After putting on the skull, the Nine-tailed Heavenly Fox calmed herself, closed her eyes, cast aside distracting thoughts, emptied her mind, and focused on sensing the residual spiritual essence within the skull.
Before long, through the mutual resonance of spiritual essence between those of the same clan, she clearly sensed a faint resonance arise between the two overlapping skulls.
The spiritual essence of the Qingqiu Fox sank, while hers rose, and the two met.
The moment the two strands of spiritual essence converged, devouring began.
“Roar!”
The spiritual essence inside the Qingqiu Fox skull sank and condensed into a white shadow within the Nine-tailed Fox’s sea of consciousness. At first it was blurry and ever-shifting.
A moment later, its body solidified and turned into a white fox several dozen feet long. Behind it, nine tails rose high like a peacock spreading its tail.
It was so elegant and noble, like a spirit born of heaven and earth, filled with holiness.
It was so enchantingly seductive, as if the embodiment of desire itself. Any living being who saw It, man or woman, would submit beneath Its charm.
The Qingqiu Fox, one of the ancient gods and demons.
In the legends, the Qingqiu Fox had been the unrivalled beauty of the ancient age. Its charm could conquer all things. Whether gods and demons, humans, or the descendants of gods and demons, all coveted Its beauty.
It had been one of the most influential among the ancient gods and demons.
With a thought, the Nine-tailed Fox manifested her own spiritual essence within her sea of consciousness as an elegant and noble nine-tailed white fox.
Her body was relatively smaller, and her appearance differed greatly from the Qingqiu Fox, yet she was likewise immaculate and white, likewise possessed of incomparable charm.
The two white foxes faced each other across the void, baring their teeth. Behind them, their nine tails suddenly spread out, fluttering fiercely like battle banners.
They pounced on each other without reservation and began to tear into one another.
Among the lineage of the Nine-tailed Heavenly Fox, members of the same clan could plunder each other’s spiritual essence and complete themselves with it. The silver-haired Yao beauty wanted to devour the spiritual essence left behind by the Qingqiu Fox, and the latter would likewise, by instinct, devour spiritual essence of the same source.
In other words, if the Nine-tailed Fox could not defeat the power left behind by her ancestor, she would very likely be devoured in turn.
The silver-haired Yao beauty kept her mind in a blank state, cast aside all distracting thoughts, including fear, joy, tension and so on, and left herself with nothing but the instinct to feed.
So she ceased to be elegant. Baring her teeth like a true wild beast, she frenziedly devoured the Qingqiu Fox, bit off its tails, tore at its “flesh and blood”, and ate it bite by bite.
During this process, the body of the Queen of the Wanyao Kingdom was likewise devoured by the Qingqiu Fox.
You within me, me within you, merging with each other.
Outside the sea of consciousness, Xu Qi’an silently retreated a few steps and raised his head to look at the enormous white fox before him. It stood twenty feet high and was over sixty feet long, and it was still growing.
The fox spirit had revealed her true form.
At this moment, she was not elegant or beautiful in the least. Her eyes were a sheet of crimson, the flesh of her long cheeks wrinkled into folds, and sharp canine teeth jutted out.
She crouched low, poised to pounce as if she might launch an attack at any moment.
What a pity Jiuzhou has no mobile phones. Otherwise I’d take a photo of her like this. That’d be the dark history of a goddess showing her true colours. The kind that’d socially kill her if it got out… Xu Qi’an observed while inwardly lamenting.
If the Nine-tailed Heavenly Fox proved no match for the Qingqiu Fox, he would immediately intervene and interrupt the fusion.
For now, though, the results of the fusion seemed fairly good.
Violent and complex power surged out from the Nine-tailed Fox’s body. The reason it was called complex was that it mixed together vast qi and blood power, a charm power that beguiled the mind, and wanton music capable of making a person’s soul collapse.
Advancing to first rank naturally did not just mean the strengthening of her innate divine abilities. Her physical strength was also rapidly soaring, reaching a level worthy of first rank.
Yet in the eyes of first-rank martial artist Xu Qi’an, this power was troublesome and mighty indeed, but not enough to rival him.
When it came to brute force, martial artists had always stood above all under heaven.
Time flew, and a month passed in a rush.
There was no alternation of sun and moon here, but Xu Qi’an had a water clock in his Earth Book fragment. In this era, anyone who could carry a timekeeping tool around was rich!
Each day that passed, Xu Qi’an carved one stroke of the character “zheng” onto the ground.1
Within the sea of consciousness, the figure of the Qingqiu Fox fell heavily. It was already mangled and incomplete, and let out a mournful cry that only the Queen of the Wanyao Kingdom could hear, as if begging for mercy.
She viciously pinned it down with her forelegs, looked down at the Qingqiu Fox with indifferent eyes, opened her fangs, and lowered her head.
Xu Qi’an saw the nine tails hanging behind the Queen of the Wanyao Kingdom suddenly all rise together. From each tail came the laughter of a different woman, some sweet and cloying, some soft and melting, some crisp, some icy, some coquettish…
They wove together into the chattering music of women laughing and teasing.
At last, all those sounds vanished. The Nine-tailed Fox, now over one hundred feet long, transformed back into human form amid swaying white light.
The silver-haired Yao beauty opened her lovely eyes, and the first thing she saw was Xu Qi’an standing not far away with a smile.
“Congratulations, Your Majesty, on advancing to first rank!”
Xu Qi’an cupped his fist in congratulations.
The silver-haired Yao beauty revealed a pure, sincere smile without a trace of impurity. In that instant, she was a beauty fit to topple cities, peerless in grace.
But then she noticed that Xu Qi’an’s gaze was not on her face at all, but lingering over her body and chest.
She immediately realised the state she was in—stark naked, not a thread on her.
Her skirt and fur chest wrap had long since burst apart when she revealed her true form.
A flash of embarrassed anger passed through her. Using a fox tail to cover her lower belly while crossing her arms over her chest, squeezing her snowy softness out of shape, she said shyly:
“How hateful, you’re not allowed to look at me like that.”
As she spoke with bashful timidity, coy reproach and faint anger, one of the Nine-tailed Fox’s innate divine abilities, enchantment, was activated.
Now that she had advanced to first rank, her enchantment had improved by leaps and bounds compared with before. She even had the confidence that all males in the world ought to fall at her feet.
Xu Ningyan happened to be a lecher, and also a first-rank martial artist, making him the perfect test subject.
If even he could not resist her charm, then below first rank, including even some first-rank experts of certain systems, none would be able to ignore her enchantment.
Xu Qi’an nodded calmly.
“I’ve seen enough anyway.”
He very rationally withdrew his gaze, and indeed stopped peeking at the vivid, fragrant jade body of the Nine-tailed Fox.
The silver-haired Yao beauty’s bashful expression suddenly froze, and she said blankly:
“Am—am I not beautiful?”
Xu Qi’an glanced at her.
“To be honest, your true form is more tempting to me. My Heart Gu is already getting impatient.”
Her human form was charm.
Her true form was “charm plus the impulse of the Desire Gu”. Which was obviously more seductive.
The Queen of the Wanyao Kingdom calmly took out a set of clothes and put them on. Her expression was peaceful, as if nothing had happened.
“Let’s go. We don’t have much time.”
So this is your way of explaining what ‘as long as I’m not embarrassed, the embarrassed one is someone else’ means… Xu Qi’an nodded expressionlessly.
“Let’s go!”
He pressed a hand to the fragrant shoulder of the Nine-tailed Fox. The glass bead on his left wrist flashed once, and the two of them vanished from where they stood.
…
The core region of Gods and Demons island.
The monster with a human face, a sheep’s body, and six curved horns growing from its head, after three days of “long trekking”, finally saw a light ahead.
That light was so dazzling and pure, yet also exceedingly gentle. Looking directly at it did not hurt the eyes.
Desolation’s human-like face was slightly dazed as It stared blankly at that light. After a long while, It revealed an intensely human expression, wild joy and excitement.
The light was reflected in Its golden pupils, and it seemed as though nothing remained in the world but that light.
That light bloomed quietly upon the silent wasteland. At its core was a gate, a gate of light a thousand feet tall.
It was worth noting that this gate of light stood upon layer after layer of piled-up corpses. The bones of gods and demons carpeted the ground in heaps. Some were fairly well preserved, while others had been worn down by time into fragments and dust.
The holiness of the gate of light and the mountain of corpses beneath it formed a sharp contrast, creating a powerful visual impact.
Strangely enough, although the bones of gods and demons were piled like mountains, there was no residual spiritual essence at all near the gate of light.
At the very centre of Gods and Demons island was the only place without spiritual essence.
“Do you hear it? It’s calling me!”
Desolation gazed at the gate of light as if entranced.
“After endless ages, it’s calling me once again.”
The Jianzheng gave a derisive snort.
It halted Its steps. Clearly It was excited beyond measure and unable to wait, yet It still stopped, wearing the sort of hesitation that feared going closer, as though worried it was nothing but a fleeting illusion.
After quite a while, Desolation let out a sigh.
“What a pity. It can no longer be pushed open.
“In the ancient age, during the first great calamity, gods and demons could push it open. But now, after endless ages, gods and demons have lost the right to do so.”
The Jianzheng smiled.
“That’s right. You failed to seize the first opportunity. This is no longer the age of gods and demons.”
Desolation was not angered. Its low voice echoed between heaven and earth.
“But I think the gatekeeper can push open this gate.
“Originally, I wanted to devour you, take away your spiritual essence, and seize the identity of gatekeeper. That way I could return here, push open this gate, and accomplish what the gods and demons never managed to do.
“But I underestimated your tenacity. So long as the Great Feng does not perish, you will not die.
“But now it is the same. You are a turtle in a jar. I may not be able to usurp the gatekeeper’s identity, but I can use you to push open this gate.”
The horn atop Its head glowed faintly, and the Jianzheng’s voice came from it:
“The gatekeeper is meant to guard the gate, not push it open. Your wishful thinking has come to nothing.”
“No matter!” Desolation was not disappointed. In a cheerful tone, It said:
“There must be a connection between the gatekeeper and the gate. As long as I can use you to control it, that is already half a victory. At worst, once I return to my peak, I can go to Jiuzhou and contend with the Beyond-rank for fortune.”
Compared with the other Beyond-rank powers, if he controlled this gate, he would possess an advantage Buddha and the others could not possibly match.
After saying that, It continued slowly forward. The reason It could see that gate of light was because Its body was enormous, allowing It to see very far.
In truth, the gate of light was still extremely far away from It.
…
Xu Qi’an scooped up a handful of soil and hurled it hard ahead.
The black earth flew a certain distance, then after entering that region, suddenly “stopped” and began slowly falling downwards.
Xu Qi’an stared intently at the black soil. A moment later, he said:
“The flow of time is about ten times slower. One day inside equals ten days outside.”
The Nine-tailed Fox gave an “mm”. The tails behind her swayed unconsciously as she spoke in her pleasant and alluring voice:
“A month has already passed outside. For Desolation, only three days have passed inside. There are still seven days left. I hope we can make it in time.”
When the Jianzheng spoke of ten days, he meant the time needed to cross that stretch of space, measured according to the flow of time inside the “slow” region.
Without further nonsense, the two of them entered that region together.
With just a single step, they used up a quarter of an hour.
Xu Qi’an looked at the Nine-tailed Heavenly Fox beside him and said:
“How strange. I feel as though the flow of time is normal, but my reason tells me that the passage of time here is not normal.”
This sentence alone took him the time of one incense stick to finish.
The silver-haired Yao beauty’s eyes slowly lifted as she thought, then replied:
“Maybe it’s because thoughts are the only thing in the world unaffected by time, so your thoughts are normal.”
By the time she finished this sentence, they had completely entered the region.
Xu Qi’an slowly raised his left hand and activated the bracelet on it. The glass bead slowly lit up, and ten breaths later, they appeared in the distance.
Here, any flight spell would be restricted. The only thing that could keep pace with time was space.
But even spatial transfer spells were suppressed by the spiritual essence of this place. Everything was ten times slower, including distance and casting time.
Even so, compared with Desolation, who had to rely on Its own four hooves to walk, their speed was already the difference between an ox cart and a rocket.
Although they held an overwhelming advantage in speed, Xu Qi’an and the Nine-tailed Fox did not dare let down their guard, because the ten-day limit given by the Jianzheng referred to the normal state.
That was under the assumption that Desolation had no special methods.
No one could be certain that an ancient god or demon who had lived through endless ages would have no special tricks up Its sleeve.
In China, tallying is done by writing the 正 (“zheng”) character, as it has five strokes ↩
Comments for this chapter. You will need a GitHub account. Please follow all terms and conditions of GitHub issues and maintain etiquette in the comments. Cookies are required for this functionality.
If you want to talk with other readers about Nightwatchers (or other cultivation type books) you can join our cultivation groupreading discord server!
I also have a Kofi, which for legal reasons is definitely for supporting my digital art only (promise!): ko-fi.com/yanxin ... plus I guess server space isn't free, and I don't want to put ads/trackers... ever, so thank you if you do!