The night sky was like ink. The stars twinkled. The moon hung high, spilling moonlight down. However, it was only on that one street in the imperial capital that the moonlight became violet. It was like a gauzy veil.

Outside that violet veil, a cold wind blew, causing dry leaves to rustle and distant trees to sway. It was as if they were telling secrets to the darkness of night. Inside the violet veil, a freezing wind screamed toward a retreating figure, as if it were infected with the momentum of superiority, and wanted to challenge the night to battle.

Dirt exploded as the retreating figure landed on the street. Then, two long furrows appeared as the figure slid backward about 30 meters before gaining a stable footing.

The violet moonlight made it clear that this figure was the mysterious young woman. She didn’t look like she had before. Her mask was cracked, and her eyes glowed as she looked up at Xu Qing approaching her.

“People say that you stole some of Crimson Mother’s godsource. You haven’t done much in the Imperial University, so I couldn’t tell for sure. But considering how the moonlight changes color for you, I’d say the rumors are true.”

Xu Qing’s expression remained neutral. He seemed to be in his element in the moonlight. As he approached the young woman, the violet color grew more intense, filling heaven and earth, invading everything. It turned into a terrifying godly projection that could devour anything and everything, leaving behind only moonlight on the ground.

“However, that just makes me more interested in you. Last time, I didn’t want to cause unnecessary trouble in the Star Emperor Preeminence Sect, so I held back my secret magics. But this time….”

Unfathomable light flickered in the young woman’s eyes, whereupon something bizarre and demonic happened. Within her left eye was a baby in the fetal position, while in her right eye was a stooped old woman. Both emanated a different type of energy that combined into something very bizarre. It contained both life and death as it surrounded her. Behind the woman, the colors black and white appeared. Each was semi-circular, one on the left, the other on the right, and as they spun, they affected the magical laws of heaven and earth, and the natural laws of the world.

For the first time in this clash, Xu Qing’s eyes glittered. Back in the Star Emperor Preeminence Sect, he had sensed that this person had a gruish aura. It was like a god, but not. Like a cultivator, but not. He had taken note of it back then, but now, it was even more evident.

“You talk a lot of nonsense,” he said calmly. He waved his right hand, and the violet moonlight shone brightly as it became material, transforming into long spears of light that shot toward the mysterious young woman. From a distance, it looked like tens of thousands of spears of moonlight closing in on her from all directions and moving as quickly as lightning. It seemed there was no way she could avoid it.

In the final moment of crisis, the young woman’s pupils constricted and she performed a double-handed incantation gesture. All of a sudden, the two semicircles of black and white behind her enveloped her like wings. Rumbling sounds echoed out as the moonlight spears closed in with deadly, destructive force. The black-and-white wings shifted to block the attack, yet the force still caused blood to spray from the woman’s mouth. But she still managed to block the brunt of the attack.

Xu Qing’s eyes glittered with fierce light as he shot forward. His third-level god state appeared behind him, its vicious form rising high into the sky as it closed in with him.

However, it was right then that the young woman’s voice drifted out from the black-and-white wings.

“One bloodline, transformed into three souls. Three souls tempered into nine divinities. Nine divinities refined into my true self. I am… Withering Flame Demon Magic True Self Dao!” 1

The moment the woman’s words echoed out, three illusory mountains appeared in midair. They were no ordinary mountains, as they hung upside down, with their tips pointing down. One mountain was completely formed of ice and frost, making it light blue. It contained boundless coldness. One mountain was crimson red like blood, making it look like an immense pile of corpses. One mountain was made of molten rock, like fire, that brimmed with the most supreme dignity. 2

The moment they appeared, the three mountains dropped down toward Xu Qing, pulsing with a most ancient aura.

What divine ability is this? It seems so ancient….

Expression grim, Xu Qing exercised a thought, and more soul threads emerged from him as he summoned his first- and second-level god states to stand next to his third.

It was an unprecedented scene as Xu Qing and his three god states appeared within the violet moonlight. Before killing Bai Xiaozhuo, there was no way Xu Qing could have done this. His soul threads wouldn’t have been able to support it. But now he had 2,000,000 soul threads, and as a result, he could sustain all three god states at the same time.

It was as if there were three gods standing in a triangular formation around Xu Qing. As they did, his hands flashed in an incantation gesture, he pointed at the three descending mountains. Mutagen spread out, causing everything to blur, but intensifying the violet color.

Xu Qing’s first-level god state slammed a fist into the mountain of ice and frost. As the boom rang out, the second-level god state neared the second mountain. Pitch black poison erupted from it, and as it turned into a gigantic monster, it opened its mouth to devour the mountain. The third-level god state hefted the violet moon, transformed into a planet, and slammed into the mountain of molten rock. Wild colors flashed in heaven and earth. Winds screamed. And the three mountains trembled. Cracks spread across them, filling them, and then a boom rang out as they collapsed.

They were illusory to begin with, so when they collapsed, they disappeared into nothing, leaving behind no traces of their existence. However, if you looked closely… you would see that when they disappeared, a seven-colored light flickered on all of the resulting pieces of rubble.

The breaking of the divine ability caused a backlash. Blood sprayed out of the mysterious woman’s mouth, and her aura became much weaker as she staggered backward.

This fight should be noticed, whether by the spell formations in the capital, or by people from various organizations. There’s no way people haven’t noticed.

Xu Qing’s eyes glittered with cold light.

But right now, things seem just as quiet as before…. Unless things are similar to the night of the assassination attempt, it means there’s only one other possibility. This woman… has an extraordinary background!

With that thought in mind, Xu Qing burst into motion, and his three god states emitted godly might as he shot toward the woman.

Though blood was oozing out of the mysterious woman’s mouth, she obviously wasn’t ready to give up. Her eyes still shone provocatively as she stared at Xu Qing. Then, she shut her right eye and kept her left eye open. The infant in her left eye stirred. That motion caused the white wing behind her to unfurl, revealing an image within it. The painting was simple. It showed a boundless, watery swamp.

The moment it appeared, the woman growled, “Waterswamp… Kingdom!”

All of a sudden, heaven and earth seemed to change. The imperial capital seemingly disappeared. Xu Qing and the woman were no longer on a street, but instead, were surrounded by a vast, watery swamp. 3

An incredible sense of danger filled Xu Qing at that moment. Then, deep within the swamp, the roar of a beast echoed out. A huge spike appeared, rising up from the swamp like a mountain, and shooting diagonally toward Xu Qing. Swamp water sprayed everywhere as it viciously thrust toward him.

At that moment of crisis, Xu Qing didn’t hesitate at all. Shooting up into the air, he threw his hands out and put his palms together as if in prayer. Instantly, his three god states shot toward him and merged into him.

In the blink of an eye, the combination of all three god states appeared. Bones of crystal. Flesh of soul threads. Armor of poison. Stamped with a heavenly dao. Three furnaces burning in its chest. It was all completely terrifying! The violet moon hung behind it, and even more shocking, behind the moon was an enormous sundial.

At the same time, Xu Qing’s shadow spread out, forming something like a forbidden region. In its depths was a dead tree upon which hung a coffin, swaying back and forth and emitting chanting sounds. This was the greatest level of strength Xu Qing could muster.

He lifted his right hand, pushed down on the swamp, and then spoke in a voice that thrummed with holiness.

“Withering Flame Demon Magic True Self Dao!”

The moment the words left his mouth, seven-colored daybreak light erupted, swirling around him to form the same three inverted mountains from before.

The mysterious woman’s face fell, and her eyes shone with disbelief. “You—”

Before she could finish speaking, seven-colored light glittered in Xu Qing’s eyes, and he waved his right index finger. The icy mountain fell with unstoppable force toward the spike coming out of the swamp.

A deafening boom shook the swampy lands. Next came the second mountain, followed by the third. The quick succession of three mountains, and the crushing pressure they brought, caused the swamp and the dimension that contained it to become unstable.

The final attack came as Xu Qing himself shot down like a meteor to land a fist strike onto the surface of the swamp. A defiant growl echoed out from the depths of the swamp. Whatever lurked beneath wanted to unleash a full attack, yet was seemingly blocked by something, and temporarily couldn’t. The dimension collapsed, and everything went back to normal.

The white wing behind the woman shattered. Looking even more incredulous than before, she stared at the fiendish-looking Xu Qing and prepared to unleash the secret magic from her right eye.

“Fate, Lives and—”

However, the backlash from before ensured that, just as the old woman in her right eye started moving, the black wing behind her faded from existence. 4

Blood sprayed out of the woman’s mouth, and as a sense of mortal danger rose up in her, she prepared to speak again.

In the blink of an eye, Xu Qing vanished. Next, she sensed an immense force rocketing toward her. By going all out, she managed to avoid sustaining a fatal blow, but she still couldn’t evade Xu Qing’s fist-turned-palm attack.

The palm hit her right on the side of the face. Her mask shattered, revealing a beautiful face. However, the blood and mud covering her marred her beauty as she was sent tumbling to the side.

Before she could land on the ground, Xu Qing lunged after her. He appeared right behind her, pulled out a dagger, and slashed it toward her throat. It didn’t matter who she was. She had attacked him, and Xu Qing wasn’t used to letting attackers escape with their lives.

Blood sprayed. A head flew. At the same time, a host of soul threads flew out toward the woman’s severed head to devour it. The woman’s fleshly body collapsed into ash.

And yet, Xu Qing was frowning. His soul threads had not devoured any soul at all. This body… didn’t have a soul.

Xu Qing then noticed that, in the spot where the woman had collapsed into ashes, countless motes of dust had formed into a scintillating butterfly. 5

The butterfly was illusory and dazzling, as well as extremely beautiful. As it flapped its wings, countless stars swirled down. Then it spoke in a clear voice.

“You—”

The soul threads slammed into it, and the butterfly collapsed. But only a moment later, it formed anew.

Xu Qing’s eyes turned cold.

The woman spoke again. “Kill if you must. Have you calmed down yet?”

Countless soul threads once again wiped the butterfly out of existence, but unsurprisingly, it returned a moment later.

“That’s enough!”

RUMBLE!

After enough time had passed for an incense stick to burn, Xu Qing was walking away, his face expressionless. The butterfly was following him.

“You’ve got quite the temper. Still mad? I was just playing around with you earlier. If you want to keep fighting, you can destroy me another hundred and eighty times if you’d like. Aiya, calm down! I’m very curious about the techniques you used against me. And you’re probably curious about my background.

“I’m from the Summer Immortal Palace. The palace lord ordered me to invite you to come check out the Summer Immortal Palace.”

Xu Qing stopped in place.

1. This line is exactly the same as the line in ISSTH chapter 584. This chapter’s title is also exactly the same as that chapter title. You can read ISSTH here on Wuxiaworld, or you can get the edited ebook version on Amazon. ☜ freёweɓnovel.com

2. The description of these three mountains is basically exactly the same as the demon mountains described in chapter 585 of ISSTH. ☜

3. Those who have read A Will Eternal will be very familiar with the Waterswamp Kingdom. It was a factor throughout that novel. It was first mentioned in chapter 86, and came up in many dozens of other chapters, all the way up into the 1300s which was basically the end of the novel. You can read AWE here on Wuxiaworld, but it’s also available edited in ebook format on Amazon. ☜

freēwēbnovel.com.

4. Fate, Lives, and Death is something from Pursuit of the Truth. It’s a bizarre translation choice, and honestly not how I would translate that set of characters. For the sake of continuity, though, I’m keeping the established version. UPDATE: I’m copying part of my response to one of the comments in the comments section asking about how I would translate it. The reality is that I don’t know. It would require research, understanding of the context, and time spent reading the novel to make a proper translation choice. Chinese is heavily contextual, and that can be the sentence a word is in, the paragraph a sentence is in, the chapter a paragraph is in, and so on. To show someone a few Chinese characters, or even a passage, and expect them to translate it can be as realistic as showing someone a picture of some food and asking if they like how it tastes. All I can say is that, just glancing at how the technique name is constructed in Chinese, it seems the existing translation was thrown together haphazardly. ☜

5. I never read Pursuit of the Truth, but based on the comments on this part, it seems many Chinese readers think this butterfly is potentially related to Su Ming. ☜