A Will Eternal

Bai Xiaochun was quite certain that he wasn’t hearing things. Whether it was the voice in his head, or the fluctuations coming from his bag of holding, he was certain that…

“She’s awake!!” Shaken, he sent a stream of divine sense into his bag of holding to check on the coffin. However, all observations indicated that the baby girl was sleeping, her eyes closed, not a trace of life force on her whatsoever.

Because of how many people were around, he couldn’t very well take out the coffin and examine it closely in front of them. Therefore, he buried his questions in his heart, looked over at Du Lingfei, and shook his head.

“No. It’s nothing….”

Before Du Lingfei could respond, the twin Master Cloud Lightnings chuckled coldly. “Of course it’s nothing. What, you find out you’re in the north, and you're scared all of a sudden?!”

The twin Master Cloud Lightnings had been suppressing their anger for too long now. Bai Xiaochun had killed their beloved apprentice, creating a grudge that could only be resolved by death. However, the details of Bai Xiaochun’s identity had caused intense fear to spring up in their hearts. Not only had they not dared to try to kill him, but being worried that he would try to get revenge on them, they had already considered giving him some gifts to smooth things over.

But after everything which had occurred later, and given that the twin Master Cloud Lightnings were devas, they were easily able to see… how the Celestial actually viewed the situation.

“The Celestial doesn’t really view him as a son-in-law…. Although he’s in some sort of relationship with Du Lingfei, unless the Celestial approves of it, he’s just like any other deva. In any of the other rivers, I might need to fear him, but this is the north! Even if he’s a dragon normally, he's a worm to me here!”

The twin Master Cloud Lightnings chuckled coldly, and did nothing to mask the cold gleams in their eyes. The truth was, just as they had been musing, in the north, which was controlled by their sect, they would have the upper hand when dealing with Bai Xiaochun.

In response to the twin Master Cloud Lightnings’ words, the other surrounding cultivators’ expressions flickered. The cultivators from the south and the west didn’t say anything; they didn’t want to get involved in any posturing right now. But things were different with the northerners.

Virtually all of the northern cultivators’ eyes glittered. Now that they were surrounded by frigid qi, their cultivation bases could rotate more rapidly than before. Looking over at Bai Xiaochun and the other easterners, they adopted the same, hostile attitude as the twin Master Cloud Lightnings.

The eastern cultivators wanted to make a stand of sorts, but the dangers they had faced recently, and the fact that they were now in the north, sapped them of any ability to do so.

As for Bai Xiaochun, under normal circumstances, he would not have simply accepted the twin Master Cloud Lightnings’ ridicule, and the hostility of the northern cultivators. But right now, he was in no mood for such things. His heart still hurt because of Hou Xiaomei and Big Fatty Zhang. Furthermore, he was still feeling shaken that the baby girl had spoken to him.

The only thing he wanted to do was go to the Nine Heavens Cloud Lightning Sect’s teleportation portal and leave this place. Furthermore, he had no desire to go back to the Starry Sky Dao Polarity Sect. He wanted to go back to the River-Defying Sect, and take some time to calm down and recover.

Therefore, it was in rare fashion that he didn’t even respond. The twin Master Cloud Lightnings said more snide things, and the northern cultivators continued to glare at him in hostile fashion, but he just walked onward.

He felt like returning to the east on his own, and the truth was that he had his ways to do that if he wanted to. But he couldn’t leave the other eastern cultivators behind on their own. If he did, they could very well end up suffering because of it.

When the twin Master Cloud Lightnings saw Bai Xiaochun’s reaction, they laughed coldly, but ceased any sarcastic jibes. After all, the visiting cultivators were just passing through, and would reach the teleportation portal soon.

“He’s just lucky!” The truth was that the twin Master Cloud Lightnings had hoped that Bai Xiaochun would start arguing with them, and provide an excuse to fight. Although they probably couldn’t kill him, they could at least injure him in a way that would take dozens of years to recover!

Du Lingfei never got to reply to Bai Xiaochun. However, the look in her eye when she saw the northerners’ hostility was noticed by the twin Master Cloud Lightnings, and was another main reason why he didn’t take any action.

And thus, the cultivators left the Deadmire and headed into the northern Heavenspan River region. The northerners were all very excited, whereas the cultivators from the other three river branches were much more reserved.

The lands around them were frozen, the sky was dark, and an icy cold breeze blew constantly, providing the only sound to be heard…

There were ice mountains everywhere, jagged and sharp, and profoundly cold. Occasional flurries of snowflakes would rise up, but considering the cultivation bases of the travelers, they would melt as soon as they touched them.

In surroundings like these, mortals would quickly freeze to death. But even the weakest of these cultivators were in the Nascent Soul stage, and thus, they were unharmed.

Before long, they caught sight of a mighty, golden river which flowed off into the distance. It was none other than the northern Heavenspan River!

In the north, where it was so cold that virtually nothing could live, the Heavenspan River water flowed eternally, and was not frozen….

“So this is the north….” Bai Xiaochun murmured, looking around and thinking about the Spirit Stream Sect, and the Frigid School….

There was little talk as the cultivators turned into bright beams of light and shot through the freezing lands toward the Nine Heavens Cloud Lightning Sect.

Before long, that mighty and majestic sect was on the horizon. Eventually, Bai Xiaochun looked up and saw… an enormous and shocking waterfall at the end of the Heavenspan River!

Just like the Starry Sky Dao Polarity Sect, the waterfall connected the sea above with the river below, fueling the flow of the river.

At the Starry Sky Dao Polarity Sect, the area surrounding the waterfall was filled with lush vegetation. But the Nine Heavens Cloud Lightning Sect was different. The area surrounding the waterfall was a vast expanse of frozen white.

Furthermore, flanking the waterfall on either side were two enormous statues of ice!

They were majestic to the point of defying description, and radiated a shocking energy and profound pressure.

The statue on the left depicted a scholarly and refined middle-aged man. He was gazing up into the heavens, and even stretching out his right hand out toward the sky!

His hand was empty of any physical object. However… it propped up a majestic white cloud, so large that it appeared to be a land mass of some sort.

In fact, countless buildings existed on the cloud, and beams of light could be seen flying to and fro between them. Those beams of light were obviously cultivators!

Bai Xiaochun gasped at the sight of it. Based on what he remembered learning of the Nine Heavens Cloud Lightning Sect, he realized that the cloud in the hand of that statue must be… the sect’s Cloud Order!

“In that case, the Lightning Order must be on the right.” He shifted his gaze to the statue on the right, which also depicted a middle-aged man. However, this man was by no means scholarly and refined. He looked like a warrior, with blazing, threatening eyes. Furthermore, lightning danced to and fro all over him.

There was a cloud in his upraised left hand as well, but this cloud was black. It looked like a storm cloud, and much like the white cloud on the other side of the river, was covered with buildings and filled with cultivators.

In addition to the difference in color, this cloud appeared to be filled with silver lightning bolts, as well as the muffled rumble of thunder.

It was none other than the Lightning Order!

“The Nine Heavens Cloud Lightning Sect ranks their disciples by cultivation base. First heaven disciples are the lowest ranked, with ninth heaven disciples being the highest…. Furthermore, their sect is split into two orders, those being the Cloud Order and the Lightning Order….” At this point, his gaze drifted upward, beyond the clouds being held up by the statues… to two coffins, one large and one small!

The large coffin was pitch black, and emanated an air of extreme ancientness, as though it had existed for countless years within the stream of time. Within that coffin, Bai Xiaochun could just barely make out deva fluctuations….

“That must be the equivalent of the Starry Sky Dao Polarity Sect’s blue rainbow. That's where their devas reside…. That means the smaller coffin must be the home of the demigod.” Having reached this point in his train of thought, he focused his gaze on the ultimate pinnacle of the Nine Heavens Cloud Lightning Sect….

There, was a crystal coffin!

It was only thirty percent the size of the pitch-black coffin, but it occupied the highest location in the sect, and emanated a shocking aura.

The twin Master Cloud Lightnings looked around at the shocked expressions on the faces of the surrounding cultivators, smiled, and said, “Welcome to the Nine Heavens Cloud Lightning Sect.”

The northern cultivators were all visibly excited to be home after such a deadly ordeal. In almost the same moment that the twin Master Cloud Lightnings spoke, piercing whistling sounds erupted from within the sect, and numerous beams of light shot down from the two clouds, as well as from the black coffin.

There were also deva fluctuations! One, two, three, four!!

Four sets of deva fluctuations pushed away the will of the heavens as four enormous faces appeared up above, to stare down at the newly arrived crowd!

The gazes of one of those faces suddenly shifted to focus on Bai Xiaochun, and then spoke in a voice that echoed like the roar of heavenly thunder!

“You… killed a disciple from the north, didn’t you… Bai Xiaochun!?!?”

This deva clearly had ill intentions, and was domineering to the extreme.

Bai Xiaochun’s eyelid twitched….