Chapter Twenty-Three: The Fan of Five-Colored Feathers

The white dragon let out a thunderous roar, darting swiftly through the air. As the sky darkened, a vast mass of gloomy clouds suddenly shrouded the thousand-mile Heavenly Lake. Rain began to fall in a fine, steady drizzle from the oppressive sky. The pheasant demon opened its beak and let out a piercing cry, spitting forth a fan of five-colored, shimmering light. The fan instantly grew several times larger, and with a single wave in the air, countless gales erupted, mingling with the raindrops that in a flash transformed into icy blades and frosty swords, slashing down furiously upon Buxu!

Wind-blades and ice-arrows fell like a torrential downpour, with a momentum that seemed to blot out the heavens!

“Mere sparks dare to flaunt their light!”

Buxu sneered coldly. The divine weapon in his hand, the Golden Dragon, suddenly transformed into a massive ball of light, radiating boundless brilliance and heat like a newborn sun. The golden light shot straight into the clouds, illuminating the world. Every ice arrow that touched the light melted instantly back into raindrops, which fell gently from the sky, while the oppressive clouds dissolved in an instant, revealing boundless blue skies once more.

Seeing his spell broken, the white dragon, burning with rage, lunged toward the sphere of light. Buxu’s slender fingers formed a seal, and that miniature sun transformed again into a golden dragon. In an instant, it radiated ten thousand beams of dazzling light, splitting into two, then four, until twelve majestic, soaring dragons filled the sky!

The white dragon bellowed once more, and, taking advantage of the wind and water, also split his form into twelve true white dragons to meet the golden dragons head-on!

Hiding behind a large boulder, Yang Nan looked up at the twenty-four dragons writhing and tearing at each other in the sky. His heart pounded wildly. Such a battle—he had never witnessed anything of the kind, and he was utterly transfixed. Above the vast Heavenly Lake, the dragons clashed and circled in a chaotic dance; each appeared every bit a true dragon.

Dragons danced through the torn clouds, their roars shaking the heavens. The twenty-four dragons churned the sky into utter chaos, locked in a deadlock.

The pheasant demon, wielding the five-colored fan, let out a shrill screech and swooped down upon Buxu, who was commanding the golden dragons!

With talons sharp as hooks and a beak like a sword, she attacked. Buxu met her with a long sword radiating pure white light. The golden dragons tangled with the twelve white dragons, and dragon blood and scales rained down from the sky, as if a bloody storm was falling from above.

Yang Nan’s heart ached at the sight: Dragon scales and dragon blood—such rare treasures—being squandered in this way...

Buxu was unmatched in both magic and swordsmanship. Even when fighting two against one, he did not falter. Yet the white dragon had cultivated for over two thousand years, reaching the peak of the ninth rank of monster lords, a mere step from the saintly realm. Though a monster’s path was weaker than a human’s, his power still surpassed Buxu’s, especially with the top-level pheasant demon at his side. Before long, they began to gain the upper hand.

The pheasant demon’s fan, refined from five tail feathers, was a sacred weapon, able to command the winds of heaven and earth, summoning countless sharp wind blades. She and the white dragon had been companions for a thousand years, their attributes perfectly matched: water fueling wind, wind stirring water, the two complementing each other. With the advantage of time and place, the two monsters forced Buxu back step by step.

Yang Nan saw Buxu clearly losing ground. Though anxious, he was helpless to assist. In a battle of this level, charging in would be certain death; all he could do was fret on the sidelines.

Seeing the tide turn against him, Buxu suddenly let out a clear cry, raising his hand to recall the twelve golden dragons. They merged back into one, and Buxu himself transformed into a point of light, diving into the brow of the dragon. The divine dragon, now infused with his very essence and empowered by all twelve dragons’ strength, swelled to an immense size—hundreds of feet long, stretching across the sky like a mountain range, awe-inspiring to behold!

Yang Nan gazed at the dragon, its colossal form spanning almost a thousand miles, and was struck with terror: The Martial Sect’s divine arts were indeed extraordinary! If Buxu fought with all his might, the white dragon and pheasant demon would surely suffer.

The golden dragon glared fiercely and let out a roar that split the heavens, like thunder rolling across the sky. With talons like mountains, it suddenly abandoned the white dragon and lunged straight for the pheasant demon!

Seeing the golden dragon turn on her, the pheasant demon was seized by terror. She was only a master-level monster—how could she withstand the full might of a Martial Sect master embodied as a dragon?

Realizing the danger, the white dragon also drew back and transformed into a colossal true dragon, chasing after the golden dragon and savagely tearing at its tail!

Yet the golden dragon seemed intent on destroying the pheasant demon first, ignoring the white dragon’s attacks. Its massive body crashed toward the pheasant demon, a dragon's claw the size of a mountain reaching to seize her. The pheasant demon knew she was in peril; Buxu was clearly willing to be injured himself if only he could strike her down first. But with the golden dragon’s body stretching for thousands of miles, blotting out the sky, where could she possibly escape?

In a flash, the golden dragon struck the five-colored fan away with one claw and raked the pheasant demon with the other. She screamed in agony as her resplendent feathers scattered across the sky. Before she could recover, the dreadful maw of the dragon—black as an abyss—closed in. Her soul quailed, and she flapped desperately to escape, but the dragon’s enormous fangs caught her wings.

The dragon’s jaws tore at her savagely! No matter how great her magic, she could not withstand the divine dragon’s might.

Her pitiful scream sent chills down Yang Nan’s spine. He peered out and saw the pheasant demon plummet from the sky like a falling star—right towards the island where he was hiding!

Having bitten and grievously wounded the pheasant demon, the golden dragon finally turned to face the white dragon, who had nearly shredded its tail. The two giant dragons instantly entwined, biting and clawing in a battle even more ferocious than before.

The clash of their roars shook the heavens, their fight more brutal than the chaotic dance of dragons that had preceded it.

The pheasant demon, her feathers in tatters and blood pouring from her wounds, no longer possessed her former majestic beauty. Seeing her gravely wounded and nearly paralyzed, Yang Nan’s mind raced. He crept out from behind the rock and cautiously approached her—after all, a dying camel is still larger than a horse, and a ninth-rank master-level demon, though on the verge of death, could still snap the life from a novice like him with ease!

The pheasant demon lay on the ground, watching Yang Nan sneak toward her with the furtiveness of a thief, and understood his intentions. She had lost all her power; even if she wished to kill Yang Nan, she no longer had the strength.

Yang Nan edged forward step by step, and seeing no response from the pheasant demon, gradually relaxed. Stripped of her feathers, she looked pitiful indeed. As the saying goes, a phoenix fallen to the ground is inferior to a chicken—what could one say of a bald pheasant?

“Young man, if you spare me, I’ll repay you handsomely in the future…” Yang Nan was just debating whether to steam or braise the pheasant when she suddenly spoke in a faint but alluring voice.

Startled, Yang Nan hesitated, “So you’re not dead yet?” He glanced at her disheveled form and shook his head. Once so mighty, the pheasant demon was now reduced to this by Buxu’s desperate blow—truly, fate is unpredictable...

Seeing the look of disdain in Yang Nan’s eyes, the pheasant demon stirred slightly. In an instant, the bald demon vanished, to be replaced by a bloodied, tattered, yet stunningly beautiful woman!

Her clothes were in shreds, revealing tempting glimpses of fair skin; though covered in blood, her beauty and allure could not be concealed, surpassing even the most beautiful women in the world.

Her transformation startled Yang Nan. Did the pheasant demon still have power?

But he was mistaken—she was born with extraordinary gifts, a trace of phoenix blood in her veins, and could take human form from a young age. After a thousand years of cultivation, her transformations were near perfection. Though now drained of magic, she could still alter her appearance.

“Young man… will you help me?” she pleaded, her bright eyes brimming with seductive warmth, her fair skin and beautiful features an irresistible temptation.

Yang Nan’s heart pounded; for a moment, his thoughts wavered. “The sages say: food and beauty are innate desires…” he silently recited a few maxims from his scroll of the sages, steadying his mind. Once calm, he grinned and approached, squatting next to her with a look of feigned infatuation. “What would you have me do, sister?”

Seeing the lustful look on the young Daoist’s face, the pheasant demon relaxed and said softly, “Young man, my fan fell into the lake. If you return it to me, I’ll give you anything you desire…”

This five-colored fan was the pheasant demon’s life-bound magical weapon. Buxu, as the golden dragon, had struck it from her grasp, leading to her defeat. With the fan returned, she could regain some strength.

Yang Nan nodded with a smile. “But I cannot swim. Do you have any magical arts or treasures I could borrow?”

A flash of anger crossed the pheasant demon’s eyes, but she quickly hid it, feigning sweetness. “Young man, I do have wind-walking arts, but you cannot use them. Don’t you have water-walking spells? The old dragon has many treasures as well. If you retrieve the fan for me, I’ll give you whatever you want—arts, magical items, treasures, even myself…”

Her voice was honeyed, and though Yang Nan was wary, he still felt a stirring in his heart. But he had already made up his mind. He asked her to indicate the location, then used a wave-walking spell to skim across the surface of the lake. The five-colored fan, wondrous as it was, floated on the water, glowing with a rainbow light, as if eager to return to its mistress. Yang Nan easily retrieved it.

The fan was indeed no ordinary object. It was crafted from five enormous, iridescent tail feathers of the pheasant demon, each a different color, and the handle faintly exuded the aura of a true dragon—no doubt forged from the precious reverse-bone beneath a dragon’s scales!

Every dragon possesses a reverse scale, and beneath it a reverse bone, the essence of the dragon’s being. Touching the reverse scale wounds the dragon’s core; to extract the reverse bone is fatal. This bone is only revealed when a dragon dies, and is rarely seen in ordinary times.

Only ancient monsters as powerful as the white dragon and the pheasant demon could have refined such a potent artifact.

With the five-colored fan in hand, Yang Nan was overjoyed. It was his first sacred-level magical weapon! Having seen its power earlier—sweeping away all before it—he could only imagine its might.

Meat delivered to the wolf’s mouth is not easily given back…

“Young man, return my fan and I’ll give you all my arts and treasures,” the pheasant demon coaxed, seeing Yang Nan turning her fan over in his hands with no intention of returning it. She realized she was outwitted—she, so shrewd all her life, was being played by this cunning youth. Still, she feigned greater gentleness, hoping to win his sympathy.

Yang Nan laughed heartily, storing the fan in his cosmos ring. “Thank you, sister, for your generous gift. As for your arts and treasures, wouldn’t they be mine anyway if I simply killed you?” Was the pheasant demon so foolish as to believe he could be seduced? He’d suffered enough in his previous life not to make the same mistake again. Return the fan and court death? Not likely!

Had he not seen enough villains in this world? He would not be so naive!

“Sister, you’d best hand over your valuables one by one. Perhaps you can hold out until your lover comes to rescue you.” Yang Nan saw that the two dragons above were still locked in a fierce struggle, and, knowing they wouldn’t finish any time soon, turned his attention to stripping the fallen pheasant demon of her treasures.

Seeing Yang Nan’s smile grow colder, a hint of killing intent in his eyes, the pheasant demon realized all hope was lost. She raised her head and let out a piercing cry, “Old Bai! You decrepit wretch, do you truly mean to let me die here?”