Rumble. Rumble.

The ancestral tombs of the Tantai clan had already suffered tremendous destruction when heavenly fire descended. Now, with Tantai Wuji draining every last pulse and thread of fortune from them, they crumbled like a falling mountain — collapsing and shattering without end.

The ground split open into deep pits, and the burial grounds sank down into them. Meanwhile, the colossal energy condensed from the yellow dragon aura raged out from Tantai Wuji’s body in an uncontrolled torrent. Lang Jiuchuan was thrown backward by the shockwave. A massive stone came plummeting down directly toward her.

Her pupils contracted. She rolled sideways with all the speed she could manage. The rock grazed past her, crashing down beside her — its sharp edge slicing through her clothing and flesh, blood seeping out from the wound.

Feng Ya, who had been close to Tantai Wuji, was likewise sent flying by the imperial aura. The fortune within the corporeal body he occupied showed signs of scattering and dissipating — yet more pressing than that, the imperial tomb was on the verge of total collapse.

He made the decision in an instant. His fingertip condensed with intent. A surge of pure Nine Underworld power, carrying a soul-piercing fundamental force, hammered toward Tantai Wuji with crushing ferocity.

“Blood Escape into the Void.” Before that force could enter his body, Tantai Wuji struck his own chest with a heavy blow. An ancient and unadorned jade talisman he had worn against his skin — covered entirely in spatial runes — shattered in an instant, just barely releasing his soul.

A blood-colored crack split open in the space behind him, and turbulent fluctuations spilled out from within. As his soul transformed into a streak of crimson light and vanished into the fissure, he looked back at Feng Ya and Lang Jiuchuan with a stare so filled with venomous hatred and burning resentment that it seemed to brand the image of them into his very soul — as though he meant to hunt them across eternity.

These two had forced him to this. This humiliation — he had marked it.

When next he returned, he would reduce both of them to dust, soul and all, casting them into endless torment for all time!

Feng Ya’s pupils contracted sharply. In the instant before the fissure closed, he made to dart inside — but Lang Jiuchuan called out to stop him: “Do not pursue a desperate foe.”

She had just caught a glimpse inside the crack: something like a strangely shaped lantern, there and gone in an instant — blood-red and pitch-black — shielding Tantai Wuji’s soul as he retreated. The Blood Escape technique moved without discernible direction. Charging in blindly would cost them dearly.

Moreover, that ancient lamp — it was deeply ominous. It gave her a sense of danger no lesser than Tantai Wuji himself.

Thud. Thud.

Massive stones rained down.

Lang Jiuchuan stumbled forward to where Tantai Princess lay and heaved her — soaked through with blood — onto her back. She looked at Feng Ya. He stepped forward without a word, wrapped both of them up, and flashed into the void with them just before the Jitian Hall collapsed completely.

The moment they were gone, the hall exploded and sank beneath the earth behind them. A blaze of fire lit up the entire night sky.

The enormous disturbance at the imperial tombs sent the whole of Longtan Town into an uproar. Everyone stared, slack-jawed, at the direction of the fire blazing into the heavens.

And in certain deep mountains where reclusive cultivators had withdrawn from the world, those same cultivators looked up at the constellations growing ever more erratic and disordered across the night sky — especially the Emperor Star, grown dim and dark — and the star charts signaling that the ancestral tomb was shrouded in dust. They frowned, faces creased with worry.

The sky is about to change.

This world may be descending into chaos.

At the rear mountain of the imperial tombs, Feng Ya emerged from the shadow path with Lang Jiuchuan in tow and looked at the scene of disorder stretched before him. He said nothing.

Lang Jiuchuan looked at the Tantai clan’s ancestral tombs burning and crumbling in the firelight. The grand formation — already compromised the moment Tantai Wuji drained away the imperial aura — was completely destroyed, and the fortune that had been gathered there was slowly dispersing.

The fortune belonging to the Tantai clan had scattered.

Lang Jiuchuan glanced upward at the dark and heavy night sky. The stars were in disarray, and the Emperor Star was veiled in a dull, ashen haze, flickering between light and dark.

The Emperor Star had gone dim. No auspicious stars stood guard beside it. Fortune was falling away. The nation was descending toward chaos.

Lang Jiuchuan’s emotions were tangled for a moment. Her aura became unsteady. She began coughing violently, great mouthfuls of black blood pouring from her mouth, her entire body toppling backward — her soul aching as though thunder were twisting through it.

Feng Ya had barely caught hold of her when suddenly both of them felt their skin crawl with a bone-deep chill. They snapped their heads upward simultaneously — and a streak of violet-gold lightning as thick as an arm came driving straight down toward them.

Both of them: “!”

“It’s aimed at me!” Feng Ya’s hair stood on end. His brow jumped. He shoved Lang Jiuchuan aside at once, rallying the power of the Nine Underworlds and the fortune stored within this body to wrap tight around his soul.

He had already defied the heavens once before. A spirit from another realm entering this world again — and through a stolen body at that — was tantamount to an abomination in the eyes of cosmic law. Then, in concert with Lang Jiuchuan, he had stirred up this enormous commotion, disrupting cause and effect. Of course the Way of Heaven would not tolerate it.

If not him — then who?

Lang Jiuchuan was already in a foul mood. Watching her ally on the verge of being struck down, a spike of defiance rose in her. She lunged forward, wrapping all four limbs around him in an iron grip, and bellowed: “What savior of the world — I quit! I barely manage to find one person willing to help me and even they’re going to be ruined — whoever wants this job can have it! Strike me dead if you want! I’m done — I resign!”

Her words were hard as stone, but even so, she burned through her last remaining thread of spiritual energy and offered up the Dizhong.

Feng Ya: “…”

The violet lightning: “!”

The bolt arrived — but its destructive power had gone faint and pale. The Dizhong absorbed what remained, and what finally fell across the two of them was little more than a tap.

Formalities still had to be observed.

The tension drained from Lang Jiuchuan’s chest. She went limp and slid off him, her gaze drifting to where Tantai Princess’s body lay nearby. Her vision went black, and she lost consciousness entirely.

Feng Ya let out a quiet sigh, resigned to his fate, and scooped her up. He made sure to bring Tantai Princess along as well. Then he cast one last look at the Tantai ancestral tombs — now consigned to the past — and disappeared from where he stood.

Tonight was destined to be a sleepless night.

The turmoil at the imperial tombs kept all of Longtan Town awake through the night. The news spread quickly to the noble households of Wu Jing and then into the palace itself.

Jian’an Emperor Tantai Heng was startled awake by the report of the senior eunuch beside him and tumbled off the imperial bed in fright, his face drained of all color.

The imperial tombs had suffered divine retribution — burned by heavenly fire. What a terrifying thing to hear. It might as well be a death sentence. He had been on the throne for less than a year, and already there had been the catastrophe of the corpse-toxin plague, and now the ancestral tombs had been burned to the ground. How could he bear the weight of this sin — would his imperial ancestors not crawl up from their graves to strike him down?

That wretched National Preceptor — why had he chosen him to be emperor? He was too unlucky. Or had the previous emperor deliberately mentioned his name before the National Preceptor and selected him as a scapegoat?

Tantai Yan’s face was drained of all color, his body ice-cold. He was not going to survive this.

“Your Majesty? Shall we summon the ministers to the palace?” The senior eunuch asked, trembling head to toe. With such a catastrophe at the imperial tombs, the world was about to change.

“Summon them.” Tantai Yan’s voice came out hoarse and hollow. He waved a limp hand: “I want a moment of quiet. Tell everyone to stay out.”

He had not even referred to himself by the imperial “we.”

The senior eunuch’s heart lurched. He cast a glance at the Emperor, swallowed every word he might have said, bowed low, and backed out of the room.

After he was gone, Tantai Yan climbed up from the floor. He looked around. He took the jade dragon waistband from its stand, looped it around the window frame, tied a knot, and placed his head through it.

Better to end it himself than to be killed by the National Preceptor and reviled by the world. He had never had a choice about whether to be Emperor — did he not at least have the right to choose how he died?

As for what history would say about his cowardice, and the infamy it would attach to his name — what did any of that matter when he was dead? Once gone, the flood could come.

Tantai Yan had barely begun to let his weight fall when a roll of black fog swept before his eyes. Within the fog, a figure so concentrated it was nearly black — profoundly unsettling.

He had not even died yet, and Black Impermanence had already come to collect his soul?

“Worthless fool.” Tantai Yan heard those words — and in an instant, his soul was shredded and pulled apart. As his consciousness dissolved into nothing, he could not help but let out one last, self-mocking sigh.

In my next life — let me not be born into the Tantai household.