Daily life of a cultivation judge

Chapter 1240: Unexpected development



The spiritual imprint immediately sensed Yang Qing's actions, not that he was being covert about it in the first place. Since he had decided to act, he would do so wholeheartedly, especially with the other safeguards already in place. Trying to be slow and cautious now would only be counterproductive, as it would give the spiritual imprint room to react.

So, when Yang Qing moved, he did so without reservation. Against an opponent like this—especially given its importance—he couldn't afford to hold back.

His star seal flared as threads of gold and white light were released from the dual-colored star on the cicada's body, weaving out like silk. These threads surged toward the spiritual imprint, which looked no different from the cicada's muscle. It was only when the threads charged that the imprint revealed its true form—a small glyph flared, and from it, a dense, pure white fog erupted.

The fog quickly condensed into a ball, taking the shape of a sea urchin or porcupine, with elongated, sharp protrusions covering its outer frame. Like stretching limbs, those needle-like spines exploded outward, aiming to tear through the gold and white threads trying to bind them.

Some threads were shredded, while others endured—and even retaliated. The golden threads, in particular, melted through the oncoming spines like a hot knife through butter. Yet the spiritual imprint reacted quickly, replacing the destroyed protrusions with new ones that instantly sprang forth to take their place.

A rapid clash ensued between the two sides. The speed at which the threads and protrusions attacked and countered one another was so fast that even a first-stage palace realm expert would have struggled to keep up. It was like a dance of light moving at the speed of thought.

In under ten seconds, the threads and the fog had exchanged over two hundred blows.

As the exchange grew more intense, the fog began introducing variations to its attacks. Some of its needle tendrils split off from the main body and reformed into miniature versions of itself— they were spore-like masses ringed with thorns.

About a hundred of these spores were produced from a single tendril that Yang Qing's threads had nearly consumed. The tendril exploded into spores that latched onto the threads of light, slowing them down. Judging by the imprint's actions, the explosion was a defensive measure to keep Yang Qing's threads from reaching its core.

Though smaller and seemingly less lethal than the whip-like needle protrusions, the spores had a clear effect, especially on the white threads.

As soon as they latched on, they slowed the threads' momentum. In the case of the white ones, the effect was even more pronounced. The spores seemed to leech energy from them, growing stronger in the process. Some swelled so much they burst, releasing even more spores and rapidly multiplying their numbers.

It was the golden threads they struggled with the most, though the spores still managed to slow them down considerably, especially when large swarms of the newly formed spores latched onto them. Some spores melted instantly upon contact, but others left behind deep blue-black patches as they dissolved, creating the appearance of rot spreading across the threads.

Golden threads marked with this "rot" lost both speed and force in their attacks, making them easy targets for the spiritual imprint's counterattacks.

"Two can play at that game," Yang Qing muttered with an amused sense of calm as some of his white threads pulsed with a new radiance. These were the threads already burdened with spores.

As the pulsing white light surged through them, the spores vanished as if sucked directly into the thread. And indeed they were.

The moment the spores were absorbed, those threads reacted. Their movements turned sluggish, as if they were almost drunk, as if they were struggling to contain something. Their pristine moonlit glow dimmed slightly, shifting to a hue tinged with deep blue.

Then, as delicate blue crystalline cracks began forming along one of the threads, a nearby gold thread wove itself around it. The two entwined into a spiral braid, white and gold, bathed in a gentle, unified glow of white and yellow.

Instantly, the cracks vanished. The white thread regained its flawless moon-bright radiance.

That scene repeated across all the other threads that had absorbed spores. Each time, a golden thread would appear beside the affected white thread, intertwining with it, and just like before, the adverse effects vanished instantly.

The merged threads then charged at the remaining spores like ravenous predators chasing prey. Flashes of gold and white danced across the battlefield, devouring every spore in sight. Not only did this rapidly reduce the number of spores, but it also visibly strengthened the fused threads. The energy pulsing from them was three times greater than that of the individual gold or white threads.

Their appearances began to change.

With each spore they consumed, the sheen along the threads started to shift. The gold threads slowly lightened, their radiance burning hotter, until they started burning with a brilliant flaming white hue. Meanwhile, the white threads darkened. They turned from moonlit silver to smoky grey, and eventually to a deep pitch black that still retained a pristine, silky shine.

Those braided threads had changed from gold and white to black and white, and the power they radiated was astonishing. Though only four of these enhanced threads had formed, each one unleashed enough pressure and destructive force to rival a hundred ordinary threads.

The four threads made short work of the remaining spores and then surged straight toward the imprint's main body.

Sensing danger, the imprint immediately compressed itself into a shape resembling a fruit. Pulsating waves of tightly compressed energy began radiating from within, prompting Yang Qing to hurl all his threads toward it in haste. He feared the imprint was attempting to self-detonate, which was one of the things he had been guarding against from the very beginning.

Despite the speed of his threads, he was still a step too late.

The moment they made contact, the fruit-like form exploded. Tiny motes of dark grey scattered from the blast, then quickly melted away into nothingness.

It wasn't that Yang Qing had been too slow—the truth was, the imprint's owner had prepared just as thoroughly as he had. Yang Qing had taken every measure he could think of to isolate the rune from the spiritual imprint. Sadly, as thorough as he was, that rune wasn't his handiwork, and while he had covered most bases, it was impossible to cover all bases.

By triggering its own destruction, the imprint seemed to have awakened a hidden, dormant function within the rune—one specifically designed to accelerate the implosion of the spiritual imprint. Had Yang Qing not been so deeply entangled with it, he might have sensed and disrupted the process in time.

But in the heat of battle, with how tightly their energies had interwoven and his urgent push to suppress it, the imprint had found the opening it needed to execute its final move.

"I'm sorry, but since I decided to act, no way I'm leaving empty-handed," said Yang Qing determinedly.

As a paranoid overthinker with some pessimistic tendencies, a scenario like this wasn't exactly outside the scope of what he'd imagined as he played out the likely outcomes of engaging the spiritual imprint.

He'd be a fool to underestimate the capabilities of its owner, especially after witnessing their work with the rune. So, despite all the preparations he had made, Yang Qing had kept in mind the possibility that they might not be enough. He had considered that the owner likely had a failsafe or trump card that could escape his senses, or one he might struggle to react to in the moment.

So, he had prepared for the worst. And the worst-case scenario, for him, was the destruction of that spiritual imprint.

"Your trump card exposed you," Yang Qing muttered as his hair and eyes turned white and black, a transcendent and austere aura surrounding him.

The star seal covering the cicada's body instantly shifted to white and black as it reached completion. The entirety of the cicada's body and soul was now under the complete control of Yang Qing's Yin Yang: Star Seal spell, including the rune.

The same dual-colored white and black star that had appeared on its exoskeleton now marked its soul as well.

Two glyphs immediately appeared above each of Yang Qing's palms, mirrored within the cicada's soul, specifically on the black and white star. The glyphs looked like two halves of the same whole.

"Apex of genesis," Yang Qing muttered—in a voice that was his, yet at the same time wasn't. It sounded transcendent and timeless.

Inside the cicada's soul, the moment the incantation was spoken, the glyphs on the black and white star merged, forming a seed of the same dual color, imbued with an otherworldly power. The seed germinated instantly, rising a hundred meters and transforming into a black and white lotus. Its petals slowly unfurled, revealing a bubble that held within it a dark blue sky, complete with stars, the moon, and the sun, surrounded by faint purple mist.

The instant it bloomed, the motes of dark grey from the explosion, which had been fading away, were pulled toward the lotus by a powerful suction force and absorbed through the bubble.

"It's worked," Yang Qing said, smiling slightly in relief.

His eyes, now carrying a mysterious shine, shifted toward the rune. When the imprint had borrowed the rune's power to hasten its destruction, that act had inadvertently exposed several other functionalities within it that had escaped Yang Qing's senses earlier during his investigation. One of them, in particular, had caught his attention.

That functionality turned out to be a recording, and the only way to activate it was through the imprint. Fortunately, even after the detonation, Yang Qing's spell could still absorb the remaining traces of the imprint and use them to trigger that function.

A few minutes passed as the lotus flower absorbed every last remnant trace of the imprint. The instant it consumed the final mote, it withered into a white mist tinged with purple and dissolved into the rune, activating it in the process.

Directing the rune, Yang Qing proceeded to activate the recording. As soon as he did, the cicada went dazed and began to speak.

I have your disciple. If you want them, meet me in Hebei Kingdom, Yunan Province, on the fourth floor of the Velvet Orchid Tea House. Give one of the waiters there a sky-rank moonlit orchid upon arrival. I hope to see you soon, Escort Master Bai Chen.

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