Then the sword slashed a second time, toward the three incoming figures from the Ji Clan. They could do absolutely nothing to block it, and disappeared in a haze of blood. The sword continued to slash downward into the Ji Clan ancestral mansion. A massive gorge was hewn out through multiple layers of the mansion as the sword headed toward the same location where the man’s wife had been stopped the last time she had gone to that place. Sitting at the top of a tall staircase was a young man. 1
The young man’s face flickered, and he immediately roared and counter-attacked with all the power he could muster. A boom rattled out, and blood sprayed from his mouth as both of his arms were severed! They flew up into the air and spontaneously combusted, gone for all eternity.
“Your clan wishes to infect my son’s Karma!? You’re nothing but a puny peak Immortal Realm Dao Lord who hasn’t even opened the great door to the Ancient Realm, and yet you dared to chide my wife? I’m severing your arms! Furthermore, you’ll never reach the Ancient Realm in this lifetime!” 2
The sword slashed a third time, toward the face up in the sky. Massive amounts of sword qi billowed out, and a huge rift was opened up in the sky. The face vanished.
“If your honored clan chief were here, I would obviously be no match for him. But the trifling strand of divine will that has become the Heavens of South Heaven… is not enough to keep me under its thumb!
“You listen to me, Ji Clan. I, Fang, have a family with four people in it. We’ve only been in the lands of South Heaven for a few hundred years, and have done nothing to interfere with your operations here. But starting today… I will fully assume my status as the Prison Warden of the Ninth Mountain. Henceforth, the Ji Clan will keep itself in line! If you harbor even the slightest ill intentions… well, let me remind you that you’re nothing more than an offshoot of the Ji Clan. Besides, even if you were the main branch, I’ve lost count of how many people I’ve killed from there!”
The Ji Clan instantly fell silent.
It was at this point that the woman’s proud voice could be heard from within the Tower of Tang.
“Listen up, you people. When my Hao’er returns, you little twerps who owe him spirit stones had better pay them back or else!”
Her way of handling things was somewhat reminiscent of Meng Hao….
Everyone in the Ji Clan was trembling. The Chosen, the Array disciples, even Ji Xiaoxiao, all felt their scalps go numb. At first, they weren’t sure who these voices were talking about, but once they heard mention of the debts of spirit stones, all of the Chosen who had been to the Demon Immortal Sect shivered and recalled the same person, that oft-remembered bastard who had conned them out of who knew how much, and had left them gnashing their teeth.
Deep in the Ji Clan, the young man who had lost his arms sat silently on an altar. A complex expression filled his face, and after a long moment, he sighed.
“He sealed himself here for 100,000 years, and is unable to leave South Heaven. He even became the Ninth Mountain Prison Warden. All to give his son a slim chance at life…. And it turns out that little kid down there is his son!”
The iron sword vanished, and the Towers of Tang in the lands of South Heaven went dark. Everything that had just happened was something that mortals wouldn’t be able to see. Even most cultivators would not have been able to see anything.
As everything faded away, the woman turned turned to stare at her husband, and a strange light gleamed in her eyes.
The man’s face was calm, his voice cool as he said, “Surprised? You interfered a few times already, which was quite dangerous. I lectured you before, but actually, I interfered once too. I prevented some punk child from trying to mess with Xu Qing’s soul.”
The woman suddenly smiled. “Afraid Meng Hao would resent you if you didn’t?”
“When Xu Qing left the lands of South Heaven and entered the River of Forgetfulness, I was then truly free to act,” he continued. “She is his beloved, which makes her our daughter-in-law. That strand of divine sense will protect her in her reincarnation, all the way until we meet her in person.
“As for Hao’er…. I have faith that he is a dragon among men. He’s not some spoiled brat that needs to cower under the protection of his father and mother.
“We must stay here on Planet South Heaven for 100,000 years. That was the agreement. An oath. We can’t leave, yet neither can we force him stay with us here for those 100,000 years. His path lies much further off in the distance. In this lifetime, he relied only on himself to get as far as he has, and we can be proud of how far he’s risen. Therefore, we must have faith that in the future… he will continue to make us proud!” He spoke softly, and it was hard to tell whether he was speaking to his wife, or to himself.