Zhenming Pagoda 1

The Shushan Sect recently had a major incident.

Before discussing this major incident, I must first talk about the Shushan Sect's world-renowned Zhenming Pagoda. This pagoda is thousands of feet tall, standing from afar like a pillar of heaven on the west side of the Shushan Sect's main peak—Lingxiao Peak. Reflecting the magnificent mountains, rivers, and sea of clouds, it is incomparably majestic. However, despite the pagoda's grandeur and beauty, the things suppressed inside pale the faces of anyone who speaks of them.

Imprisoned there are eighty-one demons that brought disaster to the mortal realm, including Aoyin, Gudiao, Paoxiao, and so on. Any single one of them taken out would be a massive villain capable of causing immense catastrophe in the human world. Receiving the mandate of heaven, the Shushan Sect wrapped the Zhenming Pagoda layer upon layer with the most powerful and complex Yuxu Dragon-Trapping Array. To monitor the demons in the pagoda, successive generations of the Elder Siming had to accept the heavenly mandate and enter the Chang'an Cave beneath the pagoda to stay in year-round secluded meditation. This cave and the Zhenming Pagoda are an integrated whole; as long as there is any abnormal movement inside the pagoda, Elder Siming can sense it. Even for disciples of the sect, entering the pagoda is impossible without the joint approval of the Sect Master and the four great elders. But to be honest, with so many terrifying things locked inside, which disciple would even want to go in? Therefore, the Zhenming Pagoda has not been opened for two hundred years.

Yet, such a heavily guarded place was actually forcefully broken into.

Setting aside what method the intruder used to fool the Yuxu Dragon-Trapping Array, the point is that Elder Siming, Immortal Langya, who had been in seclusion underground beneath the Zhenming Pagoda, suddenly broke out of his seclusion and gathered the Shushan Sect disciples to surround the Zhenming Pagoda. Then, everyone realized that the pagoda's main doors were wide open.

It was said that quite a few disciples wet themselves in fear the moment they saw the wide-open doors. With eighty-one ancient demons inside, wouldn't these brats instantly be crushed into scum? But then, there was no further movement from inside the pagoda. After waiting for a long time, neither people nor demons ran out.

The Sect Master then ordered my master and Immortal Langya to enter the pagoda to investigate. When my master came to the Sword Pavilion to choose a sword, I thought he would excitedly pick the newly acquired Longyuan, but to my surprise, he grabbed me without a second thought. I couldn't help but feel a little intoxicated by that.

My master summoned me, and I expanded my blade several times over, letting him stand on me. Following his thoughts, we rapidly flew toward the Zhenming Pagoda. At this time, all eight sides of the giant pagoda, whether on the ground or in the air, were surrounded by disciples. The colorful sword glares enveloped the entire stupa in rainbow light. At this moment of everyone standing by in strict formation, Master Shenxu was over there using a bronze bell as a megaphone, shouting: "Listen up, little thief inside the pagoda, you're surrounded! You have the right to remain silent, but everything you say can and will be used as evidence in court!"

My master and I rolled our eyes together. At a time like this, Shenxu was still messing around...

My master landed beside the Sect Master and asked, "Still no movement?"

The Sect Master sighed, "It's unusually quiet. I wonder what the intruder's true purpose is."

At this moment, I noticed an unfamiliar immortal standing to the Sect Master's right. His hair was snow-white, but his face was unaging. I supposed this was what they called "crane's hair and child's face," right? Although his appearance was ordinary, he had a sort of unfathomably mysterious aura about him. Come to think of it, in all my years as a divine sword in the Shushan Sect, out of the four great elders, Elder Siming, Immortal Langya, was the only one I hadn't met. This must definitely be him.

My master bowed respectfully to Immortal Langya. It seemed this elder's status in the Shushan Sect was second only to the Sect Master...

However, what was up with that rare fluctuation in my master's mood?

The Sect Master said, "Langya, Jixuan, I will have to trouble the two of you to go inside and investigate."

My master followed behind Langya up the nine stone steps. The granite pagoda door, which was about ten feet tall, was currently open just enough to allow one person to pass through. It was pitch black behind it; nothing could be seen.

Immortal Langya suddenly said, "Recently, the demonic aura inside the pagoda has been fluctuating violently, but these past two days have been unexpectedly calm. I can't help but feel it's an omen that something is about to happen. This investigation might be quite risky, Junior Martial Brother, please be careful."

My master fell silent for a moment before replying, "It's been over fifty years since I last saw you, Senior Martial Brother. Has everything been well in Chang'an Hall?"

So my master and Immortal Langya were old acquaintances? I actually didn't know... I just felt the atmosphere between the two of them was a bit strange? Should it be called the joy of reuniting after a long separation? Why did it seem somewhat unlike that...

By now, the two had already entered the pagoda. The space in the first floor's grand hall was exceptionally high and wide, but it was completely empty inside. There were no windows on the four walls, only densely packed talismanic incantations filling the walls, forming ring after ring of dazzling patterns. Staring at them for too long made one feel as if they would be sucked into the characters. The only beam of light came from a massive night-luminescent pearl overhead, its faint blue light drifting among the shadows.

Immortal Langya replied, "To think it has only been over fifty years. When I am in meditation, I cannot distinguish the passage of time. I only feel that everything is still and eternal. I originally thought that upon opening my eyes, perhaps a hundred years would have already passed."

His voice was calm and drawn-out, like a pot of fine wine brewed for a hundred years. Only, there seemed to be a hint of loneliness in his words. For a person to spend fifty years of their time in a stone room, and likely spend the remaining years of their life doing the same in the future... I couldn't comprehend this kind of sacrificial spirit. If it were me, I probably would have committed suicide long ago...

There was nothing unusual on the first floor, not even a demon in sight. Turning past a mural wall, there was a staircase spiraling upwards along the body of the pagoda. Originally, there was a seal here, but it seemed to have been destroyed. Judging from the sword marks left on the wall, the intruder was very familiar with the Shushan Sect's formations. The sword aura lingering on the marks was tainted with a significant amount of deathly aura. It seemed they had killed many living beings; it would take at least a thousand lives to form such a dense, murderous aura.

I hadn't encountered this kind of opponent in a long time, and I was feeling a bit eager to give it a try. My mind fantasized about seamlessly coordinating with my master to battle some ultimate boss for two hundred rounds, and my blade vibrated twice. My master looked down and scolded, "Ya Jiu, don't get excited."

I vibrated twice more in protest. However, at this moment, Immortal Langya suddenly said, "Something is wrong."

My master paused, looking around, and instantly understood Immortal Langya's meaning. "Why are these stairs still going up? Given our speed, we should have reached the second floor by now."

Immortal Langya said in a low voice, "There are exactly forty-nine steps from the first floor to the second. Let's walk back down and count how many it takes to get to the first floor."

So the two of them silently counted in their hearts as they retraced their steps down the curving long staircase. This passage was narrow, only able to accommodate two people side by side. Apart from the torches that appeared every three steps, the walls were endless stone bricks. No matter how long they walked, their surroundings looked identical. The air gradually solidified, and black shadows loomed overhead. In this oppressive atmosphere, I couldn't help but feel my previous excitement diminish significantly.

My master and Langya stopped at the same time and exchanged a glance. Because they had already counted to forty-nine. But this staircase was still stretching onward, leading to the next unknown bend.

My master asked, "Is this a formation?"

Immortal Langya shook his head, "If it were a formation, I should have been able to sense it when we entered earlier."

"Perhaps a barrier?"

Langya's eyelids lowered slightly as if pondering something. "The second floor of the Zhenming Pagoda holds a demon named Qingxingdeng. It excels at disguising itself as a lamp or flame; anyone who looks at it will lose their way. Then, when this lamp goes out, the lost person will be led into hell. I think we have likely encountered it."

Even though I was still in the shape of a sword, after hearing this, I couldn't help but interject, "Ah?! Don't tell me it's those torches on the wall?"

My master glared at me reproachfully, but Immortal Langya didn't seem to mind. "Indeed, I suspect that one of these torches is a fake."

"Master, then why don't we just chop down all these torches and be done with it?"

My master said patiently, "Didn't you hear Senior Martial Brother? If that lamp is extinguished, we will be dragged into hell."

I scoffed. "Listen to them bragging. Where is there such a demon that can drag people into hell even after it dies? It's just making things up because it's afraid someone will chop it to death."

My master flicked my hilt. "Can you shut up?"

Immortal Langya, however, smiled faintly. "Actually, what your sword spirit says is not without reason. Truth be told, this Qingxingdeng's abilities are quite average. Perhaps this is one of the reasons it has managed to survive for so long?"

My master sighed. "Senior Martial Brother, don't listen to his nonsense. My Ya Jiu has no other talents, he just likes to make snide remarks. In my opinion, the legends might actually be true."

"Oh? Why do you think so?"

"Qingxingdeng uses the appearance of a lamp flame to bewitch people's minds. If it is rashly killed while we have yet to break out of the illusion it created, or if it leaves on its own, those trapped inside the illusion will never be able to get out. To live forever in a cramped, eternally empty space—if this isn't hell, then what is?"

"Master, isn't this the immortality that everyone desires? I think using it to treat illnesses and save people would be great. Think about it: you toss all those with terminal illnesses into Qingxingdeng's illusion, let them live for a few hundred years, and then let them out once a suitable cure is found. This is practically a miraculous panacea! It's way more effective than Shenxu's so-called Nine-Cauldron Resurrection Pill."

"How can you address my Junior Martial Brother like that!" my master scolded, although he himself occasionally called his junior martial brother that too...

Perhaps because we were shooting our mouths off too loudly and not taking this Qingxingdeng seriously, this little demon—ah, no, it should be considered a big demon—felt its pride had been wounded. The flame of the torch right above my master's head suddenly flared up violently, and the fire turned a bizarre cyan-green. In an instant, the atmosphere in the entire stone corridor became eerie, and the stairs beneath our feet seemed to be slowly elongating and twisting.

Immortal Langya formed hand seals in front of his chest, rapidly chanting an incantation. With a sudden shout of "Break!" from his mouth, a brilliant light erupted from his hands, spreading rapidly across the entire space like a ripple. In a flash, the stairs disappeared, the stone walls vanished, and nothing remained but empty, dark void. Within that cyan-green flame appeared a ferocious ghost face with prominent brow bones. Its eyes, brimming with anger and hatred, glared dead at Immortal Langya. To be honest, I had rarely seen such resentment before. It was probably the accumulated grudge from being locked up for hundreds of years without any hope of escape, right?

The Qingxingdeng flickered twice and then vanished without a trace. However, the thick darkness all around did not lessen in the slightest. Fortunately, I didn't have claustrophobia like Danzhu, otherwise, I definitely would have been scared to death in such a dark place.

My master said, "It seems it wants to trap us. Buying time, is it?"

Immortal Langya frowned. "The intruder is already colluding with the demons in the pagoda. My biggest worry is that they will release the thing on the eighty-first floor."

"The eighty-first floor? Could it be..."

Could it be what?! I hated it the most when these martial brothers spoke in half-sentences. Didn't they know there was another listener present?

Immortal Langya suddenly closed his eyes. True qi fluctuated around his body, and his white hair scattered like flowing snow-white silk. After a long moment, he slowly opened his mouth, revealing a round, lustrous, white pearl inside. When my master saw it, he grew somewhat worried. "Senior Martial Brother, that is your Nascent Soul Core. Using it will cause severe damage to your cultivation."

Immortal Langya held the luminous pearl in his hands. "Although Qingxingdeng lacks combat power, its ability to create spatial illusions is top-notch. We carelessly fell into its trap, and without using some extraordinary means, I'm afraid we won't be able to get out. Moreover, we don't have time right now."

As soon as his voice fell, the Nascent Soul Core suddenly emitted ten thousand rays of light, hot as the blazing sun. Even my master couldn't help but cover his eyes with his sleeve. In this intense, almost explosive radiance, the surrounding darkness was torn to shreds inch by inch. The ground beneath our feet shook violently, as if two forces were slaughtering each other, causing the space to fracture. Darkness and light were at a stalemate, but gradually, the light emitted by the Nascent Soul Core overtook the darkness, gnawing away at the blackness inch by inch.

A ball of incandescent white light swallowed everything, and in the next instant, the sky full of brilliance was abruptly drawn back into the core. Inside the core, misty water-like light swirled, but Immortal Langya's face was deathly pale, and cold sweat seemed to bead on his forehead.

He swallowed the Nascent Soul Core back into his mouth, but my master emitted an aura of worry.

"Senior Martial Brother..."

"It's nothing. Having cultivated in seclusion for so many years, I can still bear this small consumption of energy."

At this time, we were no longer in the corridor. What appeared before us was a grand hall similar to the first floor, except that the walls covered in incantations now bore claw marks an inch deep.

Those claw marks, grouped in fours, tightly crisscrossed the walls like a giant net. The despair and rage within those gouges were heart-stopping. However, this floor was completely empty; aside from a few pools of bright red blood on the floor, there was no sign of any demons.

"Could it have gone to visit another floor?" I asked.

Immortal Langya carefully sensed the surrounding aura. "This should be the third floor, where the Paoxiao is imprisoned. This creature has a human face and a sheep's body, and it loves to eat humans. But its aura in the air is already very faint, and there is a subtle stench of blood. It seems a fight broke out."

I thought to myself, 'Could the intruder have already been eaten by this monster? But where is the monster?'

My master summoned me and flew up to the fourth floor on his sword. In a split second, I suddenly felt a gust of sinister wind rushing from behind, and I hastily carried my master into a dodge. In a flash, a colossal black shadow lunged past us. Before we could even steady ourselves, a black claw immediately swiped at us from behind. Feeling there was no time to dodge, I quickly separated from the sword body, wanting to block the sharp claw reaching for my master.

However, my master's reaction was remarkably fast. With a sweep of his long sleeve, a beam of sword aura shot out. I only heard a shrill, piercing wail, sounding like metal grinding together, erupt from behind. I turned around to look, and saw the monster of the fourth floor.

That was... a shadow?

The black thing standing in the corner of the wall was fully twenty feet tall, thin and long. Its hands and feet were like slender bamboo sticks, disproportionately long, but its pair of claws was large and sharp. If not for carefully noticing the blood dripping from those claws, one would have thought it was merely someone's reflection projected onto the wall.

The shadow remained motionless, slanting in the corner. Was it dead?

At this moment, Immortal Langya said in a low voice, "Absolutely do not avert your gaze. This is a Shadow Ghost. Once it realizes you aren't paying attention to it, it will attack you at breakneck speed and eat your shadow."

My master was somewhat perplexed. "Eat a shadow? Can shadows be eaten?"

Immortal Langya explained, "There is a saying that one of your souls resides within your shadow. Once it is eaten, a person's three souls will be incomplete. Before the Shadow Ghost was subdued, there were cases everywhere of people having their shadows eaten by it. After it eats someone's shadow, it disguises itself as that person's shadow, waiting until the victim is on the verge of death to eat the other two souls. Victims are often in a constant state of panic all day, claiming there is something wrong with their shadows, as if it always makes strange, twisted movements the moment they turn their backs. In the end, these people all die from their internal organs rotting and failing. The cause of death is suspected to be related to the Shadow Ghost."

While Immortal Langya was speaking, his eyes never left the Shadow Ghost. The latter remained completely still. But since it could be injured by my master's sword aura, wouldn't it be fine to just kill it now while it wasn't moving?

My master probably thought the same as me. He raised his sword and was about to step forward, but was held back by Immortal Langya. "Although it isn't moving right now, its speed is blindingly fast when threatened—likely too fast for the naked eye to track. Approaching it rashly while casting a shadow is far too dangerous." After speaking, Immortal Langya suddenly waved his broad sleeve, summoning a gust of fierce wind that instantly blew out all the candles on the fourth floor. We were plunged into profound darkness.

So that was it. Without shadows, the Shadow Ghost wouldn't be able to eat them. But wasn't it even more dangerous now that we couldn't see anything?

Sure enough, we immediately heard the whooshing sound of wind in the air, sometimes far and sometimes near. I could feel my master's hand gripping me sweating a little, but it remained steady. He slowed his breathing and quietly listened to the faint sounds in the air.

Just as a bizarre breeze brushed against his ear, my master's entire body erupted with sword light, and he swung me out. I only felt my body hack into something bone-chillingly cold with a texture resembling fatty meat. That disgusting, sticky, and greasy sensation gave me goosebumps all over, nearly making me throw up a stomach full of sunflower seeds.

Immediately after, the familiar shrill howl, like grinding metal, echoed through the air once more. This was followed by the sound of something hitting the floor.

Immortal Langya then brought out the night-luminescent pearl. In its water-like light, the floor was completely empty; the Shadow Ghost had vanished.

"You severely injured it, so it fled," Immortal Langya said.

"The Yuxu Formation on the outer perimeter of the Zhenming Pagoda is still intact, so it cannot escape this pagoda." My master frowned. "However, with so many monsters, the intruder probably hasn't gotten far either. We'd better hurry up and chase after them."