A Pawn's Passage

As a Buddhist weapon, Pure Bodhi carried its own Buddha light that was exceptionally effective against such yin creatures, second only to the Daoist thunder techniques. With each swing of Qi Xuansu’s blade, Buddha light poured forth, and the ghost soldiers fell in swathes like autumn leaves in the wind.

At the same time, Pure Bodhi manifested its first transformation, keeping a sliver of clarity in Qi Xuansu’s mind. Though he still looked like a crazed demon, it prevented him from turning his blade on Zhang Yuelu or Little Yin.

A few stragglers slipped past into the Mahavira Hall, but they were no match for Little Yin, who swallowed them whole one by one. No one knew what her stomach was made of, but she swiftly digested them in their entirety. Even the armor of the ghost soldiers, condensed from solidified divine power, disintegrated.

Once Qi Xuansu entered the Demonic Blade state, he lost all sense of time and knew only to slash endlessly.

Finally, when no ghost soldiers remained alive around him, he suddenly halted and fully regained his consciousness.

Turning back, Qi Xuansu saw Zhang Yuelu and Little Yin sitting side by side on the steps before the Mahavira Hall. Zhang Yuelu’s eyes were closed. Her thumbs, index, and middle fingers pinched in a mudra, hands resting on her knees, utterly still, clearly recovering her true essence. Little Yin propped her chin up with her hands. She looked bored, yawning now and then, and her eyelids were drooping, clearly drowsy from a full belly.

At the sight, Qi Xuansu suddenly had a strange thought, that they were husband and wife going on an outing with their child—only they had chosen a rather eerie destination. Still, given that the child was Little Yin, an extraordinary yin creature, it was reasonable.

Qi Xuansu sheathed Pure Bodhi and cleared his throat.

Little Yin lifted her eyelids slightly. “Finally!”

Zhang Yuelu opened her eyes as well, sizing up Qi Xuansu. “If anyone else wielded the Demonic Blade, even if the ghost soldiers didn’t wear them down, the blade itself would exhaust them to death.”

That was because once the Demonic Blade lost control, it acted entirely on instinct. Unlike the cunning and self-serving Taiyin 13 Swords, the Demonic Blade focused solely on frenzy and slaughter, fighting without pause. The blade would never stop. There had indeed been those who literally tire themselves to death.

To draw a comparison, the Taiyin 13 Swords were like devils that played with words and struck binding contracts—lawful evil. On the other hand, the Demonic Blade was like a demon that knew only slaughter and destruction—chaotic evil.

Qi Xuansu recalled how the two had no choice but to wait idly on the side while he was slashing away, wary of being accidentally struck. Feeling somewhat embarrassed, he changed the subject. “Has the formation been broken?”

Before Zhang Yuelu could answer, Little Yin spoke first. “You’ve been killing for about two hours! The formation was broken long ago.”

Qi Xuansu strode toward the Mahavira Hall.

Zhang Yuelu and Little Yin rose to their feet and followed behind him.

From the outside, the Mahavira Hall appeared unchanged, but it had transformed entirely from within. The walls, floor, and ceiling had all vanished, replaced by a pitch-black void. The Buddha statue was also gone. Only a dim, ghostly portal remained.

No wonder the two of them had not waited inside.

Qi Xuansu activated his Celestial Phenomena Spiritual Body and cast defensive spells like the Green Netherworld Armor. “Stay behind me.”

Zhang Yuelu acknowledged softly. She pulled Little Yin behind Qi Xuansu, using his body to shield their presence. At the same time, she expanded her Joyous Cloud Shield to envelope all three of them.

Passing through the portal, the three arrived at what resembled an underground tomb. No daylight reached this place. The only illumination was the eerie blue flames. Before them stretched a pitch-black corridor paved in dark stone, yin energy swirling through it, flowing toward the depths of the mausoleum.

The concentration of yin energy here was enough to turn Xiantian Beings into ghosts and drive ordinary Heavenly Beings out of control. Fortunately, both Qi Xuansu and Zhang Yuelu were at the Wuliang stage and had their own ways of resisting the yin energy. They were also further protected by the Youyi Cloud Robe and Taiyi Cloud Robe. Little Yin required no protection at all. For her, this place was like returning home, where she moved as easily as a fish in water.

Qi Xuansu asked, puzzled, “A mausoleum? I know of imperial mausoleums. So would this be an Immortal’s mausoleum?”

Zhang Yuelu looked around and said, “It’s not strange. Back then, the Great Witches buried Wu Xian in the Nether Valley. That too could be called an Immortal’s mausoleum. In fact, the Yao family’s later rise to prominence is closely tied to the Nether Valley.”

Qi Xuansu’s mind raced with many connections.

Madam Qi’s Longevity Stone Heart had come from the Lingshan Paradise and belonged to the Ten Great Witches of Lingshan. Yao Pei carried the bloodline of a Great Witch, and the Yao family’s ancestors were honored as Great Shamans. By all accounts, the Yao family were Wu Xian’s direct descendants.

Of course, all his dreams were also tied to Lingshan.

Zhang Yuelu fixed her gaze on the passage ahead and continued, “But this place can hardly compare with the Nether Valley. Let’s go.”

Qi Xuansu once again took the lead.

They entered the corridor. Other than the wall lamps burning with blue flames on both sides, there was nothing else. Along the way, they encountered no ghost soldiers, booby traps, or any restrictions. But the further they went down, the stronger the yin energy grew.

At last, they reached the end of the corridor, which opened up to a square hall. The brickwork here had been corroded by some unknown force, as the floor, walls, and ceiling looked as though they were charred and cracked by flames, resembling clusters of dark red ulcers from which a viscous liquid oozed like molten lava.

At the far end of the passage stood massive double stone doors that were at least 30 meters tall, with a gigantic palm print of equal height, every ridge of the palm lines clearly visible. The entire mark radiated a Buddhist aura, indestructible and unmoving. Yet within the palm lines flickered firelight, like smoldering embers flaring dimly, causing the whole imprint to glow with fiery brilliance.

It gave the impression of sealing wax on an envelope. The stone doors were the fold, and the palm print was the wax.

Qi Xuansu murmured, “What is this? The Buddha’s Palm?”

Zhang Yuelu studied the imprint as well. “This palm mark also carries the aura of fire. But it is unlike the demonic fire. It’s pure radiance, which reminds me of the Buddhist Infinite Light. One of its manifestations is the Vairocana. Legend says that the Daoist True Lord Taiyang perished at the hands of the Vairocana. Himiko also claimed to be the Vairocana’s incarnation in Fenglin. Perhaps this is indeed the palm print left by the Vairocana.”

Qi Xuansu said, “That’s very likely.”

Just then, Qi Xuansu suddenly felt something stir within his magical receptacle. He immediately opened it and drew out a skull.

Little Yin’s sharp eyes lit up as she shouted, “That’s my skull!”

Back when Qi Xuansu and Little Yin returned from Mount Suzuka to Yoshida Castle, they encountered a serpent demon named Kiyohime. This creature was formidable, wielding demonic fire. But against Qi Xuansu’s Longevity Stone Heart, the flames proved useless. Without her fire, Kiyohime was merely a serpent demon at the Xiaoyao stage, so Qi Xuansu killed her.

Qi Xuansu had retrieved a charred skull from Kiyohime’s chest, upon which she had scratched the name, Anchin, into the crown of the skull with her claws.

Little Yin had wanted to devour it on the spot, but Qi Xuansu refused, saying that the demonic fire was too strange, burning one’s heart and confusing one’s mind. Without the Longevity Stone Heart, Little Yin would not be able to handle it. Thus, he had kept the skull stored in his magical receptacle ever since.

Zhang Yuelu had also known of this matter, but in the chaos of battles that followed, the two had pushed it to the back of their minds.

By now, Qi Xuansu understood the entanglements between Anchin, Kiyohime, and Aobozu. Through Zhang Yuelu, Aobozu had informed the Daoist Order of the demonic fire, prompting them to take it seriously and begin investigating its existence.

Once Qi Xuansu produced the skull, the stone doors sealed by the Buddha’s palm began to tremble, as if the two shared some special resonance.

On closer thought, it was inevitable.

After Kiyohime burned Anchin alive, she had been subdued by the Fenglin Buddhist Sect and handed over to the Ise-jingu to be sealed within its borders. There had to be a reason for both the Fenglin Buddhist Sect and the Tenmon Sect to treat the matter so seriously. Perhaps both had long suspected there was something strange about Kiyohime’s existence, that she was a ploy by an evil god seeking escape.

Kiyohime’s inexplicable, unending, and frenzied obsession with love was very likely not of her own will but driven by an unseen hand.

After the great battle of Ise, the various seals had all loosened to some degree. The gravely weakened Ise-jingu lacked the strength to reinforce them. When Master Wan clashed with the Ise-jingu’s jokai-rank shinkan, Kiyohime seized the opportunity to shatter her seal and emerged in Mino Province.

According to the Buddhist doctrine of karma, Qi Xuansu and Little Yin had already sown the seeds. One had released and slain Kiyohime, while the other had located this very seal. Their seeds now bore fruit.

Thinking more deeply, perhaps Little Yin’s ability to find this place was not her own doing at all, but the result of subtle guidance from an unknown existence, something she herself never realized.

This time, it was Qi Xuansu who could no longer control the situation.

Despite his brute strength of a Wuliang-stage Martial Arts Practitioner, he could not hold onto the skull and had no choice but to watch helplessly as it slipped free from his grasp.

The skull’s owner, Anchin, had been a Buddhist disciple who had been burned to death by Kiyohime’s demonic fire and placed within her chest. Thus, the skull bore both Buddhist power and the power of that demonic fire.

The skull flew straight toward the palm imprint and sank into it.

The imprint flared brightly, then quickly dimmed, flaking away from the stone doors like a scab peeling off.

With the imprint gone, the stone doors slowly began to open, like an envelope with its sealing wax removed.

The black mist billowed outward, and little by little, the scene behind the gate was revealed.

Both Qi Xuansu and Zhang Yuelu instinctively held their breath.

All they could see was a severed hand, so massive it could close entirely around a grown man.

The hand was alive. Its five fingers flexed faintly, as though trying to grope something.

Demonic fire surrounded the severed hand. Much of its skin was torn, and beneath the exposed places was not flesh and blood but a magma-like substance, endlessly flowing.

Qi Xuansu’s expression grew grim. “Qing Xiao, you were right...this truly is one of Izanagi’s five seals!”