From a loser to an immortal sage

Chapter 444 A Major Breakthrough in Immortal Technique Inheritance

The light came so suddenly that the instant I was enveloped, my skin felt as if it had been sprinkled with tiny stars, making it slightly hot.

A voice called out from beside her, “Sister Xiao Yao!” But the voice seemed to be muffled and distant, as if separated by a layer of water.

"Keep your mind steady!" Master Huixin's voice suddenly became clear. Only then did I realize that she had somehow stood at the edge of the light barrier, her withered hand pressed against the pale golden screen. "This is the activation of an ancient immortal technique. You are both the vessel and the medium. You must not be distracted!"

It was only then that I belatedly realized—when my fingertips touched the book cover, a cold sensation rushed through my veins to my head, and now those star-like particles of light were drilling into my pores, each carrying a huge amount of information, like someone forcibly stuffing broken jade into my brain, the pain making my knees buckle and I almost fall over.

"Want to steal the inheritance? Dream on!" Blood Fiend's roar exploded overhead.

I barely managed to lift my eyes and saw his dark robes fluttering in the wind, a cloud of dark red blood mist gathering at his fingertips, pointing directly at me in the center of the light barrier.

Mo Yu was even more insidious. He had retreated into the shadows at some point, his pale fingertips pinching a bone talisman with a ghostly blue hue. His gaze was like a poisoned needle, aimed straight at my face.

"Ziling, form the Three Talents Formation! Fellow Daoist Qingfeng, protect the left!" Master Huixin's kasaya moved without wind, and the Buddhist beads on her wrist suddenly burst forth with twelve golden rays of light, which wrapped around the blood mist of the Blood Fiend like chains.

Zi Ling gritted her teeth and drew her sword from her waist. The sword was covered with her usual fire pattern, but her leg injury had not yet fully healed. She staggered as she slashed, and the tip of the sword trembled.

Elder Qingfeng reacted quickly, raising his hand to summon a bronze mirror. The mirror reflected multiple overlapping phantom images, barely managing to catch the dark blue shockwave from the explosion of the Moyu Bone Talisman.

"Useless!" Blood Fiend grinned, and the blood mist suddenly expanded into a gaping maw. "This little girl is a piece of fat meat now; anyone who touches her will be skinned alive!" His fingernails instantly turned pitch black. "Crush—!"

The light shield suddenly trembled, my vision went black, and a metallic taste filled my mouth.

The light particles that were drilling into my sea of ​​consciousness suddenly became chaotic. Some collided with each other and exploded into light spots, while others pierced my temples like sharp needles.

I bit my lip hard and tasted the salty bitterness of blood—I can't faint, I absolutely can't faint!

Last time I was struck by lightning at the Thousand Machine Pavilion, I gritted my teeth and endured it in the same way; when I was ridiculed for having no spiritual roots, when I was thrown into a mass grave to fend for myself, I endured it all in the same way...

"Xiao Yao!" Zi Ling's scream pierced through the buzzing of the light barrier. I saw that her fire-patterned sword had a gap corroded by the blood mist, and blood droplets splattered on the back of her hand, instantly causing a string of blisters to appear.

But she simply shook the blood off her hands, raised her sword, and charged forward again. The blood on her hair splattered into thin red threads as she ran. "Hold on! We can hold on!"

Elder Qingfeng's bronze mirror cracked open with a "crack," and he staggered back two steps, his face drained of color: "These two... these two are even more powerful than rumored!"

"Amitabha." Three beads of Master Huixin's prayer beads broke, and the golden light dimmed a little. "Benefactor Xiao Yao, the key to inheritance lies in 'fusion' rather than 'connection'. The skillful force you used when you activated the runes earlier can be used now!"

Skillful technique?

I suddenly remembered the feeling when I opened the stone door—not by force, but by guiding the runes along their veins and letting them dissipate on their own.

Aren't those chaotic light particles in my mind right now another kind of "rune"?

I took a deep breath, forcefully suppressing my surging blood and qi, and tried to use my consciousness to "guide" the nearest particle of light.

The light particles initially trembled in resistance, then suddenly became docile, like willow catkins brushed by a spring breeze, slowly merging into my sea of ​​consciousness.

I was overjoyed and pressed my advantage, drawing in the second and third clusters of information... Those originally sharp messages now transformed into warm currents, flowing through my meridians and finally converging in my dantian, condensing into a tiny golden rune.

"Oh no! She's about to succeed!" Mo Yu's voice was filled with panic as his bone talisman suddenly exploded into a cloud of blue mist. "Disrupt her!"

Suddenly, a loud noise exploded in my mind, as if someone was banging a broken gong.

The newly integrated light particles began to stir, and I felt as if a red-hot iron rod was drilling into my brain. Large beads of cold sweat splattered onto the stone platform from my forehead.

Through the blur, I saw Mo Yu's fingertips forming a hand seal, and his pupils glowing with an eerie purple light—it turned out that his attack just now was not only on the outside, but also on the mental level!

"Sister Xiao Yao!" Zi Ling's voice was choked with sobs. I barely managed to focus my gaze and saw that her Fire Pattern Sword had been broken in two. She was trying to grab the Blood Mist of Blood Fiend with her bare hands, and the skin on her arms was corroded and mangled.

Blood Fiend laughed loudly and swung his palm back, sending Zi Ling crashing into the stone wall. As she slid to the ground, she coughed up a mouthful of blood.

"Ziling!" My throat tightened, and I almost lost my focus.

But then Abbess Huixin's voice rang out again: "Don't look at anything else! The more your mind is disturbed, the more the inheritance will be lost!" Her kasaya had been torn to shreds by the blood mist, revealing the gray monk's robe underneath, but her hands were still forming hand seals, each golden ray brighter than before. "That girl Ziling is the most resilient. If you fall now, you will be betraying her heart!"

I closed my eyes tightly and focused all my attention back into my mind.

Mo Yu's interference was still there, but I remembered what Wen Chen said when I first met him: "True immortal arts are the resonance between the human heart and heaven and earth." At this moment, isn't the information in those light particles a gift from heaven and earth?

I no longer resisted, but instead, like opening a stone gate, I gently lifted them up in rhythm—

A clear, melodious bell suddenly rang out in his mind.

The light particles all quieted down and arranged themselves in an orderly fashion into the runes I had seen outside the stone gate, only more complex and more dynamic.

The golden rune in my dantian suddenly swelled up, transforming into a warm current that flowed throughout my body.

The dizziness I had felt from excessive exertion disappeared, replaced by an unprecedented lightness, as if I could reach out and pluck stars from the sky.

"This is impossible!" Blood Fiend roared in terror, his blood mist shattered by Master Huixin's golden light. "She's nothing but a piece of trash—"

"Shut up!" I suddenly opened my eyes, and the light shield suddenly expanded outward by three inches, causing Xue Sha's words to get stuck in his throat.

At this moment, I can clearly perceive everything around me: Abbess Huixin's rapid breathing, Elder Qingfeng's trembling fingertips, the trembling of Ziling's eyelashes as she lay on the ground, and even the last crack on the bone talisman hidden in Moyu's sleeve...

Mo Yu's face turned deathly pale instantly. He turned and ran towards the stone gate, but he was stopped by Elder Qingfeng's bronze mirror phantom after only two steps.

Blood Fiend tried to struggle, but Master Huixin's golden light had already wrapped around his neck, making his face turn red.

"Sister Xiao Yao..." Zi Ling's voice was so weak it was like a whisper. Only then did I realize that half of her body was submerged in blood, and her hand was still in the position of grasping at the blood mist, with bloodstains under her fingernails.

My heart tightened, and I was about to rush over when I suddenly felt the inherited information in my sea of ​​consciousness surging again—so this wasn't over yet?

"Don't rush." ​​Abbess Huixin wiped the blood from the corner of her mouth and gave me a weak smile. "First, stabilize the inheritance. As for that girl Ziling..." Her gaze fell on Ziling, and her voice suddenly stopped. "She can hold on."

But I could clearly see that Zi Ling's eyelashes were no longer trembling.

My knees buckled and I knelt on the stone platform, my fingertips almost digging into the cracks of the bluestone slabs.

Zi Ling's eyelashes really stopped moving. Half of her face was buried in a pool of blood, and the broken sword was still lying three inches away from her palm, like a frozen fire snake.

I heard a broken sob escape my throat, like a cub being choked—I should have spared a moment to shield her when she reached for the blood mist with her bare hands, I should have.

“Miss Ziling…” Elder Qingfeng’s bronze mirror shattered into eight pieces with a “crack”. He staggered to Ziling’s side, his calloused hand hovering over her blood-stained hair, not daring to fall.

Only then did I notice that his forehead was covered in cold sweat, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down, his voice trembling like a spider's web in the wind: "It's because I couldn't protect him... I couldn't protect the sect back then, and now I can't even protect a little girl..." He suddenly gripped Zi Ling's blood-stained sleeve tightly, his knuckles turning white as bone, "I was destined to be a useless piece of trash..."

"Fellow Daoist Qingfeng!" Two more strands of golden light from Abbess Huixin broke off. She coughed up blood and staggered two steps, her cassock torn into strips that fluttered behind her. "Do not give up! The inheritance of Benefactor Xiao Yao..." Before she could finish speaking, the blood mist of the Blood Fiend suddenly condensed into sharp spikes and pierced through her left shoulder with a "poof".

The old nun swayed, but still gritted her teeth and flicked the last three prayer beads into the blood mist—those were the rebirth beads she had worn close to her body for three hundred years. As they shattered into gold dust, I heard her softly murmur "Amitabha."

The light particles in the sea of ​​consciousness suddenly began to distort.

The inherited information that should have been integrated into my meridians now manifested as countless faces: in the medicine hall, the old servant held my spiritual root testing stone and sneered, "No spiritual root, yet you dare to drink the Marrow Cleansing Pill"; in the mass grave, the hands of rotting corpses gripped my ankles, and maggots crawled up my trouser legs; when the Thousand Machine Pavilion's lightning tribulation struck, Wen Chen blocked the seventh bolt for me, his white clothes charred black, yet he smiled and said, "Ayao, look, the clouds have parted..."

"Enough!" I shouted hoarsely, but the images only became clearer.

A chilling voice echoed from the deepest recesses of his mind: "What makes you think you can do this? A useless piece of trash without spiritual roots, unable even to protect your companions, yet you dare to dream of mastering ancient immortal techniques? Wen Chen will see through your incompetence sooner or later, Master Huixin's blood will splatter on your face, and Zi Ling will die at your feet—"

"Shut up!" I bit my tongue hard, and the sweet, metallic blood rushed down my throat and into my lower abdomen.

The light particles, stimulated by the blood energy, suddenly exploded into a dazzling golden rain.

I saw the blood mist of the Blood Fiend only three inches away from Master Huixin's throat, and the bone talisman of the Ink Feather condensed into a dark blue light on Elder Qingfeng's back—they wanted to take advantage of my distraction to kill my companion!

“Wen Chen said…” I closed my eyes, letting blood and tears stream down my cheeks, “True immortal arts are the resonance between the human heart and heaven and earth.” Wen Chen’s voice suddenly became clear in my memory. He stood on the ruins of the Thousand Machine Pavilion, his hair still stained with the embers of the lightning tribulation, but he reached out to wipe the blood from my face: “A Yao, you are not a vessel, you are a guide. What heaven and earth give you, you must receive with your heart, not with brute force.”

Yes, I am the guide.

I no longer resisted the surging particles of light in my sea of ​​consciousness. Instead, I opened my mind and gently held the information, just as I had held the roots of that wild chrysanthemum in the mass grave years ago.

The light particles paused for a moment, then suddenly transformed into a warm current, surging along my meridians—the Ren and Du meridians, the twelve regular meridians, and the eight extraordinary meridians, each one was thoroughly cleansed.

The golden rune in my dantian began to rotate. With each rotation, I could clearly hear Master Huixin's heartbeat, Elder Qingfeng's panting, and Ziling's faint pulse.

"She's going to succeed!" Mo Yu's scream was laced with sobs as his bone talismans exploded one after another, and the dark blue shockwaves burrowed into my sea of ​​consciousness like venomous snakes.

But at this moment, those shocks that touched my consciousness melted away with a "sizzle" like spring snow falling into a hot spring.

I could even "see" the last three bone talismans that Mo Yu had hidden in his sleeve. The incantations on the talismans were crooked and drawn with the blood of living people.

The blood-red mist spikes of the Blood Fiend were finally about to touch Master Huixin's throat.

I raised my hand, and a ball of golden light gathered at my fingertips—a light brighter than Master Huixin's prayer beads and purer than Ziling's fire patterns.

With a gentle flick, the ball of light shattered the blood mist spikes and plunged into the Blood Fiend's chest with undiminished force.

He slammed against the stone wall with a thud, like a puppet whose tendons and bones had been removed, and the blood he spat out was mixed with half a broken inner core.

“How could this be…” Mo Yu turned and ran, but as soon as he lifted his foot, I saw the mud on the sole of his shoe—it was the red soil from the poisonous miasma forest behind the mountain.

With a thought, the runes in my mind suddenly transformed into golden chains, which "whooshed" around his ankles.

When he fell to the ground, a palm-sized wooden box fell out of his arms. The lid of the box was cracked, revealing half of a dead, withered bone.

“Benefactor Xiao Yao…” Abbess Huixin covered the wound on her left shoulder, blood seeping from between her fingers, but her eyes gleamed, “It’s done?”

I stood up, and the bluestone slabs on the platform cracked with spiderweb-like fine lines beneath my feet.

The wind rushed in through the stone gate, lifting the hem of my clothes. I could hear my own heartbeat like a war drum, each beat causing the stone walls to rustle and shed dust.

Zi Ling's pulse suddenly became stronger, her eyelashes trembled, and she let out a kitten-like moan.

Elder Qingfeng, tears streaming down his face, trembled as he felt her pulse: "She's alive! Miss Ziling is alive!"

As the last ray of light in my sea of ​​consciousness merged into my soul, I heard a clear, melodious bell ringing between heaven and earth.

The sound came from a very distant place, passing through layers of clouds, crossing the vast ocean, and finally landing in my sea of ​​consciousness.

I suddenly realized that this inheritance of immortal arts was never the end point—it etched into my soul a ladder leading to a higher level.

Blood Fiend twitched on the ground, Mo Yu's bone box was at his feet, and the death aura on the withered bones was slowly spreading in all directions.

I looked down at my palm; golden runes flowed beneath my skin like a flowing galaxy.

Suddenly, a clear and melodious sword cry came from afar. I was all too familiar with that sound—it was Wen Chen's Canglan Sword.