The Heavenly Wandering Sword
Chapter 40
Perhaps there was one of his compatriots that smiled upon him because Fu Rong had been knocked unconscious by the blast. With her under one of his arms, he would run through the tunnel quickly, using the Divine Sword Steps to put increasing amount of distance between himself and the prisoner room in the cavern. The cavern twisted and turned in different directions and Li Jian simply followed the one that would lead him further. For a yokai to be summoned to this world through forbidden means, it was just the way of defying the Dao itself, the same way he did when he stepped down into the mortal world again. It was an interesting development that he had not expected.
After a solid hour of weaving through, he could sense the presence of a source of spiritual energy coming up from a large opening in the caverns he was currently in. Following the source, he found himself in a massive cavern that had a massive field in the middle with pools of spiritual essence water that was so dense with energy that pale mists of spiritual force can be seen floating out from it. “Kon Kon, come out and see if you can absorb any of this.” The sword spirit stepped out daintily and looked around, nodding with a grin. Li Jian placed the unconscious principal next to one of the steaming pools and hesitated for a moment before stripping her down and placing her body to lay in one of the shallower pools of spiritual water. He was sure that she would be quite upset when she woke up.
He would explore the large field and found that with the abundance of spiritual energy many of the plants there were not regular and simple ones. The grass themselves were filled to their roots with energy while the various fruits of the trees were not simple ones. There was vermillion fruit, jade pears and thousand-year berries that were bountiful. Surely for a place like this, it did not simply just develop by itself. There was no massive overgrowth of trees either, only small gatherings of spiritual fruit trees that were filled with fruit. There must be someone who took care of this place. Soon enough, he would wander into a clearing where a modest hut was built. Although there were no decadent decorations or ornaments, the hut was built from strong materials by someone who had experience.
When he walked up to the hut, he felt that there was a barrier around it of some kind, but he was able to walk right through without much resistance. Inside the barrier, the air itself felt invigorating as if the place was a spiritual bottleneck of the planet. He thought about it a bit more and decided that it was very likely exactly a spiritual bottleneck that the hut was built on. Opening the door of the hut, he was startled to see a woman dressed in simple clothes sitting on a bed there. When the door opened, the woman reacted instinctively and jumped up, a massive gathering of spiritual force in her hand ready to destroy whoever just intruded on her home.
“Who the hell are you?” The woman jumped up and aimed her hand at him. When he didn’t answer, she launched her attack sending a spear of green lightning towards him. “Green lightning? That looked familiar.” He thought to himself before slicing through the lightning with a single swipe of his index finger. The woman gaped at him and retrieved what seemed to be an intricately made jade green sword from her storage necklace and attacked him head on. Li Jian dodged his head to the side as the sword attacked past him, the woman having floated the sword up with her spiritual energy. With another gesture of her hand, the sword came flying towards him, but he caught the sword this time by the its point and grabbed it out of the air, swinging it a few times. The woman was even more stunned at this, her eyes opening widely as he jumped back into her bed, before Li Jian quickly held a hand up. “Honoured sister, please I did not mean to intrude.”
“Give me back my sword you creeping pervert.” The woman yelled at him as she conjured out a single green ball of glowing energy. Li Jian frowned as she fired the energy ball at him but he caught it with his hand and dissipated it harmlessly by crushing it between his thumb and his index finger. “Who the hell are you? What are you doing here?” The woman yelled at him as she summoned ten more of those orbs with much more power in them. “I got lost with my companion who was heavily injured, we were in the caverns and ended up here.”
The woman stared at him suspicious but he put the sword down on the floor in front of the bed and backed away, his hand raised up. “I didn’t mean to intrude, I was exploring this garden to see what it was, I didn’t expect to find someone living here.” The woman hmphed and stood up, collecting her sword and placing it back in her storage necklace. “Green jade sword, that really is familiar.” He thought to himself. The woman glared at him for a moment before crossing her arms and tilting her head up. “My name is Sun Li, you may bow down and worship me now.” Li Jian scratched his head slightly. He had no idea who Sun Li was.
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“Why has no one ever heard of me? I am the Goddess of Healing.” Li Jian looked at her and frowned slightly. “Isn’t that a demi-goddess?” She glared at him again and summoned five green balls of force. “Demi-goddess or Goddess, I am far greater than you mortal.” Li Jian thought about mentioning the fact that he had just crushed the balls she had summoned previously before shaking his head. “Why is it then you are living here? Should you not be living up in the heavens?”
The structure of the Heavenly Palace itself was straight forward. Demi-deities ruled over specific aspects of each portfolio under the deities. It meant that Sun Li was under the Deity of Life in the Heavenly Palace, with healing under a part of the Life Portfolio. The Divine Emperor did not have any demi-deities under him, and neither did Li Jian. Just like the deities, demi-deities were not allowed to just wander around the mortal world. However considering the appearance of the yokai, he was wondering if this was related. Sun Li looked at her and tilted her head up at him. “You’re just a mortal, you don’t know what you’re talking about. Deities can live wherever they wish.” Li Jian just nodded. “I have a friend who is injured, I placed her in one of the spiritual pools to heal but I wonder if you are able to help me?”
Sun Lin tilted her head before nodding. “Of course I can. Take me to her.” He lead her to the pool where the principal was still naked and laying in the steaming pool. Sun Lin knelt down beside the pool and examined her carefully, running her spiritual force through the witch elf’s body. “A human with a witch elf? How strange.” She commented as she felt the flow of the spiritual force through each of the unconscious woman’s acupuncture points. “Did you get into a fight with a yokai recently?” Li Jian found it odd that she adopted this continents name for the true demons. “Yes, she was knocked out by a blast of the creatures asura essence.”
With a sigh, the woman laid back and nodded. “That is what I thought. I can heal her, but where in the heavens did a yokai come from?” Sitting down on the soft grass, he told her of what had happened. The demi-deity was shocked as he mentioned how the group that had been captured were being sacrificed cage by cage to the yokai before he was able to make their escape. “That is normal, after a yokai is unsealed, it needs blood sacrifices of cultivators in order to regain its strength. This could mean that the yokai is loose now, but it also means that right now the yokai is still weak.” She put a hand on the principal’s forehead and began infusing her with a light green healing essence. “This will take a while.” Sun Li warned.
After a few days, Fu Rong woke up groggily, finding that her body was still in tremendous amounts of pain but at least she could move. She got up carefully and slowly and rubbed her eyes, noting that she was in a pair of silk pajamas that did not belong to her. The first thing she saw was Li Jian sitting on the other side of the bed with his feet propped up on a chair, reading a book about herbs. “Master Li.. what happened? Did we die and end up in the Heavens?” Li Jian looked around slightly confused. “Sister Fu, do you think this is what heaven looks like? It’s a very long story.” At that moment, Sun Li walked in with a bowl of a soup that gave off an extremely herbal aroma. “The two of you were both injured fighting against the yokai. The idiot here was smart enough to head towards a source of spiritual energy in the caverns, which unfortunately lead him to my land.”
Fu Rong bowed her head in thanks at the woman. “Thank you for your kindness and for healing me. Please let me know what I can do to repay you.” The demi-deity handed her the bowl of soup and shook her head. “How can I let you a mortal thank me? I am Sun Li the deity of healing after all.”
“Some people have no shame.” Li Jian thought to himself at her words.
Fu Rong bowed her head again. “I am very lucky that then that you were kind enough to heal me. Thank you for this soup.” She took the bowl and began to sip at it. She found herself extremely thirsty and although the soup was quite bitter with the different herbs, she drank it down and found it refreshing. “I have heard of your name before Deity. They say that you have been a guest of the Divine Hunts Ground for a very long time.” Sun Li grinned at the recognition and smiled, crossing her arms and striking a pose. “Of course. The Witch Elf Deity of Healing and I are sworn sisters.” This comment made the innocuous Sword Deity standing there ponder about just what had happened. Since even before he had left the Heavenly Palace, he knew that he had not seen the Deity of Life in a while. He had figured that to be normal; after all he rarely left sword mountain.
Fu Rong placed the bow down and sighed as she looked down at her hands. “The continent will be in trouble with the yokai running around. Deity, are you able to defeat the yokai?” Sun Li just shook her head sadly. “As a deity, I have rules regulating what I can and cannot do in the mortal realms.” Her answer just made Li Jian question more as to why she was here in the first place.
“Deity Sun, why are you in this cavern then? Should you not be up in the Divine Hunts Ground?” He asked her, an eyebrow raised with both curiosity as well as suspicion. She sighed softly and nodded slightly. “There isn’t much that you are able to do as a mortal so I will just tell you. The Divine Hunts Ground is currently very unstable. It seems that the five major deities are somehow at war with each other.”