Chapter Ninety: The Opening of Heaven

Ying Yan was killed so easily?
Ying Yan was killed so easily!

Ji Hao stared up at the blood moon overhead, cold all through, unable to speak for a long while.

He slowly set Manman down on the ground. The little girl was already in tears, blinking hard as she looked at Ying Yan’s corpse. “Old Yan, sob… Old Yan… I’ll never bully your grandsons and granddaughters again… sob… don’t die!”

Manman, weeping silently, clutched Ji Hao’s arm with both hands. Her born ferocious strength squeezed his bones and sinews until they crackled. If Ji Hao had not just absorbed a great deal of earth-vein essence milk and a piece of earth essence crystal, Manman would already have broken his arm.

Even so, the pain in Ji Hao’s arm remained unbearable, dragging him back from the deepest abyss of despair and forcing him to gather all his attention.

“Break for me!” Ji Hao roared hoarsely, then barked a truth spell under his breath. A blaze erupted in his right hand. Under the control of the Nine Truths Scripture of Elixir, the crimson fire underwent a wondrous change, drawing in the wandering spiritual qi of heaven and earth. It condensed into a red bolt of lightning the size of a human head and smashed viciously into a strand of blood energy a hundred yards behind him.

With a thunderous blast, the lightning exploded against the blood energy.

The seemingly faint, mistlike blood qi did not move at all. The fire-lightning burst apart, scattering fire and sparks in all directions. A rolling wave of heat rushed forward, making Ji Hao’s long hair stand straight back from his head.

“Useless, idiot!” Di Luo crushed the rose in his hand to powder and pointed at Ji Hao with outrageous arrogance as he shouted, “Useless! This is the Blood Moon Ghostly Killing Array. It is a battle-grade formation forged for our Blood Fang Regiment by master craftsmen of my Shura Blood Moon line. You lot have no hope of breaking through its封鎖. All you can do is obediently surrender!”

Di Luo drew a long sword and pointed it fiercely at Ji Hao. “I remember. You cut off my arm and dug out my eye. Savage native creature, however you abused me, I will repay it a hundredfold, a thousandfold!”

Manman’s guards hurried down the steps and formed a semicircle, shielding Ji Hao and Manman behind them.

One guard said in a low voice, “Little Mistress, find a way to leave. We will hold these bastards back.”

Manman’s pretty face turned ugly. She slowly took out the token her father had given her to wound the mountain god not long ago, and said in a low voice, “Without the sun, the token Father gave me cannot be replenished with solar true fire. It’s no use… Normally, the treasures Father and Mother gave me are too troublesome to carry, so I didn’t bring them with me.”

The faces of the dozen guards went deathly white, despair flooding their eyes.

A sharp, mocking laugh suddenly rang out. Jiang Yao, dressed in splendid robes and acting all coquettish and affected, slowly emerged from the blood mist. In one hand she held a dripping human head, which she tossed down the steps. With a series of thuds, the head rolled down the stairs, leaving streaks of half-congealed blood in its wake.

More than a hundred dark-skinned servants of the Blood Fang Regiment came out with sinister grins. Each carried a heap of heads, which they threw down one after another from the stone steps. Thousands of heads rolled down with thudding sounds. The sight was like a nightmare, and Ji Hao’s fury suddenly surged straight to the top of his head.

Those were the three thousand youths of the Fire Crow Tribe that Ji Hao had brought here. They were all dead.

They had all been killed, and their heads cut off.

Looking at their bloodied faces, one could imagine just how desperate and terrified the boys had been at the moment of death.

“Jiang—Yao—” Veins bulging all over his body, Ji Hao pointed at Jiang Yao and shouted in a rasping voice, “I will definitely kill you, you vile woman! And Ji Shu, Jiang Bo, and everyone connected to you will die too!”

Jiang Yao twisted her slender waist, laughed, and stood beside Di Luo. With a delicate giggle, she crooked a finger at Ji Hao. “Want to kill me? Come on, then, come on! Look, so many little brats from your Fire Crow Tribe have been butchered. Does it hurt? Does it pain you?”

Ji Hao said nothing, only glaring at her.

“Yell, go on and yell! Hee hee, I know you must be in a great deal of pain, in a great deal of fury! When Ah Wu was killed by you, I felt the same pain, the same fury!” Jiang Yao’s face gradually twisted. She shrieked at the top of her lungs. Her beautiful eyes abruptly filled with blood and turned a terrifying crimson.

“Do you know how much it hurt me? My son, Ah Wu, that was my son!” Jiang Yao roared shrilly. “Even if he was going to be killed by someone, it should have been me—only me! Not you lot of lowly, filthy Fire Crow Tribe fools!”

“I, Jiang Yao, am the daughter of the great shaman-priest of the Bi Fang Tribe. My bloodline is noble, my origin extraordinary. I am the most exalted Jiang Yao, and my son was the most exalted person in this world! And he was actually killed by you little mongrel!”

Jiang Yao was already in a frenzy, speaking incoherently, her hands twitching and flailing madly like a chicken’s claws.

“Run! Struggle! Quickly, use every method, every ounce of strength, and try to escape!” Jiang Yao roared breathlessly, waving both hands. “Despair! Cry out! I’ll give you a quarter of an hour. Hurry and find a way to break the Blood Moon Ghostly Killing Array. Hurry and wail in despair and kneel to beg for mercy! You cannot escape, and then I will kill you all!”

Di Luo laughed uproariously. He pointed at the blood moon in the sky, and a fierce blood-light flashed like lightning, appearing and vanishing without a trace. The mountain god, who had stood with arms spread to shield Manman, gave a muffled groan. A transparent hole was punched through his forehead, and his massive body crashed heavily to the ground.

The mountain god’s bonded beast let out a shrill, mournful cry and circled frantically around him, making sounds like an injured puppy.

Blood-light flashed again and again. The guards standing before Manman fell one after another—some with their chests pierced through, some with wounds torn open across the abdomen so that writhing entrails could be seen, and some with arms or legs severed. In the end, everyone was gravely wounded and collapsed to the ground, unable to suppress their cries of pain.

“Quick, Ji Hao, I’ll give you time, I’ll give you time to break this great array!” Jiang Yao’s face was flushed red as she laughed with excitement. “Don’t say your aunt is bullying you. As long as you can break this array, I’ll give you a quarter of an hour to run for your life!”

Ji Hao roared. Turning around, he unleashed dozens of bolts of thunderfire against the blood energy.

The crow elder standing on Ji Hao’s shoulder gave a long cry and beat his wings, spitting a fierce pillar of flame onto the blood energy. But the blood energy still did not move in the slightest.

Di Luo gave a faint snort and pointed with one hand. A streak of blood light shot forth. The crow elder was pierced clean through from chest to tail, a small transparent hole punched through his body. Covered in blood, he fell onto Ji Hao’s shoulder and convulsed as he struggled.

“Brat, you can only use your own strength. You are not allowed to borrow the power of that damned big crow!” Di Luo laughed triumphantly, as though he were a deity who ruled over all.

In Ji Hao’s soul-space, the shadow spoke in a deep rumble.

“Little one, over these past days I studied your alchemical scripture and combined it with my own power. I have also worked out some mysteries.”

“Relax your spirit. I will take over your body for the moment. If I perform the first stance of Opening Heaven, I should be able to help you break the great array.”

Ji Hao clenched his teeth and, without the slightest hesitation, withdrew all his spiritual power into the Purple Mansion Golden Pill in an instant.

The shadow took a deep breath and slowly stood up on the white round disc. In all these years, this was the first time Ji Hao had seen him stand.

The shadow assumed a strange posture, and Ji Hao’s body followed suit. With the shadow’s gentle sweep, Ji Hao extended the index finger of his right hand and, in an utterly profound and ineffable motion, traced an indescribable arc.

Ji Hao’s finger burst open with flesh and blood. The finger bone, shimmering with a faint light and streaked with blood, lightly swept across the blood energy blocking his path.

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