Chapter Eighty-Seven: The Great Collapse (2)

Fang Yichen ground his teeth so hard they itched with rage, and he snarled, “You ignorant brat, this is a secret art of the Fang clan. How dare you spout such nonsense here? I am not like you, with a dark technique in your hands that can devour another’s dark power. Such a technique is the true path of demons and heresy!”

“Haha, when I say your technique is no good, you bristle at once. Then why do you come questioning mine? And you still pretend to be a cultivator of Zen and Buddhism, yet you do not even understand such a simple lesson in putting yourself in another’s place!” Jiang Feng laughed heartily, at last venting the fury in his chest.

Stung and humiliated, Fang Yichen no longer intended to spare Jiang Feng. He hurled the wooden sword in his hand with ruthless force, while his fingers flickered through countless seals. The wooden blade transformed endlessly, its sword-light coursing like a river—at times swift, at times slow, and utterly astonishing. This change instantly reversed the situation. The dragons of sound and killing, which had seemed to bear the might of heaven, were now under Fang Yichen’s wooden sword like rabbits, cats, and dogs at the mercy of the butcher: some were severed at the waist, others had their heads cleanly chopped off. In an instant, the heavens and earth were filled with their miserable cries.

Ordinarily, such a scene would have made Jiang Feng tremble with fear, yet Fang Yichen was shocked to see on Jiang Feng’s face a smile of complete control, as if that very sword-light had just done him a great favor, leaving Fang Yichen with the distinct sense that he had been played.

“What are you smiling at?” Fang Yichen could not help asking, his voice tinged with confusion and panic. “Your little dragons were slain by my sword. Hmph, the next soul beneath my blade will be yours!”

Jiang Feng ignored him and shouted at the top of his lungs, “Everyone listen carefully! I, Jiang Feng, am absolutely not the killer of Uncle Jiang Lei. All those filthy, despicable deeds were done by this bald thief, Fang Yichen. You have all seen how vicious and cruel the dark technique he is using now is. Think about it: how could a peerless man who meditates and practices Buddhism possess such a fiendish dark art? If you do not believe me, fine—but he is now trying to seize the Azure Emperor Glazed Cauldron, my prize in the Nine Rock Grand Contest. And in the Fang residence, he is also holding my wife Wang Yingying and two Crimson Water Tigers captive. The Jiang family, the Liu family, the Wang family, and the Langya Trading Society can all go to the Fang residence at once to verify these crimes!”

It turned out that just as Fang Yichen had cut down all the dragons of sound and killing with one sword, the vast shockwave shattered the dark-power barrier he had set around the area. Jiang Feng’s voice now rang on and on through Nine Rock Town. Not only the common folk, the four great families, and the Langya Trading Society, but even certain experts beyond the town could hear it clearly, unmistakably.

Having been thoroughly tricked by Jiang Feng, Fang Yichen felt as if he had bitten into a bright red apple only to discover, after the first mouthful, that half a dead worm lay inside.

“You... you junior brat, how dare you speak so insolently and humiliate me...” Fang Yichen raged so furiously that his words came out halting and broken. Unknowingly, he even blurted out his own motive and intent. “Just wait until I obtain the Azure Emperor Glazed Cauldron... I will tear you to pieces... ah... I did not mean...”

This only made Jiang Feng laugh more wildly. Throwing his head back, he roared, “Still denying it? Grandfather, Senior Dark Star, did you hear him clearly? He intended to seize my treasure. If I had not been clever, I would already be dead here. I believe that if he can, he will kill me now and be done with it. Hurry and—”

Before he could finish, Fang Yichen’s wooden peak radiance sword had already reached Jiang Feng’s chest.

“Hmph, Nine-Arc Whirlpool!”

Jiang Feng was no longer the same as before. After surviving two life-and-death calamities, his mastery of dark arts had reached a new level. In a single instant, the Nine-Arc Whirlpool sprang forth, and at once a massive vortex appeared before his chest, spinning madly as surging power burst forth. For a moment, even the air and weather of Nine Rock Town seemed to shift subtly beneath its influence.

“I will kill you!” Fang Yichen had completely lost the dignified severity of a Zen master. Malevolence coursed through his entire body, and he now resembled a god of slaughter.

A torrent of sword qi poured from the Wooden Peak Radiance Sword, pure and overwhelming. Had Jiang Feng not used the Nine-Arc Whirlpool, which could deflect dark arts, he would surely have died beneath that sword qi.

Then, between heaven and earth, there suddenly appeared a vast mountain range of living vitality, lush and green, with killing intent lurking faintly within its verdure. Jiang Feng knew that once this dark art touched a person, the surging life force would invade the heart meridians, and from within outward, green plants would sprout all over the body. In the end, that person would become a living vegetable.

“Boy, hurry and redirect his dark art back at him, then run. You cannot withstand his technique!” Jue’s warning echoed through Jiang Feng’s sea of consciousness, startling him in the midst of battle.

After a moment’s consideration, however, Jiang Feng felt that Jue was right. Fang Yichen had already been utterly enraged by his words, like a tiger driven to fury, baring all its fangs and claws, and possessed of a desperate resolve as if prepared to burn the boats behind him. From this moment on, Fang Yichen’s once-radiant and towering image in Nine Rock Town had collapsed in an instant. He had become a trapped beast with no path to retreat. To preserve the Fang family’s position in Nine Rock Town, Fang Chuhan would never stand on his brother Fang Yichen’s side. In other words, Fang Yichen was now truly alone.

And precisely because of that, he was dangerous.

“Nine-Arc Whirlpool, reflect it back!” Jiang Feng shouted with all his might. Dark power shrouded his whole body, and the spinning vortex accelerated further and further, until Fang Yichen’s dark art was suddenly sent back at him.

Only then did he abruptly realize just how profound Fang Yichen’s cultivation truly was.

He had fused such boundless life force with his own dark power to create a mountain range so vast that its summit could not be seen. Upon those peaks stood endless forests, and what amazed him most was that the veins upon every leaf of every tree were all different.

What kind of exquisite control over dark power would be required to accomplish such a feat?

Jiang Feng had once thought his own command of dark power had reached a fairly high level, but when he saw this dark art of Fang Yichen’s, he suddenly understood that his own little tricks were nothing more than fragile peanut shells before Fang Yichen—broken with a single pinch.

“Hmph, hmph. So now you know fear, do you? Then why are you still not running!” Jue cursed loudly, utterly speechless. He had assumed Jiang Feng would flee without hesitation, and yet Jiang Feng had stood there in a daze, staring at Fang Yichen’s dark art.

No matter how quick Jiang Feng’s reactions were, he was still a step too slow.

Without the slightest warning, Fang Yichen’s figure appeared before him out of thin air. To Jiang Feng, that bald head of his, slightly taut from the frown upon it, looked terrifying indeed. His voice no longer carried the benevolence it had once held, but had turned into a bone-deep coldness.

“You think such petty tricks can deal with me? Do you imagine I am of the same cloth as that Xue Qiming?”

Jue slapped his forehead in anguish, lamenting bitterly, “It’s over, it’s over—you used the wrong dark art! If you had used Heaven and Earth Aspect, you might still have had a chance. But you used Nine-Arc Whirlpool. With his mastery so refined, how could he possibly be harmed by his own technique? A mistake, a mistake!”

Jiang Feng also finally understood. In horror, he could only smile bitterly inwardly. This all stemmed from a story he had heard as a child from his father. In that story, a kingdom went to war with a neighboring country. The king of that kingdom was originally a brave and formidable warrior, but because a stable hand had carelessly failed to have proper horseshoes made for his horse, the animal soon could no longer run. The horse fell, the rider was thrown, the king plummeted from the saddle, and the morale of the entire army collapsed. As the saying goes, capture the bandits by first capturing their leader—that, perhaps, was the origin of the phrase.

Jiang Feng had done the same: at the crucial moment, he had chosen the wrong dark art. Like a horse without proper shoes, it had led him to complete defeat in what should have been a successful escape.

“Hmph, I told you long ago—go die!”

Fang Yichen roared and raised the Wooden Peak Radiance Sword in his hand.

“It’s over, it’s over, it’s over!” Jiang Feng’s mind was now filled only with Jue’s relentless chatter.

A wet sound of vomited blood suddenly burst forth, knocking Jue’s voice out of Jiang Feng’s mind. At the same time, Jiang Feng felt countless droplets of blood spattering his face. That damp sensation made his heart shudder. His eyes, tightly shut in fear, flew open, and he looked in disbelief at everything before him.

Fang Yichen’s body seemed to have gone rigid. In his eyes still lingered venom and hatred directed at Jiang Feng, yet his sword had stopped half an inch before Jiang Feng’s chest, as if it still wanted to thrust forward, but could never do so. That clumsy, frozen posture even made Jiang Feng feel a little awkward.

He shifted his gaze farther back, and only then did he see the truth.

Behind Fang Yichen stood a tall man, his beard and hair already silver-white, fluttering in the wind like a god descending to earth. In those eyes of his was a coldness as unmelting as an ancient glacier. His hands were spotless, and he made killing seem like a work of art.

Instant kill.

This was the true instant kill.

Jiang Feng could hardly resist crying out, yet he held himself back, for in his grandfather’s eyes he saw a trace of grief. He could well imagine that Jiang Lei, his uncle, might have been merely a relative of little consequence to him, but to Jiang Yuehai, his grandfather, he had been flesh and blood of his own body.

The pain of losing a son is something no father can endure, let alone a father like Jiang Yuehai, famed for his fierce protectiveness of his own.

“Grandfather, you have already slain this thief yourself. Please, try to bear your grief and take care of yourself.” Jiang Feng spoke gently, unable to bear seeing his grandfather in such agony.

But those words only made Jiang Yuehai even more pained. Like a man driven mad, he vented the fury in his heart. In an instant, Fang Yichen’s body was hurled up again and again under his blows. Every punch exploded with the sound of flesh bursting apart. Many experts within Nine Rock Town rose into the air and watched the scene.

The pleasure of lashing a corpse did not move them to cheer. When they saw Jiang Yuehai’s face streaming with old tears, they understood everything at once, and all bowed their heads in silent respect. Such an elder was worthy of pity, and worthy of reverence.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Fang Yichen’s body was by no means especially tough. After only a few breaths’ worth of punishment, Jiang Yuehai had reduced him to a rain of blood and shattered flesh.

“Grandfather, enough. If this goes on, you will go mad from the strain.” Jiang Feng shouted desperately. He spoke truly; when a person falls into overwhelming sorrow, if they expend their dark power without restraint, any mistake in the circulation of that force can lead to madness. The deeper the cultivation, the greater the harm.

After hearing this, Jiang Yuehai’s body jolted and finally came to a halt. Trembling like a sieve, under the concerned gazes of many, he at last returned to silence.

“Feng’er, I have let you suffer this false accusation these past days.”

His voice began to tremble. Having served as head of the family for so long, he had unconsciously donned a mask and never expressed his feelings before others. But now, after saving Jiang Feng in the blink of an eye, all the pain he had suppressed seemed to surge forth at once.

Jiang Yuehai suddenly embraced Jiang Feng. The force of the embrace made Jiang Feng’s chest rise and fall, but then Jiang Yuehai’s faint sound of sobbing rendered him silent.

“Feng’er, the burden of the Jiang family now rests entirely on you!”

Jiang Yuehai suddenly spoke such an abrupt, unfinished sentence, then slapped Jiang Feng on the back.

After that single strike, he abruptly released Jiang Feng, turned back, and laughed aloud. “Senior Brother Dark Star, this time you have arrived a little late.”

Sure enough, as Jiang Yuehai spoke, Dark Star’s figure also appeared in the sky, and with him were several others.

And Jiang Feng knew every one of them.

“Senior Brother Star Cloud, Yingying, divine beast!” Jiang Feng stood frozen in place. Then everything came to him at once. Just now, when he had desperately shouted those words, Dark Star had taken Duan Xingyun to the Fang residence to demand the release of the hostages, while Jiang Yuehai had rushed here at the very first moment.

Jue looked at the long-lost old friend, the Crimson Water Tiger, and sighed endlessly. He said only one sentence:

“Boy, you have some remarkable elders.”