Su Yan, Yuan Qi, and Xue Ying'an struck the ground. Yuan Qi spotted a foot nearby. "Ying'an, your foot!"
Xue Ying'an hopped over on one leg and picked it up. He scanned their surroundings. "This is the Land of Heavenly Punishment. No food. Don't throw the foot away — we might need it."
Su Yan nodded approvingly. "Ying'an is ruthless enough to eat his own foot."
Yuan Qi nodded vigorously. "A-Ying, should I tell him I have several thousand pounds of food stored inside me? Enough for two months?"
Xue Ying'an turned serious. "Two months won't be enough. This land is barren. After two months, we starve."
Su Yan took out a bean and tossed it on the ground. Roots shot down, stems shot up. Flowers bloomed. Pods formed. In the blink of an eye, the plant matured. The pod burst, scattering a hundred beans. Each bean sprouted, grew, and burst again. In moments they stood in a field of beans stretching across a hundred acres.
Then the beans stopped growing. They transformed into tiny golden-armored figures, thumb-sized at first, then growing to a foot tall. The Bean-Soldier Art.
Su Yan commanded, "Scout ahead!"
Thousands of tiny soldiers bowed in unison. "By your command!" They scattered across the wasteland.
Xue Ying'an stared, still clutching his severed foot, unsure whether to keep it as emergency rations or discard it.
His missing leg itched strangely. A new foot was growing. Su Yan's nuo art had triggered healing without him noticing. With Su Yan's skill, food was never a concern.
"Ying'an, if you want to learn nuo arts, now is the time. Once you form a Primordial Spirit, it will be too late. The Six Secrets will be sealed forever."
Xue Ying'an had always called nuo heresy. Now he laughed. "Of course I'll learn! Only a fool wouldn't!"
Su Yan taught him the dragon-seeking techniques for locating the Six Secrets as they walked. Xue Ying'an was clever, learning quickly. Soon he found his Jade Pool secret.
He was already at the Dual Refinement stage, his golden pill complete. His Six Secrets were too thick to open with personal power alone. The tools he had forged himself were insufficient.
"Seven Lord, lend him a treasure."
Yuan Qi opened his mouth. "Pick one."
Xue Ying'an looked inside and saw dozens of treasures floating in the snake's gullet, each radiating fearsome power. He chose a bronze bell, refined it until he could wield it, and used it to crack open his Jade Pool. The opening was rough, barely adequate.
He searched again, locating his chaotic sea and Mud Pill. The sea raged. The Mud Pill was massive. The bronze bell would never open it.
"This sword might work." He returned the bell and chose a bronze sword instead.
* * *
"This place is called the Land of Heavenly Punishment. There must be something strange here."
Su Yan looked up at Jiucai Ridge hanging in the sky. "The Carefree Bell kept releasing power to defend against something. What was it guarding against?"
Whatever it was, it had to be dangerous.
Su Yan sent his bean soldiers forward to probe for threats, allowing the group to move faster. But the world around them felt strange — like sugarcane chewed twice, all spiritual energy squeezed dry.
Dead trees. Dried rivers. Empty lake beds filled with fish bones.
A colossal skeleton loomed ahead, ancient and unidentifiable, mountain-tall. They passed beneath its ribs. Above them, the golden soldiers chattered and scampered across the bones.
Su Yan studied the setting sun, puzzled. This world had two suns — one dim, without solar essence, the other rich with it. By all rights, the land should thrive. Yet it was desolate.
"A-Ying, look ahead!"
Su Yan saw it. A mass of red flesh covered the ground and mountains for hundreds of miles, crawling forward like a living carpet. A peak jutted from it, its summit untouched, where a brilliant pearl shone with defiant light, again and again pushing the flesh back.
Su Yan activated his Heavenly Eye. The pearl came from the hand of a seated corpse in a temple atop the peak. The flesh sent countless tendrils to ensnare it. The pearl fought, broke free, was caught again. Its light dimmed.
Pop. It shattered.
"That peak was a cultivator's sanctuary. The treasure guarded its master's corpse to the end." Su Yan sighed.
The flesh-mass crawled onward, swallowing the mountain, then releasing it moments later. Everything living was gone. As it drew near, Su Yan heard whispers in his mind — countless voices murmuring at once.
"This is celestial flesh!"
He stepped forward. The flesh-mass suddenly lifted into the sky like a giant manta ray, swimming through the air to find new prey. Its speed was too great to pursue.
Soon they encountered another patch of flesh. At its edge stood a tower of meat and bone, twenty yards high. Its surface was covered in wet tissue. At its peak, a heart thumped. On each of its thirty-three levels, massive eyes rolled and watched the bean soldiers scurrying below.
The tower tore itself from the ground. Eight massive legs of raw muscle emerged. It strode forward, and its eyes blasted beams of light. The golden soldiers turned to ash.
Su Yan and Yuan Qi ran.
"Seven Lord, where's Ying'an?"
Yuan Qi froze. "I thought you had him!"
Su Yan looked back. Xue Ying'an stood motionless, still trying to open his Mud Pill with the bronze sword!
"Seven Lord, keep running!"
Su Yan turned back. He reached out to trigger his Mud Pill nuo art, trying to drain the tower's life force. It failed.
"It doesn't follow normal Dao!" Su Yan realized. "Normal Dao creatures can't resist my art. This is an alien Dao being!"
Beams of light shattered his invisible technique and swept toward him. Su Yan flew low, dodging between the beams, racing toward Xue Ying'an.
One eye locked onto Xue Ying'an. A beam lanced toward him.
Su Yan roared and accelerated, throwing himself between the beam and his friend. The light struck his body, sending him skidding backward, flesh burning.
He had recently unlocked the seals on more than a hundred past-life bodies. Most had only cultivated the Grand Unity Daoyin Art to the Qi-Gathering stage, but the accumulation had multiplied his physical strength. Yet this tower's gaze still wounded him.
Thirty-two eyes focused. Thirty-two beams converged on Su Yan. Even his strengthened body would be reduced to ash.
His brow blazed. A magnificent bell-shaped shell of light erupted around him, covered in runic patterns. The thirty-two beams struck it and scattered.
"Bell Lord..."
Su Yan stared, heart warm. The bronze bell had left this imprint in his mind, triggering automatically to save his life.
He focused inward. Strange textures surfaced on his right arm. He pointed at the tower.
Thunder rolled. Heavenly power erupted. His finger pierced through the beams and struck the tower's heart. The heart exploded. The eight legs wobbled and collapsed.
The Heavenly Dao Finger — comprehended from the runes on the Dragon Abyss Celestial's arm. Its first use, and it worked.
Su Yan grabbed Xue Ying'an and summoned the Ba Serpent. Its tail swept up the fallen tower.
"Seven Lord, open wide!"
Yuan Qi turned, mouth agape. Su Yan shoved the tower inside.
"A-Ying, you can't stuff everything in my mouth!"
Su Yan caught up, dismissed the serpent, and hoisted Yuan Qi onto his shoulder. "Hold on. I'm faster."
Yuan Qi shrank and perched on his shoulder. Su Yan lifted Xue Ying'an in his other arm. Heavenly Punishment Sword-qi erupted around him. He shot forward like a streak of light.
Behind them, the flesh-mass raged. Tower after tower dropped from it, sprouting legs and giving chase. Beams of destruction scoured the land.
Su Yan slashed backward with a sword beam. His Heavenly Punishment Sword-qi was more refined than Grand Preceptor Jiang's artifact. The artifact's runes were full of errors; Su Yan's imagined blade was flawless. If only his cultivation were higher, its power might surpass the original.
The flesh-mass was sliced open but kept coming. Then it slowed, unable to match his speed, and drifted back to the ground.
Below, across the wasteland, eyes opened in the flesh-patches. Ancient consciousnesses stirred and whispered among themselves:
"Strange. He carries the scent of the Heavenly Dao..."