High in the great pagoda tree, Yuan Qi climbed back to the branching crown. He breathed in and out, storing power, preparing to assault the Gate-Breaking stage while awaiting his second transformation.
"Stinky snake, will you become human this time?" the bell asked.
Yuan Qi was hopeful. "When a great yao cultivates to demon-king level, they can take human form. I reached that stage once, but drinking dragon blood delayed it. This is my second transformation. It'll definitely work."
The bell grew excited. "Su Yan gave you the Grand Yin Art, but are you sure you comprehended it? If you only grasped the Yin aspect, you'll become female. Or both at once!"
Yuan Qi panicked.
The bell shouted, "You're at the Gate-Breaking stage, assaulting the tailbone gate! Without sincere heart, the gate won't open! Focus! Don't think about becoming male or female—let nature decide!"
Yuan Qi steadied his mind.
The bell circled him, chiming softly to calm his spirit. "My fault for mentioning it. I hope this transformation succeeds."
The floral fragrance intensified. Elemental energy overflowed. He needed no medicinal aid—the pagoda flower's scent alone sustained his breakthrough.
Night fell. The Nai River emerged. The bell guarded Yuan Qi and felt the temperature plunge. Since arriving at Huaihua Palace, it had never spent a night outside. The cold surprised it.
It nudged Yuan Qi closer to the fire pit.
At the tree's base, across the Nai River, ghost-fires gathered. They drifted toward the pagoda tree.
"Strange..."
The bell sensed carefully and shuddered. Those ghost-fires were countless underworld cavalry—rotting armored soldiers on skeletal horses, some riding bull demons, bone dragons, bone phoenixes.
Others carried tattered banners. Yin wind blew through their holes, and strange slippery black creatures wriggled in and out of the fabric.
At the army's center stood a canopy covering acres—like a magnificent but decayed umbrella, riddled with holes. Black tassels hung from it, rotted and torn, fluttering in the wind.
Beneath the canopy, ghost-kings stood with executioner's blades. Behind them sat a towering figure in an imperial crown and golden dragon robes—nothing but bones beneath.
The bell chimed in alarm. "Zhou Qiyun chose terrible feng shui! The master of Huaihua Palace must be an emperor! No wonder no one occupied this place—the owner was still here! And now he's returned!"
It realized why the Mud Pill Palace Master hadn't harvested Zhou Qiyun. He'd been waiting for the palace master's arrival.
Zhou Qiyun had taken Huaihua Palace. The palace master couldn't tolerate that.
When Zhou Qiyun fought the palace master, the Mud Pill Palace Master would strike.
"If Zhou Qiyun falls, we're finished too!"
It wondered which earthly emperor this had been.
Zhou Qiyun walked out, followed by thirteen ancient-looking elders who had meditated in the hall for days. Behind them came Zhou clan members of all ages, faces grave.
Su Yan was surprised. The thirteen elders had ignored the world while studying the jade slip. Why had they awakened now?
"I only stole a pillar. This much force seems excessive." Su Yan felt guilty.
Zhou Qiyun passed him without stopping. "A pillar's missing from the hall. Who took it?"
Su Yan prepared to deny it. Behind Zhou Qiyun, all thirteen elders pointed at him in unison.
Su Yan abandoned denial. "I did. Is it important?"
Zhou Qiyun walked toward the palace gates. "Take what you like. This palace was never Zhou property anyway."
Su Yan was surprised. Zhou Qiyun usually stripped everything bare. Why so generous today?
"The true owner comes to demand it back," Zhou Qiyun said calmly.
Su Yan followed him out. Endless underworld troops hovered in the air, silent and orderly. At their center, beneath the rotting canopy, the bone emperor sat in full regalia, ghost-kings arrayed like his court.
Su Yan's heart chilled. "This isn't about a bronze pillar. Patriarch Zhou, they're not here for me."
Zhou Qiyun sighed, yet smiled. "They're here for me. The Mud Pill Palace Master has been waiting for this. Finally, his patience paid off."
Su Yan understood. Huaihua Palace had remained unoccupied because it had an owner. Others feared this master too much to seize it.
And the palace master was this bone emperor.
The Mud Pill Palace Master hadn't come to "taste" Zhou Qiyun because he'd been waiting for the palace master to challenge him first.
Mud Pill Palace Master in shadow. Palace master in light. Fighting both at once—Zhou Qiyun's chances looked grim.
"Against these undying old monsters, you truly can't afford a single mistake. Any slip means death."
His mistake was Huaihua Palace. Excellent location, but the Zhou clan had occupied it without learning its history. Long arrogance had bred this oversight.
"From the palace gate's script, he's an ancient cultivator—older than the bell's master."
Su Yan studied the bone emperor. "If Yuan Qi were here, he'd know which earthly emperor this was."
Clear light surged behind Zhou Qiyun. It rose like a tide.
"But the Mud Pill Palace Master's patience also gives me a chance to kill him and end this forever."
Su Yan's eyes lit up. "He's confident he can fight both at once?"
Wind and clouds churned. Lightning flashed. Dark clouds swallowed Huaihua Palace. A massive black hand descended through the lightning, infernal fire blazing beneath its palm.
The hand met Zhou Qiyun's clear light and froze. Thunder-fire formed a thin blade-like curtain, sweeping outward in all directions.
Su Yan felt space tremble. A wound appeared in the pagoda tree's trunk, deep and clean.
Nearby, a mountain peak silently lifted into the air, sheared off by invisible force. It flew dozens of miles, then exploded from residual shock.
Silence. Then thunder rumbled a breath later.
Su Yan activated his Heavenly Eye. He saw a second Zhou Qiyun behind the first, seated in boundless space, radiating green light. The rising tide of clear light poured from this second Zhou Qiyun.
"Primordial Spirit?"
He remembered Yun Qian's Primordial Spirit—powerful, tangible, invisible to normal eyes, its radiance subtle.
Zhou Qiyun's "spirit" was larger but less solid. Its light was visible to naked eyes. And atop its head burned a flame—the yang fire of the soul.
"Souls should have three yang flames. Left shoulder, right shoulder, crown. Zhou Qiyun only has one... Samadhi True Fire!"
Su Yan was staggered. Zhou Qiyun had merged his soul's three flames into Samadhi True Fire. Pure genius.
He'd never studied cultivator methods. He'd scavenged fragments from ancient Nuo immortal tombs. With incomplete techniques, he'd reconstructed Samadhi True Fire and strengthened his soul to this degree.
A man of terrifying courage and wisdom.
Su Yan looked at the bone emperor. He too had a Primordial Spirit, hidden in darkness behind him—rotting, black qi leaking from its decaying holes.
That black hand descending from the clouds was the bone emperor's spirit manifestation. Otherwise his attack would be invisible.
And blocking it was Zhou Qiyun's soul.
Soul against Primordial Spirit. Their clash released shockwaves that wounded the tree and sheared mountains.
Without the Heavenly Eye, the truth would be invisible.
Suddenly the Zhou Qiyun beside Su Yan shot into the sky, appearing before the canopy in an instant. His clothes whipped in the wind. Small in stature, yet he seemed infinitely vast. The underworld army numbered in the tens of thousands, riding skeletal beasts across dozens of miles. Before him, they looked like ants.
His aura exploded. Where clear light shone, the disciplined underworld cavalry faltered. Skeletal soldiers raised their hands in disbelief.
Flesh and skin grew over their bones where the light touched. Joints regained vitality. Organs regenerated. Hearts began beating.
Tens of thousands of ghost soldiers lost their killing intent, staring at their resurrected bodies in wonder.
Zhou Qiyun walked toward the canopy. The bone emperor in shadow raised his own hand, watching flesh grow across his palm, ghost-fire dancing in his eye sockets.
"Is this Nuo arts?"
An ancient voice rumbled. The bone emperor studied his hand. "In my era, no such strange techniques existed. I feel the power I possessed while alive..."
He clenched his fist. The flesh exploded back into bone.
"Unfortunately, resurrection is illusion!"
The bone emperor stood slowly. Thunder rolled in his voice. "You try to control me with living flesh. Yet from this borrowed flesh, I sense your decay. You command vitality yet wither like a mayfly—barely three centuries of life. Shorter than we ancient cultivators who never mastered vitality. Have you... cultivated wrongly?"
Zhou Qiyun's face changed. In that moment of mental shock, the bone emperor struck. His bony finger twisted space as it thrust forward.
Simultaneously, his Primordial Spirit bowed to a floating crescent blade. The blade screamed toward Zhou Qiyun's soul.
Su Yan's eyelid twitched. "The bone emperor's right! Zhou Qiyun opened all Mud Pill Secret grottos, mastered boundless vitality. Why does he age? Why only three centuries? He hasn't escaped the Mud Pill Palace Master's trap!"
In battle between masters, mental distraction is fatal.
Zhou Qiyun's composure cracked. And in that crack—
The earth near Huaihua Palace exploded. A colossal creature roared toward Zhou Qiyun in the sky.
"The Mud Pill Palace Master!" Su Yan cried.
In the darkness, the monstrosity blazed with vicious light—dragon or serpent, impossible to tell. On its head sat a cross-legged skeleton.
"Teacher, you finally show yourself!"
Zhou Qiyun laughed. He met the bone emperor's finger with his own. Bones shattered up the emperor's arm.
The crescent blade struck Zhou Qiyun's soul-neck and severed it.
"I've cultivated Mud Pill Secret to its extreme. Soul undying, indestructible!"
Zhou Qiyun turned to face the colossus, smiling. "Teacher, you never imagined this when you taught me, did you? Today I'll show you the ultimate realm even you never comprehended. Teacher—allow me to send you on your way!"