A Pawn's Passage

The karmic fire raged wildly, blooming like a field of crimson lotuses.

Great Sage Lan was forced into retreat. Even though the karmic fire had not touched his body, visions began to fill his eyes. There were no longer scenes of Wu Luo’s blood sacrifices. Instead, he saw the agonized faces of those he had slain at the moment of their deaths.

He had climbed from a mere ninth-rank Daoist to a first-rank Tianzhen Daoist, and throughout his journey, he had taken quite a number of lives.

Now, all of them appeared before his eyes—fellow Daoist priests, cult demons, local tribesmen in Poluo, Buddhist monks, Confucian scholars, Western nobles, Shamanistic Sect members, shinkan from Fenglin, Great Xuan Court officials, generals of the Golden Horde, wandering swordsmen, Black Robes, Green Phoenix Guards, eunuchs, and even shapeshifting monsters and sea-dwelling flood dragons.

The most haunting of all was the slain flood dragon, which had probably been reforged as a flying ship. Its lifeless golden eyes were wide open, glaring at Great Sage Lan with unending hatred.

The resentment and killing aura of the dead amplified, forming crimson lotuses that swelled larger, fueling the blaze. Scarlet ripples spread outward from the flowers’ core, pressing closer, narrowing Great Sage Lan’s room to maneuver.

Wherever the karmic fire passed, even space itself warped. The world beyond appeared as if it were seen through a burning glass.

Suddenly, Great Sage Lan halted his retreat. He grasped the void and drew forth a demonic sword shrouded in black yin fire.

Since he was a Longevity-stage Immortal, he could skip all the preamble and directly unleash the mightiest Sword Demon Manifestation of the Taiyin 13 Swords.

This technique had two variations. When driven by the Inner Demon Manifestation. But when channeled through the Taiyin Sword Formation, it was called the Sword Demon Manifestation.

Of the two Great Sages, Zhang Qihan favored the inner demon path, while Lan Hexu preferred the sword demon.

Great Sage Lan raised the demonic sword made of yin fire over his head. The intense yin fire managed to hold back the karmic fire’s onslaught for a moment.

Then, Great Sage Lan slashed down. The demonic sword seemed to shatter the void. Wherever the blade passed, the void rippled like disturbed water. The once straight line bent and distorted into countless shifting angles.

The next instant, the demonic sword no longer just warped space but also tore it apart. Suddenly, 13 rifts split open midair. Great Sage Lan thrust his sword forward, allowing it to vanish into the void. Immediately after, 13 identical swords shot out simultaneously from each of the 13 rifts.

In that instant, 13 demonic swords flashed toward Wu Luo from every direction.

The Taiyin Sword Formation began to take shape.

Though both techniques bore the same name, Lan Hexu’s version and Zhang Qihan’s were entirely distinct interpretations of the same art.

The 13 demonic swords wreathed in yin fire cleaved the originally unending sea of fire, unable to reform their encirclement.

But that was not all. The swords’ true target was Wu Luo. Each yin fire sword expanded and contracted freely. It could shrink and vanish into the rift, only to reappear elsewhere the next instant, thrusting another blade from the void.

Thus, the 13 swords began to encircle Wu Luo, forming a deadly ring of assault.

Wu Luo swept her wide sleeve, causing the shadows to stir like living things. She employed the Godly Immortal’s Fruition Realm, expanding the space infinitely beyond the physical limits of the underground hall. Then, she severed the mountain above her head.

The mountain was not large. It was as if a Sword Immortal had sliced the peak of a mountain. Its entire form was ink-black, lifelike in every detail, yet wholly without color, like a master painter’s ink wash painting brought to life.

Upon closer look, this was not an imagined construct, but Lingshan itself, restored to its prime before its destruction, as though Wu Luo had taken an imprint of its summit.

This was the Shadow Art of Ancient Wuism. Its essence lay in making falsehood real, transforming mere shadows into tangible form.

In ancient times, witch doctors of Ancient Wuism could heal by replacing a person’s heart with a stone. As long as the patient believed the stone heart to be real, it would beat and function as a true one. But if anyone exposed the lie, or the patient realized their heart was false, the illusion would be shattered. The stone would revert to a solid rock, and the person would die instantly. This was the Wuist art of making illusion reality.

It was not without reason that the Wuist Sect once ruled the ancient world before the rise of the Confucians and Daoists. Their arts were truly formidable.

Wu Luo had kept the shadow of Lingshan and released it, making it seem like a real mountain was descending from the heavens. If a Third-Tribulation Immortal were to move the shadow of Kunlun Mountain or imprint the form of the Yangtze River and the Yellow River, no one would be able to withstand the might of such mountains and rapid rivers.

In that instant, Great Sage Lan felt a mass of darkness pressing down on him, leaving no room to flee or evade.

If he were a Manly Immortal, he could have used the sheer force of blood qi to shatter the mountain because Shadow Arts still fell within the category of spells. However, Great Sage Lan was an Earthly Immortal.

While gripping his sword with one hand, he extended his left hand. A black speck no larger than a grain of rice leaped from his palm. In the blink of an eye, it expanded to the size of an egg, forming a vortex of endless depth, a void that devoured all surrounding light.

The Five Innate Tais—Taiyi, Taichu, Taishi, Taisu, and Taiji—formed the Earthly Immortal’s five greatest mystical abilities and were only comprehended by those who had already reached the Longevity stage. Even then, each Earthly Immortal could only master one of the Five Innate Tais.

Great Sage Lan trained in the Taiyi Supreme Technique of the Five Innate Tais.

Taiyi represented the state before the manifestation of qi. At that stage, form, matter, and energy existed as one, in a primordial chaos. All things were intermingled and not yet separated.

Neither Wu Luo nor Great Sage Lan held back.

Great Sage Lan tossed the black bead into the air, unleashing the Taiyi Supreme Technique. The bead exploded into a wave of darkness, turning the heavens completely black, swallowing stars and moon alike.

It was unlike any night sky, with not a trace of light. It seemed as if turbid qi rose upward and pure qi sank below, inverting heaven and earth, yin and yang, forcefully changing time and space.

The change was palpable. Anyone nearby would have felt it instantly. A sudden chill filled the air, as though summer had turned into deep autumn in a blink. Heavenly Beings could clearly sense that essence itself was separating, decomposing all things in their path.

The shadow of Lingshan was shattered by the Taiyi Supreme Technique, dispersing into nothingness.

Wu Luo, having battled the Daoists for countless years, knew full well the signature powers of the Earthly Immortals.

She instantly transformed into a towering black silhouette. A radiant aura shrouded her form, and she grew five arms from her back, each arm representing a divine ability.

Back then, Wu Yang’s manifested body had six arms, symbolizing six divine abilities. Wu Luo was only a step behind with five.

Wu Luo extended one arm, generating endless frost that could freeze all creation.

This was a divine ability inherited from Wu Xiang, who was part of the Six Enlightened Witches. This was once used against God Lu Wu on a battlefield, and all nearby Shamans, spirits, Pseudo-Immortals, and creatures were frozen where they stood, preserved in lifelike stillness, locked in their final moments. Even spells of flame and thunder were sealed within this ice, as if time itself had halted.

Beneath the frost, the demonic swords faltered, unable to advance.

Even space itself froze solid, no longer able to open or shift freely.

The frost swept past the karmic fire. These two forces were utterly incompatible, so they ignored each other’s existence, both surging toward Great Sage Lan.

Without a moment’s hesitation, Great Sage Lan unleashed the second stage of the Taiyi Supreme Technique.

The Taiyi Supreme Technique appeared demonic, but it embodied the primordial chaos, a state before the division of yin and yang. In it, pure qi and turbid qi blended without separation. The Five Elements—earth, water, fire, wind, and metal—scattered and merged at will, like a cosmic egg before heaven and earth split apart.

Its polar opposite was the Taiji Golden Diagram, which divided yin and yang, separated the Five Elements, discerned the Six Qi, and restored the natural order where turbid qi sank and pure qi rose—the world as people knew it.

The remaining three Tais lay between these two, each possessing unique mysteries. The Five Innate Tais corresponded to the five cosmic stages of world formation. Taiyi represented the very first stage, before all separation began.

Without the counterbalance of the other Innate Tais, the Taiyi Supreme Technique was nearly unrivaled. No ordinary spell could resist it. Anything it touched was instantly reverted into primordial chaos, returning to the undifferentiated void without shape or substance.

However, all Five Innate Tais followed the same law of exponential escalation. From the first to the fourth stage, each use doubled its consumption. Within thirty-six days, every use consumed progressively more innate qi—10% for the first, 20% for the second, 40% for the third, and 80% for the fourth. Its strength also increased in equal measure. Without external aid, the fourth stage marked the absolute limit, where both power and energy consumption reached their peak.

The second stage of the Taiyi Supreme Technique was far more terrifying than the first. Its detonation sent vast ripples across the void. Wherever the waves passed, all returned to nothingness. The frost vanished without a trace. Even the karmic fire was not spared, reduced to primordial chaos before disappearing.

Wu Luo raised another arm.

In that instant, time froze. Wu Luo and Lan Hexu, along with every raging or fading spell around them, were locked in a single suspended moment, like figures caught inside a painting.