Chapter 26: The Dao Lord's Radiant Light

"What a sharp eye you have, Daoist!"

The wandering traveler who witnessed this couldn't help but feel a surge of regret.

He had sensed the bronze short sword was something special, yet he'd failed to recognize its true worth and sold it for far too little!

If it truly was a magical sword capable of subduing demons and suppressing ghosts, then he had suffered a tremendous loss!

But haggling at a stall was always a matter of each party relying on their own eye — even if he'd come out the worse for it, the traveler could only pinch his nose and accept the outcome.

Li Qingyun was in high spirits. Taking advantage of the remaining time, he continued browsing the stalls. At an old man's booth, he spotted some lacquered gourds and bought two, filling them with fresh water for the road ahead.

By the time Zhao Yifan led the horses over, Li Qingyun had managed a last-minute scramble to get himself reasonably equipped.

He casually handed one of the water-filled gourds to his Senior Brother.

"Junior Brother Qingyun always thinks of everything. My throat was just starting to burn — though it's a shame you didn't fill it with wine instead!"

Zhao Yifan laughed heartily and accepted the gourd without ceremony.

The two mounted their horses and rode down the main street toward the edge of town, pedestrians parting to make way.

Just then, Yuanbao — the big black cat who had vanished for half the day — suddenly darted out from a nearby lane and leaped onto Li Qingyun's horse in a single fluid bound.

Its belly was round and stuffed full. It held a fragrant piece of cooked meat in its mouth and nudged it toward its owner, as if to say: the great cat lord doesn't eat alone.

"Keep it for yourself. Let's go..."

Li Qingyun was at a loss for words. He gave a light squeeze with his legs and guided the horse forward with practiced ease.

Back at the manor, he had already mastered riding, archery, and swordsmanship, doing his best to equip himself with every skill that might help him survive in a turbulent world.

"Junior Brother's cat is something else — I thought it had gotten lost!"

Zhao Yifan spurred his horse to catch up, eyeing the cat lounging regally on the saddle with undisguised envy. Yuanbao, for its part, couldn't even be bothered to glance at him.

The autumn sun had already grown dim. The two rode swiftly along the main road, heading west out of town.

Once they left the town behind, the bustle faded away. What greeted them instead was a vast, primordial desolation — so sweeping and empty that Li Qingyun felt a fleeting sense of breathlessness.

They galloped on, the mountain ridges and forest trees on either side blurring past.

Tall trees flanking the road blocked out the sunlight, casting dappled shadows across the path. Travelers and carts were few and far between, lending the road a cold and desolate air.

Before long, dusk was drawing near.

The darker patches along the roadside began to draw his attention. Instinct told him that in this vast, dimming wilderness, countless sinister things were beginning to stir.

While the sun blazed overhead during the day, demons and ghosts rarely showed themselves.

But at night, yin energy surged back to life, demonic auras drifted through the air, and danger lurked on all sides.

Even Yuanbao, perched on the saddle, grew noticeably more serious, his eyes scanning the surroundings with sharp vigilance.

As the sky darkened, travelers on the road began to grow anxious, quickening their pace. Riders and cart drivers called out to one another with increasing urgency, all racing to reach the nearest village or town before full nightfall — somewhere safer.

As a rule, experienced merchant caravans always planned their timing carefully, estimating in advance how long it would take to travel from one settlement to the next safe stop. They would never risk traveling after dark.

But reality always had a way of throwing in unexpected delays.

Dust clouds billowed in the fading light. Li Qingyun could see on the road ahead one or two sizable merchant caravans, along with scattered groups of three to five travelers moving together, all hurrying along with grave expressions — some even visibly frightened.

"Qingyun, there's a ruined temple about six miles ahead. Let's push hard and try to spend the night there!"

Zhao Yifan was clearly anxious as well, urging his horse to go faster.

The third layer of Qi Refining might seem impressive to ordinary people, but to slightly more powerful demons and ghosts, it was little more than a particularly robust meal — a source of yang energy and vitality.

Within a hundred miles of Lingbao Temple, this stretch of land was relatively tame. The temple's Daoists regularly patrolled and drove out demons and evil spirits, so malevolent entities in the area were far fewer than elsewhere.

The sun had just dipped below the horizon, and the first traces of night were seeping in.

The scattered travelers still on the road began calling out to one another, instinctively clustering together in an unspoken agreement to travel in groups.

"Light the torches!"

"Put on the spirit talismans!"

"Invoke the Dao Lords!"

Anxious shouts rang out one after another. They lit tung-oil torches, the flames blazing up and illuminating the surroundings, driving back the shadowy shapes that had been creeping closer in the darkness.

The wandering travelers, merchant guards, and others all produced Evil-Warding Talismans without prompting, pressing one onto themselves and another onto their swords and bows, then pressing on with grim, watchful eyes fixed on the murky shadows.

Some, with expressions of deep reverence, brought out Dao Lord figurines — some carved from wood, some from stone, and others fashioned from precious gold and jade.

Some placed the figurines atop their carriages; others cradled them against their chests. One by one, the solemn-faced statues began to emit rings of radiant light, exuding a strange power that calmed the spirit and repelled demons and evil.

The larger the figurine and the finer its material, the wider the radius of its radiant light.

"Before, all the Dao Lord figurines' radiant light looked the same color to me — enough to frighten off evil spirits and ghosts. But now that I have some cultivation, I can see that each Dao Lord's radiant light is actually different..."

Li Qingyun slowed his horse alongside Zhao Yifan and quietly channeled his Dharma Power into his eyes.

Through his cultivator's eye, the rings of radiant light emanating from the various figurines differed in coverage, hue, brightness, and the sense of divine authority they projected.

The light from the statues was not the uniform, faint glow that ordinary people perceived — some shone with a yellow radiance, some burst with red light, and others gleamed with golden brilliance.

Their intensity varied, and the divine majesty they radiated was of clearly different magnitudes.

Li Qingyun noticed that among all the figurines on the road at that moment, the one with the widest coverage and greatest brilliance was the gold-and-jade Dao Lord figurine mounted atop the carriage of the merchant caravan ahead.

That figurine was crafted from gold and jade, costly to make and exquisitely carved. The female Dao Lord depicted wore her hair in a high palace coiffure, her jade face carrying an air of authority, her eyes holding a faint, distant serenity. The pale jade-green robes carved upon her seemed to billow in an unseen wind.

Her beauty was breathtaking, every detail of her features and garments rendered with lifelike precision.

Yet despite her transcendent loveliness, the divine majesty that radiated from the Dao Lord made it impossible to harbor even the faintest thought of irreverence.

Perhaps because this female Dao Lord had possessed extraordinary divine power in life, or because she had been worshipped for so many years, or because the figurine had absorbed incense offerings in temples and shrines for so long — whatever the reason, through Li Qingyun's cultivator's eye, the graceful statue radiated a blazing ring of crimson light that enveloped the entire merchant caravan within its embrace.

"This doesn't look like any of the Dao Lords from Lingbao Temple..."

He found that it didn't match any of the Dao Lords recorded in the "Lingbao Celestial's Answers to Doubts" from the Scripture Repository. Lingbao Temple had no record of a female Dao Lord in its history.

Li Qingyun focused his gaze intently — and suddenly the gold-and-jade figurine's crimson radiance flared, stabbing into his eyes with a sharp pain. He quickly averted his gaze, not daring to look directly at it again.

"What overwhelming divine majesty from this Dao Lord!"

He silently marveled at the female Dao Lord's transcendent grace, feeling the weight of that almost tangible authority, and couldn't help murmuring softly.

"Junior Brother, that one is Dao Lord Biluo — she ascended and merged with the Dao three hundred years ago from Biyou Palace, and is perhaps the most unfathomably powerful existence in the entire history of the Ghostly Realm of You!"

Zhao Yifan, riding alertly alongside him, had sharp ears. Catching Li Qingyun's quiet exclamation, he offered an explanation.

"However, ordinary people cannot obtain the protection of this Dao Lord. To invite even a trace of her divine will to reside within a figurine requires meeting a whole host of strict conditions. Look at that merchant caravan ahead — their banner bears a Vermilion Phoenix. That must be the Four Seas Pavilion. No wonder they were able to obtain a divine effigy of Dao Lord Biluo..."

As he spoke of Dao Lord Biluo, Zhao Yifan's tone and expression could not conceal his reverence and admiration.