Chapter 169 — “Under the Northern Pole Exorcism Court… Kill!”

The moment the young Daoist saw that figure clad in black, adorned with red dragons that radiated divine aura, his mind went completely blank.

Only one memory surfaced—what he had heard that day in the Mingzhen Dao Alliance, the words spoken by that middle-aged Daoist:

[Those who wear black robes with a red dragon insignia attracted the Demon Kingdom.]

This was intelligence bought with the life and death of the Mingzhen Dao Alliance’s Alliance Leader himself.

The one who wears the Black Robe with a Red Dragon Garment—

Killed my kin.

Destroyed my homeland.

For thousands of li, the land of Jinzhou was reduced to scorched earth!

When Ao Liu and Lord Lingmiao rushed over, they saw the youth—who had moments ago been utterly exhausted—suddenly spring to his feet. He reversed his grip and seized that divine weapon shining with crimson spiritual radiance. Holding the sword, he slashed horizontally toward the front, charging forth with such madness that his entire body looked as though it would throw itself into the strike.

That crimson divine sword rang out sharply.

For the first time, it truly resonated with the young Daoist.

Even earlier, when he executed that boundless stroke that cleaved across the vast lands of Zhongzhou, the youth’s heart had been filled with the intent to protect. But now—there was no stray thought, no hesitation, nothing remained but an overwhelming, violent will to kill.

Martial artists of the jianghu cultivate inner qi; once it is exhausted, their techniques dissipate, leaving them no different from ordinary people.

But true cultivators of the Dao cultivate the Innate One Qi.

It is the union of primordial vitality and one’s life treasure.

Like the muscles and bones of a human body, it may grow weary and lose strength, but it cannot be “exhausted”.

Yet, when anger is stirred, even an exhausted body can lift a weight of a thousand jun.

The young Daoist’s Innate One Qi, which had already become difficult to stir, now surged once more under the fury shaking his primordial spirit. All Daoist profound arts operate through “guiding qi with the spirit”. When the spirit rages, qi changes on its own.

The sword-light, blood-red, which had devoured ten thousand demons, was currently in a state of surging momentum. Qi Wuhuo’s slash happened to trigger the response of this blade.

Blood-colored light flowed.

The earlier calm Daoist aura at last dissipated.

A faintly ominous killing intent spread outward.

Yue Lianqing, already missing an arm from earlier, looked at the young Daoist before him. His cultivation was shallow, his methods ordinary—only this sword was anything but. He did not wish to face it head-on in his current condition. He retreated slightly; although the distance between them was extremely small, his divine art “Close Encounters Yet Distant Lands” made it seem as though a thousand li separated them. The sword-qi could not reach him.

But this blood-colored sword-light was exceptionally sinister. His pupils contracted slightly—he realized that even his divine ability could hardly withstand it.

This sword tore through both his defenses and his “Close Encounters Yet Distant Lands” technique. Had he not dodged in time, he would have been struck down.

When he lifted his head, he saw the enraged Earth Spirit Deity charging toward him. Two combatants who commanded their own domains—a Water Lord and a Mountain Deity who had reached the True Lord realm, along with the Jing River Dragon King.

If he were entangled by them and their calamity-qi clung to him, he truly might fall here. Light shimmered across his body as he prepared to flee.

When the young Daoist gripped the sword, he felt an extremely warm breath of qi flowing from its blade.

Yet intertwined within that warmth was a faint, lingering scent of blood.

In his current state of near-collapse, the sword’s returning blood-fiend qi instead filled the hollows of his weakened body. If he were to release the sword now, he might collapse instantly—but as long as he held it, it felt as though he could continue fighting, continue killing without end, without ever needing to fear his strength being exhausted.

At that moment, his body erupted with qi. The sword in his grasp slipped free and shot forward, stabbing directly into the man.

And then the qi connected.

The man fled—and the divine weapon, carrying Qi Wuhuo with it, was pulled along, and together they vanished into the escape technique.

When Ao Liu and the others arrived, they sensed that the man’s qi had completely vanished. Lord Lingmiao reached out toward the void; as an Earth Spirit Deity, he grasped a strand of the earth vein. But within the heavy pulse of the land, he saw faint traces of brilliant starlight. His expression tightened, anxiety flickering across his features: “…This is…”

“The other side is a Star Lord?!”

Qi Wuhuo felt countless lights and colors swirling before his eyes, shifting and transforming. All things lost their solidity, becoming unreal, as though he himself had turned into a single wisp of the world’s Primordial Qi, streaking rapidly across heaven and earth. If not for the intense blood-light emitted by the sword in his grasp, he would have been torn apart the moment the escape technique activated.

Even so, he felt as if he were drowning—

Dying—

Unable to breathe.

But Daoist cultivators at his level had long ceased to require breathing.

The pain was excruciatingly clear. His consciousness began to blur, scattering, slipping into the instinctive self-protection that arises in moments of extreme bodily stress. The act of “breathing” itself brought agony. He had once experienced this feeling before—and so the deepest memory within him surfaced.

A small child, dragging a sword behind him, eyes sharp and wild like an abandoned young beast, biting down fiercely on someone’s forearm. The taste of warm blood flowed down his throat, easing the hellish thirst that felt like falling into an inferno, and then an iron-rust scent of blood rose at the corner of his mouth.

“Not thirsty anymore?”

A broad, gentle voice.

Ahead of him stood a middle-aged man who lifted his gaze slightly. The young child clung to the man’s arm, biting down and drinking blood. The man spoke gently: “To eat raw flesh and drink blood is not something a human should do. Some, at the edge of death, lose themselves like beasts. But a gentleman should face death calmly—even embrace it—without losing the essence of being human.”

“Do you understand?”

“You are human, not a beast.”

The man wiped the blood from the child’s lips and took his hand, leading him forward—across chaos and scorched earth, across death itself—and at last, pushed him out of the hellish nightmare that was Jinzhou.

The young Daoist felt as though he were trapped in a nightmare. Within the drowning, suffocating agony of the escape technique, his scattered primordial spirit seemed to be jolted awake. It condensed once more, and he suddenly opened his eyes. His consciousness, nearly dissolved by pain and exhaustion, struggled on. His expression twisted in agony, yet his thoughts were sharp. He forced himself to seize the Northern Emperor Mirror in his hand.

Then, mustering every last ounce of strength, he pressed it against his chest.

The sword rang out in a violent howl, and in that instant, the escape technique ended.

The young Daoist crashed heavily to the ground, battered and exhausted beyond limit. Yet he still forced himself upright, hurling his body forward toward the one-armed man ahead. On his face finally appeared the same murderous ferocity he had borne back then, in the mortal hellscape of his youth.

His opponent fled again. Even he now felt overwhelming exhaustion—yet the Daoist, whose flame was all but extinguished, still had strength to attack. And that pure, absolute killing intent—he raised his hand to defend, his cultivation far surpassing Qi Wuhuo’s. His gesture summoned a mighty defensive divine art, linking him with heaven and earth itself. The crimson blade stabbed into the layered, overlapping folds of space he conjured.

The long sword let out a piercing cry.

‘You are human, not a beast.’

Its ringing grew more savage.

‘Let the child live.’

‘It is fine. This time, I will watch you leave—you need not look back.’

The young Daoist’s eyes grew bloodshot. The blood-colored sword seemed to resonate with him—pure slaughter intent, with not a trace of mercy or deliverance. The blood-fiend qi from once annihilating ten thousand demons surged forth in full. Any ordinary weapon would instinctively hunger to devour such qi to nourish itself—but this sword sought only one thing:

To kill.

Even if the sword itself were to shatter in the process, it would not hesitate.

Instinctively, no matter the cost, it wanted to kill the man before it.

The one-armed man’s eyes widened with rage. This sword—its sharpness had reached such an unimaginable degree. Even though he was far from his peak strength, this defensive divine art was still enough to withstand the assault of a Human Immortal. Yet under the sword’s edge, hairline cracks began to appear.

The man’s pupils contracted.

This meant the sword’s rank was above the Immortal level!

The blade seemed almost ecstatic—thrumming in relentless excitement as it drove forward. At last, with a furious roar, the sword exhausted all the accumulated power gained from devouring the blood of tens of thousands of demons.

But the Immortal-level defense was still cleaved apart by brute force.

The long sword pierced through the Star Lord’s abdomen and chest, nailing him to the stone wall.

A sword that drinks Immortal blood—

Utterly satisfied.

Qi Wuhuo, his strength completely drained, glared fixedly at the man before him and said: “Jinzhou, you people did that?”

The man raised a hand to touch the sword—but even touching the blade cut him deeply. He sneered: “Jinzhou…? Hahaha… So you’re from Jinzhou. I didn’t expect that among those who survived that year—kff… cough couch…”

Qi Wuhuo pushed the blood-colored sword forward.

The man, already heavily wounded from being besieged by two True Lord–level earth deities, coughed violently, face pale, yet still grinning coldly: “Yes. I did it.”

“So what? Just ants from a single insignificant prefecture.”

The young Daoist was too enraged to move his body any further—he could only continue staring at him: “The Emperor ordered you to do it…”

“Emperor?”

The man paused—then burst into loud laughter, his face full of mockery. “Emperor? That so-called Human Emperor? Hahahahaha! Ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous.”

“That line is not even descended from the Human Emperor of several thousand years ago. When the true Human Emperor died, his eight ministers divided his artifacts among themselves, claiming they would rule the world together!”

“But they had none of his ability. In barely a hundred years, they split the mortal world into pieces!”

“Human Dao Destiny? Just something they think they perceive—like blind men groping at an elephant. Laughable. The one from those days was a real hero. But the one now? At best, an amusing collaborator.”

“That insignificant nobody—how could he possibly be worthy of ordering me?”

The man grabbed the sword again, ignoring the way the blade carved his palm open. His grip prevented Qi Wuhuo from pulling it free. Sneering, his gaze haughty, he said: “Jinzhou, the world—they’re nothing but a banquet table.”

“Your lives? Merely appetizers.”

“We are merely fellow diners—each taking what we desire!”

The young Daoist’s eyes turned icy cold.

Yue Lianqing sneered: “This Central Province(Zhongzhou) was supposed to be our second chance…”

Qi Wuhuo forced down the murderous intent surging within him. He knew well that most cultivators possessed methods of Soul Shattering—once the soul was broken apart, nothing remained, and no one could ever discover what had happened. So he instinctively wanted to learn more. “Central Province was also chosen by you?”

Yue Lianqing reacted as though he had heard the greatest joke under heaven. Suddenly, he burst into wild laughter:

“Chosen? Hahahahaha!”

“Yes. One could call it a choice—but not ours. It was that old Dragon King’s choice.”

He spoke casually: “Because earlier, that old dragon Ao Liu dared to make rain fall over Jinzhou.”

“Just a trifling drizzle. He didn’t save many lives. Yet, regardless, a Dragon King dared to defy us.”

“So his family had to be destroyed—father and son to tear each other apart.”

“The Central Province, which he had sheltered for a thousand years—obliterated.”

“Simply for a bit of amusement. That is why Central Province was selected.”

Family destroyed. 

Father and son turned against one another. 

All for entertainment.

The sword in the young Daoist’s hand hummed with fury—but the man holding the blade laughed and said: “And do you know why I’ve bothered to tell you so much?”

“Think for yourself—when facing encirclement, where would I go?”

A cold voice echoed indifferently from afar: “Jidu… You’ve made quite a mess of things.”

“Jidu…?”

Qi Wuhuo whispered the name as he stared at the man before him. The latter threw his head back and laughed loudly: “Are you not the one who insisted I refrain from using Star Lord methods, lest something be noticed? Otherwise, if I had descended with the true body of a Star Lord, those two earth deities—one the foremost mountain god of a prefecture, the other a Water Lord ranking only beneath the Four Rivers—would never be able to contend with me.”

The Eleven Luminaries of the Fighting(Dou) Division, Second seat of the Four Hidden Stars, Jidu, the Star Lord of the Heavenly Tail.

Governing all sins and blessings under the Nine Heavens.

Even while restricted to means outside the Star Lord level, he had forcibly fought two True Lord–level local deities to a standstill.

The latter was gripping the Lianyang Sword, and Qi Wuhuo found it hard to pull free, while the Jidu Star Lord said mildly: “It is good that you have come. This sword carries an uncanny evil; it should be taken to be tested.”

“Rahu.”

The highest-ranked in the Celestial Constellations, among the Eleven Luminary Star Officials divided into three categories: the Sun and Moon, the Five Luminaries, and the Four Hidden Stars.

Foremost of the Four Hidden Stars.

The Divine Head, Rahu Star Lord.

Master of all evils beneath the Nine Heavens.

A calm voice said: “One must always make second and third preparations. We only felt that making a fallback plan would not go amiss, but we did not expect that someone could actually force you to use that fallback. Nor did we expect that the one capable of this would merely be some ordinary little Daoist.”

Among the highest-ranking of the starry constellations, the Four Hidden Star Lord—Taiyi Yuebo Star Lord.

Master of all slaughter beneath the Nine Heavens.

If the Four Hidden Stars were present here, then where were the star officials accompanying them?

The young Daoist simply wanted to save people, simply wanted to understand the situation, but the enemy was not merely foolish, and naturally would not rely on a single plan. That heaven-shaking commotion was far too great, so great that the other side would surely sense it, and the power level of a Xuantan of the Twenty-Four Dharma Drums tier would directly draw forth a deployment that the other side believed sufficient to eliminate the one wielding such power.

For example…

The highest echelon of the Fighting(Dou) Division, four of the Eleven Luminary Star Officials.

When the young Daoist realized this, a strand of starlight had already fallen toward him. Speed was a strange thing—when at its swiftest, the moment one noticed it, it instead felt incomparably slow. That single streak of starlight fell toward Qi Wuhuo’s chest with calm ease, his Daoist robe fluttering backward.

Forced by that qi momentum, in the instant before death, the Northern Emperor Mirror rose slightly, jolted by the surge of qi.

The young Daoist’s Primordial Spirit saw the starlight both swift and slow.

He saw the Northern Emperor Mirror lift, still ordinary.

Everything slowed.

Until a hand reached out and seized the mirror.

The young Daoist seemed to hear a murderous, solemn sound, to hear suppressed breathing and the scrape of armor plates. Someone stepped out from behind him, locked the Northern Emperor Mirror in their grasp, and then, with a single punch, shattered that starlight. The starlight broke into scattered motes, and the aura that could almost have slain Qi Wuhuo by its qi momentum alone dispersed. Thus, under the perception of his Primordial Spirit, time resumed its normal flow.

With a rustling sound, a brocade battle robe, stained with blood, fell. Qi Wuhuo saw that as the fist returned, a man with a cold expression stepped out from his left. He was clad in scale armor, wearing a brocade battle robe, all drenched in blood, and now that brocade robe fell directly onto the young Daoist’s shoulders. The man stood at Qi Wuhuo’s side and said softly:

“You have done well…”

Jidu Star Lord’s eyes were icy. In an instant, he released the sword and retreated violently, saying, “It’s you!”

“It is I.”

“Who said he was alone…”

The man’s tone was icy and indifferent. “At first, I did not approve of allowing some ordinary Daoist into our ranks. But he has indeed lived up to the name of my Northern Pole Exorcism Institute. Since that is so, the Northern Pole Exorcism Institute will not fail him. There were many enemies on the road earlier, and indeed it took some time. Judge, do not blame me.”

“My former title has long been discarded.”

“But since you have accomplished something of this level, I must meet you in my true form.”

The man’s gaze was frigid and chilling. Holding his sword, he spoke in a slow voice:

“Formerly the First of the Thirty-Six Divine Generals of the Front Thunder Division, bearing the title Duke-General of the Eight-Direction Cloud-Thunder, of the Zhengxin Thunder Palace.”

“Now the Ninth Seat of the Northern Pole Exorcism Institute—here to assist.”

On the other side, a hand pressed onto the young Daoist’s shoulder. A youth whose body was stained with blood walked out calmly, patted his shoulder, his expression severe yet for once gentle, and said, “Well done.”

He then looked toward that Thunder General and smiled, “Your speed is indeed fast.”

Then, sword in hand, he looked toward the many star officials and star lords before them, expression indifferent and icy:

“Former Tai­bai Star Lord among the Eleven Luminaries of the Front Fighting Division, now the Seventh Seat of the Northern Pole Exorcism Institute—here to assist.”

“Former Thunder Duke of the Kaiyuan Division of the Taihuang Thunder Palace, now the Thirty-Second of the Northern Pole Exorcism Institute—here to assist.”

“Former Fighting Division…”

“Former Thunder Division…”

Voices—many voices—arrived, separated only by a few breaths.

The young Daoist’s body had not yet fully grown. Darkness hid behind him, but within that darkness, pairs of icy eyes opened. They were all drenched in blood, armored, their armor soaked red. Their gazes were cold, their killing intent overflowing, weapons in hand. The Northern Pole Exorcism Institute had not arrived in full, but those who could arrive had clearly slaughtered their way from the regions they each oversaw.

To the young Daoist’s back and sides, all were men exuding cold killing intent, their gazes solid as steel.

Even this frail young Daoist became tinged with their chilling, murderous aura.

They shielded the young Daoist behind them. At the very front, a man with a sword at his waist tossed out a head.

It was the head of one of this generation’s Four Hidden Stars—Tianyi Ziqi Star Lord.

Then a voice, indifferent, spoke in reply:

“Of Central Heaven Northern Pole Exorcism Institute, ranked second among the Northern Pole Saints.”

“Tianyou.”

“Here to assist.”

PS:

The term “seat” has existed since ancient times. From Zhang Jiuling’s Epitaph Inscription for the Late Grand Herald Xu Wengong of the Great Tang: “The Emperor … ordered him to ascend to the first seat.”

Volume Seven of the Dongyuan Collection states: “Rahu, the Divine Head Star Lord, governs all evils beneath the Nine Heavens”. The rest can be found in that volume.