Aspiring to the Immortal Path

Reverend Whitestone continued to feel his way through the building.

He had discovered this place on his last visit, and through his own unique method, he had been able to come back to this place without losing his sense of direction.

But to his surprise, while there were quite a few traps in this small building, there was no treasure at all, which made Reverend Whitestone rather sulky.

While this place was only a small bonus in his plan that wouldn't affect the overall situation, it was still a depressing outcome. He just couldn't understand it. Nobody had been in here before, so why was there nothing?

He didn't know that Tang Jie and Xu Miaoran were still watching him from close by. Although Xu Miaoran couldn't see, Tang Jie had written on her hand what was happening, and she was having a very hard time trying not to laugh.

Reverend Whitestone went all the way to the very top floor, but after still finding nothing, he went back in dejection.

Tang Jie followed closely, even gathering the hidden weapons that had fallen on the floor—these were all fine treasures, some of them still usable, and the unusable ones still had value as materials.

Upon exiting the building, Reverend Whitestone left carefully, going exactly the way he had come.

After watching him leave, Tang Jie smiled and said, "Let's go."

"To see the other buildings, of course."

Tang Jie had no plans on leaving any of the nearby buildings alone.

As they were in the illusion formation in a place with many buildings, they managed to find quite a lot.

Keeping to his usual habit, Tang Jie shattered the ordinary treasures to strengthen his blade and stored the good stuff away to be used in the future. As for the medicines and talismans, the more the better, and the Mountain River State Diagram had plenty of space to hold them, like a bottomless spatial bag.

Yiyi and Ice Phoenix were in the diagram right now, and when they looked up, they would occasionally spot various treasures floating down from the heavens.

He Chong was starting to grow numb to this sort of situation, so he simply said, "Has Tang Jie started plundering again?"

"His name is Tang Jie, after all," Yiyi answered.

He Chong looked up and sighed.

Some people thought that the Jie (劫) in Tang Jie was for "calamity" (劫难), but only those who understood him knew that it was actually for "looting" (打劫).

Tang Jie and Xu Miaoran roamed about the illusion formation, throwing whatever treasures they could find into the diagram, even shifting some of the buildings inside.

As building after building fell from the sky, He Chong sighed, "He really is taking everything that isn't nailed down, and even things that are."

"It's the Court of Myriad Domains, so even a blade of grass is precious. If the Mountain River State Diagram is going to develop, we need it all," Yiyi said like she was an old veteran.

"Sister Yiyi is right. All this treasure really does make one envious. Why don't I go and take one?" Ice Phoenix said with a smile, and as she laughed, tendrils of black energy began to rise from her body.

Without even looking back, Yiyi said, "You can take whatever treasures you want, but if you think you're going to pollute my big brother's world by leaking out your demonic energy, then you're seeking death. I can go and tell Big Brother right now that you're breaking your promise. Big Brother doesn't even need to kill you, just toss you into the court and just watch you die!"

Startled, Ice Phoenix helplessly said, "No need to be intimidating. It was just a joke."

But she still drew back her demonic energy.

Putting Ice Phoenix in the Mountain River State Diagram was a choice made because Tang Jie had had no other options. Thankfully, with Yiyi around, Ice Phoenix wouldn't be able to cause trouble for a bit.

Outside, Tang Jie and Xu Miaoran had emptied out the nearby buildings and had finally ended their looting spree. All that was left around them was empty space and a few drifting ghosts.

Most of the cultivators had already left, and only a few remained in the back, slowly advancing.

Two of them had somehow lost their orientation and were totally unaware of it. They kept going straight forward, but this only meant that they were getting farther and farther away from the right path.

After some thought, Tang Jie ultimately couldn't bear to see them lost in the formation, so he called out Little Three and had him go to fight with those two cultivators so as to bring them back to the right path.

This wasn't very easy, as those two cultivators were confident that they were going in the right direction and stubbornly refused to turn back. Tang Jie and Little Three went through great efforts to slowly drag them back.

By the time this was done and Tang Jie came out, he found that the Jadestone Alliance group was gone.

Tang Jie knew that this was probably because they had taken too long, and the main group felt like they had probably gotten lost and given up on them, choosing to forge ahead.

Tang Jie wasn't anxious over not being able to join up with the group. He already knew where they were going, and without them around, he found it much easier to work. Thus, he moved forward with Xu Miaoran.

Past the illusion formation was a grassland.

The Court of Myriad Domains was as large as a country, so while it had palaces, corridors, and fountains, it also had mountains, valleys, and plains. This grassland might have been the back garden of some True Immortal.

Tang Jie stood there in deep thought for a few moments before saying, "This is the Shepherding Field."

"'The Shepherding Field'?" Xu Miaoran curiously asked, "What sort of place is it?"

"It's grazing land. To be more precise, it's where the court grazes its Heavenly Horses," Tang Jie replied.

"'Heavenly Horses'? So you're saying there are Heavenly Horses in the Court of Myriad Domains?"

"There should be," Tang Jie somewhat hesitantly replied.

The fragmentary memories in his mind were difficult to grasp, there for a moment and disappearing the next, and all the information was broken up and confused, even contradictory.

Xu Miaoran said, "Just how do you know all this?"

Tang Jie shook his head. "I think the problem might be with the Martial Mirror. When I got the Parting Classic from the Martial Mirror, I received a vision of the Martial Lord shattering the court with his axe, and I've never been able to forget it. The Martial Lord was once an honored guest of the court, so it's not weird for him to be familiar with its internal layout. Perhaps he left his memories in the Martial Mirror, and it's only now that they've awoken."

Xu Miaoran replied, "Perhaps it's more than memories?"

Startled, Tang Jie said, "What do you mean?"

Xu Miaoran explained, "Maybe the Martial Lord was like the Azure Dragon, leaving behind a back-up plan. That hidden realm of the Martial Lord might really have been a trap meant to get him a body that he could possess and be reborn in, and the Martial Mirror contained his Divine Soul. Thus, when you used Soulscour, you obtained the secret of the mirror. What you didn't realize is that the Martial Lord's soul entered your body at the same time, and it's been lying in wait until now, slowly getting stronger. This is why you only awakened the memories regarding the court today. Tang Jie, all your effort and cultivation might have just been for the benefit of someone else!"

Xu Miaoran's face turned very savage and fierce toward the end of her talk.

Tang Jie laughed. "You've got quite the imagination."

Xu Miaoran spat out her tongue. "Is it funny? Do I not even get the pleasure of scaring you once in a while?"

Rather than a Violet Palace True Lord, she seemed more like a naive and innocent maiden.

With this interlude, the matter of how Tang Jie knew about the layout of the court was put to the side, and the two advanced into the grassland.

But deep down, Tang Jie and Xu Miaoran were both thinking the same thing:

Could this joke actually be true?

With this worry, they flew ahead.

Suddenly, they heard a strange roar in the distance.

"What sound is this?" Xu Miaoran said in surprise.

Tang Jie cocked his ear and listened. "It sounds like the call of some fiend."

"Why would there be fiends in the Court of Myriad Domains?"

"Why not? The court has its own zoos and menageries, and numerous fiends were raised as mounts…" Tang Jie suddenly grimaced.

Xu Miaoran caught on to what he had said. "Then doesn't that mean that if there are fiends, they should be ten thousand years old?"

Tang Jie swallowed. "I hope we're not that unlucky."

As he spoke, a cloud of dust appeared in the distance.

It seemed that something was rapidly approaching them.

As the cloud drew closer, it turned out to be a herd of horses, crazily galloping through the air in a storm of ripples, moving as quickly as the wind.

A herd of Heavenly Horses!" Xu Miaoran said in excitement.

"Retreat!" Tang Jie shouted, grabbing Xu Miaoran and flying backward on a cloud.

Xu Miaoran was about to say that these Heavenly Horses were rather harmless when the two cultivators that Tang Jie had saved happened to fly over. Upon seeing the herd, they cried out in delight, "Lucky us!"

They flew toward the herd.

Upon seeing these cultivators coming at them, the herd actually picked up speed, stirring up even more dust.

One of the cultivators laughed and extended a hand, upon which a giant hand manifested in the air and descended.

But to his surprise, the horses neighed in unison, upon which the hand shattered. The Heavenly Horses charged at the cultivator, and that cultivator thrust his hands forward, creating a ring to protect himself.

But the herd crashed into the ring without a care, and with a boom, the ring shattered. The horses rammed into the cultivator, who fell to the ground with a wail. His body, which was immune to mortal weapons, threw up blood again and again under their pounding hooves. By the time the horses had passed, the cultivator was dead, not even having had a chance to send out his Divine Soul. The horse at the lead turned around and snorted at the corpse, upon which the cultivator's body exploded into a cloud of gore.

All of the horses opened their mouths and gobbled up the remains.

These horses ate meat.

In a flash, the Violet Palace cultivator had been devoured, and the other cultivator turned in fright and ran.

The horses neighed again and set off in pursuit, moving with remarkable speed.

The cultivator couldn't outrun the Heavenly Horses, and as the herd drew closer and closer, he gritted his teeth and threw out a treasure. Upon appearing, the treasure exuded a solar radiance and immense pressure on the herd. But the horses seemed unaffected, and with a neigh, the treasure shattered, and the horses galloped up to that cultivator in a flash.

Aghast, the cultivator applied countless defensive barriers to himself, even throwing out seven or eight defensive treasures.

At the same time, the hundreds of Heavenly Horses raised their hooves, and illusory horses emerged from their bodies, combining into a single giant "Pegasus". Raising its hooves, the Pegasus passed through that cultivator's myriad defenses like it was just a phantom, slamming its hooves into the cultivator's head. In one strike, the cultivator's skull was shattered.

A divine light shot out of his body: his Divine Soul.

But the giant phantom Pegasus opened its mouth and devoured it.

It then dissolved back into the smaller illusory horses which returned to their hosts, upon which the herd galloped off.

"How could this herd of horses be so powerful…" Xu Miaoran said in shock.

Tang Jie replied, "It's not a herd of horses. Just one."

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