The Path Toward Heaven

Hundreds of flames had gradually disappeared, like the fire embers scattering in the wind.

That deviant practitioner should be a famous figure since he had been hiding at the bottom of the Gathered-Soul Valley for so many years. He must have had an ambitious plan to collect all those souls to create such a powerful magic treasure; he would surely have wreaked havoc once he returned to the human world.

Yet he had died in the hands of Jing Jiu without leaving a name or making a spray in the lava.

Thinking of this, one would feel sentimental.

Seeing the scene in the river of lava, Jing Jiu fell silent for a long time, his eyes shut.

But he wasn’t feeling sentimental at the moment. He had never had any unnecessary or harmful emotion regarding those he didn’t know. What he was doing was recuperating, trying to recover his Sword Source.

It looked easy to kill that deviant swordsman; but it was actually quite difficult.

That deviant practitioner had a high Cultivation state and magic power, and a profound understanding of the underground cave and the river of lava.

Even an elder of Green Mountain in the Broken Sea State would have a hard time killing this person.

Jing Jiu was in the middle state of Free Travel. Even if his actual fighting prowess was much higher than his Cultivation state, it was still a very difficult task for him to kill this deviant practitioner. As such, he had used up a great deal of energy.

The energy he used was not the fighting intent, but the vigor he needed for calculating.

He picked up the magic treasure from the ground. In fact, he had already done two things before that deviant practitioner showed up.

He had sent the Sword of the Universe imperceptibly to the upstream of the river of lava, waiting in the distance; and meanwhile he had put the cloth that had wrapped the Sword of the Universe in his left hand.

The wrapping cloth had played an important role in the following fight. It was burned into a fireball in the lava.

To predict every move of the opponent who was much superior to Jing Jiu in terms of Cultivation state, the details of his action plan had to be precise.

Looking at the fireball of the wrapping cloth in the lava, the deviant practitioner thought it was Jing Jiu burning in the lava; so he let his guard down.

Actually, nobody could survive in the lava, save for those in the Heavenly Arrival State or those with a special magic treasure.

The deviant practitioner hadn’t expected Jing Jiu to be still alive; and he hadn’t expected that Jing Jiu would use the lava to assault him like a volcano. The thing he hadn’t expected the most was that that broad flying sword of Fairy State had been waiting for him behind his back in the darkness.

Under the circumstances, he had no way to survive.

To put it more precisely, that deviant practitioner was not killed by Jing Jiu’s sword, but instead, he died because of Jing Jiu’s precise calculation.

Jing Jiu had predicted all the details of this battle. Even though not all of his predictions would come true, since the deviant practitioner would have his own ideas and corresponding actions, some changes of the details wouldn’t alter the outcome when the overall framework was predetermined.

This was the true sword work of Green Mountain.

Taiping was very good at this; so was Jing Jiu.

Since the time when Jing Jiu was in that small village, he demonstrated that he was not so good at dealing with mortal affairs, and his memory was not so good either; it was because the mortal affairs were not useful for him. On the other hand, he had an outstanding capability and comprehension in the Cultivation or sword work.

…

…

The river of lava flowed slowly, lacking the sound of water waves, save for the noise of the lava bumping into the banks.

Jing Jiu opened his eyes and looked at the surface of the river.

The temperature on the surface of the lava river dropped due to the cold air coming over, and it returned to its original murky form.

That deviant practitioner should be utterly dead.

Jing Jiu took out the magic treasure and had a good look of it. His expression changed slightly.

The original object of this magic treasure was a scale, but it was unclear what animal this scale hailed from. Judging from its weight and size, the animal should be quite large, though it was not as large as the Old Dragon or even the Dace Devil.

There was no absolute connection between the level of a life and its size; otherwise, his friend in the distant ocean would be the strongest person in this world. Well, the Giant indeed had no equal in the world.

After checking it with his sword awareness, Jing Jiu sensed that this magic treasure had a pure fire will, and that it was extraordinary. Its original owner was mostly likely a fire python or one of those peculiar devil animals that had lived in the river of lava.

It was a pity that the owner of the scale was not mature enough when the scale was peeled off, explaining how the scale had lost its true essence. But it had finally become a magic treasure after being tempered diligently for many years by that deviant practitioner.

The scale contained the pure fire will, and it should be able to block fire. The reason the scale gave off a few puffs of green smoke when his hand touched it was because the deviant practitioner had instilled too many resentful souls and dark spirits in it, which had unexpectedly damaged its true nature.

Shaking his head, Jing Jiu thought that this deviant practitioner was not good at tempering the magic treasure and that he had damaged such a good material.

Yet, he didn’t feel too bad about it. He had seen too many magic treasures of such quality and material, and he liked this magic treasure because it was hard enough, and so he could use it as the whetstone.

Now that he would use it as the whetstone, this magic treasure would turn into powders; as such, it didn’t matter so much that the material was damaged in the first place.

…

…

The river of lava flowed slowly, and once in a while, the surface of the river would open a gap and emit light like a red wall, illuminating the gloomy and dark underground cave.

The deep noise of the lava bumping into the banks and the occasional fire flames had no effect on Jing Jiu. Sitting by the river of lava, Jing Jiu’s right hand rubbed against the magic treasure rapidly with a concentrated expression. And he readjusted the rubbing force and angle as the magic treasure was ground down.

The magic treasure made from the scale was really hard, which was similar to the remaining bone of the large demon in the Fiend Prison. There was a wonderful hand feel to it, since it was as smooth as a jade. Unfortunately, it was a bit too brittle.

A few days later, the magic treasure broke into many small pieces along with several “pah” sounds.

Countless resentful souls and dark spirits rushed out from it, bringing up many gusts of dark wind.

Normally, after the magic treasure was broken, these resentful souls and dark spirits would flee out of instinct and then travel along the underground crack heading toward the ground or a deeper place to seek out the blood or souls when no object could control them any longer.

But, these resentful souls and dark spirits saw Jing Jiu grinding it for several days; so they generated an instinctive fear of him. They didn’t dare leave, but drifted around Jing Jiu.

If someone witnessed this scene, they would think Jing Jiu was a deviant practitioner who harmed innocent lives to make the demonic wares.

Had these resentful souls and dark spirits accepted Jing Jiu as their master?

If it were the main character in another story, they would keep these resentful souls and dark spirits and find out what benefits they could gain from them. Yet, Jing Jiu didn’t even pay any heed to them, and was about to leave.

It was just then that he remembered a past event.

Three hundred years ago, the monster invasion of the Snowy Kingdom occurred. Almost all of the swordsmen of the human race went to the north to fend them off. Liu Ci and Yuan Qijing led the swordsmen of the peaks into the Lanling Snowland, and only a few young disciples were left on Green Mountain.

The Underworld Master and his subordinates took the opportunity to sneak into Shenmo Peak after bypassing the Great Formation of Green Mountain, in an attempt to take back the Seal of the Underworld Emperor. He wielded his sword at them.

All the swordsmen of the Underworld, except the Underworld Master, were killed.

After returning from the snowland, Liu Ci advised him to bury the corpses, but he was too lazy to bother with it, so he refused.

Later, the remaining soul fires of those Underworld swordsmen turned into the resentful spirits after having drifted for many years on Shenmo Peak.

Jing Jiu didn’t pay much attention to the situation, thinking that they didn’t bother him that much, and that they wouldn’t scare those of later generations who were talented enough to visit him on Shenmo Peak.

A few hundred years later, when he climbed up Shenmo Peak while heaving Zhao Layue under his arm, he encountered those resentful spirits again.

It was clear that one couldn’t avoid dealing with the aftermath if it was one’s doing.

Even if one could avoid doing something about it for the time being, they still had to deal with it three hundred years later.

If Jing Jiu didn’t deal with the resentful souls and dark spirits hovering around him right now, they would cause problems many years later.

After gaining such an understanding, Jing Jiu shook his head and swiped the Sword of the Universe downwards.

Those dark spirits were sliced into the tiniest particles after being touched by the desolate sword wills, and died out.

Yet, those resentful souls didn’t scatter right away.

The Sword of the Universe brought out a great amount of red lava from the river, forming hundreds of blurry words. If one looked closely at them, they would be able to recognize that these words were a part of the script of the Fruit Formation Temple.

The glow of the fire illuminated the gloomy cave and the faces of those resentful souls.

Their faces grew blurry gradually, and their vicious energies faded away. In the end, they had all turned into a band of green light, vanishing without a trace.

Regardless of whether they were the resentful souls or the dark spirits, they couldn’t launch any effective and frightful attack without the aid of a magic treasure; and also Jing Jiu had never been afraid of any deviant power to begin with. So he could easily destroy them.

In fact, it was not so easy to achieve the feat. It was extremely complicated.

Besides him, nobody else could achieve it. If he hadn’t listened to the scripts in the last six years at the Fruit Formation Temple, he wouldn’t be able to do it either.

Jing Jiu tossed the broken pieces of the magic treasure into the river of lava, and leapt up in the air.

He was not to leave the underground. Countless bones of the ancient demons that had died in the battles awaited him in the underground. Thinking of this, even Jing Jiu felt expectant.

He turned his body upside down, and reached out his right hand.

Whoosh!!!

A gust of gentle wind occurred in the gloomy cave.

Jing Jiu vanished.

There was a round hole on the ground of the cave.

The hot lava rushed to the hole from the stony crack connecting the river and filled up the hole. As lava grew darker, no sign of the hole could be found.

…

…

The rocks were melted into a lava river, meaning that this place was close to the center of the earth.

No matter whether they were from the orthodox or deviant sects, it was hard for the human Cultivation practitioners to live in such a hot environment.

Jing Jiu didn’t encounter any hidden swordsmen on his way down. It was unclear if this was a lucky sign or a bad omen.

After a long while, Jing Jiu broke through the cliff wall and flew out.

This place was a huge underground cave, where the distance between the roof of the cave and the ground was a few miles; it looked very expansive.

A river of hot lava was flowing constantly.

If this river of lava didn’t flow faster and the lava was not hotter, with a loud booming sound when the river hit the banks, Jing Jiu would think that he was still at the same river of lava he had been to earlier.

Even though one couldn’t step into the same river twice, they would sooner or later encounter the similar scenery after traveling around long enough.

He arrived at the edge of the river, and gazed off at the distance.

The bright and hot river of lava extended a few miles up ahead, and suddenly forked into two separate rivers at a spot in the distance.

The two rivers of lava didn’t flow to the east and west separately, but instead, one of them flowed upwards and the other flowed downwards.

Experiencing such a peculiar thing and seeing the bizarre scene, anybody would generate a sentimental feeling, except for Jing Jiu.

Even if he had such a feeling, it was not evident.

The river shot up flames and dreadful lava, illuminating his unresponsive face.

In the next moment, Jing Jiu turned to walk up a slope. Sensing that he was getting closer to the energy up ahead, he knew that he was in the right place.

A great many years ago, the area on the other side of the slope was the ancient battlefield of humans and the Underworld swordsmen.

After the Gathered-Soul Valley was sealed off by the Center Sect, the ancient battlefield sank to the bottom of the underground.

It probably happened some thirty thousand years ago when the Center Sect had just been founded and was in its first thriving period; but Jing Jiu was not sure about the exact time.

Many years had passed. The remains of the humans had been taken out of here and buried somewhere else a long time ago; and none of the Underworld swordsmen’s corpses were left behind either. It would be impossible to find any magic treasures and books of the secret magic methods left by the swordsmen. However, what Jing Jiu wanted to find were the bones of the demons. No matter how greedy the human Cultivation practitioners were, they would find those large and heavy bones were mostly useless for them after they flayed their skins and took their devil pills. The bones of the demons were not really very useful save for their hardness, and the Cultivation practitioners wouldn’t benefit in the least from drinking the tea boiled with these bones. As such, those bones were useless for everybody else but Jing Jiu, because he could use those hard bones to grind against his right arm.

Thinking of all this, Jing Jiu crested the slope, and looked down.

The area was even larger on this side of the cave. The ground was a dark plain, about ten square miles in size.

The fire in the river of lava illuminated the whole cave, casting a light over the plain, which looked like the twilight.

Hundreds of large demon bones were scattered on the plain under the twilight, casting many much bigger dark shadows.

These dead demons were still maintaining the postures when they were killed in the battles; they looked as large as they had been and as dreadful as ever.

Though this ancient battle field didn’t look like it had been there for tens of thousands of years, it still gave off a feel of ancient times.

Jing Jiu came to a white skeleton of a large demon.

The structure of the skeleton of this large demon looked like that of a common elephant, but it was more than ten times bigger than any elephant.

Jing Jiu was most interested in the teeth of this large demon.

He reached out his left hand, but grabbed an empty space.

The demon’s tooth of one hundred feet in length had fallen apart, turning into something like the snowflakes filling the air and splashing onto his body and face.

In the next moment, the skeleton of the large demon collapsed to the ground like the thatched hut in a strong windstorm, turning into powder as well.

After a moment of silence, Jing Jiu walked to the front of another skeleton of a large demon, and reached out his left pinkie.

The same thing occurred.

The skeleton of the large demon collapsed, becoming the noticeable white powders on the dark plain.

After tens of thousands of years, everything became rotten.

The demon bone in the Fiend Prison had soaked in the stomach of the Old Dragon for many years, and Jing Jiu had turned it into the powders after having ground it against his right arm from the summer to the early autumn.

Yet, the bones of the large demons on this plain fell apart when being touched.

Tens of thousands of years had passed; time had shown its magnificent effect in an area seldom visited by humans.

The great power of time is indeed the sharpest sword in heaven and earth.

Standing amid hundreds of huge skeletons, Jing Jiu fell silent for a while, and turned to leave.

As he left the area, Jing Jiu’s sleeve brought up a gust of gentle wind; it was unclear if he did it on purpose or not.

Hundreds of huge skeletons collapsed slowly. One could imagine that these bones would merge into the dark plain many years later.

Jing Jiu didn’t turn his head to take a final look at the scene. He went to the place where the twilight arose, and sat down on the bank of the lava river.

The lava in the river bobbed up and down, and sometimes shot up like the upside down waterfalls; and sometimes it jumped up and down like the sentient beings.

The booming sounds were bombarding the ears all the time.

The river flowed forward constantly.

The bygones are bygones.

One should cherish each day and night.

But, if one can strive for a life of ten thousand years, they have no need to worry about one single night.

Jing Jiu mulled over all this, completely unperturbed.