Li Qingshan moved from battlefield to battlefield, yelling out at first to capture their attention before making an example out of people by killing them. In the end, he would talk and gather all the Foundation Establishment cultivators to retain order. After gaining experience, he performed his job even more smoothly.
This was obviously all built on the precondition of absolute strength. He was already at peak Foundation Establishment, and combined with his demon heart, demonification, and a powerful weapon like the Traitorous Demon sword, he could even take on regular early Golden Core cultivators. There were no Foundation Establishment cultivators that could oppose him.
Apart from his strength, the power of demon suppression from the Demon Suppression Statuary played a crucial role. No matter how frenzied and bloodthirsty a cultivator was, basically all of them would recover their rationality very quickly once they were wrapped in the Chains of Demon Suppression.
Wherever Li Qingshan passed by, battles would end immediately. Then, he would gather everyone together. The cultivators from the Academy of the Hundred Schools of the Clear River prefecture all gathered around him. Most of those who fell in battle were Qi Practitioners, and most of the Foundation Establishment cultivators were still alive. Ru Xin and Chu Danqing were fine, which brought him relief.
Afterwards, he made the buddhist monks gather together and chant buddhist scriptures and the disciples of the school of Music play their instruments. Afterwards, he made the cultivators of the various schools and sects use techniques that could calm the mind to resist the influence of the Dragon Arena. He had finally placed the situation under his control. The rising murderousness and boiling battle intent gradually settled down.
Si Qing was clashing against the mysterious black shadow. When he saw this, he could not help but panic. He was tempted to carve Li Qingshan to pieces, but he could not split his focus at all right now. His opponent was extremely powerful, and he possessed a dense power of death, invading and eating away at his life force.
There had never been a lot of people who could fight equally against him. He had already guessed who he was. “Even the crown prince of the Green province daemons would desire my useless arena?”
“Si Qing, do you think I don’t know how Asura Fields are refined?”
Mo Yu stopped hiding his identity. He had always been in the Ruyi commandery, investigating who had killed his subordinates and took the Three Absolutes Calligraphy. This was not difficult for him. Even if there were no leads or traces, he could follow the aura of death and find the murderer. However, the end result surprised him, forcing him to slow down with the investigation. Afterwards, he happened to witness Si Qing’s battle with the Golden Core cultivators, which allowed him to get an idea of what he was trying to do.
Si Qing’s face changed. “I am a prince of the Great Xia empire. Aren’t you afraid of the imperial court punishing you for stealing from me?”
Mo Yu said, “You’re sacrificing so many cultivators, yet you’re not afraid of the imperial court’s punishment?”
Both of them possessed noble statuses, and they both knew very well that so-called laws and rules were merely restraints the strong had placed on the weak. Only those without backing would worry about them. If Si Qing could refine an Asura Field fearlessly, then Mo Yu could steal it fearlessly. Was the Great Xia empire supposed to declare war against the Dragon King of Ink Sea over something as measly as this?
Their backings canceled each other out, so at the end of the day, it would still be up to their respective abilities. Mo Yu understood the value of the Asura Field very well. In the past, he might not have tried to steal it, but right now, there was a daemon he wanted to kill very much.
“Give me the Asura Field. I’ll give it back to you once I kill Northmoon.”
How could Si Qing believe him? He sneered. “Do you think I’m easy to trick like a kid? If you stop right now, I’ll guarantee you that I’ll kill Northmoon.”
Mo Yu said nothing more. Although Si Qing was the owner of the Dragon Arena, he had made several days of preparations, reaching the core of the Dragon Arena after much difficulty, so how could he give up? It was not like he had to worry about Jia Zhen and E Dan surrounding him. Once he stole it successfully, he could immediately use his innate ability. Who would be able to stop him then?
With the Dragon Arena as the medium, two forces tugged constantly. Si Qing’s strength was brutal, but Mo Yu’s power of death clung on firmly, tightly adhered inside the Dragon Arena. For a moment, they were evenly matched.
Although the battles in the Dragon Arena had stopped, their killing intent and battle intent flourished, channeling into the Dragon Arena constantly and converting it into an Asura Field.
……
Great snowflakes drifted through the air. A while later, the ground was covered in a sheet of snow, covering all of the blood and corpses. Several thousand cultivators sat on the snowy ground without moving at all, allowing the snow to fall on them.
Logically speaking, Qi Practitioners were all immune to the winter cold and summer heat, but the snowflakes contained a power of frigidness. The weaker Qi Practitioners could not help but shiver slightly, but their minds became calmer and calmer. As they listened to the chanting, they recalled what they went through in the past few days and shivered in fear.
Countless cultivators had been slain, many of which were their seniors, juniors, disciple, or lovers. If Li Qingshan had not appeared, probably most of the people here could not escape that fate. They felt both gratitude and admiration towards him, as well as deep fear.
As for Si Qing, they felt deep hatred, whether they were cultivators of the sects or the hundred schools. Is he allowed to treat us inhumanely, making us kill one another like gu insects to satisfy his twisted interests simply because he’s a prince?
Their hatred tormented them like fire, and their killing intent that had been pacified after so much difficulty began to bubble once again. Qi Practitioners would leap up from the snowy ground from time to time with their eyes completely red, waving their weapons around. Only slaughter could pacify this fury.
But a pitch-black chain would immediately shoot over and bind these people, pulling them into the pitch-black Demon Suppression Tower. Everyone could not help but stare at the lofty figure standing in front of the Demon Suppression Tower, trembling in fear inside. Everyone had witnessed how Li Qingshan killed people. He was not soft-hearted at all. He cut them down like vegetables.
“C- commander Li, is that disciple of mine… still fine?” asked an old cultivator in worry as he watched his disciple enter the Demon Suppression Tower.
Li Qingshan said, “Don’t worry, it’s not enough to kill him!”
The Demon Suppression Tower had always been able to filter out the influence of the Dragon Arena and suppress demonic natures. With the natures of these Qi Practitioners, basically all of them were suppressed instantly. With the situation under control, Li Qingshan did not want to kill people blindly either.
“That’s good to know!” The cultivator stopped worrying and bowed deeply, retreating back into the ground.
“Qingshan, it’s all thanks to you, or we’d all be in danger. I didn’t think, I didn’t think it would be so dangerous this time!” At the end of the day, Liu Zhangqing did not have the courage to openly denounce Si Qing. The others were the same, but they struggled to hide the fury and dissatisfaction on their faces.
“That bastard Si Qing wants us all to die. I’ll go to the last battlefield immediately and slaughter his remaining lackeys!”
Li Qingshan visited four battlefields, but he failed to find the three people who had managed to escape. Only the battlefield with a forest of stone remained, as it had a natural formation. He chose to stabilise the situation first before freeing himself up to hunt them down.
Liu Zhangqing sighed. “I wonder what benefit he’ll get from doing this.”
“Si Qing wants to refine this Dragon Arena into an Asura Field!” Han Tieyi said coldly. As a military disciple from an aristocratic clan, he had heard a few things about how Asura Fields could be refined from Dragon Arenas. He was not too familiar with the exact method, but after going through all this, it was as clear as day.
Following Han Tieyi’s explanation, everyone came to a realisation and hated Si Qing even more. He was actually trying to sacrifice several thousand lives, the foundation of the entire cultivation community of the Ruyi commandery.
Li Qingshan became even more determined. He refused to let him succeed! Very clearly, once Si Qing refined the Asura Field, he would be the first on the list to take out.
“Qingshan, tell me you’re fine with how you’ve transformed!” Hua Chengzan’s voice suddenly rang out in his ears. Li Qingshan saw worry flash through his eyes. Hua Chengzan knew Li Qingshan’s secret. Seeing how he demonified, he thought it was some daemonic technique and that he had probably given away his secret.
Li Qingshan said, “Don’t worry. This is an orthodox buddhist cultivation method!”
If Li Qingshan were to say it was a demonic art, Hua Chengzan would be a little more convinced, but from how he teemed with demon qi, how could Hua Chengzan draw a connection with buddhism at all? He asked with a bitter smile, “I can’t find Chenglu anywhere. Hopefully she hasn’t entered the formation. What would we do then?”
“Isn’t she coming over right now?” Li Qingshan pointed into the distance with a smile.
A figure flew over from the horizon, glistening with golden light. As it turned out, she was a beautiful woman. Her bearing was something else, immediately attracting everyone’s attention.
“Big brother Li!?”
Hua Chenglu arrived before Li Qingshan, raising her head and asking in surprise. She had never seen Li Qingshan like this either. After Li Qingshan left, she finished gathering the nectar of the sun vine flowers. The nectar held extremely great value to her, a practitioner of the Method of Springtime Bloom. She also became covered in glistening pollen.
“Chenglu!!”
However, Hua Chenglu was nowhere near as surprised as Hua Chengzan and everyone who knew her. When she entered the Dragon Arena, she was clearly still a Qi Practitioner, still very far away from the tenth layer, so how had she become a Foundation Establishment cultivator in the blink of an eye? And, from her aura, she had almost reached the level of breaking through to mid Foundation Establishment.
Although there were plenty of fortuitous encounters in the cultivation world, a fortuitous encounter that could make someone reach such a level in a mere few days was unheard of.
Li Qingshan sniggered. “What, you don’t recognise me?”
“This is fantastic!”
Hua Chenglu lit up with delight. After Li Qingshan vanished, she had always been worried. Now that she saw he was perfectly fine, she finally let out a sigh of relief. After undergoing the Wisdom Imbuement, she understood the feelings in her heart, but she understood even better that probably nothing would end up happening between them. However, now that she saw him again, her emotions actually ran a little out of control.
Even though his demonified appearance seemed extremely vicious and hideous in the eyes of others, in her eyes, he even outshone the handsome Hua Chengzan. Whether he was handsome or ugly, no one could replace his existence.
Hua Chengzan was as quick-witted as people came. He immediately noticed that something was wrong with Hua Chenglu’s expression and was secretly alarmed. He asked, “Chenglu, how did you reach Foundation Establishment?”
This was also the question that everyone wanted to ask. Under everyone’s gazes, Hua Chenglu remained calm. Just how self-assured she had become was enough to surprise everyone, but they all heard her say, “It’s a long story, but it’s all thanks to big brother Li!”
Immediately, everyone’s gazes gathered on Li Qingshan. They found him even more difficult to see through now.
Li Qingshan said, “That was your own good luck. I just happened to be there, that’s all.” Suddenly, he heard Ru Xin’s snickering voice in his ears, “Congratulations on capturing another beauty’s heart, fellow Li.”
Li Qingshan glanced at her with a smile. “I’ve done many reckless things when I was drunk, but all I fear is disappointing beauties due to my fickleness of love. Are you perhaps jealous, fellow Ru Xin?”
TL: The first sentence is from a poem by Yu Dafu, which was written about the execution of the Five Martyrs of the Leave of Left-Wing Writers in 1931 by the Kuomintang. The poem is filled with gloom and fury, lamenting over the situation back then and the fate of the country. It basically merges the feeling of fury over how the government repressed the common people while allowing the doctrine of the Japanese Empire to invade the land with the feeling of concern over the fate of the country.
Ru Xin said, “After this comes to an end, there’s something I must request your help for.”
Rarely did Li Qingshan ever see her behave so sternly, and he could vaguely feel that she had changed, but he was unable to explain exactly where. As a result, he said, “Does the word ‘request’ even have to exist between us? Even if you want the stars and moon in the sky, there will be a day when I can retrieve them for you.”
Plucking the moon and stars from the night sky was a wild wish of his.
Ru Xin pondered silently for a while. “Stop trying to coax me with some boasts. I’ll never fall for your tricks!”
“Haha, you even managed to see through that!”
Li Qingshan leapt up and took off, barging into the maze-like formation of the forest of stone to finish off Si Qing’s lackeys.
