Chapter 683 Unique birth
The swan was half the size of Ellie, but it was still larger than Yang Qing. Just one of its wings was enough to shelter and cover Yang Qing's entire body.
It had pristine white feathers filled with golden glyphs that exuded a purifying aura and regal look in its sun-colored eyes which were currently trained on Yang Qing.
"Human, what are you doing here?" asked the swan.
Its voice was that of a mature woman. It was filled with the same dignified elegance as her body.
"Second stage of the palace realm but with her abilities she would still handle her own well enough even against those at the fourth stage.." thought Yang Qing.
He was mildly surprised to find such a unique spirit beast in this place. The spirit beast in question was a celestial sacred swan.
The celestial sacred swan was unique even when compared to mythical beings like dragons, and phoenixes. This sense of uniqueness was in how it was formed. Unlike normal spirit beasts where copulation was needed, celestial sacred swans had no parents.
It was born out of a concept like how weapons and artifacts birthed spirits. It was birthed in an area that needed to fulfill three criteria. One the area had to have a dense and the purest concentration of the cosmic energy of the stars,?second the energy needed to contain a trace of the origin power of those stars and third, the area needed to be pure, absent of the disturbance of violence for at least 20,000 years.
Even with all three criteria fulfilled, it wasn't guaranteed that a celestial sacred swan would be formed, as a hint of luck was usually needed.
From time immemorial, Yang Qing had read countless transcripts of organizations trying to rare one but few have ever succeeded in the venture.
But despite the numerous failures, most still continue trying because of its inherent nature. Celestial Sacred Swans were fiercely loyal, and when it came to abilities, they could purge and heal most curses, maladies, and even heart demons.
Their restorative abilities didn't just stop there, in one of the numerous scrolls Yang Qing had read, one of them said, that their heart, the sacred heart, was able to pull you from death and give you a rebirth.
The form of death didn't matter, be it a natural one from old age, or suffering a fatal injury that leaves your body destroyed and only a wisp of your soul remains. As long as one had its sacred heart close to them, the heart would be able to give them a new body.
The scary part was, that the cultivator would retain their cultivation base with a stronger body that was able to absorb cosmic energy from the stars to strengthen itself. They would gain some of the inherent attributes of a celestial sacred swan such as high vitality, immunity to countless toxins and curses, and the ability to absorb cosmic energy which was as potent as spiritual qi produced by a mature dragon vein.
Cultivators normally couldn't absorb it as sensing it was quite difficult and one risked ruining their body absorbing it without an appropriate body that was capable of refining the energy and the sacred heart provided just that.
Because of this,a lot of cultivators either tried to rear one, or hunt them, but they were few and far in between and even one spotted one, celestial sacred swans had esoteric abilities that made them sensitive to those who had malice toward them. Those abilities bordered on karmic precognition, as they could even tell it a minute, an hour, or a day in advance depending on their strengths.
This ability along with other abilities such as speed, and the ability to completely erase and mask their presence made them difficult to spot or catch unless they let you.
Per Yang Qing's unsupported guess, their population may not number more than 200 around the continent but out of those 200, maybe 10 or 20 would ever be caught. Their adaptability and rate of survival were among one of the highest.
Yang Qing couldn't believe he was seeing one in the flesh. He wasn't completely sure if she didn't choose to reveal herself whether he would have noticed her.
Yang Qing placed his hands above his chest in the form of a polite greeting his clan used, as he said,
"Forgive my intrusion, my name is Yang Qing, and I was looking for a few humans who may have headed in this direction.."
"Are they your friends?" asked the celestial sacred swan with the sacred flames surrounding her flickering slightly along with the glyphs inscribed on her feathers.
Even though her tone was still the same as before, Yang Qing could feel a palpable disgust coming from her.
"Not really, I promised someone related to them that I'd look for them, and here I am.." answered Yang Qing.
The celestial sacred swan stared at him for a while, with her gaze unmoving. When she felt that Yang Qing was telling the truth, she unfurled her wings, and her golden white flames burned with an intense radiant light that hid her entire body.
The light shone for a few seconds before it receded revealing a woman. The woman looked to be in her late thirties, with silver hair that gently cascaded down her back like a waterfall, reaching the grass beneath her. The silver hair looked like it had been fashioned from the most precious polished silver threads. She was clothed in regal-looking golden yellow robes that matched her sun-colored eyes.
With an unmatched beauty and a pure and regal aura, she exuded the presence of a banished immortal empress that would make most avert their gaze in inferiority and fear of profaning her beauty.
Her gaze focused on Yang Qing once more, before a small smile tugged at her lips.
"I am glad my guess wasn't wrong in revealing myself to you. Your heart remains clear, unlike the humans I've met before.." she said as her eyes flashed with interest at Yang Qing.
The source of this c𝐨ntent is freewe(b)nov𝒆l