Take the Lang Family down with me!

The moment Tantai Wuji’s words left his mouth, Feng Ya paused slightly and instinctively looked toward Lang Jiuchuan.

The words seemed addressed to him, but in truth they were a message for Lang Jiuchuan — a threat that he would move against the Lang Family. This was coercion.

Yet Lang Jiuchuan simply raised her talisman brush again. Even though her spiritual energy was nearly beyond her ability to sustain, she poured what remained into the brush without a moment’s hesitation and launched another attack.

She despised being threatened. More than that, she understood clearly that the moment she yielded to this, Tantai Wuji would use the Lang Family as a leash around her neck forever — coercing and pressuring her at every turn. If it came to that, the only one hobbled by it would be herself.

Then there was Tantai Princess. She had been taken over by Tantai Wuji — and it occurred to Lang Jiuchuan that perhaps Tantai Princess had surmised something of her intentions from something she herself had said. Perhaps she had deliberately stalled him, buying time for herself and Feng Ya, which was why the two of them had managed to reach this point so smoothly.

A’Yue — she was not foolish, not really.

It must have been exactly that — which was why Tantai Wuji had taken her body. He had seen through her intention, and because the National Preceptor’s body was aging, he had seized the opportunity to seize hers in a fit of fury.

He had performed the possession before fully integrating and had come rushing here in haste, only to suffer blow after blow. Given that his mind was in turmoil, that he was failing at every step, and that his soul and his body were misaligned — why not strike now and bring him down in one move?

As for the Lang Family, she had already made every preparation she could. If disaster truly came to pass, then it was fate.

Lang Jiuchuan’s actions had already declared her answer. Feng Ya held nothing back. Tantai Wuji, who had been braced for this, wore a cold expression as both hands flew through seals at furious speed, converting the imperial energy within the imperial tombs into a protective barrier around himself.

Boom!

Even with the barrier shielding him, the force still sent him flying. His soul took another heavy wound, and he vomited two mouthfuls of essence blood.

His eyes glinted with cold calculation. Two against one, each side trading at cost — he had little to gain here. But the corporeal form he had to reclaim. It was his original body — the object of a thousand years of planning, the very foundation of his existence. With it stolen from him, his foundation was gone entirely.

Even a foreign soul of unknown origins could draw on such power while inhabiting it. If it were him — his soul and body united as one — the result would be devastating. What path to the Great Dao could ever be beyond his reach?

He shifted through a new and intricate hand seal. As his fingertips moved, yin thunder and dark fire laced with the underground yin energy manifested from nothing, transforming into countless snarling ghost-heads that howled and snapped toward the two of them.

“Your cultivation truly is a blend of mismatched arts. I imagine that is precisely why you were expelled from the Orthodox Unity Sect — because your intentions were crooked.” Lang Jiuchuan was already spent, yet she still found the breath to provoke him.

Tantai Wuji’s fury ignited: “Wretched creature — shut your mouth!“

He bellowed the words, but his lips continued murmuring in low and rapid tones. His robes swept wide, and bone-eroding yin wind coiled in from the entirety of the imperial tombs, a ferocious and malevolent killing aura twisting toward Lang Jiuchuan.

“Parlor tricks.” Feng Ya stepped in front of Lang Jiuchuan. The power of the Nine Underworlds surged outward and swallowed the ghost-heads and the yin wind whole.

Tantai Wuji’s face changed dramatically. He wasted no breath asking who Feng Ya was — he simply spat a true incantation that transformed into golden talismanic script and shot toward him. Since this being carried underworld energy and had managed to steal his original body without drawing his attention, whatever it was could only be some malevolent ghostly entity.

Feng Ya drew on the fortune within the body to sidestep the strike again: “The fortune stored in this body truly is useful.”

Tantai Wuji: “!”

He watched that golden fortune dissolve away and felt a pain in his chest that was almost like blood dripping from a wound. He glared with burning hatred at the disciple standing behind Feng Ya — the one who had ruined his plans time and again — and let out a furious roar: “You vile, treacherous disciple — this seat will one day rip out your soul and refine your spirit. You will never be reborn!”

Feng Ya’s expression darkened. With a sharp motion of his hand, he channeled the dragon vein essence and the vast fortune stored within the corporeal form back into his own soul. The luminosity drained from the skin of that physical body in an instant.

Fortune seized. Source devoured.

Tantai Wuji watched this unfold. His eyes nearly burst from their sockets. What came from him this time was a roar more furious and disbelieving than anything before: “This seat’s body — you monster, you dare —!”

He had spent a thousand years scheming, laying out every piece of his plan. He had not even spared his own descendants, taking over their bodies to prolong his life and nurture his soul — all waiting for the moment when the time was right, when soul and body would be reunited, and he could break through to the supreme Great Dao.

Yet he had never imagined that two disciples he had regarded as insects and pawns could join forces to outmaneuver him. Above all, Lang Jiuchuan — right before his eyes, in league with this ghostly creature — had brazenly seized the corporeal form he had spent such painstaking effort to cultivate, and every last drop of fortune along with it.

The humiliation of it — having labored so long only to clothe someone else in what he had sewn — nearly shattered what remained of his reason.

“This seat will fight you to the death!” Tantai Wuji descended into pure madness. The energy surrounding him turned savage and uncontrolled, and he hurled himself at Feng Ya without a shred of self-preservation.

“Be careful — he still has a hidden card!” The gravely wounded Lang Jiuchuan watched the terrifying aura swelling around Tantai Wuji and her eyes sharpened, her expression heavy.

Tantai Wuji’s cunning was as deep as an abyss, and he had plotted for a thousand years. She did not believe he had made no progress, or that he had kept nothing in reserve. There had to be a final move.

If they did not end him here today, he would be a source of endless trouble, and his retribution would inevitably come.

Lang Jiuchuan’s expression was still. Her eyes held nothing but cold killing intent. Her hand closed tightly around the bone bell at her waist, and she absorbed every thread of spiritual energy the water crystal was channeling to her — however little it was, every drop of recovery mattered.

Feng Ya did not grow careless. He had entered this corporeal body, yes, but his soul’s source had not fully entered it — a portion remained in the Void Realm. On top of that, he was suppressed by this small world’s laws of heaven and earth, unable to fully master the body. His power naturally could not reach its peak.

Fortunately, Tantai Wuji was in the same position — he was using a woman’s body, and however talented Tantai Princess was, she was no match for Lang Jiuchuan. This body could not allow Tantai Wuji to unleash himself fully either.

Fifty against fifty. It came down to who was more ruthless.

One was desperate to reclaim a body. The other two were doing everything they could to keep their opponent here permanently. Neither side held anything back.

Tantai Wuji’s hand flew through seals while he drew a thread of essence blood from between his brows, urgently chanting an incantation. In a moment, the savagely swelling energy around him transformed into a column of golden light that flooded the entire Jitian Hall. A dense and substantial flow of mysterious yellow earth energy rose up, condensed into the shape of a dragon, and bit down toward Feng Ya.

Even if it means destroying this body, I will allow no other to lay claim to it!

Feng Ya’s eyes deepened. He wove the energy of the Nine Underworlds and the golden fortune into a world-cleansing black lotus, placed it inside the gaping maw of the dragon form, and let it bloom in a devastating burst — both forces annihilating each other.

Crack. Crack.

The Jitian Hall, already riddled with damage beyond reckoning, began to collapse from the impact of their exchange, pieces breaking away and falling.

All of them changed expression. But Feng Ya charged at Tantai Wuji without the slightest hesitation, paying no mind to the dissipating fortune.

“Supreme Taiji, divine might vast and boundless — Hold!” Lang Jiuchuan had somehow appeared behind Tantai Wuji. The talisman brush released a soul-catching chain that pierced through his physical body, attempting to wrench out his soul.

The wretched creature still had strength left — Tantai Wuji was seized with a terror unlike anything he had felt before. Sensing mortal danger, he reached for his hidden trump card without a moment’s thought: “By my blood, by my soul — I offer the nation’s fortune — let energy forge a shield — ten thousand arts shall not pass — I command it!”

Both hands frenzied through seals. He burned the essence blood of his body without hesitation, spitting out an arrow of blood that struck through the air, and a formation diagram flashed gold before sinking into the void.

At once, not only the already-collapsing Jitian Hall but the entire imperial tomb complex trembled violently. The accumulated fortune of the Tantai clan — a thousand years of clan fortune and national fortune — and the dragon vein earth energy all rushed madly toward this point, flooding into his physical body. Shielded by that dragon energy, Lang Jiuchuan could no longer wrench his soul out by force.

And as Tantai Wuji’s aura surged abruptly skyward, bloody wound-lines appeared across his physical body one after another — as though he might explode from within at any moment. He roared: “Let the earth veins become a prison — seal all eight directions!”

Boom!