Chapter 37: Summoning the Banner of Heroic Souls, a Peculiar Train of Thought

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The eastern sky was faintly paling. The stars and moon left behind a few lingering traces of radiance, and before dawn arrived, countless eyes hung suspended in midair.

Blood vessels seeped from their pupils, spreading across their deathly white sclera. The veins around them bulged, exuding a rancid, bloody stench.

They looked much like human eyes. Even their blood vessels throbbed visibly, while wisps of deathly aura seeped from them, rapidly corroding every living thing nearby.

The grass lost its green vitality. Leaves cascaded from the trees, and the branches dehydrated and split apart.

Zhong Yi shattered the ruined dantian with a single palm, then turned once more to look at the village behind him. Faintly, he could hear the villagers yawning, while the aroma of cooked food drifted beyond the village.

The kindhearted aunt had pretended she had made too much food and invited him and Bai Yunfei to help her finish it. The scenes from the days when he had wandered as a beggar were still vivid in his mind.

Because this place held people he cared about, he was no outsider here.

Home was not defined by a few walls. It was the crystallization of human bonds and shared affection.

“Please, little cultivator—take them somewhere safe first!”

Zhong Yi slowly closed his eyes, drew a deep breath, and charged forward with a resolute expression.

His slender figure curved through the air, while the treasured sword in his hand flashed with spiritual light.

A final burst of brilliance before death. By destroying his own spirit and soul, he could force his strength to rise once more—but afterward, his soul would gradually shatter, and in the end, he would fall to the earth and become dust.

The exposed skin of Zhong Yi’s body was covered in cracks. Once his hood split apart, the golden-white fissures across his face became especially striking. Like patterns in cracked ice porcelain, they cleaved his pale cheeks into hundreds of pieces, yet not the slightest trace of blood seeped through.

Even if his final strength could not hold them back, he still had to try. This was the last thing he could do.

He could only delay the creatures for now and wait for Lingxi and the others to lead the villagers away. The Azure Cloud Squad in the city should have noticed the disturbance. For the moment, the city was relatively safe.

With one slash, he cleaved several eerie eyes in two. Yet they re-formed into their original shape, and as vitality flowed into them from nearby living creatures, they quickly returned to their former size.

Leaning on his sword, Zhong Yi dropped to one knee. Blood poured from the corner of his mouth as though it cost nothing. He glanced behind him again, only to find two young people standing there, completely motionless.

“…Are you two idiots? Hurry up and take the villagers away! Go!”

Zhong Yi could not help cursing.

The girl offered him a smile, yet still made no move. Zhong Yi was so furious that he nearly kicked them both.

What kind of people was the immortal sect choosing these days? They were hopelessly foolish. How were they supposed to protect the common people? At this rate, they would only throw their lives away for nothing.

His blood surged upward. He could no longer contain it, and it spilled from the corners of his lips. Drops struck the soil and burst into flowers of blood, like crimson plum blossoms of the Divine Land infused with a soul.

Lingxi stepped forward. Her body floated halfway above the ground, her sleeves snapping in the wind, while her right hand rose into the air.

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“Banner of Heroic Spirits—answer my call!”

Golden light flashed through the girl’s eyes. A golden ornament shaped like a flower from the Other Shore appeared between her brows. Her eyes and brows still held a smile, but now it was the confident smile of one who had everything under control.

The aura of the dead coiled around her. Black mist churned against her green robes, and Lingxi’s cultivation surged instantly to the peak of the Golden Core Realm.

She lightly closed her right hand, and a triangular banner appeared in her grasp. Its scarlet color was dazzling, while its black ribbons streamed in the wind.

“Though the body is dead, the spirit endures; though the soul is gone, its courage makes it a hero among ghosts! Souls, return!”

Lingxi shook the banner and cried out coldly. Her voice rolled across a thousand miles, echoing without end.

The ground suddenly trembled and split open in fine cracks. Wisps of black mist rose from below and coalesced into the phantom forms of dignified cultivators, each standing before the eerie eyes.

“This junior is Lingxi. I ask all of you heroic spirits to destroy these abominations and protect the common people!”

At her low command, golden light erupted around the figures. Countless points of radiance flew in from the horizon and fell into the phantoms’ hands.

The phantoms grasped phantom swords and surrounded the eerie eyes. Their fingers formed seals, and rumbling sounds issued from the blades. One sword transformed into thousands upon thousands, descending upon the eyes.

The instant the golden swords pierced their pupils, cracks spread across the surfaces of the eyeballs. In the blink of an eye, they exploded into millions of fragments.

Zhong Yi leaned on his sword and tried to stand, but in the end he could not support his own weight. Instead, he fell heavily onto the ground.

He still remembered all too clearly how the eyes had split in two beneath his sword. Now that one had exploded into millions of fragments, he did not dare imagine what would happen next.

What kind of people was the immortal sect choosing in this generation?

The little girl’s lack of restraint might have been understandable, but the young man standing beside her had followed suit and simply stared in a daze.

The moment the fragments exploded, Bai Lize raised his sword and used the righteous grandeur of the spiritual blade to seal the fragments in place.

With his left hand, he opened his Cosmos Satchel. Moving swiftly, he slipped a sack over the fragments and harvested whatever value remained in the eyes.

Lingxi intended to take them back for Wen Jue and the others to study.

If they happened to develop something new, perhaps she could gain the ability to regenerate as well.

After seeing the fate of the eyes in front, the rest fled in every direction, attempting to break through the encirclement of golden swords. They tried again and again, but could only roar helplessly as the two-person team continued harvesting them.

Though the eyes had seemed innumerable, even the remaining fragments could not fill a single Cosmos Satchel.

Zhong Yi stared at the pair’s seamless cooperation, utterly dumbfounded, and let out a soft sigh.

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Heroes have always emerged from the young!

“Don’t sigh like that, uncle. Isn’t it a pretty good trend for the waves behind to drive the waves ahead?”

The divine radiance around Lingxi faded. She dropped onto the ground, while mud mixed with sweat streamed down her face. Her tone once again became languid, with a teasing note in her voice.

Anyone with eyes could tell that Zhong Yi was in poor condition. Lingxi could even read the slightest changes in a person’s expression, so how could she possibly fail to notice?

“Thank you.” Zhong Yi tugged his lips into a smile to humor her. The cracks at the corners of his mouth widened, splitting his face into five sections, yet somehow leaving him not the least bit grotesque.

“It’s nothing. Consider it repayment for the favor you did me.” Lingxi waved a hand.

“Actually, you could have escaped even without me fussing over you. Couldn’t you?”

“You’ve all inherited the will of the Earth God, so have a little confidence in yourselves, all right?

“You helped me immensely. You should have realized by now that my power is unstable.

“We’re only a bunch of inexperienced youngsters. Without you, we’d already be dead. Great kindness needs no thanks, so I won’t stand on ceremony.”

Lingxi could not bear to watch anyone wear such a miserable expression. After stating the facts plainly, she lay down on the ground, using her hands as a pillow while drawing in the surrounding spiritual energy to heal her wounds.

Even though the spiritual energy vanished into her like a stone dropped into the sea and offered her almost no help, she still made an effort to save herself.

Pain tugged at every one of her cells, yet it did nothing to diminish her smile.

For all she knew, when dawn once again spilled across the world, all that remained of her might be a corpse. There was no point in burdening herself or anyone else with such thoughts.

A flash of green flew toward her. Lingxi instinctively raised her hand and caught it. A warm, familiar aura flowed from the jade, passing through her spiritual meridians and spreading into every limb and bone. The pain in her consciousness gradually eased.

“What is this? It’s pretty good. You’re not planning to charge me for it, are you?”

Lingxi sprang upright and held it out to Zhong Yi.

“…” Zhong Yi nearly laughed despite himself. “Little cultivator, your way of thinking really is unusual. But this Spirit-Restoring Jade is yours. I have no use for it.”

Lingxi smiled and tucked it back into her arms. “All right. When we meet again, I’ll give you a splendid gift in return. I’ll keep the jade.”

“When did you become so generous, Xixi? What are you going to give me for my birthday?”

A gentle, teasing voice drifted over. A white-robed immortal wearing a silver mask walked toward them from the path ahead.

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