Just A Daoist Who Occasionally Kicks Ass

“Stop resisting. Give me your primordial spirit, or this forbidden denizen of the underworld will destroy Taixu Temple and drown all living things in Xuzhou Prefecture! Release your mind, fuse with me, and I will grant you great power to help you slay demons!”

A voice kept whispering into Huayang’s heart, seducing her. At first she thought it was an inner demon, but the voice claimed to be the sect’s founding ancestor, Celestial Maiden Ziyun herself.

Still, no matter who it claimed to be, Huayang refused to lose herself. She had risen young, gifted and famous in the Dao; she carried her sect’s hopes on her shoulders. She absolutely could not sink into oblivion.

Yet with each defeat by Su Shunqing, her spirit withered a little more. Her resolve began to wobble, and she faltered.

A smear of cinnabar appeared between her brows; her fair face took on a sacred cast, mortal traces fading while immortal aura increased.

Daoist Spiritual Master Xuanji, exhausted from sustaining the formation, brightened at once.

“Huayang, that is the founding ancestor manifesting! Open your heart, unite with the founding ancestor, and you can avert today’s calamity!” Xuanji cried out.

Those underworld fiends had been summoned from the black banner; if the mountain gate were forced open, catastrophe would follow. Xuanji knew her disciple’s temperament, pressured by this great momentum, now was the critical moment to force a union and provide the opportunity for the founding ancestor’s revival.

Huayang’s body trembled, turning stiff as she slowly looked toward her master, Daoist Spiritual Master Xuanji.

A faint, dreadful intuition rose within her; if she truly opened her mind, she would be lost forever. It was the instinctive warning of a cultivator at the third realm when faced with mortal peril.

But her master’s words echoed endlessly in her ears.

Must I truly sacrifice myself... to awaken the founding ancestor and repel this forbidden being from the underworld?