A Will Eternal

Bai Xiaochun’s eyes went wide. Just when he was going to go over to examine Shadow closer, Shadow suddenly leapt to his feet, howling as he transformed into a mist. Screaming, he burst out of the immortal’s cave. Bai Xiaochun hurried out after him to find that the gargoyle had seemingly gone mad. He was running around, jumping up and down, sometimes collapsing into a shapeless mist, other times coalescing back into form. After a bit of time, he once again collapsed on the ground.

From that moment on, whenever he looked at Bai Xiaochun, profound fear could be seen mixed in with the intelligence in his eyes….

Things progressed like that for about half a month. Bai Xiaochun worked hard, and the tier-4 Undying Blood Pill slowly began to take form. He was already able to make pills with three streams of blood qi, and was on the very cusp of being able to produce four.

During that time, Shadow continued to consume medicinal pills. Although the quality of the pills improved, they were still ruined pills, and occasionally even toxic, but Shadow generally enjoyed them all.

Shadow also enjoyed leaving the immortal’s cave occasionally and flying around above Nameless Peak. When he encountered other gargoyles belonging to other cultivators, it was clear that Shadow’s murderous aura was much less pronounced than theirs.

The law of the jungle prevailed in the Blood Stream Sect, and it was even more brutal when it came to life among the gargoyles. The cultivators had to strictly control the gargoyles under their control, lest major issues crop up. However, there was something strange about Shadow. He got along with all of the other gargoyles on Nameless Peak, and never got into fights with them….

Bai Xiaochun was quite surprised about that, but didn’t put too much thought into it. He focused on concocting medicine. Another half a month passed, and he finally made a breakthrough and concocted a tier-4 Undying Blood Pill.

When the four streams of blood qi finally combined, Bai Xiaochun began to laugh at the top of his lungs. Of course, his excitement came not from the fact that he had concocted the tier-4 Undying Blood Pill, but rather, because nobody had been affected during the concocting process.

There had been no acid rain, no exploding furnaces, no toxic smoke, no diarrhea, nothing. Most exciting of all was that Bai Xiaochun finally felt as if he understood what it was like to be a grandmaster apothecary.

“Hahaha! Now people definitely can’t call me Plaguedevil! I concocted medicine for Nameless Peak, and not a single problem cropped up!” Of course, he was just as surprised as he was happy. Also surprised were all the other cultivators in the Bloodstream Sect, especially those on Nameless Peak. Although they were still a bit leery, there didn’t seem to be any signs of disasters. Apparently, Nightcrypt’s medicine concocting truly had proceeded in complete safety.

“Has Plaguedevil really changed his ways?”

“I can’t believe that nothing happened during his medicine concocting!!”

There was one thing that happened which no one noticed, however. Bai Xiaochun’s gargoyle Shadow had been making the rounds on Nameless Peak, getting to know all of the gargoyles there….

The blood master and grand elder of Nameless Peak were delighted that the tier-4 Undying Blood Pill had been successfully concocted. Just as they’d promised, they provided generous compensation, along with a ceremony filled with pomp and splendor. They even decided that they would work more with Nightcrypt in the future.

Although the ceremony was held on Nameless Peak, Grand Elder Song Junwan was invited to attend. It was held in Nameless Peak’s Blood Master Temple, where Nightcrypt was lavished with endless praise. Bai Xiaochun felt that it wasn’t the time to call attention to himself, so he simply stuck his chin up and smiled coolly.

Off to the side, Song Junwan watched the proceedings with a smile, and whenever she looked at Nightcrypt, her eyes would shine. Before long, the ceremony had been going for about an hour. At that point, Nameless Peak’s blood master laughed loudly and walked over to Nightcrypt.

“Junior Brother Nightcrypt, you are a real genius in the Dao of medicine, a true rarity in the world. In the future, your name is sure to rock the entire eastern reaches of the world of cultivation. If you ever concoct a tier-5 Undying Blood Pill, you will surely shake the entire sect! I’m sure that day isn’t very far off!

Nameless Peak’s grand elder then chimed in, “Anyone who concocts a tier-5 Undying Blood Pill will receive a big reward from the sect, and will be credited as having performed a major service!”

As everyone clustered around Bai Xiaochun, chatting and laughing, he listened to their words with great pleasure. Just when he was about to do a bit of bragging, a deafening boom could be heard from outside.

It was like thunder from heaven, and came so suddenly that everyone was startled. All of Nameless Peak shook violently, and cracks even appeared in the ground. There was also a blast of heat that swept over everything. The entire crowd in Nameless Peak’s Blood Master Temple looked out the door, their faces flickering with shock.

Outside, the sky had turned gray, and everything was still shaking. It wasn’t Nameless Peak alone; Corpse Peak and Middle Peak were also physically rocking back and forth.

The Inner Sect district was thrown into complete chaos, as was the Outer Sect district. People were screaming and shouting, and almost immediately, beams of light could be seen as people flew up into the air.

Even the Blood Stream Sect’s grand spell formation activated.

“What just happened?!?!”

“Don’t tell me someone is attacking the Blood Stream Sect!!”

“The war’s starting!!”

Even Ancestor Peak was completely shaken. As the blast of heat passed over it, the shocked prime elders sent divine sense out to scan the entire sect.

Bai Xiaochun’s face fell as he raced out of Blood Master Temple along with everyone else. The entire group was shaken, and as for Bai Xiaochun, he was panting. Moments later, he was outside. Song Junwan took her place by his side, looking around vigilantly.

Cultivators were flying up from all of the other mountain peaks, looks of shock on their faces.

Before long, all gazes shifted in the direction of Lesser Marsh Peak!

Clouds of shocking black smoke were pouring up into the air from that direction.

The source of the smoke was a location right between the lower and upper finger, where massive fissures spread out in all directions from a huge hole.

Because of the belching black smoke, everyone soon realized where that huge boom had originated.

“Lesser Marsh Peak?!”

“What happened over there…?”

Bai Xiaochun squinted his eyes as he looked over at the masses of black smoke. After a moment, his eyes went wide, and his heart began to pound.

The big boom from moments ago had somehow seemed vaguely familiar, and after taking a look at the source of the black smoke, he realized that it was where he had been concocting medicine on Lesser Marsh Peak. Clearly, the sound from moments ago had come from an exploding pill furnace.

In that moment, he suddenly recalled that he had left a batch of medicinal pills brewing on Lesser Marsh Peak….

Beads of sweat appeared on his forehead, and his heart began to pound even harder. That was when the wails of anguish began to rise up from Lesser Marsh Peak, and Bai Xiaochun’s scalp began to tingle.

“I’m finished. Kaput….”

Even as Bai Xiaochun began to tremble in fear, and the rest of the Blood Stream Sect looked on in shock, several beams of light flew out from Lesser Marsh Peak. In the lead was the Lesser Marsh Peak blood master. He was shaking visibly, and his eyes were bloodshot. As he looked down at the chaos on Lesser Marsh Peak, he seemed like he wanted to cry. After a moment, he threw his head back and let out a howl of grief.

He knew that everything that was happening was because of Nightcrypt. With that, he prepared to call out by name the person who was at fault, then, to track him down and kill him.

However, before the name ‘Nightcrypt’ could escape his lips, Bai Xiaochun took action. Forcing his eyes to instantly become bloodshot, he strode forward toward the Lesser Marsh Peak blood master and shouted out in a voice that could shake heaven and earth: “My treasured pill!!!”

Beating his chest with his fists and tugging at his hair, he howled like a lunatic as he then shot at top speed toward Lesser Marsh Peak.

“Why is this happening? Dear heavens! What happened? My treasured pill!!” He seemed to be going mad as he flew in a beam of light toward the source of the smoke on Lesser Marsh Peak, which was the center of all the chaos.

Lesser Marsh Peak was now completely scorched black, and more than half of the buildings and immortal’s caves were completely destroyed. The cultivators all seemed to be in very bad shape, and flames of rage burned in their eyes. However, as soon as they saw Bai Xiaochun, expressions of fear filled their faces.

Bai Xiaochun ignored them as he raced in the direction of where he had been concocting medicine on Lesser Marsh Peak. The entire area was a crater. There was no spell formation, no immortal’s cave. The only things left behind were the shattered chunks of the pill furnace, and intense heat.

In the air above the mountain peak were the blood master, the grand elder, and the bloodstreak elders. Many of them had blood oozing out of their mouths, and all of them looked astonished. The entire lot had been aware that Nightcrypt could be annoying, but none of them could ever have imagined that he could produce tragic results like this.

“Nightcrypt!!” growled the blood master, a shocking level of killing intent burning in his eyes as he flew toward Bai Xiaochun.

In the same moment that the blood master started moving toward him, Bai Xiaochun began to tremble. Spinning around, he howled madly: “Lesser Marsh Peak blood master!!

“I spent three months on that treasured pill! I poured my own blood, sweat, and tears into it! It was almost a tier-5 medicine!!” Bai Xiaochun’s face was twisted as if with grief and madness, and an increasingly murderous aura was building up around him.

“Dammit, Blood Master, didn’t you tell me that pill furnace couldn’t explode? Didn’t you tell me it was a precious treasure?!?! Why did you lie to me!?” Bai Xiaochun seemed insane, even more maddened than the Lesser Marsh Peak blood master. At first, it seemed like he was simply making wild accusations in his madness.

“You….” The Lesser Marsh Peak blood master was incensed, but after he began to speak, realized there was little that he could say.

“Why? Why did you lie to me? All of my hard work, all of my effort concocting that pill, was based on a lie! You said it was a precious treasure taken from the Pill Stream Sect, that it wouldn’t explode under any circumstances! If you had told me ahead of time that the pill furnace could blow up, then I would never have wasted so many precious medicinal plants! I could have just used ordinary concocting methods! Oh, my treasured pill!”