Chapter 221: The Black Tortoise
“Woohoo!”
Song Xi emerged from the seabed, holding the head of a demon in her hand.
The sight looked rather gruesome, as though she had just done something utterly inhumane to some demon. However, the owner of the head was still alive.
Her opponent had three heads and was absurdly powerful, making it quite difficult to deal with.
Song Xi had therefore found the fight incredibly satisfying.
That was exactly what she wanted: a difficult opponent. If every enemy she encountered in battle could be casually wiped out, her combat instincts would gradually deteriorate.
She looked up at Wang Moning, who was sitting cross-legged in midair, and called out invitingly:
“Ningning, quite a few of these demons are at the Cloud-Controlling Realm and even the Mountain-Suppressing Realm. It’s been ages since I’ve had such a satisfying fight. Want me to save half of one for you?”
Wang Moning was currently relying on her [Perception] ability to investigate the giant web formed from divine power, looking for any spots that had grown weak under the demons’ attacks. She then used Commander Cheng Anjing’s [Mind Domain] ability to announce those weak points to everyone, effectively making them visible to the entire server.
Hearing Song Xi’s invitation, Wang Moning, whose brain had gradually evolved into something resembling a Blue Sea native’s, hadn’t bothered to memorize the names of the various cultivation realms in Fallen Heaven. For a moment, she couldn’t quite follow.
“What?”
Song Xi immediately understood and rephrased:
“I mean Fallen Heaven Fourth Rank and Fallen Heaven Fifth Rank!”
Wang Moning was indeed somewhat tempted.
Strictly speaking, Fallen Heaven Star’s cultivation ranks were considerably higher than the ability user rank system.
Fallen Heaven First Rank was equivalent to Tier 3 ability user.
Fallen Heaven Fourth and Fifth Ranks were roughly equivalent to Tier 6 and 7 ability user.
Blue Sea Safe City had advanced through its ranks so quickly that, although the Safe City itself had already reached the Tier 7, the highest-ranked ability user currently residing within it was the Pope, who had only just barely reached the Tier 6.
Under normal circumstances, even with the enormous population of Blue Sea, there should still be a considerable gap in strength due to the difference in ranks.
But who could blame Fallen Heaven Star for being such a peculiar world? Here, divine power itself was a form of strength. And as for Youdu, their God had bestowed upon it the rule that divine power could be used for transactions.
In other words, although fewer than 200 million residents appeared to be present at the scene, the divine power surging across the battlefield had actually been contributed collectively by all 400 million Blue Sea residents.
The grand stage of Fallen Heaven was open to everyone. Even those fighting opponents several ranks above their own could take part.
And precisely because they were fighting across rank differences, with danger and opportunity existing side by side, this was the best kind of situation for improving their combat skills.
What Blue Sea resident could possibly resist the temptation of, while still at the Tier 5, going up against Sixth- and Seventh-Rank demons and enjoying a thoroughly satisfying fight?
Wang Moning, who was at the Tier 5, was deeply touched that even at such a fun moment, her good friend was still thinking of her.
“Hmm… Just save a third for me. I’ve already used up quite a lot of divine power today, so I probably can’t handle half of one.”
“Okay! I’m off!”
Song Xi agreed and tossed the head into the enormous web of divine power hanging in the sky. The demon’s head, still carrying traces of demonic energy, stuck firmly to the web.
It wasn’t that Song Xi insisted on protecting the natural environment while fighting, making sure not to litter.
It was simply that these demons had some truly outrageous characteristics.
If their severed limbs weren’t properly secured, even their decapitated heads could continue swimming around underwater before reattaching themselves to their bodies.
This gave Song Xi a rather unfriendly idea.
—If these demons could be brought back to the Blue Sea Temple, wouldn’t they make perfect sparring partners that could repair themselves endlessly?
“Rumble—!”
Just as Song Xi’s imagination was running wild, a dragon measuring several hundred meters in length burst out of the water, lunging to tear apart the dozen or so gods flying through the air above it.
Its eyes were pitch-black, rotting chunks of flesh were falling from its body, and most of its scales were already gone. It had clearly been dead for quite some time. Yet, under the demons’ control, it still demonstrated exactly why the dragon race had been able to dominate the oceans for so long.
The Blue Sea residents above had been waiting for precisely this moment.
Immediately, another ten thousand or so people swooped down, their weapons gleaming with golden light. Attacking swiftly from every direction, they surrounded the enormous dragon. Some used divine power, while others relied on their weapons. Groups of more than a dozen people worked together to restrain each of its claws, firmly pinning the giant dragon in midair.
The gigantic dead dragon struggled, trying to open its jaws and tear into its captors. But the more it struggled, the more firmly it was restrained. Working together, the divine-power net and tens of thousands of gods gradually dragged it completely out of the sea, slowly hauling it higher and higher into the air.
And once a dragon race creature, so adept at fighting underwater, had been forcibly dragged into the sky, the outcome of the battle became fairly obvious.
“Sect Leader, this… this is…?”
The cultivators of Hu Xuan Sect were so shaken by the successive scenes unfolding before their eyes that they could barely speak without stammering.
The cultivators of Fallen Heaven Star, at least ordinary cultivators, had never really considered themselves insignificant.
Yes, they knew that gods, demons, and demon beasts existed in this world. But before the celestial phenomena fell into chaos, these things had actually been quite distant from the daily lives of cultivators and ordinary mortals.
Demon beasts lived in remote wildernesses. Demons and ghosts appeared from time to time, but they were usually solitary creatures, and their strength was within the cultivators’ ability to handle. As for the gods, they generally did not reveal themselves to mortals except when absolutely necessary.
But now, as the cultivators of Hu Xuan Sect gazed at the figures in the sky battling a gigantic dragon hundreds of meters long, the layers upon layers of people forming a human tower to turn the entire Myriad Stars Sea upside down, and the Myriad Stars Sea itself, so saturated with demonic energy that it looked like a pot of black soup being boiled, they felt, for the first time, just how insignificant they truly were.
If the demons lurking beneath the sea were the ones who had capsized the Hu Xuan Sect’s ship, then without these gods—so numerous that their very existence made one wonder whether this was all a dream—the people aboard their vessel would probably have perished in the Myriad Stars Sea today.
“ROOOOAR!!!!”
Another demon, several dozen meters tall and at the Mountain-Suppressing Realm, was forcibly dragged out of the sea.
If this creature had been on land, it could have trampled an entire prefecture flat without the slightest difficulty.
It struggled incessantly, its demonic energy transforming into one shape after another as it desperately tried to smash its way out of the divine-power net restraining it.
A large number of gods stood suspended in midair before it. At the same time, they threw the long sabers in their hands, each one still glowing with golden light.
The sabers collided with one another. Under the gods’ control, the blades continuously stacked upward, one after another, while also expanding outward on both sides.
In the end, in no more than a few breaths, the countless sabers, each originally of ordinary size, had combined into a gigantic blade suspended halfway in the air. It radiated an intense golden light and stood more than seventy meters tall.
The gods brought the index and middle fingers of one hand together, holding their hands like blades. Countless streams of divine power flowed like water, guiding the enormous saber.
They all swung their hands downward at the same time.
In midair, the gigantic saber slowly descended as well.
“ROOOAR—”
The restrained demon struggled even more desperately. It seemed that even demons felt fear when confronted with death.
As the saber drew closer and closer, its divine power had already begun scorching the demon’s outer skin. Finally, the demon began speaking in human language:
“You gods—ROAR—don’t understand anything! The Heavenly Dao has perished! This world is finished! Everyone! Including the gods! Will die! We’re the ones who are right!! We’re the ones trying to save ourselves—”
…
On Blue Star, Cheng Qisheng, who was watching the battle, raised her eyebrows slightly.
The demons of Fallen Heaven Star generally caused trouble simply for the sake of causing trouble, without any other particular motive. After all, they survived on the negative energy in the world. The more resentment there was, the stronger the demons became.
But this batch of demons that had come to the Myriad Stars Sea was different. They were carrying out some sort of mission with a specific objective.
The demon continued shouting threats:
“You’re nothing but a bunch of frogs in a well who arrogantly call yourselves gods! The great calamity is coming! No one will escape! Hahahahaha—AAARGH!!”
Meanwhile, the Old Eighths, who were concentrating on setting up a group chat within their [Mind Domain], hadn’t actually heard what the demon was shouting.
This was their first time using this technique, and all their attention was focused on coordinating with one another.
[Down, down, down—toward the middle! Move toward the middle!]
[You’re off! You’re off! Too far to the left! Put a little more force to the right!]
[Good, good, that’s enough! That’s the right angle! Keep going down, lower it!]
[Hey, hey, hey! A little too fast! Those at the top, pull it back a bit! Wait for me! It’s too close to see clearly. I’ll fly farther away so I can direct you!]
From Cheng Qisheng’s perspective, the Old Eighths working together to assemble the giant saber were clearly in a state of utter fluster, yet at the same time brimming with excitement and exhilaration.
That’s right. This technique had been invented on the spur of the moment in the middle of the battle by a Blue Sea resident.
He had casually mentioned an idea in the [Mind Domain], and immediately, countless residents responded, saying they were more than willing to participate.
And so, this squad of more than ten thousand people had gathered in this patch of airspace.
What could Cheng Qisheng possibly say?
The Old Eighths might be fairly conventional in other areas, but when it came to anything related to combat, their creativity and inspiration seemed endless.
It was quite common for someone to suddenly announce, in the middle of a fight, “Hey! I’ve got an idea!” only for a whole crowd of people to immediately jump on board and help refine that idea while still fighting.
All the great Blue Sea Creator God could do was bestow wave after wave of group blessings upon them, granting them even more power so they could better control the gigantic saber.
The residents who received their God’s blessings immediately became even more excited.
The already bustling group chat in the [Mind Domain] grew even livelier.
[We are grateful for Our God’s blessings!]
[Our God must think our idea is pretty good too!]
[We’re about to make contact! We’re almost there! Everyone, pay attention!]
[Hey, your technique works pretty well! Are you accepting more people?]
[Ptooey, ptooey! Don’t bite the demons! Don’t bite the demons! They taste awful! It’s like eating a meal of rotten sea monster meat with gravel sprinkled inside!]
[I knew it! I saw someone just lose their weapon and immediately duck down to take a bite. I couldn’t even stop them! Haven’t you read Basic Knowledge of Fallen Heaven Star? Gods and demons are natural enemies. Their respective powers are mutually incompatible. Biting one of them is pretty much like biting garbage.]
[Who stepped on my foot?!]
[Sorry, sorry! That was me. I wasn’t paying attention while passing by. Hehe! May Our God bless you~]
[It’s here! It’s here! The blade edges are starting to make contact! It really works!]
The noisy, chaotic chatter in the [Mind Domain] channel was naturally inaudible to the people of Hu Xuan Sect.
All they could see was the enormous saber beneath the tower of divine power formed by layer upon layer of gods. Radiating golden divine power, it descended slowly, looking as though it could cleave heaven and earth in two.
“AAAAAAAHHHHH—!”
The demon’s agonized screams rang out so clearly that even the people aboard the ship, who had yet to enter the territory of the Myriad Stars Sea, could hear them perfectly.
Demons were incredibly difficult to kill. They were born from the evil thoughts of people, and human malice would never disappear completely.
Even if one was captured, as long as it managed to escape with even the tiniest fragment of its remaining power, it could rise again from the ashes.
In the past, when Daoist sects dealt with a Mountain-Suppressing Realm demon like this one, even if they joined forces to hunt it down, they could only have all their high-ranking cultivators work together to gradually wear away its demonic energy.
The process could take anywhere from several months to several years. That was why major Daoist sects all had their own Demon-Suppressing Towers, specifically built to contain demons that could not be killed immediately.
But now, this demon’s body was being cleaved apart bit by bit, while the divine power imbued in the giant saber rapidly dissipated the demonic energy within its body.
Finally, once its demonic energy had completely vanished, the demon’s enormous body quickly disintegrated as well.
The giant web of divine power was withdrawn, and the demon was nowhere to be seen in the sky.
—It had been killed completely, in the blink of an eye.
The enormous saber then broke apart once more. Countless ordinary-sized sabers, still glowing with golden light, scattered in all directions and flew back into the hands of the individual gods.
Everything had happened so effortlessly, as though killing a Mountain-Suppressing Realm demon had been nothing more than a casual task for them.
The people of Hu Xuan Sect were left utterly speechless.
Hu Xuan Sect was a medium-to-large Daoist sect. Once their cultivators reached a certain age, they would leave the sect gates and travel freely to various places to cultivate.
If they encountered injustice, they would intervene. If they came across demons, monsters, or ghosts, they would fight them as well, then return to the sect and report what they had witnessed.
Not every Hu Xuan Sect cultivator would eventually return to the sect. Some might settle down and start families somewhere, choosing to live ordinary lives. Others might establish homes in places where they were needed to guard against certain demons, spending their entire lives there without ever returning to their sect.
However, most cultivators were still able to send letters back. In this way, vast amounts of information from all corners of the world gradually found their way into Hu Xuan Sect.
As a result, Hu Xuan Sect could be considered the best-informed among all the Daoist sects. Generation after generation, its members had painstakingly collected all kinds of information and compiled the Compendium of Ten Thousand Demons, the Compendium of Ten Thousand Fiends, and the Compendium of Ten Thousand Ghosts. These books documented all sorts of supernatural creatures and mysterious entities in their various forms, along with methods for dealing with them.
Hu Xuan Sect’s library was the largest among all the Daoist sects, and it was also the place most frequently visited by fellow cultivators from other sects.
They had always felt a quiet sense of pride about this.
Hu Xuan Sect might not be the strongest Daoist sect, but it was undoubtedly the best-informed.
Yet now, these Hu Xuan Sect cultivators were beginning to realize that perhaps their understanding of the world was far less comprehensive than they had imagined.
As expected of a sect leader, he was the first among all the cultivators staring blankly at the astonishing scene before them to recover his composure.
“Write it down!! Hurry, hurry! Record everything!!”
He turned to instruct the other cultivators:
“Vast numbers of high-ranking demons are entrenched in the Myriad Stars Sea. Hundreds of millions of unknown gods have arrived to suppress them… No, to exterminate them.”
The cultivators behind him immediately took out the paper, brushes, and ink they carried with them. They sat down cross-legged and began recording everything on the spot.
Some were even skilled enough to paint the battle between gods and demons unfolding before their eyes. With just a few swift strokes, they managed to capture the immense, oppressive presence of the countless gods in the sky.
The sect leader kept his eyes fixed on the scene ahead, carefully choosing his words:
“The divine forms of the gods obscure the heavens. The demonic dragon’s enormous body stretches approximately a hundred zhang. With but a surge of its waves, it could destroy islands and wreak havoc upon the land. Yet the gods employed their divine arts to forcibly lift it out of the Myriad Stars Sea—”
The cultivators beside him diligently recorded every word. While the battle ahead filled the sky with dazzling starlight, they remained completely unaffected in the rear, their brushes flying furiously across the paper.
“…The gods slaughter demons as easily as slicing through melons and severing vines. Wherever their divine blades sweep, the Mountain-Suppressing Realm demons are shattered in an instant, and the countless fiends are cut down one after another—”
Out on the sea ahead, an enormous creature emerged from the water. It was at least a thousand meters long. The moment it appeared, everyone knew that this was the largest demon of them all.
Demonic energy poured from its entire body. Yet the Hu Xuan Sect Master recognized what it was at a single glance.
He exclaimed in astonishment, “The Black Tortoise…”
The Black Tortoise was a unique demon beast. There was only one in the entire world. It had a gentle temperament, measured a thousand meters in length, and lived in the Northern Luo Sea. Whenever it surfaced, people often mistook it for a gigantic island.
The Black Tortoise was unquestionably powerful. Although it lived in the sea, it was perfectly capable of flying through the air. It simply preferred drifting along with the waves, which was why it was rarely seen in the sky.
It never actively attacked others. Sometimes, it would sleep for several hundred years at a stretch. It was an exceptionally rare demon beast that almost never had any impact on the lives of ordinary mortals.
The dragon race was one thing. They were naturally combative, loved testing their strength, and had hot tempers. It wasn’t particularly surprising that they had fallen under the demons’ control.
But the Black Tortoise, which had a lifespan of at least ten thousand years, had actually been controlled by demons as well?
No wonder! No wonder these demons had appeared in the sea. Given the Black Tortoise’s enormous size, the ocean really was the only place where it wouldn’t attract quite so much attention.
What exactly were these demons trying to accomplish?!
Between the demons overflowing with demonic energy and the gods shining with golden light, there was no need to think twice about which side to choose.
The Hu Xuan Sect Master grew solemn.
“The demons have been hiding here. They must be harboring some sinister scheme. If they win today, all the people of this world will surely face a terrible catastrophe. Move forward! We’ll go help them!”
Hu Xuan Sect had records of events from all over the world, so of course they knew what the Black Tortoise’s weakness was. However, this information came only from legends. No one in Hu Xuan Sect had ever actually tested it.
The Sect Master formed a hand seal. He imbued the written records and illustrations that the cultivators had rapidly produced with spiritual light. One by one, the sheets of paper seemed to come alive, flying off toward Hu Xuan Sect as though they had grown wings.
Watching the sheets of paper disappear into the distance, the Sect Master and the other cultivators all breathed a sigh of relief.
It was somewhat like sending home all the savings one had accumulated over a lifetime before going off to face certain death. Now that they had taken care of this, the cultivators of Hu Xuan Sect had nothing left to fear.
“Even if we perish here today, what we’ve witnessed will still make its way back to the sect.”
Only after the sheets of paper had completely vanished from sight did the Hu Xuan Sect Master turn around again and look toward the battlefield ahead.
“Everyone, follow me!”
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