Redemption of a Born Demon

Finally, there was the recently injured Lotus. He gently exhaled, and countless lotus leaves materialized from thin air. Flashing upon these leaves were a series of images.

Devotion, cruelty, bloodshed, terror, ignorance...

They were fragments from the era he once ruled by spreading his teachings—the contradictory thoughts of countless living beings.

The three of them simultaneously mobilized their Power of the Human Path, causing even the nearby Human Dao River to ripple.

This was the power of different eras, encompassing the strength of billions. Any expert’s Spirit Body Dharma Body would be destroyed by such an attack, their soul tainted.

However, faced with this onslaught, Yi Beidou remained motionless, standing firm in the Void.

"To use a bygone era to attack me in the present age is laughable. Don’t you know that civilization is a surging tide, rushing ever forward, and I am the one standing at its very crest?"

Yi Beidou’s calm voice rang out.

These three each had their own history with the Human Dao, having dominated a certain region in a certain era. But when it came to influence over the Human Dao, how could any of them possibly compare to him?

His influence extended to the world’s ten billion souls. He had inaugurated a new era of the Martial Arts Dao in the modern world, shattering the Hidden Realm’s millennia-long monopoly on personal martial power. He was considered the foremost figure in the Martial Arts Dao today.

Back when he was only in Japan, an endless stream of the Power of Faith had gathered to him. How could it be any less now?

The Human Dao River surged without end, and he was the one standing at its forefront, right on the crest of its most turbulent wave.

Trying to use the power of the Human Dao River to harm him was simply a fool’s errand.

Surrounded by a multitude of Divine Powers, Yi Beidou’s body suddenly jolted.

BOOM!!

The combined strength of Lotus and the other two had merely caused the Human Dao River to stir with waves. But when Yi Beidou’s body jolted, the Human Dao River crashed like a great wave against a rock, sending a tidal surge into the air.

Lotus and the other two were violently shaken, and their respective Divine Powers instantly disintegrated, ceasing to exist.

BUZZ!!

The King of the Wheel of Reincarnation’s expression turned ugly. With a turn of his palm, a golden wheel immediately tore open a passage in the Void. The King transformed into a streak of light and vanished into the passage.

The man had fled without a second word.

Evidently, the brief clash had made him understand that they could not possibly threaten Yi Beidou within the Human Dao River.

’Under these circumstances, if not now, when?’

Meanwhile, seeing that Yi Beidou had stirred the Human Dao River with a single blow, Lotus and the Lady of the Three Yins didn’t hesitate for a second. They instantly used their own methods to escape the Human Dao River and return to their physical bodies.

"Trying to leave?"

Yi Beidou’s eyes narrowed. Demon Flame flared and coiled toward the fleeing figures, and the Human Dao River surged in tandem, trying to hold them back.

But while they couldn’t harm him, he was not a Spirit Cultivator, after all. His array of strange techniques was no match for theirs.

In the end, all he managed to hold back was a golden wheel, a golden lotus, and an old Copper Bell.

And even these images were rapidly crumbling within the Demon Flame, impossible to preserve.

These were the Substitutes the three had left behind, a means to escape Yi Beidou’s attack at some cost.

Yi Beidou stood in the Void, gazing in the direction they had fled. His expression didn’t change much.

He knew that trapping these people in their own Realm was no easy task. He was already quite satisfied with his gains this time.

He had overcome a significant Demon Tribulation deep within his heart, further perfecting his spirit. Moreover, he had forcefully followed the trail left by Lotus to enter the Human Dao River.

His gaze lingered on the ceaselessly flowing river.

He had memorized the feeling.

Next time, he would be able to enter this place even without Lotus as a guide.

’Once I’ve familiarized myself with this place, you’ll have nowhere left to hide,’ Yi Beidou murmured to himself.

Then, he lingered no longer.

After all, there was likely a crisis in the outside world that required his attention.

FWOOSH!!

The Demon Flame erupted, burning through the darkness of the Void. Yi Beidou’s figure swirled, transforming into a streak of rainbow light and vanishing from the space of the Human Dao River.

「In the real world.」

The jet was still plummeting like a falling leaf, and the eyes of the entire world were fixed upon it.

"The plane’s altitude has already dropped below four thousand meters! It has completely lost its flight attitude. The pilot is most likely dead or incapacitated. Even if they switched to pure manual controls right now, they probably couldn’t regain flight attitude and pull up. The crash is now a certainty!"

Everyone held their breath. In less than half a minute, they would likely see the fireball of the crash and explosion.

What kind of hopeless situation awaited Yi Beidou?

On the plane, light returned to Yi Beidou’s eyes. His gaze and perception immediately fell upon the pilot in front of him, Wang Han.

The man was motionless. Yi Beidou could sense that his signs of life had vanished.

Just now, the grasp of Huaqing Immortal’s Heaven-Reaching Yang Spirit had not only destroyed the plane’s electronic equipment, but it was also nearly impossible for someone like Wang Han, who had not yet achieved Ascension, to survive such power.

Yi Beidou sensed that the Life Magnetic Field within the man’s body had dissipated into a chaotic mess. Under normal circumstances, this was no different from the legendary ’soul scattering to the four winds’—a state that not even an Immortal could remedy.

’Fortunately, the Life Magnetic Field hasn’t completely left his body.’

Yi Beidou’s expression was calm as a jade-like color surfaced in his eyes.

He activated his Jade Power, which coalesced in the air into the shape of long needles. Under Yi Beidou’s control, they plunged into Wang Han’s body.

This was precisely the Secret Technique of the Demon-Suppressing Seven-Star Needle, which Yi Beidou himself had improved!

As the Seven-Star Needle entered the body, the Life Force condensed from Yi Beidou’s vast Life Energy instantly erupted within Wang Han, spreading out like millions of fine threads.

Guided by these threads, the dissipated mess of Wang Han’s Life Magnetic Field was activated, reinforced, and drawn back together.

"Wake up!!"

Yi Beidou let out a soft shout. The soundwave spread, and Wang Han’s body jolted violently.

The soundwave from this shout stimulated his heart, blood vessels, bones, and even his brain.

It caused his heart to begin beating again, and electrical impulses reappeared in his unconscious brain.

With a sudden shudder, Wang Han, who had shown no signs of life just moments before, abruptly opened his eyes.

Just like that, Yi Beidou had snatched a dead man back from the gates of hell.

Originally, even with the help of his Jade Power, Yi Beidou would have had a thirty percent chance of success at best for such a minutely detailed operation. But now that he had passed his Demon Tribulation and his spirit was whole and harmonious, his control over the Jade Power had become even more masterful.

Wang Han’s eyes still held a trace of confusion, as if he hadn’t yet grasped his current situation.

"Stop spacing out. The plane is going to crash any second. Is there any way to get it flying again?"

Just then, Yi Beidou’s voice came from behind him, snapping Wang Han’s dazed mind back to full awareness. He remembered what had happened, and a cold sweat instantly broke out on his skin.

He had no time to wonder why he wasn’t dead. Instead, he immediately began checking the plane’s status.

The jet was still in a dive, its altitude dropping continuously.

"I can use the backup manual ignition to restart the jet’s maneuvering systems, but flying isn’t as simple as just starting the engine. I have to regain flight attitude, and that requires help from at least some of the systems. But even if the systems were intact, we probably don’t have enough time to reboot them now."

"Right now, the best course of action is actually to eject and parachute to safety."

Beads of sweat were already forming on Wang Han’s forehead.

"As long as it can fly, that’s enough. You manually start the maneuvering systems. I’ll help you regain flight attitude," Yi Beidou’s voice came from behind.

"Understood."

Although what Yi Beidou said sounded like something out of a fairy tale, Wang Han no longer had any doubts about him. He immediately did as he was told.

And at that very moment.

FWOOSH!!

A dense wave of Jade Power suddenly burst forth from Yi Beidou’s body, swiftly enveloping the entire fighter jet and even extending beyond it.

Vaguely, the entire fighter jet now looked like a giant, azure bird, as Yi Beidou had constructed the shape of a pair of wings with his Jade Power.

Under Yi Beidou’s control, the wings gave a mighty flap.

A terrifying gust of air was generated from nothing. While it wasn’t enough to lift the fighter jet back up, it was more than enough for Yi Beidou to adjust the jet’s flight attitude in mid-air!