Chapter 256 |
Ocean waves surged beneath sweeping, gale-force winds. Through the Nine Eyes sealing web, Lin Hui continuously sliced and shattered the monstrous bird trapped inside. In the process, he had been inadvertently caught by the creature's Super Divine Speed, leaving multiple gashes across his body.
His mind-spirit was rapidly depleting. Two grueling hours later, his Ruyi sword reduced the monstrous bird to pulverized fragments for the one thousand eight hundredth time.
Only then did the emerald beams of the Nine Eyes rapidly contract. They formed an orb of light that instantly shot into a small eye on his shoulder.
"No! Impossible! How could I be—" the Mistborn roared in disbelief. Its voice broke off as it finally lost consciousness, sinking into a deep slumber.
The Spirit-Sealing Array forced the trapped creature into a permanent slumber. This seal would last for nine hundred years.
Hovering high in the sky, Lin Hui looked exhausted. He finally retracted his Clear Source Law Body and inspected his physical condition.
His arms had been sapped of nearly all their strength, and his chest bore over thirty gashes from stray hits. Even with his body tempered far beyond human limits, his physical resilience still fell somewhat short of a Mistborn's.
In the creature's final desperate throes—sensing the seal closing around it—its struggles had grown ferocious beyond reason. Had his Surrounding Wind not strengthened alongside his mastery of Wind Force, he would have walked away with far worse than a handful of gashes.
Still, I've finally tested the true limits of a Mistborn, he thought. They cannot be killed—only sealed.
I need to gather eight more monster spirits. The next time I seal a Mistborn, it will be far easier.
He glanced toward the distant sky in the direction of Eagle-man Island. Quite a few spectators were lurking in the shadows there, watching the aftermath. A battle this protracted and fierce could not have failed to draw the attention of nearby experts.
He had expected as much. A massive amount of Wind Disaster Force still lingered at the scene, but he had no energy to spare for clearing and absorbing the residual currents. His condition was terrible; he needed to return and recuperate immediately.
Without hesitation, Lin Hui flickered, wrapping himself in Wind Disaster Force and letting the howling gales sweep him into the distance.
He didn't return directly. Instead, he brushed past the edge of Eagle-man Island—and in that passing moment, swung his sword at the island from afar.
A blue-black sword mark abruptly pierced the Mist and punched through the defensive arrays on the island's periphery. Layer upon layer of protective formations popped like soap bubbles.
Before any of the Eagle-men experts could react, they watched the blue-black energy lance into the center of the island like a bolt of lightning.
At the island's center, a tall Eagle-man covered entirely in pure white feathers flew out from the top of an isolated Moon Tower. Gripping a golden spear in both hands, he hurled it at the descending sword mark with all his might.
Boom!
The golden spear and the sword mark collided directly in front of the Moon Tower, erupting into a gray-white mushroom cloud a hundred meters across. The explosion violently shook the tower, nearly snapping it in half.
Fortunately, a series of newly deployed Relic arrays restabilized the structure in time.
Even so, that single strike had shattered the majority of Eagle-man Island's protective arrays. Only a handful of emergency formations remained operational.
The white-feathered Eagle-man who had met the blow head-on crashed to the ground—severely injured, eyes rolled back, unconscious.
Without a Mistborn present, a casual sword strike from Lin Hui was akin to divine retribution against any expert below that tier.
After observing this from a distance, Lin Hui sped away.
His objective had been achieved. With Eagle-man Island's defensive arrays destroyed, the next step was to invite a calamity—then step forward to save them at precisely the right moment.
But that would have to wait until he had fully recovered.
…
An hour later, at the Clear Wind Dao Academy.
Lin Hui coughed lightly as he slowly sipped from a bowl of freshly brewed medicinal decoction.
Beside him, Liu Xiao wore a simple three-piece armor set draped in a gold-trimmed white robe, preparing to leave for her shift at the Inner City Moon Tower.
"Didn't you say you'd be back earlier?" She noticed his subtle irregularities and frowned, voice soft. "Did something go wrong with your cultivation?"
She couldn't imagine what difficulties someone at Lin Hui's level could still face. In Black Cloud City, with the three city lords standing behind him, what could possibly threaten him enough to leave him injured?
"Just a minor issue." Lin Hui nodded gently. "Don't worry, it's nothing. Oh, right—I've got a craving for boiled Ji fish from the Inner City. Could you pick up a couple on your way back?"
"Of course." Liu Xiao stepped forward, gave him a light kiss, then spun around and flickered out of the courtyard, disappearing from sight.
This left Lin Hui alone, watching Lin Xiaoliu slowly practice her swordplay in the yard.
Li Yuanyuan stood off to the side, correcting Lin Xiaoliu's posture—though she noticed the girl seemed distracted, constantly stealing glances at Lin Hui.
"Xiaoliu, you're about to take the assessment for The Call. You need to step up your cultivation. Don't lose focus now," Li Yuanyuan reminded her, her tone strict.
"Yes, Big Sister Li." Lin Xiaoliu snapped back to attention, a flush of shame crossing her face.
She wasn't usually this easily distracted. But for some reason, Big Brother Hui felt different today. A strange aura seemed to cling to him—one she couldn't identify. While running through her sword forms, she kept catching traces of something at the edge of her perception.
It sounded like someone weeping, roaring, wailing. But whenever she listened for it directly, there was nothing.
Soon after, Lin Hui finished his medicine and quietly left the courtyard. Only then did the faint sounds fade from Lin Xiaoliu's mind.
Over the following days, Big Brother Hui left on another trip. When he returned, and she resumed her sword practice, the sounds came back.
This time, the weeping was faint but persistent, accompanied by what sounded like a woman's voice. The two voices drifted in and out, saturated with profound terror and agony.
Yet no matter how hard she searched, Lin Xiaoliu couldn't pinpoint the source. In fact, whenever she focused deliberately, the sounds vanished altogether.
As time passed, she made the daily trip to the Clear Wind Dao Academy to train. Lin Hui left three more times during this period, and each time he returned, the agonized voices multiplied.
They eventually leveled off at five. Lin Xiaoliu breathed a quiet sigh of relief.
Her best guess was that Big Brother Hui was secretly practicing some powerful martial art. She wanted to ask him—but every time she tried to draw closer, even a step or two, the wails intensified until her head split with pain.
Gradually, she grew afraid of training at the Clear Wind Dao Academy at all. Whenever someone invited her, she found an excuse not to go.
She quietly raised the matter with her eldest brother, Liu Wujun. He was silent for a moment, then told her not to mention it to anyone and to keep it buried in her heart.
Lin Hui's strength had already reached heights far beyond their comprehension. Liu Wujun didn't suspect anything was wrong with Lin Hui; rather, he assumed Lin Xiaoliu's perception was simply too acute, causing her to inadvertently brush against some of Lin Hui's secrets. He quietly procured medicine to help temporarily suppress her symptoms.
After that, everything returned to its former calm.
Time drifted on. In the blink of an eye, over a month had passed.
…
Atop a floating mountain peak in Black Cloud City, Gongsun Xinlian sat cross-legged on an open-air circular white stone array disk. She opened her eyes as Lin Hui slowly flew over and touched down.
"I invited you here because I have a few questions, and one piece of business I need to ask you to handle."
"Go ahead, Big Sister Xinlian. I've been deep in cultivation for a while now—I was already thinking about getting out and clearing my head," Lin Hui said with a smile.
"It's like this." Gongsun Xinlian paused. "Recently, the monitoring Moon Towers around Black Cloud detected the auras of five rogue Mistborn—but they've all disappeared over the past while. Surveillance also picked up traces of your excursions. I wanted to ask if you were the one who made a move."
"Yes. I lured those five Mistborn out one by one and drove them off." Lin Hui nodded. There was no reason to hide it.
"Good. Now, the other matter." She continued, "Eagle-man Island has recently been plagued by mysterious attacks. Their defensive arrays are shattered almost as soon as they're repaired, and this has happened multiple times—yet the island's forces have been completely unable to identify the culprit. They've sent an emergency request for our aid. Lord Sanqiong has asked that we dispatch an investigation team to assess the situation and temporarily guard the island until his return."
"You want me to go?"
"Would that be alright?"
"No problem." Lin Hui agreed without hesitation. This had been one of his objectives all along.
"One last thing." Gongsun Xinlian's voice softened. "Many people are very curious about you and hope to enter the Clear Wind Dao to study the Clear Wind Sword Technique under your tutelage. Handle it as you see fit. You don't need to spare the three of us any face. Deal with it however you must."
"Understood." Lin Hui blinked, then smiled and nodded.
So someone had pulled strings all the way up to the three city lords. News that he—with the body of a mortal—had clashed head-on with Tuyue had clearly spread within certain high-tier circles.
"By the way, has the Black Cloud medicine vault finished its inventory? When can I purchase precious medicines?" Lin Hui asked.
Beyond his fixed quota as Vice City Lord, he also held authorization to purchase directly from Black Cloud's top-tier precious medicine vault—a highly restricted facility. Only figures of the Blood Ancestor's standing, or a Vice City Lord, possessed purchasing rights.
Are you sure you want to use your access for that kind of medicine? Gongsun Xinlian asked via sound transmission. Don't you want to check the armory? Black Cloud has an unbonded Evil Weapon in its possession. Who knows—you might be able to bond with it.
"There's no need. I'll take a look eventually, but I don't need it right now." Lin Hui was genuinely curious about the Evil Weapon, but the fusion success rate was abysmally low, and failure meant certain death. It wasn't worth the risk.
This authorization was granted only once every fifty years. Spending it on that was too steep a price. Exchanging his access for aphrodisiacs was far more cost-effective.
If things went smoothly, utilizing his fifty-percent-off purchasing rights as Vice City Lord would slash the Blood Seal's evolution time by more than half—he might complete the Blood Seal evolution in just two or three years.
"Very well. Everyone has their own path." Gongsun Xinlian paused, as though remembering something. "However, there is some bad news I need to warn you about."
"Please speak."
"The Fourth Princess of the Federation's Inner Court imperial family, Song Feishi, is coming to Black Cloud City. Moreover, she has specifically named you to host her. You must be on high alert—extremely careful around her."
"Is she very strong?"
"She is a Mistborn who possesses Emperor Blood. Her power is naturally immense. Theoretically, she outranks us entirely, and in a direct confrontation, she would suppress us outright. That said, because she is a princess, she rarely fights—so in actual combat, she still isn't a match for Eldest Brother. But she far surpasses Tuyue." Gongsun Xinlian's expression turned grave. "And she far surpasses Second Brother and me."
"Is she coming because of me?" Lin Hui guessed.
"Yes. You must be extremely careful. Do not give her any excuse to make a move against you. If she does, even Eldest Brother won't be able to save you."
"What exactly is Emperor Blood?" Lin Hui frowned.
"When true Evil Mist is condensed to the absolute limit, it crystallizes into a powerful, pure white blood. That is Emperor Blood. It cannot be devoured, and those Mistborn who carry it exert a massive suppressive force over all other Mistborn—suppression at the level of Evil Energy itself. There are only a handful of Emperor Blood Mistborn in the entire Federation, and virtually all of them descend from bloodlines left behind by the Mistborn Emperor."
"And what is the Mistborn Emperor? Aren't we a Federation?" Lin Hui pressed.
"Once, when the human race had only a single Mistborn, that figure was the Mistborn Emperor. As the number of Mistborn grew, the Emperor was forced to abdicate. The nation was reorganized into a Federation, establishing the current structure of the Inner Court and Outer Court," Gongsun Xinlian explained.