Chapter Fifty-Three: Paying Respect to the Ancestor

The fierce tiger unleashed a tangible wave of sound, rippling outward like a stone cast into water. In that instant, the entire Lu family estate, rows upon rows of houses, collapsed as if made of paper! Smoke and dust billowed into the sky, and wherever the tiger’s paw struck the ground, craters appeared one after another.

The old man chanted incantations in a rolling, guttural voice. Brilliant divine light erupted beneath his feet, dazzling to behold—an overwhelming surge of supernatural power.

“Come, serpent!”

At his words, a rustling hiss swept the air, and the earth trembled violently. Within a ten-meter radius around the old man’s feet, an enormous, ink-green serpent’s head burst from the soil!

In an instant, the old ancestor was lifted high atop the rising serpent’s body. In the blink of an eye, the pair soared more than a hundred meters into the air!

It was a colossal serpent, fully a hundred meters long, covered in scales as dark as jade, each one shining with a gloomy green light. Its massive, triangular head flickered its forked tongue with a chilling “sss-sss” sound.

The serpent’s body bristled with densely packed scales, each about two meters wide, glimmering with cold, emerald light. Its eyes glowed red like lanterns, vertical pupils emitting bloody rays, and its tongue lashed the air, hissing ominously. Saliva dripped from its jaws onto the earth below, sizzling and corroding the ground wherever it fell.

This serpent conjured by the old man was clearly venomous beyond compare!

Coiling upright, the serpent poised itself, its head lowered, parallel to the Shadow Fiend. Its lantern-like, frigid eyes fixed on its opponent, swaying from side to side.

“Fellow cultivator, your power is sealed, your cultivation lowered to the Form Gathering stage, yet you dare wield such formidable magical arts. How much longer can you endure? Why not withdraw now, and I will overlook all that has occurred. Otherwise, do not blame me for showing no mercy and severing your immortal path!”

The old man stroked his long beard, assuming a dignified and righteous air as he spoke with heavy authority.

“Hahaha! Old man, do you really think you will leave this place alive today? Do you know where you are?” the Shadow Fiend replied with a chilling laugh. “You injured my matriarch. Even tearing you limb from limb would not be enough! This petty land of Yan, a mere speck—once my ancestor arrives, she could annihilate this ten-thousand-li country with a single hand!”

“Hmph! I am not so easily frightened. Do you think bowing to two little girls in the Spirit Gathering realm and calling them ‘matriarch’ would scare me? If your so-called ancestor is like you, her cultivation can’t be much higher!”

“You’re courting death!”

With a thunderous roar, nine tigers charged the giant serpent. As they collided, a storm of dust soared into the sky, divine light bursting forth. The mysterious, overwhelming power unleashed reduced the Lu family estate to ruins in an instant.

With a crack, the serpent’s tail lashed out like a whip at the leaping tigers. The force was so great that, within a kilometer of the Lu estate, nothing remained but devastation—craters pockmarked the earth, and the ground shuddered with each impact.

At the Immortal Moon Pavilion, an elderly woman watched the battle from the rooftop, shaking her head with a sigh. “Half a lifetime here, and finally I witness the legendary ancestors. It’s been years since I’ve fought; I’m old now, but perhaps it’s time to stretch my bones once more.”

Meanwhile, in the Ye family’s back mountain, the sky cleared as sunlight filtered through the woods.

Two figures sprinted up the mountainside.

“Elder, the ground seems to be shaking,” Dongfang Yanran said, gripping her sword and following closely behind Ye Wuyá.

Ye Wuyá, feeling it as well, led Yanran swiftly along the path up the mountain, the trees blurring past. In no time, they reached the summit. Parting the grass before them was like seeing sunlight break through clouds.

Stepping to the edge of a sheer cliff, they looked out—and the sight before them left the old man speechless.

In the distance, to the left, stood Ling City—an ancient metropolis spanning thousands of acres, its traditional buildings clustered around a central tower that rose above all else.

To the right, three or four kilometers from the main city and nestled among forests, nine tigers, each fifty meters tall, battled a hundred-meter-long python. Their clashes thundered through the land, shaking the earth with every blow.

Within the battlefield’s immediate vicinity, everything was in ruins—trees and earth upended, clouds of dust reaching a hundred meters high.

Ye Wuyá’s shock was quickly replaced by calm. He gazed steadily at the impossible scene—a vision from myth come to life before his very eyes.

This world, he realized, was far more mysterious than he had ever imagined.

Suddenly, an ominous premonition welled up in Ye Wuyá’s heart, as if something momentous was about to happen. The feeling was deeply unsettling—restlessness and inexplicable anxiety gnawed at him.

He glanced toward the Ye family estate. The silence and emptiness there sent a chill through him—his sense of dread growing stronger.

“Yanran, Yanran! What is that place?” Ye Wuyá called anxiously to Dongfang Yanran, who was still stunned by the sight. He pointed urgently toward the battling behemoths.

Startled out of her stupor by Ye Wuyá’s anxious tone—a tone she had never heard from him before—Yanran followed his gaze. Looking closely, she realized, “Elder, that seems to be near the Lu family’s ancestral grounds!”

“What did you say? The Lu family?” A desolate aura emanated from Ye Wuyá.

“Not good. Those two girls might be in trouble!” Ye Wuyá looked toward the Lu estate, his face full of worry.

“What should we do?” He eyed the thousands of meters between them and the battlefield, as well as the sheer drop below. He itched to leap across in a single bound.

Suddenly, Ye Wuyá’s eyes flashed with resolve, as if an idea had struck him.

“To hell with it!”

He stared at the cliff, took a deep breath, stepped back, then ran forward, gathered all his strength, and leaped from the edge.

With astonishing power, Ye Wuyá shot off like a cannonball!

In a split second, his mind was made up—no hesitation at all.

“Elder!” Dongfang Yanran cried out in alarm as Ye Wuyá launched himself from the precipice. She rushed to the edge, hearing the grinding crack of stone beneath his foot. Huge fissures snaked through the rock, a testament to the force of his leap. Startled, Yanran stumbled backward, retreating five full meters.

The cliff could not withstand such power. With a mournful groan, it shattered, collapsing into fragments that tumbled into the abyss.

Wind howled past Ye Wuyá’s ears as he fell, but his gaze was unwavering—there was not a hint of regret in his eyes.

As his momentum waned, his body began to plummet toward the ground.

Watching Ye Wuyá fall, Dongfang Yanran’s heart leaped to her throat and she couldn’t help but close her eyes.

When she opened them again, her heart settled in relief. Ye Wuyá was being carried forward by his sword—he had not crashed to the ground.

Gripping the hilt, Ye Wuyá was pulled along by the flying blade. He had envisioned himself soaring gracefully atop his sword like the legendary immortals—elegant, poised, riding the wind.

But a small mishap had occurred: his foot had slipped.

Yes, you read that right—his foot slipped. And why? Because, after he leaped, he belatedly remembered an awkward truth: he was afraid of heights.

And so, here he was, being dragged along by his own sword.

Ye Wuyá: “...”

“Hahaha! Boy, you can’t hold out any longer, can you?” the old man jeered from atop the serpent’s head. The python lashed its tail in a mighty sweep, sending eight of the giant tigers flying as if mountains had crashed down upon them.

After that violent blow, the eight tigers dissolved instantly into starlight, which slowly returned to the Shadow Fiend’s body.

Shadow Fiend, pale-faced, stood atop the last remaining tiger, undaunted and unafraid.

A cultivator at the Form Gathering stage could not long withstand an opponent in the Golden Core realm. Even if the old man had not unleashed his full Golden Core power, the gap in their realms was insurmountable.

“Hehehe! Old man, do you remember what I said before?” Shadow Fiend’s face twisted into a cold, sinister grin.

“Hm?” The old man was puzzled. The young man before him was clearly at the end of his rope—his Form Gathering power nearly exhausted, the tiger beneath him grown faint and ghostly. One more blow and he would be defeated for certain.

Why was he still smiling? Could he have a trump card left?

As he pondered, a terrifying aura surged from the heart of the city. A rainbow of light tore across the sky, spanning a thousand meters in an instant!

“Ha! I am Chao Tianxiang. Greetings, fellow cultivators!” cried an elderly woman riding the rainbow. Bent with age, she leaned on a shining black staff, its shaft wound about with a divine phoenix in full flight, the head shaped like a soaring phoenix, beak agape as if singing to the heavens.

She stood suspended in the air—a feat only those of the Golden Core realm could achieve. The old man himself could do it, but feared to use his Golden Core power lest he shorten his lifespan; even the Shadow Fiend had used less than a tenth of his own.

“Hahaha! Old man, do you really think you’ll leave here alive today? Do you know where you are?” The old man finally understood what the youth atop the tiger had meant earlier.

He had been deceived! These two were clearly in league.

“Move, get out of the way! I’m about to crash!” came a jarringly out-of-place shout from the distance.

Mouth agape, Ye Wuyá called out as the roaring wind whipped his white hair into a wild frenzy behind him.

Drawing closer, Ye Wuyá realized that the giant tigers and python were the doing of these very ‘people’ before him.

Somehow, his sword had lost control during flight, growing more and more excited—as if it had ingested some stimulant—and flew faster and faster, nearly out of sight.

The elderly woman looked on in astonishment at Ye Wuyá, dragged along by his sword. She raised her hand, fingers splayed.

Ye Wuyá felt a gentle force slow his flight, finally bringing him to a halt two meters before the old woman and the Shadow Fiend.

When Ye Wuyá looked up, waves of shock crashed through Shadow Fiend’s mind—his pupils contracted sharply. This was the spitting image of the person depicted in the ancestral portrait at his sect!

“I am Chao Tianxiang. I pay my respects to the Ancestor!”