A Pawn's Passage

In the end, Qi Xuansu failed to escape from Yulan Temple. His left hand was cut off, and he could only lie on the ground, waiting for death.

Qi Xuansu watched as Yan Xiu’s figure gradually disappeared from sight and turned over with difficulty to lie on his back. Then he raised the Xuan Jade in his right hand to his eye level and laughed at himself. Is this what it means to die for greed?

Soon, Qi Xuansu felt the mighty divine power falling from the sky. Non-living things were not affected in any way, but this divine power wanted to destroy all life.

In the face of such divine power, even Heavenly beings had to tread carefully. The powerful Banished Immortals and Buddhaputras in the Guizhen stage would also die under such force. A Xiantian Being in the Kunlun stage, like Qi Xuansu, had almost no chance of survival.

The next moment, a blood-red light completely engulfed Qi Xuansu.

In an instant, Qi Xuansu felt his flesh disintegrating, as if someone had poured concentrated green vitriol oil on his body. It was so corrosive that it ate into his bones, leaving him with wounds all over.

Qi Xuansu’s consciousness gradually blurred, but he still clenched the Xuan Jade in his right palm. In a semi-conscious state, Qi Xuansu recalled the feeling of being stabbed in the chest for the first time by an assassin from The Inn. He also recalled the feeling of traveling the world by himself and when he almost got his throat slit.

He thought, Am I going to die?

That was when he fainted and started dreaming.

In his dream, Qi Xuansu saw the same tall and dark mountain as usual. This time, Qi Xuansu did not need anyone else to lead the way. He climbed the mountain on his own along the rugged trail. The wind howled, and a woman’s murmur and singing floated to his ears. The silk ribbons on the trees on both sides of the path swayed in the wind, like countless arms dancing wildly. The path was also covered with many petals that exuded a strange fragrance.

This time, he did not hear his master shouting for him to run, nor did he hear Madam Qi’s whispers. The woman leading the way was also not there.

Qi Xuansu went to the top of the mountain and found it was still the same scene—a wide open space with a big bonfire in the middle.

The difference was that ten tall figures were standing behind the fire. The light from the fire elongated their shadows. These ten tall figures were shrouded in a layer of dark cloud, so thick that he could only make out a blurry outline as well as two dots of blood-red light that looked like eyes.

Qi Xuansu did not expect any changes to his recurring dream. There was finally some new progress. Although he knew that it was only a dream, he still felt a chill down his spine because these ten figures felt oppressive. Some were kind, while others were hostile.

Then Qi Xuansu saw a lone figure that looked small in comparison to the other ten giants. The eleventh figure was closer to human size and seemed to appear out of thin air.

The eleventh figure stood out in this place. She had no respect, kicking the fire and laughing with her hands on her hips.

The other ten figures frowned. Some were displeased by her behavior and scolded her, while others remained silent, with a hint of cunning flickering in their eyes.

After a while, the lone figure stopped laughing and stepped aside. The fire reignited, illuminating the surrounding area. The fire became brighter, making the surroundings appear darker in comparison. Eleven figures stood amidst the shadows and began to murmur.

These murmurs grew louder, as if Qi Xuansu had traveled through time and space, arriving at the scene of his dream. He opened his eyes wide and saw outlines of the eleven towering figures, all exuding different auras. They represented flood, fire, sky, earth, life, death, light, darkness, time, space, and soul.

At this moment, ten figures gradually disappeared and retreated into the darkness. The one left behind walked toward the fire, revealing her true appearance. It was a woman around 3 meters tall, with ink-black hair that cascaded down to her calves. Her skin was bright red, as if she applied some strange paint. She wore a linen robe and stood barefoot in front of a strange totem that resembled a formation. It was green like bamboo, with a bird body and a human face.

Qi Xuansu felt the chills. He did not know what it meant. At this moment, this 3-meter-tall figure walked toward him. The originally dazzling fire suddenly extinguished, plunging him into darkness.

The ground under his feet shattered into a black hole, which Qi Xuansu fell into. Soon after, he was submerged in a pool of blood. All he could see was red.

......

The divine power was like a river of blood that drowned Qi Xuansu. At the same time, the Xuan Jade in Qi Xuansu’s palm continuously absorbed the divine power. More thin, blood-like veins expanded in the Xuan Jade, until the emerald green jade turned completely red.

The initial crescent shape of the Xuan Jade also gradually changed to become a spheroid. At first glance, Qi Xuansu seemed to be grabbing a blood-red full moon.

It was a pity that no one was there to witness this scene. This piece of Xuan Jade, having been hidden in the Buddha statue of the temple, had soaked in years of incense power. Thus, it was already in a semi-activated state. At this time, under the impact of such intense divine power, the Xuan Jade was fully activated.

The Xuan Jade turned into a big cocoon, wrapping Qi Xuansu in it.

Qi Xuansu’s body gradually turned translucent. His blood, meridians, muscles, and skin gradually faded away, leaving only his bones. At first glance, Qi Xuansu seemed to have turned into a skeleton.

Immediately afterward, Qi Xuansu’s bones broke one after another, as if his body was being crushed by an invisible force. Just hearing the bones cracking would make one’s hair stand on end. This level of pain and terror was so much worse than the torture methods of the Green Phoenix Guards.

Another invisible force coming from Qi Xuansu’s body quickly traveled along specific veins and restored his broken bones to their original state. This process repeated several times, his bones becoming a shade darker each time they were reshaped.

If Qi Xuansu was awake at this moment, he would feel numbness at first, then the numbness would turn into itching that was as excruciating as if thousands of ants were gnawing at his bones. This type of pain was so intense that it was difficult to describe in words. No one would be able to bear this type of pain, as it was even worse than being skinned alive.

At this time, Qi Xuansu was trapped in his dream, completely unaware of his body transformation. He was just as motionless as a dead person.

After his bones were reshaped, his meridians and limbs were reconstructed. All the misalignments in his bones and veins were corrected, and all the blockages were cleared, making them better than ever before.

His flesh and skin were regenerated, healing all of his previous wounds and scars. Qi Xuansu would no longer be able to show Zhang Yuelu the stab wound on his chest, as it had disappeared.

A mass of blood gathered where his severed left hand was, gradually contorting into the shape of five fingers before shaping the bones and meridians and filling it out with flesh and blood. Finally, brand new skin regenerated on his left hand.

This scene was similar to body regeneration for a Martial Arts Practitioner in the Flesh and Blood Realm. However, this speed of recovery far exceeded a Martial Arts Practitioner in the Yuxu stage. This was as fast as a Martial Arts Practitioner in the Heavenly-Being stage.

After an unknown amount of time, Qi Xuansu gradually woke up from his dream. When he opened his eyes, everything outside was still blood red, but the main hall of the temple had returned to normal. The mighty divine power was slowly receding, like the ebbing tide of the sea.

Qi Xuansu sat up and settled down, feeling rejuvenated. The innate qi in his body was flowing freely, and his bones were flexible. He felt like he had endless energy.

When he stood up again, he found that his body was much lighter. Even without relying on his qi, he felt like he could fly up to the rafters in one leap. This was something only a Martial Arts Practitioner could do.

Qi Xuansu hurriedly closed his eyes to feel the changes in his new body. That was when he discovered a shocking fact. He had jumped from the Kunlun stage to the Yuxu stage, which meant he was in the Rogue Cultivator’s Yuding Realm.

The Yuding Realm was more advanced than the Inner Dan Realm. It was when one’s essence, qi, and spirit gathered in the upper Dantian. In this realm, cultivators had more energy and would not need to worry about satisfying their innate desires like sex, food, and sleep. One could learn to fast for long hours, stop the pulse, and live longer as a result.

This also meant that Qi Xuansu could practice two types of average attainment methods in this realm.

One was the Fasting Technique, which was not useful in combat. Depending on the level of cultivation, one could greatly reduce food consumption. It could go from one meal a day to one meal every three days, to sustaining on dew. The extreme end was not eating at all.

The other method was the Cicada Molting Technique, which was derived from the Banished Immortal’s Illusory Body Technique. The Cicada Molting Technique allowed one to temporarily create a fake body to replace one’s death. It was an extremely practical life-saving mystical ability.

However, Qi Xuansu discovered another shocking fact. Since he was too focused on the advancement of his cultivation level earlier, he had not noticed that his left hand had regrown.

Qi Xuansu stared at his left hand in disbelief. It looked fairer and even more tender than Zhang Yuelu’s. He did not know how to rationalize this new hand because he remembered vividly how Yan Xiu had cut off his left hand. That pain was unforgettable, so he was sure of his memory.

However, his left hand had grown back intact, with finer skin and not one bit of calluses. That was how he concluded that it was not his old hand that had been grafted back on.

Qi Xuansu immediately recalled his dream. At the same time, he noticed the drastic changes in the Xuan Jade he was holding.

He stopped thinking about the dream and had some vague idea about what had happened as he looked at the blood-red spheroid jade, which resembled the bloody divine power.

Qi Xuansu thought, Did the Xuan Jade undergo some kind of change after encountering divine power? Was that how it affected me?

At this moment, the Xuan Jade in Qi Xuansu’s hand shattered silently, turning into fine dust that scattered on the ground.