Xue Ying'an crawled out of the ruined Xiyi Domain covered in dust. Aside from a few cuts, he was fine.
Yuan Qi clicked his tongue. "That kid's got the luck of a cockroach."
Su Yan had to agree. Whatever else Li Xiaoke might be, he had trained a disciple with real grit. With Xue Ying'an blazing the trail, the dangers ahead felt more manageable.
Far across the desert, ribbons of ascension light hung in the air like auroras from another world. Su Yan's pulse quickened. "Flying immortal light? Could that be the fortune he spoke of?"
Xue Ying'an broke into a run, waving his small bell ahead to probe for traps.
Yuan Qi slithered closer to Su Yan. "He's trying to die faster?"
A thunderclap shook the sands. A hundred-zhang skeleton rose from the dunes, clad in broken armor that flickered with rainbow light. Behind it floated a shattered Xiyi Domain, and in its bony grip hung a massive snapped blade.
The skeleton swung. The bell split in two. The broken blade descended toward Xue Ying'an's head.
"Battle! Battle! Battle!" the thing roared.
Su Yan moved. He shot to the skull, fingers blooming like petals into a series of seals—Heart-Returning Formula, the technique of the Pei family. Each seal struck the brow, dissolving the remnant battle-will.
The blade froze an inch from Xue Ying'an's waist.
But the blade-qi had already cut through. The youth folded in half, blood pouring onto the sand. "I don't want to die! I just left the mountain!"
Yuan Qi caught both halves, opened his Mud Pill secret, and summoned Longevity Immortal Medicine to knit the flesh. "Don't worry, I won't make a beginner's mistake."
Xue Ying'an stood up, tested his legs, then paled. "I still can't feel them!"
"Did you reconnect the nerve cluster?" Su Yan called from atop the blade.
Yuan Qi smacked his own head. "No!"
"Pull it apart. Reattach."
Xue Ying'an screamed as Yuan Qi yanked him open again. This time the snake got it right.
Su Yan studied the snapped blade. The break bore a palm-print that matched his own hand perfectly. He tried channeling qi into it, and the blade shrank to two feet, obedient as an old companion.
"It chose you," Yuan Qi said, envious.
* * *
They pressed on. Xue Ying'an explained what his master had taught him. The Ancient Battlefield was once the Heavenly Road, linking countless worlds. Immortals ascended not directly to the immortal realm, but along this road, gathering spiritual roots to shed their mortal frames.
Su Yan opened his Heavenly Eye, scanning the path ahead. "One tribulation, ten, fifty... two hundred and sixty-seven."
His voice dropped. "Two hundred and sixty-seven overlapped heavenly tribulations. All triggered at once."
They reached an oasis around a crescent spring. Two hundred and sixty-seven figures ringed the water, each crowned with ascension light. They had joined their tribulations together—and succeeded.
Yuan Qi shouted from the far side. "A-Ying! I found Tian Qingzi!"
An ancient white-haired corpse sat before a stone tablet. Su Yan read the inscription.
The demon lord had come along the Heavenly Road, unstoppable. Three hundred warriors stepped forward to trigger heavenly tribulation, hoping to blast him to nothing. Thirty-three died before the lightning began. The remaining two hundred sixty-seven succeeded in their ascension, then turned to face the demon together.
"The demon lord shattered the tribulations, wounded but broken. He fell into the Yuan Shou world."
Su Yan stood before the crescent spring and looked down.
He saw the back of a head. He scratched; the reflection scratched. He looked up; the reflection looked up, confused.
The face in the water was his own.
He whispered, "I thought I stood with them."
Yuan Qi coiled around his arm. "A-Ying, whichever side you stand on, I stand beside you."