Xi Ping said a silent oh no, the first to understand what was happening—after all, he’d actually entertained the crooked notion of killing people to obtain spiritual energy.

Open-eyed cultivators had no essence and couldn’t prevent themselves from being “digested.” When Xi Ping’s gaze arrived a step ahead of the others, he watched as, where the severed hand flitted by, the bodies of half-immortals became desiccated corpses. Then, because the owner’s consciousness had vanished, the mustard seeds they carried with them fell one after another like ripe cantaloupes.

The Law Breaker Bracelet took everything as it came, not wasting the stones or the people; it was quite capable.

The severed hand it hung from was immeasurably smoother and more lustrous than when it had been attached to Wei Chengxiang, as if it hadn’t been hers in the first place!

Xi Ping could jump between trees instantaneously, but that didn’t go for the rest; the Luwu and Wei Chengxiang forgot about Zhao Qindan. They turned and ran.

Tao County was currently a spiritual energy vacuum. All living things were drooping. As the Law Breaker Bracelet stirred up the scant spiritual energy it had stolen, the dry twigs of the reincarnation wood trees in the vicinity moved without a wind, suddenly sprouting buds.

Wei Chengxiang was almost a blur on her sword. Before she arrived herself, she had already thrown out a handful of dice.

A dozen dice encircled the Law Breaker Bracelet, all of them with the number six facing up, surrounding the bracelet with lighting and thunder.

But the Law Breaker Bracelet had “eaten its fill” and had nothing to fear from a half-immortal’s trifling abilities. When the straight lightning bolts came within half a chi of it, they curved into a dazzling lightning ball with the Law Breaker Bracelet as its center. The Law Breaker casually had the severed hand pick up the final ownerless mustard seed, and the displaced lightning set fire to a desiccated corpse, the flames as rampant as a provocation.

Wei Chengxiang twisted off the fake hand on her left wrist. The hand the Law Breaker Bracelet had seized was her own, after all. It was instinctively drawn by its owner, flying toward her along with the Law Breaker.

“A-Xiang,” cried Xi Ping, “give me your spirit!”

Wei Chengxiang was a little more special than all the other users of reincarnation wood—she had been a “believer” tricked by Liang Chen when she was younger into offering her spirit and flesh to the master of the reincarnation wood. Strictly speaking, she could act as a human “reincarnation wood tree.”

Lin Chi, brought along by Xi Ping, was stunned when he heard this. “But the spirit is…”

A cultivator’s underpinning.

But the next moment, Wei Chengxiang opened her spirit to Xi Ping without reservation, like many years before, letting his consciousness in.

At the same time, she grabbed her own severed hand.

The moment she touched the Law Breaker Bracelet, Wei Chengxiang’s ears hummed, and a vast thought flooded in, submerging the open-eyed ant’s consciousness with a crash.

Wei Chengxiang only had time to send a final thought to her companions: Bad news, the Law Breaker Bracelet has activated!

Lin Chi and Xi Ping were both surprised: however powerful Qiu Sha had been, she was still dead. How could the remaining consciousness of a person erased by the Silver Moon nearly a month ago be so strong?

In an instant, Lin Chi had no more time to think. He rammed into the bracelet with the consciousness of an ascended spirit.

The Golden Hand’s fame went back centuries. It was one thing to be meek and forbearing; cowed as Lin Chi usually was, his cultivation certainly wasn’t weak—when Qiu Sha had been cutting down an ascended spirit with each thrust of her sword, she had been repeatedly hindered by his presence. Xi Ping suspected he was at least at the mid-late ascended spirit stage.

If it was said that sword cultivators were the best at offense within their grade, then the toolmaking and medicine-making ways, which tracked the changes of furnaces and ranges, had the most condensed consciousnesses within their grade. Once the fire was lit in an immortal furnace, it might take several months to complete a tool, or even a few years. If the cultivator lost focus, all their work would be undone. Therefore, toolmaking and medicine-making cultivators had unrivaled powers of concentration.

In addition, if there was anyone on earth who would dare to say he understood this strange “Law Breaker,” it could only be the Golden Hand.

Within the little bracelet, there seemed to be a whole other landscape, outside the reach of the spiritual mountains…even outside the universe. Inside, like a kaleidoscope, were three thousand worlds nested one inside another.

For a moment, Xi Ping was dazzled. Had Lin Chi not been guiding him, a single look would have trapped him inside.

As he was accustomed to doing, Lin Chi put aside everything around him and set his consciousness directly against the core of the Law Breaker—the core of the Riverward was misty thin smoke, but the core of the Law Breaker was a ball of violent fire.

The “fire” swallowed the last pouch of spiritual stones in one gulp. Its flames rose sharply, the outlines of the blaze sketching a graceful female form. She opened her arms. There were stacks of thin bracelets hanging from her slim wrists. Her sharp jaw was raised disdainfully.

Lin Chi’s consciousness immediately became the symbol of an inscription Xi Ping didn’t know and flagrantly smashed into the Law Breaker’s steeply rising blaze. The blaze shook fiercely, suppressed by the ultimate toolmaking master of the present era.

Xi Ping split off his attention to the surrounding reincarnation wood trees and saw that the delicate buds the dead trees had just grown had withered once more. He was caught between bitter laughter and relief.

Only then did he have leisure to spare to examine the countless little worlds around him. After only a few glances, he felt that his consciousness was being sucked in, so he quickly averted his gaze and focused, calming himself.

“Peak Master Lin,” Xi Ping said, “can this immortal…can this divine tool be destroyed? It’s too dangerous.”

Lin Chi didn’t answer.

Xi Ping suddenly thought something was wrong. “Lin…Lin-shishu?”

Lin Chi’s voice, panicked, exploded in his ear: “Out of the way!”

No sooner had he spoken than the inscription Lin Chi had used to seal the flames split apart. The suppressed flames of the Law Breaker instantly bounced back, leaping even higher than at the start.

A cluster of golden light lit up at the heart of the flames. Without needing to ask Lin Chi, Xi Ping intuitively knew that this was the Law Breaker’s new “axiom,” about to be completed. He already had a dim sense of a power like the irresistible rule that had pulled all of Tao County into the seventh day of the seventh month.

Cultivators established foundations and became immortal through Ways of the Heart; immortal tools lost control through ideas.

“It won’t work,” Lin Chi said hastily amid the furious tongues of flame. “Is this really Qiu Sha’s dying thought?”

“If it isn’t hers, who else’s could it be? Mine? Do you see it obeying me?” Xi Ping answered. “It has to work. No matter whose it is, this axiom can’t be allowed to be completed!”

Lin Chi said, “I can’t hold it!”

Xi Ping recalled all of his consciousness dispersed throughout the reincarnation wood. The moment that Lin Chi was thrown off by the Law Breaker Bracelet, relying on his “tough” consciousness that had been tempered countless times beside the Xia River, ignoring the brutal fire, he dove right in, slamming into that golden light.

Lin Chi had thought he had experienced the pinnacle of recklessness when he had dared to ring a false Bell of Tribulation on Xuanyin’s Principal Peak to fool nine great peak masters, but as he saw Xi Ping’s consciousness swept up among the tongues of flame, Lin Chi still couldn’t resist blurting out, “Xi Shiyong!”

Xi Ping gripped the incomplete axiom in the palm of his hand. Presently his consciousness was licked all over by the tongues of flame until it no longer resembled a human; only a vague ball remained.

But his mind was still clear. He could still boast: “My consciousness was shattered by shed skin sages. This measly little bracelet…”

The restrained thought inside the Law Breaker Bracelet struggled even more furiously, cutting him off violently.

But Xi Ping was already a practiced hand at being “crushed to dust.” He could hold himself together when crushed. He held down the golden-lit axiom, not letting go.

Even if all five spiritual mountain ranges crashed down on his head today, he would still finish bragging: “…is nothing but a lamp!”

The golden-lit axiom was firmly held in place by his consciousness. It twisted and changed shape.

Lin Chi was stupefied by the strength of this junior’s consciousness. He nearly suspected that the horrifying idea in the Law Breaker Bracelet really was Xi Ping’s.

The unformed axiom was twisted into fragments of light by Xi Ping’s frightening consciousness. Lin Chi automatically retreated—all toolmaking masters, amid raging fire, communicated with heaven and earth. Sometimes they could sense things undetectable to other cultivators.

For a moment, Lin Chi seemed to hear the three thousand paths of the Great Way shaking, as well as the Way that was outside of all laws, as tameless as he had known it in the past.

The intense idea circling within the Law Breaker Bracelet stagnated.

Xi Ping gave a “ha.” He had the impression that he had a body, and that he had been splashed all over with boiling oil. Sneering, he grit his teeth and said, “Now, seal it!”

Lin Chi didn’t dare to hesitate. Another inscription took shape and forced itself into the core of the Law Breaker as it was held by Xi Ping. The roaring fire was once again suppressed by these two masters working in concert.

Just then, a wail sounded in Xi Ping’s ear.

Xi Ping froze, suspecting that the injury to his consciousness was making him hallucinate—this voice was extremely hoarse, extremely weary, bearing almost a hopeless exhaustion. It didn’t seem like the crafty demonic tool that had sent everyone running in circles, and neither was it Qiu Sha. It sounded…a bit familiar.

But before he could recognize it, Xi Ping’s consciousness was knocked aside by some irresistible force.

He was like an ant walking over a crumbling dam. Before he could even take a breath, he was swept away by the flood of wailing…no better than Wei Chengxiang had fared earlier.

Lin Chi was a genuine ascended spirit, and while Xi Ping’s body wasn’t up to the mark, the strength of his consciousness matched up to Lin Chi’s. Right now, these two ascended spirit grade consciousness had no power to resist, tossed aside by the erupting thought inside the Law Breaker Bracelet.

Xi Ping: “…”

This really wasn’t Qiu Sha.

Had she been this powerful, she would have gone to the Sanyue Mountains with a knife!

Was this a shed skin? Did a shed skin have this kind of might?

The golden light Xi Ping had just broken condensed unstoppably. It was like the first rays of the rising sun, tearing through the dawn, spilling morning light and enveloping all of Tao County.

The inexorable axiom took effect.

A desperate thought came from Lin Chi: It’s all over.

Then they heard countless overlapping voices babbling. The voices poured into their ears, gathering into a sound as huge as an enormous bell or an ocean wave.

Xi Ping was a contrarian who didn’t acknowledge the words “I can’t” or “It’s over.” He had never shed tears before seeing the casket. Now, when he saw the axiom irrevocably take effect, after the temporary shock had passed, he immediately changed his line of thought: before he blacked out, he was going to do all he could to hunt down the contents of the axiom, gather as much information as possible.

If there was really nothing for it, all they could do was think of some way to poke holes to break the axiom. And he wanted to see what god or sage could have such a powerful idea—

Xi Ping’s wound-riddled consciousness gathered into a blade. The “sharp knife” cut away the noise and struck right at the depths of the golden light… The Law Breaker’s axiom flashed before his eyes. Xi Ping saw it clearly, but he was stunned.

The axiom written in the golden light that had scattered everywhere was: Grand Duke Tai Sui blesses and protects us, and we are not fish on the chopping block, nor drifters in the wind.

There was a boom. Forget about open-eyed, established foundation, ascended spirit… The consciousnesses of men and immortals were all flattened by the Law Breaker.

The thought that the Law Breaker had submitted itself to did not belong to any ascended spirit in the high heavens.

It belonged to the mortals who had trembled in the cracks amid the ascended spirit battlefield in Tao County, their lives and deaths outside of their control.

On the seventh day of the seventh month, they had set fire to the ancient monster’s late-autumn red, had had a dream of being heroes, which had been erased by the “moonlight.” But the fight in them hadn’t been fabricated. It had been preserved forever in the Law Breaker. Once ignited, it became so strong that no one could hold it back.

The evil cultivators and the immortals couldn’t do it, and not even the “god” they themselves had concocted and believed in could do it.

Zhou Ying, skimming through the reports coming in from Luwu in various countries, felt as if the center of his brow had been pricked by a thin needle. His paramount spiritual sense touched something. His fingers reached out, and Zhou Ying grasped a reincarnation wood chip. “Shiyong?”

There was no answer.

Meanwhile in Tao County, everything seemed to have gone still. All the cultivators’ consciousnesses were swept away by a powerful current. For a moment, they perceived nothing.

Mysteriously, the invisible and intangible axiom flew through big streets and little alleys, sweeping through the hearts of men and women, young and old. The memories washed away by the Silver Moon came crashing back into place. They remembered the night of Qixi, when daybreak wouldn’t come, remembered that incensed conflagration. All the withered reincarnation wood trees in the county rustled, as if promising some answer.

In the underground secret room of the Snake King’s Immortal Palace, the divine image that had been used to worship Tai Sui had been shattered by Xuanwu. There was already a layer of dust on the altar.

But the candle flames lit of their own accord, and the floating smoke changed into the form of many reincarnation wood trees. The shadowy trees in the smoke and the real dead trees in the county echoed each other. Amid the smoke, a human form gradually appeared.

At the same time, beneath the fathomless Resurrection Vortex, upon Xi Ping, sealed at the bottom of the Impassable Sea along with the demon seed, a light the color of flame emerged. He gradually dissolved amid the light, undetectably disappearing from the forbidden ground laid down by the shed skins.

On the altar table in Tao County, the human figure in the faint mist of the incense smoke became solid.

The body that not even the demon of the Impassable Sea had been able to steal while carrying the Riverward thus appeared thousands of li away, ferried back to the human world by a wish.

“Shiyong, Shiyong…”

Xi Ping thought that he heard Zhi Xiu’s voice in a daze and inwardly mocked himself: Why do I think of shizun whenever I take a beating? Haven’t I been weaned?

But his consciousness instinctively chased after that voice.

“Follow me, come this way.” Zhi Xiu’s voice was hoarse and profoundly weary, but his tone wasn’t urgent—he seemed to be the sort of man who, with a single breath remaining, would still arrange everything appropriately, then smile before he went.

Xi Ping muttered blearily, “You’re always going out worrying about things instead of staying put in seclusion.”

Zhi Xiu said, “And which disappointing fiend’s fault is that…? Listen, how much do I owe you from the last lifetime?”

“Not much,” said Xi Ping. “Maybe it’s two white spirits.”

Zhi Xiu, laughing, scolded, “Get out!”

The laughter was too vivid. Xi Ping’s head cleared with a start. “Shifu?!”

Zhi Xiu didn’t answer, and Xi Ping felt that shifu’s voice had led him to an extremely familiar place, a…spirit without a Way of the Heart, with only a qin upon it.

Before Xi Ping could react, he seemed to miss a step in a dream. He “fell” into that spirit.

In Tao County, the reincarnation wood trees all vibrating at the same frequency stopped one after another, from the county’s outer reaches all the way to the Snake King’s Immortal Palace, until at last the wave penetrated into the underground room.

All the smoke from the altar table seeped into Xi Ping’s body.

With a thump, the heart that had been silent for five years beat.

In the depths of the earth of Tao County, there seemed to be another deep heartbeat whose pounding reached people’s souls, breaking through the temporary stagnation produced by the Law Breaker.

People’s faces streamed with unremarked tears.

All of this had happened intangibly and untraceably. The Sanyue Immortal Mountains knew nothing about it.