The polluted source, a divine beast and a call!

After days, it seemed to him, they reached a huge, spacious cave entrance. It was densely overgrown and at first glance you wouldn't have recognized it at all, but Zhen yan pushed aside the hanging greenery and stepped inside.

Everything changed immediately. It got cold, so cold that Ying yue herself started to tremble under Zhen yan's warming spell. He breathed clouds of mist, everything was damp and a wet film covered their skin. It was pitch black, not even the miasma could be seen anymore. Ying yue blinked.

»The clear view doesn't work here. Although the source has been contaminated, it has retained its properties such as the cancellation of magic,« Zhen yan said. Ying yue looked down. The green, flickering smoke had disappeared. His robe shimmered slightly, then everything was dark.

Ying yue released Zhen yan's grip and pulled out Xiaodan, immediately the silvery glow of the blade spread and everything was bathed in a soft light. He swung the sword until he found a part of the cave wall where they could continue to feel their way. Ying yue tried to hide his headache. At least the air in here was better than outside, but just because he couldn't see it anymore didn't mean the miasma wasn't still there.

After hours of walking in the damp, cold cave passages, a spacious cave suddenly opened up before them. Ying yue slipped and slid down the slope covered with sharp, flat stones. Strong arms reached for him and when he arrived at the bottom, he was breathing quickly and in Zhen yan's embrace. He pushed the demon away.

The humiliating ordeal was not forgotten. Ying yue raised his head. The cave was gigantic, the ceiling was hardly visible, trees with enormous roots and dozens of smaller lakes spilled over the ground. This sight would have been beautiful if it hadn't been so terrible. The waters were black and still, the trees dead and what hung from them was no longer alive.

Ying yue brushed aside a dried-up garland of a willow, which immediately crumbled to dust at his touch. In the middle of the cave stood a giant tree. Its white wood glowed, but it too was dead and so brittle that Ying yue instinctively held her breath. The tree had a mighty trunk and wide-spreading branches that branched out below the cave ceiling.

Something rose in Ying yue's memory, the drawing of such a tree, but the white wood was more vividly depicted, the wide, spreading branches were supported by dozens of other trees, and lilac-colored flowers hung down in heavy garlands.

»A divine tree?« he exclaimed in surprise, and his soft voice cut through the silence like a blade. Hundreds of thousands of years ago, as the ancient temple scriptures told, divine trees were the gateways of the heavenly immortals. Through them, they could enter the mortal realm and through them, humans could speak to the gods.

But when the great demon emerged from the Daiyu Plains and struck back at the gods, they destroyed these gateways to prevent the demon from entering heaven. The natural flow of the mountain's yang energy had to originate from the Tree of the Gods.

»Although the gate was sealed long ago, the natural flow of energy was not affected, because the tree itself generated it and was the source, and not the realm of the gods from which it came. Someone must have defiled the divine tree itself,« said Zhen yan. Ying yue looked around as they waded through the black, still water.

He had expected a demon, a much more monstrous beast than those he had encountered outside. But the cave remained strangely silent. They stopped in front of the tree, its roots sunk deep in the water, yet some of them broke the surface. Something about the shape seemed strange to him. Ying yue continued to search his mind for details. But it had been a long time since he had read these scriptures.

Back then, he had been a child visiting a temple, and the scriptures had not been given to him voluntarily. He had stumbled across the sanctuary of the temple and its sacred writings. While he was thinking and walking around the tree, Zhen yan noticed how the water surface rippled. Although nothing fell on it, it formed gentle waves. Ying yue's head shot up.

»GET OUT OF THE WATER QUICKLY!« he shouted. Zhen yan turned to him, at the same moment the earth began to shake and Ying yue had trouble wading out of the water to one of the islands. Zhen yan watched as the tree rose. Its branches pressed against the cave ceiling and gave way with a crash. The tree was lifted out of the water, roots and all, and the shell of a giant turtle appeared.

The shell was black, covered in moss, and covered with graceful characters that had faded over the centuries. Ying yue clung to one of the trees, but the rotten, old wood broke under his fingers and he kept slipping. Skidding, he threatened to plunge into the black water, when Zhen yan grabbed his collar and jumped. The demon landed with him not far from the shaking tree on another small island. Everywhere, bubbles rose from the small pools and snake-like necks with the head of a turtle emerged. That was what he had forgotten.

Of course the divine trees were protected. Their guardians were divine beasts, emissaries of the nine heavens. But there was nothing divine about this beast anymore. Xiaodan vibrated and when Ying yue unsheathed it, it made a high, clanging sound. Heads turned around, there were seven of them in total. The shell rose higher and higher out of the water and pressed the remains of the tree against the cave wall until only broken, white stumps remained, sticking out of the shell like bones.

So the polluted source was not the tree, but the turtle, which over the centuries had absorbed the spiritual power and, of course, the pollution. They retreated further and further, until the tortoise shell almost filled the entire cave and all seven heads glared at them venomously.

They opened their beak-shaped mouths and rumbling, drawn-out, unintelligible words resounded again. Ying yue dashed forward first, aiming to cut the long, thigh-thick neck with a single blow, but Xiaodan bounced off and vibrated painfully in his hand. The young swordsman turned around, threw his sword into the air and murmured a spell before Xiaodan replicated himself a hundredfold and rained down on the heads and shells as a sword rain.

This also remained unsuccessful. On closer inspection, shiny black scales covered the turtle's skin. With each blow, they glowed ominously and absorbed all the power that lay within. Ying yue rolled over the shell as the heads were also wrapped in green, hissing ones; they screeched and a terrible crunching and cracking filled the air.

They quickly pulled their heads under water before shooting out again like an arrow and spitting a torrent of black water at Zhen yan. Ying yue could see the green smoke flickering, it had broken some of the scales and was crawling under the skin, but apart from a few vicious cries of pain, there was no reaction.

Zhen yan's magic probably couldn't get deep enough into the flesh. Ying yue swung Xiaodan energetically, let go of the sword and it crashed right onto the cracked spot. A scale came loose, but Xiaodan clanged so heart-wrenchingly that Ying yue ordered it back into his hand. The scaly skin of the beast lit up, like a wave it engulfed the beast and rearranged itself, the recently knocked-out scales were replaced and seemed to cling even tighter.

Six of the seven heads hacked at the great demon, who deftly dodged them but couldn't do much himself. With a casual hand movement, he summoned his shield and stretched it open. He held back four of the six heads; the other two twisted around and wanted to attack him from the side. They opened their mouths and with a thieving grin, Zhen yan let his magic flow.

The heads screeched and writhed. Ying yue, at whom one head had turned, watched the fight out of the corner of his eye. Yes, he knew that he seemed weaker than Zhen yan, but the fact that only one head turned to face him was a stab at his pride. He spun Xiaodan and raised it to eye level, cutting his index and ring finger with the blade before he spread drops of his blood on them

. Xiaodan's silvery glow intensified, taking on a silver-blue tone, and the bright, clinking sound rose. Zhen yan, who had sensed the smell of blood, looked up in alarm.

»Ying yue?« he called, alarmed.

Ying yue pushed off from the carapace and spun in the air, the black water rising around him, but leaving the darkness behind with every meter, until clear fountains curled around his body. He paused, jumped back and fired the water, which had frozen into icicles, at the head. When it hit one of the cloudy eyes, the animal let out a painful howl.

Ying yue didn't hesitate for long, he gathered the water again, let Xiaodan slide down the blade and formed a pointed, jagged stake that he sank deep into the turtle's eye. The beast hissed and snapped at him with its dangerously sharp mouth, and even though Ying yue had put it under a lot of pressure, the head was still not defeated.

Zhen yan had watched the scene, he gathered his magic in the form of green smoke around him, the columns of smoke surrounded him, stood out and pierced like solid spikes in the eyes of the heads that had come too close. Black water gushed out of the empty cavities, now only three of seven heads had eyes, but the others were far from defeated. They writhed and twitched, as if listening.

The monster shook itself and Ying yue had trouble staying on the shell. Automatically, he reached for something to hold on to, but what he grabbed cracked, and he slid back across the shell.

»Ying yue!« Zhen yan called, and wanted to go to him, but the heads blocked his way with a hissing sound. One of them snapped at Zhen yan's arm, there was an ugly crack, and then Ying yue splashed into the water.

»Bai Yingyue!« He heard Zhenyan call after him for the last time before the black water closed over him and he sank into the icy darkness. One of the turtle's jaws caught his leg, a sharp pain shot through him, but he clenched his lips tightly so that he wouldn't swallow any water. He felt the blood spurt from his wound, and the cold seeped into his bones.

Then the pain began. Like a raging poison, the black water spread through his veins and spiritual channels in his body. It was a high, piercing pain that exploded in his head. He reached for his head with both hands, Xiaodan's silver-blue light flickered and was unable to stop it, but the object he had grabbed as he fell sank deep into the beast's skull until it let go of him.

Dazed with pain and swallowing more and more water, he drifted away. The white wood in his hand began to glow, only very weakly, and pulled him along with a light current. When his head broke through the surface of the water, he couldn't see anything; he was not in the same cave as before. Snorting, he groped for the shore, and he got hold of something that felt strange but firm, and he heaved himself up. Ying yue choked a few times and vomited a torrent of black water.

He was poisoned to the core. Perhaps even his years of cultivation were irreparably damaged. The water was liquid miasma, he had recognized. Instead of the fine mist, it had spoiled the water in the cave so much that it resembled pure miasma.

Ying yue crawled forward, pulling his injured leg with him. When he held Xiaodan and the stick from the tree of heaven together, they gave him a pale little light. His foot was twisted strangely, he gritted his teeth and twisted it back into place with a jerk, then fixed it with his hair ribbon. He took a few deep breaths in and out; by now it didn't matter how much of the poison he would inhale.

He was half dead anyway. If the poisoning dissipated his spiritual energy, he would succumb to his wounds with the abilities of an ordinary mortal. It took him a few tries to get up. Everything was pitch black.

»Zhen yan!« he called. No answer. How far had he drifted? He took Xiaodan and the stick in one hand and lit the path in front of him, while limping and drawing a trail of blood behind him. He looked at the piece of dead wood in front of him. Although the tree of heaven was clearly dead, the piece of wood had had more impact than his own sword.

Did the beast want to destroy the tree on purpose when they entered? It would certainly not have been necessary to fully rise, but it had pushed its shell further and further against the cave ceiling. The dead tree was probably its weak spot. In the wide cave, he heard the dripping of his clothes on the ground. He frowned as he looked at the ground more closely.

It looked as if it was alive. Although it was hard, a fine layer of white skin stretched over it, and underneath he could see wafer-thin veins. He stroked it. This was a bone plate. He quickly rose and limped randomly in one direction, with his injury it took longer, but eventually he reached one of the »cave walls«.

Here, too, a hard whitish layer with blood vessels shimmering through covered the wall. He gasped. He hadn't drifted away, he was inside the turtle, he must have been washed into the shell. But the beast was hollow inside, there were no organs, no flesh, nothing, it was completely empty. So what was keeping it alive? Ying yue summoned his last bit of strength and swung Xiaodan into the air, summoning hundreds of replicas again and hurling them in a wide circle onto the ground.

The swords dug deep into the bone plate, causing blood to spurt, and the ground began to shake. The pale light fully illuminated the ground. But there was nothing there. Only pure white. Again he conjured with the spell, swords, this time they pierced the walls until blood ran down and he stood in a small red lake. He repeated this process several times until thousands of lightswords were stuck in the turtle, illuminating the entire interior.

Ying yue felt miserable, he was sick to his stomach. He had no more strength, neither physical nor mental. He looked around, the blood now reached his ankles and the sharp pain in his foot increased steadily.

Then he examined the ceiling and gasped in shock. There, where the roots of the divine tree pierced through the armor, between the densely intergrown roots, he recognized a splinter of black jade. It was neither particularly thick nor large, yet it impaled the tree and the beast.

Ying yue was sure that the thing didn't belong to a divine tree or a divine beast. An ominous aura emanated from the splinter of black jade, and the miasma billowed out of the splinter and seeped out through the armor. Given the amount, it wasn't hard to imagine that the fubei senlin had become so overrun in just a few years. He had the sword copies reassembled into Xiaodan. Green smoke poured in from the thousands of tiny holes he had drilled.

Ying yue frowned, he wasn't afraid of Zhen yan's magic, it had never hurt him before. Still, it was an impressive display. The smoke slid up and down the walls, and when it reached Ying yue, it trembled. It coiled up, enveloping his broken foot and silencing the pain. Although Ying yue felt the poison within him eating away at him, he felt warm as the smoke enveloped him. He was almost so exhausted that he felt like collapsing into it, like someone falling into bed after a hard day's work.

But instead, he gathered the last of his strength now that the pain had receded into the background. He felt the spiritual energy within him flickering in protest, as if demanding to give up completely. He paused. Perhaps he had become overconfident after the time with Zhen yan, who was so resilient that nothing could harm him, arrogant? Continuing to fight would mean death for him.

But not fighting could mean death for hundreds of cultivators at the foot of the mountain. If they didn't resolve the contamination now, there would be no one to stop it. First the camp would be overrun, then the surrounding villages. How long would it take before there were no more boundaries? But would his sacrifice even make sense? Even if he pulled the jade splinter here and now and the source of the miasma dried up, all the mutant Yao would immediately head for the source of the protective spells.

Even without the source, the cultivators would suffer a major setback. How long would it take for them to recover enough to complete the mission at the Fubei senlin? And would they even accept this mission again without knowing that the source had been eliminated? Normally, one would at least send out a search party for a son of the great clans and then of course also come across the cave and piece together the rest.

But he was only half the son of the Bai clan. As long as Lingxi was fine, his father wouldn't lift a finger to look for him. Ying yue's hands trembled. Why was he so full of doubt? What had happened that he could no longer see the path that had always been so clear and distinct before him? He didn't want to die when the situation was so hopeless, what use was his death if he couldn't even save someone by doing so.

In the past, he would have run into the open knife without hesitation if there had been even the slightest chance of success, but now...? He looked down at the green smoke that covered him completely, touching every inch of his skin and giving him warmth. Now, for the first time, there was someone who didn't stab him, but held him back.

Ying yue swallowed, thoughts raced through his mind, he felt a fever spreading inside him, the poisoning had reached its peak, he would die whether he saved others or not. Tears stung his eyes, when a single one rolled down his cheek, the green smoke absorbed it.

»ZHEN YAN?«

What happened next, he only remembered in fragments, like incoherent images that lined up in front of him, but every time he tried to grasp them, they vanished.

In one image, he saw the turtle's shell split open and the green smoke pouring towards him in masses. He saw eyes, emerald green, dark and so deep that he could lose himself in them. Black hair and a wild demon. He saw the smoke enter the jade splinter, but instead of destroying it, the splinter disintegrated into green dust and mixed with the swirling tongues. He remembered falling, but not the impact.