The Divine Martial Stars

They had just decided to compromise on battling it out with Jiang Qiubai, yet the latter’s blatant contempt, sharp sarcasm, and the air of him resolutely blocking them out of the Nine Heaven Gates of the Everlasting Heaven regardless of his own safety struck them as enormous humiliation and insult.

“Kill him!”

“Well then, go to hell!”

Without further ado, the two summoned the most formidable moves the Superbs possessed and lunged at Jiang Qiubai.

In the Nine Heavens, the Spiritual Qi was abundant and the laws of heaven and earth were distinct, which boosted their powers and made their strikes several times more overwhelming.

“Humph, I’ve told you, once you’re in here, you have no hope to get out...”

Jiang Qiubai was still wearing a faint smile.

Like a boatman willing himself against a storm at sea, Jiang Qiubai simply stood on his spot motionlessly, his only hand pressing on the hem of his broke arm. Suddenly, he griped that part with all his strength, and with a crack, the bones that had started to grow back at the hem was broken again. More blood gushed down to the floor, his fingers covered in his own blood.

“Take my finger as the pen, take my blood as the ink, take the sky as the paper, take my heart as the intent... draw a circle on the ground to serve as a prison!”

Humming some ancient melodies, he raised a hand more swiftly than it seemed and drew an enigmatic sign in the void before him.

Like real ink spilled on a paper, his blood gradually congealed in the void.

That sign glowed gold. It slowly expanded into a shining golden wall in the void. When the raging wave conjured by the Wave-making Master and the potent Sword Light and Sword Qi cast by Gu Bansheng collided with that shining golden wall, they just melted into that wall and disappeared into the space behind it like a drop of water falling into the sea. The wall just stood there as if nothing had happened.

What was more, the shining wall continued expanding. It stretched in all directions and went as high as the heavens and reached as deep as the underworld. It was elongated to left and right in curves and eventually formed a massive oval in the void. Before the Wave-making Master and Gu Bansheng could register the change, the oval circle closed in on them like a golden prison and successfully trapped the two Superbs who were at the peak of martial art practice in it.

“What?” Cried the Wave-making Master in alarm.

Holding a wisp of sword light in hand, Gu Bansheng hollered, “He is burning his Source Energy... Is he out of his mind?”

On the other side of the golden wall, threads of blood that Jiang Qiubai’s broken arm donated were billowing in the void without a stop, as though they were sucked out by something. Looking as pale as a sheet, Jiang Qiubai kept moving his only arm to draw more enigmatic signs in the void with his finger dipped in his blood as he hummed those ancient melodies. Each time he finished one sign, he gave it a shove with his palm, sending the solidified sign flying to that golden wall. Once it came into contact with the golden light issued from the wall, it sprang to life as a blood-colored small snake and began to wriggle in the dazzling light...

Gu Bansheng and the Wave-making Master instantly realized that Jiang Qiubai was executing a certain horrible killing move by dint of his Source Energy.

The two were both hitten by a pang of shock.

“The master of Wolf Temple is really so hard-hearted as to do that to himself?”

Burning the Source Energy was not only the most painful torture in the world but also a move that would shatter the soul and so disable the practitioner to be reincarnated ever. Also, a small portion of his soul might be left behind in the world, putting him under perpetual torment as a wandering ghost. That was the most agonizing punishment in the mortal world. Even those standing at the peak of the martial society could not bear it.

“Fearless sea waves, intensive water of Dragon Palace... Go ahead!” The Wave-making Master launched his ace card. Dark blue sea waves that made the earth tremble surged up, carrying an array of shrilling and roaring sea creatures that had long died out on the planet, and hurtled towards that golden wall.

Meanwhile, Gu Bansheng conjured a seal and gently pressed his palms on his chest. An ancient-looking black sword instantly shot out from his palms. It was unadorned, like a long strip of plain rock. But one side of the sword was black, the other was white, standing for Yin and Yang. The double-shade blade had both its sides covered in mottled patterns. Gu Bansheng quickly grabbed the double-shade stone sword with both hands and activated hundreds of incantations. That was the Half-holy Half-evil Black-and-white Stone Sword, the most precious treasure of the Diancang Faction in the extreme south. It was forged with a meteorite and had inconceivably dreadful power.

“Evil-distinguishing Hack!”

Gu Bansheng launched his strike, which was also a move of the Superbs.

The golden wall shook dangerously under those attacks as if it would collapse at any second. Still, the blood-colored small snakes were slithering frantically inside the wall, which looked like they were writing some alien words. Odd energy started to roam in the air, mending the holes in the golden wall. Once again, all the attacks the Wave-making Master and Gu Bansheng threw at the wall vanished into the golden light. It seemed that any kind of power, incantations, or potent light would evaporate once they crossed that golden wall.

“Take my body as the wax, take my mind as the fire, take my spirit as the sacrifice to Wolf God!”

Jiang Qiubai was standing on one foot. Behind him, the gate in the middle of the Nine Heaven Gates was fully open, spilling out more beams of golden light. His battered body erected there like a reef rooted in a vortex. He stood upright like a tree, motionless like a mountain.

He was aging rapidly.

Wrinkles swiftly crawled across his handsome face. His gleaming eyes became bleary. Bags under the eyes appeared, and his skin turned chapped.

With his body being the wax and his mind being the fire, he was burning, burning, burning!

“The Wolf Temple is the most sacred place belonging to the pasture, to the white wolves, to the herdsmen and the tribes. How can I let it be desecrated by outsiders?”

“Those who offended the Wolf Temple must be killed!”

“At all costs!”

Although Jiang Qiubai’s appearance was aging, his spirit was getting more and more indomitable.

His bleary eyes were still reflecting bright light, as though there were really flames blazing behind them.

In the prison formed by the golden wall, the Wave-making Master and Gu Bansheng felt extremely unease. As Jiang Qiubai continued drawing out his blood and punching those eccentric ancient signs into the golden wall, the prison was no longer only trapping them in it but began to release terrifying pressure to refine them right there.

The two Superbs started employing all kinds of radical methods in the attempt to break out of the golden prison.

How appalling it was when two of the Nine Superbs joined hands!

Several times, the two almost threw the golden wall off.

However, Jiang Qiubai directly punctured his chest with one finger and drew out a thread of blood in his heart before conjuring dozens of signs and stowing them into the golden wall. In a trice, the power of golden light spilling out from behind the largest of the Nine Heaven Gates was awoken. The golden wall of the prison became indestructible. No matter how desperately the Wave-making Master and Gu Bansheng bombarded the wall with their strikes, the wall hardly shook again.

Jiang Qiubai’s blond hair turned snow-white simultaneously.

His good looks were lost in an instant. The hero was reduced to a white-haired old man.

At the same time, at the rear of Jiang Qiubai, an illusion of a wondrous animal appeared indistinctly.

It was a gigantic yellowish beast. It looked like a wolf, but its forelegs were unusually short. It was sturdy and fierce, with a ferocious air around it. Perhaps it was an ancient beast, but it also had a trace of intelligence that gave it an unfathomable bearing. In particular, there were rays of wisdom glinting in its eyes, as though it could see through anyone at first glance or deceive anyone without effort.

The more blood Jiang Qiubai lost, the more aged he looked, and the more visible the bizarre yellow beast behind him became.

Upon seeing that, the Wave-making Master and Gu Bansheng froze in the middle of their struggles at the same time.

“The renowned master of the Wolf Temple, one of the Nine Superbs in the World, turns out to be, haha, a huge devil!” The Wave-making Master roared with laughter.

Gu Bansheng was also very taken aback. “So the Wolf Temple is the place of a monster! Like the Temple of Devils! Though it has reigned the pasture herdsmen and tribes for so long... If this ever gets out, I’m afraid the whole world will be shocked, and the faith those pasture men hold will fall apart at once.”

It was out of question that they had just discovered the most absurd secret around the globe.

If Jiang Qiubai had not burnt his Source Energy, which caused him to gradually lose the self-control to maintain a human image, that secret would never be exposed.

“All creatures are somewhat intelligent. What’s the difference between mankind and devils? Though I am a monster and you are human beings, I am protecting people while you are destroying lives. On what grounds could you laugh now?” Bellowed Jiang Qiubai.

Yellow fur began to sprout on Jiang Qiubai’s face.

His body grew more and more stooped, and parts of it were slowly coated by fur.

As his cultivation was draining, it was hard for him to take the shape of a human being so he started revealing his real appearance.

His vigor of life was about to burn out.

Even so, he continued to draw out his blood and even bone marrow without flinching. By donating his body as the wax and his mind as the fire, he pushed the golden prison to its limit. Innumerable blood-colored tiny snakes squirmed and evolved feverishly in the golden wall. They drew support from the golden light behind the Nine Heaven Gates and turned that power into refining pressure. After a while, the two Superbs caged behind the golden wall were gradually subdued.

The Wave-making Master and Gu Bansheng were already unable to fight back. They were squashed against the floor by that intangible pressure and could not move at all.

“Senior fellow apprentice...” Howled Jiang Qiubai, drops of blood dripping out of his bleary eyes.

Those were the last bit of blood in his body.

His eyes pierced through the golden prison, through the thick layers of clouds, the white jade stairs, the passage leading to the door... and through that world and rested somewhere in the distance. A faint smile was still on his face, as though he was trying to see the face he missed most.

“Perhaps you’ve already forgotten those days we spent together in the Everlasting Heaven...”

“When you became the master of Wolf Temple, I voluntarily receded to the shade behind the shining you...”

“When you dominated the pasture and stunned the world, I voluntarily followed you like your shadow...”

“When you left the pasture for that woman, I knew that was because you had no alternative. I stayed. I stayed to keep hold of the Wolf Temple, keep hold of the home that once belonged to both of us. But now...”

“Senior fellow apprentice! Now, I already did all I can for you.”

Tears of blood trickled down Jiang Qiubai’s cheeks and fell into the void, dyeing large clusters of cloud scarlet.

As his voice died away—

Jiang Qiubai completely assumed the form of a beast.

He became a massive light yellow wolf, only that the forelegs were too short to be perceived.

No, that was not a wolf!

“It’s a Bei!” Shrieked the Wave-making Master in disbelief.

Gu Bansheng was dazed. All of sudden, inspiration hit him.

Since Jiang Qiubai was a devil, his true color was the creature that only existed in legends— Bei.

“Does that mean he is not the real master of Wolf Temple?”

“Because the master of Wolf Temple is supposed to be... a wolf, right?”