An Alchemist's Path to Eternity

KIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEH!

A majestic eagle burst from the abyss like an arrow shot from a bow. Clouds and mist streamed from its enormous body as it soared past the mountain peak. Yet instead of attacking Shi Ju and Qi Xiongcheng, it ignored them completely and fled west at full speed.

SWWOOOOOOOSHH!!

Shi Ju instantly snapped his fan shut and stared at the disappearing eagle, his earlier confidence replaced by a trace of unease. That thing was stronger than I thought. If I’d rushed in just now, I might have walked straight into its trap...

Qi Xiongcheng, however, came to an entirely different conclusion. ”Young Master, it seems your cultivation has improved again. You can even stop a killing move halfw—”

Shi Ju cut him off impatiently. ”Enough. Stop wasting time and let’s chase it!”

Qi Xiongcheng could only give an awkward smile and follow. Privately, however, he wanted nothing to do with whatever lay ahead. If such a powerful illusory beast had suddenly abandoned its lair, something even more dangerous had almost certainly driven it out. After so many years of traveling, caution had become second nature to Qi Xiongcheng, and every instinct told him not to get involved in whatever was happening. But who had told him to become a servant of the Shi family? No matter how renowned he might be in the eyes of outsiders or how revered his status as a Sage was, he still had to lower his head and obey the members of the Shi family.

Forget it. I’ll just do my best to keep him safe.

***

If someone happened to hold that ever-shifting map of the pocket world, they would see that Three-Rainbow Falls stood at its very heart. No one knew how the Gu family had managed to find this region, but it seemed as if these falls were giving rise to the entire pocket world. And now, from tens or even hundreds of thousands of li away, illusory beasts were rushing toward that center.

Dust billowed into the sky, and white clouds churned as beasts of every tier and level of strength abandoned their lairs and raced toward Three-Rainbow Falls. Wherever they passed, forests collapsed, and even mountains that should have served as natural barriers were smashed apart.

Yet Gu Daosu, the very person at the center of it all, remained completely unaware. Deep in enlightenment, he noticed nothing beyond Three-Rainbow Falls, leaving his Dao Protector to deal with the disturbance alone.

BBBOOOOOOOOOMMMMMM!!!!!

Ten li from the waterfall, Lady Xu swept out one sleeve and sent a scorpion over a hundred zhang long flying backward. The cold and beautiful woman stood unmoved in her long black dress as the enormous beast tumbled across the ground like a ball, a testament to the power behind what had been little more than a casual strike.

At first, she did not think much about it. Over the past two or three years, Gu Daosu’s enlightenment had attracted quite a few illusory beasts to the area, and she assumed this scorpion was no different. After all, killing an illusory beast could take some effort, while driving one away was usually easy enough. Illusory beasts were timid by nature and would normally retreat as soon as they encountered an opponent they could not overcome.

This one, however, did not. After regaining its footing, the giant scorpion remained where it was and continued glaring covetously at Lady Xu.

She frowned. ”Still not leaving?”

Before she could make sense of its strange behavior, another presence entered the range of her divine consciousness. A second illusory beast was approaching rapidly from the southeast, and judging by its course, it too was heading straight for Three-Rainbow Falls.

Now certain that she could not afford to linger, she drew a deep breath and shouted at the scorpion before her. ”GEEEEEETT LOOOOOSSSTTT!!!!!”

The killing intent crashed over the beast along with her voice. With another illusory beast already closing in, Lady Xu did not wait to see whether the scorpion would obey. She turned and hurried back toward Three-Rainbow Falls, knowing that protecting Gu Daosu had to come first.

Only after she disappeared did the giant scorpion begin to waver. Even with its crude intelligence, it understood that it was no match for her, yet something at the falls continued to draw it forward. Its fear told it to retreat, but even that fear was being overwhelmed by an irresistible craving for whatever awaited it there.

CLICKCLACKCLICKCLACK (Should I leave? Or should I keep trying?)

The scorpion hesitated for a while longer, but in the end, its hunger won out. Instead of retreating, it cautiously began creeping toward Three-Rainbow Falls once more.

Over the next two days, the pressure around waterfalls only continued to mount. Lady Xu patrolled the surrounding hundred li and had intercepted quite a few illusory beasts before they could reach the waterfall. Some she drove away, while others she destroyed outright. For the time being, she managed to hold the growing number of beasts at bay on her own, but as more and more appeared, what had first seemed like an ordinary disturbance became increasingly difficult to explain.

I already used the formation the Patriarch gave me. It should’ve stopped most of the spiritual vitality from leaking out, so why are all these illusory beasts still being drawn to Su’er? I’d get it if there were only one or two, but there are just too many this time. Someone must be behind this!

After ruthlessly dispersing yet another fourth-tier illusory beast, she flew to the summit of a mountain and formed a hand seal. The next moment, her aura began to surge from the second stage of the Nascent Soul Realm toward the third. Just before crossing that threshold, however, she forcibly suppressed it. That brief surge was enough to send her divine consciousness spreading far beyond its usual range. The moment her expanded perception swept across the surrounding region, her expression changed drastically.

Within several thousand li of Three-Rainbow Falls, no fewer than ten fourth-tier illusory beasts had already gathered without her realizing it. Worse still, even more formidable auras were rapidly approaching from farther away. And besides that...

She shouted sharply, ”I know you’re hiding out there. SHOW YOURSELF!”

A moment later, two figures emerged from a mountain ravine. A young-looking man walked in front, with an older-looking man in golden robes following close behind.

The former stepped into the air and praised, ”So that’s what all the commotion was about. I was wondering why so many illusory beasts were stirred up. Turns out it was Junior Brother Gu. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. He always had a knack for cultivation, and Senior Brother Daoyin even managed to get him a Woodrot Black Go Stone. No wonder you’ve pulled ahead of the rest of us. Congratulations.”

Lady Xu’s eyes widened when she saw the newcomers, especially the middle-aged man in golden robes standing behind. It was Gu Yuan and his protector, Gu Chen!

She drew a slow breath and stared at Gu Yuan. ”You’re behind this, aren’t you?”

Gu Yuan looked genuinely taken aback. ”What? Isn’t all of this caused by his enlightenment?”

Lady Xu sneered. ”Su’er has been in enlightenment for three years. Nothing like this happened before, so why would all these beasts suddenly appear now? And you expect me to believe you had nothing to do with it?”

Gu Yuan frowned, while Gu Chen merely shook his head.

Lady Xu had no plans to waste more time on them. Through her divine consciousness, she could already sense another illusory beast charging toward them, and the situation was becoming more stressful by the moment.

Gritting her teeth, she resumed the hand seal she had left unfinished earlier. Her aura broke through the third stage of the Nascent Soul Realm and continued climbing toward the middle stage. At the same time, she pulled a hairpin from her hair and tossed it casually into the air. The jade hairpin rose above Three-Rainbow Falls and hung there like a sword suspended in the heavens. An immense pressure spread outward from it, bearing down on the region and forcing the illusory beasts to suppress the instincts driving them forward.

Gu Chen watched from beside Gu Yuan and gave a slight nod. ”She is forcing her cultivation higher with a secret art. She can’t keep this up for long, and when it wears off, the backlash is going to be bad. She’s really putting her life on the line for her nephew.”

Gu Yuan nodded. Then his expression shifted, and he looked off into the distance. Oh? More of us are coming!

Whoosh! Whoosh!

Two streaks of light shot through the sky and suddenly stopped somewhere around a thousand li away.

Dragon Abyss stared ahead with a grave expression. ”Someone’s up ahead.”

Tea Mist looked down, and her face immediately paled. ”There are beasts down there... so many of them!”

Perhaps because more and more Sages were gathering around the falls, the illusory beasts did not dare launch an attack. Yet because of their sheer numbers and the instinctive craving driving them, they were equally unwilling to retreat. For a time, neither side made a move, and an uneasy stalemate settled over the area. But even as that stalemate held...

Rumble! Rumble!

More illusory beasts continued arriving from the distance, while the commotion drew an ever-growing number of Sages to Three-Rainbow Falls. Inevitably, every newcomer noticed Gu Daosu, still immersed in enlightenment, along with the enormous herd gathering around him. If they could slaughter all these illusory beasts at once, they could save themselves decades of painstaking hunting. And if Gu Daosu’s enlightenment happened to be disrupted in the process, they would also eliminate one of their strongest rivals in the competition.

Lady Xu knew exactly what was going through their minds, and her expression darkened with every new arrival. This can’t go on. I need to strike decisively and make an example of someone.

Just as she was about to act, her already grim face suddenly lost all color.

SCRREEEEEECH!!!!!

An enormous white eagle that exuded the pressure of a middle-stage Sage tore through the air with a powerful flap of its wings. It did not pause for even a moment and flew straight toward Three-Rainbow Falls, completely disregarding the jade hairpin hanging high above.

If that had been all, it might still have been manageable. But the arrival of the white eagle was like a spark falling into a pile of dry firewood. The high-tier illusory beasts that had been watching hungrily could no longer restrain themselves and charged forward together with the white eagle!

From the mountaintop, Lady Xu looked down at more than a dozen gigantic beasts charging across the land at once. Despair filled her eyes as the sight drained the last of the color from her face, and every Sage present reacted with the same alarm.

At this moment, the food chain had shifted, and the relationship between predator and prey had completely reversed. The cultivators were no longer hunting the illusory beasts. Instead, the horde was coming for them.