilometers across—the largest yet, its demonic qi denser than anywhere else. Yet careful searching turned up nothing at all. Only the Ice-Wind Python kept pressing a vague, flickering fear toward him—the weight of the demonic qi here, most likely.

Andy drew the demonic qi from all three remaining cores with the Blood Demon Sword and fed them to the python.

Having swallowed four cores rich with refined ice spiritual power in quick succession, the python's cultivation surged even before full refinement—it was already showing signs of sinking into the long sleep that heralded another molt and advancement. Andy recalled it to the spirit beast pouch without hesitation.

Without the python's help, further finds were unlikely, so he simply returned to the Cold Fragrance Spring.

He set the python to quiet cultivation within the frigid spring, refining the imp cores by the water's aid, then laid a formation at the cavern mouth against intruders.

That done, Andy found a level patch of ground and sat down to meditate.

Two days later—the sixth, by count, since his entry into the Mystic Cold Realm—the python had settled into deep sleep within his pouch.

Andy retrieved the jade bottle still catching drops beneath the stalactite, checked its contents with his spiritual sense, and—well satisfied—stoppered it and put it away.

Then he gathered up his formation implements, took out the restriction disc for leaving the sealed space, and activated it, ready to return to the waters off Yingzhou.

Wait one day more, and every cultivator still inside would be expelled at once—a scene certain to be chaos itself. The empty-handed heterodox cultivators especially might turn their humiliation to spite and, on their own Yingzhou ground, make trouble for the pleasure of it. Andy wanted no part of such accidents—better to forfeit that last negligible trickle of Nine Colds Mystic Nether Water.

As for smashing the stalactite so the place could never again produce the liquid—that Andy would never do. Harm to others with no gain to oneself was simply not his way.