Chapter 710: Yanluo's Invitation
Hearing this, Pei Ziqi wavered. Her heart was not in the sect where she would waste every day cultivating; her heart had long since belonged to fighting on bloody battlefields.
Hearing Hui Yue say that they were going to join a war, Pei Ziqi's heart was filled with longing and she did not know what to do. She understood that Hui Yue was trying to tempt her, but she also knew that he would not lie to her. If he said that they were going off to fight in a war, then they really were going to do so.
Hui Yue snickered when he noticed the troubled expression on Pei Ziqi's face.
"This time you can follow as a companion rather than my dao protector," Hui Yue continued to tempt. "You don't need to be my nanny, constantly looking after me, you can take it easy and just enjoy the trip."
The more Hui Yue spoke, the more tempted Pei Ziqi became. She had decided not to join them because she felt that she was not the most suited for their group, but now that she heard what they were going to be doing, she was much more eager.
"I guess I won't be troubled by looking after you kids once more," she said hesitantly. "Sending out a group of children on their own to a warzone is not a great idea. I wonder what the patriarch is thinking," she mumbled to herself with knitted eyebrows.
"Well I will join you once more," she decided. Hui Yue chuckled and nodded his head. "Thank you," he said with heartfelt gratitude.
"We all feel more secure knowing that we have such a fierce cultivator with us," Hui Yue grinned, and Pei Ziqi smiled in return, though her smile was also somewhat complicated. She had not expected to join them again.
Hui Yue stayed in the cave for a bit and exchanged pleasantries. He informed Pei Ziqi about their departure time and that he would get all provisions needed for their trip together. Then finally as the sun was setting across the mountaintops, Hui Yue left the cave and headed back home where his wives were waiting for him.
Lao, Jo, and Lei were busy cultivating. They knew that they would depart in a month and because of this they had decided to do their utmost to cultivate as much as possible before it was time to leave.
Sha Yun, Huli, and Wang Ju Long were also cultivating as if their lives depended on it. They understood that although their trip was simple on paper, it was likely that the Blood Demons would not let them do whatever they wished. That they would do anything in their power to stop them.
When it came to this, the ones who the Blood Demons would send had to be superior cultivators, and none of them wished to be the one to drag the team down.
Everyone wished to comprehend as many daos as possible before setting out. Everyone had more or less already comprehended one major dao, but everything that came afterwards was much more difficult.
The next couple of days Hui Yue ran from one end of the City of Endless Clouds to the other. He visited the underground marketplaces as well as the pavilion that dealt with all the sales for the Celestial Sword Sect.
He purchased every single thing that they might need on their trip. When he finished, he returned to the valley where he lived and barricaded himself within the small mansion that had been built for him and his family. He spent a full two weeks concocting all sorts of pills, from healing pills to power-boosting medication.
He created pills that restored the body and pills that restored the mind. He even made a few pills that allowed for his soulforce to increase for a time by a substantial amount; however, some of these pills had severe consequences, and for this reason, Hui Yue hoped that they would not have to use them.
After finishing the pills, he started training his formations. He managed to compress a full three hundred more seals, and now he could form a thousand and two hundred seals. He was now a Grandmaster ranked formation master, but during the time he was in secluded cultivation he used four hundred seals to create four stationary formations. These were the strongest formations he could form.
These formations were the Thousand Layer formations, and even one of them alone could block a hundred Immortals of Creation for an hour. These formations were his trump cards.
While Hui Yue was busy preparing formations and pills, Deng Wu was spending all his time making inscriptions. He inscribed the shuttles that Hui Yue had prepared, making all of them armed to the teeth with offensive inscriptions.
These inscriptions all had various natures. Some of them sent out inferno fireballs; others gathered the Ancestral Worldpower in the surrounding air and condensed swords out of them.
When Deng Wu finished preparing all the shuttles, then he turned to enhancing everyone’s weapons apart from Hui Yue's Celestial Sword.
He even placed three offensive inscriptions on the Sword of the Icy Tempest. However, he had to take the element of the weapon into account when inscribing them, and he was incredibly careful while working with everyone's weapons.
Time flowed by quickly and the entire Celestial Sword Sect was busy as the patriarch was preparing to leave the sect for the first time in a millennium.
It had been known to the entire galaxy that Yanluo of Diyu had summoned many well-known experts from throughout the entire galaxy to visit him in Diyu. It was obvious it was a meeting to discuss something important with them all.
Only the invited knew exactly what the subject was, and no one else was aware of it, and no one would mention the subject, though Hui Yue was aware of it. He knew that this had to do with the Blood Demons, and he could not help but hope that the galaxy would band together in their quest to eradicate them.
Unfortunately, Hui Yue was also realistic. The Blood Demons were mainly an issue for Diyu and only a secondary threat for the rest of the galaxy, so the majority of the factions were likely to not lend a hand; however, Hui Yue knew that the Celestial Sword Sect would side with Diyu no matter what.
Where the Celestial Sword Sect previously would have stayed neutral, now they had no other choice than to side with Diyu thanks to Hui Yue, something that made him feel more relieved. Hui Yue wished to get rid of all the Blood Demons because An He had decided to become a part of their group. It was obvious that they ruled with ruthless means and Hui Yue could never approve of their ways.
The beast Gods and Hui Yue's friends arrived one after another to the main sect. After the wedding, the Pei family had made it so that others could enter the main sect if they had a purpose there, and now everyone was gathering in the valley that belonged to Hui Yue and his family.
A couple of days before Cai Jie was supposed to arrive, Zhong Fai and Pei Ziqi also moved into the valley. Now everyone had gathered with the exception of Cai Jie who was still on the way.
A few days more went by before Cai Jie showed up. He had rushed all the way to the sect, but his guardian sect was without a doubt the one furthest away, so even though he had rushed, it had still taken him quite some time to arrive.
As he arrived, he sat down and looked at Hui Yue with eyes that gleamed with excitement. "During the wedding, you connected with another one of your previous lives," he said seriously, and the others quickly busied themselves. They moved away from Hui Yue and Cai Jie because they knew this was a private conversation.
Hui Yue nodded his head, "Yes." He said, "I connected with the life that had belonged to Huli's friend, the God who had comprehended the dao of darkness."
"Apart from him, you have also connected with other lives right?" Cai Jie asked nervously, and Hui Yue nodded his head. He knew what it was Cai Jie wanted to ask, but he still did not answer right away.
"In total, you have nine previous lives, and out of these lives, you have connected with the blue monk, the red wolf, the green witch, the mountain, Huli's friend, and the wings, that real Pei Yue. You also have opened another cave to a star-like figure that you haven't yet connected with. That means that out of your nine caves, you have seven open and two closed."
"That is correct," Hui Yue said with a sad smile on his lips.
"Can you do anything to provoke these caves to open?" Cai Jie asked nervously, and Hui Yue shrugged his shoulders. "They are likely to open sometime during the trip we will be taking," he said honestly. "When I face dangerous situations that I cannot cope with on my own, the power of these caves burst open and assists me."
"Do you think that we will encounter danger on this trip?"
"It is very likely," Hui Yue said honestly in response to Cai Jie’s question, and he nodded his head. "In the Archaic World, we could avoid the danger easily, but not this time. We are heading out to fight. We are going to exterminate the Blood Demons and this time we have to meet them head-on."
"We will be engaging in a frenzied battle for the land, and although some of them might be easy to handle, we will become wanted men quite fast."
"The best strategy will be to constantly be on the road, hitting one target after another but also ensuring that we are not traveling on a predictable path. It will require a lot of energy and planning, but I believe that we can deal the Blood Demons a heavy blow and force An He out."
"When An He comes out, it is only a question of time before we meet him and then kill him. It is only a matter of time before we finish him once and for all."
"After that, we can return to Diyu to hear what the plan is for the rest of the war against the Blood Demons, but the most important part is to get rid of An He first! None of us can breathe lightly as long as he is still alive and roaming the galaxy."
"I agree," Cai Jie nodded his head. He too hated An He with a vengeance after having been forced into such dire straits from him and even losing his best friend to his schemes. "An He gave up his humanity and became a Blood Demon for power. He deserves what is coming to him. But even before he became a Blood Demon he had no humanity left in his heart."
It was clear that Cai Jie was thinking about the fight he had with An He so many years ago.
Neither Hui Yue nor Cai Jie spoke for some time, they just sat there in comfortable quietness and looked around themselves.
"I really hope that you are him," he finally said in a low voice, a voice so low that Hui Yue almost missed it. When he heard it, he simply smiled wryly.
"I hope so too," he said honestly. It did not matter to him if in his past life he was strong or weak if he had comprehended one minor dao or the heavenly dao… No, what truly mattered to him was that his friend now was desperate to see his long lost brother again. If Hui Yue could do something to make this happen, then he would do everything in his power to do so. Since he had no power over his past lives, all he could do was pray that it was in fact not a coincidence their names were the same, but a fact that the current Hui Yue and the one Cai Jie used to know were the same person.