Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
In the past year, Gu Shenwei’s Qi deviation had actually stabilized, settling into a regular pattern of occuring every forty or fifty days. It was like a reasonable parasite which had made a tacit agreement with its host and agreed to lower the amount of torture its owner had to suffer before dying.
But it couldn’t be stimulated, neither internally nor externally.
This was also one of the drawbacks of the Death Sutra Swordsmanship, which focused on exerting one’s full strength and killing in one strike. If one’s power was not fully released, the force would turn on the wielder. Lotus who was fine now had once suffered through Qi deviation due to it. Gu Shenwei still had this hidden danger and therefore, was more sensitive to being pressured.
The combined force of the five Taoist priests was a heavy pressure.
Dao Xiu was big and tall. Behind him, the thinnest Dao Huo was pressing his palm on the vital acupoints of his back and continuously pouring out his internal energy, while the other three Taoist priests were also helping out through the conduit Dao Huo.
This was a clear violation of the rules of the kung fu competition, and the cover-up was very poor. But Gu Shenwei could already think of their excuse, “To deal with the insidious heretic, we had to use insidious means.”
As a matter of fact, he had guessed beforehand that the five were going to fight together, but what surprised him was that the five’s internal energy could be blended into one harmonious whole.
Gu Shenwei shuddered. The familiar little devil reappeared. It was done going through its understanding and reasoning and only wanted to make a scene as it pleased, regardless of its master’s fate.
The chill fell upon him, and the ice needles in his Dantian came into being. Usually, at such moment, Gu Shenwei would exert all his internal Qi to protect his heart meridian before leaving the rest of his body to the ice needles.
This time, however, the internal trouble again rose before the foreign enemy was removed. He was immediately caught in a dilemma.
It was a life-or-death moment. The five Taoist priests’ had formed a crushing force, and yet the millions of ice needles in his Dantian had always been dominant, neither of them leaving any time for Gu Shenwei to dwell on his situation.
Just at that very moment, a flash of inspiration perhaps accumulated through years of experience and struggle inspired Gu Shenwei to gamble his life on a single stake.
This wasn’t the only path open to him but it was the one least considered. Yet now even though he hadn’t reasoned out why he should take this path, he just felt that this was the only way to go forward and that he had to go along it.
He withdrew both his yin and yang energy, and not only let the foreign enemy to come in, but also allowed his internal ice needles to expand at will.
Dao Xiu’s face grew even redder. He had finally broken into the enemy’s Dantian. With a final blow, he could wipe out all of the other side’s internal energy, which the Dragon King had accumulated through years of hard training, and make him a powerless man.
The internal Qi of the orthodox sect had met the stealthy but tyrannical ‘ice needle’. If both sides were masters of martial arts, they would be in a state of shock at first, and then a state of utter amazement, followed by a sense of strangeness, and finally a mindset of extremely stubbornness. Half-like youths seeking to prove themselves, and half-like beasts in heat the two forces circled each other, red-eyed, and viciously bumping into each other in a fight to the death, both feeling themselves to be the stronger side.
Both had their own reasons.
The elders of the Jade Pure Sect thought that they were very powerful in terms of their internal energy. Even a single one of them was already a bit stronger than the Dragon King, so the combined power of them five should be nearly invincible throughout the whole world.
The ice needles inside Gu Shenwei’s body was like a country boy who had dominated the village for many years and had never met a worthy opponent. Running amok had become a deep-rooted instinct.
Only Gu Shenwei, whose body had become the war field, was the weak maiden.
When pain surpassed the limit, it was not pain anymore. Like a pessimistic person committing suicide, Gu Shenwei coldly watched the blood gurgling from his wound, not intending and also powerless to help.
He felt that he had lost consciousness for some time, and though his thoughts were coherent, the scene in front of him was broken. One moment ago, his left fist was still touching Dao Xiu’s palm. And then in less than a blink of an eye, he had fallen to the ground and the other five Taoist priests were also lying in disorder on the ground several steps away.
As the pain in his body suddenly turned crystal clear, Gu Shenwei couldn’t help but groan. Besides the pain of the familiar piercing chill, there was an even deeper pain born from fractures and emptiness.
His body seemed to have been cut into pieces, but his consciousness, the bearer of the pain, had remained intact.
Gu Shenwei’s body wasn’t damaged at all. What was broken were his meridians.
Every time he had fallen into Qi deviation, Gu Shenwei would guide his internal Qi to protect his heart meridian, but this time, he couldn’t find his internal Qi at all. His Dantian had completely become the territory of the ‘ice needle’, which had also paid a heavy price for its recklessness. It was dying under the impact of the outside forces and had greatly reduced its ability to inflict pain.
“Heh.” Gu Shenwei forced himself to stand up. As an expert in enduring pain, he wouldn’t break down easily in front of the newly popped-up ‘little guy’.
But his hands were trembling slightly. He gripped his saber hilt, drew it out, and slashed. It was still fast but its speed had fallen far short of what it used to be. The only consolation for him was that his internal Qi which had been both internally and externally attacked had finally emerged from the ruins, weak and fragile, like a bud in cracked concrete, but the sensation proved its existence.
Gu Shenwei had been trying to control the growth of his power, hoping that his yin and yang energy could be refined to an even purer point before fusing completely. Now his plan had come true but it was quite different from what he imagined.
The Daoless Divine Power was a type of yin energy which Gu Shenwei had practiced for a long while and was the foundation of his internal energy. The Sumeru Mustard Divine Power was a type of yang energy which he had practiced only a few days and was very weak. But all of a sudden, the two became equally powerful, or more accurately, equally weak.
So was his Balanced Power. Gu Shenwei tried the three sets of internal Qi manuals one by one but none of them worked. None of the methods could force his internal Qi to flow through his broken meridians.
He was already acquainted with Qi deviation. Although he had a new opponent this time, his way of dealing with it was the same, which was to leave it as it was.
The Taoist priests on the ground were also groaning but they were not dead yet.
There was no victor in this competition.
Gu Shenwei walked over with his saber. He had to kill all the enemy before they came to their senses. In the face of life and death, seeing the Khan was not as important.
Amongst the five of them, Dao Nian was the most powerful so he woke up first. When he saw the Dragon King coming over with a saber, he bounced up halfway before falling as he tried to straighten his legs. Then he spat out a large mouthful of blood and began to tremble. As time went by, his trembling got worse like a sheep recognizing the coming of its butcher.
The other four Taoist priests woke up one by one with the same reaction, vomiting blood, trembling, and shaking violently.
The faces of the five all turned pale without exception.
Gu Shenwei stopped. These people looked exactly like him now.
The frosty Qi that lurked in Gu Shenwei’s Dantian had learned how to ‘infect’ people. The people of the Jade Pure Sect who had never learned the Daoless Divine Power were now also suffering from Qi deviation.
“What … What is going on? I … feel so cold.” The tall Dao Xiu asked in such a trembling voice that the blood Dao Nian had spat out didn’t deserve any attention at all in contrast.
“Exert all your power to remove the chills,” Dao Nian, the leader, softly said before he looked up at the Dragon King. Whether they could use their internal energy to drive away the coldness depended not only on their own wishes now but also on the Dragon King’s attitude.
“You win,” Dao Nian said dismally. The five elders of the Jade Pure Sect had fought together but still wasn’t the match for a younger generation, which was really a fiasco to them.
In the eyes of the five Taoist priests, the Dragon King had won and won thoroughly. They did not know that their opponent’s meridians were severely damaged and that he had actually suffered more than themselves. What they saw was the seemingly intact Dragon King, proven by the fact that he didn’t even vomit blood.
“I win.” Gu Shenwei, of course, would not tell the truth. He also gave up the idea of killing people for the time being.
“Such a magical internal energy actually exists in the world. We, the Jade Pure Sect, are really ignorant. We are sincerely convinced and will not refute the Dragon King from now on.”
Dao Nian admitted defeat while his junior brothers all closed their eyes to concentrate on driving the cold chill out.
Gu Shenwei nodded and said, “Very well, take me to see the Khan later.”
“As the Dragon King pleases,” Dao Nian replied in a humble tone. After staring at the Dragon King for a while and making sure that he would not attack, he also closed his eyes.
Gu Shenwei could easily kill the five one by one but he didn’t do so. He just watched in silence. He was confident that these people would not dare to disobey him afterwards.
The tall Dao Xiu was really the weakest. He opened his eyes first and spat out a mouthful of blood, with his arms folded across his chest. His face had turned blue due to the coldness and his lips were purple. “I … I can’t suppress it anymore.”
“It seems as if tens of thousands of ice-needles have gathered in your Dantian and spread out through your meridians to the whole body.” Gu Shenwei helped describe the state of his body.
“Yes, yes. The more I resist it, the faster it spreads. My internal energy is … not powerful enough.”
Gu Shenwei no longer said another word until the other Taoist priests gave up one by one.
“What kind of kung fu is this?” Dao Nian was the last person to be defeated by the ice-needles in his body. He finally realized that only the Dragon King could save them.
“The Daoless Divine Power.”
“This isn’t the Daoless Divine Power.” Dao Nian already had some understanding of the yin and yang Qi after two internal energy competitions.
Gu Shenwei put away his saber. The pain of the broken meridians had started to ease. Although he still couldn’t direct his internal Qi, he knew he had escaped from another disaster. “This is the transformed Daoless Divine Power due to Qi deviation.”
“Qi deviation?” The five Taoists asked in unison as if they had never heard the term before.
In their mind, the Jade Pure Sect was an orthodox sect, and evil things like Qi deviation would never occur to them.
“Thank you for taking the hidden trouble from me.” The frosty Qi in Gu Shenwei’s Dantian made a weak protest but got no response from its master.
The five Taoist priests were dumbfounded. They had never heard such a strange thing where Qi deviation was transferred to other people’s body. But the Dragon King always had strange, fanciful ideas. The Three-in-One Power was already like barking at the moon, so it was normal for him to come out with another fantastic idea.
“I don’t believe it.” Dao Xiu’s voice would sound very moving and tragic if it were not trembling so much.
“Believe it or not, all I can say is that using your internal energy to resist it is useless and will backfire.”
“Why didn’t you tell us that earlier?!”
“No one asked. I thought that the Jade Pure Sect had other divine powers to protect yourselves. There’s only one way to control the Qi deviation.”
“Quick, tell us now. We don’t have any divine power left.” The trembling in Dao Xiu’s voice grew worse.
Gu Shenwei kept silent. His body told him that he should rest and recuperate as soon as possible but his mind decided that he must finish this tonight.
“The Dragon King must see the Khan?” Dao Nian was very clear about the Dragon King’s intentions.
“Yes.”
“But the chill in our bodies …”
“Do not use your internal energy. Suck it up. You won’t die in a short while.”
This was the deal that Gu Shenwei gave them. He wanted to see the Khan. Even if what the Second Consort had said was true, he wanted to hear and see it with his own ears and eyes from the Lord of the Prairie.
