Chapter Ten: The White Serpent

On the Inverted Mountain, both righteous and demonic cultivators simultaneously ceased fighting, retreating in a frenzy. Many failed to escape in time. Regardless of their strength, they were all swallowed in a single gulp. Like live shrimp leaping in the mouth of a predator, those devoured struggled madly within, yet it was utterly futile. They were quickly consumed, their bodies and essence refined into vast spiritual energy.

Under innumerable astonished gazes atop the Inverted Mountain, the mountains of Wolong Ridge trembled, dust billowed skyward, and a pure white serpent slithered forth from the range, its demonic aura surging, unfathomably terrifying. The long, snowy-white body now seemed like a mountain of ice sprawled upon the land—only this mountain devoured men. With a single bite, it consumed nearly a tenth of the cultivators from both righteous and demonic factions atop the Inverted Mountain.

With all will to fight snuffed out, the cultivators scattered in terror. Who could blame their cowardice? Anyone, upon seeing a serpent stretching a hundred miles long, would be stricken with dread. The white serpent, having devoured so many, then lowered its gaze to the land tortoise outside Tao County.

"Xuan Yin, Zhen Yang!" Her enormous body belied the softness and chill of her voice, which drifted like a cold wind, like falling snow. "Fengdu!"

She turned and departed. Her long form shrank continuously, yet even at its smallest, she remained over thirty yards in length. She left the gorge—a newly formed chasm, scarred into the earth by her dormant body. As she withdrew, the mountains were split by a gorge stretching for more than a hundred miles. Perhaps, in the future, this place would no longer bear the name Wolong Ridge, but instead become known as Serpent Gorge.

Perhaps the white serpent did not realize, or simply did not care, that there was still a man and a demon upon her back. Xu Zhong and You Sujue clung to a single scales, traversing mountains and valleys with the serpent. She deliberately avoided human settlements, heading instead for the wilderness. With each breath, she drew in the radiance of the moon; within a hundred-mile radius, all moonlight was drawn into her maw and refined into the purest spiritual energy. As a result, the night grew steadily darker, until all was pitch black—no trace of moonlight nor starlight remained. The serpent had devoured every last glimmer.

"This world has gone mad..." Xu Zhong could think only this. He had only just begun the path of cultivation, yet had already witnessed so much—none of which compared to the terror of this moment. A mountain road stretching a hundred miles, a road linking two county seats, had suddenly become a living creature—capable of swallowing tens of thousands in a single bite, of devouring all the moonlight for a hundred miles...

These events battered his nerves, but also left him increasingly exhilarated. "What a marvelous world this is..."

Mountains crossed, rivers forded—everything before his eyes now seemed alive: monkeys, dragons, creatures of legend. But You Sujue, beside him, was far less composed. Overwhelmed by the terrifying aura emanating from the serpent beneath her, she trembled uncontrollably, unable to care for herself. Had Xu Zhong not held her securely, she might have already tumbled off the serpent's back, lost who knows where.

The white serpent traced a circle around the lands near Yangshuo, as if searching for something.

"Human, is this Jianliang?" The white serpent turned her head, her eye alone large enough to dwarf him.

Startled by the sudden movement, You Sujue's legs kicked out, and she fainted dead away.

Xu Zhong considered for a moment. "Jianliang is an old name from two thousand years ago. Now, this place is called Yangshuo..." He paused, then added, "Jianliang, as you call it, was the capital of the ancient Yue Kingdom. But Yue has been extinct for eighteen hundred years; now this is one of thirty-two counties in Yu."

"Eighteen hundred years..." Sorrow crept into her words, though her crimson pupils remained eerily calm. She surveyed her surroundings, as if the scenery of her fallen kingdom appeared before her eyes.

"Do you know roughly where the ancient Yue palace was?" the white serpent asked. "I cannot find it..."

Xu Zhong racked his brain, terrified the serpent might deem him useless and swallow him on a whim. "I have it!" he cried, clapping his hands. "I remember now. Three hundred years ago, when the Taizu Emperor toured this place, a golden carp emerged from the river, bearing a jade tablet inscribed with two characters—Yangshuo, in the old Yue tongue. Thus the place was named Yangshuo. A hundred years ago, the river changed its course, and ten years later, a new county was established upon the old riverbed—called Chang County! Perhaps, if luck is with us, Chang County is where the palace once stood. If not, there may at least be clues to the old Yue kingdom there."

He was uneasy.

"Where is this Chang County?" the serpent asked.

Xu Zhong led the way. "By the way, isn't it a bit conspicuous to keep such a... grand form?" he ventured cautiously. "Of course, you can ignore the question if you wish."

"If you could see how many seals are bound within my body, you would understand why I must remain this size," she replied.

Xu Zhong, of course, could not see them. Within the serpent, countless seals, dense as grains of sand, had been compressed to their absolute limit, ready to explode at the slightest provocation. This was as small as she could become; any smaller, and her body would collapse beneath the weight of the seals' power.

Xu Zhong pressed his lips together in silence.

At that moment, You Sujue gradually regained consciousness. Seeing Xu Zhong moving nimbly atop the wind, she cheered, "Did you manage to shake off that giant snake?"

Xu Zhong's heart skipped a beat, cold sweat breaking out on his brow. His face stiffened, unnatural. Sensing his shifting mood, You Sujue realized her error, turned around—and found the white serpent staring at her.

With a jerk of her legs, You Sujue promptly fainted again.

"She..."

"Are all the foxes of Qingqiu so timid these days?" The serpent paid no heed to You Sujue's slight.

Xu Zhong breathed a silent sigh of relief, though the mention of Qingqiu piqued his curiosity.

Half an hour later, they arrived at Chang County. The place was tranquil, peaceful—yet Xu Zhong sensed something amiss.

"The scent of my homeland!" The serpent's voice echoed from above.

Xu Zhong looked up, witnessing the sky split open, revealing sun, moon, and stars—a different firmament altogether. Beneath that sky, a cluster of enormous, timeworn palaces rose from the earth, ancient and imposing. Before the palaces stood a solitary figure.

"The City God of Chang County—why is he there?" Xu Zhong cried out, stunned, while the You Sujue in his arms cautiously cracked open one eye to see what had so shocked him.

...

When Xu Zhong and the white serpent reached Chang County, the battle in the outer realms had ended.

Ying Xiantian returned from the rift in the outer world to the Inverted Mountain. What first caught his attention was not the diminished ranks atop the mountain, but the deep, winding gorge in the distance. If his memory served, that had once been a mountain road lying quietly within the range. Now, both inside and around the gorge, were seals—broken, ruined seals.

Countless seals stretched for hundreds of miles, layered one upon another, radiating immense power—capable of binding space, halting the flow of time. Ying Xiantian sensed the aura of something that had been sealed for a thousand years.

He imagined himself in its place: if it were him bound by so many seals, could he break free?

A single breath felt as if it spanned three centuries.

"If it were me, I would need at least three hundred years to break these seals," he calculated.

Gathering demonic essence from the site, he deduced the escaped creature's cultivation was inferior to his own.

"It must have been the commotion caused by Fengdu devouring the mortal realm that loosened the seals, allowing the demon to break free," he mused. "There aren't many demons worthy of such elaborate seals—each a notorious villain of immense evil."

"This demon must be found and resealed at once."

Determined, he questioned the disciples still atop the Inverted Mountain, piecing together the events.

"Truly ruthless! With a single bite, she devoured thirty thousand of my disciples—unforgivable!" Ying Xiantian was enraged. If these disciples had perished in the righteous-demonic war, he would have accepted it as dying for their cause. But to die so senselessly and indignantly—this infuriated him.

He was not the only one furious; the Lord of the Netherworld was equally incensed. Upon learning of the loss—seventy thousand men had vanished—his anger surpassed even that of the Dao Alliance. "She will pay for this."

Though he was the nominal head of the Netherworld Sect, true authority lay with the lineage of sect masters, grand elders, and the great figures of each demonic sect. The loss of seventy thousand was a blow not easily absorbed.

The Lord of the Netherworld reappeared atop the Inverted Mountain. The two men shared a tacit understanding—in this moment, their goals aligned, though not entirely. Ying Xiantian focused on subduing and resealing; the Lord of the Netherworld, on subduing and recruiting. To trade seventy thousand lives for a demon whose strength nearly matched his own—such was a bargain, provided the demon had no powerful backers.

"So many seals—which demon god was imprisoned here?" The Lord of the Netherworld surveyed the dense array of seals, conducting the same analysis as Ying Xiantian, arriving at nearly identical conclusions. They had always been compared as eminent young leaders of their respective factions.

Ying Xiantian produced a compass, infused it with a wisp of demonic aura gathered from the gorge, and began to track the white serpent.

"To the north!" The Lord of the Netherworld, seeing the result, was the first to head north.

But in the next instant, he halted, eyes fixed on the northern horizon. Ying Xiantian put away his compass, likewise looking north.

There, a magnificent celestial domain was rising, shining with radiant, gentle light like a newborn sun. Within, palaces towered, the essence of heavenly treasures mingled in a dazzling canopy of brilliance.

A new celestial realm had appeared—a source of untold resources.

Ying Xiantian and the Lord of the Netherworld both caught the greed in each other's eyes.

At that moment, the enormous white serpent leapt into the realm, followed by two figures so small as to be invisible to the naked eye.