Boom.
Jiang Qi frowned. Haojing had trembled again.
The city's buildings were treasures hammered out through countless refinements. Great Zhou cultivators floated beside them, patiently engraving Dao manifestations. It was delicate work. The kui-dragon pattern on a cauldron had to receive the kui-dragon's Dao manifestation, refined again and again, until the beast came alive when the treasure was activated. The phoenix on a window lattice, the coiled dragon on a rooftop, the immortal on a ridge beam, the writhing dragons on pillars, the cloud patterns underfoot — each required cultivators to stamp the right manifestation until it was perfect.
Haojing's trembling undid their work.
Lately the tremors came faster and harder.
Whump.
Another dull shock rolled through the city. On Haojing's walls, countless Dao manifestations blazed to life and spread outward, channeling the terrible force away.
"Still fighting?" Jiang Qi summoned Grand Prefect Gongyang Ce.
"Still fighting," the man said.
Jiang Qi was silent a moment. "Go tell Craftsman Zhu to finish the bell and send him on his way quickly. If this drags on and something happens to Haojing..."
His face clouded as he looked toward Su Yan's residence. In the city, a sea of qi and blood hung in the air, dyeing half the sky red.
Another boom. The blood-sea vanished.
Then it returned, fuller than ever, drifting overhead.
That was Su Yan's qi and blood. Every time it flooded the sky, it was his full-force exertion made visible. When his strike finally landed, all that power poured out through his fists and feet in a single breath — blows so heavy they shook Haojing itself, forcing half the city's manifestations to flare and deflect the impact.
Gongyang Ce was the great cultivator from the Lishan tomb who had hung a bronze sword over the mountain ridge and slain countless men. His technique and divine art mastery were profound. "When I went to look, he was polishing his martial arts."
He mimicked Su Yan's stance and swung his fists. "When he moves, he rouses every ounce of strength he has — the Six Secrets, the Five Sacred Mountains, the furnace and golden core, all at once. He does no visualization. He simply tries to fuse every system of power into one."
"No visualization?" Jiang Qi was startled. "Without visualizing a Dao manifestation, how can power be released?"
Gongyang Ce threw a full-power punch, no visualization, no inner sight. All he managed was to unite body and Primordial Spirit. He could not unify the Five Sacred Mountains, let alone command the full strength of his Heavenly River, Heavenly Mountain, and Tower stages.
Su Yan had to channel the Six Secrets too, folding all six into every fist and kick. The difficulty was unimaginable.
"At first he could barely marshal his own strength. The powers wouldn't mix — they bit back at him." Gongyang Ce said, "But his body was too strong. It weathered the backlash."
Jiang Qi's heart shook. He knew the terror of backlash. The stronger the cultivation, the higher the stage, the worse the recoil.
Flesh is weak, life is short. Even a cultivator's body cannot withstand the battering of his own mana — especially those who cultivate qi, whose mana runs strongest!
Cultivators who trained martial arts alone existed, but few reached high stages. A body could not endure that much mana tearing through it. Even a god's golden body, even Vajra Body, would be pounded to pulp!
Yet Su Yan's flesh had withstood the surge.
Only by surviving the backlash could a man experiment again and again, unifying more power.
"It only means his body is stronger," Jiang Qi said. "The stronger his body, the greater the might of the Dao manifestations he commands."
"When I looked in on him, he was discarding every Dao manifestation he had ever visualized."
Jiang Qi's heart lurched. "Discarding Dao manifestations! Is he determined to become a mere brawler? He's lost his mind — fallen into the demon's path! No techniques, no divine arts — what kind of cultivator is that?"
He shook his head.
To shun techniques and arts, to drill only fists and feet, was to abandon the root for the branch!
Whether qi cultivator or nuo master, whether visualizing Dao manifestations or refining Inner Realms, the goal was the same: to solidify the Dao, to forge the Dao into the body.
Take Yuan Qi the yuan-serpent. Once his bloodline awakened, he was born a Dao manifestation, carrying the Dao's power within him.
A cultivator studied Yuan Qi with exquisite care, visualized him with divine consciousness, fed that vision with qi and blood, and stored the serpent's manifestation in his Xiyi Domain. When he needed a divine art, he mobilized the manifestation with his mana — and a yuan-serpent flew out of his domain to kill!
That was the essence of Dao techniques and divine arts!
What struck with power in a divine art was not the cultivator's qi and blood. It was the Dao manifestation!
Without a manifestation, a cultivator's mana was only a ball of exceptional human energy!
So Su Yan discarding his visualized manifestations was pure madness!
Even the simplest, most basic martial arts required visualization to unleash their might!
"He's insane. Absolutely insane!" Jiang Qi muttered.
Gongyang Ce sighed. "That is my view as well."
Both men wore grim faces, gazing toward Su Yan's residence. Another thunderous boom — Haojing's walls, houses, and streets lit up with manifestations, flickering wildly before dispersing the force.
Su Yan's strike had grown stronger than before.
"It makes no sense," Jiang Qi said bitterly. "Without visualizing manifestations, his fists shouldn't carry such power!"
Gongyang Ce's face grew even grimmer. "That is my view as well."
Jiang Qi murmured, "He'll realize soon enough this is a dead end. He'll come back — walk the same road as us, take up manifestations and visualize them again."
Gongyang Ce nodded firmly. "That is my view as well."
They watched the blood-sea hang in the sky, and suddenly Su Yan unleashed everything at once, all his power spent in a single blow.
Boom!
Haojing shuddered. Jiang Qi raised an eyebrow. "Did you hear that?"
Gongyang Ce nodded slowly. "A Dao tone, born from the fist's wind."
"No visualization, and yet a Dao tone sounds?"
"Grand Preceptor, I have that same question."
Jiang Qi theorized: "Perhaps he has folded the Dao tones he learned and understood into his fists, to amplify their might?"
"That is my view as well."
"Whatever the case," Jiang Qi smiled, "he has not surpassed our understanding."
Gongyang Ce nodded. "That is my view as well."
Jiang Qi glanced at him — still frowning. But Jiang Qi knew without a mirror that his own face wore the same look.
A Dao tone could not fully explain the power in Su Yan's fists.
Boom!
Another great sound. Jiang Qi saw something fly — a wall of bronze and iron, snapped clean off by Su Yan's blow.
Jiang Qi sighed. "We cannot let him continue. Haojing is the supreme divine city forged with our dynasty's full strength. It is meant to ascend to the immortal realm. If he smashes it, who knows how long the repairs will take?"
Gongyang Ce ventured: "Grand Preceptor — a divine city that can be damaged by the fists of a Dual Refinement stage cultivator — can it truly carry us through the tribulation to the immortal realm?"
Jiang Qi's face darkened. He said nothing.
Gongyang Ce dropped the subject and went to find Su Yan.
Halfway there, static hissed in his ears. The bronze sword at his waist rang in its scabbard.
The breeze had died, though it had blown moments before.
Gongyang Ce walked on. Breathing grew hard; he tugged at his collar.
Nearby, a Great Zhou cultivator stamping Dao manifestations hurled his gilt brush to the ground and cursed his companion: "You're sabotaging me! You broke my manifestation apart! This isn't the first time!"
The other man was equally furious. "I didn't mean to! You keep picking fights with me — are you targeting me?"
The first cultivator suddenly drew his sword and ran the man through. Then he wrenched the blade free, raised it with both hands, and hacked at the corpse, his face twisted: "So you noticed! Then die!"
When Gongyang Ce reached him, the cultivator had chopped his companion to pulp.
Gongyang Ce seemed long accustomed to such scenes. He walked on toward Su Yan's house.
At a street corner, two artisans were slaughtering each other, drenched in blood, yet still fighting. "Why did you glare at me?" one cried.
"You talk too loud! I've been sick of you for ages!"
Gongyang Ce looked past them, irritation rising: "Here we are, restoring Haojing, and this Su fellow comes along — delays our work, smashes the city, and now we're to answer to the Zhou Son of Heaven for it... answer, my foot?"
His eyes turned vicious. "Take the direct route — kill the Zhou Son of Heaven and make myself emperor! But before him, kill that pest Su first!"
Killing cries rose from every side. The artisans who had been mending Haojing drew their weapons and cut down their own comrades.
Gongyang Ce reached Su Yan's residence. Murderous intent surged; his palm crept toward his sword hilt.
His old sword had been destroyed by Xu Fu in the Lishan tomb. The one he wore now was forged by the criminal Craftsman Zhu herself — better than the bronze sword of old, and far more deadly!
Just then, Jiang Qi appeared at his side. One finger pressed the hilt down. Gongyang Ce tried to draw, but the blade would not move. As he strained, Jiang Qi's Primordial Spirit emerged behind him, sat in the void, and clasped its hands like a rope — a Heart-Setting Seal — steadying his Dao heart.
Gongyang Ce's mind cleared. Terror seized him; cold sweat rolled down his forehead. "What was that?"
"Heavenly interference."
Jiang Qi looked at Su Yan's residence, his face grave. "In that courtyard, the Heavenly Dao has descended."
He lowered his voice. "Heavenly gods should not be able to descend directly. If they fully manifest, they can hardly return to the Heavenly Dao world..."
He carried the Heaven-Punishing Sword; he knew the Heavenly Dao's interference intimately. The Heavenly Dao is a Dao mortals cannot comprehend. Let an ordinary man hear its voice, and he falls into madness.
Cultivators fared little better.
Heaven's will is unknowable. A mortal startled by its presence cannot bear the torrent of information it carries. He slips into frenzy, every desire magnified beyond control.
The evil was not the Heavenly Dao. It was the human heart.
Even Su Yan, who could read the Heavenly Dao runes, could not resist Heaven's will.
Even the mightiest cultivators could only guard their Dao hearts against the Heavenly Dao's invasion. Jiang Qi, for instance, held his mind steady through pure reason.
That was also why he had been able to claim the Heaven-Punishing Sword.
"Grand Preceptor — look!" Gongyang Ce raised his head, alarmed.
Jiang Qi looked. In Su Yan's courtyard stood an ancient mulberry tree. Cradled in its crown sat a stone idol no taller than a child, wedged among the branches.
It was crudely carved, limbs roughed out in hasty strokes, brows slanted downward in a vicious scowl. It was utterly still, lifeless.
Then the idol turned its triangular head, doll-like, and looked down.
At that same moment, Zhu Chanchan, mending the bell, hurled her hammer aside and giggled: "I'm done pretending! Today I'm smelting every one of you into my treasures! While I fix Bell Lord, I'm stamping my mark inside his clapper!"
Yuan Qi's tail whipped around her neck. "Witch! Did you mark me? Trying to control Seven Lord? I'll strangle you today!"
The half-repaired bell flew up, sneering: "Kill you both today, and I alone enjoy A-Ying's favor!"
Jin Buyi, his old eyes blurred, raised one wing and pinned them all flat. The ancient bird lifted his head, set a wing against his beak in a shushing gesture, and murmured: "Guests have come to the city. Extraordinary ones. My blades are nearly here..."
Then even Jin Buyi stiffened. "Trouble. There's more than one."
Outside Su Yan's residence, Jiang Qi gripped the Heaven-Punishing Sword. *So they are the Guiziling stone idols. That place is an ascension site. At night, many heavenly gods descend in the Temple of the Gods. They guard the great tomb on Mount Jiuyi. One stone idol is nothing to me...*
He moved to strike — and another idol poked its head from the crown.
Then another. And another. They sprouted from the mulberry tree like mushrooms after rain. Soon more than three hundred stone heads crowded its branches!
"The Three Hundred and Sixty Heavenly Gods of the Cycle!"
Jiang Qi could bear it no longer. He drew the Heaven-Punishing Sword. On the other side, Jin Buyi summoned his twin divine blades and beat his wings, charging at the mulberry tree.
Then, before them, space twisted. The tree and the courtyard vanished together!
Where the house had stood, only bare ground remained.
In the distance, Beichenzi and the Divine Land Earth God watched, nearly weeping with joy. The tall one and the short one clapped their palms together, unable to contain their elation.
"Got him!"