Chapter 584: - A City, One Man

The Fire Phoenix spread its wings, and searing waves of flame swept outward.

But the man and saber already leaping into the air did not dodge in the slightest. He forcibly split the tide of fire apart.

Carrying overwhelming might, the saber came down!

The Fire Phoenix let out a shrill cry. Astonishingly, it chose to retreat. Even so, a long gap was left across its body, one that refused to heal.

Tian Wujing stood atop the golden tiles of the great hall, his saber pointed downward, his gaze fixed on the enormous phantom of the Fire Phoenix before him as it beat its wings.

If the Fire Phoenix represented flame, then Tian Wujing, with his head of white hair, represented a kind of bone-deep cold.

An ordinary person who witnessed such a sight and managed not to immediately fall to his knees in worship would already possess astonishing willpower.

But Great Yan’s Prince of Jingnan had greeted it with a saber stroke.

There was no prelude.

Because none of that unnecessary nonsense was needed.

Tian Wujing did not believe that true gods existed in this world. He did not believe that the ultimate truth Qi Refiners spent their entire lives pursuing genuinely existed.

And even if gods truly stood above the firmament, he, who had already exterminated his own clan, had long since cut himself off completely from all beneath Heaven.

Even if a god truly descended into the mortal world, he would cut it down just the same.

More importantly, if a god could be wounded by a saber, could it still be called a god?

Below, the Pixiu anxiously pawed the ground with all four hooves.

Ordinarily, it should have felt close to the aura of the Fire Phoenix. Both had once been spirit beasts that existed a thousand years ago, and between their bloodlines there was a kind of instinctive recognition.

But now they stood on opposing sides.

Which made the Pixiu even less willing to submit.

It could disdain other beasts, even ordinary demonic beasts, without a second glance.

But faced with something carrying the aura of the Fire Phoenix, it genuinely wanted to test itself against it.

Unfortunately, it could not fly.

It could not get up there.

All it could do was anxiously remain below, repeatedly snorting streams of scorching white breath.

Then, from within the phantom of the Fire Phoenix, an incomparably majestic voice rang out.

“Impudent! You dare offend the might of Heaven!”

The voice was lofty and resonant, carrying an air of supreme authority.

Tian Wujing raised his saber again.

“Pretending to be gods and ghosts.”

Then he surged forward once more and chopped down at the Fire Phoenix phantom.

The Fire Phoenix flapped upward in a panic, but its phantom body was simply too enormous.

It could not avoid another slash of saber force.

A second glaring crack appeared across its body.

“You dare! Do you not fear Heaven’s punishment?”

“This Prince could ask for nothing better.”

Tian Wujing advanced again.

Another slash.

The Fire Phoenix rose once more, but half its tail failed to escape.

Kunwu cut it apart directly.

Fragments of crimson crystal scattered through the air.

This Fire Phoenix really did seem to amount to no more than this.

But anyone watching carefully would have noticed that the Fire Phoenix repeatedly failed to evade completely not because it lacked speed.

Its range of movement was restricted to the roof of the golden hall.

Even the height to which it could rise was limited.

With such an enormous body and such a narrow space in which to maneuver, how could it possibly dodge completely?

After repeatedly fleeing in embarrassment and suffering wounds, the voice within the Fire Phoenix finally lost its lofty, superior tone.

A humanlike emotion appeared.

“Kunwu? Are you from Qian? Qian troops actually fought their way in here?”

Then another voice spoke.

“That is Kunwu. After that man’s younger brother inherited the throne, he led a northern expedition and was defeated. The saber fell into Yan hands.”

Kunwu had once been the personal saber of the founding emperor of Qian.

It had accompanied him in his campaigns beneath Heaven and in carving out the territory that became the State of Qian.

Later, his younger brother inherited the throne as imperial younger brother and led five hundred thousand men north.

He was crushed by the first Marquis of Zhenbei.

Emperor Taizong of Qian fled home lying on an ox cart.

Originally he had worn Kunwu at his left hip and the Son of Heaven Sword at his right.

Both were lost on the battlefield.

The Son of Heaven Sword was never found.

Kunwu, however, was recovered early by Yan troops and entered the imperial collection.

When Tian Wujing received the title Marquis of Jingnan, Emperor Yan bestowed Kunwu upon him.

“Are you blind? What else could that stupid creature below be but a Pixiu?”

The Fire Phoenix phantom clearly possessed only one speaker, yet somehow it sounded like several people arguing.

Tian Wujing remained where he was.

He no longer hurried to swing the saber.

Thought appeared in his eyes.

“Yan men? How did Yan men fight their way in? Was Qian destroyed? Or Jin?”

Under the original geography between Yan and Chu, it was genuinely difficult for the two states to launch major wars against each other.

For Yan to invade Chu on a large scale, it would first have to completely swallow either Qian or Jin.

“What are Qian and the State of Qian? When did such a country appear? Did some new minor ruler declare himself sovereign?”

The Fire Phoenix seemed to be questioning and answering itself.

Or perhaps several voices were arguing.

“It is Yan men. Yan men actually fought all the way into Ying Capital. How could this happen? Where are the Qu Clan, the Zhao Clan, and the Dugu Clan?”

“I saw Black Dragon Banners below too. Yan troops have fought their way through the palace walls.”

“How could my Great Chu have fallen to this state?”

“Were the Yan not being suppressed by the Barbarians? How did they reach Chu?”

Understanding finally appeared in Tian Wujing’s expression.

Then true mockery entered his eyes.

The people “speaking” through the Fire Phoenix now were not other people at all.

They were most likely echoes of Great Chu’s emperors of past generations.

But

Tian Wujing still held Kunwu in his right hand.

His left hand formed a seal.

Then he pressed his left index finger to the center of his brow.

A blue light flashed briefly through his eyes.

This was an art for “opening the heavenly eye.”

It could pierce certain illusions and reveal underlying truth.

It was not an especially profound occult technique.

But it was extremely practical.

For example, now.

If this Fire Phoenix phantom was some mixture between spirit and soul, then taken as a whole, it was actually only one torn-off mass of flame.

One could see traces showing that it had once been split apart.

But this portion itself was pure in color.

Meaning that although this spirit had been torn from something larger, it remained internally whole.

Its incompleteness existed only relative to what it had once been.

Within itself, there were no impurities.

Which meant that inside the Fire Phoenix phantom there were no other human souls.

There was no possibility that the souls of past Chu emperors had been mixed together within it.

The Fire Phoenix appeared to notice what Tian Wujing had done.

Immediately, a majestic voice rang out.

“Brat from Yan, what are you looking at?”

Then another voice followed.

“Heh. He does not even know death is before him.”

“This is Ying Capital. While We lived, We were Emperor of Great Chu. After death, We remain Emperor of Great Chu!”

It was not past emperors of Chu speaking.

Because within the Fire Phoenix, there was only one spirit.

Think of the Chu imperial clan’s constant claim that Fire Phoenix blood flowed through their veins.

And then think of Xiong Liqing.

Tian Wujing knew that within the direct Xiong imperial bloodline, there genuinely was an aura of the Fire Phoenix.

It was faint.

But it was real.

So it was not that after each Chu emperor died, his consciousness merged into the Fire Phoenix spirit and was preserved there.

Instead, the Fire Phoenix spirit had always used generation after generation of Chu emperors as vessels, absorbing from them, nourishing itself through them.

The direct Xiong imperial line carried its blood.

That bloodline gave members of the Xiong imperial family an advantage in beast-taming, making it easier for them to compel demonic beasts to submit.

But generation after generation of direct Xiong descendants also spent their whole lives nurturing that trace of Fire Phoenix blood.

Once they entered their imperial tombs, that trace would naturally be extracted and reclaimed.

It was like usurious lending.

Lend out nine, collect thirteen.

Emperors possessed the aura of true dragons.

And anyone capable of becoming emperor possessed a will far beyond that of ordinary people.

So after death, the trace of Fire Phoenix blood that had accompanied one ruler from birth to old age and death was like an observer that had witnessed his entire life.

When it finally returned to the Fire Phoenix spirit, it clearly did not erase every trace of the consciousness from that “previous life.”

Or perhaps the Fire Phoenix spirit itself could not avoid being influenced by those accumulated impressions.

If the Blind Man were here to see the scene, he would have explained it far more simply:

Absorb too many people’s memories and eventually you develop multiple personalities.

“Beneath the depths of my Great Yan’s imperial palace lives an ancient Pixiu. For centuries, Yan has used it to breed Pi Beasts, hoping that in another few hundred or perhaps a thousand years, every Great Yan cavalryman might ride a Pi Beast into battle. Men are men. Beasts are beasts. Men riding beasts is only natural. You Chu people somehow reversed it.”

Tian Wujing raised Kunwu once more.

He said:

“The same kind of creature. Yan men use one as a mount. You Chu men worship one as an ancestor. With a Chu like this, what reason remains for it to continue existing?”

Perhaps it sensed the killing intent around Prince of Jingnan turn cold again.

Or perhaps the Fire Phoenix spirit, stimulated awake by the blood of six princes, had finally emerged from its earlier confusion.

Now, although its phantom remained damaged, the emotion transmitted through its consciousness became extremely gloomy.

The earlier cacophony of voices disappeared completely.

“If you continue forcing me, I will cast away the restraints of this formation entirely. I will draw heavenly fire and bring down Heaven’s punishment. Your body will turn to ash and your soul will scatter!”

This was the true Fire Phoenix spirit speaking.

After fully awakening its own consciousness, it became sharp and aware.

At the same time, the golden tiles beneath the hall began cracking across a vast area.

In countless inconspicuous corners throughout Ying Capital, from underground, from within the city walls, phoenix heads began pushing outward.

Soon, streams of lamp oil began pouring from phoenix mouths.

The formation had already begun operating silently.

The Fire Phoenix spirit was weak because it had been awakened with the sacrifice of only six princes and remained bound at the formation’s eye.

For a spirit to become powerful, it needed sacrifices.

And Ying Capital, the people of Ying Capital, had in truth been placed upon the sacrificial table centuries ago.

“Withdraw now and we can leave one another in peace. Otherwise, the whole of Ying Capital will become your grave!”

Tian Wujing seemed to hear the greatest joke beneath Heaven.

He reached out and pointed at his own chest.

Looking at the Fire Phoenix spirit before him, he asked:

“You are using the lives of Chu people to threaten a Prince of Yan?”

Then

Tian Wujing stabbed Kunwu into the golden tiles beneath him.

He sat down cross-legged.

He pointed casually toward the surroundings.

There lay Ying Capital’s myriad household lights, far dimmer tonight than on any ordinary evening.

“The weather is turning cold. Light the fire.”

[End of Chapter 584]