Bombarding Cultivators with Cluster Artillery-Chapter 364 - 353 This Sword, Eighteen Years in the Making
364: Chapter 353 This Sword, Eighteen Years in the Making
364 -353 This Sword, Eighteen Years in the Making
A flash of white light,
a figure vanished from the teleportation formation.
Jiang Ding appeared thousands of kilometers away, slightly adjusting his direction, mountains and lands sweeping beneath his feet, all the while doing his best to contain his aura, his formless escape light neither fast nor slow.
Several hours later, he arrived at Dongling City, unseen for many years.
A faint Divine Sense swept past.
“Only a few years have gone by, and the city that was devoured by the Peacock Demon King has actually recovered a bit,”
Jiang Ding murmured with a sigh.
The once dead city was gradually teeming with people again, with smoke rising from cooking fires here and there, and even the main streets, once bustling, now had scattered shops with shopkeepers and assistants opening for business.
Life in the wild was too harsh.
People often died from various ferocious beasts, poisonous insects, and miasmas, with those living past their thirties being few and far between.
It might be better to take a chance in the city, after all, it had been years; the man-eating great demons couldn’t come here every day, right?
Gradually, more and more people gathered, forming the current population of over ten thousand.
If this continued for several more decades, Dongling City would undoubtedly thrive as a bustling city once again, and these old events would gradually be submerged in the annals of history.
No one would know of the profoundly influential incidents that had once taken place here.
The Divine Sense swept over covertly.
‘Bai Gui is not found.’
Jiang Ding was not in a hurry, continuing to scan every corner of the city with his faint Sword Intent and Divine Sense little by little.
Over a month ago, when Armor-25 disintegrated into nanoparticles, he had seen Patriarch Bai Gui come in this direction.
According to his habits at Chizhong Mansion, he would stay here for at least a few months, constantly searching the city with his treasure, hoping to find the lingering aura of a young man who had been here twenty-six years ago, then lock on to him using the Blood Soul Tracking Arrow.
His faint Sword Intent passed over each area slowly, to avoid alerting the enemy, moving very slowly.
It took several days to finish searching half the city, before continuing to spread out.
“Found, it.”
Jiang Ding’s Sword Intent paused.
In the ancient mansion ruin that used to be Lanban Street, a cloaked old man with concealed appearance was sitting cross-legged.
Holding a dimly transparent black sail treasure, he trembled it slightly, and tiny ghosts the size of thumbs jumped out, burrowing in and out of the ruins.
The tiny ghosts occasionally flew high into the sky and then dove into the soil, bringing back a wisp of Cloud Qi, a small clump of dirt, or a leaf, presenting them eagerly before the old man, offering them up with both hands.
Patriarch Bai Gui was a gaunt, skin-and-bones old man with half-transparent skin, through which one could vaguely see malevolent ghosts moving in and out between his internal organs and bones, an exceedingly horrific sight.
“This one?
Somewhat similar.”
He received a small clump of dirt from a tiny ghost’s hand, chewed on it for a moment, then furrowed his brow, “This is the aura left by an eighty-six-year-old man; I need one around forty years old, with an aura younger than his age!”
“Squeak, squeak!”
The tiny ghost showed a look of terror, its body transparent as it tried to flee into the ground.
“Useless fool!”
Slurp!
Patriarch Bai Gui opened his mouth and sucked, pulling the tiny ghost from several meters underground right up to him.
No matter how it screamed and struggled, it was no use; it ended up in his mouth, where it let out a few horrific cries before becoming silent.
The surrounding tiny ghosts waiting in line trembled even more with fear, not daring to flee, but repeatedly examining the Cloud Qi, leaves, and dirt in their hands.
Some hesitated, discarded what they had, and scrambled throughout the ruins in all directions.
The second tiny ghost offered up a largely decayed leaf.
Patriarch Bai Gui chewed on it for a moment, his brow creasing further.
The tiny ghost trembled violently, as if its soul was about to shatter.
“Not this one either, not even someone who’s come into contact with him.”
“But surely a person in their forties.”
Patriarch Bai Gui threw a sinister-looking Elixir at it and coldly huffed, “Get lost.”
“Squeak, squeak!”
Overjoyed, the tiny ghost kowtowed and bowed, seized the Elixir, and swallowed it down in the midst of the envious gazes of the other tiny ghosts, its presence growing slightly stronger.
“This aura, the age is right, the person is not…”
“This is a woman, fool, damned fool!
What use is there for you to live?!”
Patriarch Bai Gui opened his mouth to inhale, chewed several times, and swallowed a tiny ghost, speaking ominously, “Listen well to your patriarch, if you can find either his aura or the aura of someone who’s come into contact with him, I’ll let it be reincarnated.”
“Yearning for family and relatives, if you don’t wish to be reincarnated and want to come and go freely, it’s also possible.”
“But if you don’t find it, you all will be eaten by your patriarch!”
“Squeak, squeak!”
“Squeak, squeak!”
The group of tiny ghosts screamed in terror and frantically searched in all directions.
Passersby would feel the intense Yin Energy and instinctively left the area.
Jiang Ding silently watched all this.
He did not make a move.
He needed to wait for Mu Tiansnow and others several hundred kilometers away to start the conflict first, to draw out, to tie down Immortal Tiankuang, Chiyan Fox King, and the others, to ensure he wouldn’t be overwhelmed by attacks before he acted.
This required some time for preparations.
It would have to appear natural, to avoid arousing Immortal Tiankuang’s suspicions.
“No.”
“No, the age and gender are correct, but it’s not him.”
Patriarch Bai Gui, with disheveled hair, mumbled to himself like a madman, unknowingly repeating this process for many days.
After over ten days, he seemed extremely irritable and off-kilter.
“This one, yes!”
Suddenly, his eyes lit up, and he savored the mud in his mouth again and again: “The aura of this person, over seventy years old, you fool!
No, you’re not a fool, this mortal has had contact with him, and for no short period of time.”
“Search quickly, have my minions search the vicinity, there will be a hefty reward!”
Patriarch Bai Gui rummaged through his storage bag for a moment, tossing a thumb-sized bone to the little ghost who had brought the mud: “Scram, little guy, go wherever you want.”
“Squeak squeak!”
The little ghost was ecstatic, holding the thumb-sized bone and running off into the distance without looking back, soon disappearing from sight amid the envious gazes of the other little ghosts.
“Squeak squeak!”
Seeing this, the many little ghosts became excited and started digging frantically at the spot where the mud was unearthed, shuttling back and forth without stopping.
Out of sight of the little ghosts, the little ghost who had accomplished the task was not killed; it was completely free, even if it might reveal the deliberately concealed traces of Patriarch Bai Gui.
“Quite trustworthy.”
Jiang Ding, upon seeing this scene, was somewhat surprised and took note of it in his heart.
Those who succeed in their endeavors, no matter their stance, always have some merits, and should not be underestimated.
“However, if he keeps searching like this, he might indeed find my aura, when I was still in high school, unable to thoroughly conceal it.”
Jiang Ding thought coldly.
“But even with my aura in his possession, he won’t be able to find me.”
“That is, if this strand of aura were in the hands of a higher-level cultivator, it might indeed serve to locate me.”
“Search, search to your heart’s content.”
“It’s a good thing, like a comprehensive free review.”
Several days later.
“Hahaha!”
Patriarch Bai Gui held a red brick in his hand, first licking it, then chewing on it more than ten times; his eyes flew open with excitement, and he burst into hysterical laughter: “It’s been over half a year, and I finally found it for Patriarch!”
“You little creature who stole my Empty Mysterious Crystal Copper,”
he revealed a ferocious smile: “Let Patriarch teach you a lesson, that in the world of cultivation, there are some things you cannot take lightly!”
He casually tossed out a top-grade bone sword magic tool, palm-sized, and the little ghost who brought the brick, overjoyed, rolled up the magic tool along with its own remains and burrowed into the ground, vanishing without a trace.
Patriarch Bai Gui summoned a wisp of black soul fire in the palm of his hand, swept it over the red brick, which disintegrated and evaporated, leaving behind only a faint blue Liufeng floating in the air, incredibly faint, as if a single breath could blow it away.
“This is it!”
“This is it, let me see, where is this little thief?”
Patriarch Bai Gui murmured to himself, flipping his hand, and a black short arrow appeared; the faint blue Liufeng immediately entered it, and strands of black spiritual light flickered, as if chewing, searching.
A special treasure of the Punishment Hall of the Liudao Sect, the Blood Soul Tracking Arrow.
It boasts that with just a wisp of aura, it can chase the soul over a thousand miles!
“With these Empty Mysterious Crystal Copper, Patriarch’s Black Soul Banner should be able to ascend to a top-grade magic treasure…”
Patriarch Bai Gui, staring at the arrow feathers, was very confident.
This object, in the past when pursuing the remnants of Qiyu, was invincible, and even the Qiyu Golden Pill was tracked down, forcing him to give up his Sky Spiritual Root direct disciple.
Humm!
Amid expectant gazes, the Blood Soul Tracking Arrow quivered for a moment, then settled down.
For a long time, it remained motionless.
“Unable to track?”
Patriarch Bai Gui was stunned, then flew into a rage: “How could a mere junior in foundation building be untraceable?
The grand reputation of the Punishment Hall of the Liudao Sect…”
The Blood Soul Tracking Arrow began to tremble frantically.
He paused in his speech, holding his breath, and saw clearly as the arrow feathers came to a stop.
The arrowhead pointed straight,
at his own chest.
“This damn broken arrow!”
“Damn Liudao Sect, using Golden Pill as slaves, are the sect’s treasures all this shoddy…”
Patriarch Bai Gui could no longer suppress the rage in his heart, his chest suddenly pained.
“…such…
trash…”
His gaze became dull as he looked down.
An Azure Flying Sword had appeared at his chest without notice, deeply stabbing into it, piercing through his heart, and terrifying strands of Azure Sword Intent tore at his Divine Soul, striking towards his inner core.
Boom!
The sound of a thunderous explosion reached his ears, and together with his body, he shattered into countless pieces.
