Archfiend

In a split second, a Gem of Dreaming could bring one to paradise. In the same vein, however, it could instantly send one to the depths of hell… 

Xu Yangyi mumbled to himself for a brief moment, and his finger lightly tapped out. Three Gems of Dreaming appeared in his hand.

“Three pieces…” Rocjourney’s eyes brightened. It was extremely difficult for such an item to appear, but what was even harder to obtain were the true treasures concealed within. At the very least, he’d never heard of any. Only by standing guard over the passage of the twin sal-trees with Enihilus did he have the fortune to see ten-plus Gems of Dreaming. It was a pity, though, that all the recorded contents were minor matters that were unrelated to anything of importance.

Upon seeing Xu Yangyi’s mumbling expression, Rocjourney let out rare laughter. “Fellow Daoist, this thing is addictive. Don’t open it. Let’s just forget it. In any case, the output it too, too little… no, there are too few cultivators or demons that can traverse dreamlands. Your odds of pulling something bad are higher than something good coming out. In addition…”

He put on a proper face. “In the same vein, something that can kill a cultivator in a flash might appear. You have to remember at all cost… all cost… You! What are you!!!”

Before his voice even fell, Xu Yangyi had already crushed a gem without the slightest pause. Quick to react, Rocjourney hurried over a dozen meters away and watched Xu Yangyi vigilantly.

“What’s there to be scared about?” Xu Yangyi said in a low voice, “When the going gets tough, you have to act boldly. Don’t you understand this principle?”

“If things were as usual, I definitely wouldn’t break a Gem of Dreaming. But now… the second level is the Dream Walker’s slumber palace. Another fraction of card, even if it’s just one, might guarantee that we get out of here alive.”

“If we’re short that one final sliver of effort in the end, what’s the difference between an early death and a late one?”

He easily twirled the second Gem of Dreaming.

Rocjourney took a deep breath and looked at Xu Yangyi incredulously.

This was too brazen!

This truly could be said to be extremely reckless!

He didn’t dare speak to Xu Yangyi, but he merely dared to confirm that if he obtained this item, he absolutely wouldn’t risk opening it, unless as a last resort. Yes, admittedly there was a chance that a divine treasury was inside, but that also proved true for fatal objects.

He knew that Xu Yangyi was speaking about a hard principle, but the crux of the matter was… that a hard principle still depended on whether one had this courage!

Is this the difference between me and him? The bearded man gazed deeply at Xu Yangyi, complex feelings in his heart. The previous words of “foolish” and “trash” had long since vanished from his mind. His heart of cultivation… really is invulnerable… Am I… actually inferior to him?

Admitting this point, or perhaps this thought, was a difficulty like no other to him. Even if Buddhism had honored figures at Nascent Soul who knew of the twin sal-trees’ avatar trees, perhaps they would still prostrate themselves without a second word. The fact was, however, that he was a bodhi seed of the aforementioned tree. But still… he was inferior to a mortal cultivator?

Crack… As he continued on in his thoughts, Xu Yangyi had crushed the second gem. He took a step back, but forcibly stopped himself just as he did so. Complexion ashy, he looked at Xu Yangyi.

As before… there was nothing.

He quietly sighed in relief, not knowing whether it was because of rejoice or disappointment. He laughed with great difficulty, “Fellow Daoist, this really is normal. Me and Fellow Daoist Enihilus have sat here for centuries, and there’s only been two or three valuable ones…”

Before his voice even fell, the entire passage began to shake!

Huuummm… Xu Yangyi and Rocjourney were suddenly pressured down by dozens of meters! It was as if a giant invisible mountain had fallen on them!

However, ten thousand meters ahead of them, a few good people snapped their heads back!

“This…” Bladevessel turned around and glared daggers. “So strong… so strong!!! The will of a supreme power, a true great cultivator, is striding across the realm!!!”

“Who is it… Great Sage Sun’s will? No, impossible, the sire swore a great oath. Unless the situation forces no other conclusion, he absolutely won’t sever this intention! Otherwise, why would I, Horseplague, dare to come here!” His gaze flickered intensely. “I have to go faster… and reach its body. I can feel that it’s actually downwind… I simply cannot believe it…”

“Tearing space and crushing distance… To shift through millions and millions of mountains and rivers through the span of a square inch… This is too terrible… W-Who in the world is it?!?! Who drew such a monster here?!” The three-eyed spirit-ape puppet looked at the shaking passage in shock, and stuttered, “It… It is forcibly ripping this dreamland! That means its cultivation is at least a hundred times greater than the Dream Walker… no, a thousand! Ten thousand!!!”

“Gasp…” Moonless likewise stopped, but only shot a glance. He then clutched his head and began to wail, “Fang Cheng… you’re called Fang Cheng, aren’t you? Get out… GET OUT!”

At the Garden of the Twin Sal-Trees, Enihilus was peacefully sitting on the lawn. All of a sudden, though, the sky darkened.

“Impossible!!!” The old monk bolted up on his feet and looked at the sky in astonishment. Vibrant colors of all kinds of hues were present in the sky. Bursts of demonic wind and a terrible aura caused Enihilus to shiver from head to toe!

This was not Buddha. It surpassed Buddha!

“Impossible… Impossible! This is the Garden of the Twin Sal-Trees! This is where the avatar of Buddha came to eternal rest! How… How could a monster enter this place?!”

As he spoke, the entire lawn uniformly withered! Only the twin sal-trees stood tall!

Huuummm… Enihilus seemed to see a massive butterfly silhouette between the clouds… There was no end of it in sight… and its appearance couldn’t be made out! It might’ve been 5,000 meters in size! Or possibly close to ten thousand!

“Is this thing… even a butterfly?” Stunned, he looked to the sky and seemed to see a dragon’s horn and a serpent’s body… All kinds of disharmonies were on this butterfly.

“What is this! What is this?!” Fat beads of sweat were already rolling down Rocjourney’s forehead. He kneeled in the air, not having expected at all that Xu Yangyi’s huge gamble on the roulette would actually open something!

And something so terrible at that!

“Demonic qi saturated with malice… It’s too strong… It forcibly invaded this dreamland, n-no good! The Dream Walker is bound to wake up even faster under such a violent provocation! What… is this!”

BOOM! Only Xu Yangyi knew what this was.

Inside the gem… was unexpectedly a trace of Butterflymother Southflower’s spiritual sense!

At this moment, the phantom of a butterfly emerged in his mind. No, it was no longer a butterfly. It had a dragon’s horn, a serpent’s body, a qilin’s scales, and wings formed out of peacock feathers… Not only was such an amalgamation of so many godbeasts not divine, but it instead possessed a kind of chaotic terror.

No good!

Only these two words appeared in Xu Yangyi’s mind. With how powerful Xiaoqing was, he knew that she and Fahai had transformed an area of several hundred thousand square kilometers into a fantasy realm. And although her true body was being suppressed, and the price for each speck of spiritual force used was centuries of longevity, she could still exterminate a thousand cultivators even like so. She moreover hadn’t spared the price to mobilize her true body to fight Celestial Master Zhang at the summit of Dragon-Tiger Mountain. It was no understatement to call her an unparalleled overlord! 

But there were a total of eight such overlords, forever suppressed in the Eight Great Deadlands. Butterflymother Southflower was one of them! The Jade Firmament Demon King!

This thought only flashed through his mind. After all, the butterflymother was too far away from him. On the contrary, he paying close attention… Would such powerful irritation cause the Dream Walker to wake up in advance?

Evidently… Butterflymother Southflower’s dream and the Dream Walker’s dream weren’t on the same level.

I have to hurry and finish up here, and get to the second level… otherwise, it really will be too late! I might not return to Earth, and I’ll become a pile of ash!

Before his thought even finished, one point in the tunnel suddenly began humming and split open.

As dense as spider webs, spatial cracks madly crept out!

“Fellow Daoist! The Dream Walker is about to wake up!!! W-What the hell did you see?!” Rocjourney shouted with great anxiety, “In another hour at most, the dreamland it built is going to collapse! If we don’t reach it, everything’s over!”

“The Clearcloud Realm will be instantly destroyed, and you and I both will accompany it in death!!!”

Xu Yangyi was soaked in sweat, as if he’d just woken up from a nightmare.

A butterfly silhouette was just staying in his dantian, absolutely still. However, he could see that it was alive! 

It… seemed to sense some familiar object. Unexpectedly, with each of the Azurecloud Seed’s shakes and stirs, it suddenly went west and then east. Floating and drifting along, it really was like a fluttering butterfly.

Xu Yangyi could sense… that it had built a bridge between him and Butterflymother Southflower. A bridge of spiritual sense!

Here… he could sense from countless light-years away, hazily see, a colossal shadow!

Well this was just great fun!

“Damn…” Xu Yangyi fiercely spat out. His face was as stormy as it could be. Who even knew? Rocjourney and Enihilus had both been fine, opening Gems of Dreaming for centuries. He, however, had actually freed such an entity.

“Fellow Daoist! Hurry and run!” Rocjourney was already so worried that he was about to jump. “Don’t open more! Although I don’t know what you opened, it’s certainly a disastrous thing! One-in-three, with odds like this, you’re already considered pretty lucky! Don’t push it!!!”

Pretty lucky?

Xu Yangyi grinded his teeth. He clearly understood how strange Butterflymother Southflower was! Could you even say that the Jade Firmament Demon King leaving a brand on your spiritual sense was pretty lucky?

Perhaps another egg would come not long from now! And possess him!

Teeth gritted, he looked to the last Gem of Dreaming.

“I don’t believe it… that this last one can be as strange as this one was!” His expression turned savage, and he ruthlessly crushed the final gem!

“Fellow Daoist! We…” Before these words even left Rocjourney’s mouth, he was instantly stricken dumb.

There was something… 

There was actually something!!!

This isn’t fair!!! Heavenly Dao, you’re playing around with me! He almost cursed. He had spent so many years opening Gems of Dreaming, but not the slightest thing had ever come. Xu Yangyi, though, had opened three, obtaining two things!

Azure light shone. It was only the size of a washbowl, and it fluttered in the wind like a butterfly, appearing in front of Xu Yangyi.

It was a mask.

A mask portrayed with an azure face of tusks and fangs. The surface was filled with mottled marks. At the same time, a majestic voice emerged in Xu Yangyi’s mind.

“The Azure Winged-Demon Mask… one of the butterflymother’s magik treasures in her early years. With flame of scarlet and claw of darkness, it unites with the Profound Armor to form ‘The Imperial Seal of South China’. The mask alone can seal off all of another’s spiritual sense probing during a spiritual sense attack.”

Xu Yangyi’s heartbeat abruptly sped up!

This was a magik treasure!

One that was even part of an unheard set of magik treasures!

Magik treasures were roughly done being nurtured by the time late Foundation Establishment rolled around. Naturally though, this was only regarding ordinary cultivators. If one was from an apex clan, initial-stage Foundation Establishment wasn’t impossibility. If one had a fortuitous encounter, then middle-stage Foundation Establishment wasn’t rare. Nonetheless, the important mark of a magik treasure was the supplementary power.