Chapter 809: Parade Through the Streets First, Then Salvation

Chapter 809: Chapter 809: Parade Through the Streets First, Then Salvation

Southern Zhanbu Continent, Qingxi Mountain.

First came a golden light, an auspicious cloud drifting slowly in from the west.

Sunlight slanted down, the green mountains stood as ever — a scenic view all on its own, and with the auspicious cloud layered atop it, the whole thing positively screamed good fortune.

A Qi Refining-stage member of the Evil Spirit Sect lifted his gaze toward the horizon, and a thousand sentiments stirred within his heart. Though he was an evil cultivator, his hands were steeped in filth and blood, yet whenever he witnessed such a breathtaking, splendid moment, he always felt something inside him purified.

A thought rose at the same time: this evil cultivator path — from the outside it looked utterly hopeless, but looking at it now, wasn’t there a brilliant future ahead after all?

The auspicious cloud drifted ever closer, its rosy glow dazzling and dazzling still.

A rare trace of warmth softened the Evil Spirit Sect member’s gaze.

He hadn’t been with the organization all that long, but he had already earned the full trust of its leadership.

Just days ago, two villages had been slaughtered, hundreds of people sacrificed to refine their blood qi.

He himself hadn’t contributed all that much effort, but because his aptitude far surpassed the ordinary, he had received double the extra reward compared to the others.

That day, he had gripped the blood stone — the very stone that made his blood surge, felt within it the life-force distilled from countless lives, felt those powers coalesce into the blood qi now coursing through his body...

The only thought remaining in his heart was one: next time, he would put in more effort.

Others’ bones and blood built the stairs; one step at a time, ascending the heavenly road.

Yesterday’s shackles all turned to nothing; only then did he see the path ahead paved by destiny.

Now the road ahead was clear. All he had to do was follow the routine — offer up the lives of those ignorant commoners, and let him climb to the summit step by step. Once there, anyone in this world would have to bow before him.

What he had once been unable to reach would soon be within easy grasp.

For example, Cuihua from the village head, who had looked down on him — he looked down on her now too, and she had long since become a part of the power within his body.

He gazed at the auspicious cloud on the horizon. In his eyes, the cloud subtly transformed into surging blood qi, and he stood within it, a single hand raised to summon wind and rain.

But in the next instant, the evil cultivator’s gaze turned to stark terror.

Because a hand had truly emerged from that auspicious cloud.

A golden hand, radiant with dazzling Buddhist light swirling around every finger, slowly extending from within the cloud.

The hand moved with such deliberate slowness, yet in the blink of an eye it had crossed from the horizon to his very eyes.

Only now did he grasp how enormous it was — it blotted out the sky and sun, golden light shimmering, bigger than the entire mountain where they had been hiding.

The pressure descended like a rainbow — like divine punishment itself.

Bad news: this palm was the genuine article. The pressure alone nearly drove him to his knees. Even ten thousand of him would have been ground to dust by this single strike.

Good news: today he had been sent out to stand watch, and this palm was aimed squarely at his evil-cultivator hideout.

His eyes tracked the hand as it descended without the slightest deviation, landing squarely on a familiar peak.

The mountain was protected by a grand formation, but the formation only flickered with a dim, unremarkable crimson glow before shattering into fragments and scattering.

The golden palm slapped downward without a hint of hesitation.

BOOM!

The entire mountain crumbled beneath the golden palm. Terrifying shockwaves radiated outward, hurling stone and sand in every direction, whipping up a howling gale.

The evil cultivator stared, jaw agape, at the scene before him.

That mountain had been home to a Golden Core ancestor, dozens of Foundation Establishment experts.

Whispers spoke of a Nascent Soul realm powerhouse hidden within.

Yet now, beneath this single palm, all of it had become so much stone and sand...

Panic, fear — everything had been obliterated by the might of this palm.

A sickly smile crept onto the evil cultivator’s face... What sort of power was this?

How many people would one have to kill, how much blood qi refined, to reach this level?

The palm fell, and in its wake dozens of golden streaks of light shot down from within the auspicious cloud.

It was only when a thread of divine sense locked unerringly onto the evil cultivator that he snapped back to awareness — Mother of mercy! Run!

No matter whose palm that was, if he didn’t run now, he’d never need to run again.

A Qi Refining cultivator couldn’t yet fly, but with legs leaping with all their strength, he could manage a rough sort of flight for a moment or two.

He had barely taken two bounds when his feet ground to a halt.

There was no mystery why. Before him stood a novice monk in an earthy-yellow robe, gazing at him with calm eyes. Not the faintest ripple of spiritual energy emanated from the monk’s body.

The evil cultivator’s face twisted into a snarl. Though he knew the truth was probably that his cultivation gap with the figure before him was simply too vast to perceive, in this moment his only chance of survival lay in one possibility: the person before him really was just an ordinary novice monk.

The odds of that, in a moment like this, were surely lower than zero.

But the survival instinct would not let go of any possibility, even a fantasy.

"If you don’t want to die, get lost!" the evil cultivator roared.

Yuankong’s gaze swept over the evil cultivator, and he spoke in an even voice:

"When you refined people into blood qi — did you shout this too?"

Before coming here, Chu Xingchen had taken Yuankong to visit a small village that this band of evil cultivators had wiped off the map.

These particular evil cultivators — with resources too meager for bigger operations — could only target remote little villages and slaughter them all.

And when they struck, they left no survivors — except those who could join their ranks and had the means to do so.

Under divine sense, hiding was utterly meaningless.

Yuankong recalled what he had seen that day.

The charred remnants of houses, still holding traces of a fading warmth.

Brownish-red earth still reeking of putrid stench, heavy smoke that seemed etched into the very soil.

Chu Xingchen had spoken beside him, his voice very calm: "What we call ’wait a little longer’ to them is despair and an ending. When we are slow, sometimes it becomes irreparable. I’m not blaming anyone — after all, we didn’t do this. I only want to tell you that if you can, sometimes you can move a little faster."

That day, the Honored Buddha had been there too. Like Yuankong, he had said nothing.

Yuankong understood — those words had really been intended for Runan.

But he had heard them too.

Yuankong had traveled far and wide, and it was not as though he had never seen evil cultivators causing havoc — yet each time, it hit him like the first.

Yuankong’s gaze settled on the snarling evil cultivator before him:

"Nothing to say to me, is that it?"

The evil cultivator launched himself forward, the thin wisps of blood qi swirling across his body, and drove his fist with all his might toward Yuankong’s skull.

Yuankong simply raised a hand. The evil cultivator’s head seemed to deliver itself into his palm. Yuankong’s fingers closed around it, and golden Buddhist light blazed to life — like stripping meat from bone, he began to peel every trace of blood qi from the evil cultivator’s flesh and blood.

His voice was calm: "It wasn’t yours. I’m taking it back."

The evil cultivator felt searing pain rack every inch of his body, as though his flesh was being flayed alive. The will to survive drove him to scream through the agony:

"Great mercy... great mercy... spare my life... spare my life..."

Yuankong’s gaze remained tranquil:

"Relax. You won’t die just yet. According to the itinerary, you still have to be paraded through the streets."

"And then be saved."

"So that other evil cultivators, or those who were thinking of becoming evil cultivators, can understand what the price of taking the wrong path truly is."