JOS Chapter 147.2

Immortality (part 2)

Zong Ce and Feng Youdao were fighting fiercely at the mountain top.

The fierce ghosts on both sides were released by them, and both had a Judge’s Brush in hand, though one was real and one fake. The nearby trees had already been knocked down by them, lying scattered all over. Both sides controlled their respective fierce ghosts, neither daring to act rashly.

Jiang Feng was also very surprised to see this scene.

Zong Ce could use the Judge’s Brush?

He extended his hand, wanting to summon back his magical treasure. Though he clearly sensed the magic power he had been familiar with for thousands of years, the Judge’s Brush in Zong Ce’s hand only trembled slightly, then settled down.

The Judge’s Brush was defying his summons?

Jiang Feng frowned.

Chu Xuanliang and the others were about to follow forward when Jiang Feng raised his hand to stop them, pointed to a position, and had them stand to the side without moving.

Chu Xuanliang then carried Huang Yu to a safe spot and set her down, gripping talismans and holding his breath to observe.

This was truly non-human fighting – they couldn’t participate.

“Jiang Feng?” Zong Ce discovered the group’s presence due to the trembling in her palm and said fiercely, “No one should try to stop me. I must kill him today!”

Feng Youdao sneered, “You’re using the Hundred Ghosts Sacrifice Formation I developed to deal with me? Even if you find more helpers, it’s the same.”

The two’s weapons met in the air, and fierce winds scattered from the distance.

Junior Brother and Chu Xuanliang behind them were directly blown over. Huang Yu happened to be pressed under him, letting out a pained howl from her second injury.

Jiang Feng formed hand seals, held them across his chest, dispelled the Judge’s Brush’s residual waves, and said gravely, “What are you gathering here to do?”

“What do I want to do?” Zong Ce pulled at the corner of her mouth. “Kill him, of course, and sacrifice him! I want him to spend his whole life unable to die even if he begs for it!”

Jiang Feng’s gaze wandered between the two. Then he took out two broken bones from his pocket.

One had fallen from the fake Judge’s Brush, and the other was taken from Liu Menghong’s home.

Jiang Feng said, “Is this thing the Mountain God’s bone?”

He felt somewhat familiar with it, yet couldn’t remember. Because this bone bore some resemblance to him, but it was indeed not his corpse from back then.

Zong Ce looked over, lost focus for an instant, then shouted loudly after a moment, “Give it back to me!”

Indeed.

Jiang Feng’s eyes darkened: “I have a question. Liu Menghong… how did her grandfather’s family get this bone and obtain the Mountain God’s notebook? What exactly happened on the mountain back then? How did the Mountain God die?”

The Mountain God’s bones were scattered in pieces, scattered everywhere. Some were even used to make fake Judge’s Brushes. Obviously, the experiences he encountered before or after death were simply unimaginable.

Zong Ce sneered, “What do you think?”

“He said he doesn’t know anything,” Jiang Feng said. “He said their family didn’t participate back then.”

“Bullshit, they’re lying!” Zong Ce gritted her teeth, veins bulging on her forehead, laughing exaggeratedly, “People always have insatiable desires. Taking is their instinct, while gratitude is just a virtue used to admonish others. Just like some people covet others’ magic power, some covet others’ lives… despicable beyond measure. All the people in that village were beasts!”

“The notebook and bones were hidden by them! They divided up Master like treasure back then. How could I allow them to defile Master’s corpse?” Zong Ce turned her gaze back, staring viciously at Feng Youdao. “It’s him, it’s all because of him! He wanted the Mountain God’s divine soul to help himself achieve immortality. Hahaha, this old thing is simply delusional! Impossible! The villagers were also ungrateful! They all deserve to die, deserve to die!! They had it coming!”

Jiang Feng tried several times but couldn’t summon back the Judge’s Brush in Zong Ce’s hand.

What a rebellious brush!

So he turned around to grab the weapon in Feng Youdao’s hand.

The Judge’s Brush was naturally spiritual, having judged merits and demerits for over a thousand years, full of righteous energy, which was why it defied Jiang Feng, who was now just a wisp of the Judge’s divine soul. The fake brush didn’t have such spiritual power.

Feng Youdao’s face changed dramatically. The Judge’s Brush in his hand began spinning rapidly out of control and pulling outward. He gripped it tightly, unwilling to let go, but was stuck unable to move due to Zong Ce on the other side. After the stalemate, he ultimately couldn’t match Jiang Feng. His palm burned with pain, and he finally released his five fingers unwillingly.

Having lost the weapon to cope with, Feng Youdao immediately set up defenses to resist Zong Ce’s attacks coming from all directions.

The fake Judge’s Brush flew into Jiang Feng’s hand. He grasped it and injected magic power to destroy it.

In the end, only a bone remained, lying in his palm.

“My brush!” Feng Youdao watched him destroy it with his own eyes, his eyes blood-red, looking as if he was about to go mad. “Dare to obstruct my great undertaking, you die too!”

Jiang Feng’s finger caressed the complex cloud patterns carved on the white bone. “Is immortality really so important?”

“Do you know what price I paid to create such a brush?!” Feng Youdao seemed enraged by his expression. “Hundreds of years, thousands of years! I accomplished what they couldn’t do! Did you see?!”

Is immortality so important?

Everyone has the right to pursue life and power. Survival of the fittest! But this world was inherently unfair. Some people… no, all people fundamentally had no chance to compete.

From the decline of Taoism, it had been nearly a thousand years. Not a single person had achieved success in cultivating mystical arts and Taoist techniques.

They couldn’t resist death and aging, leaving one after another. The Great Way simply didn’t exist in the human world. He even began to doubt whether the ancestral masters who were said to have ascended to immortality in earlier years had truly perfected the Great Way.

For humans to cultivate the Great Way, the first hurdle they couldn’t overcome was the shackles in their own hearts. Born from the mundane world and raised in it, how could they transcend the mundane? Could watermelon seeds in soil bloom roses? No.

But besides humans, all other beings – demons, spirits, mountain gods, deities… each was more powerful than humans.

Human physical constitution was so lowly and useless that even after cultivating for a hundred years, a thousand years, they still couldn’t match others’ decades of understanding.

A flash of painful memory crossed Feng Youdao’s eyes. His lips moved, murmuring to himself, “You simply don’t understand anything…”

He had been learning with his father at the Taoist temple since childhood, once firmly believing in his father’s aspirations and striving for them.

When did it start to change? To speak deeply about it, it changed from when he saw that person.

That person was forever handsome and talented, graceful and elegant.

He was respected and admired by people.

He didn’t become ugly with aging like his father.

He wasn’t despised for being daily immersed in mysterious Taoist arts like his father.

He also didn’t have to be hypocritical like his father, deceiving villagers for the temple’s incense money.

He didn’t need to humble himself everywhere like his father, begging people for guidance in the name of cultivation, yet achieving nothing.

He was different from everyone else.

If he had such life and talent, he could also live as carefree as him.

So this world was so unfair.

Such thoughts clamored intensely in Feng Youdao’s mind after the Feng family temple was slaughtered.

He would forever remember the day the Feng family was exterminated.

Some groundless rumors, those self-proclaimed righteous people, or simply those who tore off their masks to come plunder – Taoist priests who broke down their doors and ransacked their temple.

Because of strength, even killing was so effortless, even doing evil was so sanctimoniously righteous.

Feng Youdao hid in the dark, the faces of these people deeply reflected in his pupils. The ruined temple and corpses everywhere carved indelible marks in his heart.

Each mark deepened, then completely destroyed his past world.

If he also had that person’s power…

Then he would never be wrong again.

He could look down upon all the ants in the human world. Only life dwelling on high had meaning.

He felt he had understood his own Way. The first time he borrowed the Judge’s corpse bones, along with the forbidden arts the Feng family had been researching and the evil ghosts they secretly raised, he completed his revenge.

That was also the first time he grasped power, and from then on, he couldn’t stop.

Years passed. When he saw the Mountain God again, thinking he could surely match him, he was still easily subdued by the other party.

Powerful and great. This was the Mountain God.

Feng Youdao’s heart was filled with excitement at this.

See, a deity was still a deity, still looking the same.

He also wanted to always be like this.

“Immortality…” Feng Youdao raised his eyebrows and said firmly, “is the meaning of my existence!”

Jiang Feng said coldly, “Then you should still go die.”

Jiang Feng prepared to take advantage of Feng Youdao being attacked from both sides to deliver a fatal blow. After pushing out the spell with joined palms, it was bounced back by the Judge’s Brush.

Zong Ce had actually turned traitor.

Jiang Feng looked sideways at Zong Ce. “What exactly do you want to do? Didn’t you say you wanted to kill him?”

“Him, you.” Zong Ce smiled evilly. “I want both.”

Chu Xuanliang: “Zong Ce, are you still conscious? Who are you trying to get revenge on!”

Zong Ce’s face was completely serious, obviously also conscious.

Jiang Feng faced her squarely and said mockingly, “You want to use the Judge’s Brush to kill me?”

“You are a judge, but this is the mortal world!” Zong Ce said with nothing but resentment. “Don’t you always only handle Underworld affairs? Why are you interfering with the living now? Too late!”

After Zong Ce spoke, she recklessly wielded the Judge’s Brush and killed her way toward Jiang Feng.

The scene instantly changed, becoming chaotic. No one knew what Zong Ce was planning at this moment.

Feng Youdao’s eyes lit up, and he took the opportunity to curve his fingers into claws, pressing toward Zong Ce in reverse.

But Zong Ce acted as if she couldn’t see, only pursuing Jiang Feng relentlessly.

Jiang Feng actually stopped in place, waiting for her to approach.

In a flash of lightning and flint, Zong Ce’s brush tip touched Jiang Feng’s chest. Jiang Feng’s physical body disappeared into thin air, leaving only a piece of wood and two small sections of broken white bones, hidden by weeds.

And Feng Youdao’s ghostly hand also pierced into Zong Ce’s chest.

Chu Xuanliang’s face changed dramatically, and he roared, “Jiang Feng——!”

Zong Ce spat out a mouthful of fresh blood.

Feng Youdao’s eyes lit up as he went to snatch the Judge’s Brush from her hand. The brush fell to the ground, but his wrist had an extra pair of hands on it.

Zong Ce gripped tightly, and even lowered her head to look at her own bloody body.

Feng Youdao pulled forcefully, staring deadly at the long brush on the ground. No matter how hard he tried, it was completely useless. In his disbelief, a trace of panic he couldn’t hide flashed through.

“I originally had no heart… how could you kill me?” Zong Ce laughed, her smile carrying cunning and madness. “But now I’ve caught you.”

Feng Youdao trembled, “Impossible.”

“Judge’s Brush!” Zong Ce shouted at the long brush at her feet. “Where is your justice?!”

“No! Impossible!” Feng Youdao said excitedly. “How could you possibly use the Judge’s Brush? You’re just a half-finished product I refined! How did you get it!”

“It——” Zong Ce took a deep breath, “because it also thinks you deserve to die! Judge’s Brush!”

The Judge’s Brush lying on the ground actually floated up, pulling at Feng Youdao’s soul again and again, trying to extract his soul from his physical body.

The fresh blood flowing from Zong Ce’s wound kept dripping into the soil. The formation secretly laid underground finally successfully activated. White light began turning pink and became increasingly bright, showing the deep red color of blood.

Blood light filled the sky.

The fierce ghosts that had been coiled at the formation nodes when they went up the mountain let out piercing shrieks, unable to resist being pulled bit by bit into the formation.

But Chu Xuanliang had no time to care about this. He searched frantically on the ground, calling, “Jiang Feng? Jiang Feng, where are you? Come out quickly!”

Huang Yu urged Junior Brother, “Quick, go help! Who knows what happens when you’re hit by the Judge’s Brush?”

Junior Brother belatedly responded, “Oh!”

Jiang Feng had just suddenly disappeared like that. Even his soul was nowhere to be found, and not a trace of magic power could be detected.