A Pawn's Passage

At this time, the snake demon had completely revealed its true form. It was a terrifying giant snake nearly 90 meters long, coiled into an aggressive stance and ready to strike. The giant snake’s head had marks on its mouth from being torn apart by Qi Xuansu earlier.

The giant snake opened its mouth and bit Qi Xuansu.

Qi Xuansu seemed unaware of the vengeful ghost trying to stab his back earlier. He leaped up high, raising his cutlasses at the same time. When he reached the peak of his leap, he struck down hard while his body fell with gravity. Two more bone-deep knife wounds appeared on the snake’s head.

However, Qi Xuansu was also sprayed by the snake’s poisonous breath, making him feel dizzy. Fortunately, he had taken a general antidote beforehand. The antidote worked wonders, rapidly expelling the poison from his body and clearing his mind.

Although Qi Xuansu was surprised that the ghost was missing, he could not be bothered. He ran as fast as he could toward the giant snake, the flames on his cutlasses dancing wildly, forming a continuous line. Then blood and scales splattered on the ground.

The snake demon writhed in pain, its body rolling frantically and its tail flailing about like an iron whip, smashing down any walls it came into contact with.

Qi Xuansu stepped back, put away his cutlasses, and took out his Divine Dragon Pistol. He loaded a Grade-B Series Two Dragon Eye Bullet, aimed it at the giant snake’s vitals, and pressed down the hammer.

The moment he pulled the trigger, a cloud of intense flames and smoke exploded at the muzzle of the gun. Due to the strong recoil, Qi Xuansu’s arm that was holding the gun trembled momentarily.

The projectile shot out at high speed along the rifling of the barrel and instantly struck the giant snake’s body.

For a snake demon this size, an ordinary armor-piercing projectile would not be able to do any damage. However, the Dragon Eye Bullet was designed to explode upon contact. Thus, a big hole was blown through the snake’s body. Demon blood filled the sky and rained down on the snow-covered ground.

Qi Xuansu reloaded another Grade-B Series Two Dragon Eye Bullet and fired again, boring yet another bloody hole in the snake’s body.

The reason the Divine Armory designed the Divine Dragon Pistol to hold only one projectile was to accommodate the sheer power of the Dragon Eye Series ammunition. This was why it was called the Dragon Pistol. The explosive power of the Dragon Eye ammunition made it almost impossible to fire continuously.

The snake demon struggled fiercely.

Qi Xuansu quickly distanced himself, jumping back and rolling away to dodge the snake’s flailing body. Then he continued to reload and fire five more rounds of Grade-B Series Three Dragon Eye Bullets.

The snake demon raised its head and shrieked before its giant head fell heavily to the ground. Finally, the snake stopped moving.

Qi Xuansu counted his ammunition and found that he only had five rounds of Grade-B Series Two Dragon Eye Bullets and ten rounds of Grade-B Series Three Dragon Eye Bullets left. Now that he had lost his Daoist identity, he could not replenish his stock at Tianji Hall. Even if he brazenly used his Daoist identity, it was impossible for a seventh-rank priest like him to buy the Dragon Eye Series and Phoenix Eye Series ammunition without Zhang Yuelu’s help.

Thus, every time he had to use these bullets, he felt his heart breaking a little.

After this fierce battle with the snake demon, Qi Xuansu finally recalled the vengeful ghost. Where did that scary ghost go?

In fact, the vengeful ghost and the snake demon had a greater chance of defeating Qi Xuansu. The snake demon’s physical strength was far greater than Qi Xuansu’s expectation, so it took a lot of effort to kill. It also had poisonous breath and venom to weaken Qi Xuansu.

If Qi Xuansu was busy fighting the snake demon, the vengeful ghost could have used this opportunity to ambush him. If so, Qi Xuansu would be in a precarious situation. However, the vengeful ghost vanished mysteriously. Could it have betrayed the snake demon and fled on its own?

At this moment, Qi Xuansu suddenly remembered something. He took out the Xuan Jade of Death he carried with him, raised it against the moonlight, and observed it carefully. He discovered a new small black shadow in the stone swimming around frantically, but it just could not escape.

Qi Xuansu was a little surprised and confused. Could this black shadow be that vengeful ghost?

Madam Qi mentioned before that the Xuan Jade of Death could control the netherworld. Qi Xuansu was pleasantly surprised to learn that it was true.

Cultivating corpses and catching ghosts were the specialties of Diviners. Now it seemed that the Xuan Jade of Death also had such miraculous powers.

After calming down, Qi Xuansu suddenly realized something. The Xuan Jade of Life gave him the body-regenerative abilities of a Martial Arts Practitioner, while the Xuan Jade of Death gave him the mystical abilities of a Diviner.

Life and death were opposites, as were Martial Arts Practitioners and Diviners.

Martial Arts Practitioners were from the Manly Immortal lineage, ultimately pursuing the unity of one’s soul and body. A Manly Immortal could have exaggerated body-regenerative abilities, to the point that it could rapidly regenerate a brand-new body as long as the head was still intact. This was the ultimate symbolism of life.

On the other hand, Diviners were from the Ghostly Immortal lineage, ultimately pursuing separation of the soul and body. As a Ghostly Immortal, one Thought would represent a version of one’s self, which had thousands of variations. They were also able to abandon their real bodies and possess others’ bodies. To mortals, the death of a person was when the soul left one’s body. Thus, this was the ultimate symbolism of death.

Was this just a coincidence? Or did it have a deeper meaning?

Besides Manly Immortals and Ghostly Immortals, there were also Earthly Immortals, Godly Immortals, and Heavenly Immortals. Qi Xuansu had once learned of the mystical abilities of each of these Five Immortals in a course at the Wanxiang Daoist Palace.

The Earthly Immortal possessed five extremely powerful mystical abilities which were literally capable of moving mountains and shifting seas. The Holy Xuan once used one of these powers to disrupt the earth’s energy at Yunjin Mountain, permanently transforming the mountains in the area. To this day, the Zhengyi Sect is still trying to repair these damages.

The Godly Immortals could create a divine kingdom in the mortal realm. Even if they died, they could still return and be reborn as long as their divine kingdom was not obliterated. This gave rise to the Three Forms of Death: physical death, death of the spirit, and death of the essence.

The Heavenly Immortals were even more mysterious. They could leave the realms as they wished.

If the world were described as a big tree, and each paradise was a fruit on said tree, the Earthly Immortals would be the bugs bound to this tree. They were very powerful, capable of drilling holes in the tree, gnawing the fruits, and wandering around on the tree trunk. However, the Earthly Immortal could not leave this big tree.

However, the Heavenly Immortals were different. They were like butterflies that could fly and leave this tree. Although butterflies might not be able to win against certain powerful bugs, they could fly away. As such, they were also able to “pollinate,” helping the big tree to bear fruits, which were the various caves and paradises.

The largest cave in the world was the Kunlun Cave, created by the Primordial Daoist Ancestor.

The relationship between the Heavenly Immortals and Earthly Immortals was actually like that between cocoons and butterflies. Some Earthly Immortals would become cocoons at the end of their lives and transform into a butterfly, leaving this world. Hence, it was called ascension.

There were also some Earthly Immortals who wanted to stay in this world as bugs, constantly improving themselves until they could hunt down Heavenly Immortals and Godly Immortals. To them, Manly Immortals and Ghostly Immortals were not their competition. The price for staying in this world was having to go through a heavenly tribulation every hundred years, each time more severe than the last, until the day they were completely annihilated.

According to records, only the Primordial Daoist Ancestor had experienced three heavenly tribulations before ascending and leaving this world. This was considered impressive, as most ordinary Earthly Immortals could barely withstand one heavenly tribulation. Most would die immediately after a lifespan of a hundred years.

This was also the reason why every generation of the Daoist Order’s Grand Masters would ascend to the heavens. This explained the Daoist Order’s strict requirements on the age of the Grand Masters. If one only became a Grand Master at the age of 90, one would only have a term of a few years before ascension. Thus, the Daoist Order preferred to choose a 60-year-old “young” talent to be Grand Master so that the term would at least be a few decades.

Of course, there were also exceptions to ascension. For example, the sixth-generation Grand Master ascended to the heavens before the stipulated 100 years. No one knew the exact reason for this, but perhaps the sixth-generation Grand Master did not wish to stay in this world any longer.

Back then, when Qi Xuansu first learned about these in the Wanxiang Daoist Palace, these were too far-fetched for him to relate to. Thus, he listened to them as fairy tales.

Reflecting on the information he learned in the past, Qi Xuansu made a bold guess.

Madam Qi mentioned that the five major Daoist lineages corresponded to the Five Immortals of heaven, earth, man, god, and ghost. The Holy Xuan only consolidated and organized the cultivation paths of the Five Lineages. He did not create them out of thin air. Before the Holy Xuan, these Five Lineages existed for many years. They were just not systematic.

Among all the lineages, the Rogue Cultivator lineage was the only “man-made” one, forcibly created by the Daoist Order. The original intention was to mass produce Banished Immortals, just like farming, which required manual labor to increase the yield instead of relying on nature for the harvest.

The result was a failure, but not completely. Due to a strange combination of circumstances, the Rogue Cultivator lineage was created, offering some comfort to those who could not fit into the Five Immortals lineage.

According to Madam Qi, Rogue Cultivators could also become Banished Immortals. However, Rogue Cultivators required something extremely valuable to make up for their innate deficiencies and change their constitution.

Banished Immortals were like real dragons, while Rogue Cultivators were model dragons that were very similar to the real deal but needed a finishing touch to undergo a complete transformation.

This extremely valuable thing was the finishing touch.

The Daoist Order could provide the finishing touch, but it was not cost-effective. Even if the created Banished Immortals did not die in the process, it would be difficult to recover their capital. At most, they would only break even. If the created Banished Immortal died halfway, it would be a total loss. Thus, the Daoist Order finally decided to terminate this experiment.

Qi Xuansu thought, Was the Xuan Jade the finishing touch?

He was initially shocked by his conjecture, but it made sense the more he thought about it. What he needed to do moving forward was to gather more Xuan Jades so that he could verify his hypothesis.