Chapter 244 Twin Spirit Beasts ,The Undying Twin Beasts

Sword qi shot straight into the heavens. A powerful surge of spiritual power tore apart the black fog that shrouded the moon, and a sliver of moonlight broke through.

The instant the Black Moon was pierced, the wails of the surrounding Demonic Creatures paused for a heartbeat.

Moonlight fell onto the patterns of the teleportation array and resonated with the radiance of her sword. The purple-red array at the center shifted in a flash to icy blue, blooming into a burst of blue light like a flower. The runes at the array core spread out and wrapped around her body.

Seeing this, the White-Robed Figure threw back his head and laughed. “Xuan Che, you really do trust her. But it seems she has no qualms about abandoning you.”

Black qi roiled in his palm, and a long spear formed in his hand. In the blink of an eye, he hurled it out.

Lian Mu felt the wind stir by her ear, the black spear was aimed at her. She immediately jumped into the teleportation array. With the Moonlight sword qi’s recognition, the array reacted at once.

Just as the black spear was about to pierce her, two flashes of light swept past Lian Mu’s eyes. One was Xuan Che’s figure, the other was the light surging from the teleportation array.

She did not see where the black spear went. A wave of dizziness washed over her, her feet left the ground, and her body felt as if something had yanked it hard.

When she opened her eyes again, daylight was bright overhead. Not far away stood a towering palace of white jade, a broad avenue paved with spirit jade leading straight up to its front. Twelve Bright Pearls hung like stars, and seven-colored radiance shone all around the palace. At first glance it looked just like the celestial pavilions above Azure Dragon East Endless Sea. But that side was nothing but illusion, whereas this was solid, undeniable reality.

The palace seemed to have gone unvisited for a very long time, steeped in a heavy, lifeless stillness.

Lian Mu had barely opened her eyes when the Moon Wheel atop the palace dazzled her. In this place there was not the slightest trace of black qi. On the contrary, it was bright to the point of resembling an immortal palace.

One glance was all it took to leave Lian Mu stunned. “!”

This was the legendary Heavenly Return Palace? The glare off it was more outrageous than the real moon.

She could not help looking up. On the silver platform atop the distant hall there hung another bright moon. But this “moon” seemed to be formed from the light emitted by a Spirit Artifact. Gentle, milky-white radiance spilled down from the edges of the silver platform like a flowing river of light, running all the way into the jade pool before the hall.

Even from a distance, just looking at it made Lian Mu feel her entire being grow calm. She forced down her shock and did not rush over right away. Instead she turned back, trying to see what lay below.

However, Lian Mu found nothing. Heavenly Return Palace seemed to exist within a unique barrier. She could not see outside, nor could she find any exit.

She had no idea how Xuan Che was doing down there now that she had come up…

Lian Mu was a bit worried, not that Xuan Che could not beat that demon race cultivator, but that something might go wrong and damage the Thousand Mechanisms Pagoda.

After thinking for a moment, Lian Mu finally chose to trust Xuan Che. With his strength, defeating that demon race cultivator was no difficult task. As for the state of his physical body inside the pagoda, that was something she had no way of knowing.

She pushed aside those distracting thoughts and followed the jade steps upward.

With every step she took, it felt like she was rolling in money.

“…”

Damn it, Xuan Che stayed in Shifang Nether Soil all this time. Where did he get the money to build a palace like this? Just looking at the outside, even robbing every place she knew would not be enough to afford it. Not to mention this palace was floating in the sky.

Halfway up, Lian Mu crouched down and touched the ground. As expected, mixed in with the priceless jade were traces of spiritual energy from floating immortal stone.

Among all spirit ores, floating immortal stone was the only one that could suspend itself in the air. It was extremely rare. Normal people at most could afford a little powder to mix into their flying Spirit Artifacts. This was the first time she had seen it used to build an entire palace.

The price of the floating immortal stone alone would be enough for her to trade for a high-grade sword every day, for over two years straight.

Lian Mu felt a pang of sourness in her chest. As expected, everyone had their own way of making a fortune, and no one was willing to talk about it.

Their poverty was all an act. Only her poverty was genuine.

For the umpteenth time, Lian Mu felt the sharp unevenness of the world.

Since she was already here, if she did not take some things with her, it would hardly make up for the injuries she had suffered along the way.

With that thought, her pace quickened as she headed straight for Heavenly Return Palace. She failed to notice that the Moonlight sword qi on the Wealth Bringer’s blade was slowly dissipating.

Lian Mu stopped before the hall doors. She had just reached out to push them open when she was suddenly bounced back by a barrier.

The next moment, bubbles started rising in the jade pools on either side of Heavenly Return Palace. The pool water churned, and the Moon Wheel’s radiance grew even more intense.

The ground beneath her feet trembled twice. Two white horns broke the surface of the river of light, and then a ferocious beast’s head rose from the water.

Lian Mu: “?”

Just as she realized something was wrong, another pair of black horns emerged from the river of light on the right.

Two massive Horned Lion Beasts leaped out of the water, one black and one white, their bodies exuding overwhelming pressure. Their powerful claws scraped at the ground, gouging cracks into the jade floor.

The Moon Wheel turned, rotating to its dark side. The river of light instantly turned black, the deep inky current pricked with scattered starlight, like a night sky strewn with stars.

The black Horned Lion Beast let out a roar, its gaze viciously fixed on Lian Mu, as if it could tear her apart at any moment.

Lian Mu: “…”

She finally understood what Xuan Che had meant by “you will have to rely on yourself for everything.”

So he only helped halfway and left her with this massive headache. Leaving it would have been one thing, but he had not even bothered to warn her before she came up.

Hearing the threatening roar of the Horned Lion Beast, the Wealth Bringer trembled twice in her hand of its own accord. Lian Mu immediately understood that the two Horned Lion Beasts before her were both Spirit Beasts.

And… their cultivation was not low.

Lian Mu could not discern their exact level. Judging by experience alone, these two Spirit Beasts were at least a thousand years old.

A thousand-year-old demonic beast was not something just anyone could handle, let alone a Spirit Beast. Given a Spirit Beast’s cultivation speed, it might already have far surpassed the range of the peak stage.

Lian Mu tightened her grip on the Wealth Bringer. The sword was powerless as well, with even a faint urge to shrink back.

Only then did Lian Mu notice that the Moonlight sword qi was rapidly draining away. The white light was streaming into the ground, who knew where to.

The third strike had not yet been unleashed, and it seemed it would be taken back in advance.

Xuan Che had not mentioned he still had two guard dogs at home.

Lian Mu’s gaze swept over the two Horned Lion Beasts. Aside from their colors, they were almost identical, very much like the twin beasts she had seen before.

Without hesitation, she pulled out a pill and stuffed it into her mouth, biting it open.

She raised the sword upright before her brow and chanted a few incantations under her breath. In an instant, a green light-shadow flared out and spread around the sword blade.

As if sensing her intent to attack, the black Horned Lion Beast glared at her in fury. The white one retreated to the pool’s edge and closed its eyes. A strand of black light connected the two beasts’ horns, resonating with the black side of the Moon Wheel above the palace.

The green light-shadow gathered into the shape of swords, dozens of them, lining up into a sword array with every tip pointed at the black Horned Lion Beast.

Spiritual energy surged within her body. As the pill melted, the final seal was broken.

All Three Spirit Roots were fully unsealed. Spirit Blood poured into the sword, and the shadowed light blazed.

“Whoosh!”

The green sword array shot out abruptly. Wherever it passed, the space was churned by a powerful fluctuation of spiritual power.

“Spirit-Slaying Sword Array!”

The sword shadows swept past like a gale, brushing along the side of the Horned Lion Beast. The green mist they dragged along sliced across its black scales like blades, striking sparks where they scraped.

In the blink of an eye, the black Horned Lion Beast was surrounded by sword shadows, with nowhere left to retreat.

Lian Mu backed up a few steps and urged the green mist to erupt.

The green mist burst outward, scattering in all directions. Countless wisps of fog suddenly drilled into the gaps between the black scales.

The Horned Lion Beast howled in agony. The flesh beneath its scales was dissolved by the green mist and turned into blood that slid down along the scales.

Seeing that this move was effective, Lian Mu immediately drove the sword shadows to spin even faster, to the point that they were almost impossible to see.

This was the Spirit-Slaying Sword Array Xuan Che had taught her. She had used it once before when she cut down the black serpent, but that time she had used the Flying Swan Sword. Her current sword had only just advanced a rank, so she naturally had to compensate in other ways.

The green mist came from the Greenclaw Toad toxin within the Sword Spirit forging material. The Greenclaw Toad was one of the few poisonous species among Gold Beasts, its spirit armor coated in a thin layer of venom. When the sword was forged, that venom was mixed into the blade as well, becoming one of the main Spirit Material’s traits.

Ever since Wealth Bringer had advanced a rank, she had been able to draw on the venom hidden within it. She used fire spiritual power to steam it out, then blended it into the sword shadows. It moved together with the sword array and could seep over a wide area.

The sword array was made up of twelve sword shadows, condensed from spiritual power, four each of metal, wood, and fire. They circled around her as they spun.

Having three Heavenly Spiritual Roots unseal at the same time put a tremendous strain on her body. For a moment, Lian Mu almost thought her dantian was going to shatter on the spot.

She forcibly suppressed the rampaging spiritual energy within her. Blood oozed into her eyes.

This was already her limit.

Facing such a powerful Spirit Beast, she could only go in with everything she had. Sect Master Shen had taught her that true experts often decided the outcome within three moves: the first to pin the enemy down, the second to kill, the third to clean up the field.

The stronger the opponent, the less you should probe, because while you were testing them, they were very likely to go straight for the kill.

All the more so when the gap between them was this great. She had no room for trial and error at all.

Sure enough, after the Horned Lion Beast was injured, it lashed out with a claw, its spiritual power shattering three of her sword shadows outright.

Rather than saying it was attacking the sword shadows, it was more accurate to say it meant to kill her, and the spirit-slaying sword shadows had taken the blow in her place.

In the next instant, a strand of light flashed across the horn of the black Horned Lion Beast, linking it to the white Horned Lion Beast, which was half-soaked in the pool.

The wounds on the black Horned Lion Beast actually began to heal. All the blows she had just landed had been for nothing.

A vein throbbed at Lian Mu’s temple, and her temper flared: What the hell is this thing…

Sure enough, twin beasts like these were always troublesome.

Her mind raced. If she switched targets now and went for the white one, the black one would definitely attack from behind, and she could not fend off both. Yet if she did not deal with the white one first, she had no way to kill the black one at all.

Taking advantage of the brief pause while the black Horned Lion Beast was being healed, Lian Mu quickly surveyed her surroundings and noticed that the white Horned Lion Beast seemed to rely on that pool in order to treat the black one’s injuries.

Following the pool to its source, she saw the Moon Wheel atop the palace. The Moon Wheel was continuously pouring light into the water, and perhaps that was the real key.

Lian Mu grit her teeth, hardened her heart, and could only take a gamble.

She drew the last talisman from her sleeve. The runes on its surface were highly unusual, dark-red lines faintly suffused with a mysterious power.

The Talisman Paper ignited from bottom to top. Azure flames leapt forth, and the Jiao Pearl on her sword flashed, bursting out with a crushing aura.

“I call upon the spirit, Ice Jade Cold Flood Dragon!”