From a martial arts disciple to a god through countless trials and tribulations

Chapter 219 Blood
At the foot of Guyao Mountain, the earth element and immortal energy were born, and all things flourished, creating a vibrant and thriving scene.

The Qingqiu foxes were discussing the fall of the Martial Taotie and were truly shocked.

"With the emergence of the Earth element, Chen Xuan was instantly transformed into a furnace, and he immediately settled old scores. Nanmian dared not confront him directly and chose to back down."

The foxes of Qingqiu were buzzing with discussion. What kind of behavior was it for Chen Xuan to snatch food from Nanmian's hands? He clearly didn't respect Xiao Qingtian at all.

Moreover, it is truly strange that Nanmian, whose Dao heart is as firm as iron and is almost the very essence of the Dao, would bow his head, the leader of the younger generation of the Southern Region's human race.

"Hiss, even the Qingnang Dojo in its heyday, where Tai Xuan Zhenjun dominated the Southern Region, dared not say it was better than Xiao Qingtian, let alone now that it is barely clinging to life."

"Xiaoqingtian is the Daoist temple left behind by the Dao Ancestor of the human race. The Dao Ancestor of the human race was the founder of the Heavenly Mandate Immortal Pill Path and is one of the most powerful ancient sages throughout history."

"Is Chen Xuan Xinzhai? This ominous creature who died halfway through his life vowed to kill all evil spirits and demons. The previous eight of them all met bad ends and were destined to never reach the Supreme Heaven."

"Who are the demons and monsters? The chosen ones? Or immortal beings? Or even born gods, ancient mountain gods... Cultivation is about seizing the creation of heaven and earth. Which Qi cultivator isn't a demon or monster?"

"White Fox Goddess, I'm afraid she won't recover..."

"..."

The Qingqiu foxes were making a ruckus. Hu Qing, who had once seduced Chen Xuan and Hua Liuli, was filled with gloom. He huddled in a corner, his mood low, and he hadn't said much in recent days.

Just then, Hu Qing noticed something was wrong and saw Zhao Shenhu holding a glowing jade talisman, staring blankly into space.

"Your Highness, what's wrong?" Hu Qing approached and asked in a low voice.

"Calm down, don't be impatient." Zhao Shenhu glanced at him and calmly replied, "My father, Zhenjun, is aware of the situation at Guyao Mountain."

In an instant, Zhao Shenhu regained his usual calm and composed demeanor, sweeping away his recent gloom and radiating vitality.

"Chen Xuan was afflicted by the Five Elements Heavenly Tribulation, and the divine travels of half of Yaoguang Prefecture could sense it. Ao Guang, the Thunder God of the Little Dragon Palace, even entered Guyao Mountain with his will and saw everything."

"The resurgence of Tudor is no secret."

Zhao Shenhu spoke indifferently and continued, "As soon as Chen Xuan was completed, he decisively went to kill Wu Taotie, making a good move. If we had waited a little longer, he wouldn't have had such a good opportunity... A big shot from Xiao Qingtian will arrive and take control of the situation."

Chen Xuan was subjected to the Five Elements Heavenly Tribulation for only a little over half an hour.

However, the True Lord of Qingqiu outside noticed something amiss with the power of earth... Other important figures who were paying attention to Guyao Mountain should have reacted as well.

……

……

An underground river flows, and various colored jades and gemstones are found underwater, emitting a hazy glow that brings out a glimmer of light in the darkness.

"The earth element here is very concentrated."

Chen Xuan thought to himself that he used the power of water virtue, stepped on the water surface, and gazed at the many precious jade stones deep underwater. These were all things derived from the power of earth virtue.

It was dark and desolate here, and the naked eye could not see things in the distance. However, it did not have much of an effect on Chen Xuan. His divine soul body was radiant, and his powerful divine soul power swept in all directions, and everything entered his heart.

"Lord Mountain Lord, do you not know where True Lord Tai Xuan is?" Chen Xuan asked the little earth dog, whose face was solemn.

He didn't understand, since the Mountain Lord had clearly said that the Mountain Goddess had found him the biggest backer.

"Before you entered Guyao Mountain, I was unaware of the existence of Tai Xuan Zhenjun... It wasn't until the power of Earth Deity arose that I realized that when the Mountain Spirit Goddess left Guyao Mountain, she left this place for Tai Xuan Zhenjun to hide in," the Mountain Lord said in a low voice.

It was equally surprised that Tai Xuan Zhenjun might be alive, because the mountain spirit had not told it about this.

Moreover, the mountain king knew that his companion, the old tortoise who had lived for over a thousand years, was also unaware of this matter.

"You vicious dog, what are you doing all day long, running around in the well and along the underground river, sneaking around like that? So you don't know where the remains of the True Lord Tai Xuan are," the white fox said in surprise, her eyes shining.

She had been imprisoned by the mountain king for over a year, living in constant fear that her soul and body would be destroyed by the vicious dogs. But today, she finally heard some good news.

“True Lord Tai Xuan helped Chen Xuan cultivate the Earth Virtue Scripture, so it’s impossible for him to have any ill intentions towards us,” Hua Liuli pondered.

The Qingnang Daoist Temple has never practiced alchemy since ancient times, making it a rare orthodox temple in the Qi cultivation world. Moreover, the fact that the Mountain Spirit Goddess was willing to cover for the Tai Xuan True Lord suggests that they are fellow practitioners with whom she has a close relationship.

Chen Xuan glanced at the upper reaches of the underground river, then turned to look at the lower reaches, but didn't notice anything unusual.

"hiss!"

Chen Xuan suddenly felt a chill on his neck, as if a ghost was breathing on it. The atmosphere here was very strange, cold and eerie.

"Just because you can't find the Mountain Lord doesn't mean you can't find him," Hua Liuli said. Chen Xuan's power of mental purification was extremely strong, and even a True Lord-level being in front of him could not hide his presence.

"Hmm?" The Mountain Lord looked at Chen Xuan in surprise. It did not know that Xiao Qingtian's Nanmian had talked about Xinzhai not long ago.

"Oh? The Holy Son of the Southern Wilderness has such abilities. Truly, heroes emerge from among the young." White Fox Goddess covered her mouth and chuckled, clearly not believing that Chen Xuan had such abilities. The Mountain Lord had been imprisoning her, and she was unable to know what was happening outside.

Moreover, for more than a year, the White Fox God had followed the Mountain Lord, wandering in the underground river, but had not discovered much of a clue.

"Speaking so rudely? You're asking for death!" Mountain Lord immediately became displeased and shouted angrily.

Immediately, the mountain god spat out a palm-sized white fox spirit from its mouth, and with a swift kick of its small foot, sent the white fox spirit flying backward with a cracking sound of bones breaking.

"Ouch!" White Fox God screamed, bouncing a few times on the water's surface like a skipping stone, her long sleeves fluttering as she rolled to Chen Xuan's feet.

"Chen Xuan, take the Emperor's Banner and keep an eye on her. If she makes any unusual moves, kill her immediately!" the Mountain Lord said in a deep voice.

Although it has a method to imprison the soul, killing the White Fox God is still very troublesome. Chen Xuan has a soul body and wields the Human Emperor Banner, making him clearly more suitable than it to imprison the White Fox God.

"No!" The White Fox Goddess paled. Compared to the Mountain Lord, the Human Emperor Banner was far more intimidating to her.

Ignoring the excruciating pain in her abdomen, she immediately tried to escape, but a huge shadow fell from above her head, shaped like a giant hand.

White Fox felt a sense of foreboding and quickly darted into the river. However, she was too weak, having been separated from her body for over a year and constantly tormented by the Mountain Lord. Now, she was no match for Chen Xuan's clutches.

"Wow!"

Chen Xuan dipped his hand into the water, emitting a hazy divine light, and grabbed the slender waist of the white fox spirit, pulling her out of the water.

"Cough!" White Fox choked on water and coughed violently a few times. Her two jade-like arms were placed on Chen Xuan's tiger's mouth, and her chest heaved violently.

"Crack!" Chen Xuan's five fingers were like iron clamps, almost crushing her body and making it hard for her to breathe.

"Let go! You barbarians of the Southern Wilderness are too savage! A bunch of uncivilized savages who know nothing of manners!" White Fox was furious. She was soaked to the bone, and her long, wet hair cascaded down onto Chen Xuan's hand.

"Behave yourself!" Chen Xuan warned.

At the same time, he took out the Emperor's Banner with his other hand, and immediately the profound energy soared into the sky, black smoke billowed, and countless ghosts wailed, making the place even more gloomy and terrifying.

"No! I was wrong!" Bai Hu'er immediately fell silent. These cultivators from the poor and remote region were vicious. She had only said one sentence that was not even a mockery, and she was immediately beaten up and even threatened to kill her.

Chen Xuan didn't pay much attention to the White Fox God, but turned to ask the Mountain Lord about his discoveries over the past few days.

The mountain spirit replied, "This is a river that leads to the underworld, with no end in sight, lifeless and devoid of any living creature..."

It is ultimately just a vessel; even if the remains of the Tai Xuan Zhenjun were right in front of him, he might not be able to find them.

"Let's go downstream," Chen Xuan said. The remains of Tai Xuan Zhenjun might have drifted downstream with the river. He wasn't a particularly reckless person. In other unknown areas, he wouldn't choose to take risks, but this was the Mountain Goddess's Guyao Mountain, so he could do some slightly risky things.

Immediately, the two people, the dog, and the fox proceeded downstream along the underground river.

Before long, Chen Xuan sensed a chilling aura of panic coming from ahead, like a huge shadow blocking the middle of the river.

Chen Xuan's soul rippled slightly. Hua Liuli felt a chill, almost suffocating.

"What is that thing?" Chen Xuan asked in surprise and doubt. He extended his powerful spiritual energy and swept it twenty or thirty miles away, but it was like a mud ox sinking into the sea. It was all gray and hazy, as if a huge creature was standing in the water.

“This thing wasn’t here before.” The mountain lord was taken aback, its fur stood on end, and its eyes were very serious. It was also enveloped by the icy chill.

"This isn't the original underground river!" The white fox was horrified, tilting her head back and staring blankly at Chen Xuan.

She was shocked. Chen Xuan had clearly done nothing but lead the way, but in just a short time, after traveling dozens of miles, they encountered something strange.

You should know that the mountain king kept her captive and kept her circling underground for more than a year, but he found nothing.

The dog and the fox were very familiar with the scenery of the underground river, but at this moment, the riverbed beneath their feet and the surrounding cave walls were changing silently.

The white fox stared intently at Chen Xuan, her eyes darting around, thinking to herself, "Strange, strange! He truly has extraordinary abilities."

"There's a faint aura of feng shui secrets; we've entered a new underground river," Hua Liuli whispered, her face pale in the dim light.

She knew some of Chen Xuan's abilities; all the veiled fog was useless. Only Chen Xuan could directly ignore these residual feng shui forces and find the right path.

"What exactly is that thing? Is it a living being?" Chen Xuan asked gravely, sensing something was amiss.

“It’s terrifying, it’s the aura of a spirit wandering.” The white fox spirit kept twisting its body and said to Chen Xuan, “Let me go, let me use my divine soul power to explore the strange thing.”

She was an extremely young spirit traveler who took great care of the safety of her own divine soul body; otherwise, she would have fought the mountain lord to the death long ago and would not have endured humiliation for so long.

"Shut up!" Chen Xuan ignored her.

He led Hua Liuli and Shan Jun along the winding river, gradually slowing down and proceeding very cautiously.

The further they went, the deeper the underground river became, its bottom invisible in the darkness.

“A corpse!” Chen Xuan’s gaze sharpened.

At the bend of the underground river, a corpse emitting a ghostly light clung to the mountain wall, bobbing up and down in the water.

In the underground river beneath it, various gems and jades piled up into a mountain, shimmering with light and exuding an air of nobility.

“It is very likely that he was a peerless expert from the Qingnang Dojo a thousand years ago.” Hua Liuli said in shock, “When Tai Xuan Zhenjun fell, many of his followers who ascended with him, including some earth deities, disappeared at the same time.”

Chen Xuan was quite unsettled, perhaps he could discover a secret from this corpse.

He stepped forward to examine it closely. It was the corpse of a female Taoist priest, dressed in a Qingnang Taoist robe similar to Zhang Dongxuan's. The female Taoist priest was as beautiful as a flower, as if she were fast asleep, and her skin was so delicate that it seemed as if it could be broken with a touch.

"It's like he's still alive."

Chen Xuan thought to himself, and poked the female Taoist priest's face with his finger. It was as if he had pierced through a thin sheet of paper. In an instant, the rosy-cheeked female Taoist priest's body collapsed. Then, her flesh turned into quicksand, leaving behind a skeleton. The river water rippled, and the skeleton turned into jade stones that fell down, leaving nothing behind.

"This is..." Chen Xuan was surprised.

"Even a perfect body would be exhausted by the thousand-year-old restriction of the Earth element, unable to withstand the power of time." Hua Liuli looked surprised and said, "Things of the Earth element cannot be preserved."

Flesh and blood may be weak and frail, but the spirit endures forever.

Even ordinary cauldrons and precious bodies can remain uncorrupted for hundreds of years, let alone the perfect body of a god.

Moreover, legend has it that some gods have extremely powerful physical bodies, and even after nine reincarnations in the mortal world over thousands of years, they can still share the same original physical body and temple!

Chen Xuan sensed that the enormous shadow in the area had vanished, and the remaining traces of feng shui energy had also disappeared without a trace.

But ahead, there are even more enormous shadows, like withered mountains standing in the water.

Chen Xuan and the others continued forward, encountering several corpses, all of them lifelike. But as soon as they got close, they quickly turned to dust, transforming into pieces of crystalline jade that fell into the water.

Each of these corpses was once an extremely powerful earth deity, but now, time has taken its toll, and nothing remains.

On some of the corpses, Chen Xuan found some scrap metal, all of which were earth-element treasures, no less valuable than Hua Liuli's few mortal artifacts, but they had all completely lost their spirituality and turned to ashes in an instant.

"Is Tai Xuan Zhenjun really not dead? He coldly watched as one high-level cultivator after another from the Qingnang Daoist Temple died tragically, without even trying to save them?" Hua Liuli frowned, sensing something was amiss.

This Tai Xuan Zhenjun, who ascended to immortality with his entire sect, doesn't seem to "love" his own Daoist temple as much as one might imagine.

It should be noted that these corpses were all disciples and grand-disciples of Tai Xuan Zhen Jun in life, but Tai Xuan Zhen Jun did not save them and instead watched them perish.

"Perhaps we couldn't have saved him back then," Chen Xuan speculated.

“A thousand years ago, True Lord Tai Xuan was bound to die, and my True Lord personally took action,” the White Fox God said. Qingqiu was one of the culprits responsible for this.

If it weren't for the certainty of Tai Xuan Zhenjun's demise, the forces of Qingqiu, Xiaolong Palace, and others would not have given up and would have joined forces to attack the Mountain Ghost Goddess's Guyao Mountain; no one could have stopped them.

"Buzz!"

At that moment, Chen Xuan saw a golden light flash across the end of the dark river, and a corner of a painting appeared in a fleeting moment.

"What is this? A page from the Classic of Mountains and Seas?" Chen Xuan's gaze sharpened.

Suddenly, he felt the chill on his neck become even more piercing, and a chill ran down his spine, as if a ghost was perched on his shoulder, blowing on him.

"Tick!"

At the same time, Chen Xuan heard a dripping sound, which was very clear in the darkness.

"Whoa! What's that noise? You dead dog, are you drooling?!" The white fox spirit suddenly screamed from Chen Xuan's drooping hand.

But suddenly, her face turned deathly pale, and a strong smell of blood rose up and assaulted her senses.

"..." Chen Xuan looked down and his pupils immediately contracted.

"Hmm?" The little mountain dog squatted at Chen Xuan's feet, tilting its head back with a puzzled expression.

The tiger's face was covered in blood, which flowed like earthworms, sticking to its fur and turning into a scarlet patch. Drops of dark red blood slid into the river, creating a terrifying sight.

"That ghostly thing that lingers in Guyao Mountain has followed us in!" The Mountain Lord raised his paw, wiped the blood that had run down his eyelid, and said in a deep voice, "I think I'm being watched, and I feel like I'm going to die."

Chen Xuan looked closely and saw that the words "Don't come in!" were engraved on the mountain lord's forehead.

Just now, something silently carved words on the mountain god's head, but no one noticed.

"Isn't that ghost the wandering soul of Tai Xuan Zhenjun?" Chen Xuan paused for a moment, then said in a low voice.

Judging from previous clues, this speculation is quite reasonable.

Before entering Shangyang Cave Heaven, the Mountain Spirit Goddess had visited Guyao Mountain once. If there were any ghosts causing trouble, would the Mountain Spirit Goddess tolerate it? She would have extinguished them with a wave of her hand.

(End of this chapter)