Chapter 415 - 414: Reinforcements Have Arrived
A red light landed with a whoosh, revealing a man in red clothes with a fiery beard and a body like an iron tower.
The man’s eyes lit up the instant he saw the Heart Chakra in Changyi’s hand. He immediately reached out and said sharply, "Give it to me!"
Without a word, Changyi tossed the Heart Chakra over.
"Huh?"
The red-bearded man let out a soft sound of surprise. He caught the Heart Chakra and glanced at the group, laughing strangely. "You’re more sensible than you look."
Changyi shrugged. It was obvious their group was no match for this man. Why suffer a needless loss?
The red-bearded man tapped the Heart Chakra several times with his finger, concealing the Demon Qi erupting from it. A Rune that had just manifested on the side of the Heart Chakra also vanished.
Having done this, the red-bearded man looked at the group with a glint in his eyes, fiddling with the Heart Chakra in satisfaction.
"Who are you people? And how did you get this Magical Treasure?"
The red-bearded man looked at Changyi and his male companion with unconcealed killing intent, while his gaze toward Jingyi and Xue Bingbing burned with raw greed.
Changyi clasped his hands together in a cautious posture and said with a placating smile, "It’s a long story. We were traveling through Songyun Prefecture when we happened upon the Heart Wheel Sect..."
"The Heart Wheel Sect?" The red-bearded man raised an eyebrow. "That fellow has some nerve, daring to name his sect directly after the Heart Chakra. Does he really think Oldzi wouldn’t dare come to the Central Plains to find him?"
Changyi and the others exchanged a look. ’So the treasure’s real name actually is Heart Chakra,’ they thought. ’The Heart Wheel Sect Leader sure is bold.’
"So that’s how it is. After that, we..."
"Enough!" The red-bearded man waved his hand, cutting Changyi off. He glared at them. "You’ve accidentally helped this master retrieve his Magical Treasure, so I’ll count it as a small favor. I’ll grant you a complete corpse and won’t use your souls for my Refining Technique."
"As for you two..." The red-bearded man turned to Jingyi and Xue Bingbing with a wicked cackle.
Xue Bingbing pointed a finger at him and shouted, "I am from Snow God Mountain! Even the Six-headed Old Demon didn’t dare cause trouble on Snow God Mountain when he was alive! Who do you think you are? Aren’t you afraid my mother will flay you alive and turn you into a human lantern?"
Noticing the frosty aura around Xue Bingbing, the red-bearded man grinned even wider. "A little Snow Maiden from Snow God Mountain! Excellent, excellent! Oldzi nearly fell at Xue Feishuang’s hands last time. Today, I’ll take my frustrations out on you!"
Xue Bingbing’s expression changed drastically. She raised her hand to the sky and shot out a point of icy light.
But before the point of light could ascend, a red thread shot out from the red-bearded man’s beard. It instantly flew to the light, wrapped around it, and extinguished it.
"Hehehe, I’ve had several run-ins with your Snow God Mountain. Trying to call for help? You’re dreaming," the red-bearded man laughed.
Xue Bingbing’s face paled slightly. She looked at Zhan Qing. "That’s a unique Magic from our Snow God Mountain. As long as the ice rises into the sky, any Snow God Mountain disciple within a five-hundred-li radius will sense it, but..."
Zhan Qing took Xue Bingbing’s hand and patted it gently. "Don’t worry. He can’t do anything to us."
"I can’t do anything to you?" The red-bearded man burst out laughing as if he’d heard the world’s greatest joke, then his face darkened. "For that sentence alone, this old man will perform Soul Extraction and Essence Refinement on you and torture you for a hundred years."
"Hold on! Hold on!" Changyi waved his hands, stepping in front of Zhan Qing with a chuckle. "Just so you know, Your Excellency, we are not from Snow God Mountain. We are from Daluo Palace."
"Daluo Palace?" The red-bearded man sneered, making it clear he’d never heard of it.
"That’s right. Daluo Palace."
The one who spoke was not Changyi or his companions, but another, older female voice. The red-bearded man followed the sound and saw a short old woman suddenly appear in the woods, standing beside the young woman.
"Master!" Jingyi cried out in pleasant surprise.
The newcomer was Taoist Xu Ning of the Pure Sect. After returning from Blue Star, she had been traveling around Yazhou. She knew Jingyi was going to ask Xue Bingbing for information about Snow God Mountain, so she hadn’t joined them, instead staying nearby to offer protection.
And sure enough, just as she was in a nearby county town punishing an insatiably greedy landlord, she received Jingyi’s message.
Taoist Xu Ning didn’t dare to delay. She immediately sealed the landlord’s ability to speak, telling him that only by sincerely Doing Good Deeds and Accumulating Virtue could he resolve the stagnant qi with a peaceful heart. Then she flew straight over, arriving on the scene as quickly as possible.
Arriving on the scene and hearing the red-bearded man’s last sentence, Taoist Xu Ning’s eyes narrowed, her expression turning solemn.
She had only recently broken through, and her Dao Practice was only at about five or six hundred years. But the red-bearded man before her definitely had over a thousand years of Dao Practice. His aura was astonishing; she was no match for him.
However, Taoist Xu Ning was not afraid. She flicked the Duster in her hand, rested it on her arm, and made a palm-fist salute. She calmly announced herself, "Xu Ning of Daluo Palace. Might I ask for your name, Your Excellency?"
"So you’re the one that little brat was relying on when he said I couldn’t touch them?"
Taoist Xu Ning circulated her Magical Power, but the red-bearded man saw through her Cultivation level with a single glance. He didn’t take her seriously at all, instead letting out a strange laugh. "If you can last a single tea-time against this master, I’ll tell you my name."
Taoist Xu Ning shook her head and asked again, "Your Excellency, since you came for the Heart Chakra and now have it in your possession, why do you insist on fighting?"
"Because this master feels like it!" The red-bearded man’s eyes bulged. He thrust out his hand, and several strands of red thread suddenly shot forth.
Taoist Xu Ning swung her Duster in a reverse motion. The white hairs of its tail suddenly elongated, wrapping around the red threads. Then, with a twist of her Magical Power, she shredded them all.
The handle of this Duster was made of red sandalwood, and its hairs were taken from several Wolf Demons with a hundred years of Dao Practice. The Daoists of Daluo Palace had collected the materials after vanquishing the demons and refined them into a Duster Magical Artifact, which was a perfect fit for Taoist Xu Ning.
"Nice Magical Treasure," the red-bearded man sneered. He then spread his fingers, and hundreds of red threads shot out once more, densely weaving into a large net that descended upon Taoist Xu Ning.
"Now, what will you do?"
"Soldiers are met by generals, water is blocked by earth."
Taoist Xu Ning said calmly. The wolf-hair tail of the Duster in her hand elongated as well. Empowered by the Taoist Sect’s Purifying True Qi, its countless hairs also formed a large white net, shielding everyone present as it rose to meet the red one.
HISSSSSS—
With a sound that set one’s teeth on edge, countless white hairs of Taoist Xu Ning’s Duster were shredded, and the artifact was completely destroyed. However, all the red threads were also blocked, scattering into innumerable broken strands that drifted everywhere.
"You old hag, you destroyed my treasure! Die!"
The red-bearded man hadn’t expected the Duster, empowered by Taoist True Qi, to be so formidable. That it could overcome strength with weakness, breaking his Red Line Magical Treasure in a mutual-destruction gambit, sent him into a rage. He raised his hand and pointed again.
A crimson thread, redder and brighter than all the previous ones and tinged with the reek of blood, shot out abruptly, aiming straight for the spot between Taoist Xu Ning’s eyebrows.
The moment this red thread appeared, its sharp, chilling, and bloodthirsty aura overwhelmed that of the hundreds of threads from before. Clearly, this was the red-bearded man’s true power.
As the red thread shot toward the spot between Taoist Xu Ning’s eyebrows, the red-bearded man was fully confident he could shatter her Duster in a single blow and gravely injure her—even if she still had it, let alone now that it was destroyed.
"Go to..."
A flash of golden light appeared and vanished in an instant, intercepting the red thread from the side.
DING—
SHIIING—
The sound of the collision and the sound of the golden light tearing through the air arrived at the same time.
The red thread was severed. The red-bearded man grunted, retracting the thread with a flick of his wrist as he looked up at the sky.
In the sky, Taoist Yuan He also let out a grunt. While calming the Magical Power in his body, he controlled his Pure Yang Flying Sword to circle around him. He looked down at the red-bearded man and calmly announced himself, "Yuan He of Daluo Palace."