Deep within the mountains.
Jiang Runyue wore a golden crown and a white robe, holding a folding fan. With her sword-like brows, starry eyes, peach-pink cheeks, and red lips with white teeth, every glance she cast carried an extra dash of effortless charm.
Floating free upon the wind, one could feel the vastness of heaven, earth, and the boundless sea; standing independent of the mortal world, waxing and waning like a newly fledged immortal ascending to the heavens.
Though it is said that once a single Golden Core enters the belly, one finally learns that my fate is up to me and not the heavens, for cultivators in this world, condensing the Golden Core is merely the beginning of the path to transcending oneself, the very first stage where the mortal flesh begins to undergo transformation.
Yet as cultivation steadily advances, when a cultivator steps into the realm of the Primordial Spirit, this path of self-transcendence enters an entirely new phase.
At this stage, not only do the cultivator's body and bloodlines continuously transform, but even the three souls and seven po spirits begin to undergo their own metamorphosis.
Within this realm, the most astonishing feature is the birth of the Primordial Spirit. It is the product of the highly unified essence, energy, and spirit of the cultivator, possessing incredible power the moment it is born.
Once a cultivator successfully nurtures a Primordial Spirit, even if the physical body is utterly destroyed, as long as the Primordial Spirit remains completely intact, they can continue to survive through the method of Possession.
It is precisely because of this uncanny ability that every cultivator regards the Primordial Spirit as paramount.
In the cultivation world, there are even some cultivators who specialize entirely in cultivating the Primordial Spirit.
These individuals abandon their flesh and blood, choosing to exist in the world in the form of a Primordial Spirit. They no longer rely on a physical body, placing far greater importance on the growth of their own Primordial Spirit.
The existence of the Primordial Spirit grants cultivators transcendent abilities. Not only can they achieve rebirth through Possession, but they can also use divine sense to perceive the true essence of the world.
For example, the Laws of heaven and earth that are spread throughout the entire Tianyun Great World and exist in every single corner.
In the three years since her Ascension, under the guidance of her master, True Monarch Ruiying, Jiang Runyue had already reached a stage of effortless mastery in controlling her three Primordial Spirits.
Yet every time she observed her own flesh, tendons, and all things in heaven and earth through the perspective of her three Primordial Spirits, an indescribable sense of strangeness would always arise in her heart.
It felt as if, in some unknown corner, a pair of incomparably huge eyes was ceaselessly and continuously scrutinizing her.
After wandering around the mountains for a long time, the Zhulong, which had originally been full of excitement, lost the mood to continue sightseeing and quietly shrank back into her sleeve, coiling around Jiang Runyue's wrist.
"Big Sister Runyue, you can go play by yourself now. I've played enough, and I want to sleep!"
It was naturally a lazy dragon. When it guarded the desolate divine temple in the past, it would often sleep for years or even decades at a stretch.Even when the Ghost King set up the Dragon-Trapping Gate and created all sorts of commotions, it had failed to startle it awake from its slumber.
"Alright then!"
Jiang Runyue said with a trace of disappointment. Unfortunately, the Zhulong did not answer her; it simply closed its eyes and plunged into a deep sleep.
Raising her wrist to take a glance, she lowered her sleeve and looked up at the sky. The sun had just reached directly overhead, and it was still quite early, so she chose not to return to Yaoyue Peak, but instead continued her aimless wandering.
As the saying goes: deep mountains hide tigers and leopards, vast seas conceal horned dragons.
In a sacred cultivation ground with abundant spiritual Qi like the Taiyin mountains, mountain sprites and wild monsters were naturally in no short supply. However, most of the monsters that had gained climate and lacked restraint had already been slain or captured by the cultivators of the Taiyin Sect.
"Roar—"
A single tiger's roar shook a thousand mountains.
Caught completely off guard, Jiang Runyue was given a start.
"Damned beast! If you do not obediently submit to me today, this seat will refine you and that reckless giant python together into a single cauldron of Dragon-Tiger Body-Forging and Bone-Strengthening Pills!"
Startled, Jiang Runyue heard an icy voice speak thus.
Was someone actually capturing monsters nearby?
Being rather curious, she naturally did not want to just leave like that, and quietly drew closer in the direction of the voice.
"Roar!"
Another tiger's roar rang out.
The threatened tiger spirit shouted sternly, "Mangchuan and I have lived in the Taiyin mountains since we were young, listening to the immortals of the mountains expound the scriptures and preach the Dharma every single day. For hundreds of years, we have never killed a single person. Why must you, a Daoist, press us so hard?"
"Press you hard?"
The human cultivator said with a sinister tone, "You creatures covered in fur and horns, born from wombs and hatched from eggs, this seat taking you as a mount beneath my crotch is already out of consideration for the fact that your years of cultivation have not come easily. How dare you beasts refuse?"
"What a shameless Daoist you are! We live at ease and leisure in the mountains. Once we are captured and dragged back to your mountain gate, not only will we be reduced to lifelong slaves and servants, but we will also face the constant danger of losing our lives, having our skins stripped and bones removed, and being refined into pills and medicines!"
Another hoarse voice sounded slightly weak.
"Hahahaha! If you stubborn creatures refuse to surrender and obediently return to the mountain with me, this seat will start a massacre today and exterminate your entire lineage down to the last descendant!"
The human cultivator laughed with extreme arrogance.
"You villainous Daoist are truly vicious! Even if our bodies perish and our Dao disappears, we will still go before the Master of the Taiyin Sect to demand justice!"
The tiger spirit looked up and roared fiercely, "Children, all of you attack together with me! At all costs, take down this villainous Daoist!"
"Kill—"
"Kill—"
"Kill—"
Suppressing her aura, Jiang Runyue slowly approached the battlefield and saw a multicolored giant tiger and a giant python as thick as a water vat, joined by more than ten smaller tigers and pythons, jointly besieging a white-robed cultivator.
The white-robed cultivator was short in stature with rather decent facial features. Holding a banner in one hand and a sword in the other, he maintained a composed expression as he easily blocked the wave after wave of attacks from the tiger and python spirits.
Jiang Runyue furrowed her brows slightly.
Although the white-robed cultivator's attire and garments were standard issue for the Taiyin Sect, his True Essence was exceedingly bizarre, completely lacking any trace of following the natural way of the Dao.
"Hahahaha! It is an honor for you monsters that I, your Daoist master, have taken a fancy to you. A bunch of ungrateful wretches, all of you, go die for your Daoist master!"
With that, the white-robed cultivator violently shook a grey-black long banner. Dozens of streams of black Qi tumbled down from the surface of the banner like venomous serpents eager to devour flesh, binding all the tiger and python spirits tightly in an instant.
"You heaven-slaying wicked Daoist, why do you possess the Profound Yin Gathering Beasts Banner of the Demonic Sect?" The giant python roared in panic and unease.
"Hahahaha! Now you know to be afraid?"
The white-robed Daoist smiled grimly as he raised the long banner and said in a harsh, cold voice, "Too bad it's too late! My Profound Yin Banner still lacks a main soul. Be a good python spirit and serve as an artifact spirit!"
"You damned scoundrel of the Demonic Sect! How dare you openly and blatantly appear within the Taiyin mountains?"
"Demonic Sect scoundrel? No, no, no. This seat is a genuine, orthodox cultivator of the Taiyin Sect, and even a core disciple who has kowtowed to the founding ancestors. Aren't you surprised?"
The white-robed cultivator said smugly, "Not just me, there are at least eight hundred, if not a thousand, disciples of the Holy Sect lurking within the Taiyin Sect. Isn't that shocking?"
"Hehehehehee—"
The tiger and python spirits exchanged glances, feeling a sense of despair and sorrow grow ever deeper in their hearts.
The premier Daoist sect with a heritage spanning tens of thousands of years had actually been infiltrated by the Demonic Sect to such an extent?
"Hehehe, this seat isn't afraid of leaking secrets either. Since this is a desolate mountain wilderness anyway, and the lot of you are bound to die without a doubt, I might as well tell you!"
The white-robed cultivator evidently harbored a monumental secret in his heart; the pressure was too great and he had bottled it up for too long with no one to confide in, so he actually began chattering away at the two monsters.
"Several of our sect's ancestors began secretly plotting a grand plan two thousand years ago to overthrow the Taiyin Sect and launch a counter-offensive against East Tianzhou. For this sake, a certain ancestor even cast away his entire Daoist cultivation, using a secret technique to undergo rebirth through Possession and enter the Taiyin Sect!"
Both the multicolored tiger spirit and the python spirit were greatly startled. Rebirth through Possession was no easy feat; one needed at least the cultivation realm of the Primordial Spirit to forcefully seize another's nest, taking over a body that was younger, possessed better aptitude, and had no cultivation whatsoever.
Cultivators had basically all opened their dantian and begun refining their three souls and seven po spirits. Even a cultivator as powerful as one in the Primordial Spirit Realm would find it extremely difficult to defeat someone being possessed who held the advantage of home turf.
"Hehehe, aren't you surprised?"
A venomous and ruthless smile hung on the white-robed cultivator's face. "Since you know the secret of our sect, I have no choice but to kill all of you and refine you into the Profound Yin Gathering Beasts Banner!"
As he spoke, the concentrated fleshly essence and monster Qi of all the bound second-generation python and tiger spirits were swallowed clean by the streams of black Qi.