BTAAE Chapter 15

Volume 2: Break All Laws[mfn]’Break All Laws’ signifies overcoming any challenges, obstacles, or complexities that come one’s way. Be they in life, dharma, cultivation, martial arts, or anything else. In Buddhism and Taoism, this might be referring to transcending ordinary limitations and laws (dharma) to achieve a higher state of understanding, such as by breaking free from standard norms, constraints, and thinking.[/mfn]

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“I told you not to use your sword aura too much. Anyway, if you hold on for another half hour, those people from the south will arrive.” Jiang Xingfeng looked to the side and hastily picked up the mask the swordsman had dropped from the ground. “I let you use your sword aura to tear the seal. Did you activate the demon blood?”

The swordsman didn’t move. His eyes gradually took on the hue belonging to the demon clan, and the signs of demonization became more and more evident.

The thick scent of blood seemed to linger in his nose. The swordsman licked the tips of his teeth, his tiger teeth sharp and glaring. In addition, the demonic energy within his body was evoked by the bloody scent. He frowned and stared at the pool of dirty blood at his feet. He made a prompt decision and held back his sense of smell and taste, but even so, he could feel the unique taste of the youth’s blood from moments ago linger between his lips and teeth.

It has nothing to do with sword aura…The swordsman lowered his gaze and watched the ground.

At this moment, several powerful presences suddenly appeared high above Nanwu Mountain. The two in discussion immediately stopped talking and looked up.

The corpse water in the misty lake splashed all over the ground. The cultivators on the shore were still in a panic and failed to react in time. When the light pierced the seal on Nanwu Mountain’s skyline, the white-haired old man guarding the cultivators frowned slightly, “Why is the Xuanyu Sect here?”

The seal at Nanwu Mountain’s skyline turned to ashes amid the earth-shaking sword auras moments ago. At this moment, a number of spiritual boats were suspended above the mountaintop. The spiritual boats at the forefront belonged to the Xuanyu Sect and the Qi family.

Within the eastern realm’s south, the most famed of the four sects was the Xuanyu Sect, and the most influential of the eight great families were the Qi and Su families.

When the Xuanyu Sect’s spiritual boat touched down, the middle-aged man at the spiritual boat’s head glanced to the side at the Su family cultivators. His eyes swept over the cultivators limp on the ground and the body of the Su family elder washed up by the corpse water. He calmly waved his hand, and soon the Xuanyu Sect cultivators behind him moved to clean up the mess.

The cultivator leading the Qi family cultivators came forward and said politely: “Young Master Su, this place will be handed over to our Qi family and the Xuanyu Sect to deal with the aftermath. Do you have any objections?”

Su Yi, the Su family’s young master, frowned but didn’t speak. He simply cupped his hands and looked to the Xuanyu Sect who had arrived with the Qi family.

If it were only the Qi family that had come, he’d need not worry. But the head of the Xuanyu Sect had come in person.

Compared to the Su family, which was famed throughout the eastern realm’s cultivation world for its talismans and spiritual boats, the Xuanyu Sect was world renowned for its beast taming arts—adept at controlling spiritual beasts and demons—and companions to the south’s Xiangling Township.[mfn]仙靈鄉 – Immortal/Fairy Spirit Township[/mfn] Among all cultivators and living beings, they are the ones closest to spiritual existences. However, the Xuanyu Sect seldom interfered with the south’s mundane affairs. Usually, those affairs were handled with the Qi or Su families coming forward, even for matters such as seizing a place of rest, the Xuanyu Sect did not enjoy contesting for them either.

For the Xuanyu Sect, their main pillar was Xianling Township and their amicable relationship with the spirit beast and demon clans. With this, they were able to stand as one of the four sects in the eastern realm’s cultivation world. Every year, countless cultivators head there to study and enter the Dao.

“What are those dogs from the Xuanyu Sect doing here?” Jiang Xingfeng’s expression froze for a moment, and he hurriedly turned to the swordsman’s teeth, handing him the mask: “While they haven’t noticed us, why don’t we first…”

The swordsman didn’t say anything, but raised his gaze to peer into the depths of Nanwu Mountain behind him. With a wave of his hand, he wiped away the blood on the ground, “Let’s move.”

“Where to?” Jiang Xingfeng was puzzled.

The swordsman put the mask on to block his demonic features.

“To chase someone.”

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In Nanwu Mountain’s depths, Su Yu crawled out of the river drenched. He had just taken a few steps when the ruptured meridians within him made him helplessly fall to the ground.

The hunger had disappeared, and in its place was endless pain. He was in so much pain that he could hardly make a sound. He felt his meridians be broken and reconnected by a strange power. One moment he felt like he was going to be ripped to shreds by the tremendous yin qi stretching and exploding his body, the next, the violent force was suppressed by the totem working from within his dantian.

He clawed at the gravel on the shore in pain, the sharp stones scratching his palm.

Su Yu struggled to keep himself conscious. His eyes had become exact copies of the dantian totem’s. The clever totem had thoroughly taken root in his eyes and revolved faster and faster, bringing him an indescribable excitement. The contents of his mind were infinitely expanded, and memories flickered by.

During the constant rinsing, his broken meridians reconnected and widened. As it turns out, Su Yu’s meridians were originally extremely narrow, but now they had been flushed to several times their previous size. The scurrying yin qi found a suitable outlet and rushed to the youth’s limbs and bones like a torrent.

Cleansing the meridians and cutting down the marrow.[mfn]洗經伐髓 – This is also metaphor for thoroughly cleansing oneself of filth; removing all impurities and waste from the body and mind so the body becomes stronger as a whole.[/mfn] If a senior cultivator were here, they would surely be able to tell that the youth was undergoing an unprecedented marrow cleansing.

The yin qi spreading out in his sight vanished, and the blind youth’s vision returned to nothingness. The surroundings seemed to quieten all of a sudden, only his increasingly rapid breaths remaining. Instantly, Su Yu seemed to hear the bones and meridians within his body breaking, and his inner organs vibrated violently.

The eyes of the totem within the dantian spun rapidly, colliding with the tomb guardian beast’s pearl that Su Yu had swallowed. The ink-tinted pearl was eager to escape, but the totem didn’t allow it. Instead, it used the yin qi condensed in Su Yu’s body to frantically wrap up the pearl in his mouth and pull it deep into the dantian.

The resistance of the pearl in the mouth steadily weakened, and was at last wrapped up by the totem and fully embedded into it. As soon as the pearl was embedded into the totem, a continuous stream of thick ink-like ‘qi‘ streamed into Su Yu’s body, mixed with jade white yin qi, and quickly flowed into various meridians…

In that instant, a strange thing happened. The wounds on the youth’s body cut by the chill winds were gradually healed, and his broken leg bone regenerated under the lingering yin qi. The scars on his body vanished, and the rocky shore was covered in stains washed from the youth’s body.

How long it took was unknown, but when Su Yu woke up again, the pain in his broken leg was gone, and the numbness in his meridians had also disappeared, replaced by a lightness from inside out. He lay on the rocky shore silently. When he peered into his ocean of consciousness, he saw the eye totem slowly revolving…At the moment, the totem’s sluggishness was nowhere to be found, and its radius was larger than when Su Yu had first seen it.

If before it was simply entrenched in Su Yu’s dantian, now it had extended to cover half of his dantian…and at its very center was now a condensed mass of qi, resembling a pearl. The ink-like pearl had no strength to resist under the totem’s oppression, and laboured to rotate and follow along with the totem.

Is the totem full?…Thinking this, Su Yu felt hunger pangs rise up again, and he covered his abdomen. His fingers flexed unnaturally, as if he could reach and dig the living totem out from his dantian if his fingertips went a little deeper.

The eye totem was indifferent. The yin qi in his dantian seemed to notice Su Yu’s intention, and when Su Yu willed it, the yin qi in his dantian began to smoothly circulate. The moment it approached the totem, the black pearl at the totem’s center suddenly broke away and appeared over Su Yu’s palm the next moment.

Su Yu couldn’t help being suspicious. The black pearl suspended in his palm expanded by half its size. The yin qi scattered about him seemed to startle and rushed towards Su Yu in succession.

The pearl greedily absorbed the yin qi scattered in Nanwu Mountain, and all the yin qi poured into Su Yu’s body through the pearl…

What’s going on!? Su Yu stared at his palm with surprise. Only then did he notice that the meridians in his body had widened. Before, his body had in fact absorbed Nanwu Mountain’s yin qi, but its rate paled to that of this pearl. If he was only absorbing yin qi between breaths before, this pearl was now like a backflow of water sucking in all the yin qi around.

An untold amount of time later, the black pearl in the palm of his hand gradually calmed down and returned to its original size. When it fell to Su Yu’s palm, it returned back to the totem.

Su Yu looked up. The hunger within him had vanished, and the yin qi in Nanwu Mountain seemed to have as well.

This was all absorbed by this pearl?

Earlier in Nanwu Mountain, Su Yu had noticed that the yin qi around him was always being led away by something. It appears it was because of this pearl hidden within the mountain.

There was much more yin qi in his dantian, but now this yin qi was no longer a pure jade-white. There were inky specks mixed into it. The black and white mottled ‘qi‘ was very similar to what Su Yu had seen in the mountain and he felt it briefly. He found this qi was different from the ordinary qi within Nanwu Mountain.

He tried to mobilize the yin qi deep within him, and the yin qi soon flowed along his meridians, bringing him a completely different sensation.

The yin qi after passing through the pearl was lighter. He had originally thought the yin qi condensed around the totem was already pure as can be, he hadn’t expected the yin qi would become purer and better suited for him after passing through this pearl.

Su Yu couldn’t help giving the totem and pearl in his body a second glance. He found there was still some inky qi surrounding the pearl. He was about to move this yin qi, but as soon as he intended it, the inky qi deep in his dantian abruptly dispersed, and a little ink-colored beast jumped out beside the pearl.

The little beast was identical to the tomb guardian beast’s phantom over the misty lake.

The pain from the guardian beast tearing at his shoulder beneath the lake suddenly surged up. Su Yu clenched his fists, and the yin qi in his dantian moved according to its host, immediately coalescing and rushing towards the inky beast at the totem’s center.

“What are you doing! Are you still not satisfied after swallowing the ink spirit pearl?”

Another voice showed up in his ocean of consciousness, different from the eye totem’s pithy statements.

Su Yu paused, and the murderous yin qi in his dantian also froze instantly. What…?

The inky beast immediately puffed up, baring its fangs while speaking, the voice echoing straight in Su Yu’s mind: “You’ve eaten all the belongings I’ve had for hundreds of years. It took a lot of effort to take shape again, yet you still want to kill me…Why are you, a human being, like this? Are you going to destroy the bridge after crossing the river?”[mfn]過河拆橋 – Figuratively refers to abandoning your benefactor after reaching your goal.[/mfn]

Su Yu didn’t say anything, he just stretched out his yin qi to pinch it. The just condensed inky beast, small and weak, was scattered in an instant. It dispersed into countless minute black qi particles and was sucked back into the totem. After a while, it recondensed into a weaker shape and fell into his dantian with a plop.

Su Yu coldly questioned it: “What are you?”

“Master…I am the beast spirit of this land, suppressing the wandering ghosts here.” The inky beast immediately took a few steps back and curled up beside the totem: “I am also the guardian spirit of the pearl you swallowed.”

There was a hint of grievance in its mumbling. Su Yu relaxed the fingers tightly clamped over his abdomen a bit. He was used to the totem’s earlier intimidations, and felt a strange feeling about this voice as soon as he heard it.

Not a threat, and very weak.

After noticing the yin qi around the dantian recede, the inky beast finally put down its fright: “If you have something to say, say it…”

The inky beast had never been wronged in such a way throughout its long life. As the guardian beast spirit and the keeper of the stele here, it had been well supplied with sumptuous feasts since its birth, suppressing hundreds upon thousands of wandering ghosts in the mountain beneath it. If the stele hadn’t cracked a while ago, resulting in the Nanwu Mountain seal being discovered by the fierce evil spirits in the mountain depths, and the leaking yin qi attracting many human cultivators, it wouldn’t have fallen into its current situation.

First, the fierce evil spirits within Nanwu Mountain rebelled and wanted to seize the misty lake’s stele, then, an endless stream of cultivators broke into the mountain.

Moments ago, it had suppressed a group of disobedient weak ghosts in the mountain depths, and not long after, a group of annoying cultivators showed up too. In the end, the ink spirit pearl was swallowed, and the stele lost its defences and was split into pieces. It had originally wanted to retaliate and take over the body of this little devil, but it almost got eaten by the totem in this little devil’s dantian.[mfn]This is literally 小鬼 (little ghost). Depending on the usage it can be deregoratory like here, or a term of endearment (for kids). It’s also the same term used for ghosts like Zhang Fugui, who are weak ghosts of lower rank.[/mfn] If a large wave of yin qi hadn’t just poured in, it might not have even been able to condense into a corporeal form…Now, it even had to live under someone else’s roof and make a compromise.

“No wonder you were able to find my real body and the ink spirit pearl at a glance. You would surely know, having innate spiritual eyes. Master, I have to be on guard against you no matter what.” The inky beast cursed in a low voice, keeping a distance from the totem as it spoke: “The spiritual eyes made the ink spirit pearl recognize a host…a freak of nature!”

Su Yu heard the term it used, “Innate spiritual eyes?”

The inky beast had changed to a suitable position and nestled in. Hearing this, it said in surprise: “Hey, you don’t know? This one in your dantian, these are innate spiritual eyes. There are only a handful of people born with innate spiritual eyes throughout history. This is a innate gift that no living being can ask for. Even the innate Daoist bodies you humans are proud of are still a level shy of innate spiritual eyes.”

Su Yu watched it huddle beside the totem, “Do you fear it?”

The inky beast retorted: “What do I fear! I don’t even fear that sword cultivator who cleaved me!”

Sword cultivator? Su Yu recalled the sword auras he saw at the bottom of the lake. At the time, those sword auras were more ferocious than the cultivators he had seen after waking up from the cliff. He bowed his head and pondered, saying nothing more.

The inky beast said: “Master, if I were in ancient times, I could devour all the cultivators born with Daoist bodies in one bite!”

After a while, it muttered again: “…even so, your innate spiritual eyes are fairly odd.”

The inky beast couldn’t discern what manner of oddness it was. Innate spiritual eyes were rare, and ultimately, innate spiritual eyes were a rare gift for any living creature.

But the totem before it was brimming with an evil nature, and it was more than just the totem, this human being was also extremely odd. It had never seen a human being with such severe physical depletion. It was obviously a dying body, the yin qi within it was more concentrated than in a fierce evil spirit. A normal cultivator with so much yin qi in his body would have lost their mind long ago.

But this human hadn’t. He was clearly dying, yet he was still alive and well.

That too the spiritual eyes within his dantian easily suppressed him.

Su Yu ignored it.

The inky beast found that this human being rarely talked and was unwilling to give up, “Why don’t you ask me what’s odd?”

Su Yu ignored the strange inky beast in his body. This thing talked a lot, and it couldn’t hide what it knew. There was no need to waste words talking to a thing hiding in his body. His attention was focused on his surroundings. The unfamiliar environment made him unable to tell where he was heading. Before he fell unconscious, he remembered escaping from the hands of a human cultivator.

It felt uncomfortable to be threatened. Su Yu hated that feeling. He didn’t have any goodwill for that bunch of human cultivators. What else were those cultivators searching for in this mountain? He had poor eyesight and wasn’t mobile. If he stayed in this mountain for too long, he would run into those people sooner or later.

Su Yu suddenly missed the wandering ghost named Zhang Fugui. At least there was a ghost to guide the way.

But it didn’t matter. If it didn’t work, he could find another way. There was no shortage of wandering ghosts with good eyesight within this mountain.

There were many trees along the mountain path, and after walking for a while, he had stumbled into many trees.

But the further in he went, the more he began to notice something wrong. The yin qi in Nanwu Mountain was originally very thick, but now, it was thin, and even though it was thin, he didn’t even see a single wandering ghost.

Sensing its host’s thoughts, the inky beast replied gloomily, “Of course there’s nothing.”

“You swallowed the entirety of Nanwu Mountain’s yin qi into your stomach. You still don’t know what you ate?”

The inky beast raised its tail and knocked on the ink spirit pearl in the totem. “You swallowed the ancient Abyss of All Evil’s stele!”

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Author’s Postscript: 

It’s time to leave Nanwu Mountain and enter a new chapter! 

All the foreshadowing for the early stage has been laid out in Nanwu Mountain, the pace will pick up too~ 

Yu-ge‘s starting to take off.