It was the Dignitary of Fate Elder Zhang Jue.

Zhi Xiu thought that he and Xi Shiyong were different. That brat’s shifu was an idler who lived on Flying Jade Peak in company with confusion and doubt, able to devote his own energy to bringing up a fiend.

His shifu meanwhile was one of Xuanyin’s four elders, who year in and year out was at his post in the Sea of Stars, where no one but a shed skin could enter without authorization. He had already been over thirty years old when he had entered the sect. He wouldn’t venture to say that he had been very steady, but at any rate he hadn’t needed to be cared for and disciplined like a half-grown child. The Dignitary of Fate Elder had only come to inspect his progress periodically. After he had become an ascended spirit and left his tutelage, all that had remained were the letters Zhi Xiu sent paying his respects.

The Dignitary of Fate Elder was the most strictly rule-abiding person in the Xuanyin Mountains. Without particular business, not even his direct disciple would break the Sea of Stars’ rules. Every ten years, that valley of despair would only be open to Zhi Xiu for half an incense stick of time. He would always deliberately pick a day like the Mid-Autumn Festival or New Year’s Eve to go in and have a cup of tea with his shizun.

Unfortunately, the stars didn’t celebrate the New Year.

Zhi Xiu didn’t avoid people at all costs, and he also couldn’t have been called very extroverted. When he encountered someone lively, he would become a little more talkative in response. If he was in company with someone reticent, he wouldn’t voluntarily get closer to them. After they had exchanged greetings, teacher and disciple would basically have nothing else to say to each other. Their lengthy silences were like the thousand years and more that had congealed over the Dignitary of Fate Elder.

Over two centuries had passed in a flash. Now, Zhi Xiu could hardly recall any confidences he had shared with shifu. He only remembered that the bottom of the Sea of Stars was like a prison cell, with everything within sight a taboo.

Before leaving, afraid that the Bell of Tribulation would make trouble, he had gone to see Zhang Jue. He thought that after all the Dignitary of Fate Elder had been personally raised by the Southern Sage and would still remember what the spiritual mountains had been born for. Their ways were different; he didn’t dare to have extravagant hopes for anything else. He had only brought over the karma beast, hoping that if anything went wrong, this shizun who was already a stranger would be able to rethink matters, give Lin Chi and Wen Fei some room to maneuver.

But he hadn’t expected the Dignitary of Fate Elder to come here.

In only a day or two, Zhang Jue had aged another decade in mortal terms compared to the last time he had seen him. His eyes were deeply sunken in. His flesh no longer seemed capable of covering the bones that had been nibbled away by time.

When Zhi Xiu saw the newcomer clearly, he was even slightly distracted, suspecting that after the Impassable Sea’s demon seal had broken, it had released some kind of demon that could disturb the intellect.

In that brief daze, a talisman flew out of Zhang Jue’s hand holding his shoulder and permeated all of Zhi Xiu’s meridians, locking him in place. Then Zhang Jue gave him a profound look. In the end, the Dignitary of Fate Elder didn’t say anything to his only disciple. His figure flashed, and he landed a hundred zhang away, at the great demon’s core.

The Southern Sage had never breathed a single word about the Impassable Sea. Only just before his departure had he instructed his disciples: The Impassable Sea’s demon host had been born from the human heart. It could be neither dispelled nor defeated. It could only be sealed with the Ways of the Heart of the immortal mountains’ orthodox cultivators. The Bell of Tribulation sustained the Ways of the Heart of the spiritual mountains. If there was a problem with the demon seal, they could request that the Bell of Tribulation come to the East Sea.

If it should happen that the Bell of Tribulation couldn’t be moved, then it would remain to be seen whether the descendants of the demon subduer could produce an individual like their ancestor. Otherwise…it would need a nearly perfect shed skin Way of the Heart to debate against the demon host.

Before Zhi Xiu could cry out “shifu,” Zhang Jue’s aged figure was submerged in the all-enveloping demonic aura.

The Dignitary of Fate Elder was the “most orthodox” among the orthodox, with a Way of the Heart like a tree that had put down deep roots in the spiritual mountains. With the spiritual mountains on the verge of collapse, that tree still refused to budge, dead set on sharing in the destruction of the overthrown mountains.

Zhang Jue’s flesh split open bit by bit. Amid the heavy demonic energy, he detonated his essence. It contained boundless spiritual energy, like a small spiritual mountain, almost enough to cover half the East Sea. His decrepit body was destroyed. Only a Way of the Heart remained.

But regretfully, that Way of the Heart was far from meeting the “nearly perfect” requirement. It wasn’t even complete. Like the one Lancang’s Sect Leader had slammed against the Lovebird Sword Array, the Way of the Heart of the Dignitary of Fate Elder was in poor condition. Even with no one to touch it, it might have broken on its own. Yet in this intense collision, like a miracle, it held firm. That Way of the Heart maneuvered the plentiful spiritual energy of the shed skin essence, weaving a net, firmly trapping the demon host.

The Sea of Stars was a fabrication. In the life of the Dignitary of Fate, there still remained this final thread of pitiful fidelity.

It took Zhi Xiu only a moment to fight free of Zhang Jue’s immobilizing talisman, but he didn’t catch up to him in time. The exploding shed skin essence and the demonic energy tangled together, shutting him out.

A drawing flew out of the wild wind. Zhi Xiu automatically reached out to catch it. Unexpectedly, the thin card hadn’t torn in this intense conflict. Someone had placed two layers of protective talismans on it. The little karma beast was anxiously trying to run outward, but there was nowhere for it to go. It was only a beast spirit now.

Old acquaintances had changed, young men had grown old, and even the sages had passed away. The divine beast whose roar had shaken the nine provinces was now only a legend on paper.

“You want to debate with me?” Where spiritual and demonic energy collided, the great demon using the Southern Sage’s face said loudly, laughing, “The demon host is only the broken dregs left behind by the ‘heavenly commandments’ when Kunlun formed. As for why they have gained power, my disciple, haven’t you understood it yet?”

Zhang Jue’s Way of the Heart touched the core of the demonic energy and instantly shook. An even more obvious crack split that Way of the Heart from within—there was a familiar aura in the depths of the demonic aura. The remnants of Zhang Jue’s consciousness in his Way of the Heart witnessed what Zhou Ying had seen through the heart demon seed: the Southern Sage became a full moon god, brought the Xuanyin Spiritual Mountains into being, thoroughly became a portion of the human world’s “heavenly commandments.” Where the demon host dwelled, he saw his own reflection. The human part of him was unwilling to be annihilated and gave birth to a heart demon; the spiritual mountains cast a shadow.

To keep the spiritual mountains from collapsing, the Southern Sage promptly left behind the part of his Way of the Heart that “didn’t accord with the heavenly commandments,” just like the adjustment that his juniors would undergo when they became shed skins.

In the millennia-long history of Southern Wan, the Southern Sage had been the first person to cut the foot to fit the shoe.

The name of the great demon at the bottom of the Impassable Sea could not be spoken by anyone, because he, rejected by the spiritual mountains and sealed here by the demon subduer at the cost of his life, was…a part of the Southern Sage.

This was the truth that had caused Lin Zongyi’s Way of the Heart to shatter when he had caught a glimpse of it in the Territory Map.

Zhi Xiu saw the captured demonic energy rise steeply, almost breaking through the spiritual energy net made by Zhang Jue’s Way of the Heart. Without hesitation, he raised his sword and went forward. The demonic energy was dispersed by Zhaoting, then reformed, and was once again dispersed. Zhaoting’s biting cold sword energy seeped in. The Sword that Mended the Heavens touched Zhang Jue’s collapsing Way of the Heart. The crack in that Way of the Heart had nearly cleaved it all the way through, but in that moment, the spreading crack stopped, like a miracle.

Though it had been the start of the tragedy, the Southern Sage hadn’t been forced to do what he had done. For a hundred generations of peace, he had willingly cut apart and imprisoned himself.

A thousand years later, the rebellious junior unwilling to bend his head to the spiritual mountains was still drawing his sword to mend the heavens.

The ragged shed skin Way of the Heart and Zhaoting, one inside and one outside, forced the captured demon host down toward the East Sea. But in the midst of the stalemate, Zhang Jue’s detonated essence had been exhausted until hardly anything remained, and the supply of spiritual stones that Bai Ling had brought was having difficulty meeting the demand. But the demonic energy that had been suppressed for a thousand years at the bottom of the Impassable Sea was still coming in a constant stream.

Meanwhile, Western Chu’s evil cultivators charged completely unobstructed into the Sanyue Mountains, which had lost their great mountain array. At the feet of Southern Shu’s Lingyun Mountains, the spiritual beasts contained by the spiritual beast farm went out of control and surged toward the human world. Utterly cold wind began to pour in through the Beijue Mountain Pass. The Blind Wolf King’s Snow Observation Pavilion was instantly submerged by violent snow.

The sky was falling.

Xi Ping’s consciousness, like scattered sand, couldn’t assemble, inundated with countless heartbreaking scenes. Amid the billowing demonic energy, he couldn’t even find Zhi Xiu.

There was only the great demon with the Southern Sage’s face greedily sucking in demonic energy. “Your resistance is a lost cause, unless the demon subduer who had no offspring can come back to life…”

Just then, a sudden change occurred in the Resurrection Vortex: the direction of rotation of the whirlpools on the surface reversed!

The reversed whirlpools were like an enormous air purifier. As the demonic energy constantly emerging passed through it, it was converted into spiritual energy. A portion of the spiritual energy attached itself to Zhaoting and Zhang Jue’s Way of the Heart, and another portion surged toward the spirit-conducting gold, which automatically absorbed spiritual energy.

Zhi Xiu froze. Swapping between spiritual energy and demonic energy—this seemed to be…

The characteristic power of the demon-subduing Zhou clan’s spiritual bones!

It was said that for the last eight hundred years, the Zhou family had been using precisely this property of their spiritual bones to rear demons.

The next moment, beneath the surface of the whole East Sea, a limpid Way of the Heart emerged—a little smaller than Elder Zhang Jue’s. At the same time, the water carried up the fragments of bones that had sunk to the bottom of the sea during the last eight hundred years. Led by that Way of the Heart, a set of spiritual bones assembled in each of the Resurrection Vortex’s whirlpools.

There was a familiar aura about that Way of the Heart.

“Duanrui-shijie…”

When the Territory Map had been completed, the Dignitary of Rule Lin Zongyi’s Way of the Heart had shattered, and Princess Duanrui had sacrificed herself to bring him away; she had been caught in the explosion of the shed skin essence and passed away here.

Her body had perished, but her Way of the Heart remained. Though it had been occluded by dust while she lived, after death it had found a resting place.

The reversed Resurrection Vortex replenished Zhi Xiu’s nearly exhausted essence, and replenished the upgraded immortal tools’ power supply. Zhaoting’s chilly sword light slammed against the demonic energy trapped by the Dignitary of Fate Elder, driving the demon host toward the East Sea.

Now was the time to reseal the demon host.

The demon seal’s inscriptions were of a kind with the great mountain arrays, not something manmade; they were a portion of the heavenly commandments. You didn’t need to be especially proficient in inscriptions. If a cultivator had at least ascended spirit cultivation, as long as they could suppress the demonic energy, the whole set of inscriptions could naturally be obtained through the cultivator’s spiritual sense, which was open to heaven and earth.

In these circumstances, the outer sect cultivators on the Wan border still hadn’t retreated. Seeing Zhaoting’s attack fading, that excellent Pang Wenchang immediately used a row of ascended spirit upgraded immortal tools to help him make up the gap, leaving Zhi Xiu with time to concentrate and place the demon seal.

Spiritual light was already gathered at Zhaoting’s tip, but just then, Zhi Xiu’s expression changed slightly.

When the demon host in the East Sea had run wild, he had arrived in haste, deluged by the turn of events, so he hadn’t even noticed right away that…something was wrong!

Zhi Xiu abruptly raised his head and looked into the sky.

He was an unworthy disciple of the Dignitary of Fate’s lineage. Though he had always had considerable misgivings about fate, he still knew the basics of observing celestial phenomena. It was late now, and the wild wind on the sea had blown this patch of sky perfectly clean. The night sky was as clear as if it had been washed—with the great demon falling upon the world, why were there no clouds of tribulation? Why was there no blood moon?

The obscure thing that had pressed down on the canopy above, compelling all living things and also protecting all living things, had disappeared.

Just then, the demon host was beaten into the Resurrection Vortex by the powerful upgraded immortal tools. The spiritual bones and the two Ways of the Hearts of the masters converged. Zhi Xiu didn’t have time to think much. He leapt and landed beside Pang Jian and Bai Ling. Zhaoting raised a shield of water like a city wall.

Bai Ling nearly thought he had gone deaf. With General Zhi shielding them, the wild wind that seemed as if it could shake apart the whole continent at least didn’t hit him directly, but all the same, he still flew away. His sixth sense was in chaos. He crashed into some unknown colleague and instinctively reached out to hold that person up. He felt unprecedented lightness, a freedom as if he had never been born.

In a daze, he heard a distant voice in his ears: You can settle down here, Xiao Bai.

The person who had spoken these words was now somewhere unknown.

The rims of Bai Ling’s eyes suddenly reddened. He landed, stumbling, his vision a blur. He blinked hard: the defensive perimeter established at the border by Heaven’s Design Pavilion and the Kaiming Department had pretty much fallen apart. The enormous upgraded immortal tools had tumbled all over the place. He could see at a glance to the surface of the East Sea.

The sea hadn’t been this calm and tranquil in a thousand years. The Resurrection Vortex, where unknown numbers of souls of the dead had been buried, had quietly disappeared, and with it the Ways of the Heart of the Xuanyin Mountains’ Dignitary of Fate and Dignitary of Rites had been destroyed.

Someone whispered, “It’s…it’s gone?”

It was gone.

The demon host, said to share in the lifespan of the universe and the gods, which could only be sealed and not destroyed—didn’t that mean…

Zhi Xiu suddenly felt bone-deep terror. He had no time to breathe a sigh of relief. His consciousness swept out—everyone said that a shed skin sage’s consciousness could encompass a whole nation, but in fact that was far from the limit. When Xi Ping had become an ascended spirit, his consciousness had been able to leap from Sanyue and Dongheng to Tao County. It was only that before there had been inscriptions at each nation’s borders, which consciousnesses couldn’t easily cross. But now all the border inscriptions had disappeared. Zhi Xiu’s consciousness, unimpeded, crossed over vast stretches of mountains and rivers and was startled by the north wind blowing in from the Beijue Mountains.

Other places hadn’t worked it out yet, but Western Chu, currently engaged in a power struggle, had noticed something ahead of the rest—there, the cultivation of all unorthodox cultivators suddenly spurted up. In the Sanyue Mountains, the Xiangs who lived like princes suddenly lost the protection of the great mountain array and were pushed back again and again. The assault of the “evil cultivators” who had spent hundreds of years torn this way and that by spiritual image brands and Ways of the Heart changed from a “sneak attack” to a steamroller.

Looking from a distance, Zhi Xiu saw at a glance that the Sanyue Mountain Range had already begun to change form.

The cultivators in the midst of it hadn’t noticed that within Western Chu, all of the mountains had begun to sway. The houses and factories in the valleys, like dust, collapsed as the slowly expanding or wearily lowering mountains changed shape.

“Battles among cultivators impacting the local landforms, altering the seasons, even disrupting time…” This was the chaos that legend said had taken place during the Great War of Gods and Demons, before the spiritual mountains had formed.

“Shiyong?” Zhi Xiu pulled out a piece of reincarnation wood. “Shiyong!”

There was no answer. He sent his consciousness into it and only got an earful of confused voices that he couldn’t tell apart.

A shed skin’s consciousness couldn’t be easily overlooked anywhere. Of course Xi Ping had heard him, but he couldn’t answer. He seemed to have been shredded to pieces, then tied to the back of a bolting horse. His consciousness was being swept along by the hidden bones, shuttling through all the reincarnation wood in the world. Everywhere they passed, they left some inscriptions in the trees.

Having seized the ancient inscriptions from outside the Beijue Mountains, reincarnation wood became a vortex, sucking in spiritual energy from its surroundings. The trees with their rotten trunks that grew at will on walls and riverbanks instantly seemed to have been raised to godhood. One by one, they were plated with divine light.

Xi Ping could feel the wild joy of the hidden bones—Kunlun, Sanyue, Lingyun, Lancang…the spiritual energy of four great immortal mountains began to roll in accordance with the inscriptions. Soon it would flow into the reincarnation wood. Even the Xuanyin Mountains, which had become one with the Territory Map—there was reincarnation wood on the inside, acting as a go-between. It was also within their range of control.

They had won. They would soon become the only god in the world.

Last time Xi Ping had been this powerless, it had been back in the Latent Cultivation Temple. He had been only a powerless mortal then and had blown himself to bits. He had felt all his thoughts turn to dust, felt that he couldn’t make it past the open-eyed pass no matter what. Duanrui-shishu and shifu had been with him, and those two masters had been unable to help him. At the time, he had thought, Forget it… Until A-Xiang had called from a thousand li away and awoken him.

Now there were too many voices in the reincarnation wood. He couldn’t even find A-Xiang. All he had left was himself…a mortal who had spent a few decades shambling through the mortal dust.

But this time, he couldn’t say, “Forget it.”

He couldn’t die, and he couldn’t turn to dust and scatter his bones to the wind.

His nearly shed skin cultivation level belonged to the hidden bones, the reincarnation wood that could communicate with all points belonged to the hidden bones, his spiritual sense belonged to the hidden bones, and even his body, regenerated after being shattered, belonged to the hidden bones; he had cut out the shard of Zhaoting, the only thing that didn’t belong to the hidden bones…

What else was there that could help him?

What else was there that belonged to this person called “Xi Ping”?