Because of his too-rushed table manners during his last few sentences, Wangge Luobao had mixed the Wan and Miah languages. He looked like a demon of the end of the world.

In a moment of desperation, Yao Qi pulled the hand cannon’s trigger, sending a shot at the strange bone at the center of Wangge Luobao’s brow.

There was a hiss as the upgraded immortal tool cut through the filaments of spirit-conducting gold and bore down on Wangge Luobao…then missed.

Yao Qi: “…”

Why could this thing miss?!

Of course a hand cannon could miss. While it was an upgraded immortal tool, it had been developed from a mortal tool, and mortal soldiers all had to go through training to be able to use it. Cultivators normally relied on their spiritual senses. All they needed was to pull the trigger, and there was no target they couldn’t hit. Therefore, it had never occurred to Yao Qi that this thing actually required skill.

What he had been aiming for was the center of Wangge Luobao’s brow, but the upshot was that the beam of spiritual light, absurdly, hit three zhang wide of his target, and the sand and rocks it sent flying just happened to strike at the feet of Chang Jun, who was coming around from the other direction.

Without the support of his spiritual sense, Chang Jun was also deaf and blind. Making an unexpected misstep, he plummeted into the pool where Xi Ping was.

“It’s over!” Chang Jun thought despairingly. “If Xi Shiyong can see us from the underworld, he’ll be cursing eighteen generations of my ancestors.”

Yao Qi decided that the damage had been done, and he might as well keep going. He didn’t even bother to aim, prepared to simply shoot wildly and let a stray shot blow Wangge Luobao to his death.

Wangge Luobao took absolutely no notice of him. He grasped the golden threads binding Xi Ping. Chang Jun, who had fallen into the water, just managed to grab Xi Ping’s arm when the last of Xi Ping’s consciousness was broken up by the golden thread.

Xi Ping’s mist-like consciousness turned into a beam of fragmentary light that broke free of his true body and was dragged away along with the golden thread by the bone at the center of Wangge Luobao’s brow.

Wangge Luobao had turned entirely into a golden skeleton. His abdomen was shattered by a wild shot from Yao Qi’s hand cannon, but he laughed heartily. Under Yao Qi’s hopeless gaze, the fragmented bones repaired themselves and became as good as new in the blink of an eye—he had obtained the special power of Xi Ping’s consciousness. The Xi Ping that Chang Jun had grabbed was only an “empty shell.”

Wangge Luobao reached back and activated a mechanism. The boulders around the pool quickly moved toward each other, ready to crush Chang Jun and Xi Ping in the water—that sack of skin filled with cotton waste had no further use.

Wangge Luobao was wild with joy. Having swallowed Xi Ping’s consciousness, he had obtained even more than he had imagined: apart from the critical portion of the ancient inscriptions that Xi Ping had made off with, he could also feel that all the reincarnation wood trees inside the spiritual energy prohibition line had turned into his “hair, skin, hands, and feet.” Inside the spiritual energy prohibition where even a shed skin would have to ride a horse or take a carriage, he could pluck the Tai Sui Qin just like Xi Ping and swap places with any reincarnation wood tree.

He didn’t even need a boat. In just the blink of an eye, he could go right around the still expanding spiritual energy prohibition line, charge out, and become one with the hidden bones.

The hidden bones would put together all the pieces of the ancient inscriptions, and he would have the hidden bones. When the time came, never mind the Unbound Furnace that had swallowed a few shed skins, even if the Eternal Spring Brocade’s lousy furnace also refined a hundred Swords of the South, it still wouldn’t be able to keep the universe from overturning.

With these hidden bones, the ancient times could recklessly come to the human world. There would be no need to carefully hone a Way of the Heart, no need to worry about being swallowed by masters. No force would need to be feared, all heavenly commandments could be disregarded.

Now, they would be influenced by no Ways of the Heart of common origin and would need to endure no interrogation. Even if they became obsessed and lost their mind, their Way of the Heart still wouldn’t shatter; this was still the sole “way” in the world that could accept the ancient inscriptions from outside the Beijue Mountains without being drowned—this was clearly the unparalleled way to heaven of the son of the holy mother and divine woman who had been the origin of the cultivation world.

Even the spiritual mountains might not be able to last forever, but the master of the hidden bones would live as long as heaven and earth.

But perhaps there was nothing that came with a shortcut. Because this godhood was too easy to attain, two successive masters on the hidden bones had both been ignorant boys who hadn’t tempered their minds. Everything had clearly been prepared for them, but faced with the only true godhood, these idiots who hadn’t trained their hearts had been only in too much of a hurry to avoid it. In their bafflement, they had even developed the illusion that they were being “controlled” by the hidden bones.

As Wangge Luobao saw it, this was just like placing the mind of an insect into the body of a dragon. Not only could it not experience the pleasure of soaring through the clouds and riding on the mists, it would die of fright on the spot.

Ridiculous.

This road seemed to have no tests, but actually godhood itself was the test. Only a “chosen one” with extremely firm temperament, extremely good luck, extremely high skills could receive such a blessing. How could it be easier than cultivating to become a full moon sage? Even Ancestor Tianbo, who had pocketed all the Shamans’ secret arts, had failed to achieve his ambitions. He could only settle for the next best thing, be content to hold the southwest corner of the continent—

Wangge Luobao’s flesh swiftly regrew from his bones. His curly hair was as thick as aquatic grass, his odd-colored irises radiant with restrained light. He was tall, peerlessly handsome, like a true sea god.

The Xiuyi had called him a mongrel and put his mother to death for engaging in private dealings with a “Miah inferior.” The father whose name he didn’t know had lived down to the word “inferior”; after decamping with him, he had sold him for a good price.

His odd-colored eyes and tall figure had made him a “rare product,” and he had passed from hand to hand among the wealthy who liked novelty. He had been a lowly bitch to men and a hand-warming rabbit buck to women. He knew all the ways of pleasing in the world, had developed eyes that could see through people’s desires, and he hoped that all people would die out.

With these abilities, he had changed overnight, become the adopted son of a Miah elder “of good moral standing and reputation,” joined Lingyun’s Dragon Subduing Knights.

As the Xiuyi’s oppression had gone too far, the Miah had become disloyal. The Miah had set their minds on the ancestor’s Way of the Heart. Wangge Luobao, with undivided loyalty to his “clansmen,” had seized an opportunity that no one in over a thousand years had grasped—everyone said that Ancestor Tianbo’s Way of the Heart had been born from the desire for the Xiuyi and Miah clans to be eternally united and of one heart, so none of the babbling idiots had been able to receive Ancestor Tianbo’s Way of the Heart. Only a schemer harboring identical hatred to what Tianbo’s had been a thousand years ago was worthy.

He had risked his life to establish a foundation, “gladly” accepted the dragon-taming chain that the clan had pressed on him, betrayed the Lingyun Mountains; he had submitted to the Heartless Lotus’s lotus seal, betrayed the Miah’s leaders; he had pushed that damn bald donkey Zhuoming beyond redemption and usurped the position of the Miah’s clan leader. Finally, he had used the Miah’s spiritual beasts and the inferior Miah, themselves hardly smarter than the spiritual beasts, to stir up events in Southern He and capture Jinping’s legendary “Tai Sui.”

What had that useless Jinping rich kid ever done to deserve what he had? There was always a crowd of people lining up to protect him, nearly making Wangge Luobao’s efforts fall short just within reach of success—fortunately, though there had been twists and turns, the outcome had been even more satisfactory than he had anticipated.

This was his reward as the person who had walked a path more tortuous than anyone else’s.

Wangge Luobao wasn’t in the mood to waste any more time “looking after” those Jinping ants. He turned and passed through countless reincarnation wood trees.

Before exiting the spiritual energy prohibition line, serendipitously, he ended up in Tao County—in a reincarnation wood tree in front of the Unbound Furnace.

The legendary “Sword of the South” Zhi Xiu, the Sword Slave Wu Lingxiao, and a whole crowd of “great personages” whose names could shake the world were a few steps away, yet they had absolutely no idea of his presence.

Wangge Luobao ruminatively watched them circle the reincarnation wood tree like headless flies, not understanding why Xi Ping had once again fallen out of contact.

Then his gaze fell on the Unbound Furnace—this had been the relic of the most evil of demonic gods. Fallen into the hands of the miraculous Hui Xiangjun, it had unexpectedly pried open a thread of sky in the impregnable fastness of the spiritual mountains.

“Nothing remarkable about it.” Wangge Luobao walked unperceived toward the Unbound Furnace and glanced into that cremator of sages’ corpses. He said to himself, “What am I doing looking at it?”

As soon as this thought arose, Wangge Luobao suddenly froze: yes, why would he want to look at the Unbound Furnace? There seemed to be something obscurely guiding him to it, as if his spiritual sense were warning him that he had overlooked something…

Inside the spiritual energy prohibition, a cultivator’s spiritual sense would in fact become inaccurate. Perhaps this was because Xi Ping, whom he had consumed, had “prerogative” here.

What had he overlooked?

Wangge Luobao came over to a reincarnation wood free next to the Unbound Furnace and peeked at the faintly leaping furnace flames inside.

The next moment, the reincarnation wood tree he had taken shelter in, as if it were haunted, pushed him right into the Unbound Furnace!

It was as if the fire in the furnace had been ready for the rice to be put into the pot. As soon as the raging flames touched Wangge Luobao, they leapt up precipitously. Lin Chi, pushed away from the furnace by Wen Fei, didn’t even have time to see what had gone into the pot before the flames had completely engulfed Wangge Luobao’s body.

When the mechanism in the pool had been activated, Chang Jun had had no time to react. While he knew that the Xi Ping he held was an empty shell, he still did his best to throw out all the upgraded immortal tools on him so his classmate could have an “intact corpse.” Then he was dragged down by the “corpse” and sank with it to the bottom of the pool. There was a blur before his eyes. He didn’t know whether it was the water in the pool or tears.

He had thought that with upgraded immortal tools, they could stand up in battle against an ascended spirit, but it turned out that mortals were mortals and ants were ants. They were useless.

“Maybe Moon Plated Peak is wrong after all,” Chang Jun thought, giving up on himself as he sank. “The difference between ants and masters was never a matter of techniques. We…”

Just then, an icy hand suddenly turned over and grabbed him by the shoulder.

Chang Jun breathed a mouthful of water into his lungs: Damn it, a walking corpse!

Meanwhile, Wangge Luobao finally remembered what he had overlooked: Zhuoming had once told him that the furnace flame of the Unbound Furnace was in Tai Sui’s hands. Zhuoming had spouted a lot of crazy talk. Apart from wanting to steam Xuanwu, it was all about wanting to eat Tai Sui raw. He hadn’t listened closely and hadn’t taken it to heart.

Yes, just now, he had clearly swallowed Xi Ping’s consciousness and obtained the reincarnation wood and the ancient inscriptions, but he hadn’t seen that legendary Unbound Furnace furnace flame!

The consciousness he had dragged out of Xi Ping’s spirit was incomplete…but that bone, the secret arts the ancestor had gotten from the vestiges of the Shamans…

He had plainly nailed the consciousness of the ungovernable way’s Tai Sui to his spirit! No matter how much of his consciousness had been dispersed, no matter how far it had gone, it would have been snatched back to the main body… How could this be?!

An indolent Jinping-accented voice spoke into his ear: “Heh, can’t I have two spirits?”

Impossible!

“How come?” that hateful voice said cheerfully. “I contain multitudes. Alas, Lao Wang, I don’t mind telling you, after this lesson you’ve given me, I really have started to believe in fate a little.”

Back in the South Sea, in order to fool Zhi Xiu, he had used the power san-ge had left behind to cut off a portion of his spirit to carry off the shard of Zhaoting. Afterward, the sword shard had sacrificed itself to protect its master, and the paperman carrying a portion of his consciousness had remained with Wei Chengxiang, kept perfectly safe by Great Wan’s most reliable half-immortal.

Wangge Luobao had used an evil art of unknown name to trap his consciousness on his spirit, repeatedly interrupted his meditation, weakened his consciousness, left him with nowhere to run—but he hadn’t expected him to have two spirits.

If what this Miah evil cultivator had said was true…

Thousands of years ago, the rare power to turn into mist had cast a life-swapping talisman, creating the undying bones, unique in this world. Thousands of years later, the same power had dragged down the final zealot who had wanted to reach heaven in a single step.

Xi Ping had guessed that given Wangge Luobao’s wickedness, once he had his consciousness, he would be certain to destroy his body while he was at it. He had meant to immediately push through a counterstrike, but those two daring half-immortals Yao Qi and Chang Jun had thrust in their oar, “turning awkwardness into cunning,” and kept his body whole. So he’d had a sudden flash of inspiration. Through the consciousness that Wangge Luobao had swallowed, like the Ways of the Heart of common origin in the Sea of Stars, he had sent a “heavenly edict” to the “god-to-be” who had “accorded his temperament with the way,” made him come have a look at the Unbound Furnace.

As expected, the god-to-be’s heart was sufficiently sincere. Without hesitation, he had “received the grace of heaven.”

A portion of Xi Ping’s consciousness had been taken by Wangge Luobao into the furnace to act as “material.” As a cultivator who didn’t belong to the toolmaking way, he once again cooked himself in the pot, obtaining an ability like the “seventh sense,” connecting to the Unbound Furnace—

“Wang-xiong, your storytelling was quite well done, nicely modulated, but the style was a little too subtle. I’m still inclined to put more trust in the stories ‘decoded’ by the furnace flame.”