Translator: Transn Editor: Transn
Lin Kong became increasingly nervous as he met Zhou Bao’s icy-cold stare. Qin Mengyao was his wife, but most important of all, she possessed the Raging Fire Bloodline, and as such, she was the best person for controlling the Golden Flame Sword. Furthermore, she was one of the most significant fighters of Chaotian Palace. Naturally, Lin Kong did not want anything bad to happen to Qin Mengyao. However, after what he had seen, he figured out that Zhou Bao was much more powerful than what the legends said about him. He had actually felt fearful when he confronted Zhou Bao. It was an innate fear coming from deep inside his heart and his bloodline, which was a feeling he had not experienced for a long time.
But for this fear, he would have taken action as soon as Zhou Bao had taken the Golden Flame Sword away.
“Fellow Taoist Zhou, you have my assurance. Although Mengyao was born in the Qin Family, she has been married to me for a long time already and has nothing to do with the Qin Family!” While speaking, he cast a sharp glance at Qin Mengyao before she could make any remark. Qin Mengyao was extremely unhappy with this situation, however, under Lin Kong’s coercion, she dared not open her mouth to utter any retorts.
“Really? I don’t think so. If she is not involved, she would not have been here now, and why did she launch an attack on me?”
Lin Kong smiled. At this very moment, he had regained the dignity and manner of a Palace Leader. He said, “That was earlier. She will not do that again. I promise you that Mengyao will not cause you any more trouble in the future. If she does, you can just kill her!”
His words sounded very simple. To Qin Mengyao, however, those words swept through her very bones and heart like a cold wind blowing. Subconsciously, she glanced at Lin Kong, only to be met by his icy glare. Submitting to the fear deep inside her heart, she lowered her head and dared not say anything.
“Since this is the case, I’ll give you some face. I promise you that if she does not cause any trouble, I will not go after her!” Zhou Bao nodded his head in agreement.
“However, there is another thing that I need to bother you with!” Lin Kong was delighted he could get Zhou Bao to agree on this matter without the slightest hesitation.
“Do you want that sword back?” Zhou Bao sneered as if he knew what Lin Kong was thinking about. “That would be a bit troublesome. Though that sword means nothing to me, it’s part of my loot. I’ve already spared your wife’s life for your sake. If you still want me to return the sword, other people would think that I’m afraid of the East Sea Chaotian Palace once this matter is made known publicly. I’m afraid that something is very wrong here!”
“Of course I understand. I won’t ask for the sword back for nothing!” Lin Kong said confidently and added, “I’ll offer you a reasonable compensation!”
“A compensation?” Zhou Bao smiled and continued saying, “All right. I’d like to know what you have to offer me?”
Lin Kong smiled and took one item out of his chest pouch, and said, “Well, will this be enough to make amends for your losses?”
“A Fiery Eye?” Upon seeing the fiery pupil, Zhou Bao was startled.
“Yes, it’s a Fiery Eye that has the name of the Eternal Eye. Look…!”
Before he could even finish speaking, Zhou Bao flicked the circle in his hand with his fingers. Soon after, a golden light flashed and shot toward Lin Kong directly.
Lin Kong was overjoyed when he saw this. He loosened his hold and let Zhou Bao take the Fiery Eye away.
Just as he was about to say something, Zhou Bao disappeared.
“How fast he is! Zhou Bao is really powerful. No wonder His Majesty told me not to create any problems!” Lin Kong felt frightened as he had not noticed Zhou Bao’s departure.
“Leader…!”
“Well, that’s it. Go back!” Lin Kong cast a cold glance at Qin Mengyao, saying, “This will be the first time and also the last time. I hope it won’t happen again, otherwise, your days in Chaotian Palace are numbered!”
Qin Mengyao dared not utter a word. She followed Lin Kong and left the South Mountains obediently.
As for the fate of the Qin Family, it was not something that she dared ask about at the present moment.
“Haha, I can’t believe that I have another Fiery Eye. Now, I have four Fiery Eyes in addition to my External Elixir. Shall I turn all of them to External Elixirs? I’ve opened Real Dragon’s Nine Acupoints, therefore, why would I want so many External Elixirs for?” Zhou Bao pondered on this in his heart.
The Fiery Eye was indeed the best material for refining the External Elixir. Zhou Bao had already opened Real Dragon’s Nine Acupoints and possessed immense Real Essence. If he liked, he was still able to open other secret acupoints. However, all this meant little to him because once an acupoint was opened, he would possess immense Real Essence and Dharma power, but this would take up too much of his time in order to absorb the Real Essence and Dharma power. At present, the Real Dragon’s Nine Acupoints and the Fiery Eye External Elixir had already reached his limitation. If he should open one more acupoint, or refine one more External Elixir, he had to double the amount of time he spent practicing every day at the very least. If he were to refine two External Elixirs, he would spend his entire life doing nothing except to practice.
As a person who owned a few Fiery Eyes, he was very familiar with how the Fiery Eye worked. Furthermore, he found that as he became stronger, he attached more importance to it. This was due to a feeling that came from deep inside his bloodline. Therefore, he was badly tempted by it whenever he came across one.
“Forget it. I’d better take it back first. The Fiery Eye can control the Golden Book of Fate, thus, I’m afraid that it may involve some secrets from antiquity times. The damn Green Spirit has been sealed for quite some time already and is not familiar with some of these things. Otherwise, I could have asked him about these matters!”Zhou Bao was furious as he thought of the legendary Great Ancient Demon—Green Spirit.
With his current strength, especially after he had refined the Real Body of Zhuyan and created the Azure Heaven, he always had a kind of internal secret worry whenever he thought about the events that had happened during antiquity times. This worry was groundless and it was all due to his Fiery Eyes.
After he had taken control of the copy of the Golden Book of Fate, he clearly realized that something wonderful had happened to his eyes. It was a feeling that he was going to break through to another level, but he still lacked the opportunity. Furthermore, he could not tell what would happen after he broke through to another level. Since then, every time he thought of the 33 Heavens and things that had happened before, he could feel an uneasiness coming from his eyes.
It was this unease that propelled his desire to accelerate the process of enhancing his power. But it had not been easy for him to do so, for his strength had reached another bottleneck. Neither his Second Primordial Spirit nor his body was ready for a Thunder Tribulation. He still needed to accumulate enough experience.
If he merely wanted to undergo one or two Thunder Tribulations, it would be just a piece of cake for him. However, he was quite ambitious, for he wanted to undergo six Thunder Tribulations at once at the very least and directly attain the Karmic Rank of a Lord of Heaven. He even had a higher ambition—to undergo eight or nine Thunder Tribulations. However, all of this would require a stronger accumulation of practice. Even if he had the Real Body of Zhuyan in his possession, he was not sure that he would be able to undergo so many Thunder Tribulations at one go. Therefore, he still needed a lot of time to accumulate his own knowledge and slowly understand the workings of his own mind and power. In that case, he would surely succeed.
However, the process of accumulating knowledge and experience was extremely long, longer beyond Zhou Bao’s imagination.
“It seems that I need to look carefully before taking each step!” He sighed in his heart and suddenly, his expression changed and a chilly smile appeared on his face. “Haha, I can’t believe that there are some people who are not afraid of death and have actually dared to launch an attack on my headquarters in this world!”
With a quick move, he transformed into a cyan streamer before disappearing into the sky.
At the same time, in the northwest Wuyang Region, with the Lord Mansion in the center, the area within a radius of 300 miles of it was completely enveloped in a cloud of cyan mist.
Dozens of experts with various types of wizard weapons and celestial devices plunged headlong from different directions into the mist. But somehow, they could not get out of the mist but were trapped in the endless illusions produced by the mist.
“Damn it! How could this be? Didn’t Zhou Bao depart from here already? Is there someone else who is able to activate this damn formation?”
The leader roared in anger. The Pure Yang Celestial Device in his hand was emanating a red light to protect him, however, its protection was limited to him only.
Beside him was a man holding a wheel-shaped Pure Yang Celestial Device who looked coldly from the sidelines at his exasperated appearance. Suddenly, the man wielded the celestial device in his hand as if he had just made up his mind. The celestial device immediately turned into a gold rainbow which helped him rush out of the Yin and Yang Dust Formation and then disappeared into the sky.
The leader cursed furiously when he saw this, but that did not last long. A blue rainbow flashed past the sky in the distance and was followed by an icy-cold and merciless killing intent.
It was the ninth year of Yongping of the Jin.
The Wuyang Earl of the Jin, Zhou Bao, on the grounds of the Qin Family’s killing of a member of the Zhou Family arbitrarily, had wiped out the South Mountains and slain nine experts of the Qin Family, including some Elders and the Family Head, Qin Zheng. He had used the long-lost secret skill—Flipping Sky Seal, to raze the headquarters of the Qin Family—Toutuo Ridge, to the ground. Rumors had it that Zhou Bao had also killed the Patriarch of the Qin Family—a Genuine Immortal at the Venerable Realm. However, since this rumor was highly beyond anyone’s belief, very few people believed the tales told.
The attack seemed to be long-premeditated. As soon as Zhou Bao had departed from the Wuyang Region, with the Second Elder of the Kunlun Mountain to be the leader, the two sects of the Northern Yuan—the Kunlun Mountain and Palace of Destruction Demon, launched a joint attack against the Wuyang Region, trying to raze it to the ground at one go. But no one had ever thought that Zhou Bao’s most trusted subordinates, Wang Cheng and Jiang Xiao, had already reached the Expert Realm and had become Level Seven experts at the same time. They activated the Yin and Yang Dust Formation and trapped dozens of experts in it to await Zhou Bao’s arrival. During the attack, the Young Master of the Palace of Destruction Demon was the only one who managed to escape. All the 48 experts, including the Second Elder of the Kunlun Mountain, were completely annihilated. Zhou Bao hung their heads up on the city wall of the Wuyang Region, and it became a center of attention there.
Since then, one of the nine well-known families of the Jin Dynasty, the Qin Family, had disappeared overnight. Led by the Li Family of Pingzhou, the three families which were closest to the South Mountains, all of them had a hand in dividing up the South Mountains. In the next three years, the South Mountains gradually belonged to them.
However, after the battle, the powers of both the Kunlun Mountain and Palace of Destruction Demon were greatly sapped. They all hid themselves to avoid Zhou Bao’s pursuit.
Meanwhile, in the Four Eastern Regions, Divine Wind Palace and the four biggest sects had managed to reach a settlement. The rest of the eight well-known families did not push the Royalty of the Jin anymore and most of the ministers in the court remained. Although there were frictions every now and then on the local level, most of the time, a fragile balance had been successfully maintained.
Everything seemed to have calmed down, but behind this calm, there still lurked a very mysterious situation.
One month later, one of the three Chiefs of the Tian Long Taoism, Wang She, and one of the 13 Living Buddhas of the Snow Mountain Great Wheel Temple, Child-endowing Buddha, secretly entered the Wuyang Region and met with Zhou Bao.
