Chapter 460: Another Invitation

Ah Er rushed down the mountain, carrying a red snake, and headed for the woods in the distance.

It found the creature’s death suspicious and wanted to bury it far away.

In the distance, a Flying Ship sped over in a great hurry.

As it drew near, Yi Xiang of the Foreign Affairs Hall leaped from the Flying Ship.

The moment he saw Bai Mo, he paid no mind to anything else. He grabbed Bai Mo’s arm and demanded,

“Did an old man come here!?”

Bai Mo nodded and gestured at his own clothes.

“Was he covered in bone ornaments?”

Yi Xiang instantly grew tense.

“How did you treat him? You didn’t cause any trouble, did you?”

Bai Mo shook his head.

“He had a token from the Foreign Affairs Hall. I didn’t dare stop him.”

“I’ve already seen him off safely.”

Yi Xiang visibly relaxed, letting out a sigh of relief.

“That’s good.”

The palpitations from earlier still seemed to linger. Bai Mo touched his chest, his lips feeling a little dry.

“Senior Brother, you still haven’t told me who that was.”

Yi Xiang caught his breath.

“He’s one of the sect’s Calamity Dispellers.”

“This year, widespread snow disasters have plagued the outside world. Demon Beasts and Demon Cultivators have seized the opportunity to wreak havoc, and many people have died. That is why the Calamity Dispellers have reappeared.”

“These people comprehend the dao of life and death, fortune and misfortune. They’re very strange. If you ever run into them, Junior Brother, just make sure you don’t get involved…”

After a few more words of instruction, Yi Xiang leaped onto the Flying Ship and sped off in the direction Bai Mo indicated.

Bai Mo paused for a moment, then turned and returned to the Black Prison.

The prison was unusually quiet. All the Nascent Soul and Core Formation prisoners were silent.

Bai Mo walked along the cells and found twelve prisoners, their faces ashen, completely breathless.

Another cell door stood wide open, its prisoner having been taken away by the old man.

The Black Prison had its own restrictive formations. ‘Heaven knows how that old man opened the door.’

A faint aura seemed to linger in the prison, likely left behind when the old man made his move. It was even more oppressive than the auras of the prisoners.

Bai Mo had never witnessed anything like this. Since starting on the Alchemy Dao, he had read voraciously and heard of many things.

But he had never heard of beings like Calamity Dispellers.

‘Besides them, it seems only certain Divine Beings wield such specific authority.’

As Bai Mo was lost in thought, a prisoner suddenly spoke up.

“Hey, Warden. Get those bodies out of here.”

The speaker’s voice was hoarse and his tone was odd, as if he hadn’t spoken in a long time.

“If the bodies stay in here, more people will die sooner or later. It’ll just make more work for you…”

“How so?” Bai Mo frowned and asked.

Seeming desperate for Bai Mo to clear out the corpses, the man suppressed his impatience.

“Calamity Dispellers are disaster removers. Those people have authority similar to a Divine Being. Their words and thoughts connect to the Celestial Dao, reaching heaven’s ear directly. It’s an incredibly domineering power.”

“As long as the malevolence clinging to those corpses remains, it will stir up even greater trouble…”

His voice was filled with dread.

Bai Mo’s brow twitched as he listened.

He wasted no more time, turning and leaving the Black Prison at once.

Ah Er had just finished burying the red snake and was returning, dusting off its paws.

The moment it appeared, Bai Mo gave it a new task.

“Go and ask someone from the Foreign Affairs Hall to come here…”

The heavy snow continued to fall.

Ah Er ventured out into the snow.

Just five days later, it returned, leading disciples from the Foreign Affairs Hall.

There were only two of them. They remained silent the entire time, their expressions grave and wary. After inspecting the corpses, they loaded them onto a Flying Ship and departed.

Just as the bodies were cleared from the prison,

a majestic Suanni tilted its head slightly. Half of its great head appeared within the prison, as if it had just rolled over in its sleep, its eyes drowsy.

The next moment, the Suanni’s figure vanished, and with a WHOOSH, a great fire swept through the prison.

The prisoners gritted their teeth, enduring the searing heat.

When the flames died down, the oppressive aura in the prison had vanished without a trace.

「In the stone house.」

Bai Mo wrote four large words on a piece of paper: ‘Reaching Heaven’s Ear Directly’.

‘The ways of heaven are unpredictable.’

‘Which Celestial Dao do the Calamity Dispellers connect to? One that distinguishes between fortune and misfortune? And what about Divine Beings? Are they their equals?’

‘How very strange…’

Bai Mo felt he had learned something new. He instinctively connected this to the concept of divinity, pondering the relationship between them.

Divinity was the root of a Divine Being, an aggregation of the three aspects: heaven, earth, and man.

‘There must be a connection somewhere,’ he thought, ‘but my knowledge is too limited to figure it out.’

‘Forget it.’

There was no use dwelling on such matters. Bai Mo walked over to the Pill Furnace, which had been simmering for several days.

He extinguished the furnace fire and retrieved the Outer Pill fragment from within.

The mud-like impurities on its surface were gone, leaving only the pure Outer Pill, which now resembled metal.

Where the black sludge had been, numerous previously hidden cracks were now visible.

WHOOSH!

A wisp of Spirit Charm from the Great Suanni happened to appear beside him, shimmering with a faint light.

Bai Mo placed the Outer Pill fragment next to the wisp of Spirit Charm. In its soft glow, a dense network of arcane patterns emerged on the fragment’s surface.

‘So this is the wonder of an Outer Pill,’ he mused. ‘These patterns are likely just one piece of the original pill’s unique power.’

He extended his Divine Thought, spreading it across the patterns.

He had intended to forcibly memorize them for later comprehension.

But Bai Mo paused, instead pouring his Divine Thought into the numerous cracks.

‘It seems these cracks follow the trajectories of some of the patterns…’

Bai Mo was surprised.

‘An Outer Pill of this level should have the great dao of heaven and earth inscribed within it.’

‘Under what circumstances would the patterns representing the great dao all crack like this?’

‘Did its creator comprehend the dao incorrectly?’

As he pondered, the patterns on the fragment grew increasingly blurry.

Bai Mo inspected it closely and saw that the black sludge was gradually filling the depths of the cracks once more.

The patterns on the surface were also being slowly covered by the sludge.

Even after countless years, the fragment was still decaying.

‘What kind of material is this?’

A wave of dejection, something he hadn’t felt in a long time, washed over him.

Bai Mo felt a pang of frustration.

‘My brain just isn’t up to the task…’

…

Two days later, while Bai Mo was still struggling with how to dissolve the fragments, he suddenly received another invitation.

It was delivered by Xiong Xin, his face beaming with joy.

“Junior Brother Bai, that rascal Wei Xianxing is actually getting married!”

“You have to be there! We all need to give him a proper celebration…”

Bai Mo, who was receiving him, was taken aback. The heavy thoughts on his mind seemed to dissipate.

“Brother Wei really accepted?”

Xiong Xin grinned from ear to ear.

“The lady is latched onto him and won’t let go. What else could he do?”

“But the lady is just looking for a way out herself, to escape her lingering ties to the Divine Kingdom.”

“Yuan Chu gave him an idea: they’ll just go through with the ceremony. It won’t really change anything; they’ll still go their separate ways afterward.”

To make sure nothing goes wrong, Wei Xianxing paid a hefty sum to have disciples from Divine Dao Mountain provide security. Naturally, Xiong Xin is happy to help run the errands.

“When the time comes, we’ll all just go, have a proper feast, and then head out.”

Xiong Xin couldn’t stay long, as he was in a hurry to deliver the next invitation.

Before leaving, he saw Ah Er looking at the invitation with a delighted expression and chuckled.

“It’s going to be a big affair, so you should come too, little guy. We’ll need the numbers to make it a lively scene.”

“We can’t let the bride’s side outshine us…”

Bai Mo sighed.

Although the woman who had latched onto Wei Xianxing had fallen on hard times, the people she had with her were no pushovers.

It would be tough for Wei Xianxing. ‘How is he supposed to stand up to the arrogance of her entourage?’