Chapter 999

Chapter 0999: Forgetting River Bridge’s long road

Liu Fanglin wasn’t wrong. In just half an incense stick after they decided on the direction to proceed, the greenery of the Valley of Life suddenly disappeared. Replaced by blue sands sweeping across the sky.

Ning Cheng turned around only to see that the Valley of Life had also disappeared. It felt as if it had never existed at all. If it weren’t for the Loyal Heart Spirit Zoysia Fruits and the tree in his True Spirit World, he would have thought that what he had just seen and observed was nothing more than an illusion.

As the raging blue sand of the Burial Shadow Blue Sands swept over, it again suppressed his spiritual consciousness. Because of this, Ning Cheng also couldn’t figure out what method Liu Fanglin used to control the multicoloured bead without spiritual consciousness. Whatever method Liu Fanglin used, that bead created a colourful shield that enveloped her body in a kaleidoscopic sphere.

Ning Cheng was an artificer himself and could already refine middle-rank spirit artefact. But even then, as soon as he looked at Liu Fanglin’s bead, he knew that he couldn’t craft anything even remotely similar to it.

“You need to pay more attention to the Burial Shadow Fiends.” Liu Fanglin wasn’t too far away from Ning Cheng and immediately admonished him.

Ning Cheng only nodded but didn’t say anything. After all, as soon as he got surrounded by the blue sands, he once again put almost all his focus and attention on defending himself.

His cultivation level wasn’t as high as Liu Fanglin’s. But his use of spiritual consciousness was far beyond Liu Fanglin’s capabilities. However, even if his spiritual consciousness surpassed Liu Fanglin’s, he still had to put everything into defence. After all, he had to guard against the Burial Shadow Fiends and Ding Si. Especially as he didn’t believe Ding Si to be as friendly as indicated through his words.

But what made Ning Cheng puzzled was that despite readying himself with the Seven Bridges Realm Book, he found no trace of any danger. After coming out, he sensed nothing apart from the blue sands sweeping across the sky.

“You can lead the way.” Seeing that Liu Fanglin didn’t move, seemingly ready to support him at any moment, Ning Cheng helplessly called out to her.

“Okay.” Liu Fanglin replied after seeing Ning Cheng not doing anything. Although she didn’t understand why Ning Cheng hadn’t taken out the Blue Thunder Fort, she could only lead the way in front.

In the beginning, Liu Fanglin walked slowly, ready to defend at a moment’s notice. But as the day passed by slowly, the two didn’t encounter any danger. It caused Liu Fanglin to doubt the validity of those rumours and sped up.

But an hour later, she sensed something wrong. Ning Cheng, who had been walking right behind her, had disappeared.

Although she didn’t know Ning Cheng for a long time, she felt that Ning Cheng wasn’t the person who would leave secretly. Even if he had to leave for some reason, he would have said something to her.

Did Ning Cheng get eaten by the Burial Shadow Fiend? The moment this thought emerged, Liu Fanglin’s heart sank. She vaguely felt that this thought might be the truth.

Although she and Hou Fu killed five Dao Transformation Holy Emperors back then, it was only due to Ning Cheng’s decision to work with them. But even if she didn’t count that, Ning Cheng did save her life later.

Thinking of this, Liu Fanglin immediately turned back. Whether Ning Cheng got swallowed by the Burial Shadow Fiend or not, she couldn’t pretend to not care about it and leave.

......

Ning Cheng had indeed encountered trouble. Shortly after Liu Fanglin started to speed up, he felt a threat of impending death. He might not have known what it was back then, but now Ning Cheng knew that it was because of the Burial Shadow Fiend.

Despite not sensing anything through his spiritual consciousness, he immediately brought out the First Bridge of Coping. At the same time, he took a step forward and entered the first bridge. Liu Fanglin had grown complacent and sped up, but the sneak attack came so fast that he had no chance to call out to Liu Fanglin.

Fortunately, Ning Cheng acted quickly. But even then, three or four blue shadows followed Ning Cheng inside and entered the First Bridge of Coping.

Standing on the First Bridge of Coping, Ning Cheng finally got a clear look at those bluish shadows, the Burial Shadow Fiends. They had the same colour as the blue sand outside and their body, large irregular spheres. It seemed to be constantly changing shape like a sentient blob. A few malformed arms and legs occasionally appeared out of this blob, like snot hanging out of one’s nose. The entire picture seemed bizarre.

Seeing Ning Cheng standing in the middle of the First Bridge of Coping, these shadowy ‘blobs’ suddenly opened their mouths and rushed towards Ning Cheng.

Ning Cheng’s spiritual consciousness couldn’t sense these Burial Shadow Fiends, let alone pounce on them despite seeing them in person. Moreover, once these Blue Shadow Fiends opened their mouths, their bodies disappeared. It seemed that they only had a mouth and nothing else.

But before Ning Cheng could even make a move, several violent yin winds rolled over and swept away all the Burial Shadow Fiends on the bridge. The fiends got pushed into the blood river under the First Bridge of Coping in the next instant.

Only a single miserable scream emerged, and every trace of those fiends got erased from the Bridge of Coping.

Ning Cheng felt quite surprised at this development. He never expected these Burial Shadow Fiends to have such clear screams. After all, these things were not spirit souls or essence spirits. Just what were they?

Soon, however, Ning Cheng’s surprise quickly turned into shock. After swallowing these Burial Shadow Fiends, the First Bridge of Coping had become even more solid. In fact, swallowing these Burial Shadow Fiends produced a much better effect than consuming the essence spirits of the cultivators he killed on it.

Wouldn’t it make the Burial Shadow Blue Sand the perfect place to cultivate the Seven Bridges Spirit Technique? Ning Cheng, feeling ecstatic, decided to let the First Bridge of Coping transform into its tangible, solid form.

The entrance of the Bridge of Coping suddenly appeared within the Burial Shadow Blue Sands, and Ning Cheng stood right outside it, acting like bait.

It worked perfectly, and the Burial Shadow Fiends quickly launched an all-out attack on Ning Cheng. In fact, even when Ning Cheng’s First Bridge of Coping kept swallowing one Burial Shadow Fiend after another, more and more Burial Shadow Fiends still rushed towards Ning Cheng, who simply stood right behind the bridge entrance.

Ning Cheng didn’t even have to take any action. He let the yin winds from the bridge sweep away the Burial Shadow Fiends into the blood river.

As the bridge absorbed more and more Burial Shadow Fiends, the five words ‘First Bridge of Coping’ at the entrance also quickly solidified. In just a few moments, these five words over the ghostly-looking First Bridge of Coping became an eerie sight filled with a majestic aura within this patch of Burial Shadow Blue Sands.

The waves of Burial Shadow Fiends seemed endless as they swarmed toward him. Only at this moment did Ning Cheng finally realise what Liu Fanglin meant, “death was the only outcome when targeted by the Burial Shadow Fiends”.

Without the Seven Bridges, under such an endless onslaught of Burial Shadow Fiends, there would have been nothing left of him.

But now, these fearful Burial Shadow Fiends could only become nutrition for the First Bridge of Coping under Ning Cheng’s command. In just two incense sticks worth of time, Ning Cheng noticed that the First Bridge of Coping had almost entirely solidified.

On the Bridge of Coping, the yin winds grew more powerful while the blood river raged below it with even more force. The combined effect felt like the synchronous march of endless ghost soldiers.

“Step on this bridge, don’t look back; no one’s waiting at the end of the road; don’t look at each other, don’t wander; stepping on this bridge will break one’s heart....”

The dao rhythm on the Bridge of Coping grew more assertive. And within this call, Ning Cheng felt himself and the First Bridge of Coping becoming more and more integrated. He started to feel as if he could now use the First Bridge of Coping without the Seven Bridges Realm Book.

Ning Cheng decided to let these Burial Shadow Fiends rush across the First Bridge of Coping and enter the Second Bridge of Looking Homewards.

Time passed, and after devouring innumerable Burial Shadow Fiends, the Second Bridge of Looking Homewards also grew solid, like the Bridge of Coping.

“Don’t look at each other, don’t wander; no one is waiting at the end of Looking Homewards.”

“Don’t look at each other, don’t wander; stepping on this bridge will break one’s heart.”[1]

The dao rhythm of the earthen coloured Bridge of Looking Homewards grew stronger and stronger and gradually fused with Ning Cheng. In just a few moments, Ning Cheng had fully integrated with the Seven Bridges Spirit Technique’s second bridge.

After an unknown amount of time, the Second Bridge of Looking Homewards gave out a resounding ‘ding’. Following this, the second bridge’s dao rhythm started to flow like the billowing yin winds of the Bridge of Coping or the blood river under the bridge.

“The Second Bridge of Looking Homewards, complete.”

Ning Cheng suddenly opened his eyes, and the hand seal and the dao rhythm flowing around his hand changed. With that change, the Burial Shadow Fiends rushing towards him made it past the Second Bridge of Looking Homewards safely and moved towards a vague shadow right in front of the second bridge.

This vague shadow quickly solidified into a faint grey coloured bridge, the Third Bridge of Forgetting River.

As more and more Burial Shadow Fiends got swallowed by the Third Bridge of Forgetful River, the Bridge of Forgetful River, like the previous two bridges, started to grow clear and more solid. In just a few moments, the dao charm of the Forgetful River started to merge into Ning Cheng’s killing intent.

“The path on the Bridge of Forgetful River is far and long. When you come, you forget the river; but when you go, only ashes remain.....”

As more Burial Shadow Fiends entered the Third Bridge of Forgetful River, nothing apparent happened to them as they stepped on the bridge. But by the time they reached the heart of the bridge, they had already turned into nothingness or flying ash.

The bridge initially seemed to be carved out of mist made up of a simple-minded forgetfulness dao rhythm. But after a few moments, it no longer felt like the kind that would disperse at a touch and had turned into a real grey-coloured bridge.

Ning Cheng killed all the Burial Shadow Fiends in the still-raging Burial Shadow Blue Sands. Liu Fanglin, who had just managed to return and find Ning Cheng, could only look at him in shock and awe from a distance.

She watched as Ning Cheng stood in front of the First Bridge of Coping, which looked much more solid than before, continuously reaping the Burial Shadow Fiends.

Her spiritual consciousness or vision couldn’t see the Burial Shadow Fiends in the Burial Shadow Blue Sands. But within the ghostly Bridge of Coping, she finally saw the Burial Shadow Fiends for the first time. After all, there were simply too many Burial Shadow Fiends here; they kept pouring towards Ning Cheng in endless waves.

It was just that no matter how many Burial Shadow Fiends poured in, they all got swept into the First Bridge of Coping by Ning Cheng. She couldn’t see the Second Bridge of Looking Homewards or the Third Bridge of Forgetfulness River. Still, she knew that Ning Cheng wasn’t harvesting these Burial Shadow Fiends for no reason.

Liu Fanglin drew in a cold breath. She had never thought that someone could reap Burial Shadow Fiends in the Burial Shadow Blue Sands. Yet, such a person stood right in front of her.

Ning Cheng had already noticed Liu Fanglin in the distance, but he didn’t greet her. Rather, he couldn’t greet her. All these Burial Shadow Fiends were after him, and even though Liu Fanglin stood not far from him, these Burial Shadow Fiends did not target her. Perhaps enraged by his insane culling of their kind, these Burial Shadow Fiends had only one thought, and that was to kill Ning Cheng.

Unfortunately, they simply couldn’t kill Ning Cheng at all. They only served to slowly solidify Ning Cheng’s Third Bridge of Forgetfulness River. However, the solidification speed was visibly slowing down. Seeing this, Ning Cheng couldn’t help but feel a little pity in his heart. He understood that the Burial Shadow Fiends were genuinely effective in solidifying his Seven Bridges. But unfortunately, it only was for the early stages. The effect weakened as he moved to the later stages.

As the dao rhythm of the Bridge of Forgetfulness River grew more majestic, the Burial Shadow Fiends soon started to dissipate as soon as they touched the mist at the head of the bridge.

Even though he knew that he might not solidify the Fourth Bridge of Yellow Springs here, Ning Cheng still reaped all the Burial Shadow Fiends that wanted to devour him.

However, at this moment, a shrill call came from afar, “Ji Ang Mu Lu.......”

Ning Cheng’s heart trembled, and an intense sense of death emerged within him. He no longer cared about harvesting the Burial Shadow Fiends, collected the Seven Bridges Realm Book and shouted at Liu Fanglin, who had her mouth wide open on one side. “Hurry up and run!”

He had a hunch that his Seven Bridges Spirit Technique couldn’t deal with this Burial Shadow Fiend that cried out ‘Ji Ang Mu Lu’. It might not even stop it for even a moment.

[1] The phrases for the first bridge and the second bridge are quite similar in the raws (almost identical in pronunciation), but translating them to English makes them vastly different. I tried to keep the English version of the two phrases as close to each other as possible, without losing the meaning.