Chapter 362: Chapter 361: Scheduling the Next Battle
"Demonic Qi?"
When he received the message from Taoist Jing Feng, Gu Zhao was immediately on high alert. Demonic Qi was an incredibly dangerous substance that corroded the Heaven and Earth Spiritual Qi and warped normal living beings.
According to ancient legend, Demonic Qi was not native to this world. It arrived thousands of years ago with the descent of a Celestial Demon who sought to remake heaven and earth, transforming the world into a Demon Realm. Although the Celestial Demon eventually fell silent, its Demon Techniques were passed down.
In fact, it wasn’t just Demon Techniques; even some artifacts tainted with Demonic Qi could influence living creatures and turn them into demonic beings.
"This Fish Demon wasn’t cultivating a Demon Technique, and he never fully transformed into a demonic being. However, he was definitely tainted with Demonic Qi and was showing signs of that transformation."
Taoist Jing Feng continued via voice transmission, "I suspect he was gradually corrupted by Demonic Qi over time."
Gu Zhao was silent for a moment. "Mo Lake?"
Taoist Jing Feng replied gravely, "It’s very likely."
The Fish Demon came from Pingjiang Prefecture, and the largest body of water in Pingjiang Prefecture is Mo Lake. The most powerful demon in Mo Lake is the Ink Flood Dragon, also known as the "Lord Mo Ao" the Fish Demon mentioned.
’The Fish Demon is connected to the Ink Flood Dragon, and the Fish Demon is tainted with Demonic Qi.’
Gu Zhao stroked his chin. ’Looks like it’s time to add the Ink Flood Dragon to the agenda.’
Taoist Jing Feng said, "My junior martial brother is also about to have a breakthrough. Let’s wait for him and Junior Martial Brother Yan Qi to complete their Realm Breakthroughs. With those two as fresh reinforcements, we can all go together."
"Good!" Gu Zhao nodded.
Taoist Jing Chun of the Fengyue Sect and Taoist Yan Qi of Qingcheng Mountain were contemporaries of Taoist Qingwei and Taoist Yuan He. However, the latter two were a cut above. One was the current Sect Leader of Zhenwu Mountain’s Sanfeng Sect, while the other was a veteran Sword Cultivator from the Pure Yang Sect. Both possessed deeper foundations and greater aptitude, allowing them to cultivate much faster.
But anyone who could cultivate Inner Breath True Qi on modern-day Blue Star was hardly an ordinary person. Furthermore, Taoist Jing Chun cultivated the Beiyin Fengdu Technique, which had the strictest precepts, and Taoist Yan Qi had mastered the Five Evasions through the Five Qi Inference of the Five Elements. They were by no means weak.
Cultivating Demon Techniques allows for extremely rapid progress. Normally, one should eliminate a Demon as quickly as possible to prevent it from growing ever stronger. Moreover, an environment contaminated by a Demon’s Demonic Qi is incredibly difficult to restore, so speed is of the essence.
This was the same reason Li Qingshuang had sought help from Chaoyang Island and Silent God Mountain. After she discovered the Netherfire Sect Leader was cultivating a Demon Technique and that the area beneath Black Rock Mountain had nearly become a Demon Cave, she went to them for aid, even though the Xuanwei Divine Sect and the Spirit Court had already vanished from Jiangnan. However, those two factions had their own reservations and refused to intervene.
But this logic didn’t apply to Daluo Palace.
The cultivation speed of the veteran Daoists of Daluo Palace was even faster than that of those Cultivating Demons. Their foundations and Mental Realms were more than sufficient, so as long as they had the Thunder Seed to absorb Evil Qi and empower them, they could ignore cultivation thresholds and advance by leaps and bounds.
So although the Demons progressed quickly, their progress was even faster!
If they weren’t concerned about the Ink Flood Dragon continuing to slaughter innocents, they could have just waited. Given a little more time for all the veteran Daoists to achieve their Realm Breakthroughs and for Gu Zhao to grow even stronger, the Ink Flood Dragon—a beast capable of swallowing an entire county in one gulp—probably couldn’t even withstand a single slap from them.
Gu Zhao smiled. "Once Martial Uncle Jing Chun and Martial Uncle Yan Qi are ready, we’ll make our move."
"Martial Uncle Jing Chun is in Qianshan Prefecture, the closest location to Mo Lake. He’ll need to keep a close eye on any activity in Pingjiang Prefecture," Gu Zhao said. "I’ll arrange for a few available martial uncles to patrol that area as well."
Taoist Yi Hong, Taoist Yan Ling, Taoist Shen Hao, and Taoist Yu Zhang were each presiding over their own branch temples and couldn’t be easily mobilized. But Daluo Palace had many other powerful Elders.
So, Gu Zhao immediately arranged for the martial brothers Taoist Qingwei and Taoist Qingyuan to form a team. He also dispatched Taoist Jing Hong and Taoist Jing Fa—the Dragon Gate’s Double Assassins—to patrol the area around Pingjiang Prefecture as a precaution.
By working in pairs, even if they encountered real danger, they could hold out for a while until reinforcements arrived.
And so, Taoist Qingwei and Taoist Qingyuan soon arrived due west of Changping Prefecture. Taoist Jing Hong and Taoist Jing Fa went to the northwest of Bai Shi Prefecture, while Taoist Jing Feng kept watch over the northeast of Qianshan Prefecture. Together, they formed a three-sided encirclement around Pingjiang Prefecture.
Taoist Jing Chun and Taoist Yan Qi were also informed of the situation and began to intensify their cultivation, striving to achieve their Realm Breakthroughs as quickly as possible.
Gu Zhao, however, didn’t enter seclusion. He had already done so during the battle to annihilate the Nether Fire Sect. Now, he simply followed his regular cultivation routine and even took time to return to the modern world to relax his mind.
Then, just as he arrived at the Taoist Research Institute to chat with Taoist Yan Song, he saw the man holding a phone in one hand and smiling as he looked at some papers with the other.
"What’s going on?" Gu Zhao asked. "Find another good web series?"
Taoist Yan Song held up his phone. "Is this the video you deliberately let that drone film while you were saving people at West Mountain?"
Gu Zhao raised his eyebrows and smiled. "They posted the video online?"
He took the phone from Taoist Yan Song. The title under the video read: "West Mountain’s Immortal Rescue."
Taoist Yan Song had already cued the video to the beginning. From the drone’s perspective, Gu Zhao saw several people clinging to a cliff face, inching along slowly as they chatted.
"Man, this path is treacherous. How did people in ancient times carve Divine Statues into a cliff face?"
"And they’ve been maintained for hundreds of years. I heard the Divine Statues are in the Tang Dynasty style, but there’s also a large iron bell from the Ming Dynasty."
"And they’re painted! They haven’t faded in hundreds of years. Our ancestors were incredible."
"Be careful, the wind is picking up."
"Get down!"
"Aaaah!"
With a scream, one of the women was swept away by the wind and plummeted downward, only to be caught by a White Cloud.
From the drone’s aerial perspective, every viewer could see with perfect clarity that the cloud holding the woman had begun to appear the moment she started falling, fully materializing in the exact spot she was about to land.
Immediately after, the White Cloud began to move slowly, gently delivering the woman to the opposite peak, where five Daoists also came into the drone’s view.
The next moment, the drone’s camera pulled back, revealing the other four people also being lifted from the cliff face by clouds. They were all brought together before the Daoists on the opposite peak.
At this point, the video ended, and Gu Zhao casually opened the comment section.
"What’s going on lately? There are videos of Immortal sightings everywhere."
"The SFX are pretty mediocre, no wonder you don’t have many followers. You’re way behind the big-name creators. You’re a hiking vlogger, stick to your niche instead of pulling this flashy nonsense."
"Hahaha! I’ve seen the Daoists in this video! I saw them last month when I was visiting West Mountain Temple. Did the vlogger team up with the West Mountain Scenic Area for a promotional video? You have to mark it as a scripted performance, or you’ll get banned."
"Doesn’t anyone think this video might be real? So much has happened recently. How can people still think there are no Extraordinary Cultivators in the world?"
"Pfft hahaha, what’s so weird about seeing an Immortal? Suing an Immortal, now *that’s* weird. On another thread, someone just posted that a board member from XX Group is suing a Daoist from Feiyun Mountain for practicing medicine without a license. But the craziest part is, he’s demanding the Daoist continue his treatment—and cure him completely!"
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