Chapter 1421 - 673: Black and White Pieces (3)
Right, same goes for this Zhu Yuer—though at the very start it really was Tie Dan himself, hugging the plan of seizing his Dao Body, hoodwinking and fooling him, and feeding him the White Piece. But...
"Master! Draw your sword!!"
That White Piece was indeed a cut above the rest, still had energy to spare to notice Tie Dan’s conflicted expression, and roared,
"Don’t worry about me! Draw your sword! You absolutely must not let this Demon Fetus be born!"
The Black Piece also roared,
"Fine! If it’s not born, it’s not born! Master, you guard Senior Brother! I’ll swap places with this son of a bitch!"
Yu’er woke up too,
"Uu, uu, Master, Master save me, I’m about to split apart!"
Tie Dan was speechless,
"..."
"Ahem, Senior, Senior, are you all right?"
Suddenly, from the depths of Mingming came Cang Bai’s voice. Tie Dan also knew that most likely the Body Seizing over here had dragged on too long, and the three from Emei had already caught their breath. He said irritably,
"What, you want to take me as your master too?"
Cang Wu couldn’t bear his impatience,
"So what exactly is going on now? Do you need our assistance?"
Tie Dan thought for a bit, and asked back through the echo,
"You Emei lot said earlier you hacked your way out of the Ten Absolute Array? Don’t tell me you already fought your way into the Heavenly Mountain Divine Sect Headquarters? And what was that you said about hitting the Divine Sect twice? What’s that supposed to mean? Could it be there are still other Mountain Men alive inside the Ten Absolute Array?"
Outside, they were choked for a moment, probably having no idea why, with the Demon God here about to wipe out the world, Tie Dan suddenly went off on tangents with this line of questioning. But after all, this Daoist Lord Beichen’s power was astonishing, and his Disciple was a Heavenly Pride Daoist; this pair of master and Disciple were surely the hope of Mystic Sect revival. Every word and act must carry profound meaning. So they didn’t waste time, and spoke frankly,
"Actually it wasn’t twice, at least three times. Senior, there’s something you don’t know: back then that God Sect Leader burst onto the scene out of nowhere, defeating the Nine Mountain Gate Masters one after another, and seized Cloud Platform to take it to Heavenly Mountain. However, the Mystic Sect calculated that the various Sect Leaders weren’t dead, just temporarily trapped by the Divine Sect, their lives hanging by a thread.
At that time the nine major sects gathered the elites of each mountain and together fought their way into Divine Sect territory to besiege Bright Summit. Unfortunately, the assembly was rushed, preparations inadequate, many experts couldn’t make it, while Divine Sect Headquarters had long since prepared their defenses and even had the Heartless Sword Master as protector, sword-challenging the heroes. In the end it all fell short, and they were suppressed inside the Ten Extremes Formation, all of them slammed down at the foot of Heavenly Mountain.
Back then our Emei Sect was still at Returning Ruins suppressing a horde of demons; when we heard the news and rushed back to the Central Plains, the first battle was already lost. So our Mystic Sect naturally gathered Fellow Daoists again, contacted Penglai, Heng Mountain and other mountains. This time we emptied the nest; each mountain’s ancestor guardians came out of seclusion, and we sent another allied army to attempt a rescue.
Sadly, in the previous round, the ones lost were each mountain’s Sect Leader Daoist Lord, the core backbone elites. This time the mobilized forces were mostly the old, weak, sick, and disabled who had shut themselves away in the mountains. And with us weakening while they grew stronger, the Divine Sect after the previous battle not only understood our Mystic Sect Daoism and Magic thoroughly, but had also summoned all Divine Sect Disciples under heaven to come for the decisive battle. Moreover, that Kunlun Demon Path, the remnants of the Immortal Alliance, and those demon of the rebel army all defected over in full, surrounding and attacking us from all sides, coming to settle the karmic ledger of these years.
Thus the second battle was even more tragic. From the moment of assembly we were chased, hunted, and blocked the whole way, and in the end had no choice but to split our troops in two—one route crossing over from Yin Mountain, and one crossing the mountains by way of Kunlun.
The Yin Mountain Road route had our Emei Sect serving as vanguard; we drove a spear straight into Heavenly Mountain, but in the end when we hacked our way into the Ten Absolute Array, we only managed to clang and shatter three arrays, and hadn’t yet pushed into Headquarters when the Mystic Sect folk behind us already fell into being surrounded by the demon horde, lives on the brink. Meanwhile, the Kunlun route relief army still hadn’t arrived; most likely they’d already been ambushed...
At that point the matter was beyond salvation, and most of us were wounded. In the end it was all thanks to Senior Brother Cang Song shattering the array with a single punch, blasting out a blood-soaked path so we could break free from the encirclement and retreat back to Emei."
Tie Dan fell silent for a while,
"Then do you know of a man named Huangfu Yi?"
Cang Ming spoke up,
"Of course we do! Brother Huangfu is the descendant of a General’s family, a Northern hero. He obtained the Sword Sect True Inheritor teachings at Yin Mountain Jade, and is a man of heroic courage and loyal liver, righteousness towering to the sky. He’s fought side by side with us all along, Demon Slayer and Demon Extermination!
Back then he entered the array along with us, but inside the array he was ambushed and heavily injured by a demon, so he stayed behind alone to cover the retreat, stopping the Duan Family pursuers. I fear he already..."
Tie Dan glanced at the White Piece,
"Since he obtained the True Inheritor swordsmanship, he’s that Shen Dan’s Disciple then. So how come he was still with you lot? And how is his swordsmanship—can you beat him?"
Cang Ming hesitated for a moment and said tactfully,
"Brother Huangfu’s talent is astounding, his potential boundless; among the younger generation he’s still quite outstanding. However, his affinity with the Heartless Sword Master is somewhat lacking. It seems he has a sect-destroying blood feud with the Divine Sect, so though they met once, he refused to take him as master.
Also, he only learned swordsmanship for self-defense, and refused to practice the Xiaoyao Energy Replenishment Dao, nor would he take any other master. He’s always been clawing his way forward on his own, lacking a few pointers from a famous teacher. If he could temper himself for another five hundred years, perhaps he’d be able to cross swords with me."
Tie Dan sighed. These stubborn bastards, one after another, all insisting on taking him as master...
"Ah! This is so annoying! Fine, fine! Then I’ll take the whole lot of you!"