Chapter Ninety-Eight: The River Styx Secret Map, Bountied Once More

The warm bridal chamber lingered through the night of spring.

A body of snowy, crystal clarity lay draped upon a towering figure nine feet tall, its powerful frame patterned all over with the dark yellow scales of a fish.

Grace entwined with rough strength, daintiness bound to grandeur—an oddly alluring harmony.

Lu Qian slowly rose, set the woman beside him aside, and drew the quilt over her delicate form. The golden light in his pupils gradually faded.

The Lunar Guiding Art had reached its peak; further cultivation would bring no gain unless he could obtain the next stage of the method.

The path of body refinement, however, still held vast room for advancement.

The Chapter of Yin-Yang Harmonizing Breath could, through drawing yin to supplement yang, also increase one’s cultivation and hasten the forging of blood.

Still, it was obvious that Mo Chou, a frail woman, could not endure it for long.

With that, Lu Qian got up and entered the alchemy chamber.

To break through in body refinement and achieve blood transforming throughout the whole body, elixirs were indispensable.

He happened to possess a demon core from a Fire Rat King, and once his skill was sufficiently practiced, he would use it to refine pills.

The Water-and-Fire Lead-and-Mercury Alchemy Art was clearly far superior to the old Gold-and-White Art.

Water and fire in alchemy, yin and yang in mutual nourishment.

From entry-level to minor attainment, it could refine a one-aperture golden pill; once mastered, it could produce a two-aperture one.

Over the next period, Lu Qian studied alchemy by day and drew yin to supplement yang by night, replenishing his vital blood.

Alchemy was not nearly as simple as he had imagined. He wasted countless practice herbs before barely managing to enter the threshold.

Even so, he still had no confidence in refining a pill with the demon core.

At dawn, Lu Qian opened his golden eyes. Mo Chou was still asleep against his side, her lovely face faintly flushed, her lashes trembling softly.

A beauty in his arms, yet he had no leisure to savor such tender warmth.

“Your constitution is too weak to keep pace with me,” Lu Qian thought to himself. A mortal body could never bear the bloodline of a flood-dragon. “In the future, if I teach her the art of qi cultivation, she will be able to absorb fish-dragon essence and refine vital energy.”

If her constitution would not suffice, he could only rely on medicines to sustain her strength.

But that could never be a long-term solution.

“Master.” Sensing that Lu Qian had awakened, Mo Chou opened her beautiful eyes and sat up, letting the red quilt slip away to reveal her pale, smooth skin.

After dressing, Lu Qian once again threw himself into alchemy.

Half a month later, the furnace lid burst open with a bang, and an unusual fragrance flooded the chamber.

A round, purple, translucent pill hovered in midair.

One aperture was visible upon it, exhaling wisps of purple smoke.

This was the Cloud-Mica Beastbone Demon Pill.

Water-and-Fire Lead-and-Mercury Alchemy Art, entry level: seventy-six out of five hundred.

The Gold-and-White Art vanished without a trace, replaced by this new technique.

The progress was a little low, but it had still been a success.

Whoosh!

A flash of cold light suddenly shot through the void.

A black spike came straight at Lu Qian’s face.

“Ruyi, take the treasure pill. I’ll hold this man off!”

A man’s low voice rang out from all around.

Meow!

At that moment, a transparent black cat burst through the wall, heading straight for the Cloud-Mica Golden Pill.

“Hmph.”

Lu Qian gave a cold snort.

Swoosh!

Five Seven-Kill Yin Talisman Swords burst forth.

Clang!

Yinfire and gold sparks scattered in all directions as the black spike was knocked aside.

The remaining four swords strangled the black cat.

Awooo!

With a pitiful screech, the cat was reduced to ashes.

A hundred zhang away, a man opened his eyes and shouted to the youth beside him, who held a copper talisman, “This is bad. The mark is too hard to crack. Fall back at once!”

Crash!

The two figures flashed and turned into a gust of yin wind, vanishing without a trace.

They were brothers, and within Blackwater City they were quite famous, known as the Star-Snatching Bandits.

Though not Spirit-Nourishing experts, they relied on their extraordinary movement technique, the God-Slaughtering Spike that slew yin spirits, and the Illusory Spirit Copper Talisman to make a comfortable living.

“Damn it. How can an alchemy cultivator possess such a fierce art?” the elder brother, Ru Xin, cursed inwardly.

Cultivators of alchemy usually had very few truly powerful means.

After all, they spent most of their time refining pills. Where would they find the spare time to learn formidable techniques?

The two brothers had kept watch for two days, never expecting to fail in the end.

Whoosh!

A wave of killing intent struck.

“So fast!” Ru Xin’s expression turned vicious. The God-Slaughtering Spike shot out, transforming into a streak of black light.

“Think you can run?”

The Seven-Kill Yin Talisman Swords rebounded the black spike.

In the sky above, Lu Qian’s yin spirit hovered overhead, while a black banner hung down threads of black qi, tearing open the cloud sea.

Black mist spread over an area of several hundred zhang.

The two brothers below immediately became like headless flies, circling helplessly within the mist.

Within that black haze, paper figures emerged—two hundred of them, clad in golden armor, their faces like red jade.

The union of vengeful ghosts and paper servants granted both formidable attack power and initiative, multiplying their might several times over.

Ghost mist hung chill and thick. Within it, paper figures with eerie smiles advanced slowly.

“Spare us, my lord! We did not mean it!”

“Please, forgive us just this once.”

Their hair stood on end. They hurried to their knees and begged for mercy, knocking their foreheads bloody against the ground.

A yin wind swept through.

Without Lu Qian lifting a finger, the two brothers were gnawed down to bare skeletons.

Two pallid skeletons collapsed to the earth, while their souls were drawn into the Refining Banner.

“What a waste of such fine weapons.”

Lu Qian picked up the God-Slaughtering Spike and looked at the black gleam upon it.

The cat-form copper talisman was of little use; it should fetch a decent price if sold.

Then, from afar, a black dot approached.

A black-clad man rode a towering black horse whose scales resembled those of a serpent.

The hooves thundered swiftly, leaving behind one shadowy fireprint after another.

Beside him flew moths the size of human heads, each with a ghastly green human face.

Clouds rolled in overhead.

Within the hazy cloudbank, one could faintly make out strange fish with blue eyes, human faces, arms and legs, and bodies like carp.

Around the fish swarmed countless malevolent heads, their faces blood-red.

The sky abruptly turned crimson.

Bloodlight churned, making it seem as though one had stepped into a realm of the dead.

“Do not flee! Hand it over!”

A shrill, piercing scream came from the sky.

The black-clad man below was clearly not a Spirit-Nourishing cultivator.

Only by relying on his swift Yinfire Scale Horse and the human-faced ghost moths was he able to keep himself alive.

Even so, his speed was clearly beginning to slow.

The two sides moved too fast. In the blink of an eye, they were within a hundred zhang of Lu Qian.

The black-clad man rolled his eyes, caught sight of Lu Qian, and a flash of delight crossed his face. “Brother Lin, perfect timing. Help me—”

“Get lost!”

A yinfire orb exploded beside the man, knocking him staggering sideways.

Then the paper figure incarnation fled far away.

“Haha, you brat, trying to drag someone else into your disaster.”

“Many thanks to this fellow Daoist for not interfering!”

Because of Lu Qian’s involvement, the pursuit was delayed for a moment.

The fish-shaped monster flashed forward and reached the black-clad man.

“Damn you! None of you will ever obtain the Nether River Secret Map!”

“The Nether River Secret Map?” Lu Qian’s figure suddenly froze.

The black-clad man glared at the three with venom in his eyes, then pulled a dark red bead from his robes.

He gritted his teeth and crushed it.

Boom!

Wind and thunder erupted.

Blood-red yinfire burst forth.

The crimson flames roared like a tide, sweeping across several li in every direction.

Blood-colored fire blazed fiercely, faintly carrying the force of wind and thunder.

“Not good! It is Blood-Evil Yinfire Thunder!”

The fish monster cried out, and the pitch-black cloud qi around him shrank rapidly.

This cloud qi was Blood-Toxic Yin Mirage Qi, a kind of baleful force.

But against Blood-Evil Yinfire Thunder, which could scorch yinfire and strike directly at yin spirits, its defenses were somewhat inadequate.

And this was the very center of the explosion.

The yinfire spread to Lu Qian at the edge of the blast.

Yet he did not flee at once.

Instead, he summoned clouds and rain, sending down true water to counter the yinfire.

The True Water of Dark Yin was consumed at a furious rate, and Lu Qian flew straight into the very heart of the explosion.

The bloodflame was vicious; even with the protection of True Water of Dark Yin outside, the paper figure still began to burn.

At the center of the blast, the serpent-scaled horse and the man were utterly obliterated, leaving behind only a pitch-black iron token.

Complex symbols were drawn upon it.

Crash!

The paper figure was instantly reduced to ash, the yin spirit returned into the Refining Banner, and black qi wrapped the iron token before fleeing into the distance.

“The True Water of Dark Yin, an art from the Hidden Abyss Temple... The Yu family of Cloudwater Cavern will hunt you to the ends of the earth and kill you!”

The fish monster’s roar thundered from within the flames.

On the other side, Lu Qian had already escaped far away.

He did not care about the other party’s threats. In order to avoid being recognized by acquaintances, the paper figure incarnation did not resemble his true appearance.

The Nether River Secret Map.

Lu Qian murmured the words to himself.

This object was worth offending a baleful cultivator over.

Legend said that the Nether River Daoist was a cultivator who had once ruled a region several thousand years ago. This secret map was likely connected to that man.

After returning to his cave abode, Lu Qian carefully stored the iron token away and sealed it with concealment arts.

In the process, he also learned more about the Yu family of Cloudwater Cavern.

The Yu family was one of the great clans of Ten Thousand Forms Island, occupying Cloudwater Cavern at the Chaos Star Reef. That cavern possessed a Blood-Toxic Yin Mirage baleful vein, and the clan was full of experts.

Still, they should not know his true identity.

“From now on, it is better to let my incarnations move in the open. My true self will hide in Wave-Treading Tower, leaning against a great tree for shade.”

In truth, Lu Qian was still a low-profile alchemy adept, one who knew a trick or two of Netherfire and ghost flame, as well as the path of body refinement. As for his other abilities, no one had yet discovered them.

Thinking of this, Lu Qian prepared to head to Wave-Treading Tower.

He intended to reveal his skill in elixir refinement and raise his standing a little.

Wave-Treading Tower.

Steward Cui no longer worked on the second floor, so under the guidance of a young attendant, Lu Qian climbed to the third floor, a place only disciples had the right to enter.

“You trash, is this how you do your jobs?”

A vast surge of aura rushed forward, the pavilion trembling slightly, and the noisy voices below fell silent at once.

Lu Qian’s heart tightened. From the pressure alone, this might be a Dao-base cultivator.

He listened intently.

“Calm yourself, Tower Lord. Even I did not expect this. I had already blocked most of the pursuers and let him take the goods back first, but I never thought that fool would still be killed.”

“Who did it? The people from Cloudwater Cavern?”

“No. Only the True Water of Dark Yin was left behind. It is said that a black banner and a paper figure incarnation were used.”

“True Water of Dark Yin? Could it be someone from the Hidden Abyss Temple?” The tower lord sounded uncertain.

“Some days ago, the Hidden Abyss Temple issued a wanted notice. The expelled disciple Lu Qian fits the characteristics of the method exactly. Could it have been him?”

“That must be it. Ten Thousand Forms Island is a place of mixed dragons and serpents, the first choice for fugitives from every sect. It had to be him!” another voice said.

“Post a bounty in the name of killing one of my disciples. Twenty thousand coins. We must root this man out!”

The tower lord’s voice was solemn and commanding.

...

Lu Qian felt somewhat speechless. So the black-clad man had been from Wave-Treading Tower, which meant he was standing right beneath the eyes of the aggrieved party.

Counting the time, he still had six years left to complete the contract.

Cough. Still, what did the disaster Lu Qian had caused have to do with the Fish-Dragon Daoist?

As the saying went, the most dangerous place was the safest. They would never have imagined that the killer was right beside them.

Twenty thousand coins from the bounty, plus another twenty thousand from the Hidden Abyss Temple—forty thousand in total.

With forty thousand coins, one could buy more than a dozen superior cave abodes, or fifty fine horses of rare breed.

Lu Qian even felt tempted to turn in his own head and claim the reward himself.

The next day, the bounties from Cloudwater Cavern and Wave-Treading Tower were both posted.

The expelled disciple Lu Qian of the Hidden Abyss Temple had now truly become famous on Ten Thousand Forms Island.