Jinling City, ancestral lands of the Gu Yue Immortal Clan.
Though it was deep into the night, the Glorious Auspice Immortal Hall of Gu Yue Estate still blazed with spiritual light. The restrictions of hundreds and thousands of mountain-warding formations transformed into five-colored auspicious clouds, swallowing and exhaling the world's spiritual energy across a thousand-li radius. From time to time, immortal servants riding white-jade flying swords streaked through the sky, carrying thousand-year-old spirit herbs picked from the depths of the Great Wilderness or ancient beast cores radiating astonishing spiritual might as they hurried toward the inner estate.
Yet in the depths of Fang Cunsheng's eyes, as he stood at the woodshed door of the outer estate, a faint purple glimmer flashed.
In his eyes, the immortal hall that appeared to outsiders to dominate the world in splendor and prosperity was now tightly wound in strands of ink-black resentment and ash-gray signs of decline. Those interwoven threads of cause and effect resembled massive pythons, frantically gnawing away at the fortune Gu Yue Estate had accumulated over a century.
“After more than a century of grandeur and glory, in the end, it's nothing more than a fat sheep raised for Heaven's Will. A great edifice is about to collapse, and not a single person senses it.”
Fang Cunsheng lowered his head and looked at his rough, callused palms. A self-mocking smile touched the corners of his mouth.
Fang Cunsheng was a transmigrator. Sixteen years ago, he had been born into this world, carrying the memories of his previous life—a world that fused myth with eerie immortal cultivation.
This world was far more brutal than any novel he had read in his previous life. Here, there were supreme powerhouses who could move mountains, fill seas, and live as long as Heaven itself. There were ancient cultivation houses that could cover the sky with one hand and monopolize every cultivation resource. But most people were mortal-boned cultivators like him, whose lives were as worthless as grass and who struggled miserably at the very bottom of the cultivation world.
His current identity was nothing more than a lowly servant-slave in the outer estate of Gu Yue Estate, one of Jinling's Four Immortal Clans.
Fang Cunsheng had low-grade aptitude and only the most impure false Five-Element spiritual root. After cultivating for sixteen years, relying on the half a low-grade spirit stone distributed by the outer estate each month, he had barely reached third-level Qi Condensation. In the eyes of Foundation Establishment and Core Formation powerhouses who could casually enter seclusion for a century and turn clouds with one hand and rain with the other, he was no different from an ant on the ground or a weed in a field.
In this eat-or-be-eaten cultivation world, an outsider servant with poor aptitude could be reduced to ashes at any moment because of a single thought from someone above him.
The reason Fang Cunsheng had survived until now while keeping his Dao heart intact was entirely due to a nameless stubborn stone fragment deep within his sea of consciousness.
Whenever he circulated his meager spiritual power and gathered it in his eyes, he could activate the stone fragment's divine ability—seeing through the threads of cause and effect and calamities between all things.
In the cultivation world, this was an unimaginable, Heaven-defying ability. When others saw a peerless divine weapon gleaming with dazzling light and fought until their heads bled, Fang Cunsheng could see the monstrous bloodshed, resentment, and karmic backlash coiled around it. When others saw an immortal pill capable of breaking through a realm and drooled with longing, he could see the karmic viper poison hidden within the medicine.
Relying on these eyes, he had repeatedly avoided the deadly dangers of the outer estate's overt and covert struggles. But this time, monstrous trouble seemed to have come knocking on its own.
“Cunsheng! Quit spacing out! Something huge has gone wrong!”
An urgently panicked shout abruptly shattered the silence of the night.
A young servant in a blue coarse Daoist robe came stumbling through the corridor in a frenzy, nearly knocking over the stack of firewood in the courtyard along the way. His name was A-Xing, Fang Cunsheng's only friend in the outer estate who could be called a true acquaintance. He was also a low-level cultivator at third-level Qi Condensation.
A-Xing grabbed Fang Cunsheng by the sleeve. His face was deathly pale, and he kept his voice extremely low, even as it trembled with the hint of a sob.
“Something terrible happened! This afternoon, young master Wuxia from the inner estate tried to break through to ninth-level Qi Condensation in the Grand Vista Immortal Realm. Somehow, the Heaven-Mending Spirit Marrow he was born with in his mouth suddenly dimmed. I heard that a strand of Heaven's fortune inside it reversed course for some unknown reason and injured his heart meridians! Young master Wuxia vomited blood and collapsed on the spot. I heard even the patriarch at the Nascent Soul stage was alarmed!”
Fang Cunsheng's heart jolted.
Gu Yue Wuxia? Something had gone wrong with the spirit marrow that had accompanied him from birth?
He knew the origin of that jade marrow. In this world, it was no ordinary object. Rumor had it that it was a stone spirit embryo cut from a stubborn stone by an ancient powerhouse while mending Heaven, carrying the Gu Yue clan's supreme, unending fortune. Young master Wuxia had been connected to the spirit marrow by fate from the moment he was born. It was the key to the clan's future prosperity. If anything went wrong with that thing, the entire Gu Yue Estate would be turned upside down.
“What does this have to do with servants in the outer estate?” Fang Cunsheng asked in a low voice, his brows drawing together.
“Oh, my Cunsheng, it has everything to do with us!” A-Xing stamped his feet anxiously, blisters breaking out at the corners of his mouth. “Chief Steward Xu personally issued an edict. He said nourishing that Heaven-Mending Spirit Marrow requires immortal spirit water of utmost yin and coldness. Within several thousand li, only the cold pool deep in the Blackwind Mountains can produce Ninefold Nether Profound Water!”
“Which one of those precious disciples and immortal lords from the inner estate would be willing to risk their priceless lives? Chief Steward Xu made the decision on the spot: he was going to draft three hundred servants from our outer estate and form a water-collecting team. We leave for the Blackwind Mountains in half an hour!”
At the words “Blackwind Mountains,” Fang Cunsheng's pupils suddenly contracted, and a bone-chilling cold rose in his heart.
The Blackwind Mountains—the notorious fiend-haunted forbidden land outside Jinling City!
According to legend, a great demon had attained the Dao there a thousand years ago, cultivating peerless divine abilities before later being subdued by a Buddhist powerhouse. But that great demon had occupied the mountains for many years. Its remaining monstrous demonic aura and fiendish miasma had not dispersed even after a millennium, giving birth to countless powerful and savage demon beasts. Let alone lowly ants like them at third-level Qi Condensation—even Foundation Establishment experts who ventured deep in groups would have only a one-in-ten-thousand chance of survival.
Put nicely, it was a “water-collecting team.” Put bluntly, they were using the outer-estate servants' lives to scout the way, feeding human flesh to the demon beasts in the mountains so the inner-estate stewards could have a chance to collect the water!
“By order of the steward! All outsider servants in the outer estate below the fifth level of cultivation must report to the drill grounds immediately, within the time it takes half an incense stick to burn! Anyone late or absent will be deemed a clan traitor, have their cultivation crippled on the spot, be demoted to a mortal slave, and exiled to the mines!”
A cold voice infused with robust spiritual power suddenly exploded over Gu Yue City.
The voice rolled like thunder, making Fang Cunsheng's eardrums buzz and his blood churn. He knew that voice well. It belonged to Li Da, the outer-estate steward, a cultivator at the mid-Foundation Establishment stage. In the eyes of the lowly servants, Li Da was a god who held absolute power over life and death.
“It's over… It's all over…” A-Xing's legs gave out, and he collapsed onto the ground, his eyes filled with despair. “Going to the Blackwind Mountains means death, and staying here to have our cultivation crippled means death too. Cunsheng, are we really destined to live our whole lives at the mercy of others?”
At the mercy of others?
Fang Cunsheng clenched his fists so tightly that his nails dug deep into his flesh, bringing a sharp, piercing pain.
In his previous life, he had drifted through an ordinary existence. In this life, he had finally set foot on the immortal path with tremendous difficulty. No matter how poor his aptitude was, he absolutely refused to die so uselessly in a demon beast's belly and become a stepping-stone for the glory of the great cultivation clans!
“Whew…”
Fang Cunsheng drew a deep breath and forcibly calmed himself. He slowly closed his eyes. When he opened them again, his meager spiritual power surged madly into the Three-Lives Stone fragment in his sea of consciousness, heedless of the cost.
“Buzz!”
A buzzing sound that only he could hear exploded in his mind. Within his sea of consciousness, the ancient, mottled stone fragment trembled violently, releasing an archaic aura of primordial vastness and desolation.
In an instant, the world before Fang Cunsheng changed.
The black curtain of night receded, and countless interwoven threads of cause and effect frantically crisscrossed between Heaven and Earth. Enduring wave after wave of stabbing pain in his brain, he forcibly turned his gaze north—the direction of the Blackwind Mountains.
Amid the all-enveloping black winds and savage demonic aura, he faintly saw a glimpse of the future:
It was a pool as black as ink, radiating endless cold. All around it lay the bodies of countless Gu Yue Estate servants, strewn in disarray, their blood dyeing the water crimson. A massive black bear shadow as huge as a small mountain, its eyes like blood-red lanterns, was roaring at the cold pool with a bellow that seemed capable of shattering mountains and rivers. It was the overlord of the Blackwind Mountains, a terrifying demon beast whose strength rivaled a Core Formation powerhouse!
Fang Cunsheng's heart went cold at the sight. A Core Formation demon beast could wipe out their entire force with a single breath.
However, when his gaze followed the threads of cause and effect farther down and pierced toward the very bottom of the cold pool, a sudden change occurred!
In the deepest part of the cold pool, amid endless silt and netherworld qi, a battered black ring-handled saber lay quietly. Its entire body was covered in cracks and appeared to possess no spiritual power at all, yet an infinitesimal strand of pure, immaculate golden Buddhist radiance flickered and vanished across its blade.
That strand of Buddhist radiance seemed faintly connected to the fortune of the entire Blackwind Mountains. It even appeared to restrain the Core Formation Black Bear Demon!
At the same time, a line of ancient characters suffused with a faint purple glow slowly appeared in Fang Cunsheng's sea of consciousness:
【Cause-and-Effect Prompt: Blackwind Mountains, beneath the cold pool. This journey offers a one-in-ten-thousand chance of survival, yet a sliver of hope from Heaven and Earth is gestating within the death calamity. Beneath the cold pool lies the Blackwind Buddha Blade left behind a thousand years ago, before the Black Bear Great Demon attained the Dao. This blade bears the karma of the Buddhist sect. If you can obtain it, you can borrow the blade's aura to sever the shackles of mortal flesh, survive by staking everything on death, force a realm breakthrough, and achieve Heaven-defying Foundation Establishment!】
“Heaven-defying Foundation Establishment…”
Fang Cunsheng stared at the words in his sea of consciousness, and his heart began to pound despite itself.
In this world, Qi Condensation cultivators who wished to achieve Heaven-defying Foundation Establishment all needed vast amounts of resources. Even the lowest-grade Foundation Establishment Pill could sell for more than a thousand high-grade spirit stones at the cultivator market—a staggering sum he could not accumulate in several lifetimes as a servant. Without a Foundation Establishment Pill, forcibly establishing one's foundation resulted only in shattered meridians and an exploding body.
And now, this Blackwind Buddha Blade was his only chance!
Although it said “a one-in-ten-thousand chance of survival,” as long as there was a sliver of hope, it was worth gambling his life on!
“A-Xing, get up.”
Fang Cunsheng bent down and forcibly hauled the limp A-Xing up from the ground. His eyes had become utterly resolute, carrying an almost crazily calm focus.
“Cunsheng, you…” A-Xing stared at Fang Cunsheng and could not help freezing. There was not a trace of fear in Fang Cunsheng's eyes. Instead, there was a blazing intensity A-Xing could not understand.
“Crying won't help. If we're going to die, it's better to die standing than kneeling.” Fang Cunsheng brushed the dirt from A-Xing's clothes and said in a low voice, “Stay with me. Once we enter the Blackwind Mountains, no matter what happens, remember this: don't leave my back by more than three feet. Follow my orders, and I'll bring you back alive.”
Looking at Fang Cunsheng, who was completely different from his usual self, A-Xing inexplicably felt a sense of security rise within him. He nodded before he even realized it.
“Let's go. To the drill grounds.”
Fang Cunsheng straightened his blue robe and strode out.
By then, the drill grounds were already in utter chaos and misery.
More than three hundred outer-estate servants had gathered in a dark mass. Those with the highest cultivation were only at fourth-level Qi Condensation, while those with the lowest had merely reached the first or second level. Cries, pleas for mercy, and complaints rose and fell, weaving together into a desperate dirge of resentment.
“Steward! Please, I'm begging you, let me go! My old mother is bedridden with a serious illness. She's still waiting for this month's spirit stone so I can buy her medicine!” A second-level Qi Condensation old cultivator knelt on the ground, pounding his head against it frantically until his forehead was covered in blood.
Yet Li Da, the outer-estate steward standing on the high platform, showed not the slightest trace of pity. He wore an expensive purple Daoist robe and toyed with two jade gallbladders that shimmered with dazzling spiritual energy. Looking down at the servants below, his gaze was as cold as if he were looking at livestock about to be sent to the slaughterhouse.
“Hmph! Wailing and carrying on—what kind of conduct is that?”
Li Da snorted coldly. The terrifying pressure of the Foundation Establishment stage swept across the entire grounds like a landslide and tsunami, instantly crushing the breath from everyone's lungs. The cries stopped dead.
“Being able to serve young master Wuxia is a blessing you cultivated over eight lifetimes! If you can bring back the Ninefold Nether Profound Water, the inner estate will reward you handsomely. The spirit stones bestowed will be enough for you to enjoy yourselves for the rest of your lives! But if anyone dares desert their post or undermine morale…”
A vicious glint flashed through Li Da's eyes, and he suddenly swung his right hand.
“Bang!”
Not far away, a third-level Qi Condensation servant who had tried to climb the wall and escape did not even have time to scream before a sharp Geng Metal sword qi pierced through his chest. Blood sprayed across the ground, and he died on the spot.
The blood-soaked reality extinguished the last shred of wishful thinking in everyone's hearts like a basin of ice water.
Fang Cunsheng stood in a corner of the crowd, coldly watching Li Da on the high platform. In his field of vision, several thick black threads of cause and effect connected to the top of Li Da's head. The other ends led deeper into the inner estate, even reaching that pool beneath the cold pool.
“Li Da, and the high-and-mighty Gu Yue clan…”
Fang Cunsheng silently etched this sword's vengeance into his heart.
“Set out!”
At Li Da's command, the three hundred outer-estate servants were escorted by several dozen elite disciples from the inner estate. Their faces were ashen, their steps heavy, as they walked out through the gates of Gu Yue Estate and disappeared into the northern wilderness merging with the night.
The gears of fate began to turn madly at that moment.
No one noticed that although the young man walking at the very back of the group wore tattered clothes, purple flames danced in his eyes.
The Blackwind Mountains, this fiendish land that had buried countless white bones. To others, it was a road to the underworld that meant certain death. But to Fang Cunsheng, it was the first battlefield where he would tear through the darkness and defy Heaven to change his fate!