The mighty master of the Twelve Gates, the Great Witch who had brought endless calamities to Yaozhou, fell just like that in his own territory.
Xu Qing recalled the chaotic banner, withdrew his divine techniques, and changed into the mourning attire he had worn upon arrival, once again becoming the undertaker wandering the world.
On the Great Witch Dojo, the all-encompassing fog dissipated. Zhang Pingsheng and others looked around at the silent skeletal remains and the chaotic, disrupted ground.
On the east side of the dojo, in what appeared to be a deep crater caused by a meteorite, Xu Qing stood in a spotless white robe by a corpse.
Zhang Pingsheng and others exchanged bewildered glances.
Two Great Witches of the Twelve Gates, dead just like that?
Even Ascendant Fuluan, who knew of Xu Qing's capabilities, couldn't help but be inwardly astonished. The Sect Leader was becoming more and more unfathomable!
Monk Xinyuan sensed the chaotic remnants of magical power on the dojo and felt even more confused.
Around this deep pit, there were only Xu Qing and the Witch Priest, yet he felt a deceptive illusion of a chaotic battle involving many people.
The various unrelated magical power fluctuations didn't seem like something made by just two people...
Xu Qing paid no mind to what others thought. Before Xinyuan and others could ask questions, he had already set about arranging the subsequent tasks related to corpse refining and exorcism, giving back to the Mortal World.
Xu Qing's idea was simple: as long as he arranged enough tasks to keep everyone in the sect busy, they naturally wouldn't have the time or leisure to question him.
In this way, full of questions, Xinyuan was about to ask when Xu Qing tasked him with setting up an altar, preparing for an exorcism ceremony for all the corpses in the dojo.
Ascendant Fuluan tried to approach, only to be rebuked by Xu Qing.
"Why all the questions? With the demons and spirits subdued, shouldn't you quickly go and assist Xie Qiongke in sorting the Fen River? If any major issue arises, you'll be the one held accountable!"
Seeing Xu Qing's stern demeanor, Ascendant Fuluan shivered inwardly; this man's presence was increasingly reminiscent of the Ancestral Emperor...
Watching his friends get rebuked, Zhang Pingsheng was at a loss whether to speak or remain silent.
Seeing the awkward Zhang Daochang only offering forced smiles, Xu Qing's expression finally relaxed.
"Master Zhang, please make some adjustments. When I open the cauldron, it will be up to Master Zhang to open the channel to the Mortal World, giving back to Yaozhou."
After diplomatically dispersing the three curious cats, Xu Qing alone led the corpses of the Witch Priest and Witch Qi into the Great Witch Tomb, beginning the exorcism preparations.
The corpses of the two Great Witches had been refined by a corpse from the Netherworld, through a great magical power, using the lingering resentment and malice of the wandering spirits of the Witch Priest and Witch Qi.
And these corpses, refined by corpses, had always been within the exorcism range of the Sutra of Salvation.
Reflecting on past experiences, Xu Qing increasingly felt that his development of the Sutra of Salvation had yet to reach its peak.
Xu Qing had realized this several decades ago.
When he first obtained the Sutra of Salvation, he could only conduct exorcisms on fresh and intact corpses. If a corpse lingered too long, he needed to perform a soul summoning ceremony to proceed with the exorcism.
But as the number of corpses Xu Qing collected reached a certain quantity, the Sutra of Salvation began gradually to exorcise those whose souls wandered outside their bodies.
With the elimination of the Ghost Law and the integration of the Sutra of Yanluo's Original Wish, the Sutra of Salvation went beyond simply dealing with corpses and could directly exorcise ghostly spirits.
Xu Qing did not know the upper limit of the Sutra of Salvation; perhaps by the next node, it might reveal new uses yet again.
In the undisturbed tomb, Xu Qing counted the gains of exorcising the skeletal warriors while casually restoring his magical power by consuming Yin Essence Pills like candy.
Once his magical power was fully restored, he began the exorcism of the two Great Witch corpses.
As the Sutra of Salvation turned pages, scenes from ancient times flashed by.
Xu Qing witnessed the Third Cataclysm, and also the annihilation of the entire witch tribe.
These scenes were far more shocking than any of the carousel life flashes from the corpses Xu Qing had exorcised.
Xu Qing even saw, from the perspective of the Witch Priest and Witch Qi, the earth collapsing and the sky shattering.
It was, in the truest sense, an apocalyptic collapse!
Ten suns were suspended high, golden crows fell; the heavenly pillars broke, the Goddess mended the sky; corpses littered, reincarnation newly established...
Xu Qing's brows furrowed as he saw from afar, above the ancient Fen River, the Goddess using divine five-colored stones to mend the sky, yet none of the thirty-six thousand five hundred divine stones compared to the five-colored stone he held in his hand.
"One cataclysm equals 126,600 years, the Third Cataclysm likely happened hundreds of thousands of years ago..."
Xu Qing suddenly understood, during the Third Cataclysm, the five-colored stone in the Great Dharma Realm probably bore no difference from other divine stones, but after the cataclysm, this surviving stone had gone through hundreds of thousands of years of savage growth.
During this period, the surviving five-colored stone absorbed the spiritual energy of heaven and earth, and the essence of the sun and moon, continually refining itself, naturally becoming far more extraordinary than the stones initially refined by the Goddess!
"The owner of the Little Water Curtain Cave was also said to have been enlightened by a divine stone..."
Xu Qing raised an eyebrow, wondering if one day this five-colored stone might also produce a monkey?
Aside from information on the sky-mending remnant stones, another matter that caught Xu Qing's attention was the establishment of the six-path reincarnation order.
Through the perspective of the Witch Priest, Xu Qing glimpsed a scene where the ancestral witch of the witch tribe merged with the six paths to establish reincarnation.
Why only a glimpse? Because just as the Witch Priest entered the Netherworld, intending to leverage their connection with the witch tribe to collect souls and revive the witch tribe, he was immediately slain by the unrecognizing ancestral witch!