Destiny in Cinders

An Jing proceeded to scale the mountain to check on the unblemished albus wood. It didn’t appear to be doing too well. When he sent Solace back into Palespirit Cave and transmitted some information to it, the drone received a response, though it didn’t seem intelligible. Unblemished albus wood didn’t have strong sapience and only had a set of instinctual behaviors like the fiendmolts. According to Yvelbane, this growth seemed to only have been born recently around the time the situation at Brokeblade Mountain had turned for the worse.

Without the unblemished albus wood’s support, New Moon Shadow would’ve long been subsumed by fiend qi. It wouldn’t have had the chance to molt and try for the Sanctification Realm. Only after the unblemished albus wood sealed up the source of the fiend qi did New Moon Shadow survive.

With the lunar serpent gone, its fiendfallen molts proceeded to chip away at the unblemished albus wood’s seal, prompting retaliation. However, much of the plant’s spirit energy had been depleted by New Moon Shadow to nurture its fey core. As such, the plant was only able to rebuff the fiendmolts instead of annihilating them for good. Any normal person would’ve given up long ago, but the plant’s built-in instincts and low self-awareness made it push through. Yet, that was the very same thing that made it difficult to contact and extract information from. The drone only received a vague signal.

”Hey, can you hear me?”

The plant responded with the sentiment of being unmoved.

”I’m going to wipe out those fiendmolts. Are you able to help?” An Jing’s voice came from the drone outside the cave. The only response that came was a weak indication of suspicion.

He unleashed some weapon lightning outside Palespirit Cave and said, ”This is the fiendmolt I exterminated last time. I need to hunt the rest. Can you retaliate with more force than usual when I make my move to wound them even more?”

The drone received a transmission that signalled relief. Just like that, An Jing had spent around forty minutes establishing contact with the unblemished albus wood. His brain was about to turn into a log. While the plant seemed to have understood him, he wasn’t sure it would do its part.

”At the very least, try to stop the half-dragon fiendmolt after it returns to the cave injured. Don’t let it escape!” He had done all he could before the actual fight.

Noon the next day, dark clouds blotted out the sky, not letting through even a single ray of sunlight. With the snow calamity chipping away at what meager amount of heat the sun gave to the world, the temperature around Palespirit Cave was rather low.

The half-dragon fiendmolt had just ended its routine attack against the unblemished albus wood, covered in injuries. This time around, the retaliation had been much heavier than usual, which no doubt sapped quite a bit of the plant’s energy reserves. Typically, it wouldn’t have made such a choice in favor of extending the defense for as long as it could, so something was definitely amiss. Alas, the fiendmolts had no true intelligence to speak of and didn’t notice anything of note about the change in circumstances. At the end of the day, they merely stuck to their usual scheduled attacks.

Then, metal lightning flashed across the entrance of Palespirit Cave without warning. The half-dragon fiendmolt that was most sensitive to metal qi shuddered before it wriggled rapidly outside like a hooked fish. It wasn’t that far off from a breakthrough and only needed a little more metal-aspect spirit qi to transform from a heartless fiendmolt to a true fiendspawn with life and sentience like a living automaton.

The moment the fiendmolt emerged from the cave, it was struck by blood lethal qi! An Jing wielded Culling from a distance, blood lethal qi boiling all around him as he channeled it into Culling’s blade to form blood-lethal-qi lightning. The moment the horns of the half-dragon fiendmolt peeked out of the cave, the powerful blood-colored lightning struck hard, sending its head snapping backward to the point that the whole beast almost tumbled to the ground. Alas, it managed to bear the brunt of the sudden attack and turned its head in An Jing’s direction.

”Damn, it’s tough! That hit barely did anything!” The strike he had unleashed had taken half a day’s worth of spirit qi stored in the dragonhoard bottle. It would’ve been threatening to most Clearing Realm adepts, yet all it did was twist the fiendmolt’s head slightly. ”Is this how strong you get when you spec nothing into intelligence and everything into constitution?”

”Fiendmolts are almost entirely pure fiend qi, so they don’t really get concussed or affected by disorienting factors in the environment. They also don’t suffer any dismemberment penalties,” Yvelbane said. ”Not only are they resilient, they’re also sensitive. Typical martialists hold absolutely no candle to them. That’s why most heartless fiendmolts serve as sentinels of the outer perimeter of a fiendspawn army. They’re able to hold off attacks until more powerful reinforcements arrive.”

The half-dragon fiendmolt let out a howl as it gathered the toxic lethal qi in the environment. New Moon Shadow had molted in order to transform into a pure metal-aspect whitespirit dragon, so it left its toxic abilities to the fiendmolts entirely, a surefire way to redefine oneself. Yvelbane said that having the wrong set of abilities could cut off potential cultivation development paths, so being able to discard unneeded abilities through molting was another desperate option to extend one’s cultivation.

An Jing was faced with a Treasures Realm toxic ability, yet he didn’t flee immediately. Instead, he used True Spirit Eyes to properly observe the state of the half-dragon fiendmolt as it used that ability. He could tell that the fiendmolt had at least grasped some wonder that was similar to True Dragon Spine based on the arboreal network of meridians that spread throughout its body, rooted in earth and expanding into heaven, grasping the toxic lethal qi in the entire environment around it. The toxic lethal qi that New Moon Shadow had left behind was what fueled it. As long as it persisted, the half-dragon fiendmolt was at least half a sage!

”This is the moment!” An Jing pushed the detonator in his hand. All of a sudden, the talismans at the entrance of Palespirit Cave exploded with scorching lightning that spread across the environment, some of which was absorbed into the half-dragon fiendmolt’s body.

A proper dragon would definitely have spotted the lightning talismans, and even if they hadn’t, they would’ve been able to intercept their operation. Yet, the half-dragon fiendmolt wasn’t that sharp. It was focused on its sole mission of eliminating An Jing that it drew in qi from the environment without any care and ended up absorbing all the harmful flame-lightning qi with it.

There was a loud explosion, followed by silence. Large tufts of smoke rose from the fiendmolt’s body as black fiend qi oozed out of the wounds that the unblemished albus wood’s retaliation had left. Pitch-black sanguine liquid dripped nonstop onto the ground. The wave of poison that had been launched toward An Jing also froze on the spot.

He immediately turned around and ran. By the time the fiendmolt recovered some measure of mobility, it noticed that An Jing had gone off the mountain and didn’t intend to give chase. Instead, it wanted to return to the cave to nurse itself.

But at that moment, the metal-aspect qi in Palespirit Cave suddenly surged as if a dam had been breached, sweeping outside the cave with more than ten times the intensity than usual and pushing against the half-dragon fiendmolt so hard that it wasn’t able to make its way back inside. While the unblemished albus wood wasn’t sapient either, it instinctually understood that keeping the half-dragon fiendmolt outside the cave in that sorry state would eventually cause it to be taken care of by someone else down the line!

Below the mountain, a fire suddenly started in the forest and began to spread rapidly. For a short time, the snow calamity was nowhere to be felt. Nothing but the red sky loomed above them. The countless trees in the forest formed into a massive face that wore a stiff, aged smile. The mouth opened and gave countless orders, causing all sorts of chatter to echo throughout the forest. Then, pure, glowing wood-aspect qi amassed together before it was sent toward the youth.

An Jing sensed Lushjade’s abundant wood-qi support, Culling still in hand. Coupled with his recent insights into dragonkind and his connection with a fey of trees, the shadow of the Cyclestar that slumbered within him oriented itself in a specific direction. Dawnstar was linked with Skysource’s Nian Quan, while Stablestar was linked to Cang Linzu. Of his Seven Luminaries, only the Prime Yin and the Prime Yang hadn’t shown signs of stirring. He didn’t have the luxury to think about these things, however, for he was busy igniting his blood lethal qi with the vitality of the wood-aspect qi, even absorbing it into his body.

”Nian Quan was able to modulate the five phases’ aspects with ailment sword qi. While I haven’t achieved the conditions to do so for all of the interactions, I can at least convert wood to fire!” Though he had never shown it, he did have quite a bit of pride. He was sure that he would be able to do what others were able to. Not to mention, ailment sword qi was a spell application of his own ability in the first place. Lushjade’s wood qi would only be used with an efficiency of up to three-fourths if An Jing had used it to stoke the fires of his blood lethal qi externally. But taken into his own body, he could use close to ninety percent of it efficiently even if it came with serious side effects!

He rose into the air, blazing flames crackling wildly around him before they rapidly withdrew into him. Then, rays of nigh-imperceptible flames appeared on the edge of Culling’s blade. Any normal weapon would have long melted from the intense heat. Culling, however, was not made out of any physical material, formed instead from his own metal and blood lethal qi, the very same kind of metal-melting fire that Jin Yanhua had mentioned.

He took a step forward, his right foot and calf digging deeply into the ground of the forest of Brokeblade Mountain, filling the earth around it with so much energy that rocks came flying out of it. The next instant, three cascading pits appeared where his leg used to be. He had launched himself into the air at a velocity faster than that of the half-dragon fiendmolt’s retreat!

The fiendmolt had been trying to return to the cave, only to feel a threat honing in rapidly from behind. The foolish-seeming fiendspawn raised its sharp, sword-like dragon tail and slashed it at An Jing so quickly that it created a few trailing sword flashes that resembled the petals of a metallic lotus. Just because the creature didn’t have any intelligence didn’t mean it wasn’t skilled. The base capabilities of the half-dragon fiendmolt allowed it to unleash abilities of this caliber; New Moon Shadow had been quite adept at fey martial techniques that martialists foolish enough to challenge it to close combat would be reduced to mincemeat.

An Jing, however, wasn’t trying to get up close and personal. At the end of the day, skill and technique were things that a weaker fighter had to rely on to defeat a stronger foe. Yet, the injury-ridden fiendmolt had expended much of its energy earlier on other fruitless attacks. An Jing was the one who had the edge there, while the fiendmolt was the one who had to worry about overcoming his brute force with technique!

When he was within a hundred zhang from the fiendmolt, he waved his sword, unleashing a searing flash of crimson and gold that instantly neutralized the sword flashes from the sharp dragon tail. As the powerful sword flash curved from left to right, the half-dragon fiendmolt finally caught up to the fact that something was really off. It tried to curl up defensively, yet the metal-melting flaming slash passed through its body. The ground trembled as the peak of the mountain was marked with a fresh wound of gold out of which crimson magma flowed. When the flames finally faded, Culling faded with it from An Jing’s hand. He exhaled a long stream of burning flame qi that sparked countless embers in the air as the fires around him were put out.

One could use ailment sword qi to expel the injuries that amassed within the body as an attack. Conversely, one could also intentionally rack up internal injuries and use them to fuel a sword strike! It could be used proactively and reactively all the same!

The spot where the half-dragon fiendmolt was had been marked by melting magma. First, it struggled for a bit to expel the searing flame qi within its body. Then, its body crumbled away violently, fiend qi scattering away as the natural environment purified it, refining it into bountiful mystical qi.

”Phew...” An Jing could finally relax. The most powerful foe that had haunted Palespirit Cave was eliminated. The two remaining fiendmolts could be dealt with at his leisure.

A stream of ebony-gold qi sparkled amid the abundant mystical qi. An Jing quickly used the dragonhoard bottle to absorb it; it was none other than a stream of dragon qi! New Moon Shadow had probably managed to refine a single stream using its fey core during its molting process. But as it had mixed with fiend qi, the great fey had no choice but to cut its losses and leave it with the fiendmolt. Fortunately, it ended up as An Jing’s spoils.

The metal qi within Palespirit Cave receded somewhat. The unblemished albus wood had expended so much energy to repel the half-dragon fiendmolt that it barely had enough left to protect itself.

As for the other two fiendmolts that were stuck within the cave and hadn’t been able to come to the half-dragon fiendmolt’s aid, they planned to charge toward An Jing, who was using the True Talisman to convert mystical qi into heaven purification radiance.

While the fiendmolts would’ve been threatening in the past, An Jing no longer had to worry about being ganged up upon with Lushjade no longer dormant. Should the fiendmolts decide to go on the offense, it would be nothing short of suicide.

He quietly took Frostwhite Dart out of his void artifact and ascended into the air. Then, he took out his guns and rained down lightning bullets from the air. Lushjade summoned the forest winds from afar to gather lightning for targeted strikes on the two remaining fiendmolts as well. It took only one hour for them to be eliminated and reduced to mystical qi. With all the fiendmolts in Palespirit Cave eliminated, An Jing obtained a massive haul of three Clearing fiendspawns’ worth of heaven purification radiance.