Chapter 52: The Holy Mother Delivers All Beings

Chapter 52: The Holy Mother Delivers All Beings

Jun Bu Du, that’s going too far.

Lord Zhiwei’s pupils trembled, his soul seeming to leave his body.

“How… is this possible…”

That Ancient Divine Shaman had clearly perished thousands of years ago.

A Sage personally collected her remains and, at an opportune moment, pulverized her bones, scattering them across the heavens and the underworld.

Like the Dao Ancestor, she had been deliberately erased from this world.

No one remembered her, no one mourned her, and not even a stick of incense was offered for her during holidays.

She shouldn’t have reincarnated… she clearly shouldn’t have reincarnated! There’s no reason she could have reincarnated!

Where in this world could such immense wish-power exist to help her return to life?

Fu Yu seemed able to read his mind: “The petty thief who stole my Peach Wood Hairpin—was he the one who destroyed my remains? Who is he?”

Lord Zhiwei’s heart and courage shattered, his lips quivering, his eyeballs trembling, unable to utter a sound.

If it were anyone else, it might not matter, but he practiced Incantation—how could he not know who the ancestor of the Incantation lineage was?

Seeing her was like seeing a deity.

Lord Zhiwei dared not refuse to answer, trembling as he whispered: “A… Sage…”

“Ah.” Fu Yu smiled. “That simplifies things. Killing one person settles two debts.”

She had already intended to curse these so-called Sages to death for Jun Bu Du.

Lord Zhiwei’s scalp tingled, a chill running down his spine.

Speaking of slaying Sages, her tone was even more casual than that of killing a chicken.

He knew some of the true history.

Back then, the Divine Shaman and the Sword Master had slaughtered countless top-tier combatants from the immortal sects and noble families, making enemies of the entire world.

While they lived, the immortal path could only swallow their pride, utterly suppressed.

After the two died, the immortal sects immediately launched a full-scale counterattack. Even if it meant bathing the world in a sea of blood, they would never allow anyone to mourn them or grant them any wish-power for reincarnation.

Who would have thought… she still returned!

She’s back!

The Ancient Divine Shaman, She has returned!

Pushed to the brink of despair, a strange sense of perverse delight welled up from the depths of Lord Zhiwei’s heart.

For thousands of years, those great figures had controlled this world, exhausting every means to erase the achievements of these two, brutally suppressing all resistance…

Yet the very thing they feared most had finally come true…

He knew he was undoubtedly doomed, but thinking that so many supreme, lofty figures would soon join him in death, a feeling of it being “worth it” surged in his heart.

Lord Zhiwei’s face twisted into a smile, his eyeballs shaking violently in their sockets, his expression completely deranged: “Ha, haha, hahaha… Sages will die too! Sages must die too! Die! Die! Die!”

Fu Yu blinked slowly: “…”

She hadn’t even cackled “Jiejiejie,” yet this man’s psyche had already shattered on its own.

She was merely speaking her mind, saying what she thought—usually in front of people like the Foxtail Grass Spirit, she often talked about storming the Divine Court, and no one else made a fuss.

Fu Yu was speechless: “A Patriarch, yet his emotions are less stable than the Foundation Establishment disciples under him.”

Truly, bad bamboo produces good shoots.

She raised her hand and placed it over Lord Zhiwei’s head.

“Annihilate.”

Spiritual energy surged like a tide, flooding into Lord Zhiwei’s collapsed, defenseless soul.

With a “boom,” this executioner knelt before her and the group of wrongfully slain warriors, disintegrating into countless fragments that slipped through Fu Yu’s fingers.

A familiar warmth flowed toward her.

Fu Yu ended the dream-killing realm, opening her eyes to meet Lord Zhiwei’s rapidly fading gaze in his true body.

His final struggle was so faint it was almost imperceptible.

His continuously dilating pupils were filled with bewilderment, helpless terror, fearful despair, and uncontrolled madness… Soon, everything fell into silence.

The onlookers were stunned, mouths agape.

In just a few breaths, Ghost Lingjun had died, and Lord Zhiwei had died too.

Everyone felt as if in a dream: “Two kills in a row! Two! Dongxuan Cultivators!”

A Foundation Establishment body, killing Dongxuan cultivators!

The Foxtail Grass Spirit nodded vigorously, the fluffy foxtail above its head swaying: “Yes, that’s right, Master is correct. Nascent Soul and Dongxuan, there’s no difference. Killing them is the same, hehe, hahaha!”

“Gulp!”

Someone swallowed heavily.

When Fu Yu turned around, everyone nearby immediately stiffened, straightened their backs, widened their eyes, lifted their chins, and stood as rigidly as possible.

Steady, solemn, ready at any moment to heed commands.

Fu Yu was utterly exasperated.

Why were these guys all acting as if they’d seen Jun Bu Du’s ghost—people always used to act like this in front of Jun Bu Du.

She tilted her chin up: “Move the corpses.”

Everyone nodded solemnly, quickly stepping forward—some grabbing heads, others lifting legs—and in moments, they moved the two connected corpses to the side.

“…Huh?”

After moving the corpses, everyone belatedly realized that these two Dongxuan cultivators had actually fought on top of someone else’s coffin.

Lord Zhiwei’s longsword had pierced through Ghost Lingjun’s body, shattering the outer layer of the black carved stone outer coffin. The stone outer coffin cracked open, revealing the black-lacquered, golden-dragon-painted wooden coffin inside.

Millennia later, Li Daoxuan's coffin remained exactly as it had looked in the secret realm.

Fu Yu raised her hand and pushed... but it didn't budge.

When it was buried, the coffin had been sealed with long nails.

She glanced wearily at Li Xueke. "You do it yourself."

Wu He didn't understand. "What does this have to do with him?"

With a crisp *shhh* of paper, the Paper Effigy Boy in Li Xueke's arms poked out his face. "This is my master's coffin!"

Wu He's pupils shook: "..."

Wait, hold on—the buddy who was just holding hands with him was a ghost?! And a walking corpse at that?!

The Foxtail Grass Spirit stared dumbfounded at the Paper Effigy Boy. "Wow, you can come out too!"

The Paper Effigy Boy rolled its pupil-less white eyes, then leaped toward the Foxtail Grass Spirit with a whoosh, squatting down in its fluffy, oversized foxtail.

The two strange beings played together delightfully.

Meanwhile, Li Xueke steeled himself and lifted the coffin lid.

The moment he peered inside, thousands of years seemed to brush past, coolly sweeping over his cheeks.

When he focused his gaze again, dust had returned to dust, and earth to earth. The corpse within the coffin had turned to sand, leaving only a gentle, serene, harmless Sword Intent, as mild as moonlight, drifting softly toward Fu Yu.

She raised her hand, and the moonlight dissolved into her palm.

A familiar, cool aura spread through her consciousness, quietly occupying every corner.

Fu Yu pressed her lips together, remaining silent for a long while.

She had thought that obtaining the Sword Intent would make her overjoyed.

Unexpectedly, after holding back for so long, all she managed was a light chuckle. "Heh."

It was time to leave the tomb.

Everyone's gaze shifted, landing on an extra figure.

The Ten Thousand Immortals Alliance, Bao Hai.

Wu He and the others quickly exchanged glances.

—Silence him?

—He must be silenced!

Bao Hai suddenly snapped back to reality, stepping backward while raising his hands. "Fellow Daoist, calm down, calm down! Ah! Stay calm!"

The Foxtail Grass Spirit rubbed its hands together, cackling eerily. "Only the dead can keep secrets, Fellow Daoist!"

"Wait, wait, wait!" Bao Hai said. "Ah, what I mean is, even though we're not on the same side, we share the same goal, the same goal! Ah!"

Wu He said sinisterly, "You know too much."

"I know, I know!" Bao Hai replied. "I led the team in here, all my junior brothers and sisters are dead, and two Dongxuan Cultivators died here as well. If I go back alive, I might be subjected to soul-searching, which would implicate all of you! Ah! So I have no choice but to die!"

His clear-headed and cooperative attitude made everyone else feel uncomfortable.

The Foxtail Grass Spirit gritted its teeth, stomping its foot. "Sorry about this."

"It's fine, it's fine," Bao Hai said. "Seeing so many powerful and righteous Fellow Daoists brings me great comfort, great comfort! If I die, I die—it really doesn't matter. I hope you all stay true to your original intentions, forge ahead with determination, uphold righteousness, and distinguish right from wrong..."

Listening to his rambling, everyone felt increasingly uncomfortable, their eyes growing slightly warm.

He didn't seem like a bad person.

But if they let him go, there was a risk that the killing of the Dongxuan cultivators would be exposed.

Everyone turned to look at Fu Yu, lips pressed tight and eyes red, waiting for her decision.

Fu Yu waved her hand. "No need to make this such a tragic farewell—he's not human, he's an incarnation."

Everyone exchanged puzzled glances. "An incarnation?"

Bao Hai jolted, nearly jumping up. "Ah, how did you know? Ah!"

He couldn't figure out where he had given himself away.

Fu Yu tilted her head and dropped another bombshell. "Are you Double Heaven?"

This time, everyone's jaws dropped in shock. "Huh?!"

Bao Hai's pupils trembled again, his lips quivering as he whispered nervously and quickly, "Yes, I am indeed Double Heaven. May I ask who you are?"

Fu Yu nodded and told him, "Double Plum (Elder Xie) asked us to find you in the Human Emperor's tomb and deliver a message—the Divine Court is planning to move against Nine Crossroads Dust and destroy the seal of the Evil Spirits realm."

Bao Hai's expression immediately turned grim. "...Damn!"

Fu Yu asked, "What do you mean?"

Bao Hai's eyes flickered intensely for a moment before he replied solemnly, "Such a shocking and earth-shattering matter must be a top-secret within the Divine Court's core. The person hidden among the Divine Court's upper echelons actually risked having Double Plum deliver the message—this means their own situation is already extremely dangerous, forcing them to pass the information out at great risk. That person has most likely already been exposed! Ah!"

Fu Yu understood immediately. "Double Plum's rank isn't high; this kind of message shouldn't have been passed through him. How exactly is your organization ranked?"

She had been wondering about this for a while.

Wu He was a "Turtle Ten"—what kind of ranking was that?

Having witnessed Fu Yu personally kill two Dongxuan cultivators, Bao Hai already felt a sense of closeness and a desire to ally with her, so he naturally didn't want to keep her in the dark.

He explained briefly, "Back then, the Sect Master of the Daoist Sect preached to the world, aiming to reshuffle the deck of the immortal path so that ordinary people, minor cultivators, and rogue cultivators could also have a seat at the table. The members of our organization are scattered everywhere, hiding their identities, using folk dominoes as code names."

As for the exact ranking, it could be looked up later.

Fu Yu suddenly understood. "The Divine Court's mole has indeed been exposed."

He was likely undergoing torture and soul-searching.

It wouldn't be long before the Divine Court broke through his defenses, shattered his mind, and obtained his list of subordinates—Elder Xie being one of them.

This was the fate Lu Xingchen had seen before his death.

Bao Hai's expression grew grave. "Thank you for informing me, Fellow Daoist. The situation is urgent now, so I must take my leave. I look forward to meeting you in person someday, where we can discuss this in detail!"

Before his words had fully faded, he lightly tapped his toes, leaped to the side, grabbed the two Dongxuan corpses, and decisively jumped into the chaotic, turbulent, bottomless abyss of spiritual currents.

It was truly a thorough cover-up.

Li Xueke took out the flying boat, got everyone on board, and lifted off, flying away from the Human Emperor's mausoleum.

After experiencing so much, although their bodies weren't tired, their minds were utterly spent. They slumped on the long couch beneath the window, their gazes unfocused, talking in fits and starts.

Li Xueke: "A storm is brewing... feels like something big is about to happen."

Wu He: "Do you even need to 'feel' that?"

The Foxtail Grass Spirit, holding onto the Paper Effigy Boy, said nervously, "What should we do? Should we try to rescue that spy from the Divine Court?"

Wu He shot it a sidelong, gloomy look: "Do you think the Divine Court is a marketplace? Come and go as you please, kill Dongxuan Cultivators whenever you... uh, forget I said that."

The two men and the grass spirit exchanged a look, then all turned to stare at Fu Yu.

This fierce one truly could kill Dongxuan Cultivators!

Fu Yu leaned against the window, pretending to be asleep.

It was rare to have such a moment of peace, with nothing immediate to do. Listening to these people bicker and chatter just made her drowsy.

The power of Ghost Lingjun had been nearly used up when she killed Lord Zhiwei.

But one of Ghost Lingjun's rather interesting secret techniques had survived—the puppet technique he had cast on those Yellow-robed Cultivators during his lifetime—the same one that allowed Venerable Luoxiao's corpse to stand up and be controlled by Ghost Lingjun after his death.

With a thought, Fu Yu knew those cultivators were still attacking the Qingyun Sect's mountain-protecting formation, doing so in a rather chaotic and opportunistic manner.

The power of Lord Zhiwei gathered in her dantian, ready for use.

She took a brief inventory, then casually sent her awareness into her mind to observe that glimmer of moonlight.

The Sword Intent shone into her divine sense, bringing the strange illusion of being held in someone's arms.

Fu Yu gave a slight shudder, and her divine sense jerked back from her consciousness sea.

After a while, her divine sense returned, lingering hesitantly at the edge of her consciousness sea, neither entering nor leaving.

The flying boat swayed slightly in the air with the turbulence.

Fu Yu's body rocked and swayed.

Her divine sense also swayed back and forth.

Unconsciously lulled, she drifted into a hazy sleep.

Blood.

Fu Yu smelled an extremely thick, metallic scent of blood.

She opened her eyes, looked up at the dark red sky, then lowered her gaze to the tragic battlefield where blood ran like rivers.

Her pupils contracted slightly.

These corpses of Evil Spirits before her were not feral wild evil spirits, but the proper army under Jun Bu Du's command.

Was he... losing a battle in her dream?

Fu Yu frowned, her eyes sweeping over the corpses strewn across the ground.

Some of the evil spirits still carried protective talismans; some had dried weird fish hidden in cloth pouches at their waists; some, even in their dying moments, clutched wooden carvings of small evil spirit figurines.

Following the clamor of battle, she continued forward, passing through layers of blood mist until her vision gradually cleared.

These soldiers who had died on the battlefield were actually holding the line for a city.

Behind the city, countless old and young evil spirits were retreating.

Countless warriors had formed a line at the city's front, using their own bodies as a barrier, protecting the elderly and children as they fled.

The enemies they were fighting were...

Fu Yu focused her gaze, but couldn't see clearly.

Before she could get too close, a deep sense of dread and ominous foreboding rose in her heart, her intuition frantically sounding alarms.

She saw the soldiers fighting on the front lines screaming in agony, blood continuously seeping from their eye sockets, nostrils, mouths, and ears.

Even as they groaned in pain, they forced their heavy feet forward, pushing their bodies against the onslaught as if marching against mountains of blades and seas of fire.

"Don't... even think..."

"Step over... my corpse..."

Behind the city, the retreating young evil spirits gritted their teeth, pressed their lips tightly together, and wept without a sound.

The invisible enemy was far too powerful. The flesh-and-blood defensive line at the forefront crumbled layer by layer, and the evil spirit soldiers fell in droves.

Fu Yu "saw" it.

Her heart felt as if it had plunged into an icy lake.

It was the Evil Demon God.

A... primordial, terrifying, and indescribable will that coexisted with heaven and earth, nameless, undefeatable, and utterly dreadful.

Fu Yu's pupils contracted inch by inch.

The Evil Demon God didn't even have a physical form. It descended like heaven and earth, rolling forward like mountains, slowly and inexorably destroying the layered defenses of the ants.

The evil spirit warriors resisted with all their will, but like moths to a flame, they died one after another in agony—they would rather die tragically than submit to It and revert to those mindless monsters that knew only bloody slaughter.

Fu Yu forgot to look for Jun Bu Du.

Her eyes darkened, her emotions complex.

Back then, with her Demi-god body, she had forcibly burned her life soul to lay a Curse upon that Evil Demon God that was about to invade the world.

That Incantation had exhausted her life soul.

On the surface, nothing was wrong, but she could no longer fight anyone and had lost her endless lifespan.

She didn't know if Jun Bu Du was aware.

Actually, whether he knew or not didn't matter, because after she cast the Incantation, he left.

When he left, he didn't mention life or death at all, only chatting idly with her about trivial, everyday matters.

When he mended the Heavenly Dao and sealed the two realms, the Evil Demon God made no move to stop him.

Fu Yu decided to chalk it up to her Incantation working—what did a Diviner know? Whether a curse worked was between you and heaven—whenever some bigwig died an untimely death, a swarm of Diviners would inevitably pop up, scrambling over each other to claim they were the one who had cursed the poor soul.

She was just like them.

Now, arriving in the realm of Evil Spirits in her dream and witnessing firsthand the invincible terror of the Evil Demon God, her heart quaked, a chill running down her spine.

She couldn’t imagine what kind of hell would have broken loose if He had successfully descended back then.

Just as that chilling, blood-soaked will was about to completely crush the defensive line, a squad of young warriors, not even fully grown, rushed out from the retreating horde. Teeth clenched, limbs trembling, they resolutely held the line.

At the critical moment,

"Clang!"

A resounding golden chime rang out, echoing from the heavens to the earth.

In the empty sky, a brilliant golden divine light swept forth.

The divine light blazed like fire, standing tall between heaven and earth, solidifying into a vast and majestic seal!

"Seal!"

It was as if layers upon layers of karmic debt pressed down.

Between heaven and earth, two forces clashed invisibly.

A grand, silent, soul-shaking fury swept through the void.

But it had successfully halted His relentless advance.

In an instant, the Evil Demon God departed, as if He had never descended at all.

Fu Yu blinked in disbelief.

She was still reeling when a cool breeze carried the voice of Jun Bu Du.

Fu Yu followed the sound.

She saw him standing beside the group of young warriors, telling them calmly, "That was an Incantation left by my late wife."

Little Tiger Fangs and Round Face let out a simultaneous "Wow!" and jumped up, exclaiming, "The Great Shaman's late wife was amazing! She saved all of us! Is she the Holy Mother?"

Jun Bu Du lowered his gaze.

After a moment, he said quietly, "She preferred to be called the Fate Master."

Fu Yu’s breath hitched.

After a long pause, she turned her blurred gaze away.

"Jun Bu Du, that’s too much."

How dare he give her heartache even in a dream?