Chapter 789 The Dragon Girl and the Lamplighter
The appearance of the candle in the snow was not surprising.
The Xunyang Grottoes had anticipated Xue Zhongzhu's appearance. Their original plan was to have Song Mama hold her back, buying time for Rong Zhen on the high platform to mobilize the power of the great formation. There were many similar arrangements, and they even considered the worst-case scenario.
However, the appearance of the white dragon completely disrupted the balance of the original plan.
The moment the snow-white sword energy and the purple true energy collided, there was hardly any sound. It was like two clouds touching silently, neither merging with the other. However, the light that emanated from between them was dazzling.
As a high-grade Qi cultivator, although Granny Song was nurtured by the Empress and the Imperial Observatory with a wealth of resources and was not as exceptionally talented as Xue Zhongzhu, she was still capable of reaching the high-grade level and was by no means a fool. In her youth, she was the leader among the female officials of her age in the palace. Moreover, experience is the best teacher.
Xue Zhongzhu is exceptionally gifted, seemingly born for the sword path. His sword energy is so strong that even with the help of top-grade Qi-replenishing pills from Granny Song, his natural weakness in aura compared to sword cultivators is compensated for. His purple Qi in his dantian is released freely as if it were free.
Today's first encounter was a head-on clash, with both sides genuinely aiming to kill each other.
In times like these, whoever retreats first will meet a gruesome end.
They're all competing to see who can last the longest.
While the two were "dawdling," directly behind them, the white dragon, unaffected by the dazzling light, rushed straight towards the high platform at the foot of the Buddha statue in front, where a girl in palace attire stood quietly.
Having been thrown back to the ground, Yi Qianqiu had already regrouped, seized another warhorse, and was gathering his troops inside the main grotto to stop the white dragon.
From the high-rise buildings inside the main grotto that were originally monitoring "Bujian," giant crossbow bolts were being fired at it. This was originally one of the backup plans to deal with the master of Butterfly Love Flower, but now they couldn't care less about that. Everything was just to stop this unexpected white dragon from getting close to the Buddha.
The white dragon was surprisingly calm, its icy eyes fixed on the ants at its feet, ignoring the noise and harassing arrows. As if it were being secretly controlled, it followed a clear route, avoiding any entanglement with Yi Qianqiu and the others, and rushed straight towards the high platform.
Under the impact of the snow-white sword energy of the Candle in the Snow, Granny Song's purple-gold palace dress fluttered, her white eyes glowed with purple light, and her purple energy in her dantian was being consumed at an unbelievable speed.
Granny Song knew perfectly well that the tables had turned; it was no longer her who was holding back Xue Zhongzhu, but Xue Zhongzhu who was holding her back.
A Han-style palace lantern suddenly appeared in front of the white-eyed old woman. It was simple and old, like an ever-burning lamp that had just been taken out of a tomb.
The appearance is also very simple: a palace maid with her hair tied up kneeling on the ground, holding flames in both hands.
The bottom is engraved with Yin-Yang and Five Elements inscriptions, which shimmered with a faint light. Upon closer inspection, it resembles a compass.
"The wood of Zhen (震) ignites fire, and the wind of Xun (巽) lends its strength!"
Granny Song bit her fingertip and carved a blood talisman on the compass at the bottom of the palace lantern. Instantly, her whole body turned to wood, as if she had transformed into a withered branch in the cold winter.
The antique palace lantern flew out of his hand and towards the high platform below.
As the old woman with the white eyes turned to wood, the purple aura surrounding her body that had been resisting the snow-white sword energy disappeared. Her wooden body was "blown" into dust by the oncoming snow-white sword energy, as if she were dead beyond any doubt.
Xuezhongzhu tilted his head and saw a tiny spark explode on a Han-style palace lantern that had flown away in the distance. A hunched old woman, her figure emaciated and unharmed, emerged from the fireball. Song Mama, who had escaped, chased after Bai Jiao, trying to stop him.
The candle in the snow arrived almost instantly, reaching her side and handing her the sword again. Granny Song used the same tactic, substituting a plum for a peach with a Han-style palace lantern, thus shifting the position.
The hunched figure reappeared in the vanished flames of the palace lanterns.
It was the Five Elements Escape Technique of the Yin-Yang School. The old woman with the white eyes used it with the ease of breathing. She wanted to use it to get close to the white dragon, attempting to use the aftershocks of the battle between the two high-grade Qi cultivators to hold it back and injure the white dragon.
Xue Zhongzhu's eyes were cold and indifferent, as if she had already seen through the old woman's intentions. When she approached again, she no longer handed over the sword, but instead took seven steps in the air. With each step, an ice lotus bloomed. When the seventh ice lotus shattered, the sword tip had condensed into seventy-two cold lights, forming the Big Dipper formation, sealing off Song Mama's four sides.
The white mist grazed by the sword energy instantly crystallized, and Song Mama, trapped in the center of the seven ice lotus flowers, had ice shards falling from her nose with each breath.
At the same time, the Han-style palace lantern that had escaped again, its wick covered in white frost, its embers fading and barely extinguished, bounced back into Granny Song's hand.
Before Song Mama could even change her expression, the blade of the snow-white longsword was already at her feet. Suddenly, a magnificent scene of snow-covered mountains appeared before Song Mama's eyes. The sword energy rushed towards her like an avalanche of thousands of snow-capped mountains, making her feel suffocated and desperate, and making it impossible for her to have the desire to turn around and run away.
With her rich experience, Granny Song bit her tongue hard as she entered the illusion. A sweet taste filled her mouth, and her cloudy white eyes suddenly cleared.
The Han-style palace lanterns hung in the air, spinning a dark blue halo between her fingers. This Yin-Yang master, holding the lanterns, formed the Heavenly Yuan Seal with her ten fingers. With a "poof," a tiny candle flame bloomed at the wick that was about to go out, and star patterns flowed on her purplish-red palace dress.
"The Li Palace locks in Yang, the Kan position seals in Yin—!"
Suddenly, black and white fish rose from the ground, enveloping Granny Song. The blade of her snow-white longsword struck the point where the fish's eyes met, and she felt as if she had fallen into a quagmire.
As Song Mama's palace attire swept across the surrounding white mist and frost, the frozen frost suddenly transformed into an ice sculpture of a blue phoenix spreading its wings, carrying sharp shards of ice, and hurtling straight towards the candle-faced door in the snow.
Granny Song raised her face with a sinister smile.
The tiger struggled to pull out its sword, Zhishuang, even in the snow.
In the brief three-breath close combat, the seemingly unwilling old woman with white eyes, who wanted to escape, actually set a trap, walked into it herself, and launched a desperate counterattack.
Unable to draw his sword, his candle-like eyes in the snow were as cold as ice.
Just as the ice sculpture of the Azure Phoenix was about to smash her handsome mixed-race face into a bloody mess.
A dragon pattern lit up on Xue Zhongzhu's right palm and suddenly moved. Then, a semi-transparent dragon shadow emerged from under the skin of his right forearm and wrapped around the sword. The sword aura of 'Zhi Shuang' trapped in the Yin-Yang fish eye suddenly increased threefold, and the range of the dragon shadow sword aura covered the tall body of the mixed-race Hu Ji.
The ice sculpture of the Azure Phoenix spreading its wings shattered into dust, but the dragon's shadow followed closely, swimming along the dust toward the body of the white-eyed old woman.
The appearance of the Dragon Shadow Sword Technique was too sudden. Granny Song felt as if her dantian was being strangled by a giant python. This trapped dragon could actually devour her true energy.
Granny Song's pupils contracted, and she suddenly cut off a sleeve, stepped onto the Kun position, and used the Han-style palace lantern to perform the Five Elements Escape Technique, shifting her form and changing her shadow once more, barely managing to shake off the dragon shadow's entanglement.
She emerged from the flames, somewhat unsteady.
The Yin-Yang School fled, the illusory image of the Yin-Yang Twin Fish melted away, and Xue Zhongzhu reclaimed 'Zhi Shuang'. He took a step and stood in front of the unsteady Song Mama, his sword energy pouring out like a crimson flame.
As the sword was swung, the dragon's roar and the sword's cry resonated together.
Legend has it that the fifth-rank purple aura of the Yue Nu Dao lineage is called "Dragon Girl," who can trap a dragon in her palm, and anyone who sees her will die.
In a critical moment, at the last second, the old woman with the white eyes suddenly formed a hand seal and spat a mouthful of blood from her heart onto the Han-style palace lantern:
"The water of Kan transforms into mist, and the marsh of Dui swallows the sky—!"
After the old woman's shrill cry, the tiny water droplets from the melting ice sculptures around her condensed into a Bagua mirror array, refracting seventy-two beams of intense sunlight. The water droplets were evaporated into a cloud that blotted out the sky, and within the hazy cloud, the Twenty-Eight Mansions constellation was faintly visible.
The fog covered a vast area, instantly enveloping the white-eyed old woman and also encompassing the figure of Xue Zhongzhu.
Only a lone lamp could be faintly seen flickering inside, occasionally illuminating the shadowy figures of two people fighting beside it. But once they moved away from the lamp, their shadows disappeared, their movements obscured by the hazy mist.
This scene unfolded before the entire audience like a shadow puppet show. The atmosphere was quiet and still, with occasional glimpses of sword energy shooting out from the clouds and mist. In addition, the movements of the Yin-Yang fish and the snow-white dragon shadow were occasionally revealed.
The sounds of dragons roaring and swords flashing, along with the old woman's shrill screams of shock and anger, continued in succession. Clearly, the latter was gradually losing ground.
However, every time a hole was pierced in the hazy mist, it was quickly filled in, so the details of the battle inside remained unknown...
In just over ten breaths, the series of exchanges between a high-ranking dragon maiden of the Yue Nu Dao lineage and a high-ranking lamp bearer of the Yin Yang School Dao lineage had already dazzled and bewildered everyone.
A high-grade Qi cultivator with purple aura is already a leader in their field, rare and precious. In the martial arts world, such a person would be a grandmaster.
The fact that two high-ranking Purple Qi cultivators were fighting so fiercely was a rare sight, a major event that would be widely known throughout the martial arts world.
At this moment, the people in the main grotto had no time to care about any of this; a mythical white dragon was the focus of everyone's attention.
Yi Qianqiu led the White Tiger Guards in a charge, but suffered repeated defeats. Fortunately, the warriors of the sixth-rank weapon master had strong physiques, and each time they managed to slightly slow down the speed at which the white dragon approached the high platform.
However, each charge resulted in the deaths or injuries of dozens, even nearly a hundred, of the White Tiger Guards.
This is a real sacrifice made with the lives of the White Tiger Guards.
This was solely to delay the white dragon for a few breaths, buying time for the people on the high platform.
During her repeated charges, Yi Qianqiu noticed something unusual: the white dragon seemed to have a reverse scale on its belly, which it always twisted to cover. She immediately shouted:
"Assemble! Form the White Tiger Formation! Hold it off!"
Just then, an old executioner appeared on the scene; it was Old Yang.
Old Yang sighed, no longer hiding his abilities. He took out a Confucian classic, tossed it high into the air, formed a hand seal with his withered palm, and muttered something. After a short while, a golden chain phantom appeared on the white dragon's body.
The white dragon was briefly blocked by the iron chains binding its body. It struggled with its head raised, which just happened to expose its abdomen.
Yi Qianqiu led his armored soldiers in a charge, and the entire force faintly appeared as a tiger-shaped phantom, which fiercely "bite" into the belly of the white dragon.
However, in the next instant, the white dragon rolled in pain, the white tiger army formation scattered, the white tiger phantom disappeared, and Yi Qianqiu and the others were thrown away.
The white dragon's abdomen was already torn open, but when Yi Qianqiu and the others looked back expectantly, their eyes gradually filled with horror as they discovered that beneath the white dragon's skin and flesh lay a deep, dark bronze!
This lifelike white dragon was actually covered in bronze skin, with no flesh or blood inside!
This also means that it has no Achilles' heel or weakness.
The white dragon seemed to be completely enraged. It broke free from the chains of the Confucian scribe's punishments, forced the old executioner back, and then turned and whipped its tail, ready to sweep across the high platform.
At that moment, a young girl in palace attire on the high platform suddenly opened her eyes.
Her eyes shone with the golden light of the blazing sun.
"That beast deserves to die!"
In the next instant, a zither melody rang out from within the Donglin Buddha.
A sword, accompanied by the sound of a zither, came from Luoyang.
As everyone saw, the hundred-zhang-long white dragon looked as if it had been cut into a thousand pieces, its skin and flesh completely sheared off, revealing its bloody bronze body underneath. The white dragon looked as if it had suffered the most painful torture in the world, and it roared incessantly in a ferocious and furious manner.
Just as everyone in the grotto was secretly overjoyed, suddenly, a calm voice rang out, echoing in the ears of everyone present:
“Princess Zhenxian, the fake cauldron is not used like this. I am not very good at it, but I will teach you.”
On the opposite mountain peak, a middle-aged scholar, holding a scroll, emerged from mid-air.
It was Wei Shaoqi, with a gentle smile, who unfurled the scroll:
"Let us return home."
The golden light on the Buddha suddenly surged.
As the middle-aged scholar finished speaking, a scroll slowly unfurled in the air.
Above is a lifelike Peach Blossom Spring.
There is a sword, carried by ink painting, that comes from the Peach Blossom Spring.
Like the sword strike in Luoyang, it traversed thousands of mountains and rivers to reach the Twin Peaks.
In the next instant, all sound disappeared.
There was no dazzling, blinding collision between the two Qi Refiners, "Dragon Girl" and "Lantern Bearer," nor any other spectacular scenes.
No one saw anything extra.
There was nothing unusual about the scroll that Wei Shaoqi was holding.
Even the golden halo that had originally surrounded Rongzhen and the Buddha had vanished without a trace.
It was as if everything had returned to normal.
Only the purple-clad palace maid on the high platform, her sleeves tightly clutching white jade prayer beads, suddenly changed her pretty face, looked up sharply, and gazed at the vast sky.
She was on high alert.
A streak of azure sword energy appeared from nowhere.
It hangs as high as the blazing sun.
There is a "poor scholar" with a cloth sword.
The crowd at the foot of the Buddha were astonished to see the True Immortal Princess on the high platform, her three thousand strands of black hair fluttering in the wind, as if she were standing on a cloud thousands of feet high.
Above the clouds.
In places unseen by others.
Golden sword energy and sky-blue sword energy are clashing.
Those on the ground could only see that the white clouds had all shattered, the sky was clear and blue, and a blazing sun was shining overhead...
The atmosphere was deathly silent. Yi Qianqiu, Wei Wu, and the others stiffened. Rong Zhen and Granny Song were both held back, and no one could stop the white dragon.
The white dragon's angry vertical pupils regained their human-like clarity, and it rallied, dragging its massive body to the high platform, where it unleashed a powerful dragon tail sweep.
"Zheng—!"
A melodious zither tune suddenly rang out from the bamboo grove not far away.
The white dragon's bronze tail swept across the high platform and the Buddha, but it was like passing by a "phantom image" or a mirage, unable to harm them in the slightest.
The white dragon roared angrily, still refusing to believe in evil, and tried to sweep its tail again, but to no avail. Even with the strength of a dragon and an indestructible body, it could not overcome the shackles of the divine power of a certain mythical cauldron sword.
That music... it's the old musician! He hasn't left yet!
Yi Qianqiu and the others suddenly realized what was happening and were about to breathe a sigh of relief when the music in the bamboo forest abruptly stopped, and their expressions immediately turned ugly.
A certain bamboo grove was quiet.
Deep in the forest, in a bamboo courtyard, an old painter who seemed to have stepped out of a painting pushed open the wooden gate and walked to the side of an old musician who had already packed his luggage. He gently placed his palm on his old friend's one-stringed zither.
(End of this chapter)
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
