The Path Toward Heaven

Hearing this, the Underworld Emperor fell silent for a long time.

He had left the Underworld when he was still young. He was deceived into coming to the human world, and then had never stepped out of the Fiend Prison.

Yet, he had experienced many remarkable events…and unimaginable sufferings.

However, all those didn’t shock him as much as what Jing Jiu had just said.

Recalling what Jing Jiu had told him earlier, the deep meaning had gradually surfaced; it was something regarding his wish.

The Underworld Emperor laughed out, and raised his right hand to reach out toward a flowering tree fifty feet away.

The shapeless Soul-Fire worked like a finger, snapping away a few branches with flowers. The Underworld Emperor then held the stems with his hand and brought them to Jing Jiu.

“Break the branch when it’s still blooming with flowers; Don’t wait until the spring wind arrives to warm the house,” the Underworld Emperor stated.

“Good poem,” Jing Jiu praised.

“Your evaluation isn’t that well thought out.”

The Underworld Emperor continued asking, “Does your new method of using Sword Ghost by borrowing the ideas of the Control of Soul-Fire have a name?”

Jing Jiu shook his head. He didn’t intend to give it a name, since he would be the only one who would be able to use this magic in the foreseeable future.

The Underworld Emperor suggested, “I have been thinking about it occasionally over the last three years; what do you think about the name of ‘Underworld Fairy Sword’?”

In a sense, this brand new method of the Sword Ghost was created by Jing Jiu and the Underworld Emperor together; so it was appropriate to have both “Underworld” and “Fairy” in it.

And the “Underworld” and “Fairy” were two completely different and opposite concepts; but they were somehow quite compatible when put together, giving a sense of being a natural combination.

Though the name of “Fairy Sword” sounded a bit too formidable.

Jing Jiu said, “A good name.”

This evaluation was a well-thought one as well.

The Underworld Emperor let out a small smile, and didn’t say anything, waving his hand to bid his farewell.

The crisp ringing of the bell in the dark cloud and the faint bolt of lightning indicated their farewell also.

Jing Jiu took one step forward, into the darkness outside the broken cliff.

The green valley had instantly turned into countless colorful specks of light, and then faded away, turning into the boring world of black and white.

Jing Jiu didn’t turn around to look at it. He closed his eyes to sense the trace he left when he came here three years ago.

There was no concept of time and space in Taichang Prison; but this was merely a saying since it was not the absolute truth. Otherwise, that dragon would have become a Godly creature long time ago.

After a long while, Jing Jiu opened his eyes and woke up. He had returned to the third level of the Fiend Prison.

In front of him was the gloomy and dark passageway, full of chaotic winds and the forbidding formations that led to the Abyss.

Back when he came here, he took two steps to the left to enter the Taichang Prison.

Now he was back at the same spot.

Three years had passed, but it seemed like nothing had happened, as if he had been in a dream.

Only the tracks on the ground proved that something had indeed happened here.

The tracks would remain on the ground after one stepped on it, unlike the rootless lotus that had no attachment to anything.

Jing Jiu squatted down and planted the flower seeds given by the Underworld Emperor in the soil, and reached his hand in the air. He then grabbed some tiny objects from the air and sent them into the Empty Space.

After having done all this, he turned around and walked toward the upper level of the Fiend Prison.

The branches with flowers in the soil waved without wind, as if bidding farewell to him.

The passageway leading to the upper level was extremely narrow, as narrow as a slit in some spots.

Jing Jiu drifted up without meeting with any resistance; he passed through those rock cracks like the wind. He moved on forward.

It grew increasingly dark above the rock cracks.

It must be the bottom of that poisonous green pond.

Looking at the place, Jing Jiu thought of the Underworld Emperor, who had been left in the green valley.

The Underworld Emperor hadn’t told him the whole truth.

The mosquitoes in the Fiend Prison had another usage, in addition to sucking his Soul-Fire to send to the Underworld to prove that he was still alive.

If the Underworld Emperor were at his height, the old dragon wouldn’t be able to deal with him, let alone those mosquitoes. However, the Center Sect had a fabulous or hideous idea back then.

After the Underworld Emperor was locked up in the Fiend Prison, he had been in a weak condition, which was what Jing Jiu witnessed three years ago.

Under that condition, the Underworld Emperor had no chance of resisting those mosquitoes. He had to let the mosquitoes suck on his Soul-Fire all the time. As a result, his Soul-Fire had been constantly drained away, and he had no way to recover his Cultivation state.

It was like the circumstances in the snowland, under which Jing Jiu had to constantly use his Zhenyuan to maintain the sword fire in order to resist the coldness.

If this condition continued, the Underworld Emperor would be weakened little by little forever, until one day he would become a pile of dry bones.

Jing Jiu taught him a way to drive away the mosquitoes, which was an opportunity for him.

From the viewpoint of the human race, Jing Jiu shouldn’t give the Underworld Emperor this opportunity; but Jing Jiu did nevertheless. It was because he knew exactly what the Underworld Emperor wanted to do.

It was similar to the time when Shi Fengchen committed suicide in front of him; Jing Jiu could prevent it, but he chose not to.

He always respected others’ last choice for their lives.

It was because life and death was the most important thing in the world.

…

…

The Fiend Prison was sometimes like a walled city.

The people inside it wanted to go out, and the people outside it wished to get in.

When Jing Jiu was to leave the Fiend Prison, and when the Underworld Emperor decided to let his populace forget him, someone wanted to enter the Fiend Prison to change all this.

The Pure Heaven Bureau had sent in an important prisoner to the Fiend Prison a few days ago. It was said that he was one of the master-minds at the Old Ones. Though he was not a Cultivation practitioner, he was nonetheless very dangerous.

In the deep end of the rocky mountain on the highest level of the Fiend Prison, a middle-aged man stood before a cell door, waiting silently.

He wasn’t the master-mind, but a letter sent in by Prince Jing Xin through the Chief Commander of the Pure Heaven Bureau.

Since he was the letter itself, he naturally had no idea where the letter should be sent to.

The cell door opened slowly, and an old man appeared in front of him.

The Fiend Prison was extremely dark, devoid of any lighting; but that old man’s face could be seen clearly, because the old man’s entire body glowed.

The old man’s hair was matted, like a pile of wild weeds, with two vaguely visible bulges in his hair, making him look quite peculiar.

The middle-aged man was puzzled, wondering why this old man appeared so suddenly and why the Fiend Prison didn’t even have any guard save for the puppets.

The old man commanded emotionlessly, “Come with me.”

The middle-aged man intended to say that his feet were locked by the chains; but as he looked down, he found the chains were opened unknowingly. He hurriedly caught up to the old man.

The insane cries and singing could be heard everywhere among the cliffs. When those normal prisoners saw the old man, they were so scared that they didn’t dare to make any sound.

As the old man looked at the dark cliff, the insane cries and singing suddenly stopped. He then turned to the middle-aged man and asked, “Whom are you sending the letter to?”

The middle-aged man said, “I don’t know whom this letter is for, but it looks like it should be for you.”

“Do you know who I am?” the old man asked expressionlessly.

The middle-aged man shook his head.

The Old Ones were fully aware that Prince Jing Xin wouldn’t dare deceive the Center Sect. Regardless of who was sent to the Fiend Prison, the instant he was in the Fiend Prison, he would be watched closely; so he had no chance of doing anything. Yet, the middle-aged man didn’t want to do anything at all because he was simply a letter himself.

Whoever came to take the letter was the receiver of the letter.

The old man asked, “What is the content of the letter?”

“A devil came to the Fiend Prison,” the middle-aged man replied.

The old man displayed a hint of cruel and mocking expression in his eyes. “It seems that you indeed don’t know who I am; otherwise, it would be impossible for you to say such a ridiculous thing,” he remarked.

Nothing that had happened in the Fiend Prison could be concealed from him.

Having made the remark, the old man ignored the middle-aged man and walked toward the deep end of the Fiend Prison. The remnants of his shadows remained in that space for a long time.

They had arrived at the scorching hot second level of the Fiend Prison from the broken cliff, and then they came to the mountain stream full of moss on the banks.

The middle-aged man knew he was close to his death.

The old man pushed him off the cliff.

The middle-aged man fell into the pond under the cliff, and started struggling with both arms flailing wildly.

Soon after, the flesh on his arms fell off, exposing the white bones.

The horror appeared on his face for a moment, and then his face decayed swiftly to become an even more horrifying sight.

It didn’t take long for him to vanish completely in the pond, not even a piece of bone left of him.

The old man still felt hungry, showing a discounted expression.

Then, he was surprised to find out what was said in the letter sent by the Old Ones was exactly the statement:

A devil came to the Fiend Prison.

He looked down emotionlessly at the green pond below, hoping that the devil would soon become his meal to sate his hunger.