The white plumes of vapor rising from the five-hundred-foot crater were slowly carried away by a cool mountain gust.
Above the scorched canyon, the ten-thousand-li storm vortex paused in its rotation, as if the sky high sky was waiting for the smoke to clear before confirming the target’s total wipeout. Across the province, the light remained an eerie, twilight violet. It cast deep indigo shadows across the jagged peaks of the Grand Desolate Forest.
Ten miles away on Cloud-Piercing Pass, thirty thousand traditional fighters leaned forward in painful suspense.
“Look closely,” Elder Mo Qian muttered, his fingers tracing the rim of the bronze scrying mirror as he channeled another wisp of spiritual energy into the lens. “Is there any residue? Any lingering demonic core fragment? If even a sliver of its unholy essence remains, the sect must dispatch a purification brigade with sun-fire magic charms.”
Beside him, Grand Elder Xuan Ji wiped a crust of dried bog mud from his trembling jaw. A smug, triumphant sneer was already pulling at his cracked lips. “You worry over nothing, Elder Mo. The Ninth-Tier Purple Total ruin Sky-trial leaves no fragments. Its purpose is total erasure. That miserable ball of blue water has ceased to exist in body, mind, and spirit.”
“Wait,” whispered a student from the Azure Cloud Sect, pressing both hands against his temples. “Listen to the sound feed. Is the mirror picking up a sound?”
Mo Qian adjusted the bronze sound horn attached to the scrying rig.
From the bottom of the smoking, eighty-foot-deep pit, through the hiss of cooling steam and the dull crackle of cooling rock, a strange sound drifted up through the array.
Slosh... Plop.
It was a wet, rhythmic, distinctly rubbery sound.
Gloop. Squish.
Every fighter within ten paces of the mirror froze. Xuan Ji’s triumphant sneer stiffened, his bloodshot eyes widening until the whites were mapped with crimson veins.
Down in the glowing deep pit, eighty feet below the rim, the pool of molten dark rock glass was churning. The glowing red liquid, heated to four thousand five hundred degrees, parted smoothly in a series of bright amber ripples.
Then, emerging from the center of the liquid rock like an enthusiastic melon bobbing to the surface of a pond, a round, semi-clear dome appeared.
It was Lin Xiao.
He wasn’t scorched. He wasn’t shriveled. Not a single droplet of his fluid mass had evaporated into steam. If anything, his semi-clear azure jelly looked significantly healthier, plumper, and more vibrant than it had before the thunder struck.
Instead of his usual pale sapphire color, Lin Xiao’s entire body was now shimmering with an amazing, deep lavender soft glow. Tiny, brilliant arcs of purple static danced across his smooth water’s skin like tiny diamonds, crackling harmlessly in tiny star-pattern patterns before dissolving back into his core with faint, musical chiming sounds.
The little blue slime floated effortlessly upon the surface of the molten liquid rock, perfectly floating, perfectly padded, and thoroughly refreshed.
Ahhhhh, Lin Xiao thought, letting his mass relax fully.
Finding the molten dark rock comfortably warm and floating, he decided to make the most of it. He relaxed his water’s skin. It spread his jelly outward until he had flattened into a wide, smooth pancake roughly two yards across, resting upon the blazing bright liquid rock like a sleeping water lily.
A soft, luxurious shudder rippled through his fluid body from edge to core.
He gathered his fluid back together, pulling himself up into a tall, plump blue sphere. As he tightened, a clear physical sensation bubbled upward from his dantian void. A pleasant, carbonated tickle that traveled through his central fluid channel like a pocket of sparkling soda gas.
Lin Xiao opened his small, rounded mouth opening.
“BURRRRRP~”
It was a remarkably soft, cheerful, and adorably ringing burp. As it escaped his lips, a tiny puff of scented violet vapor drifted upward into the twilight air, sparkling with harmless golden embers that smelled delightfully like roasted spices.
Lin Xiao gave his jelly a contented little wobble. He sighed aloud in his clear, pleasant deep:
“Huuuu... Now that had some real kick to it! Wonderfully prickly on the outside, but so rich, savory, and warm on the inside. It really does taste just like a bowl of spicy cloud-numbing peppercorn noodles with extra sesame oil!”
Inside his spiritual sea, the Dao Spirit projected her latest analytical findings with quiet smooth speed:
Lin Xiao examined the tracking data with deep satisfaction. Roasted cloud-numbing peppercorn and salt. See, Dao Spirit? I told you it had a culinary profile. The tingling numbing sensation is practically matching.
“Host’s sense translation remains scientifically unorthodox yet metabolically precise,” the Dao Spirit responded calmly. “The concentration of uncorrupted Yang energy within the first three strikes has fully removed all leftover dirt within Host’s fluid reserves. Training potential has increased by three hundred percent.”
While Lin Xiao was happily enjoying the aftertaste of cosmic thunder, ten miles away on Cloud-Piercing Pass, the world had fully unraveled.
The silence that gripped the thirty thousand traditional crusaders was no longer cautious. It was a deep pit of existential horror.
Through the magnified projection of the bronze scrying mirror, thirty thousand fighters had watched the entire set. They had watched the blue blob rise from liquid rock. They had watched it spread into a pancake like a sunbathing cat. They had watched it contract into a ball. And they had heard, amplified with crystal clarity through the sound array, the little creature let out a cheerful burp and praise the flavor of heaven’s ultimate execution strike as spicy peppercorn noodles.
A young swordsman from Heavenly Sword Manor suddenly dropped his flying sword. The polished steel blade clattered against the granite stones, but the youth didn’t move to pick it up. His jaw hung slack, his arms limp at his sides. His eyes stared blankly into the distance as if his mind had simply decided to shut down to protect itself.
Beside him, two deacons quietly collapsed onto their knees in the mud, their hands trembling wildly.
“Peppercorn noodles...” an elder of the Azure Cloud Sect whispered, his voice vacant and cracked. “He called... The Ninth-Tier Purple Total ruin Sky-trial... Spicy noodles.”
“Elder Mo,” someone stammered. “Is... Is the audio array malfunctioning? Did a demon cast a phantom illusion upon the mirror?”
Elder Mo Qian didn’t answer. He was clutching the edges of the bronze frame with white-knuckled intensity, his breath coming in shallow, ragged gasps. He looked as though he had just witnessed the sun turn green and fall into a teacup.
And then there was Grand Elder Xuan Ji.
The old man stood frozen before the projection. His face had gone through three distinct transformations in five seconds. From pale triumph, to stunned disbelief, to a terrifying, mottled purple that matched the sky above.
His left eye began to twitch wildly.
Twitch. Twitch.
Then, with a sickening pop that only those standing closest could hear, a major blood vessel in Xuan Ji’s left eyeball burst under the sheer, total pressure of his boiling blood. A crimson film flooded across his eye, turning his gaze into a horrific, blood-red mask.
“Ah... Ah...” Xuan Ji choked, clawing at his throat with muddy fingers. “No... No, no, NO!”
“Grand Elder, calm your heart!” Elder Yan Lie shouted, rushing forward to grab Xuan Ji’s trembling shoulders. “Don’t let heart demons invade your spiritual sea! Circulate your vital qi!”
“LIES!” Xuan Ji shrieked, his voice rising into a terrifying, blood-curdling screech that echoed across the pass. “IT IS A TRICK! AN ILLUSION! A CORRUPTED DEMONIC MIRAGE! No living being can eat purple thunder! No mortal entity can swim in liquid glass! Heavens above, strike it again! STRIKE IT UNTIL IT DIES!”
Xuan Ji lunged toward the mirror, spitting blood and foam across the bronze glass, fully lost to madness.
Back atop the watchtower overlooking the defile, Sword Saint Gu Qingfeng threw his head back and laughed until tears rolled down his cheeks.
The old drunkard slapped his knee so hard the sound echoed off the stone low roof wall, nearly dropping his green willow twig over the edge.
“Spicy peppercorn noodles!” Gu Qingfeng roared with loud delight, raising his wine gourd toward the heavens. “Did you hear that, you stiff-necked old hypocrites on the mountain? That little puddle of blue water just rated your sacred heavenly judgment three stars out of five! He wants more chili oil!”
Tie Shan chuckled deeply, folding his massive, fur-covered arms across his chest. “I told you, Little Brother Gu. Our Sect Master’s stomach is bigger than the sky. When he gets hungry, not even the sky realm has enough pots to feed him.”
Out in the crater, Lin Xiao rolled over on his back in the molten glass pool.
He felt the prickling warmth spreading through every molecule of his body, loosening the tight knots within his dantian and making his spiritual senses clearer than they had ever been in his two lives.
He looked up at the churning purple clouds above, his white curved eyes sparkling with eager curiosity.
That was just the appetizer, Lin Xiao thought, licking his fluid lips with a soft blue slime arm. What’s the main course?