A Pawn's Passage

Qi Xuansu had seen this scene before in a dream. It was the Xuan Jade of Death that had brought new changes to his dreamscape. That time, Qi Xuansu was fully aware that he was dreaming, so he began to try to explore where the boundaries of the dream lay.

All around were numerous ancient palaces that were already in ruins, and the various statues nearby were reduced to nothing but broken limbs and remnants.

Below lay a horrific battlefield that had completely turned into a world of ice and snow, covered in frost. Countless lifelike ice sculptures still preserved the appearances they had worn at the moment of death.

There were also many illusory human figures standing expressionlessly along the mountain paths. Aside from their slightly ethereal forms, they were no different from living people, crowding together, numbering in the hundreds.

These figures had already lost all consciousness, like clay or wooden figurines. It seemed they had been struck by some powerful spell that forcibly extracted their souls while their physical bodies had been reduced to drifting ash.

Qi Xuansu tried to walk toward the surrounding palaces and the battlefield below, only to discover invisible walls around him, confining him to a small, fixed area. Whether it was the battlefield beneath or the towering palaces hidden in darkness, they were nothing more than distant backdrops—visible yet unreachable.

Although he could not leave, he was able to see parts of the mountain’s true form through these invisible barriers and the surrounding darkness.

Lingshan was already on the verge of collapse. Outside the mountain, several gigantic tornadoes and bolts of lightning stretched from heaven to earth, ceaselessly ravaging the mountain’s mass. Portions of the mountain had already fractured, yet due to some bizarre power, these sections did not peel away and fall. Instead, they remained roughly in their original positions, though vast fissures separated them. From far away, the cracks might not even be visible, but up close, one would see that these 30-meter-wide fissures had become insurmountable chasms. Many fragments of rock were frozen in midair in the very state of shattering and scattering, neither falling nor moving, fixed at this precise moment.

It was as if someone had used a supreme divine power to freeze everything, forcing it to remain at the instant just before breaking. It resembled a mirror shattered into pieces and then forcibly pieced back together. Once broken, it could never be made whole again, the cracks on its surface impossible to conceal.

The tornadoes and lightning outside the mountain were alive and in motion, while the mountain itself was dead and motionless. This formed a strange image between motion and stillness.

Then, Qi Xuansu saw two people locked in fierce combat. The two did not fear the tornado nor the lightning. They moved effortlessly and severed the wind pillars and lightning bolts. Countless motionless rock fragments were shattered by the aftershocks of their clash, and ripples visible to the naked eye spread outward, even breaking the mountain’s frozen state in places and sending sections crashing downward.

......

The scene before his eyes corresponded to what Qi Xuansu remembered, yet did not fully align with it. In the dream, vortexes of wind and lightning bolts coexisted, and they were very close to Lingshan. Here, however, there was only lightning, no tornadoes. Most crucially, Lingshan was still some distance away.

What exactly had happened in between? Why had the positions of these two people changed?

Where had those enormous vortexes gone? Were they still near Lingshan, or had they already vanished?

Qi Xuansu raised his hand and pointed at the two figures, asking, “Who are they?”

Although the momentum of these two figures was immense, they possessed no real power. They were more like projections formed by a reversal of earth qi.

To Qi Xuansu’s surprise, Qi Jiaoyao actually recognized them. “The figure wielding the soul flame should be Wu Zhen. The one using the sword qi should be the Ancestral Heavenly Preceptor’s son.”

“I see,” Qi Xuansu said, finding it both unexpected and yet reasonable.

The Ancestral Heavenly Preceptor was a Second-Tribulation Immortal who had lived for over two centuries but less than three. Such a long span allowed him to father children when his cultivation was still low and to watch his own son grow into a white-haired elder. By this time, his son was no longer young and had an extraordinary cultivation. Not long after the Ancestral Heavenly Preceptor ascended, his son also reached the end of his lifespan and followed him in ascension, swiftly transitioning to the third generation of Heavenly Preceptor.

It was reasonable for a son to follow his father into battle.

Qi Jiaoyao asked, “You look like you’ve seen this before.”

Qi Xuansu nodded. “I have, but only in a dream.”

“In a dream?” Qi Jiaoyao was somewhat surprised.

Qi Xuansu replied vaguely, “In my dreams, I went to Lingshan, where I saw a bonfire at the summit. I also saw many ruined temples and remains. It was precisely because of these dreams that I came to Lingshan Paradise to investigate.”

Qi Jiaoyao grew even more astonished. “Tian Yuan, you’re actually serious about this?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Qi Xuansu countered.

Qi Jiaoyao muttered, “I really thought you just made up an excuse on the spot to brush me off.”

Qi Xuansu rolled his eyes. “I don’t have that kind of leisure.”

Without giving Qi Jiaoyao time to voice her amazement, Qi Xuansu continued, “But in my dream, these two lingering images should have been near Lingshan, with enormous wind vortexes all around.”

Qi Jiaoyao said casually, “What’s so strange about that? It’s nothing more than the further collapse of the Lingshan Paradise, which caused the positions of those figures and the wind vortexes to shift.”

Qi Xuansu thought it over and found that it did make sense. The Longevity Stone Heart should have been a product of Elder Yao’s era. More than a hundred years had already passed since then. It was enough time for many changes to occur within the Lingshan Paradise.

However, another question arose in Qi Xuansu’s mind. Why were only these two figures left behind as projections? What did this signify?

Qi Xuansu decided to voice his question to Qi Jiaoyao.

Qi Jiaoyao might not have been able to resolve all of Qi Xuansu’s doubts, but she always struck at the core. “This means that Wu Zhen’s place of death may have shifted—from somewhere near Lingshan to a location not far from us. I just don’t know whether this was caused by changes in Lingshan Paradise or if someone deliberately arranged it as such.”

Qi Xuansu once again used his eyesight to gauge the approximate distance between them and the projections. Based on his rough estimate, it should still be about two days’ journey away.

After that, Qi Xuansu said nothing more and continued onward.

Soon, the two left the ancient battlefield behind. Spatial fissures grew increasingly numerous, cutting through everything. The sky was like torn fabric, and the earth split into fragments. Colossal mountains shattered and collapsed, rivers severed mid-course, and totemic temples had their upper structures erased, leaving only their foundations. Together, they formed a desolate and ruined scene that silently spoke of the ferocity of that great battle.

This forced Qi Xuansu and Qi Jiaoyao to slow their pace. They could not fly or sprint. They even had to reduce their walking speed to avoid and detour around these treacherous spatial rifts.

After traveling like this for about a day and avoiding one blood moon within the ruins of a temple, a gigantic blood lake appeared before them. Though the lake had already dried up, exposing the silt at its bottom that was dark red—almost black—it was still clear that this place had once been filled with blood.

How much blood would that have required?

Qi Jiaoyao explained, “This used to be a blood-sacrifice site of the Wuist Sect, filled with fresh blood from ancient beasts. The Great Witches, who were subordinate to the Eleven Ancestral Witches, had to undergo blood sacrifice rituals to ascend into Lingshan Paradise. However, when the Heavenly Sect attacked Lingshan Paradise, the Wuist Sect broke this rule and allowed many Wuists who were not Great Witches to enter this place. To enhance the combat power of these Wuists, the Wuist Sect’s upper ranks opened this blood lake here and conducted large-scale simplified blood sacrifice rituals. Countless Wuists entered the blood lake and soaked within it so that the blood of ancient beasts seeped into their bodies, granting them partial bestial traits and greatly increasing their battle strength.”

The gathering of so much beast blood in this place had also made it extremely eerie. Countless ferocious residual wills of the ancient beasts lingered here, relentlessly eroding the souls of those who came near.

For those with insufficient cultivation, merely approaching would cause their vision to turn blood-red, with countless beast roars ringing in their ears. They would feel like they were being dragged into a blood-red sea where innumerable beast shadows swam, dissolving and eroding everything until they finally went mad, fell into it, and became a part of that blood lake.

However, as a Zaohua-stage Martial Arts Practitioner, Qi Xuansu was not afraid that it would affect him, so he deliberately glanced at Qi Jiaoyao.

Qi Jiaoyao knew what Qi Xuansu was trying to check for, so she reached up to tap the bronze mask on her face, indicating that she was fine.

Qi Xuansu asked, “Are we going to cross this lake?”

Qi Jiaoyao replied, “What else would we do? Since you’re not afraid of the residual thoughts here, why should we detour? This lake has the fewest spatial fissures within its range.”

Qi Xuansu asked again, “Will we encounter danger?”

“Hah! What a dumb question. Once you enter the Lingshan Paradise, is there a place that isn’t dangerous? If you can fight, then fight; if you can’t, then run. If you want safety, just go back where you came from.” Qi Jiaoyao scoffed.

Qi Xuansu had no rebuttal and walked forward.

The blood lake had dried up. Stepping on the silt felt somewhat like a swamp, yet also like some kind of disintegrated internal organs. It was sticky and soft, as if it were still writhing.

There was even a sensation of sinking if one stood in the same spot for too long.

All of a sudden, Qi Xuansu’s vision blurred, as if he had once again entered the state he had been in when he first arrived at Lingshan Paradise. Last time, he had seen the opposing armies of the Heavenly Sect and the Ancient Wuist Sect. This time, he saw a different scene. The blood lake had not yet dried up, and there were no Wuists soaking inside. All that he could see was endless bloodwater, sloshing about as though it might spill over the shores at any moment.

Then a person whose features were blurred came to hover above the Blood Lake and sowed a seed that appeared to be a piece of willow fluff.

After the seed fell into the lake, it immediately sank to the bottom and vanished within the surging bloodwater.

At this time, something astonishing occurred. The surface of the blood lake began to recede. This process might have lasted for several years, but in the end, the blood lake completely dried up, revealing the silt at the lakebed.

It was within this silt that a tender sprout broke through the ground, grew vigorously, and became a young willow sapling.

Immediately afterward, the figure who had sown the willow fluff appeared once more, using great divine power to uproot the sapling entirely. No one knew where the person went with the sapling. All that remained was the completely dried-up blood lake.