Chapter Eighty-Nine: The Origin of the Bai Ze Monster Chart

The divine relic bestowed by the Primordial God, the Strange-Beast Chart, was a treasure whose full name was the White Sage Strange-Beast Chart. In those days, the divine beast White Sage had flown out of the secret realm of Kunlun’s Grand Heaven Cave with this chart clamped in its jaws, and with it helped the Heavenly Emperor break the demon clan at Pimu Earth Mound. Its merits were truly immense.

As for the uses of this Strange-Beast Chart, they were manifold indeed: it could soar through the heavens, burrow through the earth, shift through space, and more besides.

Yet only White Sage and the Primordial God knew how to use it. Others, no matter how much they had seen, could not possibly divine its method.

The demon clan’s ancestral treasure, the Hundred-Demon Sacred Scepter, had always been handed only to the reigning Demon Saint and never allowed to fall under the eyes of outsiders, so its workings were likewise shrouded in mystery.

Its greatest trait, however, was that it could command all demons. Once that staff was brought forth, the strange creatures and colossal fiends cultivating in the deep mountains and great marshes across the wilderness realms would all at once bow their heads and submit.

The beast-controlling divine instrument, the Ten-Thousand Sovereign Flute, was likewise one of the sacred relics of the evil clan. It was also the personal treasure of Zi Gui, the Netherworld Evil King. In years past, Zi Gui had used this flute to harm countless common folk of the wilderness, though after the war between the gods and the evil clan ten thousand years ago, the flute was seized by the divine race.

The foremost artifact of Cangwu, the Demon God Scroll, was one of the treasures of the Demon Emperor Niqin. It was said that the four scrolls and the Strange-Beast Chart shared a wonder of similar kind, though the manner of use differed as vastly as heaven and earth. The true might of the scrolls was known only to the line of Demon Emperors.

The heaven-and-earth-moving instrument, the Light-Dust Immortal Duster, was the last-ranked among the Ten Great Sacred Artifacts of the Wilderness, and the only treasure belonging to the human race of the wilderness realm. It was presently hidden within the royal house of Boundaryless City in the Kingdom of Siyou.

By the time Venerable Brahma had recounted all ten supreme treasures of the wilderness realms, delight had already begun to stir in Bai Mu’s heart.

To think that he not only possessed the Azure Dragon Sacred Sword, ranked second among the sacred swords, but also the divine relic bestowed by the Primordial God, the White Sage Strange-Beast Chart. He could scarcely restrain himself from crying out in joy on the spot.

Yet on further thought, the White Sage Strange-Beast Chart his master had given him was now in the hands of the Gray Crane Patriarch. At once he deflated like a punctured skin bag, and could not help standing outside the pavilion with a long, sorrowful sigh.

“Why do you lament, young man?”

Venerable Brahma asked with a calm, unfurrowed expression.

“It’s... nothing.”

Bai Mu shook his head somewhat flustered, trying to brush the matter of the White Sage Strange-Beast Chart aside. After all, he and this middle-aged man named Brahma were still far from close acquaintances, and Lingyan’s life and death were still unknown.

Though from their earlier exchange he could almost be certain that this handsome, dignified middle-aged man was by no means a wicked person, the days he had spent wandering the wilderness had taught him one thing: when meeting strangers, speak only three-tenths of what is in your heart, and do not give it all away.

Sensing the guard in the youth before him, Brahma simply smiled with easy grace. “Why not go and see that little girl Lingyan? This time she is badly wounded.”

“All right, quickly then!”

Bai Mu answered anxiously and broke into a run toward the small pool in the plum grove.

When he had dashed to the edge of the pool in only a few strides and looked back again, he saw the middle-aged man in green robes within the pavilion sway lightly and unhurriedly. It was only a breath of wind, yet in that instant he had already become a wisp of blue smoke, drifting to the pool’s edge.

Then, like a deity descending to the mortal world, he alighted. After a brief flash of azure light, the whole of his body stood quietly beside Bai Mu, not a trace of dust staining his shoes.

His movement was elegant beyond compare, his speed astonishingly swift, utterly beyond Bai Mu’s expectations.

From the seamless, effortless way Brahma shifted form and shadow, it seemed his cultivation was far above Bai Mu’s own, perhaps even several tiers above Lingyan’s.

Unseen admiration for the middle-aged Brahma only deepened within him.

Hiss...

Standing by the pool, where a fierce mingling of scorching heat and freezing cold rose from the water, Bai Mu could not help shivering. His grievously injured body, not yet fully healed, began to tremble as well.

But what shocked him most was that the Azure Dragon sword qi hidden within his void cauldron had, upon meeting that hot-and-cold aura, grown strangely restless.

Yet when he looked at Lingyan, sitting in the pool with her eyes tightly closed, a pang of pain surged through his heart.

What a beautiful and vivacious woman she had been. She had once been Bai Mu’s guardian deity.

And now she sat in the water like a statue, draped in green gauze. The cold water rising to her neck made her face look faintly pale, stripping away all the usual color and warmth from her cheeks.

Some nameless feeling extended itself within him, and sorrow gnawed at Bai Mu’s heart like a bone-deep affliction. As he looked at Lingyan, motionless and silent, fragments of the past rose in his mind like scenes in a passing film.

“Lingyan...”

Bai Mu forcefully suppressed the surging sword qi in his void cauldron and softly called her name.

The only answer was silence and stillness.

She seemed not to hear him at all. Her pale face did not change by so much as a fraction, and her little cherry-colored lips never stirred in the slightest.

Sigh...

As he looked at the pearly droplets on Lingyan’s face and at her now cold and unfeeling features, it felt to Bai Mu as though blood were dripping from his own heart. Those endless thoughts and bitter anguish, mingled with the blood in his chest, instantly turned into a fierce stream of force and struck straight into the void cauldron below his abdomen.

Pfft...

At last Bai Mu could no longer hold back the sword qi eager to burst forth within him. He spat out a mouthful of blood, and his body, like a dead tree battered by winter wind, began to sway and topple toward the hot-and-cold pool.

“Watch out!”

From behind, the cold-eyed Brahma gave a timely warning. His figure again became a wisp of blue smoke, drifting with the wind. The next moment he had gathered Bai Mu’s weakened body into his arms. With a light tap of his foot, he carried Bai Mu back to the ancient pavilion in a swirl of azure mist.

Caw, caw.

At such a sight, even the divine bird could not help letting out two urgent cries, likely lamenting how perilous the moment had just been.

“Has your sword qi acted up?”

Looking down at the weak youth in his arms, blood still seeping faintly from the corner of his mouth, Brahma found an inexplicable tenderness stirring in his heart.

“Yes... yes,” Bai Mu answered weakly.

At the same time, the corner of his eye fell upon the resolute face of the middle-aged Brahma. Seeing that expression, urgent yet still kindly, a warmth rose in his heart for no reason at all, and he thought of the father he had never once met.

In his imagination, a father’s embrace must have been much like this: warm, steady, and strong.

“Close your eyes. I’ll help you sort out the sword qi.”

The middle-aged Brahma instructed him solemnly, while his broad palm, without allowing any refusal, pressed against Bai Mu’s solid back. A faint, almost imperceptible current of power seeped slowly into Bai Mu’s body from the Gate of Life acupoint like a clear stream.

When he had first approached the pool, the sword qi within his void cauldron had already been stirred awake by the pool’s fierce mingling of heat and cold.

Then, upon seeing Lingyan sitting with her eyes closed in the water like a corpse, not even hearing his call, panic had surged through him and his qi and blood had begun to roil. With his grievous injuries still unhealed, his body could no longer suppress the Azure Dragon sword qi.