Nine Venoms Sect Founder

Chapter 120: The Invincible Mortal

If when he first meet him, Mukri heard Birandar speak such words, he'd be the first to smack the brat unconscious and drag him out of harm's way. But after what he witnessed his awakening, and the subsequent journey toward the mine, the bull no longer doubted that if one man could live up to those wordsit was him. Convulsing no end, the Soul Refining Hall's 21 elders banged their heads against the floortears streaming down their cheeks as they endured the magnified grief of all their victims. The top four snapped back to consciousness, biting their lips to blood and trembling as they stood back up. And though he experienced the greatest trauma, Weeping Soul maintained his dignity of leader by rising before his subordinatesinspiring them with his straight back. 

"The Dual Soul Root boy? You crossed your calamity already? How is that possible?" Most cultivators could only recognize experts of their path. As a Dream Seer, Weeping Soul could identify Divine Path cultivators from experience, but that was as far as it went. Recalling that "Lord Revelation" sheltered the boy, Weeping Soul blamed that thorny expert for this outcome. But in just several weeks of time, how far could Birandar's cultivation go? Even in his wildest dreams, the Reverend could never imagine that the boy challenging his faction's top expertshad not even set foot on a Cultivation Bridge yet. 

"By Master's grace and guidance, I left the sea of bitterness and awoke," Birandar started, but before he could finish his words, eerie vines shot out of the ground alongside massive tree branches to trap his legs and stab his chest, respectively. Wasting no time, the top four elders moved their hands in arcane gestures, and with grasping motion, unleashed mystical forces that latched on and attempted to rip Birandar's soul out of his body. 

Meanwhile, Weeping Soul supported the lower ranked elders' souls, enabling them to break free from their internal disaster to support their peers. "Undisturbed I am. Undisturbed is my soul," Birandar said. White rays shot out of his third eye, becoming a thin white sheen that wrapped his bodysheltering it from all harms. The vines and branches fled back into the ground. The four elders' spiritual attacks bounced against the barrier and worked in reversewreaking the casters' souls instead. 

Spewing grief-stricken screeches, the four elders backpedaled, and in a desperate attempt to resist their own move, turned into 87 meters tall Weeping Soul Trees. The trees' eyes went bloodshot, their elastic branches swayed in erratic dances, but as they suppressed the soul strike, Birandar appeared amidst the group, whirled 360, and sent them all flying with palm strikes. 

The four Weeping Soul Trees hurtled into the walls with clear palm prints on their trunks. The others were less fortunate. 

Smack! Smack! Smack!

A succession of slapping sounds marked the greatest disgrace in the Soul Refining Hall's history. Faster than any of them could handle, Birandar smacked the recovering elders across the cheek, sending them spiraling across the air like twirling ballerinas. Ignoring his subordinates' precarious conditions, Weeping Soul leaped out of Birandar's range, moving fast enough to avoid the palm strike coming his way. Birandar's hands curved into a biting snake style and, chasing after the Reverend, he struck at his eyes and neck. A rapid succession of blows followed, with Weeping Soul avoiding each of Birandar's strikes by a hair's breadth. This went on until the Reverend found his back against a wall.

Pushing his instincts to the limit, Weeping Soul directly soared into the airor so he initially wanted to. But from Birandar's third eye, a pressure he couldn't comprehend surged and pinned him down. That purple eye and white iris were like a mirror of Weeping Soul's sins, revealing the Truth of his infinite misdeeds to his suppressed conscience. That suppression didn't last one second, but was more than Birandar needed. Clenching his fists, the herculean youth rammed a double punch into Weeping Soul's face and chestboth caved in, broken teeth and spraying blood stained Birandar's fists, and to the elders' shock, the Reverend shot through the cavern wallslanding on another road. 

The hall fell still. Regardless of their precise rank, the 21 elders stared at the Reverend-shaped hole, unable to believe their eyes. Wrecked beyond recognition, Weeping Soul lay on the ground, coughing no end. His mangled face put scarecrows to shame, but never the materialistic sort or dating type to begin with, the Reverend didn't care for such details. His mind formed countless conjectures, and yet he still came to the same conclusion.

Even if he couldn't appraise Birandar's cultivation, cultivators all had something that set them aside from mortals: the luster of their skin, their breathing patterns, the complex energies in the bodies, the phenomenon that followed their tracks. In short, there had to be something an attentive expert could pick up, but that third eye aside, Birandar had nothing. Why then was he thrashing him? 

There was only one explanation: depending on his inborn gifts, aptitudes or some fortuitous encounters, Birandar comprehended some top-tier Mysteries that enabled him to alter his mortal body to match deities. Even that made no sense, yet the next move proved the Reverend's words. 

Eager to save their leader, the lower-ranked elders summoned chiming bronze bells which they hurled at Birandar. The four Weeping Soul Trees didn't stay idle, unleashing mournful howls that turned the grief of thousands into a malignant spiritual attack. A horde of icy-blue banshees formed around Birandar, closing on him as the bells moved faster than the speed of sound to obliterate the mortal threat. 

Joining his hands in a prayer sign, Birandar closed his human eyes, mystical white mist gushed out of his chest, making the shrieking banshees and bells vanish from the cavern. Right, poofgone, as if they never existed to begin with. Worst, Weeping Soul could sense the confusion in his subordinates, as if they all wondered what they'd been doing until now and no longer recalled their previous movesthe Mystery of Truth!

"In the Heavenly Dream Land, when even Monarchs dare not attempt it, a mortalcomprehended the Mystery of Truth?" The Reverend was scared out of his wits, and who could blame him? Nakula aside, very few cultivated the Mystery of Truth, and among those who did, only Xerzan was born in the Heavenly Dream Land. The rest came from the outer world. Cultivating and using the Mystery of Truth in the Heavenly Dream Land was an immemorial taboo. Rajan, the Golden Crow Marquis' fate was the clearest example. 

But Birandar could use it as he pleased, and according to Weeping Soul's evaluation, he'd reached middle-accomplishment already. Talent alone could never explain this situation, but knowing that his life was now at stake, Weeping Soul stood up and stretched out his hands. Just like his top four elders, he turned into a Weeping Soul Tree, a 99 meters tall treant that towered above all the rest. Tears trickled down the face-shaped fruits on his branches. 

By sacrificing those tens of thousands of fruits, Weeping Soul could make his strength reach a disastrous level. But if he did, his plans and hopes ended now. Understanding their master's distress, the Soul Refining Hall's top four elders took the bull by the hornand attacked their lower-ranked peers!

Dark-green branches shot out from underneath the weaker seers, stabbing their hearts or foreheads. Immediately afterward, the top four ignited their soul fruits, turned against one another, and in a ritual suicide, destroyed the Soul Refining Hall's elder cycle. A massive surge of Sacrifice Essence pervaded the atmosphere, becoming a yellow whirlpool that siphoned the 21 corpsesturning them into a grotesque mass of flesh and twisted faces.