Chapter 152 — Three Yin Extinguish Yang

"The arts of the ancient immortals—truly they seize the very workings of heaven and earth! We of this age cannot hope to match them!" The six-eyed jade toad, beholding the palace breaking through the earth, had rather less appetite for battle now; the old nun Wuzhen and the whole company of Kunlun Daoists had all been drawn in by the vast spectacle, entirely forgetting the great enemy before them.

"Old Toad, what brings you out from the quiet of the Purple Wave Palace? Surely you don't covet this immortal estate too, come to claim a share?" The Great Strength Bear King spotted the young man in the green robe at a glance and called out in jest, his tone easy and familiar, as though the two were old acquaintances.

The ones who had just burst up from underground when the immortal estate opened its light were Zhou Xuan, the Old Daoist of Extreme Yin, the Great Strength Bear King, Ancestor Blue Spirit, Xuanwu Cong, the Three Sages of Tianshui, and some dozen others in all. Descending to the bottom of the volcano at the outset, they had discovered that the place had been sealed off by someone with consummate power, a void carved out in which the immortal estate lay imprisoned; to open the estate's light, they would first have to blast apart that prohibition that sealed the void. The dozen or so of them had joined forces at once to strike at it. Zhou Xuan had never trusted the Old Daoist of Extreme Yin or the mysterious Ancestor Blue Spirit, and had kept close watch on them throughout—but to his surprise, the two had behaved with uncommon propriety, making no furtive moves at all, which left Zhou Xuan deeply perplexed.

A hundred zhang beneath the volcano's mouth lay a sea of subterranean fire and molten rock. At first the volcano had erupted from time to time, boiling the seawater above, and so had come about this vast, chill sea floor of the Northern Sea, dense with fish and shrimp and teeming with strange creatures and spirit herbs. But in recent years the earth's crust had shifted, and the Old Daoist of Extreme Yin had come down now and again to foul the immortal's prohibition with the living souls of men and beasts from his Mystic Yin Beast-Gathering Banners. Dripping water wears through stone; given time, even an iron rod is ground down to a needle. Even had the Three Pure Ones sealed it with their own hands, it could not have withstood the mutations of heaven and earth and the erosion of time.

The prohibition had loosened, and the volcano had burst open. Once the seawater poured in, it erupted no more—but within there was a layer of glimmering, translucent treasure light holding back the sea. The company descended inside and saw beneath the treasure light the churning magma and the seething subterranean fire, while above surged the seawater, fire and water no more than a few zhang apart yet kept asunder by the treasure light, unable to meet. At this strange spectacle they all clicked their tongues in wonder, understanding in their hearts that the ancient immortal's power had been truly immense: though heaven and earth had shifted, a prohibition still remained. They need only blast apart this layer of treasure light that barred the seawater, let water and subterranean fire mingle fully, and by the tremendous force released in that single instant they could shatter the void, causing the immortal estate to manifest from it and break forth from the earth.

Beneath the volcano the earth's lungs were broad indeed, stretching boundless in a single sheet of red fire. None dared venture deep within, lest once they blasted open the treasure light that held back the sea, the explosion born of water and fire meeting should leave them no time to flee; for however great one's divine powers, caught in that blast of mingled subterranean fire and seawater, one would be annihilated to the last mote, spirit and form alike.

Seeing that none was willing to strike first, the Great Strength Bear King understood: all feared to reveal their true strength to the others, each wary of the rest, each afraid that attacking the prohibition would drain too much of their true essence and dharma power, leaving them without the wherewithal to contend for the prize once the estate opened—letting another reap the advantage for nothing. The Bear King himself had no designs on the estate; he wished only to pass through the formation channels within it to the sea floor and rescue that senior friend of whom his founder had spoken. Having no such scruples, he struck first. Once someone makes a beginning, all things become easier—thus it is in the mortal world, and thus too among immortals cultivating the Dao.

Of a sudden he let out a great roar that startled every cultivator present, none knowing what madness had seized this polar bear. Zhou Xuan was just then scheming slyly how to reap the greatest benefit—by the look of things, his side held the advantage in numbers, and Xuanwu Cong and his company could be counted friends, harboring no venomous designs. The Great Strength Bear King might wish to make friends, but they had known each other too briefly, his intentions unknown and not to be trusted lightly; the Old Daoist of Extreme Yin's wicked arts ran deep, and Ancestor Blue Spirit was unfathomable. To seize the immortal estate for himself would indeed be no easy matter.

The Great Strength Bear King raised the great hammer formed of the five skulls in his hand and tossed it into the air; it swayed once and swelled to ten times its size. The five skulls, each the size of a bushel, opened mouths full of long white teeth and spewed black smoke, while ghostly wails keened forth—together with the subterranean fire and magma below, it was as though a scene of hell had come to the mortal world.

He muttered an incantation, and in but a moment the black smoke from the five skulls had wrapped the hammer into a dense mass that did not disperse but formed a black sphere. The cultivators, not knowing what mystery he was about, could only quietly rouse their true essence and treasures and watch.

The Great Strength Bear King's hand seals flew through three turns; he hissed through his teeth, and with his towering frame his aspect was fierce beyond compare. The skull hammer wrapped in black qi suddenly spun and caught fire, green phosphorescent flames shooting up several zhang, and amid countless yin thunders it smashed savagely down upon the treasure light below. Only then did the cultivators realize the Bear King was employing his most vicious means to strike the prohibition first.

Fearing the prohibition's backlash, the Old Daoist of Extreme Yin was content to sound out the truth of it when he saw the Great Strength Bear King act, and lent no aid; he merely summoned forth his eighty-one Mystic Yin Banners, black qi rolling, to guard his own primal body.

Ancestor Blue Spirit remained shrouded in blue mist, making no move. Only Xuanwu Cong, seeing the Bear King strike—the two having just met and taken a great liking to one another—stepped forward to help. Raising the Eight Scenes Lamp, he loosed a bolt of purple fire from its Doushuai Purple Flame like a length of silk, and without a moment's difference it too scorched toward the prohibition's treasure light below. At Xuanwu Cong's move, Hong Chengzu and the other two could hardly stand by watching; leaving the water ape to guard the dharma against ambush, he and Qing Shenzi both unleashed their mightiest spells, bushel-sized water thunders crashing down in wild profusion. Though the two had treasures of their own refining, both were chiefly for defense, and for attack they could not match this barrage of water thunders.

Zhou Li made a show of joining in, while bidding Yun Xiuzi keep close watch on the Old Daoist of Extreme Yin's movements, and dividing off a portion of his own spirit sense to monitor Ancestor Blue Spirit. Zhou Xuan had always felt that Ancestor Blue Spirit was mysterious, and somewhat not right.