The Celestial Array for Slaying Demons was not something that could simply be laid down the instant one decided to do so — especially not an array of this kind, where the one laying it used themselves as the array’s eye. Needless to say, the cultivation of the one laying the array must be formidable. But even with sufficient power, great care was required — for should the formation go awry and the backlash occur, a higher cultivation realm would offer no guarantee against suffering for it.
For the array to be completed, every single array foundation position and every single layer had to be calculated with perfect precision. The saying “a hair’s breadth of difference leads to a thousand li of error” — when applied to laying an array formation, it could not be more fitting.
And so, even though Lang Jiuchuan had already reached the Golden Core realm, she brought the full measure of her mind and spirit to this Celestial Array for Slaying Demons, giving it her absolute all.
At her side, she had already dissolved a bowl of talismanic ink — ground from gold powder and thousand-year scarlet Yang cinnabar, mixed together with drops of blood from her own heart. Beside this bowl of talismanic ink lay several pieces of five-colored talismanic paper that had been specially prepared using the Five Elements materials and had been further nurtured and aged — radiating a dense, rich spiritual energy.
Lang Jiuchuan turned her wrist. The jade-bone talismanic writing brush — which had accompanied her from the moment she was restored to life, and which had been refined through countless battles and hardships, nurtured further by merit and heart’s blood, making its spiritual energy more exquisite and its power more vast — floated into her hand.
She had only borrowed it from the Panguan in the first place. Holding the talismanic brush, she gently closed her eyes and transmitted a thought into it through her mind: if one day her fate ran out and she fell in service to the Dao, then let it go and find its old master.
The jade-bone talismanic writing brush received this intent and seemed to quiver slightly. A flash of golden light passed through its form, making it appear ever more divine and mighty.
Lang Jiuchuan gently closed her eyes, drew a deep breath, and cleared her mind of all extraneous thoughts. Only when her entire being felt as though it had come to rest in a realm of utter emptiness — her mind without a single distraction — did she open her eyes again. She lifted her hand, and the talismanic brush descended into her grasp.
Channeling her spiritual power, she moved the brush and let it fall upon the talismanic paper of remarkable spiritual energy, tracing down the first stroke.
“Heaven forms in the Qian trigram, firm and upright through and through…”
The tip of the brush was like a blade, cutting across the talismanic paper, leaving behind a stroke of deep crimson — red as blood. The silent room seemed to tremble faintly with the sound of distant thunder.
Outside the door, Jiangche — every hair on its body standing on end — stared intently through the doorway, its tail lashing now and again, breaking through the air with each swing, dissipating the deathly energy surging in from all directions.
“Earth forms in the Kun trigram, bearing all things with vast virtue…” Lang Jiuchuan traced down another stroke. “Fire forms in the Li trigram, luminous and all-penetrating…”
With each stroke of spiritual power driving the talismanic brush, another line of inscription fell. And with each stroke that fell, the spiritual energy about her weakened by a measure, while the radiance of the five-element talisman grew ever more brilliant.
One array talisman was completed. Golden light blazed suddenly and surged, vanishing into the five-element talismanic paper — the entire talisman blazed with a torrential, raging spiritual luminance.
Then she drew the second. Then the third — until the eighth.
By the time all eight of the powerful array foundation talismans had been completed, several days had passed. Her face was white as paper. She swallowed a great restoration elixir, circulated the bone bells spinning around her, formed hand seals to gather and contain her energy — replenishing her vital breath and steadying her spirit. Then, gathering up the talismanic papers, she left the room.
Jiangche, who had been keeping vigil without moving, rose to its feet. Seeing the color of her face, its tiger’s body suddenly expanded and it lunged toward her — taking her in its mouth and setting her atop its back. With a few great leaps, it carried her to the position it had scouted out long ago.
Fuqi followed close behind.
Lang Jiuchuan vaulted down from Jiangche’s tiger-body. The cold wind sent her robes and dark hair rippling wildly. The eight trigram positions — Tantai Wuji had, thanks to his preparations, already marked them for her. The Eight Trigrams City had itself been constructed based on the Taiji and Eight Trigrams, so she needed only to reinforce the existing structure and mark the array veins with greater precision, which spared her a great deal of effort.
“To use your own brilliant design to create the death trap that will ensnare you — it is fitting tribute to your thousand years of plotting.” Lang Jiuchuan let out a cold, low laugh.
When that day came, what had made him great would be what destroyed him. That would certainly be very interesting.
Lang Jiuchuan’s eyes glittered brightly. Her form swept into motion, and she began moving among those eight array foundation positions, marking and activating each vein in turn — her movements nimble and graceful, as though she were dancing. Yet in the eyes of some who watched, it seemed as though she were dancing a final dance — counting no cost, leaving no room to retreat.
At the first point to the east, she planted the core of a thousand-year thunder-struck peach tree, supplemented with precious Green Dragon scale powder, and then sealed an array talisman into it. At the second point to the south, she cast down refined gold smelted in the deep earth by the magma of the earth’s core fire. At the third, to the west — the fourth, to the north — the fifth, at the center…
With every position Lang Jiuchuan activated, her spiritual energy weakened by a measure. Her face grew pale, cold sweat beading at her brow. And yet, as she activated these eight trigram positions in sequence, the eight gates turned in their cycle. The energy dynamics of this great expanse of deathly silence began to interact and resonate — Taiji yin and yang seemed to complement one another, the energy of the Five Elements returned to its proper place and began to blend, and the surrounding spiritual energy of heaven and earth began to stir, forming an enormous, formless vortex.
Feng Ya remained hidden in the darkness, his lips pressed tightly together, watching that leaping, moving figure, his brow deeply furrowed.
Activating and laying the array — it appeared simple, but every single step was depleting her vital energy and spirit. For an array of this magnitude, it was practically a burning of her spirit-soul that allowed it to be laid. He did not even dare to approach or say anything, fearing he might disturb her complete and undivided focus, which could cause a backlash to fall back upon her.
And completing this array was not a matter of a single day and night. It required still more spiritual energy to reinforce the array veins — channeling the most essential Supreme Void power, drawing upon the rules of heaven and earth, supported by the Five Elements’ energy as bones and the Eight Trigrams’ yin and yang as its network — only then could it be brought to its greatest and most wondrous effect.
And was all of this not equally a draining of her spirit-soul and spiritual power?
And so, by the time Lang Jiuchuan had ascended to the peak of the main summit — where the eye of the array was located — three chaotic months of death and darkness had passed, and the realm had fully entered the shadowed month.
Wild wind howled, sending her robes billowing as though trying to blow her away. Yet her figure stood firm and immovable as a green pine.
Below, the eight directional array foundations had all been illuminated. The Eight Trigrams talismanic inscriptions turned and flowed, drawing upon heaven and earth — causing the energy of the Five Elements to seem as though it had transformed into sacred beasts, stirring with readiness to devour demons and extinguish evil spirits.
The completion of the array was only one final step away.
Before Lang Jiuchuan stood an altar platform constructed from Supreme Yin Profound Dark five-colored soil. At the center of this earthen altar was a hollow depression — both a conduit to reach the nine heavens above, and, at the most critical moment, a vessel that could allow her to ascend to heaven itself.
She gazed toward the dark, pressing demonic clouds massing at the horizon, her eyes cold and sharp. Whether success or failure — it depended on whose fortune was the stronger.
“I hope it does not come to that final step.” Lang Jiuchuan stroked the nine coiling dragons that formed the seal-grip of the jade seal, murmuring softly. Then she layered it with an imprint of her own spirit-soul and consciousness, and solemnly pressed it into that hollow depression.
Click.
It was nothing more than an earthen altar — and yet the instant the Green Dragon Jade Seal was set in place, the very earth seemed to shudder.
Lang Jiuchuan’s heart was still as standing water. She raised both hands, rapidly forming hand seals of intricate complexity, suffused with the rhythm of the supremely righteous great Dao, and her voice rang out in murmured incantation: “Heaven and Earth as the primal source, the ten thousand breath-energies as the root; within and beyond the three realms, the Dao alone is supreme… The Five Elements rotate in cycle, the Eight Trigrams hold the center, the stars and constellations ordain fate, the jade seal bears the domain — with this body as my offering, as one bound by divine decree, to slay the demon and guard the Dao — be it commanded!”
The incantation fell — and it was like a peal of thunderous lightning splitting through heaven and earth. Lang Jiuchuan poured into the incantation every last boundless and immeasurable wish and vow for these living beings and this land of the realm, fusing it entirely into the words, and drove the Dharma seal into the earthen altar.
Boom. Boom.
The entire Eight Trigrams City suddenly shook and trembled. Then, abruptly — a beam of vast, fortune-bearing light erupted from the earth’s veins, shooting skyward, transforming into an enormous pale golden pillar of light that pierced straight to the heavens above.
The four-character meanings of the sixty-four hexagrams, the five directional positions, the incantation and so forth have all been altered — please don’t take them literally. I made it all up!