“Wan.” Wangge Luobao tilted his head with a trace of ridicule, examining Xi Ping with his odd-colored eyes as he held him.

The Wan and Chu had similar distinctive facial features, but looking closely, there was still a slight difference. Shu’s Xiuyi, meanwhile, looked more like the Chu. It was only that Chu and Shu were next to each other and had a great deal of contact, as well as always clashing at the border. Chu wasn’t like Wan, all the way across the South Sea—between nations, it was also sometimes the case that what was further away would be more attractive than what was close at hand.

As the rich and prosperous home of Moon Plated Gold, Southern Wan satisfied the Shu’s yearning for the land of the blessed: Wan-style aesthetic sensibilities were all high quality, the goods produced by Wan were all valuable. In Zhaoye City, the famous Xiuyi beauties all had some Wan qualities to their looks, while “Chu-style beauties” were often described as “beautiful enough, but a little garish.”

In fact, what was “elegant” and what was “garish”? In the main it was only some ordinary idiots who, having neither literary nor martial accomplishments themselves and incapable of learning those toolmaking arts that were unrivaled throughout the world, felt diffident and disheartened and had no choice but to flaunt their “taste.” It was just like wearing a pair of thick elevated shoes to put yourself a cut above the rest—after all, that was easier than getting taller.

Wangge Luobao said quietly to the waking dragon, “What do you think? A face like this—isn’t it what those pitiable Xiuyi long for even in their dreams?”

The waking dragon had no sense of human beauty or ugliness. It only turned into a rainbow in the sea, picking up Wangge Luobao.

“To have one’s Way of the Heart blend with the immortal mountains and the universe, to become a god and a sage—that is what the ants of the cultivation world long for even in their dreams. Western Chu’s Xiang Rong didn’t stint to refine his own Way of the Heart. No sooner had you entered the cultivation world than you obtained the most extraordinary inheritance in existence. With one more step, you would have been the next Kunlun Sword Ancestor, but you had to rebel…” Wangge Luobao laughed. The beast-taming flute in his hand pressed maliciously against the center of Xi Ping’s brow. “You truly cannot tell good from bad. Truly hateful.”

The beast-taming flute aroused Xi Ping’s protective spiritual energy. A thin layer of spiritual light covered him, turning the beast-taming flute ghastly white with its glow.

But Wangge Luobao only regarded him coldly for a moment and ultimately didn’t blow off his head. He put down the flute. The beast-taming cultivator raised his voice and said, “The ducks know first when the waters are warming. Spiritual beasts react faster than humans. Now it appears that the foundations of the spiritual mountains have already been severed. Without restraints, the evil cultivators everywhere will rise in rebellion. The more vigorous the flames of war become and the more cultivators die, the more essence there will be dispersed everywhere, and the more difficult the position of this Tai Sui of yours will become as he defies the natural order—it doesn’t matter if the two of you don’t understand. You can convey my words to him.”

Saying so, Wangge Luobao snapped his fingers. The waking dragon flew out of the water with a splash, wrapped around him and Xi Ping, then turned into a rainbow in midair and vanished, moving somewhere unknown, leaving only echoes behind on the surface of the sea. After a long moment, two terror-stricken heads popped out of the sea.

The hard-pressed Yao Qi and Chang Jun had just been knocked a hundred chi away by the waking dragon. They floated in the water staring at each other in dismay.

The half-immortals far away on the fringes of the battle with their incomplete information in fact didn’t understand, but Xi Ping understood immediately—Yao Qi sent a Heavenly Question to Wei Chengxiang, which Wei Chengxiang then transmitted via flying goose letter to Tao County. Zhao Qindan asked Tao-er-nainai to disband all the gawping townspeople and moved the better half of the Tao World Record’s office into the little courtyard to ensure that news from all over could come through without delay.

Zhao Qindan read aloud the message that had come through the machine several times. “What he means is, war will strengthen the hidden bones and weaken you?”

Xi Ping played the Tai Sui Qin like strong wind and swift rain: That’s for sure! The ancient inscriptions are like foundations, and the immortal mountains are roof beams and pillars. When an earthquake collapses half of the house’s foundation, the house is left struggling to stand up on a few pillars, and those idiotic sons of bitches are fighting each other for the chance to chop down those pillars so they can bring back some wood to stick together a coffin for themselves!

As the daughter of an important family, Zhao Qindan had only studied the basics of music, weiqi, calligraphy, and painting as a child for the sake of appearances. Her skills had been trivial and ordinary to begin with, just enough to get by, and after a decade of running around managing people’s welfare, she had long ago returned those insubstantial attainments to her teacher. “Wait, wait, wait, you’re playing too fast, I can’t distinguish the notes! Can’t you make a long story short?”

Xi Ping held down the string and smashed out a few bitter notes: You—are—right!

Zhao Qindan gasped. The Tao World Record’s scribes were sending news back in a constant stream from all over:

The great evil cultivators led by Yu Chang had already fought their way onto the Sanyue Mountains. The Xiangs were completely unwilling to abdicate in favor of more qualified candidates and were mounting a defense to the death, relying on the arrays throughout the Sanyue Mountains. The blood on the Sanyue Mountains had nearly dyed the sky above Dongheng City red.

Shu’s spiritual beasts were rioting, Lingyun’s cultivators were run off their feet, and the Cauldron of Nine Dragons wasn’t there. The Miah survivors hidden in Southern Shu had seized the opportunity to launch a counteroffensive.

Never mind that on the South Sea there were still a number of shed skins ready to come to blows without a word.

And the more bad news the flying goose machine spat out, the more rapidly the Law Breaker shrank.

The Luwu were calculating the speed of shrinkage of the spiritual energy prohibition line almost once per intense stick interval. At first it had been one chi per intense stick, but now it had already doubled three times and then some and still showed signs of speeding up. The sacred guardian trees that the people of Tao County had revered in former days were nibbling and swallowing pieces of the paradise-like spiritual energy prohibition.

During this time, Lin Chi and Xi Ping had tried countless methods: piling up spiritual stones inside and outside the Law Breaker hadn’t been the slightest use; chopping down the reincarnation wood trees, meanwhile, was completely impracticable—outside the line of the spiritual energy prohibition, the “rotten wood” of former days really had turned into divine trees. Not even the attack of a shed skin sword cultivator had been able to cut through the one in the South Sea—only the ones inside the Law Breaker had yet to “develop intelligence,” but eliminating them would have been meaningless now. Reincarnation wood had always been a tree that could start growing if you shook out some seeds or stuck a budding branch into the earth. Now, controlled by the hidden bones, the reincarnation wood trees outside the Law Breaker were spreading even faster than wildfire vines, on mountains and in water, on roofs and roadsides, in utmost cold, in scorching heat…

“And there’s your body,” said Zhao Qindan, “that Southern Shu evil cultivator…”

She was interrupted by Xi Ping’s irascible sweet notes, which sounded like a qin being slammed: I’m glad he’s taken it, don’t bother about it.

If it had fallen into someone else’s hands, that might have been something to worry about. It having fallen into Wangge Luobao’s hands was the safest thing now—though that Southern Shu evil cultivator was inhuman, his understanding of the hidden bones was certainly the most profound. As long as he didn’t want to let the hidden bones jump straight to the shed skin boundary, he wouldn’t want to destroy his body. Right now, the world was full of reincarnation wood trees that wanted to break him to pieces; even the sea wasn’t safe. A beast-taming cultivator who had “spies” everywhere was just the right person to hide him.

As for later…

Xi Ping thought, I may not be able to live to “later.”

The two female cultivators Zhao Qindan and Wei Chengxiang had identical reactions to this: That’s your body! Not bothering about it is outrageous!

Xi Ping ignored the two of them. His thoughts jumped swiftly to another place: first they had to snuff out the flames of battle everywhere. The spiritual prohibition line retreating at a uniform speed was nothing to fear; small as Tao County was, it would still take months to retreat. But if it kept speeding up like this, it wouldn’t be able to take it. The furnace flame was leaping ever more violently. The Law Breaker might come crashing down at any moment.

“Leave the shed skins to my shifu, have the Luwu Xu Rucheng detain Yu Chang. Yu Chang wants the Sanyue Mountains. If the hidden bones get the upper hand, even if the Sanyue mountains don’t collapse, they still won’t belong to him! Tell them to stop fighting and withdraw, and I’ll return his vital weapon! Southern Shu… A-Xiang can contact Queru for me! Master Lin, I’ve gone around the Law Breaker with the furnace flame eight hundred times. When are you going to be through with decoding those inscriptions?”

Lin Chi and Wen Fei had already reached the Xia River.

The Unbound Furnace’s flame was inside the Law Breaker. The whole way, Lin Chi had allowed Wen Fei to fly, carrying him along, while he had flung himself body and heart into the Unbound Furnace, attempting to interpret the inscriptions on that divine tool, the Law Breaker, and work out the connection between the Law Breaker and the furnace flame. But though he had researched Hui Xiangjun for eight hundred years, now he could still only interpret a portion of the Law Breaker’s inscriptions with a struggle. The furnace flame was far outside the scope of his comprehension.

“Wait…this must have to do with the inheritance of the Eternal Spring Brocade, I…I…”

Xi Ping felt that if he pressed him any further, Lin Chi would have an emotional collapse; moreover, if it really was related to the way of the ancient demonic god, pressing him would be no use. His voice softened at once. “Shishu, don’t fret, the Law Breaker inscriptions are enough. Send the inscriptions you’ve interpreted to individual Luwu and have these inscriptions leak out—the people of Northern Li once used inscriptions to carve the Kunlun Mountains, and now we may yet be able to realize the Law Breaker.”

Zhao Qindan, while being run off her feet carrying out his orders, found time among her many cares to contact Wei Chengxiang in private: “He has too many things to attend to at once right now, is there anything you can do?”

“I’m in Great Wan’s Guzhou!” Wei Chengxiang said. “What the hell, that bastard Xi Shiyong really is broad-minded…”

Just then, a Heavenly Question from Yao Qi and Chang Jun flew into her hand.

Yao Qi said that, while fleeing for their lives in the sea, he had been afraid that Xi Ping’s true body would be lost, so he had held onto a bit of the blood Xi Ping had spilled when he had been slashed by the reincarnation wood. With his blood, he could draw a tracking talisman to search for him.

When Wei Chengxiang had read this, her head began to hurt. She thought to herself that this big brother was thinking too much. Track an ascended spirit—even if he’d gotten ahold of the Southern Sage’s blood or the Sword Ancestor’s blood, any talisman he drew would still be of half-immortal grade…and not an especially accomplished half-immortal, at that. Unless Wangge Luobao died, once the talisman was complete, he would be able to detect it even with his foot.

She rather unskillfully manipulated the Heavenly Question in her hands and was just about to tell those two gentlemen to behave themselves and stay put instead of indulging in wild fantasies when she suddenly noticed the location of the senders—the Heavenly Question was the Xuanyin Mountains’ most high-grade communication immortal tool, capable of establishing a one-way link to a specific person without being spied on by masters. When Wei Chengxiang wrote back, she could use this Heavenly Question to sense Yao Qi and Chang Jun’s approximate bearings.

Her gaze paused as she found that the senders Yao Qi and Chang Jun had gone very far west.

In the west of the South Sea, apart from Southern Shu, there was also a place very familiar to her!

Shortly, Yao Qi and Chang Jun received a very special guide talisman through the Heavenly Question. Wei Chengxiang’s response was: A half-immortal’s talisman will be noticed by a master. Follow the guide talisman, and you will come to a place that may be able to hide the aura of your talisman.

Meanwhile, Zhi Xiu had succinctly shouted the fight above the Lancang Spiritual Mountains to a stop—he didn’t even have time to finish. As soon as he mentioned the words “the ancient inscriptions from outside the Beijue Mountains,” that Kunlun Sect Leader suddenly seemed to go into convulsions. His expression became greatly alarmed. Then he turned his gaze across the South Sea onto Western Chu’s Tao County and ran off in that direction.

The words “outside the Beijue Mountains” were similarly stunning for Wu Lingxiao, and Tao County was Western Chu’s territory, so Xuanwu naturally couldn’t just sit by and watch. The two of them followed the Sect Leader, and soon after that it was Kunlun’s Third Elder and Lingyun’s Sect Leader, a beat slow. Zhi Xiu said a few words to Pang Jian and Bai Ling, then leapt up and went in pursuit. For a time, all the masters in the world were heading toward Tao County.

The Sanyue Mountains’ Xu Rucheng didn’t drop the ball at the critical moment. He faultlessly relayed Xi Ping’s own words to Yu Chang. When Yu Chang heard the words “vital weapon,” the veins on his temples stood out, and he seized Xu Rucheng by the collar. “Tell him—I—will—fuck—his—ancestors!”

Then Yu Chang abruptly dove into the shadow of the Sanyue Mountains—because of that damned Tai Sui’s mischief, his control over the evil cultivators and war lords of Western Chu had been pared down by fifty to sixty percent. Moreover, he understood his peers, who had been oppressed by the spiritual mountains for over a thousand years. They didn’t give a damn whether mountains collapsed or people died. Their first reaction wouldn’t be to prevent loss; it would certainly be to seize spiritual stones.

The shadow of the mountains covered the shadows of all the cultivators in Sanyue. Yu Chang didn’t attempt to convince anyone. He only gave a bellow: “Xuanwu!”

He had used the “grit worm projection” to spout out this cry. The minds of Xiangs and evil cultivators alike were simultaneously shaken. It happened to be late already. A night breeze blew by, leaving the moon hanging high in the sky.

Yu Chang’s ascended spirit grade illusion went up into the sky, obscuring the gazes of all the evil cultivators. For a time, the cultivators awed by the grit worm projection were incapable of distinguishing the real moon from the Silver Moon. They were overcome with terror. Some whose temperaments were insufficiently staunch immediately developed marks on their bodies as if they had been swept by the Silver Moon.

All the evil cultivators in the mountains instantly fell into disorder, brandishing precious tools they had kept in reserve and fleeing in all directions. Yu Chang gave Xu Rucheng a cold look and tossed him back where he had found him. He raised a hand and released a signal flare. “Here! Brothers, follow me!”

And in the depths of the South Sea, a “mortal steamship” left the South Sea Hidden Realm. The moment it squeezed out through the crack, the ship shook. The Turmoiler Li Manlong pressed a switch on the upgraded immortal tool. Spirit-conducting gold swiftly collected spiritual energy from spiritual stones, and that “mortal ship,” before it could be crushed by the weight of the water, swiftly changed into an immortal tool and parted the waters as if flying.

The upgraded immortal tool flying toward the surface scattered countless tiny flutes, which played a beast-taming melody to pacify spiritual beasts. Though it was only established foundation grade, it was still enough. The melody spread outside the Lingyun Mountains, and the spiritual beasts that had charged in among crowds of people moved slower and slower. One after another fell over.

After a moment’s shock, the Lingyun cultivators rapidly got the situation under control and split people off to return to the immortal mountains. The rebel Miah cultivators also received a secret letter from Wangge Luobao and withdrew en masse.

Following the colossal exertions of cultivators everywhere, regardless of orthodox or evil, the flames of war among the five great spiritual mountains were temporarily suppressed.

Starting from the Tao World Record’s printing depot, printed Law Breaker inscriptions spread out to all points. The toilet bulletins that had been closely watching the Tao World Record ever since the start of the unforeseen events in Southern He fell over each other to imitate. As if they had grown wings, the Law Breaker’s inscriptions were transmitted everywhere in the blink of an eye and reproduced by countless hands using different methods—

For the first time, the speed at which the spiritual energy prohibition was shrinking slowed.

“Twenty-four…twenty-three chi per hour.”

Zhao Qindan obtained data about the shrinkage of the spiritual energy prohibition as soon as it was available—not long before, the number had been over a hundred chi per hour.

“Much better, and the inscriptions are still spreading.” Zhao Qindan heaved a sigh of relief and couldn’t resist making a joke. “What do you think, Xi-shixiong, is the spiritual energy prohibition going to start widening instead in a while? If the Law Breaker’s inscriptions are everywhere, then wouldn’t we accidentally be ‘realizing the Law Breaker’?”

Xi Ping went mute for a long moment. The Tai Sui Qin, which had just been strident and commanding, buzzed weakly: What did you call me?

Zhao Qindan came back to her senses and laughed lightly. She crossed her arms in front of her chest and, calm under pressure, walked two circles around the reincarnation wood tree. “Come to think of it, ‘Senior’ Tai Sui, don’t you still owe me an explan…”

But before she could finish speaking, she was interrupted by the sound of an explosion in the distance.

Zhao Qindan was petrified.

At the Law Breaker’s boundary, a Luwu taking measurements of the spiritual energy prohibition line had gone outside the line in his excitement. Before he could realize that he had forgotten himself, he froze in place—a wind blade composed of spiritual energy had flown out of a reincarnation wood tree outside the spiritual energy prohibition line, cutting that half-immortal in two. The protective immortal tool he carried exploded into a firework.