Xiao An’s fiery eyes stared at Gou Dai quietly, and she tilted her head slightly. She was extremely intrigued by this person that had clearly been discovered yet still stood without moving.

  Gou Dai let out a sigh of relief inside. As it seemed, the skeleton could not actually see him, or it would have launched an attack immediately. He studied the skeleton carefully, only to see a small, blood-red banner in its left hand and something that Gou Dai found rather familiar in its right.

  Isn’t that… the Bamboo-Jade Lot of the Cloud Bookcase!? Has Xiao An been killed too? No, isn’t she still in secluded cultivation and hasn’t emerged yet? Or perhaps…


  He stared at the tiny skeleton in disbelief before hearing a spurt. His chest ached. He slowly lowered his head. A bony hand had been plunged into his heart already.

  Gou Dai’s expression immediately became twisted with absolute viciousness. As a Foundation Establishment cultivator, he had a powerful life force, so he would not die immediately. He wanted to launch a counterattack before death, but a heavy sensation of coldness had already spread through his body, freezing his soul.

  The Samādhi Flames of White Bone devoured him mercilessly. Xiao An took the Glazed Mirror of Invisibility from him and checked it before stowing it away. She lifted up the Bamboo-Jade Lot of the Cloud Bookcase again and began divining.

  Detecting and covering openings, seeking out potential danger, and eliminating them one by one.

  ……


  Many rivers converged in the Clear river. It had already become a roaring flow of water, spanning a great area as it raged along.

  Li Qingshan burst out of the water and looked at Moon Court lake from afar. He was filled with lofty sentiments. Having reached here, he had refined half of the Clear river, and he could now borrow strength from the waters of Moon Court lake.

  He raised his arm high into the air. In his palm was the Water God Seal.

  Turbulent waves erupted on the surface of Moon Court lake. The lakewater surged, pouring into the Clear river wave after wave. The river flow suddenly sped up, and his speed of refinement became even faster.

  Within the raging waters, a speck of red appeared. Li’l Red wagged his tail from side to side as he swam over, raising his head and lifting up Li Qingshan.

  Li Qingshan felt like he was riding a horse as he travelled with the flow. In high spirits, he recited loudly, “From both banks the cries of apes unending, my skiff has passed thousands of mountains.”


  Note: The poem, An Early Departure from White Emperor City, is by Li Bai, who I think I’ve mentioned in the past.

  In the air, Liu Zhangqing, Hua Chengzan, and the others from the academy stood on a Soaring Dragon ship, gazing at the handsome daemon in his unscrupulous ease. All of them were speechless. None of them dared to stop him.

  At the end of the river was a great marsh.

  The red glow from the setting sun in the west filled the sky. A wave suddenly rose up in the horizon that had been dyed red, and the wave carried a large fish with a person standing atop, growing from far to near as if they had descended from the sky.

  With the end in sight, a smile also stretched across Li Qingshan’s face. He looked back only to see several streaks of light shooting across the air, rushing towards him at full speed. In the lead was the Marquis of Ruyi in splendid robes and with a jade belt around his waist.

  The Marquis of Ruyi was enveloped in layers of scarlet light, making him seem like a meteor. This was the great energy condensed from the power of belief of the millions of lives in the Ruyi commandery over thousands of years of ruling.

  In the moment he saw the moon demon, his eyes shone with cold light, and he moved even faster, throwing the group behind.

  Li Qingshan completely ignored his mental exhaustion and pursed his lips firmly, bringing his hands together before spreading them out and conjuring the figure of the spirit turtle. He sped up, accelerated, and sped up again under the cascading waves, making a final sprint towards the end.

  “Wretched daemon!”


  The Marquis of Ruyi raised his hand, and a scarlet jade seal flew out. The major rivers and renowned mountains of the Ruyi commandery were engraved on the seal, full of artistic design, and at the very top was a coiled serpent.

  The seal was known as the Seal of Mountains and Rivers. It had been forged from a single block of jade when the ancestral emperor established the nine provinces, conferring the marquises with their nobility. Not only was it a representation of identity and status, but it also possessed great power.

  The Seal of Mountains and River flew into the air and expanded along the way. In the blink of an eye, it towered like a mountain.

  A great shadow enveloped the region. Li Qingshan raised his head, and the Seal of Mountains and Rivers descended from above, crushing down heavily. Just by looking at it, he felt like he would suffocate, and even with his startling speed, he could not help but develop a feeling that he could not dodge it.

  He was like a monarch who could take the life of a great general who led an army of thousands with only a single golden tablet and an imperial edict. If the lord wanted his subject to die, the subject had to die.

  The Seal of Mountains and Rivers was not a simple spiritual or arcane artifact. Instead, it was similar to the Peachwood Prayer Sword Li Qingshan had seen in the Dragon’s Gate sect in the past. It possessed the mighty power of belief.

  The Peachwood Prayer Sword had been worshipped by the successive disciples of the Dragon’s Gate sect for several centuries, while the Seal of Mountains and Rivers had gathered all the power of belief from the millions of lives throughout the entire Ruyi commandery. After several thousand years, its power had not merely multiplied by ten thousand fold. Even Golden Core cultivators would be reduced to a dead soul if they were crushed by it.

  If the Marquis of Ruyi wanted to fight, he had no need to use anything else. All he had to do was unleash the Seal of Mountains and Rivers and he could basically dominate the Golden Core realm. He would be invincible.

  Boom!

  With a violent rumble, the Seal of Mountains and Rivers crushed down on Li Qingshan viciously, stamping the earth.

  The ground shook, and the flow of the great river was severed.

  The Marquis of Ruyi smiled indifferently. He was only a Daemon General. Even if he were somewhat capable, how could he be his opponent? He had been taking him far too lightly all this time.

  “Hmm?”


  The Marquis of Ruyi was slightly stunned. The Seal of Mountains and Rivers that stood several hundred meters tall like a mountain was actually being forced up bit by bit.

  Li Qingshan had transformed, going from a handsome man to a fiendish daemon. He stood over sixty meters tall with dark skin and protruding teeth. He was ferocious, standing with an indomitable spirit. He supported the Seal of Mountains and Rivers with both hands as his iron hooves dug deeply into the ground.

  The pressure from above was alarming, but it incited his ox-like stubbornness instead. He let out a moo-like bellow, which sounded like a rumble from the depths of the earth—long and deep, yet filled with power even greater than thunder. The muscles on his body twisted together, and his arms in particular swelled up until they seemed like two huge pillars that held up the sky.

  “That’s impossible!” That was the Marquis of Ruyi’s first thought. Someone had actually managed to use brute force to stop the Seal of Mountains and Rivers.

  “I’d like to see how long you can last!” The Marquis of Ruyi sneered and leapt up, landing on the Seal of Mountains and Rivers as well as the body of the serpent that had become enormous.

  The pressure from the Seal of Mountains and Gods suddenly increased drastically. Li Qingshan dropped down on one knee as he used his entire body to support the Seal of Mountains and Rivers on his back. His blood vessels ruptured as his tough tiger bones produced an ear-piercing sound of screeching metal.

  The Strength of the Earth flowed into his body endlessly. He gritted his teeth as he stopped the Seal of Mountains and Gods firmly. Victory was already in sight, yet he was unable to take another step forward.

  “Moon demon, today is the day you die!” The Marquis of Ruyi laughed in satisfaction.

  At this moment, the three grandmasters had arrived too. Gazing at the figure below the Seal of Mountains and Rivers, they no longer resembled refined scholars at all. There was only bare hatred and killing intent.

  Once they struck, they would definitely use a startling killing move without holding back at all. The immobilised Li Qingshan had become a perfect target, but as long as they relaxed even in the slightest, the Seal of Mountains and Rivers would crush them into pulp.

  “Not necessarily!”


  Li Qingshan gulped down Wen Zhengming’s golden core. He had never tried ingesting the golden cores of Golden Core cultivators, nor did he know the effects, but at a time like this, he could no longer afford to care so much.

  Golden core, explode!

  The golden core exploded loudly, turning into extremely pure spiritual qi. It completely surpassed any pills Li Qingshan had ingested before. This was what Wen Zhengming had painstakingly developed after ingesting who knew how many pills and after who knew how many years.

  He practised the Ox Demon Transformation madly, converting all of the spiritual qi into the most primitive strength.

  Under the Marquis of Ruyi’s dumbstruck gaze, he stood up inch by inch and violently unleashed an earth-shaking bellow. He pushed upwards as hard as he could, throwing the Seal of Mountains and Rivers and the Marquis of Ruyi into the air.

  Making use of this, Li Qingshan flapped his wings and threw himself out from under the seal regardless of the cost. He drew in all the daemon qi scattered in the surging waters of the Clear river and lunged towards the end of the river, his final destination.

  “Stop him!” the Marquis of Ruyi called out furiously and in surprise.

  Three streaks of light criss-crossed and slashed out like halos.

  Li Qingshan did not even look at them. He did not even waste a shred of daemon qi to use the Spirit Turtle’s Profound Shell.

  Blood spattered. The light ripped through his skin and tore through his flesh.

  Clang! Clang! Clang! There were three metallic thrums. These were the sounds of the streaks of light landing on his bones.

  However, despite all of this, nothing could stop Li Qingshan’s lunge. He was like a vicious tiger descending from the mountains, a dragon diving into the ocean, pressing forward with indomitable will.

  With a great boom, Li Qingshan’s colossal body collapsed in the great marsh, filling the air with splashes. His momentum continued to carry him forwards, skidding for several hundred meters before coming to a stop. He did not move at all as if he had expended everything he had in him.

  The shadow enveloped Li Qingshan again. Upside down, the Marquis of Ruyi pushed against the Seal of Mountains and Rivers, treating the earth as his paper and stamping down heavily.

  Li Qingshan rolled over. As he stared at the whistling Seal of Mountains and River that filled up his vision, he grinned widely, revealing his pale-white teeth as he let out a great laugh.

  “Hahahahahahaha!

  The surging rivers of the Clear river, from its source thousands of kilometers away to its end here, merged with the daemon qi, leaping above the waters.

  The Water God Seal flickered with unprecedented radiance. It began to swell, growing to twice its size. A slender water pattern coiled around it like a dragon or a snake. It was the waters of the Clear river.

  “You better keep laughing!” The Marquis of Ruyi gritted his teeth as he radiated with dazzling, scarlet light, merging with the Seal of Mountains and Rivers.

  Bang! Water seeped out in all directions and droplets of water splashed into the air.

  The Marquis of Ruyi did not feel like he had struck anything solid. Instead, he felt like he had landed on a ball of cotton. A flexible yet tenacious power emerged from below.

  Li Qingshan was not fighting alone. Behind him were the raging waters of the Clear river, the gushing Moon Court lake, and countless other water systems of various sizes. They conjured waves upon waves and streams upon streams of light, surging together to prop up the Seal of Mountains and Rivers.

  With this power as assistance, Li Qingshan lifted the Seal of Mountains and Rivers easily. You’re the marquis of a commandery, but I’m also the water god of a river!

  The three grandmasters arrived, but this time, they each clutched a violet talisman. Clearly, they had even taken out their treasures just so they could drag the moon demon to his doom.

  The river rushed over, turning into an enormous geyser that rushed into the air and deflected the Seal of Mountains and Rivers.

  Before the three grandmasters could even surround him, they saw a flash, and the moon demon’s trace vanished. All they saw was a scarlet streak of light piercing through the sky.

  Nothing concerned Li Qingshan anymore. He flapped his wings of wind and fire and shook off the four of them in the blink of an eye. He let out a great chuckle. “What sh*tty Marquis of Ruyi? I think this is all you’re capable of!”


  Suddenly, he remembered how Yang Pinghu was once known as the Lord of Clear Court, so he laughed.

  “From today onwards, I am the Lord of the Clear River Waters!”