When the feeling of heaviness he hadn't known for over two centuries came over him, Zhi Xiu, as one of the few present who was still lucid, gestured at Wen Fei, then picked up Lin Chi, who had been shaken into a daze by the flute.

The three of them raced toward the bank of the Xia River, the same weird doubt arising simultaneously in their minds—did it really take so much effort to move human legs?

Just as they reached the shore, they heard an ominous crack from behind. Zhi Xiu turned and tossed the “frail scholar” Master Lin onto the shore and reached back to grab Wen Fei.

The Xia River had been forced to freeze by spiritual energy. As soon as the spiritual energy dissipated, the ice rapidly broke apart. Wen Fei had one foot on a big ice floe. Tugging on Zhi Xiu’s hand to give himself momentum, he executed a breathtaking “flight” onto the muddy bank.

His ascended spirit’s spiritual energy was gone, but the weight of his spiritual bones remained. Though Zhi Xiu was a trained warrior, he still involuntarily let out a gasp. His shoulder was dislocated, as if he had just smashed through a boulder.

The river thawed, and the bewildered shed skins were collectively dunked in for a “winter swim.”

“N-never fear, th-the doctor’s here!” Then, without waiting for the “patient” to consent, Wen Fei unilaterally rolled up his sleeves and pressed down on Zhi Xiu’s shoulder, pushing the dislocated joint back into place. His stutter didn’t keep him from blowing his own horn. “Hey, my skills, they’re…they’re really smooth. It’s—it’s been years since I used them.”

As a sword cultivator, bumps and bruises were a common occurrence for Zhi Xiu. He didn’t think anything of minor injuries. But his “good neighbor” nearly knocked him over with his bear’s paw. He bit back a cry of pain: how many head of cattle had Wen Fenghan killed with his doctoring before he was forced into a change of career?!

“J-jingzhai, l-l-l-look there!”

Icy wind came at them off the river. The spiritual energy prohibition line had already crossed the Xia River, making straight for Great Wan’s Yuzhou. Trapped in the ponderous mortal world, his senses and consciousness limited, Zhi Xiu didn’t see at once where the spiritual energy prohibition line had reached. He only felt the surroundings become so silent they seemed to lack civilization.

Only the Unbound Furnace was floating steadily in midair. The overturned body of the furnace had at some point righted itself. It was as if it were offering up a furnace of incense for the universe.

For a time, the only sounds to be heard on both sides of the Xia River were the water flowing and the ice crackling. No one had realized yet what had happened.

After a long while, the Unbound Furnace at last slowly descended. The Third Elder, who had climbed up the bank with difficulty, stumbled forward. He took one look into the furnace and fell to his knees.

The furnace fire was crystal clear. Kunlun’s Sect Leader and the most ancient Way of the Heart in the world had disappeared together, as if they had never been.

The Luwu had gone deathly still for a moment when the sudden change occurred. Then information passed through the flying goose machines, converging on Tao County from all directions—

“The spiritual energy prohibition line has passed Yu Family Bend!”

“The spiritual energy prohibition line has covered all of Chu’s Lingdong County…”

“Talismans and arrays have stopped working in Great Wan’s Yuzhou…”

“The spiritual energy prohibition line has stopped at Qingling in Guzhou. It’s reached the South Sea.”

“The spiritual energy prohibition suddenly expanded six hundred li. What happened?” Zhao Qindan asked.

Xi Ping was the sole eyewitness in the world to what had happened in the Unbound Furnace. Now, everyone wanted to ask him: What happened?

The Tai Sui Qin was absolutely still. Xi Ping was silent, facing the flickering flame of the Unbound Furnace in a daze inside the Law Breaker.

In fact, during the chaotic battle over the Lancang Mountains, he had already dimly guessed where the Kunlun Sect Leader’s heart demon pointed. It had been no surprise to see that most ancient shed skin Way of the Heart go to pieces—since Zhou Ying had used himself as bait and planted a heart demon in the foremost master in the world, Xi Ping had known that that old Sect Leader’s fate would most likely be the same as Zhao Yin’s.

But…it seemed that it also hadn’t been all that similar.

Zhao Yin had remained muddled to the last. Killed by the heart demon and his own obsession, he had brought destruction upon others in his death throes, making Xi Ping’s shifu use up the sword attack he had spent five years saving up to wipe his ass for him.

But Kunlun’s Sect Leader Wu had been lucid—perhaps he had never been so lucid since establishing a foundation and entering the cultivation world.

In the end, he had seen through the heart demon, let the heart demon and his Way of the Heart perish together, finding himself an appropriate ending.

When the spiritual energy prohibition line had been almost in front of him, Xi Ping had interrogated Lin Chi a hundred eighty times: what was there that could replenish the Law Breaker?

In fact, there had been no need to force Lin Chi to come up with an answer. He ought to have known the answer long ago.

He had seen with his own eyes how Xiang Rong had dissolved into the Sanyue Mountains, becoming a “complete restorative pill” for the spiritual mountains. And the Law Breaker…had been made on the model of the spiritual mountains.

When the Lancang Spiritual Mountains had been faced with destruction, they had chosen to sever their own veins of the earth, preferring to become the southern mines if it meant their own preservation. Now, all the great spiritual mountains were tottering on the verge of collapse. They were desperate enough to risk anything. What orders would they give those shed skins who were nominally “sages” but were in reality puppets on strings? If Kunlun’s Sect Leader hadn’t fallen into the Unbound Furnace, it would have been someone else.

Each range of spiritual mountains had shed skins. Though the hidden bones had obtained the ancient inscriptions, ultimately, they hadn’t passed the shed skin boundary. Facing the spiritual mountains, the hidden bones might be said to be evenly matched—the reasoning here was very simple; it was the same as Xi Ping on the Southern He Peninsula using the Lancang Mountains to play a little trick on the Sword Slave.

With his smattering of cultivation, Zhou Ying might not have been able to draw a talisman as skillfully as a disciple who had yet to graduate from the Latent Cultivation Temple. The only two trump cards he possessed—the heart demon seed and the power to turn into mist—he had left to Xi Ping before disappearing in the Ceaseless Mirror. Apart from this, the things he could do himself were very limited. Lately, it had practically all been him tossing out requests for Xi Ping to carry out.

While he was testing the boundaries of the human world, practically all his conjectures had passed through Xi Ping’s hands to be verified. In the situation he had left behind, all the useful means and resources ought to have been more familiar to Xi Ping than to Zhou Ying himself.

But it was only…”ought to have.”

In front of the flame of the Unbound Furnace, taller than a person, Xi Ping didn’t breathe a sigh of relief. His heart slowly sank.

Xi Ping in fact had no Way of the Heart to break, but neither was he a way of clarity cultivator, without feeling or desire.

Up to now, he had faced the truth concerning Ways of the Heart alone and had thought he had known what there was to know, but actually he had all along been unwilling to face it: his teachers and friends, apart from A-Xiang and the young mistress and the other juniors, practically all had Ways of the Heart.

A “bad Way of the Heart” shattered at a glimpse of the abyss; did that mean that a “good Way of the Heart” could be concerned only with itself?

Moreover, separating Ways of the Heart into good and bad had been only his way of lying to himself.

He had pushed Lin Chi out of the Unbound Furnace at the bottom of the Sea of Stars and in speech deliberately differentiated his hidden bones from a Way of the Heart, as if a person being at odds with their Way of the Heart was an exception limited to him alone—

He had pretended that he had only to keep the world at peace, plan well enough to deal fairly with both orthodox and evil, both immortal and mortal, and the people he cared about would all be safe and sound; pretended that as long as Xi Yue didn’t accept his “ungovernable way,” which forced you into lucidity, he would be able to continue on forever like the true “immortal” he yearned to be, grow up to be a sage who wasn’t a sham.

As long as the flowers of Jinping didn’t wither and the fire in the little cottage on Flying Jade Peak still roasted pine nuts and chestnuts, he was willing to dress up in colorful clothes for the amusement of his family, let his mother and her maids paint him with nail polish that couldn’t be washed off for three days, willing to plant flowers and weed the soil and get covered in mud, finish sweeping the snow before repairing the roof; he was willing to walk over mountains of swords and seas of fire, be crushed to dust…even though by nature he was a rich kid who shirked hard work and stuck to easy work, with unremarkable abilities.

Kunlun’s Sect Leader had sacrificed himself to the furnace, and the spiritual energy prohibition line had expanded six hundred li. The hidden bones wouldn’t leave it at that. The spiritual mountains wouldn’t sit back and wait for death. This was only the beginning.

Those who had a Way of the Heart would not come to a good end, no matter how limpid, how aloof that Way of the Heart might be.

It had never been he alone who had taken the wrong path.

“Xi…Tai Sui?” Not hearing a response from him for a long time, Zhao Qindan had sensed something ominous from Xi Ping’s unusual silence.

A few notes flew from the Tai Sui Qin inside the tree: Send cars.

Zhao Qindan raised her eyebrows. She thought she had heard wrong.

The shed skins of the various sects are beside the Xia River. Immediately clear a path and find them. Send cars, the fastest steamships, the Cloud…no, the Cloud Soaring Flood Dragon won’t work, the rails wouldn’t have stood up to the strain, they must all have snapped, Xi Ping quickly said. Send them out of the spiritual energy prohibition line, the faster the better. The hidden bones have temporarily been swept away by the spiritual energy prohibition line and lost six hundred li of reincarnation wood trees. They’re certain to take this opportunity to attack those spiritual mountains. Hurry!

Making them go put down rebellions, face reincarnation wood trees directly and chop them down, would be better than having the spiritual mountains, cutting off their tails in their bid for survival, treat them as those “tails.”

His shifu, Lin Chi, and Wen Fei were all there. Almost in a panic, Xi Ping thought, Don’t look into the Unbound Furnace, don’t look into the Unbound Furnace—

But upgraded immortal tools were new and had primarily been supplied to Southern Wan’s defenders without established foundations to use against foreign enemies. The large quantity of hastily made tools had all been artillery or shields. The number of upgraded cars and ships was very limited. Tao County, a foreign locale where deliveries of spiritual stones were inconvenient, hadn’t been equipped.

Everything outside the spiritual energy prohibition line had been taken over by reincarnation wood. The troops and the Luwu had been in constant retreat. There was no one left in the area of the Xia River. For masters who could fly through the sky and burrow into the earth, Xi Ping was in arm’s reach from the bank of the Xia River. Now that spiritual energy had been prohibited, it would take much longer for cars and horses to get there—especially since motor cars needed good roads, and the roads had all been smashed by Xuanwu when he had lost his temper earlier.

But the hidden bones were unwilling to wait for them. While the masters were trapped inside the spiritual energy prohibition, just as Xi Ping had expected, they abandoned vast tracts of reincarnation wood forest, allowed the reincarnation wood trees that had seized territory everywhere to wither, and concentrated their attack on the spiritual mountains.

The first to be swallowed by the reincarnation wood and the ancient inscriptions were the Lingyun Mountains, of which only half remained.

During the Dragon Boat Festival, Xi Ping had snuck into the Lingyun Mountains, just in time for the sudden change in the evil cultivators’ meeting. For ease of movement, he had left behind some reincarnation wood seeds at the feet of the Lingyun Mountains in the spiritual beast farm and the spiritual fields. He hadn’t expected that after this Southern Shu would sink into slaughter and civil strife, everyone would be on edge, and to this day no one would have cleaned up the reincarnation wood seeds.

Lingyun’s Sect Leader was already mediocre enough, and the shed skin elder he had left to watch the house, having lost the great mountain array, certainly couldn’t hold the line. Though Wangge Luobao had sent orders, he was taking a long time to show himself. The Miah cultivators, with no one to restrain them, had gone out of control after discovering the “wondrous effects” of the ancient inscriptions. The Xiuyi caught up soon after, unwilling to take this lying down. At the feet of the Lingyun Mountains, the Ways of the Heart of common origin struggled with all their might to send “heavenly edicts” to the orthodox cultivators. These voices that struck straight at a cultivator’s spiritual sense had previously succeeded in every endeavor, but now they were being covered up by the multiplying ancient inscriptions.

The ancient inscriptions manipulated the cultivators into killing each other and ruthlessly plundered the spiritual energy of the Lingyun Mountains. The reincarnation wood’s growth hastened. In the blink of an eye, it had covered the whole Lingyun Mountain Range.

Southern Shu’s spiritual veins were completely severed by the reincarnation wood. Li Manlong and the others watched as the battle, which had stabilized earlier, took an alarming steep decline. A certain…certain deathliness exceedingly familiar to the Turmoilers spread through Southern Shu’s peninsula and the Three Islands. Everywhere came the moans of spiritual beasts who seemed to be dying.

The Sanyue Mountains were hardly doing any better. When Yu Chang returned to his senses after his momentary impulse, he had already involuntarily used the ancient inscriptions to drain the essences of a dozen people. He couldn’t remember at first how he had charged up. He only felt that his essence was unprecedentedly abundant, and he was as worked up as though he were running a fever.

This was wrong…

Yu Chang, who had spent centuries struggling against the spiritual image brand that ran counter to his convictions, wasn’t pleased; he was alarmed. Out of nowhere, he recalled the Queen Mother of the West’s condition. He looked all around and saw on the faces of both friend and enemy cultivators alike an inexpressible frenzy, each person forgetting themselves as they duplicated the ancient inscriptions. The originally invisible ancient inscriptions were gradually emerging on the ground and climbing all over the mountains.

A rumble. Half of the colossal statue of the Black Emperor slid down.

And Northern Li’s Kunlun had been born through the ancient inscriptions to begin with. The ancient inscriptions brought by the hidden bones were irresistible here and easily covered the Kunlun Spiritual Mountains, nearly frozen by the cold wind from the Beiyuan Plains.

The Blind Wolf King’s former subordinates at the Beijue Mountain Pass, including the Snow Wolf dreaming his eternal dreams of being the “master of Posuo Palace,” had turned into ice sculptures the instant that the ancient inscriptions had entered the human world. Now that fatal wintry wind was already pressing upon the regions inhabited by mortals. People had just finished packing their bags to flee the disaster. Some didn’t even make it out the gate before they were frozen in their tracks.

And with Zhi Xiu trapped in the spiritual energy prohibition, the reincarnation wood in the Territory Map immediately lost anyone to suppress it.

The karma beast gave a sudden wail. Pang Jian abruptly turned his head and saw his old companion struggle fiercely a few times as if trapped by something, and the avatar that had accompanied them disappeared. Pang Jian had no time to pass into the wall to go in search of it before a Heavenly Question crashed into his arms. At the same time, he felt the earth quake.

Xi Yue, left by his elders on Flying Jade Peak, suddenly opened his eyes from meditation. The thirty-six peaks shuddered, the Grand Canal burst its banks, and monstrous vines reached out from underground and tore at Jinping’s dragon vein.

Flying goose signals from all over broke off. The machines constantly clicking around Zhao Qindan went deathly silent—

The shed skins trapped inside the spiritual energy prohibition were now like mortals, working blind.

Xuanwu sat on an abandoned damaged boat in the Xia River. His eyes seemed to have been frozen by the icy waters of the river. The snow white irises were blank. He glanced at the Unbound Furnace and in a peculiar tone slowly said, “So—the evil object left behind by the evil cultivator Hui Xiangjun has pointed the way for us: to sacrifice people to her furnace?”

Lin Chi blurted out, “She wasn’t an evil cultivator.”

But Xuanwu seemed not to hear. He had absolutely no reaction to this junior who dared to talk back.

In some agitation, Lingyun’s Sect Leader asked, “So what now? Sect Leader Wu has sacrificed himself to the furnace. That means the tribulation is over, right?”

Everyone ignored him.

As a sword-bearing half-puppet, Wu Lingxiao’s human body was incomplete. She was practically paralyzed now. It was Zhi Xiu who, on account of Wanshuang, found a damaged boat and, pooling his efforts with Wen Fei, fished her out with a fishing net.

It was even harder for her to speak. She stared at the Unbound Furnace in bewilderment. “What did he see in the furnace? Why would he want to smelt himself?”

Had he gone crazy?

His crime had been exposed, and it couldn’t be denied?

Just then, she heard the Third Elder say in an almost solemn voice, “We inherited the way of the sage who came before us. It is natural and appropriate for us to meet death for the sake of the world. What is strange about it?”

Wu Lingxiao sneered. “Ha!”

But she soon found that apart from her, no one laughed—not even Xuanwu with his customary moodiness.

Within the spiritual energy prohibition line, individual cultivators who were careless about training their bodies might not even have been able to win a fight against a dog. It was a place where all ghosts and gods tumbled into the mundane dust, and the shed skin masters now were in fact all like chickens who had ended up in the soup. Their hair and beards were in disarray. They were either dripping on the shore or half immersed in the water, bumped and slammed this way and that by ice floes. They might have been said to be entirely without decorum.

But Wu Lingxiao thought that apart from the three from the Xuanyin Mountains, who were as confused as her, all the shed skins present had a certain freakish inhumanity about them.

The Third Elder stood respectfully beside the Unbound Furnace. Even his breathing was almost imperceptibly soft. Xuanwu with his white hair and skin was like a marble statue in the main hall on Sanyue’s Principal Peak.

Strangest of all was Lingyun’s Sect Leader.

Only half of the Lingyun Mountains remained, and Lingyun’s Sect Leader also seemed to have been split in two. Wu Lingxiao found to her horror that his eyes were turning in different directions: one eye was wandering incessantly, showing unspeakable panic, as if he were appealing to someone for help; but the other eye was staring fixedly at the Unbound Furnace.

Lingyun’s Sect Leader was muttering: “Moments ago I heard the spiritual beasts within my nation’s boundaries had escaped, causing chaos. I ought to go back and take charge…”

But his feet, with unwavering resolution, were taking him with heavy steps toward the Unbound Furnace. The unctuous and flabby Third Elder straightened his hair and clothes and executed a bow northward. Xuanwu seemed to have heard something. He suddenly closed his eyes and sighed. He dove into the water and mechanically swam for the shore… His strokes were more regular than the movement of a pendulum.

Wu Lingxiao had long ago lost all sensation of temperature, but suddenly she shuddered from cold.

Lin Chi, beside the Unbound Furnace, automatically leaned back and nearly fell into the water. He was pulled back by Wen Fei.

Wen Fei ducked straight behind Zhi Xiu, as if a sword cultivator could repel evil. Zhi Xiu was knocked a step forward by him and took the opportunity to raise Zhaoting and bar the Lingyun Sect Leader’s way. “The spiritual energy prohibition line has been stabilized. My disciple knows our location, he’ll be sending people here at once. We can all discuss what happens next. Senior, don’t…”

The Lingyun Sect Leader’s neck was stuck straight up. The only eye he could turn spun toward Zhi Xiu. Zhi Xiu’s voice stopped.

The Lingyun Sect Leader spat out words in the Shu language one at a time, as if speaking a foreign language: “There’s no time, the spiritual mountains…”

The words that followed were vague and indecipherable. With Zhi Xiu’s not especially firm grasp of the Shu language, he read the soundless movements of the Lingyun Sect Leader’s lips. He seemed to be saying “help.” Before he could even break out in gooseflesh, the Lingyun Sect Leader, who could have been knocked flat on his ass by Zhaoting in the presence of spiritual energy, somewhere found monstrous strength. He knocked Zhaoting aside and jumped into the Unbound Furnace like a ghost.

Kunlun’s Third Elder, coming after him, mumbled, “We inherited the way of the sage who came before us. It is natural and appropriate for us to meet death for the sake of the world…to meet death for the sake of the world…”

But just then, a scream that scraped up your spine suddenly came from the Unbound Furnace. It seemed lucid to the extreme and despairing to the extreme—

The puppet had learned that he was a puppet and watched his Way of the Heart break, offered up on the altar.

The waters of the Xia River gurgled. The Third Elder’s quiet muttering was interrupted for a moment by the scream. He seemed to feel something. Breathy noises came from his throat. He wanted to stop, but he couldn’t close his mouth. A warped expression appeared on his face, like crying and like laughter.

“Inherited the way of the sage…”

Gurgle—

“Meet death for the sake of the world…”

Gurgle—