Chapter Eighty-Six: Balm of Ten Thousand Beasts

The evening breeze stirred gently.

Pang Yue and Jin Yuege stood in the void, the deep blue sea far beneath their feet. Bathed in the afterglow of the setting sun, the ocean’s surface was veiled in a heavy, dark crimson.

The two stood side by side and watched the sun for a while. Before they knew it, night had deepened, and stars glittered across the heavens.

“This is where I leave you,” Jin Yuege said with a smile, flicking a shaft of golden light into the sea.

Pang Yue nodded. Looking at the scene before him, he suddenly recalled an ancient verse from a former life.

“From this parting, years will pass; fair days and lovely sights will be for naught. And though there be a thousand tender moods, to whom shall they be spoken?”

Jin Yuege burst out laughing. “Keep such sultry nonsense for the little sirens of the Eastern Sea, who look proper enough on the surface but are really as wanton as can be. We demon folk don’t play that game.”

Her lovely eyes glimmered as the tight golden gown clung to her form, the evening breeze outlining her graceful, voluptuous figure without reserve.

Pang Yue laughed heartily, about to speak, when from the sea there suddenly rose a soft melody. A cluster of spiritual light surrounded more than a dozen young, beautiful women in splendid dress, each riding a sea beast and holding a musical instrument, drifting in and out of sight amid the far reaches of sea and sky.

In an instant, the light emerged from the ocean.

It was a giant whale bearing a gold-and-jade palace suffused with gentle radiance, encircled by dozens of demonfolk.

At the front, a demon general in armor stood upon the sea and knelt on one knee, saying respectfully, “This subordinate greets the Third Princess!”

Jin Yuege looked back at Pang Yue and smiled with easy grace. “Fellow Daoist, until we meet again.”

“Until we meet again,” Pang Yue replied with a smile.

In a flash, Jin Yuege entered the gold-and-jade palace.

The demon general glanced curiously at Pang Yue, then turned and barked, “Return to the palace!”

At his command, the whale sank beneath the sea with the palace upon its back.

Blue sea, azure sky, bright moon overhead.

On the vast, lonely expanse of water, Pang Yue was left alone.

The sea and sky were hushed and empty.

With a quiet sigh, Pang Yue steadied his mind, turned into a streak of strange black radiance, and flew back the way he had come.

...

The next day.

On a barren island, Pang Yue was using beast-luring incense to draw sea demons toward him, then redeeming them with the Boundless Light Buddha.

Suddenly, he saw in the distance blue waves like mountains surging up to half the sky.

Atop the waves, a creature resembling a yaksha with wings growing from its ribs was charging up from the sea.

Then a clear, glittering star of light, only the size of a fist, shot out from behind it and struck its body, vanishing in an instant.

The next moment came a dull explosion. Amid a shrill cry, the creature was blown apart on the spot.

Blood and flesh flew everywhere, but all of it was seized by an invisible force and fell into a man’s hand.

The man wore a white robe and had a plump, round build. He walked upon the sea as though upon level ground.

The creature’s blood and flesh gathered in his hand into a fist-sized meatball, which he promptly stuffed into his mouth and chewed slowly and savoringly.

Standing at a distance, the white-clad man looked at Pang Yue regretfully. “Fellow Daoist, what a waste of treasure. So much fine meat, and you’ve gone and ruined it with Buddhist light!”

Pang Yue frowned. “Lately, why do I keep running into people from the Devouring Spirit Island? Bad luck, truly!”

The white-clad man laughed. “Fellow Daoist, you must be an inland cultivator recruited by the Wang family as well. You are the thirty-ninth Foundation cultivator I’ve met.”

He paused, then added, “The first thirty-eight have all been eaten by me.”

“Idiot.”

Pang Yue had no patience for nonsense. He pointed at the white-clad man, and a golden bubble appeared out of nowhere, trapping him inside.

The man opened his mouth and spat out a clear star of light, which burst against the golden bubble.

With a dull pop, the bubble shuddered slightly, but did not break.

The white-clad man’s expression changed, wariness surfacing on his face. “Heavenly fiend arts? You are a demon talisman cultivator?”

His answer was a streak of black sword light.

Trapped inside the golden bubble, the white-clad man had nowhere to flee. He could only pour all his power into resisting the sword glow.

Sshh!

In the next instant, the sword light flashed by like lightning.

The man’s head flew up from his shoulders.

Pang Yue reached out and drew the head to himself, then touched a finger to it and cast a soul-searching secret art to inspect its memories.

After a moment, he kicked out, and the man’s head arced through the air before landing far away in the sea.

Pang Yue wore a thoughtful expression as his mind turned.

From the white-clad man’s soul, he learned that in the current war between the Wang family and Devouring Spirit Island, the Wang family had already gained the upper hand.

Under a heavy reward, brave men would come forth in abundance.

Lured by the Wang family’s bounty, large numbers of wandering cultivators from the inner seas had gathered around Devouring Spirit Island.

The slaughter was relentless.

Golden Core cultivators had also begun fighting openly. In recent days, several Golden Core experts from Devouring Spirit Island had already fallen.

The corpses of the Wang family’s refined zombies were fearless in death and exceptionally skilled at killing. On the battlefield, they were advancing with unstoppable force.

As time passed, the many corpses of cultivators on the battlefield were also put to use by the Wang family, refined into Dark Thunder through corpse-explosion secret techniques, giving the cultivators of Devouring Spirit Island endless headaches.

In other words, the longer the battle dragged on, and the more cultivators died, the more advantageous it became for the Wang family.

For now, the side of Devouring Spirit Island could only hold fast to the thirty-six outer islands and rely on great formations to fend off the enemy.

What truly moved Pang Yue, however, was a specialty of Devouring Spirit Island.

Ten-Thousand-Beast Fat Oil.

This treasure was a secret craft unique to Devouring Spirit Island, made from the fats of ten thousand kinds of sea beasts, combined with other heavenly materials and earthly treasures, and simmered for a hundred years in painstaking refinement.

Its use was singular: it was a weapon against outer fiends.

To fiends beyond the heavens, Ten-Thousand-Beast Fat Oil was as irresistible as strong wine is to a drunkard.

Once they caught its scent, they would swarm to it in droves, falling into intoxication at once.

Cultivators of Devouring Spirit Island often used this oil to lure outer fiends in, and once they had been stupefied, set restrictions upon them before presenting them to Golden Core elders as a delicacy.

Indeed, fiends were one of the delicacies on the menu of Devouring Spirit Island’s cultivators.

It was a pity the oil was so difficult to refine, and once successfully made, it could not be moved. It had to be refined and used on the spot.

This was also the reason for the thirty-six subsidiary islands around Devouring Spirit Island.

Each of the thirty-six islands possessed an oil pit.

Pang Yue was drawn to the uses of this Ten-Thousand-Beast Fat Oil.

Whether for seizing the Dao from celestial fiends or refining the Boundless Light Buddha, it was a superb treasure material.

His eyes flickered. Beast-luring incense could after all only draw in a few ordinary Foundation-stage demons, and its usefulness to the Boundless Light Buddha was becoming smaller and smaller.

But the outer heavens were filled with endless fiends. If he could redeem a hundred thousand, or even eight hundred thousand of them, the Boundless Light Buddha would surely break through to the Golden Core realm.

“I have to make this trip,” Pang Yue decided, looking off into the distance.

He put away the Boundless Light Buddha and flew straight toward the horizon.

...

Houyun Island.

One of the thirty-six outer islands of Devouring Spirit Island.

The protective grand formation was open, like an inverted bowl covering the island.

Radiant light shimmered across its surface, runes circulated within it, and it breathed in and out in harmony with the island’s spiritual veins, making it exceptionally sturdy.

Even a first-tier magic treasure would find it extremely difficult to break this formation.

On the Wang family’s side, several hundred cultivators had formed a great array in the void outside the island, facing off from afar.

The Wang forces were led primarily by more than ten cultivators of their own clan, joined by several hundred collateral disciples and wandering cultivators. Among them alone were nearly thirty Foundation cultivators.

At their head stood a tall woman with phoenix eyes full of killing intent. She wore a black long dress and stood upon a crimson coffin. Her aura was so chilling that none dared approach her.