Chapter 460
**Chapter 366: All Things Serve Me, the Ancestor Reborn!**
The Great Freedom Demon Ancestor moved with incredible speed.
The Qingyun Great Sage was the first to dash toward Tongming Mountain. As a cultivator at the Transformation stage, he excelled in evasion techniques, crossing vast distances in mere moments. Soon, he saw the peak of Tongming Mountain rising against the sky. He probed his surroundings with his spiritual sense and found that the winds behind him had calmed, the imposing presence of the Great Freedom Demon Ancestor receding into the distance. He felt a flicker of relief. But he quickly realized that his joy was premature!
The black moon reappeared!
The eerie moonlight reached far and wide, illuminating the vast expanse of land in an instant.
The world was changing dramatically!
As the moonlight enveloped him, the Qingyun Great Sage felt a surge of heat coursing through his body, illusions swirling around him, and he began to plummet toward the ground.
“Out!”
Realizing the danger, he opened his mouth and spat out a jade pendant of auspicious clouds. Under the moonlight, the pendant transformed into a mass of azure clouds, lifting him up. He dared not look back, focusing solely on his flight toward Tongming Mountain.
“You little lark, you’ve got quite the fortune! Where did you gather this Nine Heavens cloud energy?”
To his surprise, the moment his life-bound treasure appeared, it piqued the interest of the Great Freedom Demon Ancestor. The Qingyun Great Sage felt his treasured artifact sink, and a figure in a black robe landed atop the azure clouds.
In the next moment, he sensed that his most cherished life-bound treasure had suddenly slipped from his control!
The Great Freedom Demon Ancestor!
This man in black, dressed in ancient garb, had a face that was impossible to gaze upon directly; no one knew what he truly looked like.
In the blink of an eye, the means by which he had seized his treasure left the Qingyun Great Sage with no doubt about the identity of his assailant.
Even as his instinct for self-preservation kicked in, the thought of resistance was met with a tearing sensation deep within his soul.
“Ah!”
The Qingyun Great Sage could no longer maintain his human form, rolling in the air and transforming into a giant lark, flapping desperately up and down.
The Great Freedom Demon Ancestor didn’t even spare him a glance.
“Saint Ancestor… Saint Ancestor!”
The lark cried out in a shrill voice, and after a moment, it lay trembling on the clouds, devoid of any further thoughts of defiance.
Yōumíng Xiān and the others watched in shock and fear. The Great Freedom Demon Ancestor had not even lifted a finger; with a mere flick of his wrist, he had seized a Transformation stage artifact and subdued this indecisive demon.
The lark, now the Qingyun Great Sage, gently nudged the Great Freedom Demon Ancestor’s boot with its large head, desperately trying to ingratiate itself.
Despair filled his heart. Only moments ago, he finally grasped the meaning behind the saying of the Headmaster Mingde—“Cultivators must not betray their own lineage.”
The secret technique he and his companions practiced seemed intact, but the moment he harbored thoughts of rebellion, he felt as if his soul had split into two, attacking itself, as if it sought to end his own life.
Or perhaps—
After practicing that secret technique, it felt as if an inviolable, unassailable deity resided within him!
One thought of defiance, and it was death!
The Great Freedom Demon Ancestor glanced at him, not uttering a single word, and the Qingyun Great Sage spread his wings, charging toward Tongming Mountain.
In the blink of an eye, he transformed from a timid demon into the most fearless vanguard of the demonic sect!
This transformation sent a chill down Yōumíng Xiān’s spine—once the Qingyun Great Sage departed, his fate was uncertain!
He knew well that he was different from the Qingyun Great Sage. After all, the Qingyun Great Sage had betrayed the Saint Ancestor, while he had always been favored by the Saint Ancestor and had contributed significantly. The Saint Ancestor likely wouldn’t easily cast him aside as cannon fodder.
But… an unexposed traitor is still a traitor!
---
In the Jiushan Realm, Zheng Fa was unaware that the Qingyun Great Sage had returned, and even less aware of his unwillingness to do so.
He and Senior Sister Zhang had left the Tongming Mountain Hall and returned directly to the Jiushan Realm, entering the medicinal garden together.
With a wave of her hand, the Qingjing Bamboo swayed its branches and leaves, flying to her fingertips.
Zheng Fa glanced at the Sun and Moon Bell. According to Tongming Shangren, the so-called Dao fruit—did the Sun and Moon Bell count as a type of Dao fruit?
However, this item lacked the growth potential of the Qingjing Bamboo and seemed to be weaker, even somewhat incomplete. It could handle ordinary Transformation stage cultivators, but facing the Great Freedom Demon Ancestor was a mere fantasy.
Now, the only possible means to confront the Great Freedom Demon Ancestor within the Jiushan Realm was another type of heavenly spiritual root!
Zheng Fa turned his gaze toward a peculiar mulberry tree at the far end of the medicinal garden.
This tree had grown from the fusion of the spiritual energy organ within Zheng Fa’s cells and the Haori Mulberry cells.
Compared to the previous Haori Mulberry, this tree was more vibrant, its leaves a deeper red, and its branches radiated a powerful warmth.
Yet, if one were to say it had fully matured into a heavenly spiritual root, it still fell short.
Realizing Zheng Fa’s anxious expression as he gazed at the mulberry tree, Qian Zhenren approached and said, “I suspect that while this Haori Mulberry has some relation to the Fusang tree, the gap is still vast… At the very least, the fusion has been successful.”
Zheng Fa nodded gently; this was also their conclusion after observation.
In simple terms, Zheng Fa and his companions were attempting to revert this entity to its ancestral form, selecting the most suitable cells through generations of cultivation.
“Is the power of incense still sufficient to support this?”
To revert to its ancestral form, they needed to stimulate rapid growth, relying entirely on the Sun and Moon Bell and the incense from the mortal realm.
“It’s manageable for now, but as this spiritual plant gets closer to the Fusang tree, the required spiritual energy and incense power will grow increasingly immense,” Qian Zhenren sighed. “The Sun and Moon Bell is already struggling.”
It was clear that Qian Zhenren was also worried.
This situation was within Zheng Fa’s expectations. Heavenly spiritual roots were incredibly precious, and the Fusang tree was among the finest. Even its offshoots, while not true heavenly spiritual roots, were still immensely valuable.
Even a Haori Mulberry with less than pure lineage was treated as a treasure by Haori Mountain.
The Sun and Moon Bell—or rather, the Jiushan Realm—was indeed at its limits, something Zheng Fa and Senior Sister Zhang had anticipated.
Thus, Zheng Fa had been trying to accelerate the development of the Jiushan mortal realm, but he hadn’t expected the situation to change even faster than he imagined!
He had been wondering why he hadn’t seen Yuan Shijie for so long, and today he unexpectedly encountered this little bird.
Yuan Shijie had transformed into a Qingluan, sprawled like a small mountain, leaning against the spiritual mulberry, lazily fast asleep.
Not just her; atop the branches, the little golden crow that had been flitting about also stood there, leisurely preening its feathers.
“What about these two?”
“They’ve been coming around a lot lately,” Qian Zhenren replied.
Thinking back to how these two birds had eyed him hungrily before, Zheng Fa felt a surge of confidence as he looked at the spiritual mulberry.
He watched Yuan Shijie, carefree and sound asleep, and compared it to his own and Senior Sister Zhang’s tense feelings. He walked over and gave her round body a gentle kick.
Yuan Shijie squinted, glanced at him, and a dreamy smile spread across her face as she shifted her wings.
Zheng Fa leaned against her.
This bird made for a pretty comfortable sofa.
---
The Qingyun Great Sage was already nearing Tongming Mountain.
“Qingyunzi!”
A sharp shout echoed from the Tongming Mountain Hall, and a jade mirror rose from the peak, its mysterious light like a sword, piercing toward the wind-riding Qingyun Great Sage.
The Qingyun Great Sage did not dodge; with a sharp cry, the flowing clouds behind him surged forward, colliding with the jade mirror, barely blocking the life-bound treasure of Tongming Shangren.
He continued moving, his form shifting from that of a lark to that of a mountain-sized creature, its sharp beak glinting coldly, appearing even sharper than the Qingping Sword. He lightly tapped his head, opening his beak slightly.
The Jiushan Realm had also noticed the Qingyun Great Sage’s approach, gathering at the light barrier to witness the scene.
The disciples of Tongming Mountain, including those at the Foundation Establishment, Golden Core, and Nascent Soul stages, felt the earth shake beneath them, their bodies involuntarily flying toward the Qingyun Great Sage’s beak. In an instant, dozens of disciples were swallowed whole!
“Beast!”
The Yaochi Transformation stage cultivator sprang into action. A colorful ribbon flew from her sleeve, soaring through the air, and the aurora descended, immobilizing everyone on Tongming Mountain. The long ribbon then coiled around the Qingyun Great Sage, binding him tightly.
As the Qingyun Great Sage struggled, the jade mirror of Tongming Shangren hovered above him, shining down upon him. The two Transformation stage cultivators joined forces, capturing him effortlessly.
Tongming Shangren exchanged glances with his companion and brought the captured sage into the hall.
Table of Contents
