The Transcendent Immortal Chapter 137 The Ancient Sword Autumn Water

Step by step, Mu Chengxue approached the Corpse Champion with a heavy pace. Everyone could hardly believe their own ears, wondering if there was something wrong with their hearing. She had just called the dead man her brother! Confused and puzzled, the company could not understand what was happening; only Xiao Chen's and Yu Yifeng's expressions turned grim.

Realizing what was happening, Yu Yifeng was the first to react. "Miss Mu! Come back! It's dangerous!" He exclaimed frantically.

But his desperate warnings fell on deaf ears; as if she had heard nothing from him, Mu Chengxue only continued walking towards the corpse slowly, her face now drenched with pouring tears. "Brother..." she gasped between her convulsive sobs, "It's me... It's your sister..."

What a horrific twist it was that a long-lost brother and his sister who had yearned for years to see him again had to meet in such fashion. Was this one of the difficulties in their life that they had to traverse, or was this simply a demonstration of the cruelty of Fate?

The Corpse Champion descended from the air and gently landed on the ground. But he merely regarded Mu Chengxue with a lifeless and empty stare. The young man standing before her was no longer the brother who once doted on her.

"It's me, Brother.... Your sister..." Mu Chengxue begged desperately as she wrestled against her spasms. But her sorrowful pleas was met only by a cold-blooded strike from the Corpse Champion.

A flash of white appeared just in time to wrap around her, shielding her from the callous strike from the reanimated corpse. Yu Yifeng had appeared out of nowhere to whisk Mu Chengxue off her feet while he responded with a blow of his own. The palms of both man and undead met, and Yu Yifeng was forced for dozens of meters backward.

Landing back on the ground, Yu Yifeng immediately placed Mu Chengxue down and began channeling his powers to heal himself. The short exchange was enough to throw the flow of his internal energies off-balanced.

There was hardly anyone who was not surprised; Yu Yifeng was among the strongest in the company, with Xiaoyue and Xu Gu on par with his strength. But a mere blow from the Corpse Champion was almost enough to wound him. How powerful could the Corpse Champion possibly be? The company instantly began to feel a fearful dread at the direness of the situation looming over them like a specter.

"You will all... have to die..." The reanimated corpse croaked with a hollow and chilling voice, sending a shudder across the entire company. Before they could even react, the Corpse Champion, like a predator set on its prey, pounced at them with the speed of an arrow. He reached the first man in a blink of an eye, immediately punching him so hard that the poor man was tossed into the air with blood splattering everywhere.

It was almost unbelievable and surreal that a Core Forming Realm cultivator was so ignominiously tossed aside by the Corpse Champion like a ragdoll.

"Steel yourselves," Xiaoyue screamed loudly, rallying the company, "We charge together!" She flailed her horse-tail whisk and conjured columns of water that shot at the Corpse Champion. Bracing themselves, the rest of the company emptied their bag of tricks, unleashing every technique they knew on possibly one of the most powerful foes they had ever encountered.

"NOOO! Please do not hurt him!" Mu Chengxue woke up from her stupor and screamed, "He's my brother!" She leaped to her feet and was about to throw herself between the company and the Corpse Champion.

But Xiao Chen pulled her back. "Have some sense, Miss Mu," he said to her, his head shaking to accentuate what he said, "That corpse is no longer your brother..." Then again, Mu Chengxue's sentiment was one that he shared too; he might also behave in the same way if it was Muxue or his Senior Sister Luo was to end up in a similar fate.

"No! Impossible!," Mu Chengxue wailed in a mournful frenzy, "No! He's my brother! My brother, Mu Luo!"

Xiao Chen could only sigh. He left her in Yu Yifeng's arms and watched. It was the least he could do, that he would not lay a hand on the zombie who was once her beloved brother in her presence.

Luo Shangyan too was ridden with sadness and pain; during her time at the Jade Qing Sect, it was Mu Chengxue who had accompanied her and made her days seem shorter. They had spent much time talking to each other and it was then when Luo Shangyan had discovered Mu Chengxue's endless search for her brother. In times like this, she could only help console her sobbing friend.

More than ten Core Forming Realm cultivator pitted against a single Corpse Champion, but more than half of the company was swiftly incapacitated while the Corpse Champion remained powerful and spirited. None of the company's attacks could do any good against it. "Yu Yifeng! Xiao Chen!" Xiaoyue howled, her voice shaking with panic, "What are you waiting for!"

With the survival of the company at stake, Yu Yifeng knew that there was no other way, even if the Corpse Champion used to be Mu Chengxue's brother, Mu Luo. He was about to leap into the fray, when a hand pressed on his shoulder. "No, Brother Yifeng," Xiao Chen said to him, "Let me go. You should stay here at Miss Mu's side."

Xiao Chen understood that if Yu Yifeng was in any way involved with the death of the zombie who was once Mu Chengxue's brother, the incident would drive a wedge between Yu Yifeng and Mu Chengxue forever.

Without allowing Yu Yifeng to answer, he squeezed the Unsullied that Yu Yifeng had given him into the hands of Luo Shangyan. The Blood Lotus Demon Blade shimmered into view and he gripped at its hilt, preparing to go to battle. "NOO!" Mu Chengxue shrieked; she had seen with her own eyes Xiao Chen's prowess with the Demon Blade. Fearing the worst for her brother, she shook off Yu Yifeng and rushed to stop him.

But Xiao Chen spun on his heels and turned to face her suddenly. He knew that Mu Chengxue would try to stop him, and hence he had prepared something. Mu Chengxue charged at him but she was stopped and trapped in a magical force field, the Sixfold Trap Formation! He sighed and said to her through the barrier, "I am very very sorry for what I'm might do, Miss Mu..." The pangs of guilt throbbed within him; he would never forget how she had helped break the spell that sealed his Spiritual Meridian, yet now, he was going to repay her by killing her closest family in her presence.

But he knew full well that he had no other choice; Yi Tong had once told him that there was no way to restore a person after being made into a mindless Corpse Champion that knew nothing but carnage and destruction. The Corpse Champion now fighting against the rest of the company was no longer Mu Chengxue's brother from the very beginning.

Mu Chengxue ripped the Twilight String from its scabbard and hacked desperately everywhere, trying vainly to weaken the points of the magical force field in a frivolous attempt to free herself. But despite having briefly learned how to disable magical barriers from Xiao Chen, there was simply no way she could break his spell.

Xiao Chen rose into the air. He swung his saber with his might, and a crimson wave of energy shot from the arc of his saber, whistling through the wind as it sliced through the air, slowly growing in length to over ten meters. The Corpse Champion immediately sensed danger and turned to see the auric blade coming at him. Its emotionless eyes studied the incoming blow and it punched at the air into the direction of the incoming blow and dense and black mists began to form suddenly in the air.

The black mist was the evil Qi from its own body, in the form of dark gaseous fumes. Its corrosive properties immediately dissolved the blow from Xiao Chen's saber, much to the shock and disbelief of everyone present.

The situation was direr than he had expected, Xiao Chen realized. Not only it was strong and invincible, but the Corpse Champion had displayed some degree of intelligence; a trait that none of the hundred or so ordinary Corpse Puppet they had encountered earlier possessed. This Corpse Champion was more powerful that he would care to admit, perhaps even stronger than the hundred-year Corpse Puppet that he had seen at the Falling-jade Glow.

Without waiting for everyone to recover from their shock and bewilderment, the Corpse Champion emitted a feral howl suddenly, its eyes turning maniacal red as if they were burning. Two red beams of light shot from his eyes, setting everything in its path ablaze and left only destruction in its wake. "Careful!" Xu Gu cautioned and chanted a spell. Six shafts of golden light shot down from the sky and protected everyone, at least for now.

Xu Gu's technique had managed to buy everyone a few valuable seconds. But despite every spell, skill, and weapon they used against the Corpse Champion, their reprisals seemed only like useless fireworks to the invulnerable monster. The company's attempt with reckless abandon to deal the Corpse Champion a fatal stroke only served to remind them again and again how impregnable was its defenses. Although the monster's movement speed had turned slow and sluggish, but it was all they could do, despite everything they unleashed at him.

Not even the Xiaoyue's 3,000 Weak Water technique, formerly a cultivation method of the Tianxuan branch of Mystic Cyan Sect, could penetrate its indestructible hide. This was potentially the most powerful foe that everyone in the company had ever encounter. As hopes for their survival began to crumble, the rest of the company looked to Xiao Chen, Xu Gu, and Xiaoyue, hoping that the three would be able to perform miracles.

"The fiend's a true brute indeed!" Xu Gu muttered, pulling his face into a fatigued frown, "Everything we threw at him was literally useless! Any ideas now would be greatly appreciated, Brother Xiao!"

Xiao Chen's brows furrowed into a troubled grimace. The Dragon Slay technique of the Mystic Cyan Sect, if used with the Demon Blade brought to its awakened state by bathing it with his own blood, might work. But the fact that the monster was once Mu Chengxue's brother made him hesitate, more so, as he could still hear Mu Chengxue's heartrending sobs and cries amidst the din of the battle.

"Please stand back, the both of you," Xiaoyue said to them suddenly as she raised her horse-tail whisk.

Xiao Chen could feel everyone's stares training upon her. The horse-tail whisk housed the Autumn Water, the personal weapon of the founder of the Thousand Feathers Sect and the heirloom of the order. Through thousands of years, the Autumn Water had pa.s.sed into the hands of numerous heirs to the order's leadership but never once had its blade seen the light of day. Was Xiaoyue becoming desperate?

Xiao Chen found himself frozen to the sight of the horse-tail whisk Xiaoyue held. Through fire and steel, he had risked even my own life to procure this sword for Qianyu Nishang millennia ago, he reflected. Would the Autumn Water finally awake from its thousand-year slumber? Still, Xiao Chen felt an inexplicable knot in his stomach.

"On this day, I, Xiaoyue, a disciple of the hundred and thirty-seventh cla.s.s of our esteemed order, hereby request the Founder's sanction to use the might of her hallowed blade! May my actions please the Founder's spirit!"

Xiaoyue took into the air. A faint radiance of white as pure as snow cloaked around her that she appeared like a fairy from Heaven as she began chanting, weaving a spell that the radiance began to shift, settling finally and focusing on the sword still sheathed in her horse-tail whisk while she struggled to grip at the hilt of Autumn Water that was convulsing violently like a bucking horse.

Even before its blade was revealed, everyone present could already feel its might. With a sudden whistle, the Autumn Water shot from its scabbard. Thousands of rays of white flash sprayed from the blade of the sword, pouring into the darkness like an unstoppable tide and illuminating the entire subterranean hallway like it was day that every iota of darkness was blotted out.

A huge force of spiritual energy surged forth, sending a chill down Xiao Chen's spine that he began to shudder uncontrollably. There was no mistaking the rich and familiar aura radiating with such intensity! This was the very same Autumn Water that he had gave Qianyu Nishang! She had imbued the sword with her True Energy!

He channeled every ounce of his strength into his senses and magnified his sight. There! The unmistakable runic symbols at the end of the blade, just above its hilt! He could make out the engravings of his and Qianyu Nishang's names in ancient runic scripts as he felt the same stinging ache in his heart. Why! Xiao Chen screamed within himself. Why did she betrayed him, and yet she still kept their names etched upon her sword! Why did she not erase them!