“I was too close…” the man croaked, his voice barely a whisper. He sputtered dust as he did, making Huxian wonder whether he should continue the conversation or put the man out of his misery.
“Too close to the sun?” Huxian asked.
The man nodded, and more skin crumbled off at his neck. “But you chased the sun all this time. You became stronger for it, discovering more of its beauty. Didn’t the sun benefit you?”
The man chuckled painfully. Given his condition, it sounded like nothing more than a death rattle. “Yes, I discovered the sun’s beauty. And I found strength in it. But as I unearthed this strength, I discovered a glimpse of the sun’s true nature, and the reason my journey had to end bitterly.”
“Which was?” Huxian asked.
Instead of answering, the man blinked a few times, gathering his thoughts. He licked his dusty lips, sputtering out ashes that formed on his tongue in the process. “The sun rises, and the sun sets,” the man said finally. “That is the true nature of the sun. One cannot constantly bask in its presence. There is a rise, and there is a fall. There is a summoning, and there is a banishing. Can you not see it, out there in the piercing light?”
Huxian looked out into the sun, and on cue, a slightly brighter spot appeared directly at the center. It grew brighter and brighter but did not grow in size. Then, to Huxian’s surprise, it left the sun. It darted toward him like a bolt of lightning, and he barely had time to see the piece of broken jade before it smashed into his forehead, rushing straight into his eyes like before. This time, however, he felt searing pain.
His inner iris, filled with Devil-Sealing Intent, was still of a vivid jade coloring. His outer iris, a deep purple ring filled with Demon-Subduing Intent, was slowly but steadily pushed toward the center as the soft golden ring from before finally solidified. It snapped into place, and the moment it did, he knew its name.
The Spirit-Banishing Scripture, Huxian thought. The sun that rises must fall; the spirit born must leave; offenders to the natural order are banished with unfettered ease.
With the mnemonic came the knowledge of several new abilities. The first one was the power to see all spirits. It wasn’t an all-powerful ability, but it could pierce many cultivation realms, making it so nothing on the mortal plane he normally resided on could evade his detection. The second ability was much like the one shared by his two previous eye techniques: Spirit-Banishing Intent. The more spirits banished or destroyed, the greater the intent. It could, in turn, be used to banish spirits.
The third ability, however, took the cake. Spirits weren’t just a problem because of their nigh invisibility but because of their transparency. Only strong yang energies could effectively damage them. The Spirit-Banishing Scripture not only gave the user the ability to see spirits but the ability to interact with them. Their physical and other attacks would be imbued with Spirit-Banishing Intent, which would, in turn, allowed them to touch, hold, and otherwise damage the ethereal beings with ease.
“My mission is complete,” Scholar Yang said from beside him. His body began to crumble more rapidly, and chunks of flesh and bones were now falling off in puffs of dust. Even his bones were chipping away. “The sun that rises must fall.”
After these last words, the rest of his body gave out as his soul left him. It was forcefully banished by the powerful sun into the Yellow River. As his soul left, Huxian finally saw tiny karmic tethers that had bound him to the sun. It was these tethers that had allowed Huxian to see the man’s journey.
The way forward is clear, Huxian thought out loud. The sun that rises must fall. To do that, it needs to be unchained. He could now see the writhing mass of karmic threads holding the ball of light in place. They led back both to the city and to the Buddhist temple from before. Energized, he rushed off, away from the sun, its scorching heat increasing his speed. Time blurred around him as he made his way toward the Buddhist temple. After all, the city was his starting point. For any decently poetic ending, its souls would need to be freed last.
His only worry now was the pain. Since gaining the third eye technique, he felt an unreasonable amount of strain in his eyes. The mere thought of even activating the technique to see and banish spirits sent shivers down his spine. Though he could probably handle the inevitable backlash from the technique, Cha Ming most certainly could not. He was, after all, only human.
More to the point, Huxian was a decently selfish demon. He could choose not to use these eyes and could lock them away for all eternity. Cha Ming, on the other hand, would never do such a thing. These eyes were a tool with a purpose. Given enough reason, he would use them.
Chapter 31: Justification
Cha Ming let out a bloodcurdling scream as he collapsed to one knee, his project forgotten. He Yin, who’d been working beside him, used his lightning fast reflexes to catch falling reagents with his soul force, preventing the laboratory from erupting in a symphony of destructive energies. This all went unnoticed to Cha Ming, however, as he clutched his forehead. Multiple streaks of blood ran out of each of his eyes from beneath his hands.
Relax, Cha Ming thought to himself. Accept the pain. Be one with the pain. As a body cultivator, he’d experienced the destruction and regrowth of his body many times over. He’d had hands blown apart by shards of metal, and the entire surface of his body burned three
