Chapter 95: Storm Clouds Gather

The Eastern Sea lay as calm as ever, vast and boundless beneath a cloudless sky. A gentle breeze drifted in from the distance, carrying the faintly bitter salt scent peculiar to the ocean. Little waves broke against one another, raising layer upon layer of white foam.

The blue water showed no trace of human disturbance. Beneath the surface, the flicker of fish could be seen from time to time; some bold enough even leaped from the waves, greeting the sunlight.

Then, at the far edge of the horizon, a tiny black speck slowly appeared. As time passed, it grew larger and larger until it took on the shape of a man.

A figure had actually appeared above the endless Eastern Sea.

He was handsome and striking, his features sharp and resolute, with a natural air of elegance and easy grace. After glancing around and finding no one else in sight, he could not help feeling rather pleased with himself. "Looks like I still arrived first. Ha ha!"

He even called himself "young master." Judging by his appearance, somewhere in his twenties, it was not entirely out of place.

Gao Zhuyi was the youngest son of a wealthy family in the mortal world. People often said that wealth seldom lasted beyond three generations, and that was the common impression ordinary people had of the rich. When people thought of the children of the well-to-do, what else could they be but idle playboys? Though such a view was admittedly steeped in prejudice, it also reflected a social problem. Gao Zhuyi, however, was not like that. Although his background was outstanding, he had never let it go to his head. Aside from a little mischief at school when he was young, he had never truly done anything wrong.

Strictly speaking, he was something of a hot-blooded youth. There was a time when such youths were denounced by so-called elites as a danger to the nation and a cancer upon society. Gao Zhuyi, however, did not see it that way at all. Hot-blooded youth were one of the driving forces behind a nation’s development. If a country had no hot-blooded youth, then it would be a stagnant pond, unable to stir even the slightest ripple. At the very least, such passion sprang from love for one’s country.

As for the so-called elites, he despised them. There were far too many traitors and foreign-paid hacks on the internet, and the term "web agents" had thus been born. In plain terms, they were "professional writers funded by foreign interests." They mixed truth with lies, inciting, misleading, and fabricating rumors from time to time, all in order to make the people lose faith in the government, even to hate it. When it came to the peaceful subversion of China, their most common tactic was to praise democracy while condemning socialism for its darkness. Their favorite line was always something like: "Damn it, another one of those filthy fanatics."

No country is without its dark places, yet they could always, with uncanny accuracy, pluck out the gloomy side of society and then trumpet it everywhere, clinging to the leg of their American masters while condemning their own country with all their might. According to Phoenix Network’s estimates, the number of such "professional traitors" on China’s internet was astonishingly large. And congratulations to them: they had already succeeded halfway in achieving their goal.

When Gao Zhuyi was twelve, he was fortunate enough to meet his master, a down-and-out old vagabond. In truth, it did not even need saying: the old man’s real identity was that of a renowned master of cultivation. Seeing that Gao Zhuyi possessed exceptional natural talent, he had taken him as a disciple. Sweat... of course not for murder and robbery. It was just that cliché of a setup. Gao Zhuyi never quite understood why his master dressed like a beggar all the time. Had he not known the old man possessed extraordinary skills, he would have found it hard to believe.

Whenever he asked, his master, Daoist Luyang, would only smile and say, "All things under heaven are but floating clouds. Since they are floating clouds, why dwell on them?"

At that, Gao Zhuyi would be left speechless.

In fairness, Gao Zhuyi had not failed Daoist Luyang’s discerning eye. He began cultivating at twelve and, more than ten years later, had already reached the Heart-Moving stage. His natural endowment truly was exceptional.

Upon learning that the Holy See was launching another eastern crusade, Gao Zhuyi’s patriotism flared at once. If he had lacked the ability, he could only have sighed and accepted his helplessness. But now that he possessed the power, how could he possibly miss this? Damn it, I’m one of those fanatics. So what?

At that moment, a mass of dark clouds drifted in from afar.

"At last," Gao Zhuyi thought, and flew toward the front.

"You brat, you’re in such a hurry, and you don’t have the least respect for your elders. Wait for your master," came a grumbling voice. A group of cultivators had arrived, and leading them was none other than Gao Zhuyi’s master, Daoist Luyang. He wore an unhappy expression and was busy lecturing his disciple, though not the slightest trace of actual displeasure could be seen on his face.

"All right, Luyang, do I not know you by now? Always showing off. Who doesn’t know you have a fine disciple?" said an elderly man with a haggard face, sounding impatient.

Daoist Luyang was momentarily at a loss for words. Then, red with embarrassment and anger, he barked, "Bian Xingzhao, say that again if you’ve got the nerve!"

The old man called Bian Xingzhao immediately dodged behind the others. "Everyone, look at this! Old Luyang is embarrassed and angry, and now he wants to silence the witness!"

Everyone burst out laughing. The sight of the two of them was thoroughly entertaining. Although Daoist Luyang and Bian Xingzhao belonged to different paths of cultivation—one cultivating immortality, the other cultivating demons—they were in every respect opposites. Yet the realms of immortal cultivation and demonic cultivation were no longer as irreconcilable as they once had been. These two, one immortal and one demonic, were a pair of living treasures. They had been trading barbs for who knew how many years, yet their friendship was actually quite good.

After a while of banter, it was Gao Zhuyi who suggested finding a place to settle first. Everyone agreed, then dispersed to search the area. Before long, one of them discovered a desolate island several dozen miles away.

The island was not large, but it covered several square kilometers, more than suitable as a temporary base.

Gao Zhuyi took the lead and landed first. Next came Daoist Luyang. As an independent cultivator, his cultivation had already reached the Divided Spirit stage. With strength like that, his landing was steady and effortless, so calm and natural it seemed almost untroubled by the world. Bian Xingzhao followed after him. Like Daoist Luyang, his realm was that of Demon Transformation, equivalent to Divided Spirit. The demonic-cultivation realms, in order, were: Demon Entry, Body Refinement, Dual Cultivation, Heart Demon, Spirit Void, Demon Infant, Nether Void, Demon Transformation, Silence of Extinction, Tribulation Crossing, and Ascension.

Behind the three of them came the rest of the cultivators.

The leader of the Mount Shu Sword Sect, Gu Danqiu, was at the Soul-Projection stage. He looked to be only a little over thirty, though for a cultivator of that level, his true age was already several hundred years. Still, Gu Danqiu now appeared extraordinarily handsome. His white Daoist robe gave off a faint scholarly refinement, and no one would have guessed he was an expert at flashing blades and sword light.

Behind Gu Danqiu came the disciples of the Mount Shu Sword Sect. He had brought only a dozen or so, all of them at least at the Golden Core stage, or above it. In a war as extraordinary as the Holy See’s eastern crusade, numbers were not the key point; what mattered was each person’s combat power. For Eastern cultivators, bringing disciples below the Golden Core stage would not have much effect on the battle, and there was the danger of needlessly costing them their lives.

After much deliberation, all sects had agreed that anyone joining the eastern crusade had to be at least at the Golden Core stage.

As the saying went, trees live on their bark, people live on their faces. Cultivators too had their pride, and the Holy See’s eastern crusade was a firm trampling of that pride. Naturally, the cultivators were furious. For personal grievances and for the greater cause alike, the Eastern cultivators would absolutely make the Holy See pay a terrible price.

Looking back to when the sects had first received word of the crusade, the anger in their hearts was easy to imagine. A hundred years ago, the Holy See had launched one such crusade before. Among the sects present now, there were not a few cultivators who had taken part in that battle. Though they had repelled the Holy See then, the cultivation sects had also suffered severe losses, to the point that they had been forced to shut their gates and withdraw into seclusion to recover. Even now, their vitality had barely been restored to seventy or eighty percent.

What was more, spiritual energy had continued to disperse, making cultivation more and more difficult.

This time, old hatreds and new grudges had piled together. No matter what, the cultivators would not allow the Holy See the slightest advantage.

Of course, the cultivators mentioned here were still only those of the mortal world. As for the cultivators of the cultivation realm, they rarely left the gates of their sects. Daoist Luyang and the others had already sent messages to the cultivation realm, asking them to send forces to join in, but as for how it would ultimately turn out, they had little confidence. After all, the cultivation realm was bound by an agreement not to interfere in the affairs of the mortal world.

After Gu Danqiu’s Mount Shu Sword Sect landed on the desolate island, the women of the Heavenly Moon Pavilion arrived one after another. The pavilion’s mistress, Situ Lanya, had long black hair like silk, dancing in the wind. Her arched brows were of just the right fullness, her beautiful eyes alluring and bright, her delicate nose exquisite, her cheeks faintly flushed, and her lips tender as if ready to drip. Her oval face was strikingly lovely, and her translucent skin, white as snow and pure as ice, complemented her slender figure and mesmerizing charm. In her white robes, she appeared all the more graceful and enchanting.

Behind her came a host of women wrapped in white. Who could have imagined that beneath such delicate beauty lay explosive power of the most formidable kind?

By noon, cultivators from the mortal world and independent cultivators from overseas continued to arrive. The small island quickly gathered more than two thousand people, including Jiang Yi, who had earlier gone to the cultivation realm with the message. What a scale this was. There were not many cultivators in the mortal world to begin with, and only the previous eastern crusade could be compared to such a gathering.

"I wonder how many believers the Holy See will bring for this crusade?" With nothing else to do for the moment, Gu Danqiu of the Mount Shu Sword Sect asked Whitebrow, the leader of the Kunlun Sect.

The Kunlun Sect and the Mount Shu Sword Sect were the great powers of mortal-world cultivation. One might say the Kunlun Sect bore the banner of leadership among the mortal cultivators, and Whitebrow enjoyed a distinguished reputation among them as a persuasive elder and senior, with cultivation already at the later stage of Divided Spirit.

"It likely won’t be fewer than last time," Whitebrow said calmly, his brow furrowing slightly.

Not fewer than last time. Gu Danqiu suddenly felt the burden on his shoulders grow heavier. Recalling the previous eastern crusade, the Holy See had sent a force of a million fighters. If this time would not be fewer than that, then if not for the dispersion of spiritual energy across the land of China, which had greatly constrained the progress of cultivation, what was there to fear from the Holy See?

Everyone’s mood sank at once.

Even now, the cultivators who had arrived numbered only about two thousand, though that was not few. Their strength was all at the Golden Core stage or above, but compared with the Holy See’s combat forces, even if each one could fight a hundred opponents, they would still be able to withstand only two hundred thousand believers at most. Then who would deal with the remaining enemies?

Far away, the sea began to churn. Everyone’s senses were far beyond those of ordinary people, and they immediately detected the disturbance. The sky also turned a murky gray, bearing the look of a storm rising over the mountains, as if the rain from the far clouds were just about to sweep down.