Chapter 95: Gain and Loss

All the human cultivators stared up at the man who was standing in mid-air, shocked into silence.

“Is this really the An Lin that I know?”

“The Poison Lord is truly frighteningly powerful!”

“It’s over, I still have his blood on my sword… Is he going to exact revenge on me for that?”

…

All the cultivators on the ground were discussing amongst themselves.

But it was without a doubt that all of them looked up to the figure in the sky as if they were witnessing a god in action.

In comparison, The Dark Night Monarch, who had previously appeared nightmarishly powerful, was nearing the end of her life.

Her features gradually aged, to the extent that her dark hair was now white as snow and her presence had also diminished to the point of blinking in and out of existence.

She could no longer feel any pain as her power, soul, cultivation base, and life force were all on the brink of completely dissipating. All she could feel was a sense of hopelessness at her inevitable death.

“I saw you as mere trash before.

“But now, I am probably trash in your eyes instead, right?”

The Dark Night Monarch spoke to An Lin in a hoarse voice. She no longer had any strength to resist her fate now.

She was once a True Monarch of the Black Wing Tribe, stepping over everything that was weaker than her. But now, she was being stepped on like a piece of trash herself.

An Lin looked at her coldly and shook his head.

“I won’t use my strength to dictate one’s right to live.

“In my eyes, you are only the culprit who attempted to kill my master.

“Just like how Master Yue Ying wouldn’t discriminate in her treatment of me solely based on my cultivation base.

“In her eyes, I am her student.”

Dark Night Monarch: “…”

Her eyes began to slowly glaze over as a barely detectable hint of sadness appeared in them before disappearing in an instant.

An Lin did not waste any more of his words, he gripped the hilt of the Evil-Slaying Sword and cut downwards with one powerful motion.

The Dark Night Monarch’s body imploded into nothingness, disappearing completely.

The black symbol on An Lin’s forehead began to become less pronounced, almost completely fading away.

He grabbed her storage ring before taking another step and coming to the opening of the dark tunnel.

This should be the passageway to the Black Wing Tribe. It’s a pity I don’t have enough time, otherwise, I’d be sure to pay them a visit…

An Lin stared into the passageway before unleashing a fist toward it.

Crack…

The tunnel crumbled under the force of his fist, beginning to collapse in on itself.

“It’s all over…”

An Lin sighed lightly as the black symbol on his forehead began to disappear.

Suddenly, he felt as if he’d lost all his strength. His body swayed as extreme exhaustion began to set in.

Soon after, he lost vision and blacked out, collapsing onto the ground.

Xu Xiaolan and his friends all rushed toward An Lin as they anxiously and carefully helped him up from the ground.

After confirming that all his vital signs were normal, everyone let out a collective sigh of relief.

“Phew, luckily he didn’t explode this time…”

Xu Xiaolan stared at An Lin with fear lingering in her eyes from past memories before her worried expression began to ease a little.

The scene of An Lin self-detonating after using the Finger of the Heavenly Dao was still clear in their memories.

If An Lin really did self-detonate this time, they really had no way to bring him back…

“An Lin has once again created a miracle! Fate, it really is a wonderful thing!”

Earth Immortal Ming Yuan stared at An Lin, still not quite able to believe he’d just survived the prior disaster, his expression full of shock and contentment.

Each time he witnessed An Lin work his magic, his understanding of fate seemed to deepen a little bit.

Perhaps if he were to experience something like this two or three more times, he could utilize that as an opportunity to finally break through to the Return to Void Stage.

What everyone failed to notice was, just as the black symbol disappeared from An Lin’s forehead, something that transcended matter and was not part of the Great Dao left his body.

It pierced through the mortal world and merged into the Tai Chu Continent.

Heaven and earth remained unchanged and the living beings on the Tai Chu Continent couldn’t notice any kind of change.

But in truth, the heaven and earth had already undergone a transformation, making some things appear to be more justified.

…

In the central region of a place filled with ancient evil demons located in the outer stretches of the Tai Chu Continent.

A snake woman with the lower body of a snake and the upper body of a human opened her eyes, which seemed to be shimmering with the bright stars of the Great Dao.

A brilliant ray of light began to radiate from the heavenly rainbow stone held in her hands, immediately purifying all the evil demons within a radius of several hundred kilometers.

“The mending of the heavens has already begun… it seems I must make haste on my end too.”

The woman rose into the air atop a rainbow cloud, disappearing into the distance in the blink of an eye, moving toward somewhere even further away on the continent.

…

Three days later, An Lin finally awoke.

He assessed his condition and found that it seemed to be good as new, exactly as it was before.

Many human cultivators received news of An Lin’s recovery and all came to visit him.

Slowly, presents began to pile up in An Lin’s room.

This scene was quite reminiscent of the time all his fans came to offer gifts after he’d self-detonated.

However, this time around was even more extreme than last time.

After all, An Lin had not only displayed power seemingly sufficient to defy natural order.

But from another perspective, it could be said that he had also saved the lives of all these human cultivators.

If it wasn’t for An Lin, they’d probably all be dead at the hands of the Dark Night Monarch.

These cultivators naturally wouldn’t be stingy with their savior, hence, there was no lack of good stuff in the presents he received.

The Longhu, Wudang, Shangqing, and Kunlun sect leaders also paid him a visit and brought with them three storage rings as presents.

These were the storage rings from the now deceased Blood Gods. An Lin didn’t have time to collect them so they picked the rings up in his stead.

It was true that these Blood Gods were all slain by one palm from An Lin, so he naturally deserved their storage rings.

All the top dogs of the cultivating world could only do some manual labor and help him pick up the spoils of war.

Lin Yi had also come back. He had severed all contact with the outside world and tailed the enemy in secret after discovering the presence of the Blood Tribe army. It was only when the Blood Tribe began to mobilize that he contacted the outside world, thereby resulting in the prior battle.

After that, the Dark Night Monarch used the Realm-Piercing Nail to forcefully break through into the spell formation, uniting with the Demon Emperor and the others who had already entered the mystic realm.

She coaxed the Evil-Slaying Sword into relinquishing its sword spirit and accepting the Demon Emperor as its new sword spirit instead.

The Evil-Slaying Sword thereby managed to avoid the sword spirit purification restrictions of the third-grade spell formation, allowing it to return to the world.

The sequence that followed should’ve been a one-sided slaughter by the Dark Night Monarch as she wielded the Evil-Slaying Sword, cutting down all the human cultivators in swathes.

However, a wild card appeared in the form of An Lin.

Nobody knew how An Lin managed to get so powerful all of a sudden.

Even now, everyone was still completely in the dark.

Of course, everyone had their secrets.

If An Lin didn’t want to tell them, Xu Xiaolan and the others wouldn’t come prying either.

…

Inside the room.

Earth Immortal Yue Ying stared at An Lin with curiosity on her face. She adjusted the red frames of her glasses slightly as a ray of wisdom flashed in her eyes.

“Student An Lin, your feats just get more and more unbelievable!

“To progress from Zero Stage Dao Body to Tenth Stage Dao Body in one year, this has already broken the all-time record in The United University of Cultivation, but it now seems that this was only a piece of cake for you…”

An Lin winced at her words, unable to respond.

Earth Immortal Yue Ying’s eyes narrowed slightly in a warm smile, her lips creating a perfect curve, like that of an incomplete moon.

“That finger immortal spell you used in the free-for-all battle, which was comparable to an attack from a Celestial Immortal, was quite a feat too, but it did have a side-effect…

“And after that, your blood even became a lethal poison to those of the Blood Tribe…”

An Lin listened in silence as Earth Immortal Yue Ying rattled off his feats one by one. Even he himself felt like he had shown off a bit too much.

Why was he so overpowered?

“But what was most shocking to me was the battle at the Ancient Jade Pond. The power that you exhibited, albeit for only a short time, was simply unexplainable. Power even able to completely outclass the Dark Night Monarch of the Black Wing Tribe…”

She shuffled closer and closer to An Lin as she spoke, her face stopping just short of An Lin’s.

“Tell me, are there any side-effects of the power you used?”

An Lin’s heart trembled slightly, but he still maintained a nonchalant smile on his face. “Of course there’s a side-effect.”

“What is it?” Earth Immortal Yue Ying asked worriedly.

“The side-effect is…”

An Lin adopted a mysterious expression.

“Fainting for three days.”

Earth Immortal Yue Ying blinked her pretty eyes before sighing and slapping her forehead in resignation.

“Alright, you win…

“Rest up, I have to go now.”

…

Sigh, it was only a fifth of his life force.

A lifespan of one hundred would be whittled down to eighty, a lifespan of ten thousand would be whittled down to eight thousand.

It didn’t really matter, because his lifespan would continue to increase as his cultivation base progressed.

An Lin shook his head to dispel this train of thought as he looked at Earth Immortal Yue Ying’s receding figure in the distance, before beginning to go through the spoils of war.