Young Noble Be Monster Slaying
Chapter 902: Searching for Someone (I) (Teaser)

Holy Mountain, the Northern Regions.

After the Noble Dharma’s death, the great snowy mountain quickly lost its sacred aura. Pilgrims no longer left dense footprints at its base, and the people of the Northern Regions stopped speaking of it with awe, offering only a few sighs of regret.

The Noble Dharma had given his life to slay the Demon God. It was a grand finale to a long life and worthy of his title as the strongest human cultivator. However, all his efforts were ultimately undone by that heartless wretch, Daoist Cangsheng. In the end, the Demon God’s life essence still escaped, and now the humans had no choice but to coexist with the demons.

The demons’ occupation of the Penglai Supreme Sect’s ancestral lands served as only a meager sliver of retribution. It was nowhere near enough to atone for even a fraction of Cangsheng’s sins.

Since Daoist Cangsheng’s death, the current Penglai Supreme Sect had severed all ties with the past. They chose a path of hard work and frugal cultivation, allowing old grudges to gradually fade into obscurity.

Peace still reigned across the nine provinces, and that was enough.

Atop the Holy Mountain, there was no trace of sorrow. The monks continued their daily chanting and cultivation. They bowed at dawn and dusk, and burned incense every morning and evening. It seemed as if the loss of their esteemed teacher had made no difference at all.

Only on this day did Senior Brother Wu’e, who usually led the daily practice, seem troubled. He had locked himself inside his meditation chamber for a long time and still had not come out.

Even Jiang Guo, usually indifferent, stared at the tightly shut door and muttered, “What’s with the big monk? The old monk’s already dead. Don’t tell me he’s run into trouble too. Should we kick the door down?”

“Calm down, Senior Sister,” Chu Yi said quickly, stepping forward to stop her from overreacting. He continued in a gentle voice, “Senior Brother Wu’e has always been reliable. Maybe he’s made a breakthrough in cultivation. Let’s not bother him.”

Jiang Guo frowned. What unsettled her was the aura coming from inside the room. It felt unfamiliar, yet somehow also familiar. She didn’t recognize it, but it stirred a vague memory, as if she had sensed it once before.

Before long, a shrill scream came from within. “Ahhhhhhhhhh!”

The sound was filled with such anguish that it resembled the cry of someone on the verge of death.

It was none other than Dhyana Master Wu’e.

“Big monk!” Jiang Guo shouted in a panic. She could not wait any longer. She rushed forward and kicked the door open with a loud bang.

Bang!

A surge of powerful spiritual energy and multicolored mist burst out from within, forcing even the mighty Jiang Guo back by dozens of steps. The monks gathered around the Holy Mountain were all thrown into the air by the shockwave.

Only Chu Yi, who was hanging from a tree in the distance, remained unaffected by the blast. Jiang Guo had flung him away earlier when she charged forward.

“I gained insight during meditation and lost control of my cultivation energy for a moment. My apologies.”

The voice came from within the mist. It belonged to Dhyana Master Wu’e, but unlike before, it carried a faint trace of coldness and detachment.

“Senior Brother…” someone called out.

“There’s no need to worry. Once I’ve sorted through what I’ve gained, I’ll explain everything.”

Dhyana Master Wu’e left them with those words. Then he waved his sleeve within the mist, and the door closed once again.

Bang!

The door of the meditation chamber shut tight. The radiance and mist inside gradually faded, revealing Dhyana Master Wu’e’s face.

His broad and honest features remained unchanged. His head was not fully shaved, with only a sparse layer of stubble covering his scalp and a large bald patch at the center. Years of living in this frigid region had left his cheeks dark red and his skin rough.

But the light in his eyes was no longer warm and benevolent. It now held a trace of coldness and confusion.

“Who are you?”

A voice echoed from deep within the room. It was a simple question, yet it pierced straight into the soul.

Dhyana Master Wu’e stood frozen, stunned by the words.

He stared blankly at his own hands, dazed. After a long silence, he repeated the question in a low voice, “Who am I?”

The voice pressed on. “Are you the leader of the Dark King Sect… or are you the monk Wu’e?”

Dhyana Master Wu’e repeated the question in a dazed voice. “Am I the leader of the Dark King Sect… or am I the monk Wu’e?”

After a long pause, he looked around in disbelief. “I’m still alive?”

“You’re both alive,” the voice said slowly.

Dhyana Master Wu’e remained frozen in place.

He asked the question again. “Who am I, then? The leader of the Dark King Sect… or the monk Wu’e?”

Suddenly, the voice thundered through the chamber. “You are Lin Poyun!”

That cry rang out like a soul-shaking thunderclap. In an instant, it cleared the confusion from Dhyana Master Wu’e’s eyes. His bald head trembled slightly, and his gaze turned sharp and lucid.

“I am Lin Poyun!”

It sounded as if he were simply repeating the voice’s words, but in that fleeting moment, he had already unraveled the path he had taken to reach this point.

He had once been a boy from a mountain village. Back then, Xuan Yinzi had slaughtered every villager in that remote settlement for a blood sacrifice. Only he had been spared. His extraordinary potential and affinity with the netherworld had caught Xuan Yinzi’s attention. The boy was captured and brought back to be refined into a puppet.

Coincidentally, there had been a woman in the Dark King Sect at the time who, perhaps because she was pregnant and seeking to accumulate merit, persuaded Xuan Yinzi to spare the child. She had suggested taking him in as a disciple, believing that he might become a worthy successor one day.

Xuan Yinzi found the idea acceptable. He woke the boy, pressed down his head, and told him that he was both his esteemed teacher and the one who had slaughtered all his kin. If the boy wanted revenge, he would have to cultivate hard.

But Xuan Yinzi probably never imagined that the day of reckoning would come so soon.

The boy remained quiet and reserved, careful to hide his talents. Without his teacher even realizing it, he grew powerful enough to pose a real threat. Yet that still was not enough. Lin Poyun went on to do something that even Xuan Yinzi had never dared to attempt.

He borrowed the power of the Great Dao of the Profound Darkness and split the good and evil parts of him into two separate realms.

His purely evil form remained in the mortal world and became an entity so wicked that even the True Form of Ksitigarbha acknowledged it. At the same time, his purely good form was cast into the netherworld, completely stripped of cultivation. It should have been torn apart by ten thousand ghosts in an instant, with not even a shred of consciousness left to return to the mortal world.

His purely evil form obtained the True Form of Ksitigarbha and successfully defeated Xuan Yinzi. Although the evil form failed to kill Xuan Yinzi, he seized Xuan Yinzi’s Great Dao and took over his sect, which was enough to be considered revenge. In truth, if he had been willing to take some risks and give chase, he might have killed Xuan Yinzi outright. However, the purely evil form felt no emotion. He acted purely out of self-interest and would never risk himself for anyone.

After cutting away a crucial part of himself, all he desired was to rule the mortal world, climbing step by step to the very top.

What the evil form did not expect was that the good form would survive and later become a key force in stopping his grand ambitions.

The two sets of memories slowly merged.

The Noble Dharma was the old man who had rescued the good form from the netherworld and guided him in cultivation. That was why the evil form had been unwilling to act against him. If the good form died, the evil form would die as well. Or rather, the two would fuse.

The leader of the Dark King Sect fell into a righteous trap at Devil Illusion Mountain. Surrounded by numerous legendary artifacts, he met a bitter end. A portion of the evil form’s consciousness transferred into the soul of the good form. Using the good form’s corporeal body, the good and evil forms merged once more into the original Lin Poyun.

Dhyana Master Wu’e and the leader of the Dark King Sect were both gone. The true Lin Poyun had been reborn.

The good and evil forms were now entwined, no longer as pure or distinct as before.

“Ah…” Lin Poyun let out a wistful sigh, unsure whether it came from the good in him or the evil. Only then did he turn around and look toward the source of the voice. His pupils immediately contracted.

The one he had been speaking to was not a person at all. It was a memorial tablet.

Bold characters were inscribed on its surface: The Grave of the Noble Dharma!