Chapter 287 — Guarding the Remains

Long Jiaonan sneered.

Ling Yuxiu and Si Yunxiang had only just entered the Six Harmonies realm, while she and the Red Snake were both masters of the Seven Stars realm.

To enter the Seven Stars realm was to be fit for a general's post in Jingping.

Before the Dragon-Taming Sect turned traitor, she too had served in the army, dressed as a man!

With the strength they had, Ling Yuxiu and Si Yunxiang were no match at all for her and the Red Snake.

"Courting death!

" Long Jiaonan turned her palm over, and her yuan qi became a great python coiled behind her, its jaws gaping wide; the air on every side howled and surged as it swallowed down at the two women in the sky. Though the Dragon-Taming Sect was never known for its spellcraft, its spells were not to be made light of; when the Imperial Teacher of Jingping carried out his reforms, the Dragon-Taming Sect absorbed the strengths of other schools and raised the power of its spells by a whole grade.

This one move, the Flood Dragon Swallows the Heavens, had captured its innermost essence.

Yet Ling Yuxiu gripped the Nine-Dragon Weapon in both hands and raised it high to smash down, and at once bolts of lightning gathered in midair, crack-crack, striking upon the Nine-Dragon Weapon.

The Nine-Dragon Weapon now became the Nine-Dragon Hammer; its vast head met the giant maw of the yuan-qi python, the thunder's might burst forth, and Long Jiaonan's spell was torn to pieces, its yuan qi collapsing and scattering away. Long Jiaonan's heart lurched.

On the other side Si Yunxiang waved a hand and a fine thread stabbed at her left eye; Long Jiaonan flicked her fingers again and again, but the thread took no force and came straight on. Si Yunxiang pressed her middle and index fingers together, pointed them sword-like at Long Jiaonan, and jabbed again and again, and the tip of the Thousand-Silk yuan weapon shifted with every motion, executing sword moves of the most exquisite subtlety.

"The Saintess Xiang's swordplay is not bad! " Long Jiaonan's left sleeve rolled and rolled; her yuan qi became a great python coiled into a jade wall, throwing the attacking sword-threads into disarray.

But just then she noticed that Si Yunxiang's right hand was before her and her left hand behind her, the left hand also forming sword seals and gesturing without pause; her heart lurched, and she hurriedly leapt into the air.

She had scarce risen when she saw her purple skirt flying, slashed into a hundred holes, leaking wind on every side. And above her, Ling Yuxiu swung the great hammer down; Long Jiaonan raised a hand to block, and with a thunderous boom the hammer burst forth with rolling firelight, its power terrifying beyond measure, and sent Long Jiaonan flying with a single blow! The Nine Dragons Emperor Art was in itself a first-rate cultivation method under heaven, supreme in spellcraft and vast as an ocean in the accumulation of dharma power; among cultivators of the same realm its dharma power was the most profound — save, of course, for Shen Mu's Mystic Body Three Cores Art.

Moreover, Emperor Yanfeng was the cleverest emperor since the founding of the dynasty and had long since become a master of the age; he had improved and refined the Nine Dragons Emperor Art, adding variations of combat technique and swordplay, so that its power far surpassed what it had been before.

This was the art Ling Yuxiu cultivated, walking the path where combat and spellcraft flow as one, wielding technique and magic together to swell the force of her attacks. Though Long Jiaonan was of the Seven Stars realm, caught between the two women and taken off guard, she was blasted away in an instant.

The moment Ling Yuxiu landed she suddenly released the great hammer; the Nine-Dragon Hammer came apart into nine dragon-shaped weapons that abruptly locked together, and countless dragon scales shifted to form a mirror. Ling Yuxiu stood behind the mirror; with a hum a beam of mirror-light shot out, and within that light a golden dragon seemed to dance as it fell upon the flying Long Jiaonan.

Si Yunxiang at once skimmed along the ground, darted past the mirror, and her sword-threads coiled and cut at Long Jiaonan, held fast in the mirror-light. "Little Red!

" Long Jiaonan cried sharply, raising her palm; the earth shook, and hundreds of sharp stone spikes rose from the ground, blocking Si Yunxiang's path and the mirror-light. Behind the two women, the huge red snake suddenly stretched out its body; the serpent was as thick as a pillar that several men could barely encircle, and with boundless strength it swept straight across.

To be struck by such a monster meant grave injury at best, and being crushed to pulp at worst! The Dragon-Taming Sect's true trump card was neither cultivation nor dharma power, nor divine powers, but the "dragons" they spoke of!

The snakes they raised were all rare breeds carrying flood-dragon blood; even if a disciple's cultivation was low and his strength modest, a snake raised to sufficient power was enough to slay an opponent.

Long Jiaonan's red snake was a rare breed among rare breeds, sired by the Dragon King's flood dragon of the Heaven-Man realm; its bloodline was lofty and its flood-dragon blood pure, so that a single snake was enough to sweep the Seven Stars realm.

It was by this great snake that Long Jiaonan had become a master of great renown. The red snake erupted in terrible majesty, rolling and crushing toward them; just as it seemed about to grind the two women under, a beam of blinding light shot out from behind it.

The red snake froze, seeing its own body cut in two by that beam, the other half of its vast carcass rolling and tumbling, flattening whole stretches of forest! By the pool behind the great snake stood Shen Mu, holding up an enormous eyeball; a beam of light was shooting from that eye, and it was this light that had severed the snake's body.

The red snake shrieked in agony, opened its mouth and spewed a thick cloud of poison mist, and its half-body actually sprang up to bite down at Shen Mu!

The poison mist was virulent beyond measure, and Shen Mu had no wish to be touched by it; a step of his feet and he used the Sky-Skimming Divine Legs to evade the snake's strike.

He was so swift that before the red snake could react he was already in midair; looking down from his height, Shen Mu saw that the city of the yellow essences on the island had been utterly destroyed, and the woods where they lived had been flattened as well. Clearly, once Long Jiaonan discovered this place she had shown no mercy, killing some of the yellow essences and capturing others, razing their dwelling place to the ground!

No doubt Long Jiaonan had learned of Shen Mu and the others' whereabouts from the mouths of these yellow essences, and so had lain in wait here; after all, the yellow essences were a faithless lot, quick to sell anyone out.

Shen Mu's face darkened.

Faithless though the yellow essences were, they had helped them after all, and those who help are benefactors. Suddenly the red snake's huge head sprang into the air, its great mouth opening, the jaws splitting so wide they nearly formed a straight line, biting up at him from below.

"Die, then. " Shen Mu turned the jade eye, and with a hum a beam of light shot out, straight down through the red snake's mouth; wherever it passed, all flesh dissolved.

Hum!

The fierce light struck the ground, and the earth melted at once, opening a crater; the scalding magma in the pit began to evaporate, streaming out of the hole as vapor, which cooled and hardened into little stone beads that fell down like a small rain of rocks.

And the red snake's leaping power was frightful; its vast body swallowed Shen Mu together with the jade eye — only its flesh had been bored through, a tunnel punched clean through it, and its head pierced through as well. Shen Mu landed, and behind him the red snake fell like a huge torn sack, giving off a smell of roast meat.