Chapter Ninety-Three: Reports from All Sides

When the flame of that glazed palace lantern went out, what the young lamp-bearer saw was an endless, fathomless sea, strange and brilliant beyond description, enough to seize the mind and spirit alike.

Yet such a scene of ghosts and gods, however uncanny, was never meant for mortal eyes.

In Shangguan Chuci’s pupils, strange fire flickered. Though she could not see it so clearly, she could still discern a filthy current of the most yin and most sinister evil, born from the void itself, surging with overwhelming force straight toward the girl clutching the lantern.

At that very instant, Lu Chenyuan stepped forward, using the nameless ferocious thing within his body as a catalyst to awaken the ink-wash heart-flame he had obtained from Wei Zhuo.

Among all those present, only she could grasp a few parts of the mystery.

As for the armored soldiers of the Demon Suppression Office, and the brother and sister from the Hundred Refinements Sect, what they saw was another dreadful spectacle, one impossible to forget for a lifetime.

At first, everyone had only thought the young man’s conduct peculiar. Yet the moment he stopped before Lin Jianyan, the atmosphere around them changed abruptly.

In an instant, all present felt as though an invisible giant hand had seized every trace of air within a radius of thirty feet and crushed downward with tremendous force.

The air, once flowing, seemed to congeal into a viscous glue, thick and heavy, so that breathing at once became difficult, as though a mountain of a thousand catties had been pressed upon the chest.

Even the light was distorted.

The torches held high in everyone’s hands had once cast warm, bright orange halos, but now an unseen force seemed to be frantically compressing them inward. The cores of the flames turned ghastly white, and the edges of the light were no longer soft; instead, they were dragged into harsh, oppressive lines that could no longer illuminate the darkness beyond three feet.

The shadows beneath everyone’s feet were stretched thin and long by this eerie light source, like specters crawling out of the underworld, silently baring their claws and fangs upon the ground.

One armored soldier from the Demon Suppression Office had already seen Lu Chenyuan walk up to the front of the office’s lamp-bearer and was about to shout at him to stop obstructing the inspection.

But before the words could leave his mouth, that overwhelming pressure had already driven the color from his face. His hand went to the hilt of his blade, and he meant to draw, yet he only felt his arm as heavy as a mountain, unable to lift even a little.

“What on earth is happening?”

He had served in the Demon Suppression Office for many years, seen countless vicious demons and witnessed many bizarre affairs; yet when had he ever encountered such a terrifying and unnatural sight?

Just as his mind reeled and he stood there speechless with shock, an even more dreadful scene unfolded.

The young man in coarse short clothing appeared not to care at all for the invisible pressure that had descended upon them. He merely lifted his right hand slowly toward the void before Lin Jianyan.

As his palm rose, the flesh of that hand seemed to come alive, writhing soundlessly.

Then, one after another, several crimson eyeballs without pupils blossomed beneath his skin, like half-awake lotus flowers opening in a pond.

The eyes opened all at once and stared into that void.

In that instant, with his palm as the boundary, the world seemed to be split cleanly in two.

Beyond his hand, the darkness remained thick and the light still cried out in anguish.

But behind him, the firelight compressed to its limit broke free of its invisible restraints and burst forth once more with a warm orange glow, lighting up Lin Jianyan’s pale, bloodless face.

The armored soldier gasped in a great gulp of air, like a fish stranded on shore that had at last, by some miracle, been cast back into water, greedily drawing in the air it had almost lost.

The invisible weight pressing upon them vanished without a trace the moment the young man raised his hand.

Everyone stared in silence at that slender back, at the inhuman hand he had extended.

It was this hand that had so casually held back a terror capable of devouring all things, keeping it three feet away and never allowing it to advance another inch.

The man claiming to be from the Hundred Refinements Sect stared in utter astonishment, his heart chilled with fear. It took him a long while before he finally came to his senses and said to the junior sister beside him in a trembling voice, “Junior sister... just who is this young man? To be able to control a transformation of the Dao and turn it into such an inconceivable divine ability!”

“Could he be one of the rare chosen lamp-bearers among that Filthy Current heretical cult?”

His junior sister was also deathly pale, silent and speechless, yet within those beautiful eyes too surged stormy waves.

They had only thought the young man was merely the rather unconvincing proprietor of a shabby inn. Looking at him now, it seemed he had an even greater background.

By then, Lin Jianyan had also recovered from the shock to her soul. Panting heavily, she immediately raised the lantern’s flame in her arms to a brighter setting.

The soft, milky-white radiance enveloped her entire body, and only then did the bone-deep chill in her heart lessen somewhat.

She lifted her head to look at the youth who had lowered his arm and now stood quietly at her side, and her feelings were indescribably complicated.

She had never imagined that at such a life-and-death moment, the one who would step forward and save her life would be this very same person she had secretly feared, this terrifying devil she believed to kill without blinking.

“Thank you... sir.”

She bit her lower lip lightly with her white teeth, and in the end forced these words out from the turmoil in her heart.

Lu Chenyuan did not reply.

He was concentrating, silently operating the nameless inner art taught by his master, regulating his breathing and bit by bit forcing the manifested sign of transformation in his palm back under control.

At the same time, he looked inward into his sea of consciousness and saw that the ink-wash foundation there had indeed grown fainter than before, proving that the effort just now had consumed a great deal of power.

The river of filth, once clearly distinct from the ink-wash mountains, was now churning wildly. Dark waves kept surging up and soiling the embankment at the foot of the mountains, and he could not help but feel a measure of vigilance in his heart.

“This heart-flame from Wei Zhuo’s foundation is ultimately a rootless tree; each use wears it down a little more. This Sea-Calming River is far too strange. If I lose this means of self-defense, I’m afraid I may never live to see Master again.”

He thought to himself, “I’ll need to find an opportunity to discuss this properly with that Young Master Chuci and hear what insight she may have.”

On the other side, the armored soldiers of the Demon Suppression Office were also exchanging looks, at a loss for what to do.

The heavens are inherently flawed; once one cultivates the Dao, it is inevitable to be invaded by the filthy current of the Nine Netherworlds. For them, a transformed state was not exactly anything rare.

What was rare was that this young man could actually control a transformation of the Dao, that thing everyone else avoided like the plague, and turn it into a protective divine art.

How was such conduct any different from that of the Filthy Current cult’s lamp-bearers?

According to the rules of the Demon Suppression Office, anyone who encountered such an evil cultivator should at once be detained and their identity verified.

And yet he had clearly acted just now in order to save their own lamp-bearer.

At present, Lin Jianyan also remained silent and gave no order.

More importantly, judging from the uncanny means he had just displayed, even if the few of them were to rush him together, it would likely amount to nothing more than throwing eggs at a rock and making fools of themselves.

For a time, everyone tacitly held their tongues and made no move, quietly waiting for the young man to recover on his own from that strange condition.

When Lu Chenyuan opened his eyes again, he found everyone looking at him.

He had intended to keep a low profile while outside, since his abilities were all borrowed under false pretenses. He had never expected to become the center of attention so quickly.

“Mr. Lu, how are you feeling now?”

As he was still letting his thoughts drift, he saw the girl holding the lantern look at him with concern.