Chapter Ninety: Divine Light Tempering the Soul

The sword vessel that had merged with the nether spirit and the Wing of Death appeared unchanged on the surface.

In truth, it seemed unchanged as well.

At least, Gao Wu could detect no difference in the sword itself; only through the senses of his nether spirit could he perceive it.

To the nether spirit, the sword was like a sealed and sturdy house, able to ward off all manner of particulate radiation from the outside world.

There was one very grave problem: that turbid crimson light was still entangled with the nether spirit.

Seen from the nether spirit’s perspective, Gao Wu felt as if the murky scarlet glow were glued to it, with a corrosive bite like sulfuric acid. Cold, razor-sharp power kept eroding and seeping into the spirit.

At this rate, the nether spirit would slowly be devoured by that turbid crimson radiance. Of course, it would take some time; there was no need to panic yet.

By now Gao Wu had recovered somewhat. Forcing himself to focus, he began to chant and first cast a Green Dragon Vital Qi Mantra upon himself.

It took him twenty seconds to recite the full incantation. Azure spiritual light coursed through his body, stirring the abundant vitality within him and washing away all adverse effects at the physical level.

In that instant, the true might of his fifteen points of constitution came fully into view.

Gao Wu almost immediately regained the ability to move. He did not bother with the sword or the nether spirit for the moment; they were not likely to cause trouble right away. Instead, he went to see Song Mingyue.

Song Mingyue was in a terrible state. Purple-black blood seeped from her nose and the corners of her eyes, making her look like a vengeful ghost who had died in injustice.

Fortunately, her breathing was steady enough, and her bodily condition was basically normal. Gao Wu checked her briefly, then forcibly gathered his spiritual strength and cast the Green Dragon Vital Qi Mantra on her as well.

Her body gave a slight shudder, and she woke from unconsciousness. Slowly opening her eyes, she saw Gao Wu right away, his expression somewhat tense.

“You’re awake!” Gao Wu was overjoyed. Grinning broadly, he said, “It’s a windy place to be sleeping. If you’re tired, go back to the bedroom…”

Song Mingyue suddenly remembered the first time she had fallen into water and, upon opening her eyes, had seen Gao Wu—the bright, vigorous smile on his face, and his offbeat, shameless jokes.

The tension in her heart eased, and the corner of her mouth lifted slightly.

“Honestly, your smile right now is a little frightening,” Gao Wu said. He reached out and wiped at the blood at the corner of her eye, but instead of removing it, he smeared it across her face.

He spat on his own hand and was about to wipe her again.

Song Mingyue could not help but frown slightly. She found this method of cleaning hard to accept.

When Gao Wu met her eyes, he realized it was indeed inappropriate. After spending so much time together, he had long since discovered that Song Mingyue was fastidious about cleanliness.

“Heh heh,” Gao Wu said with an awkward laugh, lowering his hand to rub it on his trousers. “My hand’s a bit sticky. You were bleeding…”

He glanced around and happened to catch Aunt Lan slowly opening her eyes. Delighted, he hurriedly waved. “Aunt Lan, come quickly—Mingyue is hurt!”

Aunt Lan looked at Gao Wu in a daze, then at Song Mingyue lying on the ground with her face covered in blood, and for a moment she could not react.

The ice storm unleashed by the Death Angel had been terrifying, dealing a devastating blow to her mind. Just now, she had lost consciousness entirely, as if blacking out from drink; she had no idea what had happened in that minute.

For Aunt Lan, it had all been a blur, and when she opened her eyes again, everything had changed.

After all, she was a middle-rank warrior, and she quickly regained her wits. Remembering that there had still been an enemy, she looked around frantically, but could find no trace of the man—only patches of blood on the floor.

“Mingyue, how are you?” Aunt Lan grew anxious at once upon seeing how badly Song Mingyue looked.

Song Mingyue said weakly, “I only overdrawn my spiritual power. I’ll be fine after a few days of rest.”

She had been gravely injured this time, but she had completely slain the entangled foreign spirit and removed the shackle that bound her mind.

Her shattered foundation of spiritual power also meant she could now correct some of the problems left behind in her cultivation.

To put it in old-fashioned terms, destruction before construction—this was, in fact, a good thing.

It concerned the very root of her cultivation, but there was no need to explain it too clearly.

Aunt Lan let out a breath of relief, then hurriedly asked, “What about the man?”

Before Song Mingyue could answer, Gao Wu said directly, “He’s dead.”

Aunt Lan looked at Gao Wu with an inquiring expression. If a man was dead, there ought to be a body. Where was it?

Gao Wu did not explain this time. It was too complicated to make clear in a short while, and it also involved that bizarre thing, making matters even more troublesome.

He looked at Song Mingyue pretending not to understand Aunt Lan’s meaning. Mingyue, having recovered somewhat, now had a bit of spirit in her eyes and seemed in decent shape.

That put Gao Wu at ease.

If Little Song was all right, she should be able to help think of a solution—see how to deal with that thing…

The nether spirit touched upon his most important secret. Unless absolutely necessary, he would not tell Song Mingyue about it.

If he could determine the origin of that wing, perhaps he might be able to solve the problem with the Vermilion Bird Divine Light Mantra.

The Vermilion Bird Divine Light Mantra, when driven by blazing inner power, could temper the soul within, and restrain evil things and foreign spirits without.

Aunt Lan was starting to feel a little intrusive now. Gao Wu decided to wait and speak later. Quietly, he summoned the Boundless Merit Book, wanting to see how much merit he had gained from killing Huang Hai.

When the ancient pages unfolded, Gao Wu saw a string of numbers with 10000+ appearing one after another. Looking at the total merit, it had already reached 1,030,000…

“Good heavens!” Gao Wu was startled. Just how many people had Huang Hai killed to return more than four hundred thousand merit points to him?

During the Hunter Assessment realm, Gao Wu had slain Wan Cangsong and the other two, gaining three hundred thousand merit.

From past experience, that had likely been because Wan Cangsong and the others had committed countless evils and killed many people. Slaying them yielded a large amount of merit.

As for how merit was calculated and redeemed, Gao Wu had no idea. In any case, all of it was handled by the Boundless Merit Book.

From that, he had drawn one conclusion: the more merit returned, the more wicked the slain person had been.

The merit returned by Huang Hai alone exceeded that of Wan Cangsong and the others combined, which showed just how vile Huang Hai truly was.

A million merit points was enough to upgrade the Vermilion Bird Divine Light Mantra to perfection; that should be enough to resolve the problem with the nether spirit, right?

There was actually another path: upgrading the Green Dragon Vital Qi Mantra.

The problem was that the Green Dragon Vital Qi Mantra was specifically for improving constitution, and experience had proven that every aspect of the body was interconnected.

No matter how strong the constitution, if the other fundamental attributes were limited, its power could not be fully unleashed.

Even now, the true strength of his fifteen-point constitution had not been completely released.

Whether to save the nether spirit or to balance and enhance all his attributes, this time he should upgrade the Vermilion Bird Divine Light Mantra.

Gao Wu was thinking of finding an excuse to return to his room first and upgrade the Vermilion Bird Divine Light Mantra as soon as possible.

Aunt Lan, still receiving no answer, was full of worry, but she could not keep pressing Gao Wu.

When Song Mingyue had earlier said that Gao Wu had killed a warrior, Aunt Lan had still doubted it.

After today’s battle, she finally understood how formidable Gao Wu truly was. Though she had not seen the course of the fight, the mere fact that Gao Wu had awakened so much earlier than she did showed how much stronger he was.

She asked Song Mingyue, “Should we inform your father?”

“Huang Hai was just a fish that slipped through the net. Since it’s dealt with, there’s no need to find my dad,” Song Mingyue said, shaking her head. She truly did not want to meet her father.

“I’m still a little worried… Should we get someone from the inspection office to take a look?” Aunt Lan had not seen a body; she only had Gao Wu’s word for it. It was not that she doubted him, but the situation still felt unsafe.

And what if the other side had accomplices? Followers of the God of Demons were hardly governed by reason and could not be judged by ordinary standards.

Aunt Lan now felt very insecure. As a middle-rank warrior, she had had no ability to fight back against the God of Demons’ followers, and had not even known what had happened.

If not for Song Mingyue and Gao Wu defeating the enemy, she might have died without even knowing how she died.

At the critical moment, two eighteen-year-olds had been more reliable than she, a middle-rank warrior. In truth, she felt deeply ashamed.

Precisely because of that, Aunt Lan wanted to be doubly cautious and prevent any further trouble.

Song Mingyue could understand Aunt Lan’s feelings. She was not good at comforting others. On the other hand, she felt Aunt Lan’s concern was not unreasonable.

Both she and Gao Wu were in very poor condition and lacked the strength for another fight in the short term. If Huang Hai had accomplices, that would be troublesome.

“Let’s stay in the safe room for the night first. We can see how things stand tomorrow,” Song Mingyue said.

A safe room had been built beneath the villa: more than thirty square meters, with two bedrooms, a separate bathroom, and some necessary supplies for survival.

It was well hidden and sturdy enough. Staying inside for ten days or half a month would not be a problem.

Though Aunt Lan felt it was not quite proper, seeing that Song Mingyue and Gao Wu did not want outsiders to know about the matter, she could not say much more.

Deep in the basement, a disguised door that looked like part of the wall slid open. Then, after opening the heavy blastproof door with a key, the three entered the safe room.

The air inside was somewhat stale, but at least it was clean.

Gao Wu picked a small bedroom and, after saying a word to Song Mingyue and Aunt Lan, hurriedly shut the door and got into bed.

The bedding was all new, with no dust at all. It was obvious the place was cleaned regularly.

He stripped off his bloodstained training clothes, laid his twin pistols by the pillow, and placed the sword far away. He did not know whether that thing was dangerous, but it was safer to keep his distance.

Lying on the soft bed in a vest and shorts, Gao Wu finally relaxed. He did not even feel like taking a bath.

The whole battle had lasted less than a minute, yet it had been extraordinarily intense.

Especially that bizarre Death Angel, which had placed him under tremendous pressure.

He had just asked Song Mingyue about it, but she could not clearly say what the white wings were. She could only be certain that the wings should be some refined artifact, used to temporarily contain the Death Angel, and could be regarded as its wings.

Unlike the Death Angel itself, the Wing of Death had to have some basis in physical matter. Only then could it exist so stably in the real world, and only then could the Death Angel manifest in tangible form in reality.

Gao Wu trusted Song Mingyue’s judgment very much, and he had no one more formidable to ask.

After resting for a while, Gao Wu decided he should still try the Green Dragon Vital Qi Mantra first.

After all, Thunderflash Shift could summon invisible lightning aimed directly at the spiritual level; perhaps it might destroy that strange thing.

He took the long sword and repeatedly activated Thunderflash Shift twice, but it had no effect. The nether spirit was still entangled with that mass of something.

For now, he could only hope the Vermilion Bird Divine Light Mantra would be strong enough.

He still had some confidence in it. The root of the nether spirit’s entanglement was that his power was too weak. If he could strengthen the nether spirit and increase the might of the Vermilion Bird Divine Light Mantra, he should be able to deal with that strange white wing…

Opening the Boundless Merit Book, Gao Wu without hesitation invested a million merit points into the Vermilion Bird Divine Light Mantra.

Crimson flame-light erupted like a volcano, transforming in Gao Wu’s sea of consciousness into a huge, beautiful, and graceful scarlet bird…

The scarlet bird spread its wings, and countless threads of light fell like rain, scattering and burning through the sky, turning the entire void into a sea of crimson fire.

Within the raging scarlet blaze, hundreds and thousands of wondrous runes shone and aligned themselves, assembling into a mysterious incantation.

“Vermilion Bird Burning Heaven, Radiant Light of the Lih Palace, Flaming Streams and Molten Waves, Refine Yin into Yang…”

More than a thousand words of the Vermilion Bird Divine Light Mantra rose in Gao Wu’s mind. The same incantation, chanted and visualized in a different rhythm, underwent utterly different transformations.

By the time Gao Wu had recited the entire scripture, he had come to understand the Vermilion Bird Divine Light Mantra anew.

The scarlet bird formed of crimson flame-light, the Vermilion Bird, was driven by Gao Wu’s intent to suddenly raise its head and cry out, then beat its wings and fly out from between his brows, descending directly onto the sword by the door.

In an instant, the black alloy scabbard turned scarlet, and the temperature in the small bedroom seemed to rise sharply as well…