Chapter 134: Dijang City

This sword must not be drawn!

From any perspective, Nan Luo could not afford to strike with this sword. The searing pain and damage to his soul, together with the offense it would give to the Jade Void Palace, all proved that drawing it would be a foolish act.

The pain in his soul came crashing over him like a tsunami, each wave higher than the last, as though it would never end. It defied description and could not be grasped, yet it was painfully clear and profound.

…………

……

At last, it subsided, like a flower that had endured a night of violent wind and rain and, by some stroke of fortune, had not withered.

Nan Luo slowly opened his eyes and immediately felt the warmth of the sun embracing him. A faint breeze stirred his hair, while the subtle fragrance of flowers hovered at the tip of his nose. It was the finest season of spring.

Seeing the faint concern in Yao Ji’s eyes, he smiled slightly and said, “My word still stands.”

The Jade Cauldron Adept had already departed, and Yang Tianyou naturally had no reason to continue dwelling on the matter. Although he did not know what Nan Luo had said, Yao Ji’s smile was enough to tell him that it had not been anything bad. Thus he did not ask. After a brief moment of thought, he smiled and introduced himself, making their meeting official at last.

When they asked how he had come to walk the earth instead of remaining in the Celestial Court, Nan Luo merely smiled and said that he could no longer be considered a member of the Celestial Court, and that they should no longer mention the title of Celestial Star Lord.

His words greatly astonished the three of them. They naturally knew nothing of how he had been sealed within the Taiyin Stele and had nearly failed to escape. Nan Luo, for his part, had no intention of explaining all the causes, consequences, hardships, and tribulations involved.

He remained for several days in the valley they had named Peach Mountain, learning from them about some of the events that had taken place throughout the world over the past ten or twenty years. In this way, he gained a general understanding of the current relationship between the Celestial Court and the Witch Clan.

After conferring the titles of three hundred and sixty-five Star Lords and Mountain Gods, the Celestial Court had proceeded to enfeoff large numbers of demon kings across the world. He learned that the Celestial Court now had ten Great Demon Gods, three thousand six hundred rogue immortals, and seven hundred and twenty demon generals. There was also a circulating rumor that, beyond these, three hundred and sixty-five Star Lords still lived scattered throughout the world.

They naturally believed Nan Luo to be one of those three hundred and sixty-five Star Lords—and the foremost among them at that. They had not expected him to say that he had already severed ties with the Celestial Court, and could not help feeling puzzled. Remembering how wounded he had seemed earlier, Yao Ji assumed that he had escaped from the Celestial Court.

She immediately voiced her concern that the Celestial Court might therefore vent its anger upon humanity. Nan Luo smiled and said that if he had been able to escape, it meant the Celestial Court must already be facing another formidable enemy and could not spare the attention. He added that perhaps humanity had never truly entered the eyes of Di Jun and Taiyi at all, and that they had merely been worrying needlessly.

Naturally, these words were only meant to comfort them. It was only now that Nan Luo suddenly remembered why he had gone to the Celestial Court in the first place: the fate of the entire human race had been influenced by him. Yet over the long years, he did not know whether that concern and that feeling had sunk into the deepest recesses of his heart or had gradually faded away.

What astonished Nan Luo most, however, was that the Witch Clan had actually established the Netherworld. He hurriedly asked when this had happened, but they could not say for certain. They only knew that, one day, such a rumor had suddenly appeared. Whether it was true or not, they did not know. According to Yao Ji’s elder brother Haotian, however, it was indeed real.

Nan Luo could not help wondering whether his escape from the Taiyin Stele had been possible because the Witch Clan’s creation of the Netherworld had left Di Jun and Taiyi unable to spare any attention for him. Everything they knew about the Netherworld had come from Yao Ji’s elder brother, Haotian. But because he had opposed her relationship with Yang Tianyou, they had long since parted ways with him, and consequently knew very little about the Witch Clan’s establishment of the Netherworld.

At last, just as Nan Luo was about to leave, Yang Tianyou and the others could not restrain themselves from asking why he was at odds with the Jade Void Palace. Nan Luo smiled but did not answer. He only said, “If I do not return here, yet you still wish me to become your child’s master after he is born, take him to Yangping Mountain. You should be able to find me there.”

With that, Nan Luo departed.

As before, he walked neither hurriedly nor slowly, comprehending the strength of the mountains and rivers and sensing the Taiyin Star. In terms of cultivation alone, he was now far more advanced than before he had been sealed within the Taiyin Stele, and could be considered infinitely close to the Dao Realm. Yet the injuries to his soul meant that he could bring out, at most, half of his true strength.

Step by step, he crossed mountains and rivers as though walking on level ground. Neither hurried nor slow, he seemed to move in harmony with the world—like a wisp of breeze, or a mountain spring flowing along the lay of the land. The gray monkey Liuli followed constantly behind him, and in time, its movements began to acquire some of the same subtle rhythm.

The upheaval that had shaken the world when the Celestial Court was first established, and Taiyi’s overbearing power that had pressed down upon all living beings, remained vivid in Nan Luo’s mind. Yet the Witch Clan had somehow established the Netherworld without his knowing. What was the Netherworld? What purpose did it serve? Was it merely intended to resist the Celestial Court?

Nan Luo pondered these questions, but found no answers.

Following the spiritual veins of the mountains and rivers was both a way to comprehend the Dao and a means of nurturing his soul. Every step appeared eternal, unchanging, simple, and resolute, yet carried with it an ethereal, elusive quality.

Suddenly, Nan Luo stopped.

The halt was extraordinarily abrupt.

At that moment, he was walking beside a vast, surging river. Its waters were a deep blue, winding out from among the mountains before rushing onward in a mighty torrent.

Where the great river met the mountains, an enormous city loomed indistinctly in the distance. The city was black, ancient, rugged, and immense, silent as mute stone. It resembled a ferocious beast lying in wait, sunk in deep slumber.

The city seemed like the reflection of another realm: black walls, black gates. Even Nan Luo, who had seen the Celestial Court—the greatest palace complex beneath the heavens—was deeply shaken by the sight of this silent city.

He had never heard that such a city existed anywhere in the world. When he had once toured the earth with Taiyi, he had certainly never seen anything like it.

From this, Nan Luo could determine that the city had appeared only after he had been imprisoned within the Taiyin Stele. At once, his thoughts turned to the Witch Clan.

It was said that every Ancestor Witch possessed an Ancestor Witch Hall. Could this be one of them? Yet if it were, it should have been impossible for him never to have seen it before—and even less possible for him never to have heard of it.

If one did not see this city, one could not sense the slightest trace of its presence. It stood there like a lifeless boulder, devoid of vitality. But Nan Luo had been following the spiritual veins through the mountains and rivers, and when he reached this place, he could go no farther.

It was not that he feared the city and dared not proceed. Rather, the spiritual vein that had never once been severed was actually cut off here. Nan Luo did not know the name of this particular vein, but the towering mountains and abundant spiritual energy made it clear that a great spiritual vein lay hidden within them. Indeed, this was the largest spiritual vein within a radius of tens of thousands of miles, and could be called an ancestral vein. Many smaller spiritual veins extended from it.

Yet that city had severed the vein. If the spiritual veins of the world were imagined as a net spread across the earth, then this city was like a massive boulder pinning down and tearing apart the net. Nan Luo did not know whether this was the only such city in the world or whether there were many others. Nor did he have any desire to investigate what lay within it.

He detoured far around it. As he did so, he happened to see two vast and desolate characters above the gates of the black city:

Di Jiang.

After circling the city of Di Jiang, he did not see a single person enter or leave, nor did he glimpse anyone atop its walls. There was only utter silence. It was plainly a dead city, devoid of the slightest sign of life.

The spiritual veins beneath the earth formed a network. Though one section had been severed, the rest remained connected. Once he had gone around the city, Nan Luo cast the matter from his mind and continued onward.

Or rather, he deliberately chose not to think about it. At that moment, he had developed a strange desire to cease concerning himself with anything in the world and simply let the Witch Clan and the Celestial Court fight among themselves. As for humanity, he had never believed that he possessed the power to change anything.

Unable to reach the summit of heaven and earth, he sought only to preserve himself. That was Nan Luo’s state of mind at the time.

His azure robes drifted in the wind as he wandered step by step across the world, comprehending the heavens and earth and restoring his soul. Behind him followed a lean gray monkey, moving in close pursuit, with an inner spirit of its own.

He crossed countless mountains and traversed endless rivers. Whenever he encountered a human tribe, he would stop to take a look. If he met someone who practiced cultivation, he might offer a few words of guidance, expound upon the Dao, or pass on a cultivation formula.

Before he realized it, flowers had bloomed and fallen several times. Nan Luo’s soul had recovered by seven or eight parts, and when he used spells and divine abilities, he no longer suffered that heart-rending pain.

Suddenly, his seemingly eternal and unchanging stride came to a halt once more.

In the distance, white mist drifted through a mountain valley.

A great tree rose into the heavens like a green parasol, completely sheltering a Daoist temple beneath its branches. Seen from afar, it looked like the dwelling place of an immortal.

P.S. Thank you all for your blessings. I am deeply grateful.